Doggy.

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

I am Russ, a.k.a.

Morris, or Morris, a.k.a.

Russ.

And with me this week is...

It's me, Jessica, from EM Publishing.

We are still without PJ, our usual third co-host, but they will return next week, so I will be back to having my usual hype person here.

So, you know...

I tried to think of something to say to hype you.

And all I could come up with was you look quite shiny today.

I do look very shiny today.

If you are joining us live, hey, hi, hello.

If you're listening to the podcast, you do have the option to join us and watch us live for the live video recording, which is on YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook every week, Friday, 2 p.m.

BST or 9 a.m.

Eastern.

And if you're watching now, you'll see my lighting has made me really shiny today.

I look like I'm made of, like, plastic or glass.

And I don't know why.

And we couldn't fix it before the stream happened, so this is how we live.

Perhaps you've been replaced by an AI bot.

That's exactly what's happened.

Like a Blade Runner situation's going on.

The technology's not quite there to make human-looking.

You're not quite human-looking.

No.

Uncanny Valley vibes going on here.

Yeah.

But it will be more efficient.

But because I'm generated by AI, I will sometimes confidently say a lie.

So...

And sometimes just kind of randomly glitch.

But I do that anyway.

Okay.

So before we dive into this week's news, we got an email from somebody.

I mean, we often get emails, but we got an email from somebody who wasn't just promoting something, which is us, talking about a topic we discussed either last week or the week before.

And this is from, I won't say his last name, but Jason sent us an email.

Jason Momoa.

Yeah, let's say yes.

Let's say yes.

It is Jason Momoa.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's just pretend it is.

It is, in fact, Aquaman and...

Like a visualise.

Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, we were talking about Critical Role doing D&D for their next campaign, rather than their own new game, Dagger Hot.

Campaign 4, which just went live yesterday.

Campaign 4, yeah.

And obviously, there's loads of speculation, and Critical Role have gone out and done a whole load of interviews and talked about it publicly, and we covered all that.

We covered all that last week or the week before or something.

So we don't need to, like, go into it again.

But Jason sort of came up with a theory.

Now, I'm going to caveat this with, it's an interesting theory.

I don't personally agree with it, but I thought, yeah, I'd share it anyway.

I'd share it as a point of discussion.

What I love thinking.

So Jason's a lawyer, a Dutch lawyer, in fact, and was talking about non-compete clauses in executive-level kind of employees at companies like Hasbro.

Who both Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford are.

Indeed.

I mean, I've had one in the company, and I'm not even that high level.

I worked somewhere when I was in board game manufacturing, and in my contract, I couldn't work at another competitor for at least a year after I'd left.

It's, yeah, it's quite common.

Although, yeah, usually at a higher level, it's definitely in technology companies, it's quite common, I think.

Yeah, and that's why, because it was in manufacturing, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But anyway.

So Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford obviously both left Wizard of the Coast and soon after joined Downton Press.

And Jason's theory is that there would have been a non-compete clause in their contract with Hasbro.

Now, obviously, we don't know whether there was or not, and there's no way to know.

But obviously, they immediately started competing.

And his theory is that, therefore, there was a deal made where Wizards would have agreed not to enforce the non-compete clause on condition that Critical Role, do another season based on D&D.

Now, as I said, I don't think that's the case.

I think it's an interesting theory.

Maybe it's true, but I don't think it's true.

Yeah, it's an interesting theory.

I think, I think it's just the reasons that they've already said, and a big one was comfort of the GM, because this campaign would have been planned so far in advance.

Brennan might not have been familiar with Daggerheart and been like, hey, I don't want to do a big public live streamed thing and do it wrong.

I imagine that is a big part of it.

And also, as we know as streamers in the TTRPG space, if something has the word Dungeons & Dragons in, you get so many more views and eyeballs on it.

Yeah, by a factor of 100, yeah.

Yeah, so I wasn't that surprised to see that's the case.

But yeah, I mean, who knows?

Who knows?

Yeah.

But anyway, thank you for sharing the theory.

Just because I don't personally think that's the case, I don't know.

I've got no way of knowing what's going on behind the scenes at either of those companies.

But thanks for, you know, it's nice when people write in and share their thoughts.

Yeah, good to know.

and if you're watching live and have thoughts you can share them here and we can do them in real time as well but, can we move on but as this is a news a news show and not just wild conspiracy theories on the internet.

Yes yeah as he says ooh conspiracy theories on the internet this could be a thing, yes no that sounds unlikely to me no everything's true on the internet but shall we talk about things that we know to be true and report this week's Tabletop RPG News shall we keep that going yeah go on then Feeling brave?

No, but...

Talking about actual news?

No.

You've played Magic the Gathering, haven't you?

Oh, I've played, yeah, I've played Magic the Gathering a lot back in the day.

I was really into it.

I went to Pro Tour qualifier and things, and this was like over a decade ago, but I was really into it, and I spent a lot, a lot of money.

Every time a new set came out, I would buy a box of booster boxes, and that is, you know, the big boxes they send to the stores, the retail versions full of booster packs?

I would buy a whole one of them so I could go through to try and get everything I needed.

Madness, madness.

And that was just my first wave.

I was really into it.

Yeah, but why?

Why do you say?

Well, can you tell me anything about Lorwyn?

The magically gathering world of Lorwyn.

I actually can't.

This is a new world, isn't it?

I don't know how new it is.

What I do know is that there's going to be a D&D supplement based on it.

Oh, there we go.

Well, I am not familiar with Lorwyn.

That wasn't in when I was playing.

Right.

No.

I can't tell you about it.

Sorry.

Well, this is the Magic the Gathering plane is called Lorwyn Shadowmoor.

And apparently one half of it is in perpetual day and one half of it is in perpetual night or something along those lines.

And this is going to be a digital expansion for D&D released as part of the Forgotten Realms book, which slightly confuses me because I don't quite understand, why it's part of the Forgotten Realms.

Oh, I know how So Lorwyn is being turned into a Domain of Delight Which is part of the Feywild And that is accessible via Moonshay Isles, Okay, so they're saying you can get to this place from the Forgotten Realms?

Yes.

So, you know, I can get to Wales from Southampton.

Does that mean that Wales is part of Southampton?

Yes.

Yes, is that the logic we're using here?

Yeah.

Okay, fair enough.

Look, I didn't design this.

I'm just telling you the news.

This is the tie.

You can access the Feywild via Moonshell Isles, which is in the Forgotten Realms, and Lorwyn is a domain in the Feywild.

The artwork has a bit of a labyrinth vibe to me i imagine they're doing the artwork from magic the gathering because magic the gathering cards the artwork has always been fantastic and they usually have different art styles depending on like the year or the lore and the series that comes out so i i imagine that this is just tying into that which is really nice possibly yeah i I mean, this is going to be the third digital expansion coming with these Forgotten Realms books, which are coming later this year.

So that's November, I believe.

So we already know about the Dampier species.

And we already know about Asterian's Book of Hungers.

A Starian, darling.

A Starian.

I'm a Starian.

My Bounders Gate 3 knowledge is clearly not up to bar.

But at least Foul Escape 3 got mentioned this week.

Yeah, if you're listening to the show.

Everyone can take a drink, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, if you're in America, I realise it's 9am.

Might be a bit early to take a drink, but do so nonetheless.

With a coffee.

So anyway.

Yeah.

Anyway, this is going to include two backgrounds, two feats, two magic items, eight monsters, and two new species.

