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...

PJ Coppy from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers, also from Homebrew and Hacking TTRPG Design.

Russ, as ever, it is a pleasure to be here.

Joining us also doing a rather good elsa impression from frozen has a and it will be able to see i could keep on like making these references but you know what i'm just gonna let it go it's the one it's the only it's it's me jessica from en publishing hello hello to everybody watching live we'll mention at the top of the show we are of course recording this live as we do every friday at 2 p.m british time or 9 a.m eastern time is it the first time you've ever remembered to do that right at the beginning.

No, I think there was one time when we first started.

All right, okay.

You can watch that on Twitch, Facebook, or YouTube.

And if you go to emworlds.org, you'll find all the links and info there.

Yes.

Okay, then.

So we've got...

Yeah, we've got a lot this week, actually.

It's going to be...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Only 5 news items.

Remember just after Gen Con, we had a show where there were like 20 news items.

Yeah.

And now we've got this week only 5, which is a pleasant, a nice relaxed show.

I think that means it'll be.

Yeah.

Well, that's the way it's been used.

Yeah.

Let people be able to deep dive into something about which we know nothing.

That's what the people want.

Yes.

Well, we did, someone on the Discord did ask why we hadn't covered the release of Draw Up Steel.

And the honest answer to that was I didn't actually realise it was out yet.

It kind of slipped under my radar because I think Dying to Heart kind of ate up an awful lot of the sort of bandwidth, the sort of PR bandwidth in the last month, unfortunately.

There's been a lot of people desperately trying to find nice things to say about Daggerheart and succeeding and fair play to them.

Yeah, yeah.

They know what they want to like and it's definitely Daggerheart.

Yeah.

Yes, good for them.

So Drawsteel, I'll try and do a little bit of a dive maybe during the week and maybe we can cover it next week.

So I don't know enough about it to even, you know, as a news item, I can say, it's out.

You can buy it.

There you go.

I can tell you that.

But other than that, I don't know enough about it to go into a deep dive.

But I try and do a little bit by next week just so we can at least...

Preview.

But not a review, a preview.

Yeah.

I mean, I've only had little bits.

Like, it's quite technically complicated, which...

Yes.

Yeah, I've heard that.

And that the books, PDFs, are being sold separately, apparently.

No, they're not.

Oh, okay.

That's good.

Because that's what I tell you.

So I was clearly...

You did post on the Discord that it was 190 quid for the books and you didn't get the PDFs.

That's not actually true, it's 48 quid dollars for the books and you do get the PDFs.

That's a very, very, very different scenario to the one that you expected.

Well, that's much better.

Yeah, exactly.

I was being told it was like 70 each, it's like a hundred bucks.

So, you know, $96 for two books is an absolute bargain.

So there we go.

Yeah, yeah.

Pricing-wise, they're even cheaper than we are.

I can't fault them on that at all.

Anyway, this is all...

Knowing anything about it, I chose not to reveal the piece of information I thought I had, which in fact turned out to be wrong.

So there we go.

Yeah.

But next week, next week, I'll save it for next week.

I'll try and do a bit of reading on it for next week, and then we'll talk a little bit about Draw Still.

Bearing in mind that I'm not an expert, and I'm probably not going to actually buy it.

So it's all going to be based on, you know, public information.

If you work for their PR team and want to send us a copy for review.

We know you love watching this podcast.

Yeah.

Well, that's the thing.

I don't think I've seen any PR about it, like dropping into the news inbox or anything like that.

So, you know, that's kind of why it slipped under the radar because we get all the Critical Role stuff and the Wizards stuff and the Paizo stuff and the Free League stuff and the Modiphia stuff.

and, you know, we get loads of stuff dropping into the news inbox, but I haven't seen anything on this.

It is easier to report the news when people tell you about it.

When they say, hey, we're releasing this book, it's easier for us to say, this book's coming.

Yeah.

Anyway, anyway, anyway.

I haven't even seen stuff on Rascal, so, yeah.

And they did a very in-depth version on Daggerheart, which, yeah, was okay.

Yeah.

Right, right.

So, shall we talk about, some dnd licensed books oh yes that's we've got a few so do you recall dragons of the realms a coloring book which we mentioned i think last week yes we did because i talked all the week before adult coloring books yeah it's not the last week or the week before i can't remember when exactly.

But 10 speed press which is the company which produced or is producing that covering book That's not the only book they're making.

Oh.

Turns out they've got a little line-up coming up for this coming winter, winter 2025.

Oh, nice.

So I thought we'd quickly have a quick look.

So none of these are actually, you know, all books for D&D.

These are all sort of like licensed associated products, like the colouring book we covered before.

But we have these two, which is a player's campaign journal and a dungeon master's campaign journal.

And they're coming out will be delighted to see that there's a particularly upgraded and kind of I'd say Metal Era-esque Avenger on the front of the campaign.

Do you recognise the art style?

I do not.

Hydro 74 who used to do the alternate covers for D&D books, the ones that appeared in hobby stores.

Nice.

So it looks like 10 Speed Press have tapped to tap hydro 74 to do the covers of these books an excellent choice no faulting i i mean i don't think i would buy them but on the other hand if i was to receive one i would be very happy as well because they are pretty like i don't know he's gorgeous right where jessica they they look pretty good we got venga we got a roper it's a roper yeah on the on the players one and venga on the dm's one yeah i do like the art style they look very swish so these are just journals so you take notes in your of your game well yeah it makes sense it being out in the winter as well because i guess this is a nice present for your dnd friends or something for you to say thank you so the holiday season is coming up it's a little more than just a blank book so so we've got prompts indexes and templates wow within these we have got let's see the dms one, DMs one first.

We've got prompts, indexes, and templates from creating challenging monsters to brainstorming intriguing settings that will help the DM make, your D&D experience is easier.

Back pocket for holding spell cards, which is quite nice.

And elastic enclosure for holding loose sheets.

Like handouts and stuff, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's kind of cool.

And with the player one...

What size are they?

Because I was thinking that they looked A5, but now my eyes...

A4.

I'm pretty sure these are A4.

I'm pretty sure these are A4.

Or what's that?

Letter size, you want to say?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It'll be easy.

Yeah.

The same size as your deep books.

Yeah.

Well, the player one has prompts, indexes, and templates to help you track party members, NPCs, factions, creatures.

So it looks like, you know, it's got a whole load of forms, I guess.

I haven't seen the inside.

I've only seen the description.

I'm guessing it's got, like, not character sheets, but, you know, sort of things like character sheets for NPCs and for your fellow party members and for, you know, other information that you might come across.

