353 | Arcane Subclasses, Tomb Raider RPG Cancelled, Origins Game Fair

Music. 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... BJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers, also of Homebrew and Hacking TTRPG Design. Joining us also is someone who'd rather stab you in the back than fight you in a fair fight, and definitely does not want magic mixing yourself in harmony. It's the one it's the only it's it's me jessica from em publishing i hope that's about me playing rogues a lot opposed to any personal issues between us pj.

Uh i'll keep my back to the wall before i ask that one this conversation lets me like it okay we'll have a chat after the show i think it was not um i am i noticed just before the show started that my microphone is not working so i am recording through my computer's inbuilt mic and i don't know how long this has been going on how many weeks has been the case but i have noticed that my audio hasn't sounded great for the last few

weeks so i am now guessing that my microphone has not been working for a while which is why i sound slightly muffled like i'm down the bottom of a well or something so now i know about it at least hopefully i can get that I think so next week and a bit of luck. That's good, yes. But as we are Yeah, as we are recording live as we do every week you can catch us 2pm BST on Facebook, YouTube or Twitch. We didn't have a lot of time to go out and buy another microphone.

No. Maybe for next week. Not in the seven minutes we had. But we realised that was the issue, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And also, it was my birthday yesterday. You have to sort of mention that. Happy birthday. How's it feel? 25. 25, yes. No. 36. Come on, don't be silly. No one will believe I'm 25. 36 is a much more, isn't it? Sure, yeah, that's believable. Anyway, the old big birthday bash is tomorrow. Went out last night for dinner. Had a lovely curry.

And tomorrow is the big old birthday barbecue. Cannot wait. Yes, looking forward to it. Yes, hopefully the weather will hold up. Yes, fingers crossed. We're in our stage in the UK where the weather appears and is too hot and we complain for a few weeks and it goes away again. And then we complain it's too cold and wet. Yes. Yeah. Sorry, I'll be complaining about the weather. Shall we instead complain about D&D and TTRPGs? Yes, let's complain about that. What should we complain about first?

It could be a news podcast. No, but we can if we want to. Well, I'll tell you what. I will leave it to your discretion as to whether or not you wish to complain. Campanning? Campaign? Complain? I may complain. I may campaign. It depends what the news is this week. But the first thing that you may or may not complain about, depending on your whim and your whimsy, is the new D&D Unearthed Arcana. Ooh. Yeah. And we have got a

bunch of subclasses for the monk and the sorcerer. We've got two new ones. And then we've got arcane subclasses for various other classes. Yes. And most of them are new. The two new ones are the Tattooed Warrior and the Ancestral Sorcery Sorcerer. Ancestral Sorcery Sorcerer. Say that three times really quickly. No thanks. No. I'm good. No. Have you guys had a chance to look at this? I have. Yes. Yeah. For a change. For a change. It's not my sneak out on this.

Sneak up on this. Any initial thoughts, impressions? Anything stand out? No. Well, for me, I wasn't that excited about it because I'm not a huge magic user player in D&D. You'd like to be a rogue. I like to be a rogue. I like to be a threat. I like doing those things. Yeah. You know, I am who I am. I quite like being a monk as well and those things.

For the arcane archer fighter, it felt, and I think PJ said this earlier as well because we're checking about it before the show, it feels a bit more like it should be a ranger.

Because they're like an archer and they have loads of cool abilities like that like they've got, arcane shots that they use obviously there's a level seven you get a curving shot so you can you can learn how to make errant shots go to a different target and i was wondering why that needs to be magic because couldn't that just be a skill that i'm so skilled with a bow that i know how to do this you know i can what film was that where someone could do that with bullets, oh uh yes film yes it

was i don't remember what it was called oh secret society of assassins or something like that however in the film yeah what wanted wanted am i is that what it's called maybe yeah that sounds sounds right but yeah well i think you could do this with a gun because the curving shot says if you make an attack roll with a weapon with the ammunition property and miss as a bonus action, after the attack you can make an extra attack. So you could be a gun-slinging, curving shot sort of thing, I guess,

for this as well. You too could be Angelina Jolie. Well, I'm not sure that's true, Russ, but thank you. It's an improvement. Basically, on how it was before, it had various jank, essentially. I think you needed magic arrows or something, and those are Things that I would not generally expect to get hold of as rewards in a game. But I was saying it felt like the ranger to me because it's not things like you can learn druidcraft, which is generally associated with druids, potentially rangers.

I know, I know. Risk of safety obvious. It was wanted. Oh, yes, James McAvoy. Thank you very much for Rhyverse as well. Yes, so... And also it's got things like some of the shots cause brambles to reach out and grab you. So it feels like a bit of a mixed bag of a class. And also, really, I would say that potentially this actually should be a wizard subclass rather than a fighter subclass, because it just feels like you'd have more options.

As it is, we've sort of got, someone said, okay, it's an arcane archer, we'll put it with fighter, we need magical effects to make it arcane, and then you've got a list of eight potential magical effects, and then you have six that you'll choose over the course of a campaign. Yeah and it's like yeah it's slightly less good than a battle master right that's what i was thinking why not why don't they make this another option in battle master to give like more yeah.

Things that focus that you could use your superiority dice on because then you could be a more versatile fighter you're like sure i use my sword and go up close but i also am excellent with a bow and yeah yeah well they're not they're not it's not really good anything to edit existing subclasses and yeah yeah the battle master is already the most highly regarded class of fighter subclass fighter because you just have the options you can actually do things it's really fun i'm

playing with at the moment yeah i mean it's it's definitely yeah definitely playing battle masters is lots of fun arcane archer i guess is after you play the battle master a couple of times and you won't never go but there's no real real playability it feels like to me and they're throwing in things like it's all all elves is it so at least it's not tied specifically to elves like blade singer was i guess it's got that going for it yeah i mean yeah i mean i i sort of like it i just feel that it.

It's just like I'm not inspired or excited by it. Yeah. I feel, I mean, I do like that they fixed it so it now runs as far as I can make out without having like properly gone through and made a character and crunched through things. It feels like it should run a bit better now. There's less speed bumps, if that makes sense. Just looking at the list of the options, was it eight you said there were?

Something like that. Sorry, I'm just going off memory. Banishing Shot, Beguiling Shot, Bursting, Enfeebling, Grasting, Piercing, Seeking, and Shadowshot. So there's like plenty of magic, but you can't cast magic the rest of the time. I'm just like, I don't know, it doesn't feel intuitive to me. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, it'll do. Yeah. We've got also, we've got four schools of magic wizards. We've got the conjurer, enchanter, necromancer, and transmuter.

Which, you know, is kind of standard there, but I was interested in the two new ones. So we've got the Tattooed Warrior Monk. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which looks fun. I like this one, actually. So, yes, at various levels, you gain a couple of tattoos, which you put on yourself.

So at level three they're going to be sort of like beast tattoos level 11 and nature tattoos level 17 there's monster tattoos yeah and you choose from a bunch of tattoos and depending on the tattoo you put on yourself you basically get access to a cantrip and a spell sort of thing by spending your focus points. I like it. I do like it, actually. It's, hmm. There's a lot to be like. The concept is really cool. Yeah. I'm super into the concept. The execution, I'm a bit meh about. Hmm.

I mean, I'm not sure what else you could, yeah, execution-wise do to make it, you know, be as blanket. But I do agree. I like the idea behind it because I think it would be so easy to weave this into your campaign law.