And one of those is going to be the Rhinekin player species.

And I wasn't one of a percent sure what the Rhein-Kin was, so I've looked it up.

It looks a bit like that.

And it's an icy corollary to the Flame-Kin, which is also in the setting.

They look a little fey, like a humanoid with a load of ice and misty things coming off his hair.

So they look, yeah, cool.

And they've got blue veins going through their body, so I guess they're powered by ice and magic.

I guess so.

I guess so.

Cool.

Yeah, so now we know what three of the possibly four digital supplements coming are.

So Heroes of Farron is the main player's book, and Adventures in Farron is of course the DM's book.

They're both coming in November.

Then we've got the various digital-only downloadable content bits, which will be coming out on D&D Beyond, including Astarian's thing and the Dampier and of course this Magic the Gathering Lauren Shadowmoor crossover yeah so we so one of the physical books for next year won't be a Magic the Gathering crossover because they're doing this digital supplement instead yeah yeah okay yeah in the chat Rae versus the world asked shouldn't Mr Ed Greenwood have some say on this I doubt Ed Greenwood gets a lot of say on much of what Wizards does for the Forgotten Realms these days.

I imagine possibly he works with them occasionally and has called in with bits and pieces.

But generally speaking, I think he's doing his own stuff, including, I believe, he's done some Forgotten Realms expansions on GM's Guild himself.

Just because anyone can.

So he might as well be a creator of the Forgotten Realms.

But I don't think he really gets consulted every time they do something with the Forgotten Realms.

I could be wrong maybe he does I don't know we don't know his life we don't we don't but we do know we do know he's got a wonderful wonderful library oh yeah, he's posted it on social media on Facebook a couple of times or more than a couple of times I'm assuming in his house it's got a proper walk around library room.

That's the dream isn't it I know it looks amazing it looks amazing but hey, anyway we got a lot of a lot of this week's news is going to be a D&D a lot of it oh let's just keep on going then what else have we got coming up in D&D okay well we got an Earth Arcana.

The Scion class has been updated again with the new Anna Darkhana, along with artwork, which features someone who I think looks more like someone out of Star Trek, to be honest, without glasses and a laser beam.

But that is a Scion.

Fair enough.

I haven't read through the Scion playtest.

Is there a quick overview?

There is.

So on D&D Beyond, there is a quick overview, and I can quickly go through some of it.

Yeah, just some bullet points, because I know we've already seen the Scion class, So this is just another update tweaking it further, isn't it?

Well, this is another update.

So they've been playing around with the Scion class for a year or two now.

I mean, that makes sense.

Scion classes are difficult to do because you want to make them distinct from magic and be their own thing, which is really hard to do in a fantasy setting.

So I understand why they're taking their time with it.

If only there was a sort of D&D compatible book, book which contained a full Scion class with unique Scion powers and abilities that you could buy and use with your D&D game or a level up A5D game right now.

Are you doing a shameless plug for the Voidrunners Codex which is shipping out to backers right now?

Yes, I am.

Yes.

It has two Scionic classes, in fact.

It has the Scion and the Psychic Warrior type.

I've totally forgotten the other one's name.

The Scionite?

The Scionite, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

If you back that, they are going out now.

If you check the Kickstarter updates where you are in the world, they're going out in different phases, subject to customs.

But anyway, let's not talk about that, because we're here to talk about the week's news.

We're here to talk about the actual scion from Wizards of the Courage to their beta.

Tell me what the updates that, because I know last time there were like energy dice and there were some things that were like spells.

Yeah.

They've made some changes to scionic energy dice.

So scionic energy dice are used to power a number of abilities and you might roll the dice to see what that ability does.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and the amount of power you might be able to do with it and you expand the dice.

They work a little bit like hit dice and you can expand them and roll them.

I like that addition because it makes it, yeah, I like that.

Yeah, so they've changed that a little bit.

So telepathic propel and telepathic connection were two of the sort of basic features you got early on in the class and you had to use psionic energy dice to use them.

Okay.

What they've done now is you get a free use of them without expending the psionic energy dice.

So you can always at least once do a telepathic repair or a telepathic connection, just as a base level ability of being a psion.

Even if you're out of dice.

I'm guessing that's falling out of playtesting where some people maybe felt frustrated they weren't getting to do the cool thing.

So, all right, okay.

Yeah, I mean, they're saying they got a lot.

I say a massive amount of player response and that's why there are some quite substantial changes here to the scion.

Okay.

So that's the thing.

So the scionic energy dies, some of the stuff you don't now have to spend them on.

Also, they're easier to regain.

So the scionic restoration feature, which is kind of like a short rest, to regain your hit dice thing.

It was the version of that, the Sionic Energy Dice.

Beforehand, you got half of them back.

Now you get all of them back when you take a short rest.

That sounds better.

That feels more fair because it feels more like combat manoeuvres for like a fighter than you get all of them from a short rest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

That sounds cool.

I will see if there's another iteration of the Sion at some point.

Oh, there's lots more to talk about yet.

Oh, really?

Okay.

I was rushing you.

You took down the image and I thought we were done, but carry on.

I only took down the image because I wanted to check and see if, this is a little peek behind the scenes, at the same time while I was talking, I was working, and I was checking to see if we had another image from the Scion to flash up there.

And I didn't want to just scroll to the next one without checking first, because then we'd get the wrong image flashing up.

So you're going to take it down, then look.

And then switch to view.

It's complicated.

That's fine.

I'll teach you how to do a quick view in a simpler way later, but off-screen.

Carry on.

Anyway.

No, I'll put the image back, so we know you're definitely talking about the psion.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I need the visual cue, you see.

Okay.

Fair, fair.

Right, so what else have we got?

So the psionic mode that was in the previous iteration, there was an attack mode and a defense mode, and the attack mode basically made your psionic attacks better, and your defence mode made your sign of defence is better.

They have been cut.

They're no longer there.

Apparently, the feedback folder added too much complexity, too much of a limited-use feature that had to be tracked, and not enough benefit for that effort.

Okay, fair enough.

So they've cut the psionic modes.

But some of the elements of the psionic modes, which scored well, have been adapted into some of the new features.

So apparently the psychonetic and telepath, the options in those subclasses, some of those sort of attack and defense options have been folded into some of their features instead.

Fair enough.

So, yeah, fair enough.

I quite liked the look of the signing modes, but I didn't actually play text to class, so I can't tell you how it played at the table.

So it might be one of those things that looked quite good in text, and then when you actually get it to the table, it's just a little bit too fiddly, a little bit too much complexity, maybe.

I don't know.

And that in response to Damien's comments, he said psionics have always been fairly awful for D&D.

And yeah, I think it's one of those things, like I said at the beginning, that's really hard to do in a fantasy setting well.

So I understand.

Yeah.

But I think what the psion still has a problem in my mind in that it uses spells.

Yeah.

Which is the thing that doesn't distinguish it enough.

It makes it into just like the sorcerers, another type of spellcaster, and a warlogger.

Because, you know, one of them's got spell points, one of them's got spell slots, this one's got sarnic energy dice, but they're all just ways of casting spells, plus a few other features, flavoured features.

And I think that's the problem, that it is essentially a spellcaster.

Yeah, it's not its own thing.

And I think, yeah, but I also get why they're giving them access to the spells because it's like using the structure that's already there.

Yeah, you want a psionic to feel.