I like the index idea.

So in your notes, you can be like, that NPC keeps popping up.

When did we last look at them?

And you have, if you do have an index to go back and be like, oh, yes, it was.

And then you notice, hang on, this fellow keeps popping up whenever we're around purple crystals or whatever the link is in your campaign.

Hello, hello.

This NPC keeps popping up wherever I am purple crystals.

Wherever we're around purple crystals.

Okay, bye.

So it's sort of like almost a pilot, that's.

Yeah, keep after your contact.

In your various thing worlds well i i like to file effects but this is interesting to me like when i did when i run especially for running games when i run games online i have like a google doc or something i have where i just make a note of where we left it and kind of what happened so when i come back to it i know what's going on but running in person this might be better because it's something you can have to hand so straight away you can just jot down, You know, they want the direction to what I planned, so I had to make up a load of stuff.

This is what I made up.

I'd like to see what's actually inside, how much, you know, what these indexes, templates, and things actually look like.

How much are they?

They are 25 of those American dollars.

Yeah.

They're coming out, these two are coming out November the 18th.

Yeah.

And they're both 192 pages long.

Nice, nice, decent though.

I may be interested in this, you know.

Maybe that'll go on my little wish list for the holidays.

It'll be about £18 to £25, depending upon various sectors.

Yeah.

They've got art on the back as well.

I don't have a picture of the art.

I've only got a description of the art on the back.

Oh, I can't tell you.

The Dungeon Masters one has Wenger there on the front.

On the back, it has Warduke, apparently.

Who's that?

I don't know who that is.

he's a man with one trouser one uncovered leg, he keeps on cropping up he's got like a and a winged helmet sort of thing so he has one exposed leg for like ventilation reasons I guess but when you fall asleep under the duvet but you have one foot out just to regulate I can't do that because the cat the cat if you have one foot out, you're going to be you're going to be protected yeah.

I've learned that the hard way.

But anyway, so November for those.

But it's not the only thing that 10 Speed Press has coming.

Next, we have this.

So this is the Warriors and Wizards Compendium.

Because my goodness, look at the size of that.

That's got to be a market.

I think, just as a caveat, I think that's slightly me stretching the image slightly to fit it.

I don't think it is quite that thick.

Yeah and it was slightly distorted when I was making the slides so that's partly my fault okay I mean what we're saying is it's probably not like I mean it is 272 pages, it's yeah it is handbook size yeah but that but it looks to me like you know it looks bigger in that picture yeah I agree my illustrated copy of Lord of the Rings you know like a couple years ago they did that one with the nice white dust jacket on the picture inside, and you know With one of those, you're never afraid of a spider, is all I'm saying.

Not yet.

So anyway, this one, this is the Warriors and Wizards compendium, and that very much, I think, implies the future existence of the Clerics and Rogues compendium, I think.

Could be.

Seems likely.

So this one is coming out November the 4th.

And this one is 26 US dollars.

Okay.

Okay.

So ever so slightly more.

So what this is, is everything you need to know about creating characters.

It's from the Young Adventurers Guide series.

Okay.

So if you're new to D&D and you're like, I want to make a character, but there's a lot of information here and I need some direction.

Yeah.

So, inspiration for choosing your character's class and background, guidance on selecting weapons, gear, and magic spells, profiles of 10 playable species, including three new types, the Azamar, Goliath, and Orc.

All funny and illustrative.

The word new doing a bit of heavy lifting there, but it's all right.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, new to the core rules, I guess, is what it is.

Fair enough.

Not new to the game.

New to the core rule books, I guess.

If you're new to D&D, maybe you've only got your player's handbook, so everything's kind of new, isn't it?

No.

Well, exciting.

So this is designed for young fans who are first encountering D&D just to help them, I guess, make their first characters.

Yeah.

There's a question in the chat.

Is this 2024 or 2014 D&D?

I would assume 2024.

Yeah.

But I do not know.

But remember, listeners, they are the same edition.

Yes, so it wouldn't matter.

Not new edition.

Hold the party line.

Yeah.

I can't believe it's 50 seconds.

Anyway, the next book from 10 Speed Crash.

What's the book of listeners then?

Oh, peeps.

Yeah.

So for 30 of those US dollars, in March, March the 31st, 2026, you can buy a 60-page book full, subtitled, called Crochet, A Book of Many Patterns.

I mean, delightful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this has things like cute owlbear cubs, gloves of missile snaring, a bag of holding, various schools of magic symbols, granny squares, a larger than life D20 pillow, all of which you can make yourself.

It must be a gelatinous cube on the cover.

It looks so grumpy.

Yes, yeah.

I like the mimic, the telethon's cube.

Vecna, Vecna's hand holding Vecna's eye there.

There's obviously a beholder just off the edge because you can just see three of his eyes sticking in there.

And the owlbear cub.

If you like crochet and you like Dungeons & Dragons creatures, this is made for you.

Yeah, yeah.

When is this out?

So this one was March the 31st next year.

It's a while, yeah.

Oh, that is a while, okay.

I was wondering if that was another one coming out ahead of the holidays, because again, this is the perfect book for somebody who's like, I know a friend with these two hobbies here.

It feels like that sort of...

Yeah, well, the November ones are Dragons of the Realms, which was the colouring book, the two campaign journals, and the Warriors and Wizards Compendium.

They're all in November.

And then this crochet book is March 31st next year.

Yes.

For those interested, it says it's got 20 patterns for Amigurumi, whatever those are, wearables, and household items.

Yeah, 60 pages, this one.

And how much was it?

$30.

So it's the most expensive of these books and also the smallest of these books.

But I don't know how much crochet patterns cost normally because I'm not in that whole list.

So that might just be par for the course that you pay that much for pattern books because...

Yeah.

I should get a pair of shoes online for free.

But yeah, these ones are absolutely going to be of a guarantees point, too.

I don't know.

They're fairly yarn size.

Anyway, not actually much about it, for sure.

No, I'm not an expert.

Right.

Paizo Adventure Path.

Oh.

Paizo have been doing...

They've been doing Adventure Paths for a long, long, long, long time.

How many Adventure Paths do you think Paizo have made in total?

I wouldn't even hazard to guess.

Because how long has Paizo Pathfinder been running?

Like how many years?

20 years-ish, give or take.

And they're definitely doing a few a year.

So I'm guessing it's like 100, more than 100.

You're correct.

It is more than 100.

Yeah.

Hooray.

Well, was that probably between, I'd say 200.