You're like well i come from a culture of people that at a certain age you you are gifted with a tattoo because you've earned it and you get these abilities and like and it would be and also obviously they are the level three beast tattoos are like bat butterfly chameleon but there's no reason why you couldn't say it's actually this creature that exists in my world but has the same ability so yeah i think it's got really nice role play elements to it and yeah i mean,

i think it's fun i like it yeah no i mean i'm not i'm not saying it's bad it's just like it feels like a bit thematically underpowered if that makes sense uh as in like the tattoos don't really like so for the original uh berserker totem barbarian yes essentially you build up a totem, like a totem pole which has different creatures according to it so you know you might have bear, wolf, eagle, what have you.

And that sort of was really strong thematically. Whereas here, it didn't feel like any of these extend. They're all like just random things thrown in. And there's no, I mean, maybe in the, maybe if it, when it makes it to publication, it will really explain itself really well. I'll be like, oh, of course, that's what they're meant to do. Some of them don't, I think. For me, it's a mixed bag. It's like some of them, like the bat, you get the Dancing Lights cantrip.

Thematically, I just feel that's a bit of an odd pairing. Yeah, yeah. Why? But I mean, they are very limited in the cantrips they can offer. Yeah. Because there are so few cantrips in the base D&D. Yeah. Yeah. Then the Spidey, you get the Mending cantrip. Yeah. That makes sense to me, the mending one. Yeah, because they build webs, I suppose. Yeah, they sit there knitting all day. That's how it works.

It's actually really interesting because it's like you get in the mending hand trip, and at the same time, it also does the effect of vicious mockery, causing disadvantage on a creature's next attack roll. But why? Yeah. But thematically, what's going on there? Why is that happening? The prey is caught in your spider's web. Maybe. I can make up reasons. Yeah, we can all make up reasons. It's just like, I don't know.

I think it needs a little bit of flavor text for each one. I think that's the problem. There's just a mechanic linked to each one, but no reason why that mechanic is working or what. Yeah, and I guess this is the play test. So it's... It's just like, I felt it needed another pass or something.

Help like smooth out these concerns maybe have less options but the ones you have you're like yes obviously yes of course that's how i would do it yeah that's really good i just like it feels like they're just, There's an element of, I don't know, throwing socks against the wall and seeing which one sticks. Yeah. Some of the monster ones are more obvious. Like the blink dog lets you spend focus points to cast blink. That makes sense. Completely makes sense. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty cool.

I mean, I'll be honest. I don't actually tend to read subclasses past level 10. Because no one ever does that. Just no one does. Not entirely true, but also sort of quite true.

No i i know even i think the highest i got with the campaign was like close to level 15, and then we were just so impressive by then yeah obviously not because we're level 15 just of who we were as players obviously but yeah but also we'd kind of we felt like big heroes at that point and it felt like the arc had come to an end so yeah i don't know it's like i i would quite light, I know, but like to see it implemented as maybe a feet or feet chain, possibly.

I could have got seriously into that, but it's too long to fit into like a 200 word feet. So, you know, I feel like someone's had the cool idea, magic tattoos, can't put in a magic item. It's like a feet with just a menu of different tattoos that you could choose from. Yeah, yeah, but it's like, but then it's like too long, it doesn't fit nicely into the feet conceptual box. And then you've got to make sure it's worth an ASI to spend.

That is not a trivial choice. I didn't like the idea. I like the idea of the tattoo. What powers do I get from my tattoo sense? I've got a dragon. That's not listed, is it? There's no dragon. I'd say a fireball cantrip would be nice for that. Have I got a lizard, maybe? No lizard. They're a comedian. They've got Guardian Naga. What do I get for that? Say it's a Guardian Naga then. When you be reduced to zero hit points but not killed outright,

your hit points instead change from number equal to twice your monk level. So at least 34. That might be useful for your party tomorrow, Russ. There you go. Very nice. If you're reduced to zero hit points but not killed outright. What do I get for Superman? I've got a Superman logo. What do I get for that? It's not on there it's not there I'm there I'm shocked shocked shocked,

Maybe it could be a mountain or something. So, as a magic action, expends three focus points to gain resistance to acid damage, an advantage on constitution saving throws for one minute. Just for one minute. That's a mountain. I would pick Beholder because you get a fly speed and that feels quite Superman-y. Not that a Beholder feels like Superman, to be clear. They feel very different. But the ability you get that you have a fly speed of 10 feet and can hover.

Superman is well known for its multiple eyeballs. Well, that's true. I feel this is really capturing the essence of what it is that I found unsatisfying about the class, which is, it's very much like a horoscope, as in, it doesn't really matter what the heading at the top is, Pisces, whatever, the actual text below could be applied to anything, and we could find justifications for anything. Maybe it's just like a mechanic where you can just use any cantrip and then it's up to you to describe it.

You come up with the description of the tattoo and why that gives you that cantrip, perhaps. That's 100% what I'd do if I was running. I'd be like, yeah, mechanically use these, but let's flavor it how you want. Yeah. But then I do that with most backgrounds as well, to be honest, and things like that. I think we all agreed that we actually really like the concept, the idea, and we're just like picking away at it because maybe the execution has been less satisfying.

Yeah, I agree. So, really good idea. Really excited. Quite novel to see it in D&D. Quite pleasant to see it. But, like, you know, maybe that's the point of playtesting. Need to come back to it. So, we're not trying to be mean. It's just like... We like to complain. It's not... We did say from the outset we're going to complain or can complain. Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of a bit of a, In which case, let's move on to the Ancestral Sorcery Sorcerer.

Okay, that's right. The Ancestral Sorcery Sorcerer, which I like to call the Obi-Wan Kenobi Force Ghost subclass, because you basically get a Force Coast that hangs around with you, and just tells you stuff and gives you spells. That's kind of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, and sends you to Dagobah, you know, that sort of thing. Again, with this one, I love the concept and the roleplay, because your magic comes from a specific ancestor.

And so maybe they say maybe you could be their only descendant or maybe you bear an eerie resemblance to them. So there's huge, nice roleplay elements to bring in there. So similar to the new Tattoo Monk, I think they've really thought about the story and the character and their background and history. So I like that element of it. In terms of mechanically, I haven't played a sorcerer, so I don't have as many complaints and critiques, unfortunately, as the monk.

So I'll hand over to my colleagues for that. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's like, so at level three, you basically tap into the Force Ghost's knowledge. So basically it tells you stuff. And mechanically, you just get bonuses to intelligence checks there and proficiency in a law skill. Which is fine, yeah, I guess. Would that not be history? Because they're like telling you... Yeah, it's one of the law skills you can choose. Arcana, history, investigation,

nature or religion. You can choose one of those. Okay, cool. Well, the ink skills, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Then also you have a bunch of spells which you don't have always prepared. Mm-hmm. And that's quite an interesting set because it puts me a little bit in mind of the divine soul sorcerer because the spells listed are... Yeah, they're all divine spells, basically. Like, this card's not a cantrip anymore. A resistance? Yeah. No. I mean, yeah, it's an odd list. It's like the divine soul sorcerer.

Yeah. If you look at the list again, it says force goes to be guidance. Everyone can only be saying, use the force, Luke. Don't use the targeting computer, that sort of thing. You know, it's... Yeah. You've lost your keys, Luke. Check it out. Yeah. Exactly. Locate object. Exactly. And throws you out a spiritual lightsaber, I guess. And then we've got Visage of the Ancestor, where your innate sorcerer feature is active, your ancestor appears in a spectral haze.

So false. Like at the end of the movie. Yeah. At level 14, the steady spellcaster's nice, though. Taking damage can't break your concentration. Oh, that's good. Stay on target. Stay on target. There's a Star Wars quote everywhere in this. Yeah. Maybe that's the inspiration. So I feel that you're a lot keener on this, it feels like. No, I wouldn't say. I just find the Force ghostiness a bit amusing. Just love a Star Wars. Yeah. I don't know that I would want to play one.

