Music.

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

I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ.

And with me this week is...

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

Join us today, bathed in all her angelic glory.

It's the one, it's the only.

It's me jessica from em publishing and yes those of you that are joining us for the live stream and by the way if you're listening to the podcast we live stream every friday 2 p.m bst or 9 a.m eastern on twitch youtube and facebook but yeah people watching will notice that i am in a different location i'm in southwest wales and the lighting situation is not ideal but nevertheless like the sun in your right eye but not your left that is what is happening that is why that is why you're winking it's not you're not like winking at the camera it's more of a just having a stroke yeah well when i started recording the sun was not here because people that have been to southwest wales know it is generally not present but suddenly it appeared five minutes before recording but we're just gonna have to deal with the fact i'm bathed in sunlight or radiant almost makes you look a little like the batman villain two-face you caught me i need to get that i need to get that jacket i have that's got two two different colors if i do this it's better if i just stand like this just sit like that for the rest of the show second part salute yes okay yeah let's carry on this is normal no problems here i'm gonna apologize if i am slightly yeah if i am slightly out of focus i am feeling quite poorly i've been quite poorly all week some kind of weird fluey thing so my brain and my head is all fucky.

I'm surviving and I struggled here anyway to do this podcast just for you.

Thank you.

Hi Dan.

Should we do some news?

Yes.

There's not too much news this week, so it might be slightly quicker than usual for you.

It might be slightly quicker, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so let's start with D&D, just to make a change.

Okay.

Yeah.

So this chap here is John Hite.

He is the president of Wizards of the Coast.

And he did a big long interview with game industry.biz the other day all about wizards including magic and video games and all sorts of stuff but of course part of that he was talking about dnd and the new franchise model that they've been talking about recently yeah i remember we covered that the other month and it confused a lot of people because they thought that meant that people could buy a franchise of dnd like you buy mcdonald's franchise but that's not what it means no it's franchise as in the marvel franchise or the you know it's uh but a franchise as in an ip a property yeah yeah yeah yes more i guess brands might be the best way for most people to understand that i guess yeah that that would have been the term i'd have used but nevertheless that's not I'm sure it's the one that they chose.

Yeah.

So he talked about a couple of these.

He talked about the franchise model.

He talked a little bit about video games.

And he also talked a bit about AI.

Oh yeah generative ai oh yeah okay i mean he's got too much money on hand and pushes to set some of it on fire i mean he could give it he could give it to me i'll set on fire for him or i'll spend it like you know he's always good yeah yeah well this is what the franchise model is about yes it's basically about bringing in all these different properties which are related to a brand and having kind of like synergistic effect on each other.

Yeah.

Pulse 8-3, Dungeons & Dragons, Honor Amongst Thieves, definitely part of the D&D brand.

Stranger Things is part of D&D now?

No, it's not necessarily part of the D&D brand, but it is also sort of part of how that going forward strategy is.

So he mentions in the interview that they wished that they had had some kind of D&D product linked in to Honor Amongst Thieves.

Yeah that felt like an obvious win yeah i remember they had like some pre-gens and stuff but yeah but there could have been an honor amongst the starter set there could have been a hard cover adventure you know there's a load of different things they could have done but they did none of those things yeah i mean it was really good so oh sorry yeah i enjoyed the film i mean i I think because in the film, they had previously gone on a heist and the movie was set after that.

The adventure could have been that heist and you could have been someone else there.

That could have been a good tie-in.

So, I don't know, just as an idea.

So, right versus the world there says, what, no mention of the new Exodus TTRPG?

Yeah, I mean, we did cover that the other week, but yes, that's an excellent example of them making a TTRPG to go along with a video game that they're producing.

So they, so they actually did it this time.

They actually, you know.

Did the two things, but I think that, that was planned long before this new franchise model came in.

I believe the question, and Rai first of all, do you let me know if I got this wrong?

The question is sort of an ironic, but they didn't mention that they've released Exodus TTRPG has an example when he's talking about all this stuff.

Well, yes.

Yeah.

I mean, that TTRPG has had very, very little publicity.

It was a kind of stealth drop, wasn't it, really?

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, they...

So, they got the branding correct to the extent that...