Yeah, 222.

222 Adventure Paths.

That's many.

That's hours of gaming.

So if you hadn't touched that, which I haven't, and were like, I'm going to get into this, you're sorted for many years to come.

Yeah.

I mean, Paizo basically mastered that.

It was basically a softcover book a month.

There'd be six issues per Adventure Path, and it would just come out on a conveyor belt.

They'd just be coming out, and you'd have a subscription to them normally.

And what was quite clever, back in the day, of course, Paizo was making Dragon and Dungeon magazines for Wizards of the Ghost, official D&D magazines.

And when those magazines got closed down by Wizards of the Ghost, and Paisa were like, oh no, what are we going to do now?

Because that was our biggest breadwinner.

And the Pathfinder role-playing game didn't even exist.

This was for 3E D&D at the time.

And the first Pathfinder Adventure Paths were 3E Adventure Paths, not Half-Land Adventure Paths.

Pathfinder was just the branding of the thing.

But they kept the subscriptions.

Which was very nice for them.

I don't know how they managed to get away with that but they managed to keep the entire customer base of Dragon and Dungeon Magazine.

Obviously, they had to get people to sort of re-opt in because you couldn't just suddenly stop sending them Dragon Magazine and say, oh, now you're buying Adventure Barbs.

But they had all those subscribers who they basically went and contacted and we're talking tens and tens of thousands of subscribers basically went to them, look, do you want to just transfer your subscription over to this?

And large numbers of them went, yeah, why not?

Give it a try.

Sure, yeah.

We liked Dragon Magazine, presumably, each one doing a good quality thing and they delivered.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, 222 Pathfinder Adventure parts, most of which are probably six issues.

Some of them were a little smaller.

There were some sort of three or four issue ones.

But, you know, generally, six issues.

Generally went level one to 20.

Again, some varied, But generally, that's what they did.

I played three or four of them over the years age of worms most memorably we played all the way through over a period of about a year i think levels one to twenty right although i think that one actually predated i think that was that was actually a dungeon magazine adventure bar for 3e that was before they actually split it was still done by byzo but it was yeah an earlier one i i I had done one that I thought was age, or was that one where you play as dragons?

Was that something different?

No, no, no, no, no.

And age of worms is there's a deity called Kyus, K-Y-U-S-S, Zeus, Kyus, who's very wormy.

Oh, oh, right.

I'm talking riggingly worms, not, not dragon worms.

With an O, not a Y.

Understood.

Yes.

Yes.

Age of worms.

Yes.

Not Y-M's.

Yeah.

Worms.

Worms.

Worms.

Worms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's an example of a Pathfinder Adventure Path, you know, so you get six softcover books, and then just look at another one, another couple, so, you know.

Yeah.

Pathfinder Adventure Path.

Very sweet.

Very sweet.

Of course.

Yeah.

Shoot.

So, there's big, big changes coming.

Oh?

They are going to stop doing the softcover adventure parts.

Oh.

And they're going to switch to a quarterly hardcover.

Okay.

Alright, I see.

That does sort of make sense, because it's going to save a lot of money on printing.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be 256 pages, each one, quarterly.

They'll cost you $80.

$79.99.

Is that different from what they would be?

Apparently, if you bought the six soft covers, it would cost you another 10 on top of that so you're saving 10 okay so it's pretty it's yeah it's pretty much okay it's much of a muchness to you as the buyer then yeah yeah yeah i think it's not quite as many pages but paizo has said that doesn't matter because a lot of the adventure paths had repeated information which they don't need to do in a hardcover and like the adventure parts all have things like the ogl at the back like you have to do that like two pages six times that's 12 pages just there you know which they won't have to do so basically you're getting pretty much the same content for about ten dollars cheaper but in a different format and it's coming out quarterly okay well i mean i'm i'm not somebody that you know uses the pathfinder adventure path things.

So I don't have too much of an opinion on it, but it sounds like that seems reasonable enough.

Like I still have that same content.

It's just in a slightly different format and I have it quarterly instead of monthly.

Yeah.

Great.

The first two of these are going to be hell breakers.

And then Hell's Destiny.

So they're the two Adventure Paths coming up, which are going to be...

The thing for me with this is, yeah, fine, it's the same value, format is our format.

It doesn't actually make a lot of difference to me.

But I kind of feel like the Adventure Path format was kind of an iconic Paizo thing, and it differentiated them from Wizards of the Coast.

And now they're kind of just bringing out...

It's kind of like it's going to be the same as a wizard's adventure now.

I i see what you mean but i think over the 20 year history of pathfinder pathfinder has forged its own path one could say so i think the game is different enough that they don't need you know the differentiator of being format true yeah i think i think it's its own thing i wouldn't say pathfinder is dnd i will also point out that wizards of coast has never released in one book a 1 to 20 adventure path true true in the yeah sorry let me rephrase in fifth edition wizards of coast and the hasbro has never released a 1 to 20 it's released a couple of books if you went with dragon heist water deep wherever it's called and then bunged in dungeons of the mad mage you could argue that is a 1 to 20 except when i looked at my copy of dungeons of the mad made to the final adventure is you just hop from basically 16 to 20 in a one-er right just so yeah, it's overwhelming as a player as well because when you're at higher levels you need a bit of time with your new level to figure out your new toys that you've got whereas going from 16 to 20 i imagine you've got many toys and you're like how do these all work together.

Power overwhelming is a great answer to everything so yeah i mean yeah the highest level 9 spells, like just tons of stuff.

So many resources, so much power.

The highest I've gone is 15.

That's the highest.

And we were fighting gods at that point, so you know.

I mean, that sort of level is like, yeah, gods.

I mean, that was the level of threat that we needed, because we walk up into town and it's like, yeah, sure.

Who's going to find us?

What am I just saying?

Are they going to continue, I don't know, with the subscription?

What's going to happen to your subscription?

I mean, it's a powerful model.

I mean, like the downsides, I would say maybe, are that because you're not receiving it on a monthly basis, your prep time to get stuff ready is less.

Yeah.

So that does reduce it.

and, you know, you have to do more reading and so forth.

I mean, I do look at the adventure park because I love running games, but sometimes I would just like to sit back and let the book take the strain and do what I do best, which is bring in showmanship and excitement and silly voices rather than trying to talk things out.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm looking at their announcement.

I'm not seeing, unless I'm missing it, I'm not seeing any sort of mention of what happens subscription-wise there.

Yeah.

The standard hardcovers will have a price of $79.99, which they say, which is less than the $89.97 that you're paid for the softcovers.

