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...

It's me, Jessica, from EM Publishing, and you will notice lack of hype in my introduction as we are minus a PJ coffee this week.

People having holidays again?

Don't understand this.

Well, they are allowed.

So PJ will not be here next week.

Are they allowed?

Yes, I said so.

But they will return the week after.

So we'll be back to our usual merry trio.

But because there's two of us, I think there may be less waffle this week.

It'll be shorter, I imagine.

I'm more concise.

And also because there is not that much news this week.

So we have less to waffle about.

Is that not fair to say?

I don't think that's an unfair thing to say.

Indeed.

hello if you're watching live with us and hello if you're listening to podcast if you're listening to podcast you can join us live as we record every week on fridays at 2 p.m british standard time, summertime not standards british summertime which is 9 a.m eastern and we do that on youtube twitch and facebook so you can join us in the comments or you can just carry on listening to whether you're listening to the podcast because we don't mind we're not your parents we won't come and tell you how to live your life or are we your parents i hope not.

I've already got a dog and that's enough effort for me yeah yeah same name um all right would you like to buy some dnd stuff i'm gonna need a little bit more information to decide well would you like to participate in an online auction for 149 separate vintage dungeons and dragons and some other vintage sort of 1970s rpgs like like original dnd wood grain boxed sets back from 1975 wow vintage rule supplements like like blackball the first ever campaign setting by dave arneson the co-creator of dnd along with gary gygax.

Classic vintage modules such as the tomb of horrors and such as steadying of the hill giant chief and the village of omelet a bunch of original art pieces and illustrations from older dnd books and some assorted bits and bases like gamma world faster's old dr who role-playing game the official indiana jones rpg which as we all know the indiana jones awards were named after, You can pick that up there too.

It's basically a whole load of stuff, 149 different items.

Mainly vintage, really old, kind of rare, hard to get vintage items.

Like these wood grain botched sets.

Of the original Dungeons & Dragons sets are going, like, the bidding's already started, the end on October the 16th.

I imagine they're going to be worth a lot more than they originally purchased for because I can see on the front covers one was $10 and one was $5 and I suspect, they will go for a lot more than that.

You will be correct.

I mean, there's still 20 days left on the auction and both of them are over five grand so far.

Oh my goodness, I'm out.

No, when you asked if I was interested, I'm not that interested.

I guess these are really collector's items because these are from, these are the original ones.

And if you, if this is something you collect and it's your hobby, then yeah, these are priceless, aren't they?

These are like, you know, Star Wars toys.

If you had them in the day and pick them up for $10 or whatever, and you've got them now, they've made, well, so far over 500 times that original value.

And it's going to go up more as well.

They won't go up five grand.

No.

Oh my gosh.

Wow.

So what's happened with this?

Is this like an estate sale for somebody or something?

Or do we not know?

I don't know the origin of it.

It's basically Heritage Auctions, which is a sort of like collectibles auctioneer house.

Okay.

So they do this sort of stuff all the time.

If you go and look at them, they've got other collections.

I've seen before like a sort of vintage James Bond stuff collection on there.

Oh, okay.

It's like genuine movie props and things like that.

And they do comics.

And they do all sorts of stuff.

Basically, if it's collectible stuff, they'll do auctions of those things.

I don't know whether this was somebody's, you know, giant house sale or whether it's a bunch of different people or what.

I don't quite know how that works, but they do tend to have these big auctions of like a hundred or more items all grouped together into a theme.

Yeah.

This is very cool.

So they're selling them all as individual stuff, but I can get the other one.

I mean, they're not all going for like five grand.

There's some stuff on here that's like 30 grand.

30 grand.

30 dollars.

Just 30 grand, yeah.

30 dollars.

30 dollars.

That fucking chain.

Let me just check in my pocket.

I might have 30 dollars in my pocket.

30 grand.

The sum's still only at one dollar.

You know.

What's at a dollar?

Quite a lot of things, actually.

Quite a lot of the modules, which you can pretty much pick up on eBay for not that short of a cover price.

Not all of them.

some of the Dragonlance modules on there and things like that.

They're not all super rare.

Okay.

Are you not tempted to pick up the Dragonlance modules?

Because you do like a bit of Dragonlance.

You've got them all already.

Yeah.

Well, it's good to know.

If you ever need to sell them for a dollar, you could.

I had them all originally, back in the 1980s.

Oh, so you've got the original ones still?

Yeah.

I wonder how much your collection would sell for, because in the background of your room, you have many role-playing games.

Yeah.

Well, the Dragonlance module is not that much, looking at this.

There's one going for $55 there, actually.

Oh, okay.

So maybe, I don't know.

So assuming the Dragonlance modules are $50, because they've got things like, you know, various TSL modules from the 80s.

Most of them are still going for about a dollar, but then occasionally there's one going for $300 or $600.

So it seems a bit random.

Well i guess it's an auction so if you know if you know the value or maybe that's one particular one that's really hard to get and if you've got if that's the one thing missing in your collection you might be like you know what that's worth 300 for me yeah i was 149 items in total yeah i don't think this is going to be for me though because i'm not a vintage rpg collector i i have very few role-playing games i collect to be collection items i usually use them and abuse them people listing will be shocked like i'll open a book the spine the spine will get cracked and the only yeah i can't really say the same because i know the only the only except well actually even my collector's edition of the level of advanced fifth edition which are limited edition and now running out i still use them like normal books i don't keep them i don't keep them for best that's indiana jones i have the indiana jones one so i'm going to look for it on this auction and see what it's going for at the moment so that's it is yours it also looks in reasonable condition okay condition yeah it's not well there's a rip there it's a little battered but yeah it's in for something that's been 40 years old yeah it's you know it's 40 years old which is considerably older than me yeah i was about to say did that get passed down to you from your parents or something because you're only 25 i am yeah so we'll check and announce modules there 60 for one $60 for one, $1 for another, $30 for another.

