Hello, hello, hello, hello.

You're listening to Morris' unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk.

Our illustrious and amazing host, Morris, cannot be with us today because he has got the lurk.

That's the official term for it anyway.

I am, as always, PJ Coffey from Homebrew and Hacking, TTRPG Design, and the Southampton Guild of World Bears, and I am delighted to be here.

Joining me also to assist me in this perilous navigation of the podcast seas to climb the mountain possible and bring you the freshest and best of this week's news it's a truly amazing the absolutely seller the one the only it's me jessica from en publishing hello hello hello glad to be back i was away last week uh but sad that ross is not here as he has the plague like you say um but we are joined by lots of lovely people in the live stream hey hi hello um if you are listening to the podcast know that you too can join us live because we live record every friday at 2 p.m british time which is 9 a.m eastern time um and you can catch that on youtube twitch or the book of faces depending on your preferences um but yes so we are recording live today uh so if you are watching live put any comments uh put any questions or comments in the comments and we can And you can join in and be our third co-host for the day to replace Russ.

And you may even do a better job.

I am.

We'll kick a man while he's down, shall we, while he's ill?

Why not?

I do, right?

Goodness.

Anyway, no.

But I was away, PJ, last week.

Yes.

And I understand you were talking a lot about, you were remembering the realms, the forgotten ones.

The where now?

No, no, but yes, you're quite correct.

Adventures in Faerun and Heroes of Faerun, we're joined by the illustrious Mike Shea, a.k.a.

Sly Furish, a.k.a.

the Lazy DM, in, quite frankly, a rather...

Chummy and delightful podcast.

Not to say that it's not fun when you're here, Jessica, but it's just like, there's a certain vibe when you can just drill deep, deep, deep into the strata of, absolutely massive D&D nerddom, which, you know, our mic does bring to the table, which I love it.

So yes, we did talk about these books and they were very good.

So I believe there may be an article somewhere.

Yes.

I mean, that's what I was just going to mention.

So obviously we talked last week on the podcast.

So if you wanted to listen to EM World Opinions about the books, if you check out the Morris' episode, which is number 371, that will have a bit more detail and there's videos on YouTube as well.

I wasn't going to do a deep dive today because you've already covered it, but Christian Hoffer, who does all our written articles on EM World, last week had done one on the player-facing options in the Heroes of Faerun.

But this week he has one for Adventures in Faerun as well, which is the GM book for it.

The GM book, yes.

So if you prefer to read your content or you want to hear what Christian has to say, if you read that on EM World, the link is up there.

And it's got some really nice pictures of the artwork as well.

And I thought the artwork was quite nice, actually.

I don't know if you folks mentioned that last week, but from what I've seen, it looks good.

It's pretty.

Yeah, we didn't properly dive into the various pictures and so forth, although it became apparent there must be something in those books because apparently it wasn't word count.

Oh, really?

I quite like that little picture we've got of an orc sitting in a chair with a rather nice hat, drinking a glass of wine and poking some sort of playing pieces around a coffee table, perhaps?

I assumed it was a warm-up, so that was troops opposed to being a board game, but you could interpret it either way.

That's how I like to spend a weekend as well, with a glass of wine and a board game.

Sounds very good.

Although, hopefully, you don't use a dagger, because that will just scratch your terrain.

Who says it's my terrain?

Touche.

You should.

All right.

So that's about the Forgotten Realms.

So if you want to read more about that, go to emworld.org.

And if you want to listen to it, if you go to last week's episode 371, because they covered it better than I would.

So should we talk about something else?

Oh, yes, let's.

Okay.

So the next thing I have to talk about is Starfinder crossover with Warframe.

Are you familiar with Warframe?

I think this came up when it was first released.

I have actually played it briefly.

Oh, really?

What did you think?

Not entirely to my taste.

Okay.

Not entirely to my taste.

It's a first-person shooter, or is it third-person?

No, I think it's third-person, actually.

No, I can't remember.

That's the level of enjoyment I derived out of it.

But, you know, I can see how you could really get into it, because it's one of those massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

I didn't find a lot of role-playing in it, but friends tell me it's quite a lot of fun, and you can pick up various bits and customize your Warframe and they call you something, it's all right.

It's interesting to see Starfinder having a go at it because that looks like an interesting crossover.

I mean, exactly.

Like you said, it's not a game I've played because it is like an action shooter.

It does look cool for an action shooter because there's like parkour elements and stuff, but action shooter is not really my genre, so I'm not familiar.