But I wouldn't go to D&D to play a psionic anyway because I'd want that in a sci-fi setting.

But that's kind of neither here nor there.

Yeah, but I think that's kind of a preference thing, I suppose.

Yeah.

I guess.

I mean, I get people wanting different flavors of magic in their D&D.

You know, if you read different novels, fantasy novels, they all have vastly different flavors of magic in them.

Yeah.

And you want to be able to replicate that.

And that is why I'm not so mad at the Warlock, Sorcerer, and Wizard, because the main difference for me is their relationship with magic.

Like, Wizards is an academic, Sorcerer is like, oh, it's innate within me, and Warlord is like, have a magic sugar daddy.

So, you know.

It is exactly that, magic sugar daddy.

That's what it is.

I'm not disagreeing with you, you're correct.

That is exactly what it is.

I know I'm correct.

No one was questioning me.

But anyway, and the Scion is brain-powered.

Yeah.

I mean, because I associate Scionics with things like Babylon 5 and stuff like that, and Star Trek, with the Vulcans of Scionic abilities and things like that.

So they always have been sci-fi-esque in my mind.

But I think it's important to remember that you're going back, even as far as AD&D first edition, Scionics were in there.

It's not like a new thing.

It's been baked into D&D for a very, very long time.

Yeah.

Admittedly, in first edition, it was more of an afterthought because it was in the appendix.

But, and gentlemen, it wasn't a class.

You had, like, you could roll a D100, and if you roll a 00, your character had a Psyomec ability.

Which is kind of weird.

So any character could have psionic ability just if you rolled 0-0 on D100.

Yeah.

I mean, someone in the comments has commented, Raya said that they had psionics in 3rd edition and 3.5, and psions felt really overpowered.

So it's interesting to see how they play in 5th edition and hopes it's not just overpowered.

Because that is no fun if one class is really overpowered.

It's not fun for anyone.

Yeah, like I said, my preference is that it's sci-fi, but I don't have a problem with it.

Being available in fantasy settings if that's what people want to do but then i guess a lot of people use 5e for different settings so some people say i'm going to do a sci-fi themed game but i'm going to use the 5e engine so and then you've got those tools there to do that yeah i guess yeah just going back to the scion itself then so the scion spell list itself has got a big update it's got access to a lot more spells with updated versions of spells from previous books, which it didn't have before in the playtest document.

Oh, okay.

So just the spell list has gotten bigger.

Nice.

And also there's some brand new spells that have been added as well.

Seven of them.

I don't have them in front of me, unfortunately, but there are seven new brand new spells that have been added to this list also.

And then we've got some changes to the three subclasses, the metamorph, the psychonetic, and the telepath.

And they've all got updates as well.

That makes sense.

They've all got updates as well, yeah.

Yeah, like the Psychonetic has a feature at level three called Stronger Telekinesis.

And basically, it can use Mage Hand, which obviously is a spell, cantrip, but at a longer range and can carry up to 20 pounds.

So basically, it's enhancing the sort of telekinetic spells that it can use.

Okay.

The Telepath has a greater basic range of telepathy and things like that.

And it is like telepathic distraction and things.

So they've all had various tweaks and additions.

So the changes for the Cylon have been quite significant, I think.

It's not tweaks of this here.

It's quite a substantial redesign.

Yeah.

Well, that's on D&D Beyond if people want to download it and check it out.

So if they want to read more detail.

But those are the highlights.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There will be a link in the show notes.

You can go and check that out.

Fabulous.

Okay.

Now the picture disappeared and you can safely know we are no longer talking about the Cylons.

Oh, thank goodness.

What shall we talk about next, then?

More Dungeons & Dragons?

Oh, let's talk about Dungeons & Dragons, shall we?

Just to make a change.

Okay, great.

Well, we got...

All right.

All right.

So, the starter set, the D&D starter set.

Some of the criticisms of the starter set that I've seen online in reviews have been that it's very much a sandbox-y set and doesn't really have any core plotline or adventure in it.

Oh, really?

which is what the original adventures it was based on, Keep on the Borderlands and that lot, were all, yeah, that's what they were.

Okay.

So, you know, it's a sort of accurate take on how that was presented back in the day.

Basically, it is a sandboxy thing.

It's got a few little plot threads and plot hooks and things like that, but there isn't like an overall adventure arc in there.

You can go off and do this or you can go off and do that and things like that.

So Wizards of the Coast have responded to some of that criticism Justice Arman in particular from Wizards of the Coast has posted an article providing guidance on how to run Heroes of the Borderlands as a more traditional adventure, which I thought was interesting so it includes some extra sort of boxed text you can read out, to some guide players along in an adventure like format and some additional sort of guidance and advice and guidance on how to emphasize the cult of chaos, as the sort of antagonist, the big bads of the adventure.

Previously, the overall plot was kind of left for the players and the GM to sort of come up with on their own, in a sense, because it was sandboxy.

There were narrative threads in there, but it wasn't presented as a you know, this is the plot of this adventure thing.

Do you think the starter set is designed for GMs who know the system more, but to welcome new players into it?

I would say, yeah.

Because it feels like that vibe from the reviews I've seen.

And I've not got a copy myself, so I'm not giving a review here.

But obviously it's out now and the reviews are coming in.

Yeah.

I mean, it's generally gotten a pretty positive response.

There have been some criticisms that maybe it isn't as newbie friendly as maybe a starter set should be because A, it doesn't do that.

Some people have said, and I don't think this is entirely true, some people have sort of said it doesn't very well tell you how to play the game.

And one, I agree, it doesn't have the entire player's handbook in it.

It does have a booklet in there of game rules telling you how to play the game.

Yeah.

For me, when I looked at it, I thought this would be a really nice tool for onboarding people into Dungeons & Dragons.

So if I was a long-time GM and I wanted to get some new players to the table because of how it works with all the cards and the slots, it makes it very accessible for players.

And I also thought it would be great if you're doing a kids after school club, if you're like a teacher or some sort of youth worker.

It looks ideal for that sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think as long as you know what it is you're buying.

But anyway, sorry.

One of the things that this article does is it kind of presents like a sort of eight-point timeline on how to run it as a plot strand with some box set designed a sort of link and pull people in from one bit of that timeline to the next.

So number one is like set the scene and it's got some box sets and it says number two, start with the wilderness booklets, begin in region one, do this, run these encounters.

Number three, arrive at the keep, this happens, you know.

Yeah.

So it kind of presents the sandbox setting and then it basically says, okay, do the sandboxy bits in this order using this box set to link, the box text to link these bits.

And then you've kind of got a plot-like adventure.

I think that's the best way.

I don't know if I've described it very well there.

That's the best way.

That's kind of how it's presented.

What you said made sense to me, so yeah, fair enough.

All right, well, that's good.

I mean, the bit of feedback some people have given, they've responded to and given more tools to people to help them out.

Fair enough.

Sounds good.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, so that was D&D.

What should we do next?

More D&D.

Let's listen to more D&D.

All right, then.

So last week, we talked about how much D&D stuff there was.

Oh, yeah, we went through all that interesting data about all the different editions and how many different books there were officially from TSR and Wizards on the Coast.

Do you have more data for me?

I do.

So this is based on an article on Ian Ward by Echo Hawk, who does a lot of D&D character series-type articles and dives into these things in great detail.

It's basically collected pretty much every D&D product and catalogued every D&D product ever.

And all of this backwards.

And obviously likes making graphs and spreadsheets.