So they're not going for massive amounts.

But I'm trying to find this Indiana Jones one.

So I'm really curious now to see, as you asked, what my collection would be worth.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Well, somebody in the comments has just put $60.

And I don't know if that's them saying that's how much it is.

Or they're making you an offer us.

Could be the case.

Could be the case either way.

It's not to sell.

$60, yes.

They found it, clearly.

Yeah.

So this is going for $60 on the auction right now.

Okay.

But that's how much I expect to pay for a modern role-playing game anyway.

So that's generally my sort of budget for role-playing games.

Although my role-playing game budget has gone a bit awry the last few months, but that's fine.

Well, oh, there's a James Bond one going for $45.

I've got that up there too.

If you ever decided to sell your collection, I think you would make a pretty penny because just the sheer volume of stuff you have.

Maybe, yeah.

I don't know if you have anything that's...

How much would you be willing to spend?

I haven't got anything super valuable, though.

I haven't got any of these wood grain box sets of first initial D&D or anything like that.

No, no.

Nothing like that.

If I had one of those, I would sell it.

If someone was like, I'll give you five grand, for this role-playing box set.

I don't think I've got anything that you can't pick up on eBay.

No, fair enough.

What's the most you would pay for a role-playing game?

Like if, you know, one of these old editions.

Oh, for a technical?

Yeah.

As opposed to a new one.

Because I don't really collect them.

I don't know how I'd be willing to pay anywhere near in the thousands.

No, for something like this, I'd probably pay a couple of hundred or three hundred dollars quid for a box set but obviously they go for like five to ten grand so yeah but i'd pay that for a nice i'll pay that for a nice beetle and grim box set or something like we're looking at five to ten grand no no like a few hundred yeah they're like three four hundred yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Anyway okay well if you are a collector and you are willing to pay some of those prices or looking for a deal because you know what isn't isn't worth stuff i guess check out that estate sale, yeah i mean these box sets these um woodgrain box sets do come up from time to time they're not so they're not hyper rare it's like every a couple of times a year you'll see someone selling one but it sounds like these are in really good condition and it's by a proper auction house so it will be legit because you know sometimes you're sitting on ebay and you're paying a lot for it you worry that could it be a scam or you know yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i'd certainly trust this i'd certainly trust this but yeah i'm trying to think would i buy now i probably would pay a bit more for for a green box set i think just because that particular just that item though only yeah just because that is like the sort of original kind of fancy thing to have yeah what would i do with it you know just sit on you put it you put it in a display box somewhere so your dogs couldn't eat it that's what you'd have to do yeah in some sort of safe yeah because i wouldn't with special lighting shining down on it you know like a museum piece you could get a pillar like a spotlight and like this this sort of music choir music going to.

Every time you walk into the room yeah yeah i think if you're going to invest in something like that that's the least you should do, hmm yeah i'm not going to bid on that but good luck to whoever does good luck to whoever does there's loads of stuff on there i might actually sort of comb through it and just see if there are any bits and pieces that are on there if they'd like i think it's worth it if there's some things that are a bit cheaper you might find a little gem in there or maybe just a gap something in your collection that you're missing i think that'd be worth it i think i also think it's interesting to look through just from an rpg history point of view just that sounds like a archive but yeah quick question do they have the dallas rpg i did not see it there but it does not matter because you know who does have the dallas rpg you i wonder how much that's worth these days must be millions nothing no you have to pay people to take it yeah yeah please take it off my hands please all right i'll tell you what i'll have the dallas rpg off you if you give me a grand Wow.

I mean, it's a tempting deal, Jo.

Just to get it out of your possession.

Anyway.

Yeah.

All right.

So RPG history at the auction house.

Pick up something if you're interested in collecting said things.

Yeah.

All right.

We have some other news as well.

Unbelievably, yes, there is more news.

We have a trailer to watch, in fact.

We watched a trailer together.

This is the Critical Role Campaign 4 trailer, which was released just this week.

I think just yesterday, in fact, or the day before.

And then we've got a couple of snippets of news about Critical Role as well.

We'll do that after the trailer.

All right, let's roll the trailer.

If you're listening to this podcast, you'll hear the audio, and it's mostly talking, so it should be good to hear.

Here in the darkness of a jail cell marked for death beset by enemies on all sides i have only this to say i didn't get in nearly as much trouble as i wanted to, the wolves are at our door it's been 12 years since the end of the falcon's rebellion and the sundered houses are stronger than ever.

The Revolutionary Council, a shadow of its former glory.

Why do I say this?

To discourage?

To frighten?

I say it because my grandparents and yours defied the gods and saved their people.

What would you do to honor that memory?

Would you fight?

Would you die?

I have no intention of dying tomorrow.

But if I do, I'm glad to have gone down fighting.

I can still hear the Falcons cry.

Can you?

I enjoyed that.

That was a good trailer.

I'm having emotions, thoughts, and feelings.

How about you, Rob?

They have a lovely setup, don't they?

They do.

Gorgeous setup there.

I mean, that trailer, the visuals, for those who are listening on the podcast, was mainly just the camera panning slowly over the various players', faces and sometimes looking at some dice and stuff.

So, yeah, there wasn't an awful lot that you probably missed on the visuals.

But I think the voiceover kind of described the kind of setup.