But the news is that Warframe so all the, the lore and the world you can they're doing a crossover with starfinder so starfinder is doing an adventure which is set in the warframe kind of universe so it's got all the characters and law so if you know warframe this might be something that interests you um it's called operation arius um and it uses the starfinder system obviously give it away a little bit um yeah so you can squad up against adversaries like adversaries like uh corpus and infested enemy factions i don't know what that means but if you like warframe you probably do and that sounds interesting to you but yeah so obviously you'll need star finder second edition player core to play this as well as the adventure so if you're new to star finder but no warframe you will need the core book to play this um yeah you can get that and there's loads of goodies that go with it as well so there's like 3d printed models there's flip mats uh there's uh dice you can get it digitally or physically i think the digital pdf for the adventure is like uh nine dollars.

Um physical for 13 dollars so the adventure is not you know it's not massive like in terms of a really big expensive investment but i think if you're getting into star finder the first time getting the core book and that might be a bit more of an investment but yeah i mean all the art's done by from warframe so if you like that world and art style that's in the books and uh yeah, That's the piece of news, which is interesting.

I always like a good video game reference, you know, so a good way to shoo in a Baldur's Gate 3 reference into the podcast.

And if you can, you will.

In fact, some would say you're legally obligated to do so.

Whilst we're talking about Starfinder, some of you will recall that Starfinder Afterlight was busy funding.

It has successfully funded, having made €794,333.

Euros uh with not quite 14 000 backers um so yeah yeah it is a bit of cash um but yeah um i i did actually back this one so i'm looking forward to at some point in the next couple years get your chance to play it yeah i mean the thing with digital game development it does take a while to make it because it's it's it's a lot of work it's not it's not a quick thing but yeah i'll probably take a look at that when it comes out as well so maybe we can get rust to play let's do another gaming live stream.

Although we do still need to do a Baldur's Gate 3 play.

We were...

We were joking before the podcast that instead of doing the news, because Russ was away like naughty children, instead of doing the news, we would just play Bald of the Skate 3 instead.

I said we could do the news and then play Bald of the Skate 3.

It's just like it might be a compressed version of the podcast.

Yeah, we did talk about it, but sadly, I didn't have enough notice to set up my streaming setup for the game.

So maybe next time Russ is away, remind me and we'll definitely do that.

Anyway.

That's how I think.

Okay.

Yes.

more news uh dagger heart oh yeah so dagger heart is literally on my radar it's on my table right here i have the rules that i've been reading through because i am intrigued and so i want to play it myself because i've read a lot of things online obviously we've got reviews on em world but i've not played it to myself so i'm very intrigued by it have you have you played it yet or no i've not i've not even seen the game on offer i think somebody was threatening to run it but they wanted but they didn't have the actual physical cards so they didn't have to print them all off whilst they offered help with the cost for this it just it didn't come to anything which is a bit sad but there we go i have the cards so if someone at the club wants to borrow them just let me know and i'll lend them to you that's fine because i'm not running something right now yeah um anyway.

The reason I'm talking about Daggerheart on the news show is because we have news regarding Daggerheart.

So as we know, Daggerheart, the book is out, and they're currently playtesting new kind of character classes that you can play and different character options, and a new one dropped this week.

It is the Blood Hunter.

So the details of it are on the screen now, so you can check that out.

Oh, no, that's PJ.

This is the character sheet.

But yeah, so the details are on there.

interestingly so if you know dagger heart most of the classes come with.

Two subclass options but this one comes with three so there's the order of the ghost layer um so that makes uh the player more powerful if they're closer to death so the less kind of hit points or the more damage they have the more powerful their abilities become uh there's order the mutant um where you get you consume different mutagens for different benefits which doesn't sound very healthy and good for you but there we go and there's the order of the lycan which who doesn't want to be a werewolf oh who indeed indeed yeah this being the class that i think matt mercer created for one of his own games brought into critical role and has been incredibly popular ever since that's exactly right so fans of critical role will know that the bloodhunter was originally a custom class that vin diesel played and that was back when critical role was with geek and sundry so this is many moons ago uh and matt mercer has like built on it and improved it since then so it's been.

Changed um but yeah so there is a 5e version of this class available on dnd beyond if you play 5e but this is the dagger heart version as well um but yeah so it's it's play testing right now so you can go to dagger hearts website to download it and take a look if you play dagger heart try it out and give feedback um but yeah so there's more stuff coming from dagger heart it's still being well supported and i'm interested in giving it a play because i've seen lots of conversations on it online and i want to be able to play it to give it a fair shake and a review to see see what my thoughts are on it but there we go yeah it's the news and dug heart yeah.

We're firing through the news.

Oh, we have some news here, PJ, that you, a little like giveaway news about some terrain.

So I'll hand over to you to talk about this.

Yeah, this isn't like a massive thing because I believe the giveaway has finished.

But a company called Terrain by Hand, who, as you might infer from the name, is someone that crafts terrain for board games and role-playing games.

And, you know, basically, if you've got a game, then they will create terrain for it.

They worked together with two other companies, one being, I think, a mapmaker, and the other...