Yeah, who doesn't?

A perfect storm.

Perfect storm.

And last week we talked about how many products each D&D additions.

Had produced and we saw very clearly on those graphs that the indie second edition was by far the most prolific edition when it came to dnd products and dnd fifth edition was surprisingly low only like six was like six percent or something very very low i was completely surprised because you asked me to guess which one was the most and i said fifth edition and i couldn't have been more wrong you couldn't have been yeah well well you know the the next the next section we've got echo hawk has written a second article and there's going to be a third one next week as well this is quite a good little ongoing segment we can do at the moment um so this second one is all about the settings the dnd settings over the years okay of which there have been many indeed yes yeah so, basically exactly the same approach looking at how many products have been brought out for each one how much they cost the paid accounts all this sort of stuff to work out what is the most not the most popular setting because that's sales figures but the most, supported I guess setting yeah so this is D&D part two settings, and points out initially that the number of official D&D settings is depends on who you ask, okay if you go to Wikipedia it says there's 27 right if you go to the Piazza which is an online D&D community there's apparently 48.

So is this because they're using different definitions of what setting means?

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah.

I mean some of them for example is.

A sub-setting within the Forgotten Realms, another setting, or is that just the Forgotten Realms?

So who knows?

But what we're doing here is, although there's a lot of them and some of them are quite small, like Jack Andor and things like that, Echo Hawk is brought it down to the 12 biggest ones over the years, just to make this manageable.

I mean, I recognize a lot of those old settings and I have never even played a lot of the old ones, so, yeah.

Well, here we've got, so we've got Greyhawk.

We have Dragonlance, my favourite.

I have played that.

Forgotten Realms.

God, that can't be popular, though.

No, I can't think there'll be many, many, many products for that.

Spelljammer.

Yep.

We've got Ravenloft.

Which they return to, yeah.

Yeah.

We've got Dark Sun.

Are they planning on returning to Dark Sun?

We had that.

We think they are.

There's been hints.

Yeah.

Speculated.

That's the one I think.

There is the Cyanix, Unarthricana, because Cyanix is a feature of Dark Sun.

So that was very much a hint towards Dark Sun.

And there's another Unarthricana recently which had the defiling magic.

Do you remember?

Yeah, but we haven't officially...

With all the environmental stuff.

Got it, I'm back on drop.

They haven't actually announced it, but we are with context.

Yeah, we're pretty sure Dark Sun is coming next year.

Okay, cool.

Which makes sense, because they did spell Jammer, and they did...

Exactly the same pattern, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and also we've got Al-Kadim, we've got Planescape, we've got Birth Away, we've got Everyone's, we've got like 12 settings there.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, so, so, so, we're going to go through some of these, not all 12.

Okay.

So let's start.

This is Greyhawk.

This is the first TSR-produced setting.

No, it wasn't the first TSR-produced setting.

It was the first TSR-produced Greyhawk supplement, which was called Supplement 1 Greyhawk.

And we've got a graph here which shows how much Greyhawk stuff has come out over the years.

What's interesting about these graphs is you can see where the big daps are and when they were produced.

So some of them you'll see that there's a couple of things back in the 1970s in a big dap and then something in the late 2000s or you might see that something's been like constantly supported for 30 years yeah or there's a couple of big spikes or something like that so it's the patterns that are really interested here so this is greyhawk i have a question though because in the charts it's showing the difference between folio soft covers hard covers and box sets what's the difference between a folio and a soft cover a folio i think is you've got like a cardboard out a thing.

It's not like a slip case because it's kind of like a cardboard thing that closed like that and then it's got stuff inside it.

Okay.

Like a paper book inside it.

Okay.

Because they've done a lot more of them.

Yeah.

That was a popular format back then, I guess.

In the day.

Looks less popular in the future, yeah.

So, Gregor, 42 products.

Okay.

In total.

There are two this week in these and if you want to look at those, there will be a link in the show notes, you can go and look at the actual graphs.

There's a list for each one, which we're doing, and there's also an expanded list, which will often up to double the number of products for each one.

But we're not going to include those for now.

Okay.

We're just going to look at the major officially produced stuff.

So, 42 products for Greyhawk, mainly stacked, as you can see, in the late 80s, early 90s.

It was from the big sort of Greyhawk boom was with a sprinkling of stuff before that in the 70s and early 80s and almost nothing since.

Yeah.

So that's Greyhawk.

Next one we have is Dragonlance, my favourite.

As you can see, was very, very, very popular in the mid to late 80s and up to the early 90s.

This graph looks a lot more populated than the other one.

Like you said, it's pretty consistent stuff going on between 84 up to 2000.

Yeah, you can see the scale on the left.

So it's gone from zero to eight on these.

Not all of them will, because some of the product lines are just on a bigger scale on the amount of stuff that's been introduced.

But these are going from, so like on Track & Answer at its peak, which was in, what was that, 1998?

98, is that?

Yeah.

There were, what, seven products produced in that year, as you can see.

Cool, okay.

So Track & Answer, very, very popular for a long time, and then just stopped dead, basically, around 2000.

Basically, around the time third edition came out.

Second edition ends, third edition comes out, drag-down stops dead, apart from a brief revisit recently in the last couple of years.

Yeah.

All right, cool.

One product.

Two products, one product.

All right, person in the world says, don't folios go into binders?

Do they?

Maybe they do.

Maybe they do.

Maybe I'm not defining folio correctly.

I don't know.

Who knows?

Nobody knows.

There's no possible way to know these things.

It is a mystery.

I'll Google it.

You could just look it up, but that sounds far too much like...

No.

Tell me about other settings.

Yeah.

Well, Dragonheart 69 products, by the way, in total.

Okay.

Okay.

We've got it around.

This is a much more consistent between 87 and 2023, and the scale is bigger, so the scale goes to 15.

The scale is twice the size as well.

As you can see, Forgotten Realms has been basically supported constantly since the mid-1980s at about twice the rate of anything else.

Yeah, that is...

Coming down.

193 products in total.

And that makes sense, because that is like the default setting, isn't it?

So it's, yeah.

I'd say.

I mean, no, Wizard of the Coast and Assist is not.

Okay.

It's also not a new edition, isn't it?

It's also, D&D 24 is not a new edition and Forgotten Moments is definitely not the default setting.

Okay, cool.

I haven't got that clear.

What's next?

Next, I took four of the others and went them onto one single chart.

Because these are all stuff that was from like the 80s and 90s.

Can we zoom that in into full screen just so we can see it a little more clearly?

Absolutely.

Is that possible?

Yeah, we've lost the tops now, so we don't know which is which.

So we've got Ravenloft, we've got Planescape.

What were those two top ones?

On the left, we have something, and the one on the right is Dark Sun.

Spelldrammer and Dark Sun.

Spelldrammer and Dark Sun.

Okay.

I can tell there's a capital S there, and that's the only one I can think of it could be.

Spelldrammer and Dark Sun.

So Spelldrammer, as you can see, big support in the early 90s, and then nothing until like two years ago when there was that one product.

Yeah.

Dark Sun, similar.

early 90s a load of stuff and then almost nothing but years and years and years, Ravenloft these all have the same pattern it's just when their big thing was so Ravenloft again it was early 90s up to about 10 years it had it had decent support and then pretty much nothing and then Planescape of course up until like, the 2000s and then that kind of stopped it's interesting ravenloft is a very well-loved setting though this is the one i see a lot of people running or i want to do castle ravenloft that's the one that has with a lot of 5e newer players that's the one that captures their imagination more than others i found anecdotally but i wonder why that is i don't make do you think it's just because there was a huge volume of stuff for it at the time i don't know oh possibly yeah I mean, it's got a scale that goes up to 15 again, unlike the others.