I don't know that it's interesting enough to play because it's a bit... It's all a bit support-y stuff rather than fun stuff. Yeah. You don't find support classes fun. I do not. I've never played a cleric and I never will. Not that this is a cleric, but... Yeah. I mean, for me, I'd be pondering, where do I get the rest of my power from?

Mm. Because that is the problem with subclasses, is that people have ideas and say, okay, I'll put it in subclass, but it doesn't really reinforce the themes of the main class, if that makes sense. Right. And the theme of the sorcerer class is that your power comes from who you are, or who your parents or grandparents were, and that puts power into you. And it's like, so I'm a bit like, did you have a powerful sorcerer in your past?

I don't know. I mean, basically, you reach level three, and then it basically records your origin, really, I guess, when you take the class.

Class and it says oh it all came from this ancestor i guess yeah and that's part of the problem with um the putting everything at level three which you know on the one hand i can understand perfectly you want people to play the first two levels of a game and that's the training wheels right if you played before you should probably just leap straight at level three and levels one two these are just to like get the basics of wait i roll which one's d20 wait so you saying this one here is D12.

I shouldn't have been rolling this one for the past five months. Understood. Damn. That's it. D12 is the best choice. By far. Not when you're running to attack, I will say. But yeah, so it's like, you're generically magical, then your ancestor turns up, and then, yeah, it's just like, I don't feel like it's clear to me how your ancestor is imbuing you with their power in situations where they're not directly there saying, use a force, Luke.

Maybe that's purposely done so that you can stir in your own role play flavoring you know maybe it's seasoned to taste sort of things maybe. PJ looks displeased with this but so I think we're going to agree that conceptually we don't like this one as much as the tattooed monk, no I like the concept actually I like both the concepts because I can see really nice weaving into characters' backgrounds and stories into the world, so that's nice.

I think I like the idea of it more than I like the actual... Again, same with the tattooed monk. I like the idea of it more than I like the actual mechanics there. Yeah, yeah.

I think maybe if they do a good job with the flavour text and, really potentially sell it, that would make me like it a lot better, but as it is, I'm finding it hard to envisage what fantasy of a character this would help me fulfill does does that make sense yeah yeah yeah no i mean yeah it's like like i don't think it's particularly broken yeah i feel the you can't have your concentration broken is nice but i'm not 100 convinced that

that it's going to be that much fun because it's a passive ability and because it's a passive ability it just it just happens and you don't you don't actively choose to make it i'm a big fan of, if you choose to do something then that's very cool but if you're just like it's always on it's a bit boring yeah that's my take anyway but that's just my personal preferences and you know other people, might love it I don't know they're in there yeah yeah,

traditionally these things always are related to an upcoming book and I'm trying to think what book that these would be related to and of the ones that we know are coming I'm not sure there's anything that specifically jumps out with me and says this is clearly for that book. Because coming for coming for Didier we've got the Drapin Anthology which is very soon it's been printed so there's nothing in there it's not that one And we've got the Eberron book.

That could be for tattoos, because Eberron does have dragon marks and stuff like that in. That wouldn't feel ridiculous to me. Yeah, yeah. No. I'd say if they had a setting, like there's this culture and... Yeah. Yeah, no one else will. But then we've got Heroes of the Borderlands, which is the new starter set, so it won't be that. No. And then we've got the two Forgotten Realms books in November. Well, maybe because we've forgotten about them, they're included in one of those.

We wouldn't remember, would we? No, I suppose not. Have you ever talked about that joke? No, I've never made that joke before. Wonderful wordplay. I mean, looking through the other, I mean, so obviously we talked about the new ones in detail.

I think looking at the others that are in there, like the Cleric, the Warlock, the Wizard, card and they look to be minor tweaks and changes looking through and i can't see any tweaks or changes in there of note that i particularly want to discuss for half an hour unless anyone else has anything to say about it but it looks like there's just little tweaks like hexblade spells have been revised and you know things like that it's all yeah little little mechanical that's fine i think do we

do you recall what the necromancer used to look like i can't remember after hand is this changed a bit or not the necromancer updates so the necromancy servant gives you free necromancy spells to add to your spell book yeah the spell book is now a feature that incorporates a redesigned version of the grim harvester feature right they've got new features which is grave power undead secrets and death's master and undead thralls utilize the summons undead spell which makes sense

okay so it's not it's not totally different but it's obviously no they got new stuff in it's tweet it's definitely an evolution of what the necromancer was before from playtesting but there's nothing in there that made me go whoa yeah, Because that's what I do, and I'm surprised, obviously. Was it second edition where they banned, if you specialise in a spell class, a spell school? There's an oppositional one. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was second edition, yeah.

Yeah, and it's like, I really liked the idea. It just like... I kind of liked it, except sometimes they felt a bit arbitrary as to what was opposite what. Yeah. It's like, yeah, that's fair. Yeah. But that concept of you choose a specialization, but it bans you from a different specialization, I thought would make it a lot more interesting. Because the thing is, when we talk about the fantasy of classes, like sorcerer's fantasy, is your power comes from who your parents were, basically.

And you make yourself into a very specific tool for solving a very specific set of problems with your choice of spells and your choice of metamagics.

And that can be loads of fun I think sorcerer is one of the hardest classes to play because it requires such real focus mastery of like the spells that you have and your metamagic feats and making sure that the two work together, it goes click as opposed to clank, clank, clank ah no, my clutch has fallen out, typical wizards they are the Swiss army knife of spellcasters they have a spell for every occasion every wizard is an omni-wizard.

Though trying to add flavor to that is really difficult because sort of the all-encompassing, we do all magic sort of really dilute down any flavor you can try and get into it they don't have any special skills and they've got a couple of special abilities but you can't have too much because they're already one of the most stupidly powerful classes in the game, so yeah, it's a tricky one, So I think that's a really, really, really tough design challenge. Yeah.

Well, okay. Well, that's the Anarthacana. That's the new subclasses. Shall we move on to some other bits of D&D news? Oh, yes, that's... Yeah. Okay, then. So, Dragondells coming up. We know that Chris Perkins recently retired from Wizards of the Coast. Yes. Apparently, Dragondells is dedicated to Chris Perkins. Oh. He's acknowledged for his decades of contributions to Dungeons and Dragons. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. I'm told only in the online D&D Beyond version, not in the printed book.

Oh, okay. But maybe that's because of the timing of when he resigned. Yeah. Easy to update a PDF, but once things have been approved and gone to print. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, he's now over at Darlington Press as the creative director over there. Yes. Yeah. As we mentioned last week, indeed. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice to have. Yeah. Yeah. No, Chris, just knock out a D&D killer for us while you're here. How about it?

Well, that's... Simply been talking about D&D killer. Oh, it's starting to, like... Sorry, sorry. I apologise. No, no. I think it's something worth mentioning. It's just that a game doesn't have to be a D&D killer to be successful. Yes. You know. I mean, Mike Che's been talking about it on his podcast, and it's been pretty interesting. I mean, have you been listening to the same sort of things? Like, is the game being played at all?

But honestly, it's like, yeah, it's just really got under my skin because, like, success is something that people talk about in RPG spaces, but it doesn't actually have a meaning. Like, what does success look like? Everybody can agree. And success for someone is different to success from someone else. I mean, success is if it accomplishes the goals that you had for it, I guess, is how I would define success. Yeah. I can see myself by that sort of lie, a very successful RPG designer.