Being some rpg designers in order to more properly create um a piece of terrain which had a map and an adventure associated with it and the explicit aim of this just in conversation with the chap doing it uh was to help them expand to mutually help them expand their audiences because obviously terrain by hand people some of them won't like rpgs but some of them will and many of the rpg people some of them might like maps and maybe they might like terrain and you see it's like you know it's just a way for people on the smaller end of things because these are all like.

Small independent creators uh to take advantage of some of that synergy which the million dollar kickstarter club that we're talking about has achieved it's something i've not managed to get off the ground myself due to light events and so forth but it's good to see a natural experiment in action so if you're an indie creator consider working with other indie creators outside of your immediate design and you too could increase your audience and mutually profit and bring and delight many customers because who doesn't like more stuff well yeah good point and terrain by hand you say they're always going to be a smaller more indie side of things because if you're making things and there's a limit to how much you can make in a day it's not like you're going to factory and mass produce things so yeah cool yeah i really like that initiative as well and like you say perhaps some learnings that you can use from other things as well thanks for sure well i do i do like to try and think of ways to help out the indie game design scene um because i got a laugh in it no one else is.

Oh it's funny this podcast is a big ally of indie game designers i like to think, No, I never talk about them.

It's not for me.

Anyway, that was sarcasm for people that aren't British.

So next, so we talked about indie small creators doing cool things.

I think the next thing I want to talk about is the opposite of that, which is large corporations doing things that aren't as cool.

Should we talk about Affinity and Canva?

Um i mean to give the background as to why we're talking about this affinity is a uh design tool digital design tool um that a lot of uh layout artists uh use in the dtrpg space and i think the big thing behind it is because it was um quite it was a more affordable option than other things like photoshop so there was a lot of smaller creators that were using it um i can tell I can tell you why I personally use it and why many people I know personally use it.

Yeah.

It's because with Affinity's version one and two, you bought it as a one-time license and then it was yours.

So it's really affordable and manageable.

Not a subscription.

They did frequent sales.

You got three programs.

I've only really used one of them, but I ended up buying all three just because the value was there.

Yeah.

And it's not Adobe.

Yeah.

And Adobe always works on a subscription model.

And many people, it does an excellent job, technically speaking, but many people are unhappy with the way the subscription model works because it's quite pricey, to put it mildly.

Yeah.

I mean, yes.

I mean, that was the big benefit.

But you would think Affinity 3.0 is now available for free.

So surely that's a good thing, PJ.

um well i'll tell you like adobe gifted affinity many of their customers because i think it's hard to understate, how vexed creatives of all hues but especially in the graphic design side of things are about artificial intelligence so when adobe said we're just going to use your work without recourse or recompense to you in our artificial intelligence models people were pretty vexed and affinity was right there and scoops for the customers so there was some considerable worry that after it was acquired by Canva that they would switch to doing an artificial intelligence version so what we have is what we might consider a mixed bag Jessica a mixed bag so to clarify Canva purchased or acquired the rights for affinity about a year ago and now they've been integrating things so now we're seeing 3.0 which is the outcomes and the policies and what that actually is going to look like so that's what we're talking about now.

So what are the concerns about the 3.0 that people are talking about?

Well, I mean, let's be fair.

Looking at the 3.0, it is free.

I believe I haven't used it myself because, as I said, I already have 2.0, and it's web-based.

So that has some obvious advantages over Adobe, which is a lot of money.

And you have a lot of resources and assets available to you through Canva, I think, bearing in mind that I do not claim to be a graphic designer because I'm very bad at drawing.

For sure but like most uh indie ttrpg creators you have to do a little bit of that of everything so you have to learn a little bit about layout and graphic design to get your products made you know yeah mine usually large head supports many hats so that's always happy i find yeah um so they've got that uh however because for this new license they've changed the private privacy policy um i've linked a reddit thread so i don't know if we've got that whether someone's gone through the privacy policy and pointed out the various pros and cons yeah um in what in what will not be in any way a surprise to anyone who's been paying any attention to the ttrpg space and to graphics and to computers doing computer people doing stuff there is a mention of ai um i.

I don't think that it is compulsory to have your work used by Canva to feed their AI slot machines, but I don't know.

Look, I've had a read through that, and from what I see, I can't see that that's the case.

Canva does have toggles where you can turn things off in your privacy settings to do things, and I believe that's the same having read through.

I think the main thing that people are saying that that i've read in this article and other places online is that affinity 3.0 is free which is going to be great for a lot of people but when things are free it means that it comes you know it's not really free you're the product yeah you're the product in some way um also it's it's online so you can't use it uh offline like you can with affinity and they also have access to information and what you use and stuff um software does and There's a huge deep gathering exercise, yeah.

Yeah, and you also need to make a Canva account because it's linked through Canva.

And then so you also have to agree to whatever Canva's policies are in addition to using Affinity software.