Oh no, because it's 10, that one, sorry.

Up to 10.

Maybe because it's horror as well.

If you're looking for a bit of a horror thing, is that the setting that you go to?

Well, let's look at the number of products for each.

So their spell drama, we had 22 in total.

Yeah.

Ravenloft, 66 in total.

I see there's a lot more.

Yeah.

Darkshun, 36.

Mm-hmm.

And then Planescape, we have 31.

Okay.

So yeah, Ravenloft does have the highest volume of products.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so Damien in the comment says, which had the most spin-off media, novels, comics, video games, etc.

This is a lot of the expanded stuff, which you can go, if you go and look at the actual article, it does go into those as well.

It's just that I've tried to keep it sort of manageable just for the sake of this piece.

But there will be a link in the notes, so you can go and look at it.

There's so many more graphs.

and also other settings as well.

There's Mystara, there's Al-Qadim.

You know, there's loads of them.

There's those 12 that we first mentioned there.

Anyway, so this is a look at the total number of each setting or each of those 12 settings.

Verify.

You can see there that Forgotten Elms by far with those 200 products is in the lead.

Followed surprisingly by Mystara.

Yeah, what is Mystara?

In a very, very early setting.

Yeah, pre-AD&D.

Is that when TSR was very prolific and making a lot of content?

Is it part of that?

That was main...

No, that was later.

That was D&D second edition era when they started producing so much stuff.

Caused the implosion that we talked about previously.

Okay.

I've not even heard of Mystara, so I was surprised to see that one in there.

I know after that you've got Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Ravenloft, which doesn't surprise me because they're ones that I know about from around, even as somebody that...

Well, the interesting thing about Mystara is it kind of didn't exist until the 90s, even though it did since the beginning of the 80s.

So basically, it's kind of like an implied setting in the basic D&D sets, starting with, I think, the Isle of Dread, module X1.

And it was like an implied setting, but it was never named.

No one ever said, this is the Mystara setting.

It's just that a lot of these basic D&D products are all kind of linked together.

And they were clearly kind of implied to be the same world.

And eventually, in, I think it was 1991, in a Dragon Magazine article, Bruce Heard, one of the TSR folk, referred to it as the known world.

And Mystara contains both the known world and the hollow world.

So named the setting, Mystara.

And that's basically where the world of the Star comes from so it kind of grew kind of organically in an implied kind of way before it was kind of formalized in the 1990s just saying okay this is a setting and this is what it's called similar to my origin story.

Yeah yeah so that's interesting so we start with forgotten novels but Star is the second and then, Rabenovt and Dragon and this look pretty similar there yeah and they're ones I'm familiar with so that doesn't surprise me because even as somebody that I have only ever played Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition because my journey into tabletop RPGs didn't start with D&D so I kind of missed a lot yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I love these articles that EchoHawk does.

Someone on YouTube doesn't, says that they disagree with our last segment on this.

And I'm trying to sort of drill down and find out what it is they disagree with.

Because basically, it's just counting and some numbers and some graphs.

But I haven't quite managed to figure out what it is they disagree with.

If they could let me know what it is specifically they disagree with, and whether they have better numbers and better graphs.

We'll talk about those better numbers and better graphs if you disagree with us.

But I'm going with EchoHawk because I don't think there's anyone on the planet that's catalogued D&D to the extent that he has.

Well, we should see.

Except for this person on YouTube who clearly has as well, is not showing this information just so not as well.

Yeah, well, the internet do be like that sometimes.

I guess so.

I do love a bit of data from the hobby, so it's great those articles are up and to have a deep dive read through them.

But those initial figures are interesting, so thanks for sharing.

And like I say, please do go to the article and read it because we can only scratch the surface as a new supplement here.

We can literally talk about that for an hour on its own quite easily.

But basically it would be an hour of us reciting numbers and looking at graphs and I don't think that's the most entertaining thing in the world.

That's not everyone's idea of entertainment.

I'm sure there are some people that like the idea of that, but perhaps not everybody.

Yeah but we'll have another one coming out next week we'll have another one from echo coming out next week he's actually written it and uh i've seen it but we'll we'll save that for next week i'm loving this yeah someone said i'm sure they're in denial of how much they've spent on dnd over the years no i don't think they are because they've calculated that as well so they know the exact we did cover we did cover the cost last week yes yes so uh that was in last week.

That was actually quite scary.

Yeah, I'd done it by edition.

So if you're wanting to know the cost, that is in the first article we talked about last week.

Yeah, well, next week we'll be looking at magazine as a clue, as a hint, as to what next week is.

We'll be looking at magazines next week.

Lovely, love that.

All right, but what is next in the TTRP community?

Well, we've been talking about D&D, so what should we talk about next?

This is something vaguely linked to D&D?

Very linked to D&D.

Is it?

I might not be seeing the thing you're doing then.

What are you doing?

Oh, yeah, okay.

Okay, so Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D back in 1974, along with Dave Arnison, died, you know, a while back, 2008, I think it was.

I can't remember what year it was exactly, but died a while back.

Back at the time, his widow, Gail Gygax, started a Gygax memorial fund.

And the idea was in the hometown of Lake Geneva in the US, they wanted to create a memorial, a statue.

If you like, for Garry Gygax, for gamers from around the world to come and visit and look at the statue of Garry Gygax.

And they've had various fundraising efforts over the years and they've sort of like been trying to get this off the ground with the local government and the local authorities there.

Yeah.

To little avail.

And it's been years now.

It's been, what, 20-odd years or something now coming up to that this has been going on.

So it was 2008.

And there was a spot in Library Park which is a spot that Gary Guget apparently liked an awful lot and sort of said or he said that's where he would like a memorial to be and originally the memorial was just going to be a statue of him I believe, back at the time.

This has evolved somewhat and now there is a crowdfund or Kickstarter that's literally just launched this week.

Ooh, okay.

With a very, very high $150,000 target in order to make the Gygax Memorial Table in that spot.

It does look like a cool concept because I can see the drawing here and for people listening, it is a table with benches either side so people could sit there and at the end there is a statue of going, I'll get sat in a chair.

So it'll be like you're playing with him.

Yeah.

So on the top there, you've got like a bronze sculpted map, which is gridded to miniature scale.

The idea is that people can literally come and sit in the park at that table and play D&D.

And they're going to, because that's a map of an early D&D dungeon, they're going to write a whole bunch of different adventures to go with that map.

So you can go and revisit this sculpture at different times and play basically a different adventurer.

I don't say adventure, just they're going to stock the rooms differently because it's a dungeon crawl.

Sure.

Like HeroQuest.

Yeah, like HeroQuest.

So this comes in various stages.

So the basic monument, 150 grand they need, is just for the table and benches.

So it won't have the bronze sculpture, it won't have the throne at the end, and it won't have the Gygax statue.

So that's the basic level.

If they get 250 grand, they add the throne at the end, which I guess is where a DM could then sit.

However, at 500 grand, the DM can no longer sit there because they're going to install Gary Gygax into that throne in a bronze sculpture.

And then at nearly $1,925,000, they're going to add that bronze dungeon map on top.

That's a lot of money to do this.

