133. Steampunk Gerbil Ball

On the show today: Elon Musk took issue with the Fallout slogan "War Never Changes" back in May. Instead of simply complaining, we take a moment to look at how players can see the same information in different ways and how to better inform players to the themes of the game. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-fallout-tweet https://x.com/girldrawsghosts/status/1815417466509463757 Josh Sawyer (of Black Isle and Obsidian fame) had a video talking about breaking game balance in Fallout: New Vegas. There are different ways of approaching open world games when it comes to how truly open the world is to players at the start. We discuss what we enjoy between balanced and imbalanced game worlds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnR1Y3GlTqs If you have a game set in a nuclear post-apocalypse, you probably have radiation mechanics. We discuss some of the games we played that have these mechanics, which ones were fairly basic and ones that were more complicated. Also, what new ways could we use this mechanic in tabletop games?