So that's just something to be aware of if you want to use it.

Obviously, if you already have Affinity 1.0, you still have that, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah, nothing happens to that.

So I guess, you know, you don't have to use this if you don't want to, but just some considerations for people that are thinking of using it.

Yeah yeah i mean as i say it's if it didn't have this ai element involved then this would be an absolute game changer because yeah sure privacy data it is it is a problem, But on the other hand, if you're getting like, you know, a couple of hundred pounds worth of graphic software to use, then it's like a good deal almost, if that makes sense.

But like having your work being used to train artificial intelligence is a big problem.

And with the complete lack of understanding of consent that often accompanies these things, as in they assume consent, which is not what one does.

They opt you in by default rather than uh having you opted out by default and allowing you or encouraging you to opt in so you know it's pros and cons i think people think about that about data and privacy as well and it's up to you to as long as you know what's going on you make an informed decision then that's then that's that isn't it like like most things in life um but there we go but that is that piece of news and there is a link uh in the comments or in the show notes the podcast so if you want to read through in detail about all the terms there is an article that does that yeah i mean in many ways it's quite a big deal in the industry because.

Adobe has made a lot of people very unhappy like if you if you read as i do um when indie designers talk amongst themselves and the subject for adobe comes up there is a, There's often graphics going around saying, here are some alternatives to Adobe that you can use whenever they've done the latest price hike and so forth.

And Adobe's got to make money, sure, but they have to do it quite so aggressively to what is considered to be a captive audience, especially for freelancers who are often compelled to use Adobe because that's a specification of their employment, that they have to.

But obviously, no extra money is forthcoming to cover the costs of this subscription.

So it is what it is, yeah.

That makes sense.

I mean, some people are unhappy with that.

You know what?

People also make people unhappy.

Many things.

What particular thing were you thinking of?

Big, stompy kaiju monsters destroying their city.

I mean, sure.

Like, if it's your house that gets destroyed, you'll be sad.

Yeah.

But if it's in fiction, I'm like, this actually makes me quite cheerful.

Well, good news for you then, PJ, because I'm here to tell you about Godzilla, the role-playing game.

Excuse me, I am now legally required to do my Godzilla impression.

I feel your heart wasn't in that.

Because if i go all out then my mic stops working i didn't get picked up all right reasonable i'll allow it but i'll allow it and we'll move on i mean godzilla the role-playing game it says on the team what this is uh and i know my first question so this will be coming um there'll be previews coming at pax unplugged so we'll get more information they're planning on launching a kickstarter next year in march of 2026 um and fulfillment will follow the year later so we're not going to actually see the full game in 2027 so it's in development it's being published by by IDW Games, which is, they have ties to the comic book publisher.

But yeah, my first question when I saw this was, who are we playing this game?

Are we playing big stompy monsters?

Are we fighting big stompy monsters?

And I cannot give you the answer to that question.

It remains unclear.

But we'll get more information at PAX Unplugged, so we'll find out then.

But I'm hoping we can be the big stompy monsters.

Well, I mean, if that sort of thing floats your boat, then games such as Error Kaiju already exists.

So you can hop on that.

I do already know of that game, yes.

But that just seems...

Yeah, I'll talk about it.

I mean, my personal preference.

I would like to be a Stompid.

Yeah, I think that seems more fun.

Because sometimes, especially when playing this sort of game, you know, I don't know, those are my thoughts.

But it will be coming next year.

And I don't really have a lot more to say about it at the moment beyond that.

I mean, there's lots of different ways this could be very interesting.

I mean, it could be quite a lighthearted fun game, leaning into that full rubber-suited action of people doing professional wrestling whilst in full fancy dress amongst the cardboard city.

Wonderful.

I know, right?

or it might be um you are role-playing has whatever kaiju of the week is approaching and you're trying to do some sort of disaster management style game like you know exploring the emotional responses to having godzilla come and wreck your shit and that would be quite interesting yeah or yeah i mean there's a lot to go in on uh because your original godzilla is focused, like with most monster movies, it's focused on the environmental harm caused by radiation.

So what would be a more up-to-date version like maybe it's like godzilla leaves microplastics everywhere um i hope not that would be kind of a bit rubbish it's a it's a all our all our threats are rubbish like you know you could at least respect the atomic bomb because it was terrifying and now we're just like going out with a whimper off and the bang but sorry that's getting a bit political there so i did get very existential in other words i do have a little bit more about this game to tell you um about the game system so it's not using dice to determine checks it's going to use a standard deck of cards it's using a card system and you can use a standard deck of playing cards you don't need i'm sure they will sell special godzilla cards but you you don't have to but you can just have you know your deck of cards i mean jessica let let's be honest like who amongst us who amongst us will not be picking a a full deck of godzilla themed playing cards even if they have no intention of playing the game.

I mean, come on.

Depends how well they're done, really.