Like, I know what my design goals are. I've hit them. I've made some beautiful books.

I'm pretty happy, to be honest. It's like... I think if you define success by only being, like being a dnd like being only being the top dog in that industry does that mean there's only one successful actor in the world yes whoever the most highest paid actor is there's only one in the world there's only one successful book there's only one successful movie there's only one successful car you know that's yeah no i also think if you're going to the ttrpg space and your goal is to unseat

dnd in some way whether that being in sales or culturally in the zeitgeist of what people like or critically acclaimed, whatever it is, I think you're going to have a really awful and upsetting time. Because if that's the standard you set yourself, you know, that's just, yeah. Yeah. Well, in terms of zeitgeist, you're going up against 50 years of, yeah. Yeah. Culture.

Culture. And in terms of sales, you're going up against Hasbro with a, you know, a billion dollar company with a marketing budget.

Per year more than you will probably ever see in your entire life i'm guess i'm just as a guess that there's like some countries gdp is like not gonna be is gonna like be not not comparing favorably to hasbro's marketing budget yeah exactly exactly yeah well anyway yeah but yeah you can i think you can be successful if you get games out but yes yeah sorry um you know i've i've it was on my mind along with like things like what's homebrew and that sort of question and what what is indie what

does indie mean in ttr but we do not are we indie you know maybe we could talk about it later or something some indie creators like you know say that we're big we know we're not big because you know and then i don't know i don't know yeah yeah like i like i said before podcast, I could share a taxi with the whole of EM Publishing, and so we'd spend a little elbow room. All of EM Publishing and their dogs. Full-time staff. There's obviously an army of freelancers who work on various

projects we have. That would film more than a taxi. We'd need to rent a village hall, I think, for that. Possibly. Possibly. I think so. Maybe fill a UK Games Expo panel. Yeah.

That aside i wanted to ask how many of you played the board game horrified yes but ages ago, so don't ask me any specific questions but there is a dungeons and dragons version of it coming very soon august the 10th oh yeah i think we mentioned this previously like when it was first announced months and months ago this rings a bell for me but yeah i think horrified is very re-skinnable to many different themes so it makes sense to me that dnd would work for that yeah so basically

you it's a co-op board game you choose from the bard cleric fighter rogue or wizard. And there are dragons, beholders, mimics, and displacer beasts in it. And it's set beneath the city of Waterdeep in the Bogotan realms and has puzzles, obstacles, and platums like the Orb of Dragonkind. Another sort of D&D lore. Yeah. And it lends itself very well to moving around.

I can see this working very well. And obviously I think they'll tweak the rules of the board game to fit the setting a bit, like a lot of games do. Apparently, this version of it uses a G20, which is not what Horrify usually does. No, it does not. But again, I see why they've done that for the tie-in. So yeah, I imagine this would work. That would be fun. It seems like one of those licenses where you're like, yeah, that makes sense.

It's not being shoehorned in there, if that makes sense. It feels like it would blend very well. Yeah. Well, you can have it for $29.99 on August the 10th, if you wish to do so. That's all. $29.99 of those American dollars. Is this the American release, or is this... That feels a very good price game you're getting for that. I assume it will be available over here in pounds, but I don't know what it will.

Usually, these days, a lot of these things are just the same number of pounds as dollars, That doesn't seem fair. It's like somebody paying more, basically. Yeah. I don't know if that's the case here. Yeah, well, $30 is like around £21 as of today, but that's changing at the moment often. Ah, I'm surprised it's that cheap, actually, for the amount of game you'll get. That's quite nice. Especially with tariffs and stuff going. Yeah, they're a big company.

Maybe they can just do it, and with a D&D license, so you can just do it at a massive scale. Yeah, maybe. But, yeah, that's a very reasonable price for a board game of that type. That is really super reasonable. I'd expect, like, to pay more like £50 nowadays. Yeah, that was what I was thinking. Maybe £50, you know. Depends upon that score, but yeah. Yeah. And yes, I was checking the live exchange rates as I said it.

Oh, yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that looks cool. I think if you liked Horrified and you liked D&D, That's a nice one. Actually, probably a nice Christmas gift for somebody that likes board games that you also know likes role-playing games. Somebody who you feel that you'd like to spend about $29.99 on, but possibly not $30 or more. It'd be perfect. Yeah. Well, I feel... Yeah, yeah. Someone you quite like, but probably, you know, are not married to you, perhaps, or something like that.

If that's all I'm giving it. That's plural. So if I was married to them, I'd spend just $5. Really? I think if I tried to do that, I would be in a lot of trouble. Well, I'm not married, so maybe that's why. Maybe there's a correlation there. But what else is in the news? Yeah. What else is in the news? Dragons? Yeah. Dragons? What are the dragons doing? It's a blue dragon. Ooh, looks spiky. Spiky. Yeah. With a great big rhino ball in the front.

His pose looks a bit like Alien, as in Alien Predator. Doesn't it, actually? Like the way it's standing. I agree. It doesn't have the moray little extra mouth, whatever that's called. You know, the Russian doll of mouths. The other customer. Yeah. Sure. That's Gene Seelers. Yeah. Extendible war. Well, this is Anthradusk, an adult blue dragon, which is featured in Dragon Gales. Okay. Right. And this is a miniature, eight inches tall, coming out in December 2025 from WizKids.

It comes with a unique pendulum blade attached to its tail. That seems quite alien-y as well. And it's a signature lightning weapon, which I assume is a fix to its mouth, I guess, or something? That seems cool. I don't know. I don't know. Break line, yeah. Yeah. And this is the marketing image, though. So shall we show pictures of what the actual one looks like following the boulders' gates? We won't know until December what the actual one looks like,

unfortunately. Yeah. But I can hear how much it will cost. Oh, yeah. How much? Considerably more than a board game, apparently. Oh, yeah? Was that 80, you guessed, there? I'd take a pen for 80 for an unpainted model. Probably 100, 120. 79.09. 79.09. I do spend too much time looking at the model saying, oh, shiny. I didn't buy them, but I do look at them and say, oh, cool. I mean, if it's detailed, that quality, painted, that scale, I understand why it costs that much.

Is this the painted model or what is it? Yeah, yeah, Wizkid's plastic. These are repainted. Okay. Yeah, so this is one of the bosses in one of the Dragon Delves adventures. Okay. Dragon Dolls being the Dragon Dolls anthology book that we just talked about with Chris Bergen's... Litigated to Chris Bergen's game. Did I read that bit? No, because that's a spoiler for the actual adventure. I won't. But yeah, the dragon is... Linked to the adventure. Yes, it's in the adventure.

There are dragons in the Dragon Dolls adventures. Spoilers! Spoilers, Russ! Lots of that coming. No, who would have done? Pop your glasses on, PJ, because you should have. Hmm. We were talking earlier about how we could now be Angelina Jolie, as you recall. I remember you saying that, yes. Well, there are ways that maybe you could have been Angelina Jolie, but no longer can. Yes. Ah. So the Tomb Raider RPG from Evil Cat, which was announced, February 2024, I think?

Could be, yeah. Has been cancelled. I don't know. Really? Well, I'm seeing a cover photo. Yes, that was on the original announcement in 2024. I mean, it's a mock-up, obviously, but that was the original announcement in 2024. Not only that, because, you know, we had this cover photo which has, like, a team of adventurers and a Tomb Raider logo on it. But there was also some character sheets which they put out a year ago as well.

And you can see those here with a class like the Hunter, the Change, the Crafter, and the Companion. Yeah, so without being able to see the details to whether that looks like maybe a Powered by the Apocalypse-style setting.