And it's a very kind of, it's quite a dark and grim kind of feel to it.

Yeah.

I mean, this starting, just to give context to the story we heard, it is starting with the execution of the voice Brennan Lee Mulligan was doing.

And that's what the campaign is starting.

And I know there's, because the campaign is being done, there's like three different groups.

And I know one of them is like focusing on politics and intrigue, which I'm very interested in because I love an RPG that focuses on that and interesting because it is using Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition and doing a political intriguing game with D&D can be tricky, so I'm intrigued to see it so they've got 13 players and.

And apparently the first few episodes will feature all 13 players before they split off into the three separate tables.

And three separate tables were, I believe, wasn't it, a sort of intriguing one, an explorey one, and a combaty one.

I think different focuses.

I think that was the three focuses, if I'm correct.

But there will be crossover between those tables as well.

It's not like they're all completely siloed out.

So some players will cross over but the first is going to be all 13 which sounds like quite a thing to manage yeah quite the table but they're all there because of the execution of this person who's called thazig fang you say that yeah the jazzy the jazzy fang it's t-h-j-a-z-i yes the jazzy the jazzy fang but anyway fang is definitely his surname he's being this person's being his execution's happening and so all the players are going to be there for that so it sounds like it's the beginning of a revolution or a rebellion or something like that that's going to incite these groups to do their thing which i love the idea because i recently i recently finished watching and or and i i really enjoyed and or so and or and so i i think this campaign is going to have that feel like they're all working towards one bigger thing but they're all doing it in different ways i'm tempted to watch this because i haven't got into critical role before because there's so.

Much history and this is a reboot this is a nice reboot yeah a new world yeah so i can jump in and i'm not missing context yeah so this is the world is called araman a-r-a-m-a-n and um apparently like 70 years ago the gods got overthrown um i don't know a lot more about that there's some other conflicts and stuff going on but it's interesting the matt mercer of course is not the DM this time, this time around.

It is Brennan Lee Mulligan instead.

Which is why the campaign has this political overthrow the government vibe to it, because all of his games are always the bad guys' like the government or capitalism or stuff like that, which I love.

So it doesn't surprise me that it has this tone to it of like we need to rise up and rebel and overthrow.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit as a snippet, because they've been doing interview rounds this week.

And we brought it up on Ian Wood later today as well, apparently.

But they're doing the interview rounds this week.

Because there's a lot of stuff that people speculate and suppose, I guess, about critical role.

And they sort of cleared up some of those misconceptions.

Because people are asking things like, why on earth are they using D&D and not Daggerheart?

Do critical role get paid by Wizards of the Ghost?

All this sort of stuff people say.

Yeah.

So they've addressed that in some of the interviews.

Oh, what have they said?

So on the, do they get paid?

No, they've never been paid by Wizards of the Ghost.

Not been sponsored or anything or sponsored i mean they have worked with wizards of the coast on things like the exandria setting book and various yeah but that's always been very transparent because they're like we're collaborating and doing this thing so that's yeah yeah they've been sponsored or paid to do critical role itself or to feature dnd and the fact that this current season is dnd 2024 again they're not being paid by wizard of the coast to use dnd 2024, and the decision to use D&D 24, they're saying, was due in a couple of different parts.

But one was because it's about the comfort of the DM, how Bernadine Monaghan is comfortable with D&D.

Second was about the type of stories they want to tell, which they feel that D&D is more suited to this particular campaign than Daggerheart would be.

And first thing was, you know, it's kind of planned quite a long time ago.

It's not like it's a whim, a decision they made last week.

You know, it was planned quite a long time ago and long before Daggerheart.

You know, Daggerheart came out.

So it's not, it's not sort of like a, a sudden, oh, let's use D&D or Daggerheart.

What should we use?

What should we use?

You know, they, they'd known they were going to be doing D&D 24, like probably a year ago.

Yeah.

When they were planning this and setting all this stuff up.

October 2nd is when this will be launching.

Yes.

So I'm tempted to, that's only next week.

It's very soon, it's very soon, yeah.

Yeah.

And somebody said, is it available on Bacon, YouTube and Twitch?

It is Beacon opposed to Bacon.

I prefer Bacon.

If you're vegetarian, you can still watch it.

So Beacon is critical roles like streaming sort of platform that they have that you can, I think, I can't remember how much it is.

It wasn't a lot.

It was a few pounds a month for their streaming service.

then you can watch their shows whenever you want.

I believe they're still having the live streams available on YouTube and Twitch as normal, but it's available to watch live.

And if you want to catch up later, I think you have to use Beacon.

I believe is the case.

So if you don't want to pay for Beacon, you can watch them live.

So if you go to their YouTube or Twitch pages for Critical Role and look for October 2nd, they will have the video there that you can go along to watch.

I might do that.

Maybe that's what I'll do.

Yeah.

I mean, it's going to cost you like four hours a week or something.

That's the main barrier for me watching these things.

I would love to, but it's just finding the time.

I think I'm going to try and find some admin work to do that isn't, I'm not having to think about what I'm doing.

You can put it on in the background.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I can kind of go between the two because that's what I like using actual plays for as well.

Although it might be difficult with the political intrigue element in this one because I might look away for a bit and then come back 10 minutes later and be like, what has happened?

See, that's what I can't really put it on in the background because I just won't follow it at all.

And half an hour will go and literally nothing will have gone in.

And then I'll turn my attention back to it and I'll have no idea what's happening.

Because maybe it's just the way my brain works, but I focus on one thing at a time and that's it.

I can't do two things.