They got the franchise model correct to the extent that they got a game, and the ctrpg but actually talking about the ctrpg seems to be just that little bit out of space yeah i don't quite understand that but hey i imagine they had these conversations internally which is why they're like hey why aren't we doing this and so they're restructuring to make sure they can because we know we talked about there's the stranger things starter sets and information that are planned to come out next month in october which is when i believe the final season of Stranger Things is coming together.

Welcome to the Hellfire Club, that is called.

Yeah.

So maybe this is part of that new plan going forward that, hey, we need to streamline this and make sure that we're really maximizing on stuff.

Because I was, again, really surprised that Baldur's Gate 3 didn't have more tie-in stuff because it's been hugely popular.

It's a very successful game.

And I've heard lots of people online say, hey, I've never played a role-playing game, but I played Baldur's Gate 3 and quite liked it.

Maybe I should give that a try.

so there was an audience there of people that were curious and boulder's gate starters that box set yeah in sort of mainstream stores it's so like hotcakes i imagine yeah do an adventure where based on carlac's backstory where spoilers but it's been out for a while you're fighting in the hells and the blood war or perhaps you have an encounter in boulder's gate with a starian or something or hey hell maybe a githyanki based one where you meet lazel prior to the adventure starting when you're in the Githyanki crash training for stuff.

These are all words?

Yeah.

These are all things you could do, just off the top of my head.

Okay.

Well, we've got some Astarian-led stuff.

And there's some miniatures.

He's fine.

There's bits and pieces.

There is Astarian's Hunger, which is that new online D&D Beyond.

Yeah, but it's only a DLC, and it's a side thing, isn't it?

It's not...

Yeah.

A box set is what they need.

It's like you said, it's bits and pieces.

Yeah, yeah.

So, well, I assume this is...

I do not feel like I'm being marketed to take advantage of my enthusiasm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because, I mean, there's two things up there.

I actually quite like Bald Skate 3.

Same.

Okay.

Don't talk about it much, but I do.

Stranger Things pop us out is coming very soon.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's great.

That is the first thing he talks about.

For me i don't it's so yeah yeah then you talked a bit about ai so he said um in this interview he said that the art that you see in a dnd product is going to come from the mind of a human, the final product will be made by a human being they're not using generative ai to create the artwork, but they haven't ruled out the use of AI completely and any uses of AI they would examine on a case by case basis.

So what they're getting at there is, he went on to say a little more.

He says, is this displacing the human soul, spirit, creativity in doing it?

You know, we want things that people have dreamt up.

Then he also goes on to say, is it allowing us to take the drudgery out of things?

So, I mean, and that is the sizzle that is being sold for AI, that it will remove the drudgery from your life.

That it will be the robotic butler that we're all promised.

and it will just like be able to do useful things, summarise emails like in a competent fashion.

Alas, reality can introduce every head.

That's what I want to know.

No.

I want it to do the washing up.

No.

We get to keep all the chores.

It gets to like ham-fisted job at the artistic side.

I want it to clean up after my dogs.

Yes.

I want it to do that.

yeah i mean currently the the most people most enthusiastic about ai are computer programmers and they're saying that it can be used to replace junior coders whereas people with a slightly broader view of the industry are like if we don't have junior coders anymore where will we get senior coders and engineers from we shall make them immortal yeah yeah yeah um indeed indeed so yeah Yeah, it's just an ongoing problem.

Open AI is, you know what, let's not talk about it because it's hilariously horrible.

We could spend a long time in a rabbit hole down here, but I think we do.

I would.

He did give us one example of how they thought they might use it.

Okay.

And this was related more to some of the video games they're doing.

Hmm.

And it was to have AI do the voices in the video games during development so that that could be tested on audiences before they lock down what, the final text is going to be at which point they would then bring in the voice actors to actually do the proper speech so in the kind of development phase but not the final phase was kind of what he was saying i mean yeah i i mean you know another way they could do that sort of thing they could say hey jimothy why don't you read this out for us just just as a test piece lamb yes yeah that's I don't feel like that is a massive workload that the AI is taking on there.

No.

Is it?

It's an attempt to solve the problem of wages.

That's what this AI stuff is about.

It's very objective.

But that is a very niche case, which is not very good.

It doesn't do anything.

It's not its fault.

It doesn't have context.

It cannot do an image description.