I have no idea how much doing stuff like this costs.

It's not my area of expertise, but they do talk on the Kickstarter page about getting the best granite in the world, which is, of course, American, because, you know, why would the best granite in the world not be?

It's just genetically better or something.

But, you know, it does, because you'll get sculptures, it needs planning permission, it needs apparently things like maintenance, even security to protect it, abandonism, maintenance, and the sculptors to do all the different bits come up to a lot of money.

The granite itself and the bronze itself cost a lot.

So they've broken down the costs.

They've been fairly transparent.

Oh, I'm sure it's true.

If somebody said, guess how much this costs to make, that wouldn't have been my guess.

But then I'm not good at guessing things because I also thought the most products were in fifth edition and I was wrong about that last week.

That's true.

What do I know?

Not a lot.

All right, how about this?

Guess how many pigeons there are in Hampshire.

You don't know that though.

Maybe I do.

You don't.

How do you know I don't?

I'm really confident about that.

So anyway, so the crowdfunders launched today.

There are nine.

There are nine visions in the country.

I counted them all.

Cool.

So how is crowdfunders doing on day one on the launch?

Yeah, that's the sad bit.

It's not doing as well as you might hope.

So it's soon to day three now.

Oh, okay.

It launched on Wednesday.

It's not Friday.

It has made $31,000.

Okay.

And they need how much?

150 for the minimum thing.

Okay.

If it does make 150, it's going to be close, unless they have a couple of really, really big.

And there is a chance with something like this, you might get a couple of really, really big investors.

Because originally, and this is going back a bit, so looking into the history of this, obviously this isn't the first time they've tried to do this.

Back in 2012, they raised, I think it was like 175K or something.

For the original statue.

We've got a picture on, and I'll be linking the show notes again to a sort of a more detailed breakdown of this.

But back in 2012, they raised $575,000, but a lot of that was from one very generous donor.

Okay.

And when they sort of like went into 10 years of kind of like logistical problems of getting planning permission and, you know, things like that and getting approval from the local authorities.

In the end, they ended up kind of returning the bulk of that donation back to that donor.

Okay.

So there's a chance that that donor might come along and go, okay, here's 175 grand again.

Okay, that's your initial 150 done.

Sorted.

That's true.

That is possible.

Although I would note that Kickstarter itself will not allow donations, pledges of larger than 10,000.

So he can't do it via Kickstarter, which means it can't contribute towards the Kickstarter goal which means even if he comes along and donates £150,000 if the Kickstarter itself still only makes £100,000 they'll get nothing from the Kickstarter.

If his donation is made separately but he can't donate more than £10,000 by a Kickstarter so I don't know how that will work it's going to be tight whether or not they make it anyway, I don't know I mean I wish them luck I like the concept of it being a statue, but it actually being a gaming table that you can sit at and play games.

I like that idea.

It's interactive.

There's more spirit of what he was about, which is playing the game.

So I think the concept's a really good tribute to somebody.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like they should have another throne with Dave Barnison at the other end of the table.

Yeah, that does make sense.

Although I guess it was partly a family thing as well.

and, you know, the late husband, so I suppose partly it's that.

But just from the memorial of...

If it's a Guyjax memorial statue...

It is.

It's not a D&D.

Yeah, it's not a D&D history space, you know.

Because if that was what I'd take, Wizards of the Coast should be paying for it and making it a thing anyway.

But, yeah.

It'd be nice if they donated, but I don't know if they will.

I mean, what is interesting is apparently you can write this off as a charitable donation.

They don't understand why it's charitable.

If the organization that's building the thing is registered as a charity.

No, in some way it's technically charitable.

I mean, sort of more kind of like philosophically, more kind of what's charitable about it.

It could help starving children or anything, does it?

That's a different conversation, though.

It's basically, it's a monument.

It's entertainment, essentially.

I mean, for various values of entertainment.

But, you know, it's like a picture or a sculpture.

It is a sculpture.

But hey, if it works, you know, If that gets people to donate because they can write off part of it as a charitable donation, then fine, cool.

Go for it.

I bet it, yeah.

And they have some other things.

I don't want to mention, they've made a park bench.

They've got permanent exhibits in the Lake Geneva Library and the Lake Geneva Museum.

And you can go onto the website and they do provide a full account of the funds, activities, and fundraising efforts over the years.

I think if you're on the periphery of this stuff, you kind of remember that girl guy that's just trying to raise money aided to go and she raised a bit and then nothing's happened and then this is popped up but if you do go to their website you will see that they have been doing stuff constantly for the last you know 20 years almost not quite 20 but 18 years yeah well best of luck to them if people are interested links in the show notes if you want to go and have a look and support would you would you i obviously you wouldn't pay thousands in plain floats to go and do it but if it was kind of logistically feasible if it was like more closer to you, would you go and sit and play a game at that table just for the...

Yeah.

I think it's a really nice...

Yeah, I think it's a nice...

Yeah.

Yeah.

One thing you can get is some of the higher levels of donations.

So you can get your name put in the paving stones.

Okay.

The spaces.

And at very high levels, like I think it's like the 25 brand or something like that, you can get your name on the back of the fair.

Oh, wow.

But in order to get those ones, you've got to do it separately to the Kickstarter.

I wonder if companies are going to do that.

I mean, as an advertising space.

Yeah.

So maybe.

Maybe.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I mean, it's a lot of money.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

It's a lot of money.

Some people have a lot of money, Russ.

Some people have a lot of money.

I think it's got money.

How dare they?

I know.

I know we're not talking about us, but other people.

Yeah.

Nice.

Okay.

Next topic.

Well, we've been talking about D&D.

What should we talk about next?

D&D.

Let's talk about D&D.

We're all right then.

Okay.

Rivals of the World there just says, can we not rework this concept and deliver something wonderful within the funds raised?

I mean, people could, well, it's not an either-or thing.

You can do that as well.

Yeah.

You can do a card funder to raise something wonderful with funds.

You know, it's not like...

Kickstarter is an all or nothing thing.

You meet your goal, otherwise you don't get any of the money.

No, but I mean, that's not the only fundraising thing you could possibly do.

You could...

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You could do a more sort of traditionally charitably inclined one, like educational program for kids at school using D&D products or something.

Off the top of my head, I don't know.

Right, got it.

Anyway, anyway, right.

Well, D&D video games.

Hey, have you ever heard of a D&D video game dressed?

Yeah, Baldur's Gate 3.

Drink.

Hey, take a drink.

That's the only mention of it, I'm afraid.

That is kind of a vague link into something going on in the D&D video game space.

I know two things that are going on this week.

Two things.

They're both kind of weird because they've happened at the same time.

I'm opening and I'm closing at the same time.

Yeah.

Okay, so do you want to talk about them?

I mean, yeah, I can do.

I don't think I know much more than you.

So we previously talked a little bit about Starbreeze, which is a cooperative D&D digital video game that was in development by Starbreeze.

They're the studio, not the game.

Yeah.

The game was called Project Baxter.

Yeah, under development by Starbreeze.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, the project, which is the D&D co-op game, is being cancelled.

Hmm.

Which is sad.

Yeah, and that's kind of the news, which is like, oh.

But yeah, there's like 44 people are being laid off as a result of this.

But yeah, they're writing off, I think it's like 27.2 million US dollars in development costs related to this game.

So this is a big deal.

But yeah, so...

That's from the plot.

That's not that one from Giant Skull, which we talked about a few weeks ago.