Playbook, yeah, when you tick your options yeah yeah but well it is not to be i kind of understand why i was always thinking i was intrigued to see what they did with it because i think lara croft as an ip is difficult to do because if you take lara croft out the setting like you're not playing lara croft what makes it lara croft because is it not just generic spooky archaeology settings i think you could say that about any licensed dbg well i don't know because in star wars or

star trek i don't have to be playing any of the characters i know to be in that world because that world is quite interesting and distinct you play treasure hunters who yeah and ancient artifacts exactly i don't know what's not legally that's the wrong word what is distinct about the lara croft setting outside of the lara croft character because it's just indiana jones it's like indiana jones or the mummy and And that's fine for the films and media, but...

The attraction of the Lara Crofts, I think, would be you get to play as Lara Croft. Yeah. But in this case, it's for a new world. Yeah. There's no Lara Croft-iverse. Yeah. Yeah. There is somewhere on Reddit, maybe. Well, it's been kind of sort of YouTube through. It creates differences. And I... With the licensor. And I can imagine... Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder if perhaps, I mean, this is utter speculation, that was the exact sticking point.

Like the licensure wanted to promote the character of Lara Croft and Evil Hat was sort of saying, well, that doesn't make sense for a role-playing game. Or maybe, I don't know, it's utter guesswork. I'm not speaking to them, I have no insight. I mean, this could be a big opportunity for Cudicle 7. Because they produced a Doctor Who RPG, where one of the players plays as a Doctor.

They used to bring in a title character with, I would say, a seriously grave asymmetry between them and their sidekicks slash companions. Yeah. So that's the sort of thing that you'd really have to look at in order to do this. Whereas Parabite Apocalypse, you can't have a lot of craft in, because I don't know what the move would be.

Roll 26 three plus you win yay that sounds fun yeah no i do know what you mean it is difficult if you're gonna have that player in the game how you balance it and make it fun i think that's hard for the gm running the game it's also hard for the player like who's playing that character like i was in a buffy campaign once and luckily it it was all fine we didn't have any issues but that could really easily i think buffy could kind of work because

you've got different types of super-powered heroes you can be. So you could also be a witch, or you could be a werewolf, or you could be a huge vampire. There's all different options that you can be in a Buffy world. Yeah, beyond the Spayor. What if you're in the Pazander? What if you're in the Pazander, the punching bag? Or you could be Xander. We did have somebody playing that, because they said, I want to be a very normal, not useful character just for the... Was that you, Jessica?

No, I was Buffy. And I was I was terrible at rolling dice, so I was the most underpowered slayer. It was a World of Darkness kind of base system, and I would roll like 10 dice and get one success. Okay. It was, yeah. That is unfortunate. So it didn't feel overpowered in that campaign, but maybe that's just because I'm very bad at rolling dice pulls, but it worked. Yeah. We got a one-star review on one of our games because it has dice pulls in it.

That was literally the review and the comment well i think if you don't like dice pools that's fair enough but don't don't buy a dice pool based system because i like dice pool based systems very much i'm just good at them but that's a separate that's that's a me problem i i feel like yeah that is something where some of these review websites should take a view and if the whole of the criticism is something like this dice pool game uses dice pools one star that that

i feel like that should be sort of unless it was a secret unless it was a secret they never told me this was a dice pool based system i hate them therefore i'm disappointed because they implied it was a d20 in that edge case or if it's a game that's whole thing is it's based off an srd like people have been slanting 3-5-E and saying slating 3-5-E and saying oh it's all plagiarism. It's like, No. Do you know how system reference documents work? No, you do not.

Please take your ignorance away. It's distressing. It's not plagiarism. It is the opposite of plagiarism. I mean, it's research. I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast understands and is also horrified, PJ, because they, yes. But in fairness, if you're a general consumer, you probably don't know about that because it's only because we're very involved in the industry. We don't care about the licensing situation, do you? It's not.

But even before I started working, even before I started this podcast, I knew that plagiarism was when you quote somebody and you do not attribute the quote and you pass it off as your own work.

Right? And all the claims of plagiarism and accusations I've seen of plagiarism that have been thrown around so casually, so rudely, so badly, so inaccurately have been by people who seem unaware aware of the fact that, one, it's a system, a reference document, and two, plagiarism involves claiming it's your own work, as opposed to saying, yes, this is where we got it from.

Yeah, and in fact, the reference document will come with a license which tells you exactly how they want you to say, how you want them to credit them and where it came from. So it's not even up to you, it's just you will put that on your credit page because that's what it says you should do. But I see a way of preaching to the choir. Yes, I imagine so. It just came up for me. It's something that irritated me. Yes. I saw it stir something within you, PJ, as well.

And I hope you feel better for letting it out. I do. Letting it out. No problem. Yeah. All right. Oh, what's this? Dr. Hart. That's some lovely artwork. She is the swamp which I want to be. You look like a giant fat. Is she made of plant? It looks like she is made of plant and moss. Yeah. And it has a card saying... She looks like a pointy hat and a cloak-y thing, but made of plant.

Plants and moss. I know. And there's a spell card next to it saying forest sprites, so it makes sense to me that it is nature-y. And the cloak seems like sort of a root system, if that makes sense. Yeah. Or is it smoke? I don't know. Oh, it's a bit of both. Plant roots. Like, you know, when you, well, maybe you don't know, but like when you get a plant out of the ground, it's got like lots of little fine hairs coming off it. I believe you, I do know.

Many of my plants get removed from the ground. Not necessarily by me. Yeah. Dog assisted. Yeah. But what's the news? It's not long in the ground. It must be removed. Apart from the news of this fantastic artwork, what is the news of? Has someone dug a forest witch? Has a dog dug? So what this is, two new playtester classes for Daggerheart. And they are Witch and the Assassin.

So this one is the Witch. I don't have a picture of the Assassin, but the Witch class has like a hex feature and it can communicate with spirits. And the Assassin can ambush targets and do extra damage when they move into melee range of the target. Cool. I've not played Daggerheart yet, so I don't have a huge amount of standards. I have the book. I have the set. It looks interesting, but I have not yet got around to getting it to a table.

So I want to, though. I think quite a lot of people are saying that it's a D&D variant, and it's not. It doesn't even use a D20. I think not system-wise, but it's a fantasy setting for people that are used to that world. And I think it feels friendly to people because if you've watched a lot of critical role, you can transport those worlds between the two. I think that's what people say.

And I also, there's a huge branch of D&D people that are more focused on the role play than the mechanical side of things. And this kind of really brings that out. So I think for those types of players moving to this won't feel too scary or weird. I think that's what people are trying to say. And that makes sense to me. Yeah. I may be, I mean, I don't know. I think it depends on who you're talking

to. some people really do sort of go into the weeds on mechanics and try and claim that as well, which I think is a bit spurious. I don't think that's true at all. Yeah, I wouldn't agree with that. Are they saying the mechanics of this game are the same as D&D? Are they very into D&D, yeah. Well, in the same way that any role of playing game could be called that because it's a role-playing game. Sure. But then you just sort of say D&D is a game and so is chess.

So D&D is a variant of chess. They're both games. You know, you can get as far back as you like. I've actually read an article about that saying, what is a game? And when does a role-playing game become a laugh as well? And there's... So yes, we could have these pedantic conversations. But anyway... A bit of peasantry is good, occasionally, because the details do matter. For instance, we can probably agree that this is not D&D. This is Daggerheart. I do agree.

And that's a significant difference. It is... I mean, I don't feel I would be able to play Daggerheart without learning how to play Daggerheart. I could go and play pretty much, I'm pretty confident I could play Adventures in Middle-earth, the 5e conversion or whatever that's called, and I wouldn't need to learn. How to play the game. I would know how to play the game because I'm familiar with it. Bag of heart, I don't think I'd be able to do that.