In a helpful way to humans because it doesn't share context with humans not a design flaw not a problem inherent to it yeah well exactly it's it's like it because it literally does not share context with us that's not its fault it's not the designer's fault but like it's the people trying to tell you that it can do these things it's their fault that there is a problem there but yeah and like reading that statement like i i am inclined to give past road benefit of the doubt and think that what we currently have at the moment we've got this massive ai bubble that is like quivering ready to pop but you still have to even if you look at the technology saying nah stupid you still have to to please your investors not rule out ai yeah so a lot of that that's why a lot of people have thrown themselves full into by i because everyone else is doing it it's like that old that old disney film about lemmings being thrown off a cliff except of course for the horrible truth that actually they were being thrown off the cliff rather than throwing themselves off the cliff can't do it anyway sorry I'm just realising Russ this is why we don't have investors at EM Publishing, because we don't use AI yeah because we made a big statement saying that's the only reason I add in that entirely synthetic.

I can believe that.

We are using AI.

Okay.

All right.

Well, don't help Deckard and you'll be okay.

I would have hoped you'd be more efficient if that were the case, but you know.

Oof.

Shall we move on?

Yeah, let's move on.

Moving on from this awkward topic.

Yeah.

I'm joking.

How would you like a dragon head on the wall of your room?

It would go in this room, actually.

Yeah?

Yeah, I think so.

I would like one.

Sure.

12 inches.

It's the head of the 2024 Monster Manual Red Dragon.

So that's not to scale.

No, it's quite a small head, isn't it?

A little baby dragon.

Well, it'd be a wormling.

it'd be like a dragon or something barely even a wormling this image I'm seeing it looks like a grown.

Yeah it looks like a grown dragon elder dragon with horns yeah well the previous ones weighed sort of 15 pounds or so, This one weighs seven pounds, so it's like half the size of previous ones they've released.

Okay.

So this is to accommodate scale.

Hmm.

Yes.

I don't know what the price is.

I mean, I guess you're desperate to emulate a trophy ring.

Yeah, they were like $200, $300, weren't they?

More like $500 for the previous ones.

So I assume this will be smaller in price as well as physically smaller.

Yeah.

Damien's just commented, he thought every house in Wales had a dragon head mounted.

No, but that is not...

Every house in Wales has a dragon.

Yeah, a live one.

An actual dragon.

They're actually a protected species.

It's a general problem, so you can't do anything about them.

Like back in the old days, you could send a group of adventurers, but nowadays it's like, you know, you have to call a specialist to have them relocate them.

Very similar to the heron that keeps visiting our garden and then standing next to the pond looking longingly at the fish.

And apparently you're not allowed to do anything about that either because they are also protected.

Can you not shoo them away?

Is shooing covered by protection?

I have two mobile anti-heron units that get to play on a frequent basis.

And they work very well.

Extremely well.

Bit noisy, but they work.

Fair enough.

Alright, okay.

So there's this dragon-mounted head that you can purchase.

Yes.

A more manageable head size.

In match.

Should you wish a dragon head on the wall of your house.

There's another dragon you can buy.

Oh, oh yeah?

If that's not enough dragons, you can also buy this dragon in June of next year.

And this is Amethyst dragon from WizKids.

It's going to be $99.99 for the painted version or $79.99 for an unpainted version.

And this is based on the version of the Amethyst Dragon from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.

Yeah.

It's an older version.

They've updated the look of the dragons in 2024.

So this is the older, older style.

And what size did you say?

I don't know how big it is exactly.

Okay.

I'd be about 12 inches tall or something like that, I reckon.

10 to 12.

It's a big boy.

Yeah.

Do you remember, like, it was several months ago now we had that whole thing where a lot of people complained about the quality of the miniatures and they didn't.

They said the ones that were put on sale and the ones that they received were quite varied in quality.

Yes.

It was for Baldur's Gate 3.

Yeah, that sounds right.

It had a shadow heart who looked like a piece of old chewed up gum.

Yeah, yeah.

It looked like that Spanish cathedral that had it restored.

Yes no that's a yeah absolutely yeah yeah yeah i i was able to send you the thing afterwards and you're like oh yes yes it's right that's what she looks like yeah so i personally would not have used this picture to sell my model.

I'm not with kids.

