Audio EXP: #78 – A treasure chest of stats

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 9th of January 2021, and the title of this episode is ‘A treasure chest of stats’.

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #78]

[Also on Stitcher | Spotify | Apple | Google]

I’ve a host of quirky stats for you today and bucking the trend of 2020; none of them is from survey competitions from Geek Native.

Let’s start with EN World’s 10 most anticipated roleplaying games of 2021.

In reverse order;

SLA Industries, 2nd edition by Nightfall Games.

The game qualifies by EN World’s rules although I think most Kickstarter backers got it during 2020 and, technically, it was available on DriveThruRPG late on the 31st of December.

SLA is a dark corporate future in which the megacorporation distracts people through celebrity serial killers and constant rain.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse, 5th edition by Renegade Studios / Paradox

Hunters and a great line-up of designers had begun work on this eco-terrorism game in which you can play a werewolf before Paradox took the whole World of Darkness back in-house.

However, Hunters’ publishing partner is Renegade Studios who are also Paradox’s new publishing partner. I won’t be surprised if some of the original 5th edition team are announced as taking part in the in-house project.

Brancalonia – The Spaghetti Fantasy by Acheron Books

This RPG is a D&D 5e-powered spaghetti fantasy, and it mixes pop-culture with history.

Player characters are mercenaries who take on questionable jobs to make a living in an ancient kingdom. 

Pathfinder for Savage Worlds by Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Savage Pathfinder will use the latest Savage Worlds rules to let players explore the Pathfinder world and the “Rise of the Runelords” adventure path.

Rivers of London by Chaosium

A Basic Roleplaying powered game set in Ben Aaronovitch’s “cops that do magic” novel series. Geek Native was lucky enough to interview Ben about the project and you can find a link to that in the podcast transcript.

Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition by EN Publishing

A standalone RPG based and evolved from 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons and frequent progress reports are available from the Level Up site or EN World. 

King Arthur Pendragon, 6th edition by Chaosium

This RPG has been described as Gregg Stafford’s masterpiece. Stafford, who died two years ago, had a profound influence on the RPG world.

Pendragon 6th edition is the culmination of nearly three decades of refinement of Stafford’s vision of Arthurian fantasy. 

The One Ring, 2nd edition by Free League Publishing

There’s still some mystery as to how Free League Publishing ended up with the rights to produce the second edition of The One Ring RPG. The first edition was by Cubicle 7.

Then, despite thousands of votes, it’s is a tie for first place.

One of the winners is another Free League Publishing game in the form of Twilight: 2000. That’s a 5th edition remake of the game, going back to its routes and talking an alternative history approach.

The other winner is Modiphius Entertainment’s Dune: Adventures in the Imperium.

In fact, some of the collectors’ editions – and many variations are being made – have sold out.

The quirky thing about Dune coming in the first place was that it did so last year. Modiphius’ Dune was also the most anticipated roleplaying game of 2020.

Two years ago, Dune was also in the top 10 list of most anticipated roleplaying games for 2019. Oh my.

Are any of the games you want to play on that list? If there’s an upcoming RPG for 2021 that you think Geek Native should be aware of, please drop me a note via the blog.

Here’s a quick and happy stat blast. Despite struggling with volunteer numbers during a 1,000% boom in demand, charity RPG Research managed to help over 30,000 people last year.

RPG Research uses RPGs to see if they can make the world a better place. For example, they can show youth crime is reduced in areas they can run free games in.

While we’re talking about charity, I’d like to call out the sterling efforts of Onyx Path and The Bundle of Holding and the launch of Jackie’s Dreaming.

This $6 bundle has a host of Changeling: the Dreaming downloads in it and all proceeds, after payment fees, are being donated to Nicky Rea.

Nicky is a respected game designer, but as a freelancer, she doesn’t have a portfolio of royalties coming in. Right now, Nicky faces enormous medical bills as she’s an American recovering from COVID-19.

Sadly, the same infection is responsible for Nicky’s partner’s death, the equally respected Jackie Cassada. It’s a horrible time for Nicky, and therefore this charity effort is both excellent value for Changeling fans and a lovely thing to do.

I’ve some other big money stats too. Weirdly – well, I guess for marketing reasons, the pawnbrokers H&T spent time working out how much some iconic computer game props would cost in real cash.

A crowbar, as seen in Half-Life, costs about £5. A cardboard box like the one seen in Metal Gear Solid costs about 62p while a Mario Kart banana peel only 2p.

On the other end of the spectrum, a master sword from Zelda would cost £1,800.

A diamond pickaxe from Minecraft? Well. I hope you’re sitting down. H&T estimate that could cost £5 billion.

That’s not even the most expensive on their list. The Golden Rings from Sonic the Hedgehog come in at £5.5 billion. That’s about $7.7 billion in American money.

I did do some research of my own this week too. I used URL parameters on Audible to manipulate Amazon’s audiobook site to get a list of the most ordered pre-orders from the sci-fi and fantasy section.

I’ve put the full top ten on the site but here’s the top 5.

1. Mindless, by Keith C Blackmore and narrated by R. C. Bray. Mindless is the 6th book in the Mountain Man series.
2. Another Time, Another Place by Jodi Taylor.
3. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
4. A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas.
5. The Two Lost Mountains by Matthew Reilly.

Just missing a top 5 spot in The Mandalorian original novel by Adam Christopher that’s in the works.

Another nice bit of pre-order news I have are rather adorable plushies for Catan.

Now you can get huggable sheep or cute and cuddly wood, complete with little eyes and legs, or cheeky wheat person and so forth.

Catan announced the plushies were coming later this month. They’re not yet on the Catan store, but after a bit of searching, I found them on pre-order on the Asmodee site.

Shame they missed Christmas as I would be very tempted by my own little wood creature.

Another temptation, and without the wait of a pre-order, is the Attack on Titan collection that’s currently available on Humble Bundle.

I’m watching the last season of the anime. The studio has done a brave thing and is retelling the story from a different point of view. This season is not a repeat or filler series. Instead, now that the mysteries – or some of them – are revealed, we’re filling in the blanks.

I thought I’d be bored, but it’s holding my attention very well right now.

As the writers intended, the effect is that there’s no right side versus the wrong side anymore. Well, not among the two factions we’ve had a focus on.

That bundle is available only for a few more weeks. By then we’ll know what the next D&D book is.

Wizards of the Coast haven’t said anything but Amazon, Penguin Random House and other retailers have holding pages in place for a D&D book that will be revealed on the 12th of January.

Whatever the book turns out to be, and there are still a few days in which that might leak, it’ll be published on March 16th.

Also, since we’re back in the realm of RPGs, I’ve been enjoying reading City of Mist. I spoke to the game’s designer, Amit Moshe, who has an interesting argument as to why City of Mist is for people who are afraid of D&D.

The argument is around numbers and maths. If you’re an old pro, this may seem strange to you, but I’ve seen people worry about this often online. People worry, rightly or wrongly, there there’s a lot of counting in D&D.

City of Mist feels like a show on Netflix, and all you need to do is count to 5.

Monte Cook Games has released a free preview of Edge of the Sun, a setting for Numenera, and Paizo is running a short Pathfinder 2e playtest called Guns and Gears which introduces the Gunslinger and Inventor classes.

Since we’re back to numbers, let’s finish how we started and with some stats. The market site OnBuy has worked out which Netflix shows have the most popular soundtrack.

You can find the full analysis table on Geek Native but the top three, in reverse order, are;

1. Black Mirror.
2. 13 Reasons Why.
3. Stranger Things.

And let’s wrap it there, keep safe, stay out of melee range and see you next week.