Yeah. So I would say that, for me, that would make this not D&D. I mean, basically the core mechanic uses two D12s and one of them is a hope die and one's a despair? Despair? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not even vaguely similar. But anyway, this status also has some other material in it. Mm! It's from new ancestries and some new communities. Nice. Okay. So the ancestors are the Earthkin, Tidekin, Emberkin, Skykin, the Aetheris, and Gnomes. Cool. Sorry.

That was quite a list of some exciting names and gnomes tagged on the end. And gnomes, yeah. Are you trying to imply that gnomes are not exciting? I'm not implying that in any way. I'm stating that. I'm right, yeah. There's no implication. Well, hundreds of angry gnomes are now going to write in. I'm going to stab me in the ankle. Yes, with sneak attack. Would you like to know what the communities are? Yeah, so this is like the culture where you come from, I guess.

I guess. I don't know the system. I believe. The June-born, the Free-born, the Frost-born, the Hearth-born, and the Re-born and the War-born. Thank you. Do we have any more details on this? That's it. That's all I know. You would need to actually download the actual playtest document, which you can do, but I have not done. That sounds like with Reborn. Oh, sorry, again? No, no, no. Okay. It feels like with Reborn that you've got some revenants or undead character options kicking around.

I've got a couple of parenthetical notes. So the Reborn is a community that was liberated from tyrannical rule. Half-born comes from a small village or countryside. Reborn comes from a community that they no longer remember. Oh, okay. Like the Forgotten Mountains or something, I imagine. They come from the Forgotten Mountains. And they no longer remember.

That sounds interesting. It's nice to see that there's ongoing support, because I know a lot of people that have played Daggerheart really like it, so it's good that they have plans to carry it on.

And shall I say the controversial thing of maybe it'll be a D&D killer, I'm just joking we talked about it earlier if anyone's jumped in the podcast at this point I'm just joking it will be successful it won't be a D&D killer but it can be both of those things at the same time by my measure I would say it's successful because they've nearly sold out their first print run I have absolutely no doubt it's going to be successful and for me,

as someone that works in publishing that would be a success for me because it's like everything i thought we should sell for a bit of time sold more than i thought so that's that would be in my mind i mean you made it and got it to market that for me that is a big success yeah yeah it's hard like you said earlier people didn't find success i mean i define success for our company as the company is able to dip you know all that's you know give

people work and jobs and you know live another day pay the bills and pay their mortgages and things like that and and we get to make creative stuff which fulfills us creatively and people get to play it and enjoy it. It persists and enables. And that's pretty cool. You know what else persists in our world? Origins Game Fair. Origins Game Fair. It's persisted for a number of years, greater than 49 and less than 51. Yes. Similar to you, Ross. Incorrect. I said similar. Sadly incorrect. Oh, bless.

So Origins is going back. Moving on. Origins is going back. Yes. Yeah. It took place in, we were discussing before the show, Justin and I, that my goal is to Benjamin Buttonet and I get younger every year now. It's the way it works. I wish you well. Thank you. Thank you. Anyway, Origins is going back. It took place in Columbus, I hope. Ohio? Ohio?

Ohio? In the dual city of High Herd. So they'd have announced the attendance figures for this year's event. Oh, yeah. So this is up 8% on last year. So last year, they did 17,706 unique attendees. and it has got now 19,171, Nice. Which pretty much cements it there as the fifth largest convention. Here's a little table I put together. There isn't the five largest ones. Ooh. So these are all tabletop gaming conventions.

So I'm not including things that are sort of like pop culture conventions or Comic Con or Dragon Con or something like that, which happen to have some tabletop gaming there. Those are much bigger. But these are tabletop specific. Specifically, yeah. Yeah. So we've got Essence Fuel right at the top with 204,000 attendees in 2024. That's as many. Gen Con in 2024 had 71,000. I mean, that is quite a steep drop because Gen Con is about a third size of Essence Fuel.

I think Essence Fuel counts it slightly differently because generally you get turnstile figures and uniques. And Essenspiel is never clear on which that is. My guess is that Essenspiel is reporting turnstile, which is still higher than Gen Con's turnstile, but the drop isn't quite as different there. Essenspiel is enormous as well. I've been a couple of times, and just the sheer number of halls and stuff, it is on a different scale, like walking around.

I don't think you could walk around and see every stall at Essens. I would say you couldn't do that at UK Games Expo this year, and that was considerably smaller than an essence bill, but it's number three in the world, but that was 42,000 people this year. Yeah. And that was big, I think, for you too. Well, in fairness, you only had, like, what, an afternoon free? Yeah, true. So when you were tied to a stand or doing a podcast recording or something.

Yeah, so UK Games Expo is a bit over half of Gen Con, say I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Or Origins, yeah. That surprised me about Origins. I've not been, in fairness, but in my mind, it was always much bigger than Expo, but I am incorrect. So Origins and Expo tended to be about the same. They used to leapfrog each other each year. Maybe that's why. Yeah, and then... Now Origins is about half the size.

I think Origins kind of stopped growing around the pandemic, and never really recovered, I think, whereas you think Games Expo had a blip, but then just resumed growing and going straight afterwards. Yeah. Hmm. So yeah, so yeah, so we've got DenCon at 71,000, UK Games Expo at 42,000, PAX Unplugged at about 30,000, and then Origins Game Fair at 19,000. Hmm. There we go. Yeah. Apparently. Yeah. The next one we're going to is Dragon Meat, and that's a lot smaller. That's well under 10,000.

Yeah. Although that's growing fast. That's had to move. Move venues, yeah, to the XLs. Yeah. Yeah, because when we were at Novotel last year, I noticed that the infrastructure of that hotel was struggling to handle a number of people, like just trying to get a drink or get a sandwich. The queues were massive. Just trying to get the queues of the news and this sort of stuff. It just, you know, it wasn't able to cope. It had outgrown the venue. Yeah, it had outgrown the venue.

So we're moving to the XL this year. Exciting stuff. Yes. Yeah. It's big time. Yeah. We've got some more information about Origins. The Origins Awards. Okay. So the Origins Awards, I've got a number of categories. They're for all sorts of table-dot stuff. So I was just concentrating on the RPG stuff here, because that's what we talk about. But there's strategy games and card games and miniatures and all that sort of stuff. They also have categories for those as well.

There's only two RPG categories, and those are RPG Core Products and RPG Supplement. Okay. Ah. And these are the two winners. So for RPG Core Products, we've got Yaziba's Bed and Breakfast from Postum Rink Games. Yes, that makes sense. You want it? Yes. Is that a stage-racking dress? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then... Quite cosy, I think, is the vibe. Yeah. Very brightly coloured. Well, that cover there, very brightly coloured pinks and oranges and...

Really interesting mechanically. The idea is that you don't have to have the same group of people playing the campaign, people jump in and out, playing the characters, and they change and evolve with different players. You have that on Not D&D? It is on Not D&D. So if people want to hear more about it, I have an interview with J-Dragon on Not D&D. So if you look up your zebra's bed on breakfast, we go into detail and discuss it there. But it's very interesting mechanically. Yeah.

Well, the other one is RPG Supplement. Call of the Cthulhu's No Time to Scream from Chaosium. What if I want to scream? I have a question. Is this saying you've got no time to scream? Like, oh, we're busy. We're in a rush. We've got to get your shoes. There's no time to scream. Well, now is not the time to scream. Yes. Now is no time to scream. This is no time to scream. I mean, it's 3 o'clock in the morning and everyone's trying to sleep. This is no time to scream.