I guess they are sensitive to complaints, so maybe it's a more realistic version of what the painted copy will look like.

I don't know.

Or maybe it's just a really flattering camera angle.

It looks like a 3D representation, like a mock-up to me.

A lot of these often are, actually.

What you're actually seeing is the photo of the model.

They're often renderings, is the word, isn't it?

They're often renderings.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know whether this is or not.

It looks like it.

You know what?

But maybe it's hard to say.

Did you cut this out?

No, that was the image.

That was the actual image.

Right, because if you look between the...

Top and bottom of the cutoff was the image.

Oh, you see on its claws, it's got a wide space between them.

So it looks like they've done a bit of a...

Like a...

That round perimeter?

Yeah, or something.

Like a magic eye cut from Windows Paint or something.

Well, the white stuff is generally supposed to be sort of translucent, isn't it?

Underneath yes it's kind of purple on top but translucent underneath, which i don't think they do now in 2024 i think they've dropped that look but in 2014 the amethyst dragons colored on top so maybe that's that's part of the model right right.

It doesn't look that way to me especially if you look at the spines on its neck as well you've got that similar sort of white business which is going on it's it's not a flattering picture i mean i can see that there could be a good model there i'd be interested in seeing an unpainted one perhaps but like as a painted version i would i think i i'll be honest to me it looks ugly if you disagree that's absolutely fine it's an aesthetic thing like you know like i think the underlying sculpture is fairly good, but the paint job as presented is unpleasant to look at.

And those are our thoughts.

Sorry.

Definitely mine.

Like, yeah.

Russ has no thoughts.

I honestly don't have an opinion on it.

It's a purplish dragon.

Fine.

Like I said, good sculpts.

I'd be interested.

It's just like a weird choice of photo to me.

Well, let us wander away from Dungeons & Dragons and Wizards of the Coast into a different part of the TTRPG news.

This isn't actually technically TTRPG.

This is CRPG.

But based on TTRPG.

Okay.

Let's go.

This is Starfinder Afterlight, which is a video game based on the Starfinder 2nd Edition rule set.

They did announce it quite a while ago.

I think we haven't heard of it before.

I'd forgotten about it, though.

Yeah, I pretty much had as well.

But the news this week is that they have previewed a couple of the companions you can meet.

So I think that, I don't know how similar this is to Baldur's Gate, but it's hard not to draw comparisons.

I mean, yeah.

So this is, you know, sci-fi, science fantasy, I guess.

There's more Guardians of the Galaxy-esque, I guess, is kind of the tone that they're going for here.

And they previewed a couple of the companions.

Let's see.

And they did that on an interview with Polygon.

Okay, cool.

This is kind of what the game looks like.

You can see this kind of a very neon turn-based, Blade Runner-esque kind of aesthetic to it.

Looks fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, it kind of puts me in mind of Shadowrun, the Iron Airbrained games.

Yeah, a little Shadowrun-y, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Especially now we've got this dialogue box open, which has got like a two-dimensional cartoon image of the character Lou, apparently.

And then there's a set of options that you can choose to respond to her.

I think that's in the Mass Effect style, but I've never actually been able to play Mass Effect, so I don't know.

Well, should we have a look at a couple of the companions?

Yeah, let's do it.

This is the first one.

Taika?

Taika.

Is it a rat?

He's a...

I don't know how you pronounce this word.

Y-S on the first two letters.

Isoki.

Y-S-O-K-I.

Isoki.

Operative.

With a mechanical arm.

And they say a punk aesthetic.

And he'll be voiced by Inel Tomlinson.

He's a blend for me of Rocket Raccoon and Bike and Mice from Mars.

A little bit, yeah.

I can see that.

I can see that.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Cool.

Excellent.

Cool.

That's, that's nailed it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he may be holding a thermal testinator.

Possibly.

Well, he's an inventor who's fallen on some hard times.

Sorry to hear.

The other companion you can pick up is Cole, a Vesk soldier.

And this is a heritage, it's an ancestry they call it in Starfinder and Popfinder.

I think this is an ancestry they have in Starfinder.

So I think I recognize this art style.

This one is voiced by Fred Tatisciori.

I don't know that off the top of my head.

Have they got any big credits, I don't know?

I don't know.

Okay, sorry.

All right.