Plus, your shipping goes down as well, obviously, because you're not paying shipping multiple times.

Yeah.

You're probably saving the thick end of like $40, $50.

So, yeah, again, it's a little bit sad that we're losing this iconic model, but I guess it does.

Don't you think?

I mean, maybe a way to think of it would be like, you know, comics, instead of buying like a, like one of the, like, yeah, and you've just got the compilation edition nowadays.

Yeah, I only, I only buy the compilations of the comics that I like because I just prefer like Neon Mules and I look nice for myself.

So yeah, so yeah, so if you'll have likes of us, maybe we just don't have that same excitement but yeah it's a move and it will save people money so and they are not stopping it they're keeping going so that's good yeah yeah yeah i mean certainly a pathfinder is basically known for his adventures they're famous for it they've built their reputation their entire company based on this so yeah well they do they do solid adventure path yeah no that's what i've heard i well i mean What was that one we played?

The Extinction Curse or something?

Yeah?

That's right.

We played one with the circus, yes.

Al was running it.

Yeah, yeah.

It was fine.

Yeah.

Like a lost track at some point.

Anyway.

Right then.

So, next.

We have Modiphius has given us an exclusive.

I don't know there's some illustrations of the end world they're on the site as well so this is their Fallout role playing game, which already exists, they've got a New Vegas themed book coming out for the Fallout role-playing game called Royal Flush.

And they sent us some artwork showing some iconic areas from the Las Vegas area.

So Royal Flush, there's a storyline which involves a murder in New Reno, which leads to a discovery of a plot to bring war back to the rest.

And so this book is a whole sort of new region in the Fallout universe.

The Sierras is also in there.

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have guessed it was Fallout looking at this piece of artwork, which evokes me things of like maybe...

Blade Runner.

Yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't say Blade Runner, which is not bad, but purely because I'm not seeing enough bright neon.

Yeah, or maybe a couple of the other images, Mike, then.

So we also have this one.

That looks more like the end of the world, as we know it.

Giant green clouds with lightning and people fleeing.

So, yeah.

Yes.

I've got to apologise for Modiphius.

No shade is intended.

But this actually looks to me a lot like how I imagined Eberron.

Like, you know, they've got like, one of the kingdoms has just basically blown up.

It's a massive permacloud of death.

That would be pretty much what I imagine as being like, on that seventh kingdom or seventh, it's just gone, buddy.

Yeah.

Is that a zombie closest to the camera there?

No, I think it's just a man who's had a rough life.

Okay.

Lipped hard.

Smokes and drinks a bit too much.

You see them walking around easily sometimes too.

They are alive he's not had the nutrition that he should have yeah.

And finally we've got this one which is definitely quite Vegas-y looking I think, and that again actually is a lot more played largely because of the sort of Deckard-like figure in the foreground but it's a simulant termination device, and it's called the Hicho, I think it says hotel I think it's hotel I think it's I don't know maybe not I don't know, Oh, those aren't tables.

Those are robots.

Yeah, those are police robots, I think.

Oh, it's two police robots.

Gotcha.

I think the picture in the middle of the robot face.

It's two police robots, one behind the other.

Yes, okay, I got it.

And it's giving him a ticket.

Siphoning him for something.

Yeah.

Okay, it's nice.

It's good art, it's awesome.

yeah so this book Fallout the Roleplaying Game Royal Flush coming out quarter four 2025, that's soon that's soonish yes yeah are we in quarter three yet when does quarter three start yeah we're in Q3 when does that start July is it July August September yeah, yeah so we're in mid Q3 at the moment, Q4 8 October November December hey so yep yeah okay, okay right then, Next, on the menu, next on the menu, Chaosium, do you like Calamari?

Yeah.

No thanks.

Cool.

Oh.

Because this is tentacular.

Chaosium has announced a monster book for the basic role-playing system.

Oh, cool.

Yes.

that is very chimeric not in the sense of a chimera as we'd see it in traditional D&D sense but in the sense of this thing is made up of a lot of different creatures, what's that angel wing so bird wing bat wing, sort of a dragon tail, yeah I mean it's giving a certain amount of wardrobe with one leg covered in something one leg not There's an eyeball and teeth on the hip bone there as well, which is a choice.

Not an ideal place to keep your eyeballs, especially if you keep walking into things.

Big shout out to all our ADHD comrades out there.

Keep those hips safe.

So basically, a role-playing system powers things like Call of Cthulhu.

Yes.

And Rune Quest as well, I believe.

So basically, they're in-house T100 system.

Yeah.

This book is sort of both enemies and allies for a whole load of different genres from the distant past up to the modern day.

Yeah.

I don't know an awful lot more about it yet.

We've got a couple of pictures.

So we've got that one that's clearly like a Cthulhu.

Cthulhu, yeah.

Cthulhu and some star spawn, I believe they would be, which are like many Cthulhus.

And then a little tugboat that was about to be eaten.

And then we've got some kind of bony dragons flying around the clock tower.

But the clock tower has some esoteric red markings glowing on it.

Maybe some sort of rituals going on up there.

Yeah.

So I'm saying, keep out no night bonds.

Boys of the Shell.

This is designed to go with any of their basic role-playing powered games.

So basically, I assume you can use it in Cthulhu and other games that they make as well.

I wonder if the book will have some guidance on making your own.

Because one thing about basic role-playing is I know a lot of people use it as a toolkit for creating their own worlds and settings.

So it's unlikely that it's unreasonable to expect one monster book to provide something if you've created your own setting I don't know, reskinning is always the first thing that you go for yeah but you know sometimes you're like actually I want I have a really clear idea of what I want and yeah, I would have to wait and see do we know anything about who made it, other than Keosian no I don't I don't know who specifically wrote it oh no it says right on the cover there I apologise it says it right there yeah it says it right there let me call up the cover again there we go, Neil Robinson and Jason Dural.

What can I say?

Your work was sufficiently distracting that I didn't read it.

You didn't notice the words, yes.

I mean, if you can get a chance to look at this cover, there's a lot of detail.

And I tried to do that.

Yeah.

It's the same as the basic role-playing core rulebook design, but that one's got a human stretched out and this is not a human.

Um was it uh davinci's vitruvian man sort of thing yes that's the one i forgot the name of it so i was holding back so thanks pj that's the one yeah i don't know when this is coming out other than it's soon they say coming soon but they haven't given a date yet does that mean crowdfunding are they going straight to they haven't mentioned crowdfunding doesn't mean it's not but they haven't actually said it is well i think they say it's coming soon i'm guessing, it's just going to hit retail soon.