I can do podcast, like audio actual plays, because I usually put them on when I'm like cleaning the house or doing chores.

I have to tune them out.

I have to tune them out.

Oh, really?

Even if you're doing something really boring, like dusting or picking up dog poop.

All right yeah i can walk i can walk the dogs and listen to it because that's basically mindless oh yeah um but if it requires any kind of mental activity on my part whatsoever whatever's going in my ears is tuned out yeah oh one of the listeners has clarified and i should say because i was saying you can watch it live they have said these episodes are pre-recorded and edited but this will be the first time it's broadcast so when i'm saying live they're not recording it live in front of the studio audience it is pre-recorded so thank you for that clarification sorry that was a good point but what i meant live is the first time i broadcast it on youtube and twitch you can watch it without paying yeah yep maybe i'll i'll watch that so we shall see when is the second is that a friday uh it's a thursday they're usually thursdays aren't they critical say what i'll try and watch it and then next week i can tell you what i think okay sounds like a plan all right see you there all right okay so how much dnd stuff is there i again can you clarify the question you're asking very open-ended questions today russ.

All right how much dnd stuff has ever been made for all not just not just wizards of the coast ever i don't i can't conceptualize because there's thousands of new i feel like games coming out a year.

Official ones, not third.

So just Wizards and TSR, basically.

That's still a lot.

Still a lot.

2,000.

2,000 D&D stuffs.

Okay.

Does that just mean books or does that mean minis?

So I've got some stats here.

It includes books, box sets.

It does not include magazines, miniatures, dice, that sort of thing.

But it includes books, box sets, things like that.

I don't, I can't even know.

It's in the thousands, in the high thousands.

2,000 was probably too low.

Because if ever, since the 80s, I don't know.

Tell me, Russ.

okay well let me before we do that there's what edition of dnd would you say is probably, the one with the most stuff it's fifth edition been around fifth edition's been 10 years and how long were the other editions out for because that's quite a long and we're still in fifth edition because the 2024 is not a new rule set so it still counts the same edition so let's have a look so original dnd and basic dnd kind of overlapped and they were probably up until sort of like the 80s late 80s and a dnd came in that was about 12 years i think or something like that um a dnd 2e second edition was a little shorter i think it was probably about 10 years i think i guess and the third edition should have been 15 years because i've been 2000 to 2015 when oh no i missed out fourth edition didn't i so that would have been about 10 years of third edition about five years of fourth edition and then about 10 years of fifth edition so for me, so i might get those numbers started wrong.

I, it's between first edition and fifth edition then, and I'm going to go for fifth edition purely because the hobby has grown over time and maybe they can leverage that into more commercial products.

So that, to answer your question, Russ, I believe fifth edition would have the most stuff and or things.

Hmm.

You're being correct because it is dwarfed by second edition.

Duh.

Okay.

Dwarfed.

Ah, look at this.

So this is going back to 1974 wow so as you can see the second edition has nearly half of all dnd products ever made 44 that's wild why is that it's partly why people say tsr failed why it went bankrupt because they were pumping out so much stuff they had you know a dozen different campaign worlds, which were basically product lines, which were all kind of like siloed off and.

Like the individual sales on each one was comparatively lower because instead of having, say you have a thousand customers, they didn't have a thousand, they had a lot more.

So you have a thousand customers and you've got one campaign setting, then that campaign setting will set a thousand units.

But if you have a thousand customers and you have 10 campaign settings each customer on average is going to buy each one's going to sell on average 100 units because most people aren't going to buy 10 different campaign settings because they're not going to use 10 campaign settings are they yeah they can't so that's kind of why they say TSR one of the big reasons TSR fail because it just put out too much stuff and basically spread itself too thin.

But it's tons and tons and tons of stuff.

So as you can see, sort of second edition was by far the biggest.

I was so wrong.

Yeah, I was so wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fifth edition is only 6%.

I almost couldn't be more wrong.

It's actually the lowest.

Yeah.

Of all the wrongs.

Apart from original D&D, sorry, which is 1.1%.

Yeah.

Fifth edition is the second lowest.

That would have been the only way I could have been more wrong.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I was surprised by that.

I knew second edition would be the top one because I remember how much stuff there was.

Well, I wasn't alive back then, you see, Russ, so I don't know these things.

You were around in the 80s and the 90s.

I was around.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

Second.

When did third edition launch?

Third edition was 2000.

Early 90s?

Oh, it was 2000.

I thought it was early 90s.

I'm wrong.

I wasn't in the hobby at that time but i was playing hero quest um which is something that you're doing this weekend i believe it is i've got my nephew and niece over and they have been asking for two weeks for me to run some hero quest and we haven't had the time so i said okay this weekend so and it's going to be raining where i am all day tomorrow so i think the plan is to just stay inside and play hero quest a lot and the characters are princess spider girl and darren Is that correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you know what?

That's what they like.

That's fine.

Fine.

I'm not complaining.

It's Aaron, not Darren, actually.

Oh, well, that's totally different.

I know.

I mean, I feel deceived now.

I feel like I'm being gaslit about this HeroQuest game.

So next week, I'll let you know how Critical Role was and how the adventures of Spider-Girl and Aaron, Princess Spider-Girl and Aaron were.

I think I prefer Darren.

Darren kind of worked better for the drug.

But still.