That's still going on, and that was from Game Loft.

Yeah.

And there are other projects going on in-house studios owned by Hasbro, because Hasbro has a couple of in-house studios.

Well, and another one now as well.

It's like, dare I jump on that New Year's item?

Yeah.

Yeah, so there's a new video game studio that Hasbro have opened in Montreal, in Canada.

and the focus is on D&D video games.

I think because Baldur's Gate did so well and this could be a thing.

But the studio is called Wizards of the Coast Studios Inc., which makes sense.

It's very on the nose.

But yeah, so it's focusing on D&D.

About 200 jobs are going to come out of it.

Dan Ayub, who's the head of the D&D franchise we mentioned before, he's running the new studio and his background is in video game development.

So that makes sense.

It's not just random.

But yeah, and this is in addition to Invoke Studios, which is the other Hasbro studio that already exists.

So this isn't like taking over or anything like that.

It's going to be right next door to it as well, apparently.

They're going to be neighbors.

So I guess there's going to be some collaboration.

But yeah, so obviously people are speculating Baldur's Gate 4 because the Giant Skull Project has been said it's not Baldur's Gate 4 because it's a first-person sort of...

So it's a different thing.

But yeah, maybe this is to do the development of Baldur's Gate 4 in-house.

Hmm maybe maybe who knows that's speculation but the studio is opening and is a thing but yeah so dnd video games one closes and one opens simultaneously well maybe they cancelled that project because that's within out with star breeze an outside contractor maybe they're like no we want to do this in-house it's like yeah i don't know but for reasons that aren't their own but yeah there is going to be a focus on digital with dnd but which we already knew which has already been said so um yeah it feels like just like the last two years or so we've been like talking sort of on and off about i was just opening video game studios and we're just closing dnd video game studios and laying people off and this licensed video game product is in in development and this one isn't anymore and it feels like there's been quite a few of them coming and going over the last two years.

And you've yet to see one since Battle of Gate 3.

Yeah.

That is corporations, though.

I think that's how things work because you're moving around such big amounts of money.

It do be like that.

And in fairness, in video games, video game development timelines are really long, so...

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it might be, because there's been so many of them, I'm just kind of thinking, it's like in two years, and there's suddenly going to be like seven different D&D video games coming out in 2027 all at the same time.

I'm sure they'll stagger it.

They'll make a plan.

They won't.

Yeah.

Because I'm still playing Baldur's Gate 3, you know, two years later.

I'm still not done.

It's weaning off, though, actually.

I don't think I've played for about three weeks now because I was away.

Wow.

Yeah, not a while.

Did you miss it?

Did you have withdrawal symptoms?

I haven't had major withdrawals, no.

I've been pretty good.

Although my partner is away on work, travelling for work all of next week.

So I'm going to have the house to myself.

So in the evenings, I might just be playing video games because I'm not going to have any social obligations in my house.

So maybe I'll go back to it then.

We shall see.

Apart from next Wednesday when I'm coming over to Bear Card Game.

Yes, when we're going to play games.

But that'll be in the daytime.

I'll kick you out before the evening so I can play Bolger's Gate.

So you can play Bolger's Gate.

Yeah.

Right, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, the next piece of news.

Finally, we move off of D&D.

Yes.

Okay, so what is happening outside Dungeons and or Dragons this week?

I mean, it's the kind of Dungeons and Dragons adjacent.

It's too tiered.

Because it's Praizo and Pathfinder.

But it's a charity event, and there's an event called Power World Meal, which was apparently organised by William Earle of D&D Shorts' YouTube channel.

Oh, nice.

And Paizo, this is called Power Meal, and it basically benefits Share the Meal, which is something that works through the UN World Food Programme and provides meals to people in need worldwide.

Oh, nice.

So what is this?

Is this a charity crowdfunding event?

Right, so Paizo has announced its participation and sponsorship of Power Meal.

So this is a charity event benefiting Share the Meal.

So you donate to Power Word Meals campaign, and that means you will automatically unlock a PDF full of Pathfinder and D&D 5e content.

And basically that money then goes to help deliver meals to people in need around the world.

That's really cool.

Yeah, yeah.

It says the Share the Meal program has provided over 260 million meals to people in the Worldwide.

That's a lot of people.

Wow.

And what you do is you use the Share the Meal app and you donate and you can decide what projects you want to support.

So you go onto the Share the Meal app, you find this one, which is Power Word Meal, you support that, and then you kind of track that project's progress on the app itself.

Cool.

So people can download the app now and get started.

Yeah, that unlocks your PDF.

Cool.

Well, yeah, that sounds cool.

I love charity things like that in the RPG space.

It's a good time.

Next, The Mighty Nein.

The Mighty Nein.

Oh, this is cool.

Oh, so animated series is coming to Prime Video November 19th.

Yeah, so obviously Critical Role has already had The Legend of Vox Machina, or Machina, one of those two things.

I really enjoyed that animated series, and I haven't watched the actual play because it was too big and too much time.

But I really enjoyed the story and the animation, so it looks like a very similar animation style.

Yeah.

Well, this is Critical Role's second campaign, which ran from 2018 through to 2021.

Unlike the Legends of Vox Machina, this will run for 40 minutes, so it's longer form.

Okay.

And it's more dramatic than the Legends of Vox Machina, which was kind of action comedy wasn't it yeah and this is more apparently more serious and more dramatic cool and i've got various stars as well mark strong is going to be in it ming nao wen is going to be in it and other people alan cumming is going to be in it anika noni rose and auli I am so sorry Aulil Crabajo.

I am sure that I mangled that last name there Apologies but the link is in the show note if you'd like to read that.

So yeah that's Prime Video November the 19th Cool I'd probably watch that because I enjoyed The Legend of Vox Machina We have had a question as well Last week we talked about Critical Role Season 4 The premiere was last night, and I was going to watch it and Rai has put in the comments, did Jess watch Critical Role season 4 premiere last night?

Because I said I would watch and report back.

So...

The live stream that was good.

So you can watch it on Beacon, which is a paid full service.

You can then watch it on Twitch or YouTube.

And in the press release, they said you can watch it when it's first out on YouTube or Twitch and you don't have to pay.

So you can watch it there like always instead of having to use the paid full Beacon service.

And I was like, immaculate, I'll do that.

However, because of time zones, the live was at 3 a.m.

UK time.

And I was asleep at that time.

So I thought this morning I'll wake up and watch it.

Whilst i'm having my breakfast and you're getting ready for the day and it's behind a paywall on twitch and youtube so that stopped me which i was surprised by so i had to be a subscriber and pay a monthly subscription fee i didn't even look what the fee was because the fact there was a paywall there stopped me so i have not watched critical role season four premiere so i don't have anything to report back because i was surprised that it's under a paywall but yeah sad times yeah so i'm I'm deciding if I want to subscribe to Beacon, because that was something I was thinking about anyway.

But yeah, so I don't have anything to report, unfortunately.

So you'll have to get your news on it from someone else.

But yeah, it was live and it happened.

And that is a thing that occurred.

I will report back, though, on my weekends of gaming with my...

HeroQuest?

And that's about the HeroQuest.

Well, we had a very exciting time in HeroQuest.

And I was playing with my nephew, my niece, and my dad.

And they're really enjoying it.

But my nephew's nieces are getting older now because that's what happens in the passage of time.

And the youngest was wanting to do stuff that the rules of HeroQuest didn't do.