We'll have to wait and see.

But yeah, so that's what I do know, which I think is interesting, because...

Yeah, and I'm interested to see more about the game system.

Yes.

But yeah, the IDW games will be producing that.

And it's the first new game they've published in about five years, interestingly.

Okay.

Yeah, I think there could be quite a bit of mileage and sort of maybe, like everywhere, like a sort of a tarot-style reading, and you use the deck to set up the situation as Godzilla approaches it, and you try and respond to that.

But that would indicate, it seems like maybe it's like a top trim style.

I don't know.

Neither do I.

We could do a sort of a blackjack and that could, you could do a lot of things with cars to cover the bases we've already talked about.

So, yeah.

If you're listening, tell us more.

We need to know.

Well, they will tell us more at Packs Unplugged, they've told, as they said.

So that'll be later this month.

So we will update you.

We'll know more.

Oh, fantastic.

Indeed, indeed.

I keep giving you awful things to talk about, PJ.

But you keep finding awful things, so we'll talk about it.

Should we talk about the Rockstar Workers' unfair dismissal?

And do you want to give context as to why this is relevant for us as a tabletop RPG talk news show?

Oh, absolutely.

So there is a union.

It's called the IWGB Game Workers Union.

They're based in the UK, and they have about 2,000 members.

This year, they opened up their membership to TTRPG Professionals, And they have about a hundred on the books.

Although that figure was a couple of days ago, I'd rather suspect, given what we're about to talk about, that that number is climbing significantly.

And they're an employment union, is that right?

So basically, if you're having...

I mean, they're not a union for a specific workplace.

They're sort of a union for a profession.

So the support they provide you is information about what's going on in your profession.

And often it will be legal advice because they'll have lawyers who have access to lawyers who are familiar with employment law and the ins and outs of the place you're in.

So yeah, like I say, it seems like a good deal if you're in the UK and a TTRPG professional, quite frankly.

Okay, so what is the deal?

What's happening with Rockstar?

So Rockstar Games, they're set up in Scotland, I believe.

I think I'll ask that.

What's happened there?

Yeah, Rockstar are one of the success stories of the UK games industry because they develop things like Grand Theft Auto.

It appears that they're on Grand Theft Auto VI at the moment.

And I don't want to say for certain, because I don't know for certain, But the story that has come out, and perhaps Rockstar sees it differently, I don't know.

The story has come out that there was an attempt to unionize, and then Rockstar fired en masse a bunch of workers for attempting to unionize.

And that is, like, just not okay for, I mean, as I say, I don't know, I certainly can't comment on legal proceedings.

Alleged.

But that is, well, yeah, it's alleged that they were fired for uni activity.

Certainly, it's a case of unfair dismissal.

So, yeah, it is quite a problem.

So, there we go.

And the IWGB is setting up to help out the game workers.

So, it's a matter in motion and has not yet achieved resolution.

So, we'll have to see.

But yeah, I thought it was quite interesting.

Again, it's just like a little bitty thing rather than anything that I can talk about in massive detail because there's just not that much detail available to talk about.

Fair enough, fair enough.

Let's talk about a little something else then that is not people doing awful things.

Terrible, terrible things, yeah.

Yeah.

Ghost in the Shell.

Did you add this one on, or was this Russ?

I did add this one.

I did add this one.

I saw an ad on Instagram.

And it worked.

I was like, hello.

Yeah, basically, you have much of what I know in front of you which is that there is a um a pre-launch notification going out with about 8 000 followers on kickstarter for ghost in the shell arise tabletop role-playing game this one's being produced by a by man project studios who've created 10 games before they're based over in paris um and yeah it's um it looks like they've got full rights to what's going on um looking at what they've previously done i don't think we have covered too much of their work before uh oh no i'm looking at the wrong bit oh okay so it says so that's interesting Manor Project Studios, the Kickstarter page says it's based in Paris in France, but their actual personal page says they're based in Milan in Italy.

So this is new.

Yeah.

So they've done stuff like they've done Run Raptor Run, which looks like some sort of board game involving Tyrannosaurus, uh, Philostoreptors, sorry.

Um, a Cthulhu-esque one, a 5e Norse Ragnarok one, a Cowboy Bebop, Manor, Cowboy Bebop role playing game.

They did the Cowboy Bebop role-playing game.

Got it.

Okay.

Yes, yes.

Which, that hit shy of half a million euros with about.

Just under 5,000 backers.

So, you know, respectable numbers they're doing.

And that also looks like it had access to the original artwork and so forth.

So we can be pretty sure it's going to have some good artwork.

They've got some experience.

Yeah.

But people are excited about Ghost in the Shell, last I checked.

So now you can have a chance to have a crack at it.

Absolutely.

I mean, there's over 8,000 people following it for when it launches.

So I think this may be a million dollar Kickstarter club one coming up.