I mean this yeah anyway let's look at this graph this is the number of average products each edition put out per year so you can see fifth edition puts out under 10 products a year but that makes sense to me like one a month is still a huge amount of products like oh yeah yeah absolutely and and that's worked incredibly well for them is the most successful edition ever isn't it, they figured out how to do it but how a smaller number of products and have everyone buy all of them rather than a lot of products and have some people buy each one yeah so look and look at second edition there fit like 50 products a year that's too many there's no way even as a mega fan you could keep up with that volume that's one a week yeah yeah it's just a flood a tsunami of uh of dnd stuff wow and even fourth edition was putting out a lot that's about 25 products a year so that was one every two weeks yeah and if it's all setting and stuff that must be quite expensive because you're paying so many different writers and artists and and how do you market all that as well you don't have time to market each one but before the next one's on you on you know.

Yeah that makes sense for what you're saying about tsr and that's why you know it didn't work out because it's just the sheer volume but i get why if they had loads of ideas and they wanted to get loads of stuff out there i understand the enthusiasm being like yeah we're into all these things and it's so great because in theory that sounds great but yeah well bear in mind this isn't even counting the magazines.

So Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, and Polyhedron Magazine.

Oh, gosh.

Three entire magazine lines going on at the same time.

Monthly magazines going on at the same time.

That makes it even add up even more.

Does that include Dragon Warriors?

Was that a magazine?

Only D&D branded stuff we're talking about here.

Oh, okay.

Only D&D branded stuff.

Official D&D branded stuff.

So not licensed stuff or anything like that.

That is so many.

It's a lot of stuff.

I've got another graph here, a set of graphs, actually, I put together.

This is all compiled, by the way, by Echo Hawk on E.N.

World, who does these amazing columns about DNA collectors' articles listing all the products to collect, the monster encyclopedia, all sorts of things.

So this is sort of per year.

I don't know if you can actually read all of that.

It's actually, there's seven graphs there, all quite small.

Yeah.

This is how each of them sort of operated per year, how many products.

I know this is on a different scale, because obviously the second edition one is a different scale to the fifth edition one.

Yeah, because second edition is on a different scale to everything else, because they were doing so much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is fascinating, though.

It really is fascinating.

Yeah.

But Ego also calculated the cost, because it was kind of like, it was how much would it cost to be a D&D collector?

So I don't have a slide for this, so i'll just read this out to you okay so if you were to buy everything from each edition this is how much it would cost you as it came out like so not not collector's price but yeah and this isn't taking into account inflation or anything obviously this you know something that costs oh yeah ten dollars then would cost more now in our day that would have been a hey penny, Mmm.

A hay penny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do actually remember half of these.

Wow.

I don't.

You don't.

We had a jar of them.

Anyway.

Anyway.

What?

Anyway.

So, original D&D.

16 products.

They were going to cost you $68.41 to buy them all.

That's not too bad.

Now it would buy, as we found out earlier, over $5,000 just to buy the original box set.

Yeah but 68 okay yeah i mean that goes to show how much less stuff there is there though yeah and also inflation so because like you said that's not that's not accounting for that yeah then we've got basic dnd so this was 129 products okay and this would have cost you in total $1176 to buy all of that that's feeling a bit more like real money yeah yeah because didn't the house cost 50 quid in those days as well, I don't think that's entirely true.

And a hay penny, sorry.

And a hay penny, yeah.

First edition AD&D, 146 products.

Probably cost you 1,136.

So in the same sort of region as basic D&D.

About the same.

Okay.

And then second edition.

Second edition's going to be wild.

I'm not ready for this number.

550 products.

550.

And the previous ones were how many, sorry?

Like 100?

146 for first edition.

Okay.

It was 16 for original.

Oh my goodness.

Sorry, you see that?

All right.

So yeah, the cost to buy all of the second edition, official first party stuff, not counting magazines, miniatures, dice, stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Just the books.

$8,374.

Wow.

And that was in the 90s as well.

And that was in the 90s, yeah.

So if you apply inflation, you know, you're probably talking like 25 grand or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You'd have to be a dedicated collector to buy all of that.

Yeah, that's serious.

Which is why, you know, nobody could really afford to buy all of the AD&D 2E stuff, which is why individually each book did less.

No, not at all.

No.

Well, there we go.

Yeah.

So third edition.

Third edition, 171 with 4.2K that you'd have to spend.

So quite a lot there.

Yeah.

They did pump quite a lot of stuff out for third edition.

So $4,200.

that would cost you.

Fourth edition, 135 products would cost you $2,800.

Okay.

And then fifth edition.

Fifth edition, 84 products would cost you $3,500 to buy all of the fifth edition.

Wow, that feels quite reasonable when you put it in those terms.

Yeah, I suppose it's only half what second edition would have cost you, but like we say, we're not counting inflation in that.

Yeah.

in real terms i guess it's only a fraction yeah well there we go that's really interesting thanks for compiling and i guess the full articles on eon world if people want to dig more into the yeah there's lots more graphs lots more data that you can dig into and you can add whatever else you want up on there and come to whatever conclusions you decide you want to i mean he's done things like worked out how much it costs per page per edition and things like that which there's probably bit more detail than we need to go into here but there'll be a link in the show notes and you can look up the fact that 3e cost you 17 cents a page whereas 4e would have cost you 21 cents a page and 5e comes in at 27 cents a page you know if you're that interested this is what i love about nerd communities is people do deep dives and do stuff like this i love it i love our community yeah.

That's how much D&D stuff there is.

Quite a lot is the answer.

And I was wrong.

I'm very much, we're only talking official stuff there.

Like in the 2000s, the D20 clock was massive.

Yeah.

We were pumping out D20-branded stuff.

And these days, 5e third-party stuff is massive.

Yeah.

I don't know how it compares to the D20 clock.

That would be a really interesting thing to do, to compare the two, get figures on that.

That would be a big data set.