It's a big blue lizard chap with a white beater vest and some Han Solo trousers and the most amazing pair of Elton John-style sunglasses.

Are they sunglasses?

I don't think they're his face.

I can see the whites of his eyes are tented.

Oh, yes!

Yes, I thought they were horns at first, but no, you're correct.

He's wearing orange spiky triangle sunglasses.

Okay.

Yeah.

What a dude.

Well, this character is inspired by John McClane.

Okay.

Hence the white meter.

And Indiana Jones.

I see it.

I see the right.

Yeah, I see it.

But if they were blue lizards in space.

And from the text I have here, the voice actor was doing their best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.

I haven't heard the voice.

This is only what I'm reading.

I'm excited to hear it based on that description.

Yeah.

What are the dates on this game?

This game is going to be 40 hours.

it starts at level 1 finish at level 7 or 8 coming out in 2027 so quite a while off yet, and it's got a very it says Guardians of the Galaxy kind of vibe it's focused on a threat from the undead dwelling on the planet Eox.

I'm going to temper my excitement because it's coming out 2027 so I think this is something I'm going to keep an eye on though so if they give more previews and info I'd love to put it out on the show because I think this is something I might add to my wish list of video games I'm still not quite done with Baldur's Gate 3 though, I'm still playing that, yeah absolutely three years now is that that's quite a while to play a video game I normally last 45 minutes and these two years, two years yeah we should go back and have another go I think it was autumn 23 yeah, Yeah, I enjoyed it.

It was from watching Russ Blunder into stuff.

It was like, well, guess we'll get a hold of this lady.

What could go wrong?

I did get to blow you both up at one point.

Accidentally, admittedly.

Yeah, sure.

Well, I don't think it made a difference at that point.

Right.

It is a quiet week.

We are kind of starting to come to the end of the show So that quickly, honestly, there's so little news this week.

But I believe this was you, Peter, who put this one up?

Yes.

Yes, this is True Cult is how I would pronounce it.

But it's spelt T-R-V-E-C-V-L-T.

And that's actually...

Roman style, you know.

Yes, yes, indeed.

And that's how you have to spell it if you wish to find it.

R-U-C-L-T.

Because that's how they put it.

on the publishing page.

Yes, yes.

There'll be a link in the show notes.

But the reason I mention it is because it's not every day I come across a choose-your-own-adventure in the black metal style with touches of cyberpunk and fantasy.

I'm like, okay.

So I can't even read the cover.

So if you're a Morkbork fan, you're just going to love this.

It's not like one of those images you have to look at and try and see the words or the image within it.

Yeah it's kind of like a magic eye slightly more readable but yeah I don't know too much about it beyond that I saw it was being offered by Tenebrous Press, it's a soft cover book you've been invited to take back the drum abyss the cult band you founded, and yeah it looks like you're going to be doing black metal and so forth I will say probably not for the kids so if you got like um a teenage a young teenager or a small child they're probably not going to do this unless they're like really into their wednesday adams vibes but for those black metal friends who know just go shout out to lee williams hi then this book could be for you what is black metal as opposed to heavy metal or death metal what are the different fresh metal or speed yeah i don't know what any of these I know what sort of like metal music sounds like to me and I'm not sure I can distinguish the different sub genres, I don't think I can either and we're having a little bit of lag for PJ so PJ may know but I cannot hear them I believe that you'd have more.

It's a terrible time for the internet to pull down.

But I believe I would distinguish them as, if you're black metal, you have more corpse paint.

And it's more of a focus on death and cannibalism, as I understand.

Yes, yes, corpse paint.

You see, they've got that distinctive, like on the cover of the book, he's got that white and the eyes are all blacked out.

Oh, right.

It's meant to, yeah, like kiss.

Is it kiss?

Yes.

There you go.

I do know about it.

Like kiss.

I am clearly an expert in the subject then.

Fine.

Okay, and the world's leading expert in this subject.

I don't know if piss are black metal, but I do know, I'm pretty sure that's cork plane.

The idea is it's like you've got sunken eyes and so forth, and pale skin, so it looks like you're dead.

I just thought it was clown pain.

Oh, okay.

Well, that's the insane clown posse, who are a different group, and I do different things.

I believe you.

You should.

Okay.

All right.

Anyway, this is us, Paul.