I don't know.

We'll keep you updated, dear listener, as we get more info.

Right, so we're going to circle back now to something that I promised that we would do when someone told us off for not doing a deep dive into it.

Oh, actually, we're going to talk about Purple Dragon Nights.

We're not going to talk about Purple Dragon Nights.

I mean, you're welcome to talk about Purple Dragon Nights if you wish, but that's not what I had in mind.

Okay, what do you have in mind?

Do you recall, a few weeks ago, we reported briefly that the Mutants and Masterminds playtest for 4th edition was out.

I mean, it had literally been made available like that day.

And we basically said, this thing is out.

Don't know much about it.

You can go and download it.

It will cost you this much.

That was basically all we were really able to say at the time.

Yeah.

We did get told off.

We did get told off, not having presented a massive and in-depth comparison about the differences between 3E and 4E.

I i do i do wonder who is doing these comments like i mean it's like no offense but surely our regular listeners slash viewers know the this is a general news podcast like we we talk about a lot of stuff like yeah and there's there is literally so much stuff even with three people who have like a wide range of interest between us we we cannot keep up and cannot know yeah well i've got some I got some bad news for that person because this is not going to be an in-depth comparison between 3rd edition and 4th edition.

Because I haven't played 3rd edition, so I wouldn't know.

But I have played 4th edition now.

In fact, I've seen you run 4th edition.

I ran 4th edition, the playtest, on Wednesday night.

Nice.

And I thought I'd quickly do a kind of post-session report.

And this isn't...

This is not going to be an in-depth look at the system and the changes.

I have a million different podcasts, news articles, blogs, YouTubes out there.

If that's what you want, it's out there.

Go and knock yourself out.

That's not what this is.

This is just going to be a sort of brief kind of report on my experience of running it the other day.

All right, fully caveated.

Tell us all about it.

So, bear in mind, I've only played Mutants and Masterminds once before.

This was probably 15 plus years ago.

It would have been Mutants and Masterminds first edition.

Barely remember it.

Basically, that edition of Mutants and Masterminds was spun off the D&D 3E, the D20 rule set.

Wow, okay.

At the time.

I mean, it had very, very heavily changed.

When I say spun off, it's a lot more heavily, you know, it doesn't have classes and levels and, um, you know, it's very different.

Like Adventures of Middle-earth uses the fifth edition rule set because people...

I would say even more so than Adventures of Middle-earth.

Yeah.

And then, yeah.

Warping it beyond all recognition.

I mean, it's at this sort of point.

I mean, it's still the D20 system.

You still roll a D20, add your modifier, apply it to a target.

You know, you still roll initiative at the start of combat.

You know, all this sort of stuff is still there.

You're still rolling against someone's armor class.

They just don't call it armor class.

You're still getting feats.

They just call them things like advantages and things.

So, you know, there's a lot of familiar structure there.

It doesn't have hit points, notably, but there's a lot of familiar structure there.

All right, cool.

Oh, that confused the hell out of us.

And we, I was just saying in advance, we did it wrong.

We did it really, really wrong.

There was a lot of us playing this game and going, we're missing something.

This isn't working how we think it should work.

What are we missing?

And we realized near the end of the sort of three-hour session that we've been doing some fundamental things completely wrong with regards to damage and how characters took damage.

I'm completely wrong.

But hey, you live and you learn.

I learn by doing rather than by reading.

I now know that because I did it.

You see, I made that mistake and now it's in there.

Locked in my brain.

First edition.

This is fourth edition.

Fourth edition, the other night.

Oh, you made these things about fourth edition?

Yeah.

Correct.

It was interesting because Because I was kind of treating it like a quick start.

I was like, right, I've got this playtest document.

It cost me, what, $18, I think it was.

I can't remember, for the PDF.

Didn't have a physical hard copy because they're not out yet.

Because there was some kind of printer issue, I think, that was supposed to come out at Gen Con and didn't, or something like that.

But anyway, so I just had the PDF, which wasn't an ideal start for me, because it's quite, you know, sharing and flipping through a PDF on a busy game table is more difficult.

But hey, and I, you know, I'm not going to, you know, while I don't mind if people do that with my books, I'm not going to just send copies of the PDF to all the players because I, you know, I don't think I have permission to do that.

But yeah, but you do have permission to do that with my books if you're running a game, by the way.

But, or print them out or whatever.

But anyway, so I was tweeting it as a quick start And I would say it is absolutely not suited for that.

Right.

That is not what it's for.

It is for people who played third edition, the previous edition, and are playtesting fourth edition.

Very clearly, it is not designed as a quick start for someone coming new to the game.

Don't buy it if that is what you're after.

Okay, I mean, it does say it's a playtest rather than a quick start, but I am sort of...

Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Oh yeah, that's not a criticism in any way.

No, no, no.

I mean, but I would also have had sort of that expectation that if I'm buying a playtest, that it will teach me how to play the game.

Yeah, so, I mean, it's a player's handbook, basically, for the game.

So it does teach you how to play the game.

But not all of the game, not the sort of DM side of it.

Well, some of the DM side of it.

Anyway, let me get into it.

I was just trying to contextualize it so you see where my approach is coming from and why I had the experience that I had.

And I don't want it to feel like because it's going to be a little negative, unfortunately, but I don't want to feel that's the fault of the playtesters because I was using a hammer to do the job of a saw.

You know, I was using the wrong tool.

This is not a quick start.

It wasn't really aimed at me.

It was aimed at people who know how to play Mutants and Masterminds and are playtesting the next edition.

And that's where some of my difficulties came in.

I mean, the first difficulty I ran into immediately is that there is no adventure in there.

No adventure at all.

So I was like, okay, what do I do now?

That surprises me as a playtest, because...

But anyway, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

So I had to hunt around, and it took me quite a bit of hunting to find, because I didn't want to buy an adventure after having just bought a playtest.

That was just, you know, that was too much for me.

So I was looking for a free one, and I did find, and it took a bit of hunting, because it wasn't that obvious, Green Run did have a couple of free Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition adventures.

Not 4th Edition ones, 3rd Edition adventures.

One was a Christmas-themed one, and one was a Halloween-themed one.

So I went with the Halloween-themed one, which is this one, Monster Mashup, the Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition.

So I decided to run that.

I mean, it's a 3rd Edition adventure, so already I'm running into trouble, because I'm looking at stat blocks, and they don't match what's in the 4th edition book.