I think the question is, do you count all of DM's guild?

Because there's a lot of stuff on there.

I think so.

There's an awful lot of stuff on there.

Well, I'm not going to compile that data because...

No.

I probably have not either.

Even whilst I'm watching Critical Role next week, I don't think I'll have time.

No.

It'll be interesting, though.

It would be interesting just to compare.

Because we did talk last week.

Was it last week?

we showed a graph about how did we talk about it?

I can't remember.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Probably if I tell you what I'm talking about then you can tell me when we've talked about it.

I'd probably do it that way around.

That will help me.

Why don't you treat causality in time as a linear thing?

That is how I experience that.

And do things in the order in which they occur.

Yeah, that's probably easier I think.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll do that.

Okay.

So the number of third party D&D stuff, yeah basically dropped off a cliff in 2023 okay it was going up and up and up it peaked in 2023 and then dropped off a cliff did we talk about that there was a graph and everything i know i put it on blue sky i know i talked about it on blue sky i don't know is that the the most sincere answer i can give you you can't remember whether we did i think yeah i might have just put it on blue sky oh fair enough i don't remember but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

But anyway, this is the case.

Yes.

And of course, there's two things that would contribute to that, I think.

One, that was the time of the OGL crisis.

So everyone was like, oh, I'm a bit too scared to produce 5G compatible stuff right now.

Yeah.

And it never recovered.

At least as of, yeah, we don't know what the second half of 2025 is like.

But certainly, as far as the first half of 2025, the graph basically was going up and up and up.

to the end of 2023, OGL crisis, and then it went.

The other thing was D&D 2024 being announced.

Yeah.

So I think that has two effects on the market, as there's two things.

One is customers like, well, I'm going to wait and see what Wizards is doing, and my budget for role-playing games is this, and I'm going to spend it on the three big, shiny new hardcover D&D books.

Sure.

So of course, the market for third-party stuff shrunk because there's a new big shiny for the, for the, you know, 800 pound griller in the room.

Yeah.

And the other thing was the publishers themselves were doing the same thing saying, right, let's wait and see what 2024 is because we don't want to put stuff out, which is going to be obsolete in six months or a year's time.

Yeah.

So I think those two things, the OGL thing and D&D 24 together combined to a massive shrinking of the third party D&D market.

Whether that will continue or whether that will reverse itself i suspect it will start to reverse itself um over the next year or two i don't know but i think you know i mean not that we want to share internal sales figures but we've certainly noticed that and from informal conversations i've had with other companies who you know i'm not going to say who um other people have noticed that too it's not this does happen every time a new edition of dungeons and dragons comes out And I know that it's not a new edition, ha ha ha thing.

Yes.

But, you know.

Well, yes.

But, yes.

But, yeah, this does tend to happen to the party market every time it happens.

So it's not a huge surprise.

I'm not shooketh by this.

I think Wizards' concentration on starter sets over the second half of this year might leave a little space for third-party stuff.

Yeah.

People who are sort of like, well, I don't need a starter set.

What I want is a new campaign set or an adventure or a sourcebook about witches or something.

I do want a sourcebook about witches, actually.

There are probably many, Jess.

I'll go Google later.

I'm sure there are many.

I'm sure I've seen quite a few on Kickstarter over the last few years.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

Well there we go stats and data good to have actual stats and actual data what else we got in the news right well the big news this week all right it's not big news it is news sort of piezo is a brand new stalker i realize game publish has new store platform probably isn't the most sort of you know the sexiest of dnd news but piezo has a brand new store coming they've had the old one has been around for 20 years 25 years and it was kind of creaking it was old old software so i don't know what was going on behind the scenes there or anything but they have updated to a brand new store um it hasn't actually launched yet i think but what they provided is a kind of previews and screenshots and previews of it looks looks very clean and easy to navigate yeah yeah i mean if you look at that that looks to me very much like a shopify product store page so I'm going to guess it's Shopify they're using that looks very much like our store for example the exact same layout which is Shopify and Shopify is the biggest platform, regional platform on the planet a lot of people do it and it's very customizable and very easy to use and has lots of plugins and you know it's always a good call to use so I think that is Shopify they're using.

If not, it looks very similar to Shopify.

Yeah.

Well, maybe a lot of those web stores look similar anyway.

But yeah, it looks nice.

It looks clean, easy to navigate.

Must have been a lot of work for somebody to do.

Yeah.

And they're sort of redesigning some of the layout as well in terms of categories.

So they're going to have a coming soon category on there where you can see all the stuff that's announced but not yet available.

You'll easily be able to see that.

mm-hmm there's a section which has been for called new to role-playing which is for people who just want to see all the introductory stuff like the starter sets the beginner boxes or maybe yeah i'm just i'm just getting into pathfinder just show me what i need to start yeah yes yeah yeah and then we've got a pathfinder partners section which is licensed partners Oh, cool.

By making, you know, licensed Pathfinder stuff.

Mm-hmm.

So I think, yeah, I think it's an improvement and it's probably been needed for quite some time because they were using old software.

Yeah.

As someone who has sort of had platforms and things which have gone on for 10, 20, 25 years myself.

I can very, you know, very much sympathize with that when you're using creaking old stuff that's probably been hacked and modified a million times to make it do things you need it to do and to keep up with the current trends and how these things are supposed to work and what customers expect of them.

And at the end, you end up with this hodgepodge of code.

And you think, we just need to start again with the right.

Held together with duct tape and chewing gum.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a stick holding up this corner.

Yeah, I mean, I can certainly say now for like EN world itself.