Look, we're in the middle of a theatre play. This is no time to scream. Look, look, they're clearly missing the possibility. it's like, no, time to scream. There should be a comma there, yeah. How many ways I'm somewhere right now? It's so adaptable. I'm just screaming. Yeah. Very good. So it's hard to know. It's hard to know. I mean, just like the James Bond film, No Time to Die. No. No, Mr. Bond, it's time to die. I see it turned out. It's like, what? No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.

A classic line. That's a classic line. Well, congratulations to both of them. I don't know No Time to Scream, in fairness, so I can't comment, but it's Call of Cthulhu and the artwork looks very nice. Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast, I do know, and yeah, congratulations. Yeah, well, No Time to Scream is, it says Three Evenings of Nightmare, it's in the supplement, so I'm guessing it's Three Adventures. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. It's really true. Yeah. It's reasonable.

Just what's present on the book, anyway. Yeah. Yeah. On moving on okay we've got some kickstarters yes well not us but there are crowdfunders and the first one i'm assuming that was you that put this one up peter is this shadows ever sold by any chance yes yeah yes uh i saw that one from tab creations and uh rather than my usual way of picking out Kickstarter and saying, ooh, I bet Jess would love this. I saw this. I said, ooh, I bet Russ would love this.

I love the name of it. The name of it is so evocative. I love Shadows Over Souls. Just a perfect name. It's a strong name. It's the second edition. Part of the reason also I thought I'd call it out is because the game has the option of playing with either a D10 dice ball or you can draw packs of cards. I don't know too much about it, except it's horror in space.

And it's got a skeleton of a slumped astronaut in a space suit and that's a sign of the sort of game that Russ is known to love playing. I do like a bit of space horror. I've got to admit, science fiction horror. The ship looks a bit broken as well and there's blood smear on the walls so it looks like people aren't having a great time.

I'm looking at the Kickstarter page and I wish I could share this picture but I haven't got it at hand but I'm looking at the Kickstarter page There's a picture of basically what looks like almost like a zombie head. Like a human head, which is clearly decaying, but it's also got mechanical legs coming out of it, so it's this head running around on these three little mechanical legs. It's a horrible picture. It's a bit like The Thing meets a Warhammer 40k servitor, I would say.

They've just got like a little, yeah, zombie head. A brain exposed, yeah. I believe. So like I said, I thought this would be very much your cup of tea, but with some interesting mechanics, I'd say. Notify me on launch. There we go. It's gone from 642 to 640 people. There we go. There we go. Yes, I am interested. Sadly, I probably will end up buying it. Sadly.

Sadly. But still, it does look awesome. It does look very awesome. Okay, well, the next one, this one looks fun as well. So this one is called First Encounter. And this one I found. It's a rules-light RPG. So basically, you're the inhabitants of a lair, a creature poke, and the most vile of fantasy villains come along. Level 1 adventurers come and attack you in your lair. So basically, you're like kobolds or whatever. You're creature poke, basically.

And the idea is you have to defend your lair. It's kind of like the odds are against you. You can't really fight the level one adventurers face to face, so you've got to be clever about it. So you have to set traps and do all sorts of things. You could choose from eight different creature folk with different abilities to help you overcome the invading adventurers. I just thought it looked kind of fun. Yeah, I like the artwork. There's like some puppeteering going on.

I'm not sure what the puppeteering is, but... A mastermind metaphor, maybe? I guess. There is a sort of... I'm not sure I like the artwork myself. I feel it's appropriate for the game, but it doesn't grab me in the same way because they've got a bit of a mix of styles between some of the initial things, which has quite a nice drawn style for the puppeteering. And then when you see some of the actual cards in play, they've really gone for more of a chibi style, if that makes sense. Yeah.

I don't know I'd like something a bit more consistent Sorry, is that weird of me? But I mean, like I say it's not cheap, so they've got something going on here, I think it looks pretty cool I mean, it's not funded yet, but it's got 22 days to go and it's pretty close, it's at £589 of £715, and it's an Australian game, so I think it had like a £1,500 Australian dollar goal I think, or something Yeah, yeah, yeah That sounds amazing.

It does look pretty cool. It does look pretty cool. I like that for that, too. Finally, this is from one of our A5E freelancers, Team Panket, has on back a kit right now a book called Martial Artistry. Ooh. I'm kind of interested. Yeah, and there's a whole bunch of new classes, archetypes, origins, and all sorts of stuff for martial characters. Yes. Mainly for A5E. I assume you can use it with 5e as well. It says 5e compatible on the back, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So this is really good. There's a whole bunch of new classes. We've got the Champion, the Gunslinger, the Sentinel, the Warcaster, and then Stretch Goals. We'll add a couple of other ones. I'm not sure what the Stretch Goal ones are, but there's a couple of Stretch Goal ones as well. Yeah. New combat traditions, new archetypes. It really does look fun. And it's doing well. It's almost funded, again, very close to funded, $4,700 out of $5,000 with 18 days to go. So it's going to fund.

And Grant at PSB just posted in the chat, check out his A5V show where he interviewed Rachel. So do that or so. Do that or so. Yeah, I guess if you're going to hear more, sounds good. Yeah. Grant, what is the show called? Tell us what the show is called and people can look it up. I think it's like 8-5 evening. 8-5 evening or something like that, isn't it? I think, yeah. I'll let them put it in the chat. Yeah, 8-5 evening. Yeah. So that was that.

Here we go. 8-5 evening and all party roundup. There we go. So go check it out. It's podcast and YouTube, I believe. I've heard the podcast section. I'm some YouTube ones, but I've heard the podcast.

Right. right then okay so so so so we have got some controversy we're going to get shouted at for mentioning politics because every time we mention politics people shout at us but, well we didn't mention politics someone yeah we don't mention we report the news and it's not our fault the politics we don't want to talk about politics but here we go again like this this is a place where I go where I don't want to talk about politics.

Like, yeah, I would just like to talk about games, thank you very much. So, stop throwing politics at us. Okay, what's the news item? Let's give context, because we know what we're talking about, but our dear listeners do not. Okay, so, a game called Rebel Scum. Strong name. Star Wars themed, I'm assuming. Yeah, you can basically guess what that's about.

The cover of this book, by the way, for those of a certain age who will recall that you could buy Star Wars figures which was basically like a figure behind a plastic box on that the they had hanging up on a bit of cardboard on the shelves you could just grab them off it's exactly like one of those collectible figures and that's that's very much the vibe they're going for so yeah like yeah i i have a few of them also have them in any falcon i have a scout walker i think

i have sharon has They're hers. She's a really big Star Wars fan. And they're her toys. But anyway, Rebel Scump. Yes. It is a role-playing game from Nights at Level Games. And it has been banned. DriveThruRPG. Yes. They've got it on there advertising everything. Yes. I mean, they're certainly milking it. Why is it? I mean, I would as well in this situation. That sort of marketing you can't really argue with. $15 from the Nightclub Games website if I recall correctly. So, yeah.

Yeah. And why has DriveThruRPG said that they have banned it? Why has it been banned? So, it was Scott Holden, I believe. you spoke to, Peter, at DriveThruRPG by email to find out what the situation was here. You shared the email with me, so I've put the quotes up on the screen. Essentially, there was, if I say, quite a lot of fuss on social media, that's me deploying British understatement to its fullest extent.