And therefore, I'm having to convert them myself without really understanding how 3rd edition works, let alone how 4th edition works.

So this is, you know, this is the obstacle.

Second obstacle.

First obstacle was there's no adventure.

Second obstacle, I buy an adventure.

Well, got a free adventure.

But it's 4th edition.

And I'm now having to convert it, despite not knowing how to play the game.

So as it is, not...

I feel like we gave Jessica a second edition classic adventure and said, oh, you just run this in 5e.

There'd probably be a similar clash of cultures and expectations.

I'll just be able to do that.

I'll just be able to do that off the top of my head.

But I'm familiar with C&D.

I'm not familiar with Monster Mutants and Mastermind.

That's the difference.

It would be clear I made stuff off the post to an accurate conversion to 5e if I was running from 2e to 5e.

Yeah, yeah.

But I very much do my own thing with adventures anyway.

I'm like, this is a jumping off point.

Yeah.

So that was obstacle number two.

Obstacle number one, no adventure.

Obstacle number two, the adventure, get an adventure, but it's only for third edition.

Obstacle number three, then you look at the stat blocks in the book.

Use the stat block for the police officer, Mutants and Masterminds Game Master's Guide, page 141.

By that, it means Mutants and Masterminds Game Master's Guide for third edition.

I've got to now buy another book.

Right.

Just to get the stat blocks for this adventure that I've had to get in order to run this playtest.

I now need to get, well, I now have to get the third edition Mutants and Masterminds rulebook just to get the stat blocks for the police officer that it's told me to refer to.

What?

How?

Sorry, I'm just being...

Okay, so the playtest is basically like a playtested player's handbook rather than having anything to actually playtest.

Yes.

Yeah, it's a playtest for basically the player's handbook for Mutants of Mastermind.

A hero's handbook.

Right, right, right, right.

Okay.

So I'll tell you when they're coming forward.

I'll give you the me, Russ, is what I have to say.

My goodness.

Yeah.

And as you can see, so basically, I'd be running this, trying to run this third edition adventure.

This sounds so critical, and I don't mean it to be.

I totally get that I am using it for a purpose it was not designed for.

I get it.

You know, and this is not a criticism.

I'm just trying to describe my experience, that's all.

As an entertaining anecdote, you know, rather than the criticism of the game.

It's the car crash that I was in.

Would you like to hear more about it?

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So it's a crunchy game.

It is more crunchy than I thought it would be.

It's definitely way more crunchy than D&D 5e.

I mean, if you just look at this sort of reference here, which is basically film land figments, which are some monsters that are in this adventure.

And this adventure had sort of some creatures coming from the celluloid screen, stepping out of the cinema screen and then fighting the heroes.

Yeah.

They're called filmland figments.

Yeah, sort of a Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but I'm more Cthulhu-esque.

So it looks like they're saying use the stat block for the police officer on this, but then there's, I can see at least eight amendments for it.

It's like, oh, but these additional things are also available.

I don't know, I don't know.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine changes there.

and each of those changes has parenthesis with one to three additional notes.

So that's 20 odd things crammed into that little thing there with which you have to amend the police officer stat block.

Looking at us as an adventure, I'd kind of want to put the film man figments in as a stat block on their own.

Yeah, yeah.

You know?

But maybe that's just me being lazy.

If you're going to make all these, I mean, I guess it's for reason and space, but yeah, I hate this layout, but I guess if you're, maybe it's just a convention they come up with, but it says a lot and.

I keep on trying to read it, I'm bouncing off.

There's a lot of content there crammed into a small amount of space, and each of those things you kind of have to look up themselves.

Or know.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, strangulation plus three, open brackets, close, comma, damage two, comma, fast grab, comma, improved hold, close brackets.

So you've got to know what all those things mean.

So I assume if you're playing the game from the noose, which for me, I would think that would be Strangulation.

That's a ranged snare three.

Yeah.

So you've got to look up each of these things.

So basically, the players had character sheets.

There were 14 or 15 archetypes in the playtest book.

There's got the blaster and the mentalist and the martial artist.

Yeah, power suits, you know.

Are these the same things as pre-gens?

They're pretty much pre-gens, yeah.

So they're pre-generated characters without names, just sort of like, this is the blaster, you call it what you want.

And a little section at the bottom with notes on how you can change it, customize it if you want.

But otherwise you can just use it as it is.

But basically it is a fairly dense amount of information.

Every entry on it is something you have to look up.

Very rules-crunchy in that sense.

So you've got, on that character sheet, you've got sort of like 15 to 20 things you need to look up to know what that means or what that does.

I mean, this feels like the sort of thing that Hypertext was invented for.

Do you know what I mean?

Like web papers or even tooltips.

You go over, it gives you a tooltip for everyone.

Not readily available in Dead 3 format.

So I mean, you know, if you're comfortable with a rules-heavy game and you're familiar with the game itself, You probably look at that stab block and it's really easy.

You know what fast grab and improved holdar and what damage 5 means or what range snare 3 means, all that sort of stuff.

You know how it works.

You know what hindered, stunning, dying, resisted by fortitude means.

You don't have to look it up.

Or at least you know where to light up.

Yeah.

You might even have a sticky note to help you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so that was an obstacle we ran into.

We constantly had to look every single thing up.

And that was just a real familiarity thing, obviously.

If we played a lot of Mutants and Masterminds, obviously we would know what all those things meant or where to find them.

It would be a lot faster and smoother.

So, again, that's not really a criticism.

It's just explaining the experience that we had.

And one of the things that we did is we completely got how damage worked wrong.

Oh.

Completely.

So, in the book, my first impression of it was there was this sort of diagram where it sort of said you go from hit to, I think it was staggered to incapacitated.

Okay.

Right.

So far, that sounds kind of Savage Worlds-y to me.

Yeah.

As in, you've got like different levels of damage and presumably these give you minor debuffs, is that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But this is our bad, because we didn't read it, well, I didn't read it.

I was running the game.

My fault.

Obviously, we didn't read it properly.

So, I was running it so that you get hit, and if you get hit again, you're staggered.

If you get hit again, you're incapacitated.

It's totally wrong.

Totally wrong.

We realized, in the last fight, in the last half of the last fight, when basically, one of the characters, the martial artist, was just completely ineffective.

Yeah.

And we were trying to work, that's why we were thinking, we're doing something wrong.

There's no way one of the pregens in this thing would be so utterly ineffective.

We're doing it wrong.

What are we doing wrong?

And then we figured it out.

You don't just go from one to the next to the next.

It has this degrees of success thing.