There's probably four different sort of major iterations over the last 25 years where, you know...

25 years, gosh.

Yeah, I know.

How the internet has changed in 25 years and how people use it.

And also how it hasn't in some ways.

Some of it is just exactly the same, especially in terms of conversations being had.

The arguments being had about D&D, the exact same conversations going on 25 years later.

Wow.

It's amazing.

You know, war.

War never changes.

Yeah.

And also, which is fine because, you know, new people come in, old people leave.

Just because you're seeing that conversation had for the conversation about whether hit points are meat or luck being had for the seven billionth time yourself doesn't mean that people are not having it for the first time themselves because, you know, they picked to have a starter set last week or last year and you know they're just getting into the online community and they're having these conversations about things that interest them yep very true it is interesting it is interesting well the new paizo web store looks good looks easy to navigate, yeah good job so it's coming soon i don't know what date exactly but they do say they're gonna go dark for a couple of days and they'll probably announce that yes yeah so are they gonna have other things like wish lists and and things about there that's nice foundry vtt kind of plug-in stuff pre-order stuff just the sort of stuff that the good one yeah cool sounds good looking forward to it it does sound good yeah good for them indeed you know i hear like famously You hate dice, don't you?

I do.

I can't stand them.

I won't touch them.

I'm afraid I've got to show you some dice.

Don't have them chained around my neck constantly.

I've got to show you some dice now.

I'm sorry.

You just have to steal yourself.

And it's not just one dice.

It's a whole load of sets of dice.

The worst, right?

So, Stranger Things and dice are two things that go together.

They are.

Because Serious Dice is releasing some Stranger Things dice sets.

Seven piece dice sets, the usual kind of one of each type.

And these are based on the main characters of Stranger Things.

So each one's got their own dice set.

So Will, Eleven, Dustin, Mike, Erica and Lucas.

Sure.

So it's the first one.

And you can see each one's theme.

So it's got like a little bicycle on it.

A walkie-talkie, a torch.

Cute.

Yeah.

So I don't know if you can guess which is which Because I don't necessarily know which is which I would guess this one With the dice, the torch and the walkie-talkie Is Mike Maybe Or the next one, this one.

This has an ice cream, and I don't know what the other two things are.

It looks like an amulet of some kind?

A demon head?

Or a mask?

A demon head.

Is it a machete?

An ice cream?

Oh!

Oh, is that Steve?

Because he worked at the ice cream.

He worked at the Scoops ice cream place.

And it's kind of an ice cream colour.

And he uses the machete.

Right, there you go.

Okay.

That's my guess.

Yeah.

Another set of dice.

I do like sets of dice.

Someone just asked.

Hey, just got here.

have we talked about the mcg cypher back a kit yes several days ago several weeks ago three weeks ago i think yeah one of those i think it was last week the week before we talked about the cypher back a kit so that people had time to go and have a look yeah but today yeah we normally we normally try and announce the crowdfunding campaigns when they launch so people have time to listen and go have a look whilst it's still live but yeah it is i don't know if it's going to do it the last time i looked at it which was yesterday it was on 800 grand it is approaching a million it's on the last day uh charles ryan from montecourt games said you know yesterday it's coming up to a million he reckons there's about a 50 50 pounds of doing it but what he was kind of proud of was the fact that very very few crowdfunders have made a million without being either 5e or a licensed product this is very true which is something i've pointed out a few times so So I looked up the exact figure on my, you know, I compiled the million dollar Kickstarter club chart thing.

Yeah.

Three.

There have been three ever.

Wow.

In the history of ever crowdfunders for TTRPGs or TTRPG products that have hit a million without being 5e or a big license like Cosme or Avatar or something like that.

Yeah.

Only three.

There we go.

So it's an exclusive club.

But yes but the answer to the question is yes we have talked about mcg cyber back in the day but it was three weeks ago so yeah but you can find that you can find that episode on our youtube channel.

And, in fact, I think the actual segment of it is actually pulled out and put in a separate YouTube video as well, if you just want that bit.

Anyway, but back to the Stranger Things dice.

Back to the Stranger Things dice set.

Like this one, blue with a wizard hat and a light bulb.

Oh, no, this is the kid that, I've forgotten his name, the kid that went missing in the first season.

Well, I think this is Will, actually.

Will, that's the one, yeah.

Will the wise in the D&D campaigns.

Yes, and he used the light bulbs to communicate with his mum when he was in the Upside Down.

Yes, I remember that.

Spoilers for season one, Stranger Things.

That was a long time ago, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Back when they were kids and they weren't 45, like they had.

Yeah.

All right, cool.

The next set, I see a Beckner hand on them.

Yeah.

Bright red, dark red kind of colour.

And then a grid like the drain.

Hmm.

I don't know whose that is.

I don't know whose that is.

Anyway.

Okay, cool.

it's been so long I've kind of forgotten a lot of Stranger Things I'm going to need a recap before the new season starts this year the new season starts next month I think so you best start watching now really, catch up I'm not going to watch it already Cain I'm just hoping I'm going to find a YouTube video which just brings oh that will exist someone will have done a summary absolutely, well there's some pretty looking guys so when are they coming out where can we get them we've got more more look at that, we've got orange and blue ones oh that's got the compass the hat and the little baby version of the demidog so that will be the boy whose name i've forgotten okay i don't know who that would be dustin dustin okay okay yep yeah yep a final set that's the slingshot binoculars and a bandana so that is the other boy whose name i've forgotten.

Okay this is a good podcast episode the names are will 11 dustin mike erica and lucas so 11 which one was 11's i don't know maybe it's the grid in the hand, maybe i don't know i don't know either but anyway there are stranger things by dice themed to them by serious dice when are they when are they going to be available?