And people were saying they banned this game for attacking fascists and like i don't claim expertise upon drive-thru rpgs catalog but i do know that they sell a lot of games where the whole selling point is hey you get to punch fascists in the face so i was intrigued and uh as i say here as it says here where scott holden says where i think we perhaps failed here is to help ninth level games understand that we'd permitted them to push a game on a marketplace promoting

violence against anyone who supports a political party they dislike then in fairness we would also have to allow games that openly promote hatred and violence against any other political group or affiliation that's a very slippery slope, which I wouldn't understand as like you could have people write say a game about trying to assassinate the queen or the king of England say, and like currently Drive Pro RPG has a blanket ban on that sort of thing and

this is to do with the game, it's that in fact it's nothing to the game, it's that Rebel Scum is fine, that bit is uncontroversial, it's the introduction to the game that is the problem where they said specifically we call the enemies in, Rebel Scum Republic so you can and they said okay so you can say specifically I punched a Republican in the face. Here we go. Okay so So it was because it was talking about current day political groups that it was the issue.

Yeah. I mean, what Scott is saying, and I do not know what conversation DriveThruRPG has directly with Ninth Level Games. Well, it's not for us. So there may be more to this than all we know is what Scott has said to us and what Ninth Level Games are saying on their website. That's basically all we know. But yeah. So what Scott is saying is that the problem is that they're encouraging violence against Republicans in America. He's basically hit the cost of his statement, I think.

Yeah, this was in August 2024 when this came up, which was during the Democratic and Republican National Conferences. So this was a very busy time politically, very fraught time politically in the U.S., And about half of American voters do belong to the Republican Party. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the Republican Party as in government, as may have become obvious.

Yeah, we don't need to get into that. But I still can understand that a company would not wish to host calls for violence against a real-world political group in the country in which they are based, in which they have to live. Yeah, yeah. The majority of their customers come from. I think what's happening here is that we've got kind of mixed messaging, possibly just being distorted by social media as well.

So people, like you said at the start of the piece, people are saying that it was banned for saying punch Nazis. But it's not. That's not what Scott is saying. I mean, maybe that is what they said in private in conversations that we weren't privy to. I don't know. I couldn't tell you. All I can tell you is what you can literally see in front of me. It seems unlikely that this would be variants because there are many, many games that are punching Nazis, I'd say.

It's the selling point on Drive for RPG, which I think, we've made games featuring Nazis ever since the fascist organizations are bad guys. That's never been a problem. I think people also implied from the very slippery slope, they misread that as saying. That allowing a game promoting violence against Republicans would also then open the door to allowing violence against, say, LGBTQ people or people of color.

That is very much not the case that's actually covered by the same statute the same policy earlier which says that's the case it's specifically about political organizations and because these are not protected groups they enjoy no status of protection under the law so yeah but i think that's got like really twisted and they're just saying things that are not the case. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not banned for being against fascism. It's banned for putting violence against the... Yeah. So I understand it. The process took quite a long time, like eight months or something, as I understand it. And basically, Tri-Thru RPG asked them to remove that from the forward and maybe put it on their website and said, they said they didn't want to do that and then they chose instead to take the game down. Yeah.

I understand it. Yeah, yeah. Again, I wasn't told in the present, but that seemed interesting. This doesn't seem inconsistent with what 9th Level Games or Scott has written. So, you know, until we get contradicting information, I feel it's like a point of principle for 9th Level Games. And they seem very keen that there should be a trust and safety person at Drive4RPG to help advise on that sort of thing.

And, you know what? Like, i can't say they're wrong to say that like yeah drive through rpg probably should think now especially that there has been a consolidation with roll 20 they probably do need trust and say when you start to move into sort of monopoly and gatekeeping issues which you know i'm totally in favor of because i certainly don't do business with people that i don't want to do business with and I certainly agree that DriveThruRPG

should have that right generally as long as it's not because of protective classes of people. But when you are at industry dominance level, I kind of feel like they are. Yeah. I think you have to take a lot more care with that sort of thing. Yeah. Because you are in a position where you can gatekeep the industry. Not that I'm saying that's what you want to do or that sort of intention. I think that is the side effect of being that dominant player in the industry.

You need more safeguards and you need to just take a lot more care about this sort of stuff. You can't be reactionary. When you ban something from Drive to RPG, that's a big thing. It's just a massive source of income. It has been used in the past with hostile marketing, which I have a specific policy against.

A person whose name I will not give any option to, but who would be familiar to many listeners of a certain age as being very popular in the D&D slash OSR space, frequently used Drive-Thru RPGs banning of their products, which would be hateful and discriminatory and bigoted, and then used it as proof that they were being silenced, which they shat about loudly from all your platforms that they got.

Anyway but yes so that was part of their actual they actually built that into their marketing, I'm not saying that 9th level games are building this into their marketing although we are talking about them and we probably wouldn't be talking about a game called Rebel Scum if they hadn't been banned and also there is a screenshot of their website where it says banned by DriveThruRPG in big capital letters on a yellow banner going across the picture so they are

using that and that's fine I would actually yeah but it's just like. As I say, it's like a, I think we can probably say with a fairly degree of certainty that Rebels Come wasn't banned because it's about fighting fascists. And they could probably get put back up if they wanted to, just by removing the part of the introduction which was the real-life political group. But they don't wish to do that because that's important to them that it stays in there. Absolutely. I respect that. Yeah.

It's a principle for them. Perfect. And if people are interested in getting the game, they can go to Knights Level Games website to get it directly there. Yeah. And I think it's on itch.io as well, I imagine. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. Yeah. It is tricky with DriveThruRPG, because as you said, Russ, they do need to have a moderation policy for things.

Yep. But because they're at the size they are, that probably needs to be a dedicated person just because of the volume of content they have. And also, because the world we live in, it's a very politically contentious time. So, issues like this, which potentially people wouldn't care about as much in times gone by at the moment, matter a lot more to people and get a lot more screen time. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Right. Well, that was the thing we'll get shouted at for, by daring to mention politics.

I don't know if we'll get shouted out for the next one but we're going to mention Bears this is probably the last piece of the day that's very contentious I think did you put this one up future, oh yeah I saw this and it just tickled me pink it's a link to the BBC news site, for those of you who listen to this podcast you'll know I've said before that I quite enjoy running Honey Heist by Carl Dauert this piece is entitled Bears Raid Honey Storm after enclosure escape.

It's two bears, two European breadwrains, Mies and Lucy from Conservation Charity near Exeter broke free from their enclosure, made their way to a food store and consumed, quote, a week's worth of honey. Wow. So there you go. Real life honey. Are you saying a week's worth? A week's worth of what a bear would get through or a person? Because they're different scales, I imagine. Yeah, so I mean, a week's worth of honey for me is probably like one teaspoon of it.

They came in took a kiss and were like you know what this isn't ours we haven't paid we should go, I mean how did they get it out of the out of the jars anyway bear smash, okay but there's a I imagine I don't know maybe they maybe they didn't do it I don't know they got claws bears have like giant knives on the front of their hands yeah, and bears room trapped look at the honeypot there we go there we go are we all like honey hides you Rachel yeah Thank you.

So does that count as an actual play, then? That's a larp. That's right. This is a larp. A larp. A honey heist larp. Yeah.

That's a nice bit of lighthearted news to end on. Yeah. Almost like we're a real grown-up news show. Yes. And now, cute animals in your area. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Fuck I was like. It seems funny. I like it. That's good. Thank you very much. I think we're probably done then, are we? Yeah, we're done. Okay. And that's what happened this week. That is what happened this week. We'll be back next week, and we'll tell you what happens next week. Gonna have a weekend. I'll be seeing you two tomorrow.

Yep. With a barbecue. It'll be fun. And we'll be back next week as normal. Yep. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Go and enjoy your weekends. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Music.