So for every five points by which you exceed a damage sort of threshold, you take the more serious one along.

But you can take each one multiple times.

So you could have like two or three hits.

Two hits doesn't mean you're staggered.

It means you've got two hits which stack on each other sort of thing.

So that's what we were doing wrong.

And once we realized that the martial artist suddenly was like, oh, now I get it.

Okay, so the martial artist now was able to defend things.

Okay, fine.

So that was kind of the experience we had.

I mean, we enjoyed it.

Don't get me wrong.

We enjoyed it.

I think we had fun.

It was, I had to win quite a lot of it.

It's a very, very complex game in a three-hour one-shot in a busy environment.

There was no way we were going to delve into every single rule in the book.

So a lot of it I winged or just, you know, just true on sort of GMing experience to wing and assume I knew how certain, I mean, certain things, obviously, it goes initiative plus two on someone's stat block.

You know how that works.

I don't have to look it up.

Yeah.

That's what I thought about the damage.

Oh, I know how that works.

I have to look that up.

No, I did have to look that up.

So, you know, assumptions and all that.

Yeah.

It feels like it was something that was quite attractive to you as a concept.

Yeah.

You do at some level want to do superhero gaming.

Yeah.

But I'm not saying I wouldn't use Mutants of Mastermind.

I would say I would not use this playtest document as a quick start.

That's all I'm saying.

It's not what it's designed for, and that's what we tried to do, and it didn't really work in that.

In hindsight, that's pretty obvious.

But to be fair, I cannot say that I would not have made the same incorrect assumptions that you did, that there would be a quick start.

Yeah.

See what, Mutants of Masterminds needs a starter box.

It really does.

I'd play the hell out of that.

I'm sure they have one for third edition.

I'm sure they do.

I think they might have.

I think they might have a quick start.

I don't think they've got starter box.

So I guess the summary for this is if you're looking to get into Mutants of Masterminds, the place to jump in is not this 4e playtest either jump in to the third edition quick start to try that out or wait until fourth edition is out proper for it but one of the other problems we have is very much a referential game where you look up one thing and it will refer you to two other things and you go to those things and they'll refer you to something else and we notice that particularly in the in the conditions it'll be like someone who is staggered is i mean i'm making these up now because I can't remember the exact details, but someone who is staggered is hindered and stunned.

Oh, okay.

So now I have to look up hindered and stunned.

And when I go to hindered, he goes, someone who is hindered is restrained.

You know, I'm exaggerating it slightly there for commuting a threat.

But, and that's not the exact right details.

It's just, you know.

But that's kind of the problem that we kept running into.

An awful lot of referring you elsewhere rather than having, whereas in 5e, which I do appreciate, is you look at any condition and it's a bullet point.

And that's everything you need to know about the condition is right there.

That I liked.

About 5e yeah and even that has some bits and bobs which often these are like a little bit of uh hallucination but yeah yeah yeah yeah something you know with the playtest document not having any monsters in it not having a adventure with it you know we were we kind of set up the fail in the first place we weren't prepared for it we were using it the wrong tool for the wrong job But I will say, I didn't dislike it.

I don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike it.

I think if they put out a starter box or something, I'll buy it, I'll play it.

I will.

So, it was a bit of a ropey riff ride, but, you know, you're not pushed off the system, you can see that there's a lot to learn, and it's got something that appeals to you on a fundamental level.

You're like, okay, I could...

I like a crunchy system, you know, I like a crunchy system.

It is a lot more crunchy than 5e.

Like if you're a person that thinks 5e is quite crunchy and you're looking for something simpler steer clear of this if you're if you're like me and you quite like a bit of crunch.

Then then maybe take a look maybe take a look yeah yeah i mean there's certainly lighter superhero systems i mean uh steve kenson who makes mutants and mastermind also makes icons which is a much lighter superhero system also he's pretty covered both ways, or you've got the Marvel multiverse well-playing game system which is out now yeah but I mean like I've probably got like two free books myself, like things I thought oh I should run superheroes before realizing I don't actually enjoy running superhero games, well the thing for me and I've said this quite a few times superhero games for me don't work as a campaign they work as a one-shot or for a mini campaign you know yeah, yeah it's a dip in, You think it's more suited for film-level experience than a miniseries or a TV-style thing?

No, I'd say more like a cartoon episode.

Okay.

Fair enough.

You know, an episode of The Amazing Spider-Man or the X-Men or something like that.

That's kind of my ideal dip in and dip out of New Year's Masterminds or superhero gaming in general.

I would do sort of like a two-to-three...

Episode arc or something, but I don't think I do sort of like a six-month game like you do with D&D.

That's what I mean by that.

Or Park Final.

Yeah.

And partly because the superhero genre isn't really about sort of like zero-to-hero advancement.

Admittedly, a lot of other role-playing games aren't either.

Call of Cthulhu isn't either.

Lots and lots aren't.

You start at the bottom and you stay there.

That's for Call of Cthulhu, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whereas with the Mutants of Masterminds, you've selected your power level for the setting, whether it's power level 10, that's the power level you're going to be.

You're not going to go from a peasant to a superhero, like you do in D&D.

You're setting it at power level 7, you're going to be power level 7 sort of thing.

You start off as 4 car, you set as 4 car, you start off as 4, you set as 4, absolutely.

But that's like, obviously room within that bracket, but very little social mobility between brackets.

Yeah, I mean, you do improve within that.

You earn power points and you can spend those power points on stuff.

But it's not enough to sort of take you up, you know, in the way that D&D does.

Understood.

Understood.

Yeah.

Hmm.

But that makes sense within the genre.

You don't see Superman leveling up, really, do you?

He's always basically the same power level, you know?

Which is...

Sometimes emotionally.

I guess.

Yeah.

I think you're doing a different experience.

It's not so much the power fantasy that is classless heroic fantasy with the D20 games.

It's more about the stories that you're telling and the hard ethical choices which I know it sounds very knobby of me but it's actually why I quite enjoy some comics, I'm actually there because I really like the moral and ethical dilemmas and like trying to, Trying to find the right path in a difficult situation is something that I find very interesting.

Exactly.

You have all the power.

How are you going to wield it?

And how are you going to deal with those consequences?

If Superman can fight the problem, Superman wins.

It's like, how does Superman resolve the situation without the power over?

Or you can just watch the latest Superman film where everyone can beat Superman up, including his own dog.

Oh, damn.

Oh, okay.

He's basically like, I don't know, he's like, he's, it reminds me of Rocky.