October the 8th so very soon.

Okay I don't know offhand how much they are I'm looking at this I can't see a price but they will be October the 8th I reckon they'll be about 20 or 30 quid probably that will be my guess we'll see if I'm correct, it's always nice to have Ty and Dice they're nice.

All right, final news item of the week.

Oh, yeah, I saw this.

This is cool.

I'm glad you included this.

This is part of our third-party community for Level Up.

Mm-hmm.

And that is a dice.

That's not the one we want.

This is the one we want.

World Magic Reimagined.

And this is by Speaks and Spells Publishing, and it's doing really well.

It is.

You can play it with Level Up Advanced 5th Edition, but also Tales of the Valiant and 5th edition.

So it's very good for lots of people.

The secret is all three of those are compatible with each other.

Most things you can use with any of those.

I know that, Russ, but I'm just making sure the audience is aware.

Yeah, this is very cool.

But it's done $60,000 so far and it's still got 20 days to go.

Yeah.

I think it is predicting $96,000.

So it's coming in around the $100,000 mark.

That's great to see.

It's incredibly well.

It's like, yeah, that's astonishing.

Um it's their first first first project first ever project, $100,000 in your first project project we love from kickstarter i wonder what that's like we've we've only like made 60 and we've never had a product we love yes we have yes we have when, yeah i can point to some i can't i can't off the top of my head but we absolutely have we've never had one yes we have i am sure we have how much do you want to bet okay all right what is the bet okay.

Not money.

Something more fun than money.

Okay, like a dog then.

A dog.

If I'm wrong, you get to have Django.

And if you're wrong, I get to pick one of yours.

Do you really want one of my dogs?

No.

Anyway, okay.

For ego.

We'll do it for ego and I'll settle this.

We absolutely have a project we love.

yeah grant at bsb in the chat says the biggest a5b 3pp kickstarter launch ever yeah absolutely yeah absolutely yeah it's doing really well the world magic rearrangement i mean it does exactly what it says on the tin i think that's why it's done so well it's really clear yeah i mean it's very well presented as well yes they've done a very good job on that that kickstarter page sometimes you look at a kickstarter page and you're kind of either you're not 100 sure what it is or it all looks a little bit scrappy but this is very very well done it looks very polished neither of those things are true for this campaign it's very polished it looks very good yeah yeah yes i will be backing this i've got 20 days in which to do it but i will back this because it does look very cool nice i think that's the news this week the only thing would be.

To remind people that we have our own Kickstarter live at the moment We do What's Old is New, so the Bestiary is live, it's fully funded, in all of six minutes the first day which is great, so it is happening, but we are still going towards our stretch goal so that we can do an offset print run opposed to a print on demand version, and also another stretch goal for the core books, if we get enough of those for a new print run, we'll do a new pretty cover of What's Old is New Core Books so you can check that out there if you'd like to support us at EM Publishing and EM World.

I think is that that is that we're done all right we managed to do it without pj nothing's set on fire well done us and you've got some chickens to rescue apparently i do i am chicken watching this week and it's not gone too well we are one chicken down what no mention of bg3 from bob told me to do it in the chat can you think of anything to say about bgt uh bgt and that's balder's gate Baldur's Gate 3.

Baldur's Gate 3.

Yes, I can.

Everyone take a drink.

Everyone take a drink.

So, Baldur's Gate 3.

I don't have any specific Baldur's Gate 3 news this week.

No, sorry.

I saw something.

Actually, I did see something.

Oh, did you?

Because it was like something to do with Steam and I don't know what it was.

I'm sorry.

And I didn't make a note of it or include it in the show.

Oh, no, I do have something.

So there was a bug issue because i did an update and this is on the playstation version and i think there is a bug happening when you change characters that it stops you from doing something so it annoys your game so if you're playing in honor mode on playstation just check for that update um but i actually haven't played boulders gate 3 for weeks because i've been staying down i know i've been staying down here i'm in my alternate location i'm staying at my parents house helping them out for a bit and i've only bought my work laptop that that can't run games i just use it for live streaming and work and stuff so yeah you're having withdrawal symptoms here we go boulder's gate 3 new hot fit means it can run natively on steam deck i don't know what that means but that that is a piece of news there you go there's the boulder's gate 3 news of week what is steam deck i don't ask concisely and interestingly explain it to you so just giggle after the show, I reckon.

Let's go have a weekend.

Okay, fair enough.

But Baldur's Gate 3 has been mentioned.

There you go.

But next week, I will be back in my usual place and I'll be playing Baldur's Gate 3, so maybe I can talk to you about it more then.

And I'll also try and watch Critical Role on Thursday, so I'll tell you about that next week.

And I'll tell you how the adventures of Spider-Girl and Aaron went in HeroQuest this weekend as well.

But not Darren.

No, Darren's not invited.

I remember it is Aaron.

But Aaron and Darren, it's very simple.

There's just a D between them.

De Aram.

De Aram.

D apostrophe Aram.

Oh, this is getting ridiculous.

Let's leave.

All right.

Let's get out of here.

All right.

It will just be us two next week, but Peter will be back the week after.

As usual, we'll be streaming live.

If you're listening to it on the podcast, if you want to join us live on Fridays at 2pm UK time or 9am Eastern time, you can join us on YouTube, you can join us on Twitch, you can join us on Facebook, or you can just join us in spirit.

I don't know, in the astral plane or something.

Or you can just come around my house.

No, don't do that.

Bye.

Bye.

Music.