Thanks for sharing.

I found it a good-looking kickstart.

Oh yeah that's one was called raptor ruckus a survivor for a tabletop rpg game through a dinosaur park on the edge of extinction so lovely i know exactly what's gonna happen jurassic park the rpg and you get lots of dinosaur miniatures and i do like dinosaur miniatures this is kind of it's quite tempting i might actually buy it back there so it's rules light it's d20 based, the fences are down the power is out and you're at the bottom of the food chain, as a raptor or as a human, I ask a question I think you play a human in this you play a human and the dinosaurs are adversaries yeah oh I want to play as a raptor okay well it plays it uses a variant of Mork Borg, which is overhauled expanded and reimagined and you'll be Discaraging supplies, counting bullets and evading carnivals, all the while trying to push that rising panic further into your gut.

It looks like there's a lot of books that you get with this Kickstarter.

I've seen a screen and six books as well as character sheets.

Let's have a look at exactly what you get.

So you get, ooh, hardcover, ribbons.

Ribbon bookmarks.

We love ribbon bookmarks.

Yeah, we do like ribbons.

We've got pamphlets.

There is pamphlets.

We've got character sheets, which are A5 size, tear away 50 of them, lots of them.

And then a 52 card deck, character folios, a Spinosaurus, a T-Rex, and a Velociraptor miniatures.

A five screen GM screen.

It's a lot of stuff.

Five.

A lot of stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, obviously, to get all that stuff, you're looking at some of the higher tiers over $50.

Well, yeah.

which is fair enough if you get a gm screen miniatures and six books i'm expecting to pay some money for those things but i'm sure they have tiers that are just digital only yeah they called it spared no expense and you get pretty much everything including the miniatures for 300 six books and gm screen though and minis that's kind of what i think you'd need to pay for baseball cap and a fossil patch and a prequel novel i had a novel you know you get a lot of stuff.

You get a lot of stuff.

A ton of stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I'm probably only in it for, well, I want the miniatures though.

It's not like the dinosaurs.

But then again, yeah, yeah.

But then again, it's not like small plastic toy dinosaurs are hard to come by very cheaply, is it?

Well, that is true.

That is true.

Like the Natural History Museum in London, for example, does have an excellent range.

But yeah, I mean, they don't look like bad models.

The only thing I would challenge is probably that you have to avoid carnivores.

I'd also say that the herbivores are very likely to also murder you.

Yeah.

If they see you as a threat.

You don't want a brontosaurus sitting on you.

Like rhinos.

Like most large herbivores.

it's like for them it's life or death quite literally any confrontation so they just don't hold back which is very bad, like hippos they just.

Hippos they're not going to eat you they just don't like you yeah they just want to kill you for fun yeah basically a lot of the hippo stuff is they're not even trying to kill you they just don't even notice you they just run over you, no no they're definitely out to kill you yeah yeah they are the they have hatred in their eyes hmm basically they can't swim so when they're chasing along the bottom of the river after you what they're doing is they're just bouncing off the bottom and jumping after you because they're that determined to rip your boat into bits so you know i don't know why that feels whimsical to me somehow how whimsical i don't have anything against hippos they're just being hippos and And they are extremely fun to watch, eat watermelons.

I'll say that.

You have a bit of time then to talk about draw still sure i don't have any pictures to share no you could talk about draw still if you wish yeah i mean like we are often a audio medium as well someone very kindly bought me a copy of the delian tomb which is the which is apparently the starter set which we were asking for so there you go it's got a starter set adventure yeah of course that in pdf uh yeah and it's like eight pounds which is pretty pretty cheap i felt it's got a full set of full set of pre-gens which you can edit the names on which i quite liked and you know what the rules are really good okay like yeah like nice it all just got three levels of success with the 2d10 as you were saying yeah that works you've got edges and banes which were like advantage or disadvantage but you know but basically it works in very similar ways so if you're like there's a situation here that is advantageous or disadvantageous is that it's going to be an edge right and it's an edge or it's a bane and you can have up to two edges or two banes and they cancel each other out one for one but yeah it's it's really yeah really simple and things like Aura and Lines they do what you'd expect if you've played any board games.

Like with that sort of tactical minis then you know pretty much what to expect so it's not.

And then the rest of it is exception management.