You know, like Rocky just keeps getting beaten up, but he just keeps going and wins at the end.

That's kind of what Superman does in the latest Superman film.

Okay.

So he's not going for Wolf, which was always a bit of a joke.

And Alien turns out, oh, how tough is it?

Well, it's just decked Wolf in one shot.

It always gets decked in one shot.

He never has a chance to show he's tough.

Yeah, the Marvel films had the same problem with the Hulk as well.

They just had everyone beating the Hulk up.

Like Iron Man beat the Hulk up, and Fat Noss beat the Hulk up.

And it's like, every time you want to show someone's tough, have them beat the Hulk up.

It's like, yeah, but can't Hulk beat someone up for once?

I mean, he gave Loki a beating, but...

That's true, and that was funny.

Yeah.

That was an iconic beating.

Yeah.

That was one iconic beating.

I approved of that immensely.

Yeah.

Beauty God.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

So that was Mutants and Masterminds play test report as it was.

I mean, you know, like I said, it's not a deep dive into the system, but it was one three hour play test of it, treating it as a quick start, kind of failing to do so, but having fun.

And my takeaway was I would play a starter set of it.

I would buy one and I would play.

Nice.

All right, I think we are pretty much, because there wasn't a lot of news this week.

Is that all we have time for?

Well, not quite.

We've got one last thing, because we've got a Kickstarter coming up soon.

We do.

We mentioned it last week.

We'll mention it again this week.

So the What's Old Is New, rest your ear.

We'll be hitting Kickstarter very, very soon.

Lots and lots and lots of monsters for your What's Old Is New system.

Someone in the chat, while we were talking about the Mutants and Masterminds playtest, Damien mentioned I bought Hypercore 2099 to do superheroes in Warin.

Here we go.

What a little segue into Warin there.

Thank you for that.

So, have we got a date, Jess?

Not a fixed date.

September is the current date, but the pre-launch page is up so you can follow it.

Yeah, yeah.

You can have a quick look at a couple of stat blocks there.

From the cyber beast section.

So you've got a cyber snake and a cyber spider there.

Well, wouldn't that be Miss Muffet with one of those around?

No.

Unless you were a cyber Muffet.

Little Miss Cyber Muffet.

Yes.

Even then, like, staying on her cyber Tuffet, eating her DigiCurds and, I don't know, E-Way.

CyberCurds.

if you want that that you know that particular cyber little miss muffet is not in the book but chapters four and five talk you through how to create your own thing from scratch or modify existing ones so if you do want one you can have one yeah it's just quite a, a really structured way like more so than say dnd 5e or something way of creating monsters so you can literally go through it and create a monster from scratch using the tables and numbers and stuff and get the entire monster rather than because the 5e ways kind of it's kind of benchmarks and guidelines and a bit of winging it isn't it it's a combination of those yeah 5e monsters, do not lend themselves well to systematic points based work yeah basically it's like you just have to eyeball it already yeah, what's the name of that stuff that they put at the back of a like sort of a backdrop but it looks like a house a green screen?

No I don't know more old question than that it's like it looks like a house but it's like it's like plywood on the other side a facade?

Yeah, it's like a facade.

I wonder what you mean, like on a stage.

Scenery.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sort of.

It's like, I can't remember what it's called, but it's like a facade.

It's facing towards you.

And then, like, you know.

Behind the scenes, it's just like all gaffer tape and Superbook holding it down.

Yeah.

And hopes and dreams.

Yeah, I mean, they work.

They work.

But, like, from the back end, they are not maybe the most mechanically satisfying and elegant things I've ever looked at.

Or What's All Does Do is a lot more robust in its mathematics.

I'm not saying D&D isn't robust in its mathematics, but if it is, they don't present that information directly to you.

Yeah.

D&D is benchmark and story driven.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To a target, whereas What's All Does No, you could create something and say well i don't know what this this is but oh i know exactly what this is i made it but like you're it it is what it is rather than producing a challenge rating x monster yeah well what's honest you'll sort of decide what challenge rating you want or it's uh dice ball you you want and then you'll select its size and you select a type and that will already give you now you know that it's a size titanic mechanoid.

You already have a bunch of stats already given to you from that because you look that up and you go, okay, well, it's got that strength and it's got that, that it's got that, and you set some abilities for it and things like that.

So, the various things that you select create the numbers.

And it's all quite robust and quite solid.

It gives a lot of consistency.

But if you see a giant spider from a wild, wild west, say, and then you have some mecha spider from 2099, there will be some similarities of form and function that you could anticipate.

They'll have different stats and the book will actually tell you what those different stats are.

And also you choose a role for it.

There's a number of roles as well.

So depending on what type of, what the goals, what the creature's role in the combat is, it'll have different stats.

So it's quite solid, isn't it?

So that's about half the book.

Maybe not hard, but a third of the book is creating and customizing monsters.

And the other two thirds is just lots and lots of monsters from all different genres.

Yeah.

It sounds fun.

And it's gorgeous.

It's gorgeous.

It's very, very pretty.

Yeah, and that's coming next month.

And that's it.

That's us done, I think.

Yeah, I think so.

It's the end of the show.

Sad times.

Indeed.

But don't worry.

We will return next week.

Yeah.

Whether people are pleased about that or not, I don't know.

But we will be back next week, whether you want us to be or not.

We will be back.

I'm pleased about it.

I'm a gem.

Yeah.

so we'll see you all next week thank you all for coming along thank you for everyone in the chat remember we're streaming live on Fridays 2pm UK time 9pm Eastern time on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook yes and tomorrow I am going to be doing a live stream at 3.15pm UK time which will be 10.15pm Eastern for a charity stream don't date your hex twitch.tv slash the8dungeon there's a full day of Twitch programming.

So if you find yourself with nothing better than you're like, I want to watch some quite talented people do some streaming, I can certainly recommend the early shows by the Dreaded GM.

They'll be worth watching who would like to be appearing as a player with me.

So there we are.

What's this?

I'll stick it in the show notes.

What's this show called?

Dating Your Hex.

Dating Your Hex.

And it's Twitter.

Dot TV slash D8 Dunton.

Yes.

Yeah, we got, we got Get Hex.

Oh, sorry.

It's called Get Hexed.

I don't know where I got dating you hexed from.

And the game I'm in is called You Can't With Us.

Well, there we are.

I'll stick that in the show notes so people can find it.

Thank you very much.

Fabulous.

And on that note, let's get out of here.

Let's go and do a weekend.

Goodbye, everyone.

Thanks for joining us.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Music.