You can download the quick start guide now for free on DriveThruRPG.

And there's a link on the Kickstarter page.

So we'll put links in the show notes for that.

But it's using the forged in the dark system, which is interesting, which I think would work quite well.

And it's got links and information on there about the character sheet.

The character sheet looks really interesting, actually.

it's kind of got like part of a brain and uh and a robotic brain and elements coming off it where stats and things go but that's all in the quick start guide um but yes uh it looks really cool i am very interested um there's been some reviews that people have put on uh drive through rpg saying what they thought the quick start guide so you can have a look there so there is a bit of information that you can have a look beforehand um but yeah and like you say it looks very beautiful and it's in a range of languages it is in english language um and french and italian so if if you make sense yeah so yeah that looked really interesting thanks for sharing that yeah i mean if they if they do hit a million then that will be very impressive uh i we we don't know the details yet but i can say they're offering a call book and an adventure book uh with the option of a deluxe scorebook so it's got something going on for it like i say i i'm not like a massive fan of ghost in the shell i don't.

Like, I have read of the fiction, which I feel has done it better.

Like, no offense.

But as an anime, I appreciate it.

It's, like, got a really good place in the genre.

So, yeah, fair play to them.

It looks exciting.

So, hopefully, some of our listeners will be excited as well.

Unless you're not excited.

Sorry about that.

Fair enough.

And going from a game that is forged in the dark, we are now going to be running in the dark.

So we have run from the dark uh which is a kickstarter which is now currently live so we're not waiting for this one ghost in the shell is gonna um was meant to go live last week but they've delayed it a little bit for technical reasons so most likely we'll be going live soon but run from the dark is a folk horror halloween not halloween folk horror role-playing game and i made a link with halloween because of the time of year but did you add this one on as well was that russ uh this was me as well because um i was chatting to someone who's an indie game designer and they said i'm doing a kickstarter and obviously my ears picked picked up at that point because i'm always on the lookout to draft out indie games and they told me they were doing welsh folklore horror at that point it was like i had to jessica i had wonderful wonderful i love welsh folklore it's so dark that was very much the impression i got like lots of body horror are terrible things happening to people.

If you like your if you like your folklore grim then apparently this is the game for you Wales is dark and cold and you know these are the horrors we must face, tell us more well it's like um in it's a game in progress at the end it is currently uh i believe it has funded let me just double check oh yeah it's funded it's funded like four times over oh yeah yeah goal of four thousand pounds hitting nearly 17 000 or 318 backers uh an excellent effort by uh willardy uh yeah you get like a a core book oh and i don't know if you saw like the little um staglets yes what is that because you can get a little plush toy of this uh little staglet it's very cute yeah uh for for all listeners at home it's sort of like a, technicolor furby but with horns yeah i mean i find it slightly less disturbing than the furby but it does have flippers and horns so your mileage may vary that depends what you you're happy to have staring down at you from the uh.

Staring down at you from the um from your shelves and so forth it's like a little minis game and these staglets uh apparently they're there to help that they're from again it's like one of these collaborations because um uh rach makes is the creator that's been doing them so they are.

Uh rach presumably is one that's making these like little weird little guys that you can uh have to keep and cuddle which yeah you gotta say um 250 pounds gives you a custom-made saglet the physical hardbook of run from the dark and the physical hardback for the forbidden psalm run from the dark supplement and of course all digital and applicable stretch goals which compares to um yeah so it's like you're looking at probably about the thick end of 200 pounds to get all these custom made for you so they're very cool but also quite pricey well yeah for the cost for a custom made thing like that i'd expect the game itself is not so if you you know if you just wanted the game itself that you can get 15 pounds for the digital um you know i think it's like 20 30 pounds for the heart for the hardcover so the game itself but yeah it looks really interesting like you were saying i like the fact it's its own custom system because i do, like an independent system.

So that's available there.

They said it's easy to reskin for a horror system that you like as well.

And the vibes of it did, I do love running 10 candles, as you know.

It's one of my games I have in my back pocket that I'm happy to run with five minutes notice.

Oh, of course, yeah.

Because in this game, you are running from the dark.

The world is full of dark, scary things that go bumping at night, and you are walkers going around with your light sources to try and stay safe from it.

So it's a great thing because I think in horror, using darkness and the fear of the unknown is such a great tool.

So, yeah, I think the setting makes sense.

It's this custom system by an indie creator.

It sounds like a win-win for me as well.

Maybe something I'll be working.

I mean, it's got solo play, co-op, and versus play modes.

And it says it's a 28mm miniatures agnostic game.

I mean, honestly, it's like an extremely interesting project.

And even if this isn't your sort of cup of tea, it probably is worth having a look just to see what you think.

Because, like I said, it's some absolutely fantastic artwork.

I mean, I have come to accept that I can't run horror.

it's a sad inability of mine to get something done.