So I would say it's probably something I would be able to run, which I'm pretty delighted by.

Certainly compared to the Mutants Masterminds, which was keywords for days.

The monster stat blocks are, once you've got the grounding from having read the core, having a leaf through the core rules, they're actually really easy to understand.

In fact, they've got the watch you roll and the table of what the results are inside the stat block.

It feels like they're actually having to pad out the stat blocks because the monster's so simple and works so nicely, which was pretty cool.

So does the starter adventure talk you through the rules and sort of introduce them to you gradually?

I haven't actually managed to get into the starter adventure because I started reading the basic rules, which came with it, because I thought that would probably be an idea.

I don't know.

I imagine it would, and it would probably do a fairly good job based on the, because one of the things I've really enjoyed about this is the really clear direct communication style it uses.

And also, in the introduction, it says, if you like this sort of role-playing game, you should play this other role-playing game.

If you like this sort of thing in your role-playing game, you should play this other role-playing game.

Oh, and if you like this sort of thing, you should play Daggerheart.

Where everyone else who's still with us buckle in, we're going to have a good time I'm like, okay.

From feedback from people who, because I've been posting on Blue Sky about it, just because I like to do that sort of thing it feels like 13th Age there is valid comparisons I feel it would be a very different game because, there is a definite setting or choice of setting for Draw Steel and 13th Age is deliberately anti-canonical.

And also Drawsteel is, as Russ noted, completely on the grid, but it really is very explicit about this and does it very well.

And 13th Age rejects the grid in all ways.

And.

Closest comparison then it would be fourth edition dnd but that's not meant in a derogatory manner because there's lots of good things about it people said if it's been sold as did people talk about talk a lot of rubbish about fourth ed's dnd about like how it was terrible i'm like is it though because i had to moderate the edition wars for many years it was not fun no no no so it's like it's like a perfect i mean it's a major problem as far as i can make out is it had a terrible license for third-party developers so you know take that as you will but and things like the fights went on a long time they're very explicit as i say that if a fight goes on for five rounds that's an epic fight of massive proportions and you should expect three round fights which it tells you explicitly which i again i'm really i don't have to assume things it says, this is how it is.

Roll with it.

And I'm like, oh, thank you.

That's really helpful.

I don't have to guess what you mean.

You just told me what you mean.

So it's like, yeah, I don't know how much fun it would be.

I imagine it'd be quite fun to run because there's, but I think all the devil's in the detail, like all the exceptions, as you said, rest of the cards.

But yeah, like the underlying framework feels really strong.

So a lot of the fears I had about it proved to be unfounded.

And it looks like one hell of a tactical role-playing game.

Cool cool cool cool might even have to run it at some point wow i think i know push the boat out give it a run give it a spin i i mean a lot of games i struggle to understand how i'd do it but this one it feels like i'm probably going to i can probably run it without having to be constantly looking in the book every five minutes that's because it's it's for me i know people with minds may vary it's intuitive design do not get involved in draw steel if you hate grids you will have a terrible time they're very no don't do fear to the mind i'm like that's fair don't do fear to the mind.

I guess our last thing this week is our Kickstarter coming next week on the 16th, which is next Tuesday, which is also the day that our new kitchen sideboard arrives.

So quite a day in this household.

That's what people needed to know, Rhett.

I know, I know.

I know.

I'm not sure which I'm more excited about, but, you know, I've got exciting things.

Okay.

Well, I'm more excited for the What's Older's New Bestiary anyway.

You're not excited about my new kitchen sideboard?

Okay.

No.

I'm not at all.

No, I've been running around the internet screaming about the What's Older's New Bestiary to anybody that will listen.

But yeah, I'm really excited for it.

We've got some really nice previews up on EN World so you can have a look at stuff.

I'll have to show you one.

Oh.

This is...

Can we make this big?

I can.

This is got three there's three pages here but we have got some of the cyber beasts so that's a cyber bear a little cyber bear there uh we've also got a cyber snake and a cyber spider which is already giving me nightmares and we have got a cyber wolf okay also what you can see on these is you can see some of the other stuff we do.

So I didn't want to just copy our level-up monstrous menageries.

And we do all the different bits in now, which is like signs and behavior and all that sort of thing.

I didn't want to just copy it because level-up is level-up and I wanted this to be a different game.