She's like, what if I do this cool flip and do this?

And I want to say yes, because that's cool.

But the rules of HeroQuest didn't do that.

So I sat and I said, well, why don't we play an actual role playing game?

Because I think you're ready for that to get the rules.

And then you can do more interesting stuff.

And so they said, yes.

So we finished the game of HeroQuest.

and then we went and made some dnd characters for them we translated them and then we carried on the campaign playing dnd so it was my nieces and my 70 year old father's first ever dungeons and dragons game on saturday that we played through that went really well and i cheated a bit because i used the level up a5e starter set the valley of misfortune adventure for them to kind of i shoehorn that into the existing campaign for them to play so i had that ready and yeah they I had a really great time.

So yeah, and my dad had a great time as well.

So your first Dungeons & Dragons game can occur even when you're 70 years old.

So just so you know.

I used to say, surely Beacon subscription is a justifiable business expense.

Well, yes, but we are the business, so we're justifying it to ourselves.

It's not like we have to go to someone and persuade them.

It's us.

But anyway, so yeah, my weekend went really well.

They enjoyed playing HeroQuest, but now I think they've got to a point where they're old enough where they want to do more interesting stuff with their characters.

And this campaign that we've been running in HeroQuest has been lasting about two years now.

So it's moved into Dungeons & Dragons.

and so they're going from there.

Marvin wants to play Hero Christ.

Well, yeah, sure.

I think it's about his level.

So, yeah.

Well, for the sake of eating the scenery and eating the little models.

But that is my weekly update of what happened.

And this weekend, I'm playing more games.

I've got my Warhammer fantasy game tonight, which has been so close to the end for most of this year.

We're finishing off the Enemy Within campaign, and then I'm starting.

I've got session zero for my Iron Kingdoms campaign on Sunday.

So I'm looking forward to both of those.

And that's the Gets update.

Marvin, can you get off me now, please?

I've been mauled by a dog live on the stream.

But do we have any other news for this week?

Yes.

Yes.

We have one more piece.

We have one more piece.

You know the Million Dollar Kickstarter Club.

Ooh, who's joining?

It's been a while, actually.

It's been a couple of months, I think, two or three months since the last one.

There was a couple that I was surprised, like the Daggerheart Cards Kickstarter, I thought was going to do incredibly well.

And it is doing incredibly well, but it's not doing a million dollar well.

But this one is called Fabula Ultima, and it's based on Japanese role-playing games.

I think basically it's the Final Fantasy role-playing game with it still good yeah, I have this I haven't played it but I have it and I gave it as a gift to a friend of mine because it was exactly their thing I've not got it to the table but I've heard great things about it and people, that have played it have given fantastic reviews so yeah Fabula Ultima it's cool, Yeah, I mean, it's gone past a million dollars now.

It's 788,000 pounds, which is well over a million dollars, or 904,000 euros, if I click on the little currency thing.

I can't see what it is in dollars exactly, but it's well over a million now.

Wow.

And still has 20 days to go, so it's trending towards, you know, approaching two million maybe.

Wow.

Maybe not quite that, but certainly high.

It's very pretty.

So basically, Fabulous Ultima, the sort of JRPG, TTR, JRPG, TTRPG.

The T-T-JRPG.

Yes, the J-T-T-L, anyway.

The T-T-JRPG.

Yeah.

So, it exists.

This is like the ultimate edition, they're calling it.

And a bestiary.

And a new bestiary.

So, let's look at some of these.

So, this is the sort of new edition and the cover of the new edition there.

Very nice.

Very pretty.

Very pretty indeed.

There's also a deluxe hardcover version as well.

This is the bestiary and the deluxe hardcover version of the bestiary, as you can see.

I like that deluxe hardcover.

It's black.

Yeah.

It's got filigree in the corners, and it's got this sort of fiery four-pointed star in the center of it.

I do like a deluxe book with filigree.

We were just this week finalizing the designs and tweaking for the print for the Pets and Sidekicks version, So I love these kind of deluxe versions of books.

That one does look very nice for Fabulous Ultima.

Yeah.

I'm interested in this man.

Like the Cold War book in 2023 got a gold Emmy.

Yeah.

For best game.

Event 2025, it's not...

I don't know, is this a new edition or is it just...

No.

Is it very soon for a new edition?

No, I believe they're just putting out the bestiary, bestiary, however you pronounce it.

And they're also, whilst they're doing this campaign, saying, hey, we're doing a deluxe cover version of it.

So I think if you have the game and love it, this is like a collector's edition thing.

Or if you don't have the game, this is a chance to jump in and get a nice fancy version.

I think the bestiary is the thing and they're just doing other fun stuff with it.

In the description of the Deluxe Edition, full version of the original artwork, blah, blah, blah.

Prestigious cover made of special materials and UV inserts.

Wow.

That's interesting.

Fancy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when you're showing your UV light on it, so everyone has a UV light, don't they?

Yeah.

I have a UV light.

I actually do.

I do because you use it to charge up the lumen on watches.

I have it for my nail.

Oh, there you go.

We both have Ubi lights.

One of those nail things you put under.

Yeah.

There we go.

And the top kind of pledge level at 400 euros, which is over 500 dollars, I think.

I'm not sure what it is exactly in dollars.

But you get this sort of collector's box with the deluxe editions of all the books and they've all got that same kind of design with the filigree and the sort of fiery cross.

That's nice.

IMGN screen there, all in a big sort of slipcase box type thing.

It doesn't look pretty cool.

It doesn't look cool.

It looks very cool.

If I was rich, I would get that.

If I was rich and didn't have such an expensive dog, I would get that.

Because you have a designer dog.

Is that what it is?

No, he's just old and gammy and needs a lot of medication.

He's spending a lot on his medical bills.

He's fine, just so everyone knows.

He's fine because I buy him all his pills.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, I think that's it.

I think we're done for the week.

One other bit of news.

One other bit of news.

So, Fabulous Ultima has got their crowdfunder for their bestiary.

We also have one, not quite at a million dollars, but the What's Orders new bestiary for fantasy, modern, and sci-fi TTRPGs is still out and live.

So, if you wanted to jump in, that is live on there as well.

So, I wanted to mention that as well.

It's gone over £10,000 now, and it's still got two weeks to go.

Absolutely.

So, it's not quite a million.

so a different scale but yeah it's a bestiary bringing over 250 new beasts and NPCs for what's always new, so a little shout out for that Hi, first of all the deluxe version just seems like another justifiable you're just trying to get me to buy Jess things yeah buy new stuff how does this work yeah I'll watch I'll watch Critical Role if you buy me a beacon subscription.

Yeah right and are we at offset printing yet on the what's all did you mystery, we have not no we haven't met that stretch goal yet so, fingers crossed fingers crossed yes if you go to Kickstarter page there'll be more info on there yeah alright I think now we really are done we are really done thank you very much everyone we'll be back next week, we'll have a PJ next week as well yep yep back the dynamic trio, we'll be back indeed fighting crime taking names and kicking ass as usual.

As we do.

And we will be live recording on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, 2 p.m.

BST or 9 a.m.

Eastern.

So you can join us there if you'd like to get involved.

All right.

Goodbye, everyone.

See you next week.

Bye-bye.

Send us letters.

Send us messages on YouTube and letters and stuff.

We're lonely.

Not actual letters.

You don't have to hand away.

I really can't do one, but...

Yeah.

Emails and comments are fine.

Thank you.