But they've unlocked one, two, three stretch goals, including an extra class.

With 18 days to go, I would say they are pretty much guaranteed to hit £20,000.

And the old Sunken Forest, how would you say that?

Cantra Gweilod or something like that?

I don't know.

It looks exciting.

And yeah, they've got some spaces to go, but yeah, it's, Yeah, like I say, I don't know what to tell you, Jessica, apart from it looks good.

It really is my cup of tea, PJ.

You found something that's for me.

Like, I've got an indie niche RPG horror for you, and it's Welsh.

I'm like, well, I really don't know what more you can do to tempt me for a role-playing game.

And it's a reasonable price as well.

So I think I will be backing that one.

Are you backing it live on there?

I'm not, because I don't have my card with me.

But I will later.

It will.

Okay, Will, you can buy a bit back in the pub later.

It's all good.

Yes uh okay uh something a little bit less dark in the crowdfunder space though we have though is a journeymon monster training role play is this another one you brought to the table oh this is yeah you just bring you stuff to hit this week pj it's all stuff, that's very kind of you say jessica very kind of you'd say um i mean i just wander around the internet um and occasionally a shiny thing um so this project is also funded it's uh 5 000 against the 2500 goal with 161 backers and 20 days to go so that is a pretty epic start the name is journeymon monster trainer role playing so i gotta say this is clearly legally distinct from pokemon.

Yes, yes, yes.

Completely different, I assure you.

It's in motion it's in motion it's uh very exciting i mean you've sold it really well because my first thought when i saw this was there is that monster playing taming role-playing game which i've forgotten the name of and i had them on not dnd and it's it's good and you're journeying around like healing and helping beasts in the world and i can't remember the name of it someone on the internet put it in the comments they've been on not dnd they're lovely people but it reminded me of that but now i've looked into this like you say the pokemon reference is probably more applicable in this because the creatures that you find and discover are um your companions and go around with you they're not like wild untamable beasts like in this other game i'm thinking of but it does look interesting because they focus on zero prep which i love i love having some zero prep games that i can just have in my pocket um but yeah this looks cool as well yeah it's got a quick start guide out um i haven't been able to go into it in a depth but it looks like it's probably using Powered by the Apocalypse style gaming because it's got various playbooks and classes, Ace, Rival, Researcher, Caretaker, Ten Monster Power, Swing of Battles to Life, Sample Adventure.

So, yeah, it's looking good.

And thanks to followers during the Prudential campaign, they've also whacked in the Youngster and the Oldtimer.

So there's all sorts, really.

It looks like they've got eight potential classes to get off and lots of different monsters with a sort of a extremely complicated rock, paper, scissors sort of vibe, if that makes sense.

Okay, yeah.

Well, like Pokemon.

Like Pokemon.

Not to bring up the other one, but yeah.

I mean, the thing is, right, I never actually played Pokemon because I'm slightly too old for it.

No, you're never too old for Pokemon.

I feel like I'd probably have to watch the cartoon show.

Although, because I have been on the internet, I am aware of Team Rocket, for example.

Yeah so this is by a lady called Imogen Jingel who is a UK based space plasma physicist as you are as you are.

They've worked on the Cosmere RPG the Brown Sanderson RPG and they've got MCDM, Flea Mortals and Drawsteel Heroes, as well as working on Frontiers of Eberron, Quicksilence and Chronicles of Eberron with Keith Baker, oh there you go um yeah uh they got uh an artist known for the back for the brink webcomic juno crover curtain who's also worked on encrypted creeks uh will devere and anemon sorry and the editor is an enemy nominated uh person author editor layout designer erf jordan so it seems like they've got a really first-class team um, And yeah, I mean, that's very good again.

So I was like, oh, okay, that looks cool.

I'll give that a shout out.

Cool.

It's just what I symbol upon, Jessica, and this one looks good.

Yeah, no, I love it.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Another thing that we've seen online is, and I mean, tabletop RPG journalism is suffering a bit.

We've talked a lot.

There's a lot of sites and things that are closing down or not doing the news on it.

But you found a really interesting TTRPG magazine that comes out, Nevermind the Dice, and issue 15.

Nevermind the Dice Rolls.

Nevermind the Dice Rolls.

Yes.

Yes, sorry.

Which I believe would be a reference to Nevermind the Buzzcocks.

Yes, that makes sense.

Is that, that was just a British thing?

Because are people outside the UK going to know what Nevermind the Buzzcocks is?

Yes.

Or is that very British?

Let us know in the comments.

I feel it's very British, so maybe you can do an Anglophiles description.

Okay.

I mean, how would I take that?

I know the reference, but I'm like, it was like a music show or something that did lots of comedy as well.

Yeah, it had comedians on.

But anyway, never mind the dice rolls.

What's this about?