But we do have different stuff.

So what we have is in every single monster has a bunch of different layers, just like a two-sentence description, nothing major.

And similarly, a bunch, I think it's six of each for every single creature, six layers and six little plot hooks.

Just one or two sentences, that's it, nothing more.

Just to sort of get you into the mindset and give you a few ideas and food for thought on how you might use this monster.

Yeah.

Okay.

Every single monster.

Could you give an example of a plot hook then for one of them?

I can try and, if I can zoom in and read that.

That's a zoom in of me.

Why does that keep happening?

Because you're clicking the wrong button.

Okay.

I can't read those.

Can you read them?

Okay.

A rogue AI unleashes cyberbeast swarms to secure its stronghold, forcing the party to fight or find a way to disable the creatures remotely.

Okay.

That was my question nicely.

Thank you.

Yeah, I love the artwork as well.

This is great.

It's a savage mojo.

No, I don't.

Even though it is about cyber beasts, it didn't get all meta and you say, hi, artwork.

It is all human artwork, human text, human stat blocks, human everything.

Mainly me, not the artwork.

I hasten to add you do not want to see my attempt to draw a cyber bear.

It would not sell the book well.

No.

And the best part of this book is my credits in it because we didn't know what to call what i did so we just put hours of copy and pasting because that was the most accurate thing of what i did but a huge amount of time went into collating things and putting them in one place but i didn't write anything or edit anything technically so we didn't know what to put so we just we just put that hours of copy and pasting yeah pretty much probably a bit like to change it but that would be curating i prefer hours of copy and pasting yeah yeah but there you go they know for the future it felt felt more specific but yeah but the pdf the first draft is is done we've had a look at it yep i was looking at it this morning we're just proofreading it and tweaking it and as always we'll have the pdf on the day the kickstarter ends which will be october 16th and then yes then we're planning to go to print very quickly with it again yes yeah very very very quickly yeah So this launches on Tuesday, the 16th of September.

Hardcover book, PDF, and also you can pick up the What's All's New Starter Set if you're new to the game.

Or the Core Rule Books if you want to splash out a bit more.

Because the Starter Set is obviously used at 25-ish in that region, Jess.

What's that, sorry?

The Coffee Starter Set.

The Starter Box Set, yeah, it's £25.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's like 30 US dollars around if you translate it.

Yeah, so that's a cheap and easy way to get into the system.

And then you get the bisturi and it's got lots of stuff.

Those btt tokens are the creatures and stuff that you can use and because i think when you're getting a beast year it's always nice to have the tokens because then you can also use them for whatever system because you just have a whole bunch of digital tokens yeah yeah yeah i mean like the new core book i really value i really enjoy the the world building tables you put in there but they're very clever good job yeah i had great fun writing all those so many years ago now was at 2016 or something oh wow well yeah that's a long time ago yeah and don't forget also you've got like the old book as well which like has your noun verb magic system and of course pages and pages and pages of pole arms so many people in there as a joke i mean just like i never really expect people to use all those pole arms it's just the i don't know there's a joke about one the D&D and the polearm sketch.

I mean, it's just, what can I say?

It's one of the things that's stuck out for me about that book.

To be fair, it's not many pages.

It's an art piece of probably one page of polearms.

Yeah, yeah.

I exaggerate for immediate effects.

Yeah, yeah.

Decent books.

It's all cross-compatible, which is, yeah, pretty cool.

Yeah.

So keep an eye out on Tuesday.

Yes.

and that's it I think we're done I think that's all for this week exciting short show yeah well it's nearly an hour yeah the synth to the point yeah I'll be back next week same time same place streaming at 2pm UK time 9am Eastern time on YouTube Twitch and what's the third one Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook yes YouTube and Facebook.

So please join us again next week.

I imagine we'll probably have a bit more news to share next week.

Thanks for the rest.

And if you enjoyed the show, please leave a nice comment for us because there's people leaving nasty ones and that makes him sad.

It makes a very sad face.

I actually quite like it.

I think it's quite funny.

Oh, okay.

In which case, don't leave a nice comment for us.

He didn't deserve it.

Okay, there we go.

You had your chance, Morrissey.

Alright, let's get out of here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for joining us.

See you next week.

Bye.

Music.