Oh, well, they are a TV RPG magazine, and they've hit issue 50.

And i saw that i was like oh they're a magazine because that's the level of attention i sometimes bring to my daily to day life there's a lot going on and i was like oh okay this is really cool so i thought i'd give them a shout out because uh they would like to talk about um obviously lex arcana but they are i'm going to say available to uh grab from drive through rpg.com so you know that's a boys handy and it's a usual joys of being a magazine it's a monthly magazine so at issue 50 we know they've been going for over four years yeah yeah um they've got some reviews uh some articles like not your standard party the group should be a traveling circus over a standard adventuring party which yeah is quite interesting and like little inspiration things like town of secrets doctor surgery what lurks behind these doors so you know um it's like four dollars less than four dollars so it's like a couple of quid for a pdf download i mean it's hard to see where you could go wrong to be fair yeah sounds good i mean it's always and this isn't uh making up they're not making rpg content to be clear they're talking about you know talking about the industry articles news reviews and things like that opposed to But it's not like they're making adventures every month or things like that, just to clarify.

No, no, this isn't like, it's got, it's like if White Dwarf covered more than Games Workshop stuff, which was true at one point, I believe, many decades ago.

All right, there we go.

Well, there we go.

Well, talking about one TTRPG magazine, let's talk about another, because I'm excited about it.

Because AlphaStar magazine is going on Baccakit next week, dear listener.

Or such viewer.

So I'm really excited about this.

So we have been waiting for the Void Runner's Codex fulfillment to be complete.

All Void Runner Codex stuff, which takes your 5e and Level Up Advanced 5th edition games to space.

For those that don't know the context.

And we wanted to keep supporting this line and we're going to do that with a quarterly magazine.

Now, we do have two other magazines.

We do the Gate Pass Gazette and Insider Magazine, Insider 5th edition, Gate Pass Gazette.

For Level Up Advanced 5th edition, which are monthly but with alpha star we're starting this off quarterly see see how we go see what you think see what you want and it's launching next week and we're using backer kit for this platform so it'll be on backer kit quarterly uh is the plan going forward the first issue's been made for a while because we had a few delays with tariffs and things like that with void run so this has been ready to go for quite a while so it's really exciting to see it um.

We're able to share it with you now um so which means we'll be able to fill it really really quickly um so the the pdf version will be able to go out the day the back of kit campaign ends it's really nice and uh we're going to really quickly get your address and send it out to you in january for the physical copy so it's going to be a really quick nice turnaround and we've got loads of really cool stuff in there um so we've got new tech and items some are a bit shady and of ill repute um there's uh new cultures and new heritages and if you're familiar with afiv there's different archetypes there's like you know bioengineer so you've got different scientist archetypes and fit in the setting uh we all love psionics because that's something cool and different for um you know a sci-fi setting so we've got expanded different.

Paths and options for them different archetypes um so yeah i'm just really excited about it so i wanted to give that a shout out um the link is in the show notes or up on the screen if you're interested in taking your sci-fi game to space and if you miss the void runners codex it's going to be available as an add-on bundle within this and that'll be the first time it's available um outside of that at a at a discounted crowdfunding rate and if you don't have the void runners codex and you wanted to pick it up when we finish fulfillment at the end of the month you can potentially pre-order it and pick it up without any shipping from dragon meat at the end of the month uh so we put it on our website and if you're in the uk there's a drop down option to select i'll pick it up from you at dragon meat because they're really heavy so shipping there was quite a bit so if you want to pick it up for free and carry it home you can do that at dragon meat and they've left all the warehouses so they're on their way to backers uh if you don't have it yet if you check the kickstarter page for more details but i'll talk about that more on there but i i'm looking forward to getting my copy.

I'm told it's left the warehouse.

It has to be somewhere.

Yeah.

Some poor post person's trying to lug it around somewhere because it's so heavy.

I mean, there might be several copies that they're having to lug for so-and-so, yeah.

Oh, really?

Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, there we go.

I think that brings me to the end of the news this week, unless you had anything else to share, PJ, or anything else we wanted to talk about.

No, I've brought everything that I can think of to share and make known to you and so forth.

So, yeah, it's all pretty good, really.

Wonderful.

Okay, well, I think we should probably wrap it up there.

Thank you to everyone who has watched and listened.

We will be back next week, hopefully, with a Russ.

Yes.

That is our hope and dream, that he will be well and returned to us.

But if not if he doesn't we'll just play Baldur's Gate as well and if not we'll play Baldur's Gate okay yes okay that sounds really good so we'll do that alright so come join us next week on the live stream 2pm, British time 9am eastern on YouTube Twitch or the other one Facebook or just listen wherever you're listening to this podcast and maybe we'll be playing Baldur's Gate if Russ is still unwell, hilarious alright well for now I'll say goodbye and thank you very much bye bye, We'll see you next time.