Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for the 4th of December 2021, and the title of this episode is “Struggles and zombie minks!”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #125]
[Also on Stitcher | Spotify | Apple | Google]
Forgotten Adventures is in the spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons. That’s because they won last month’s vote.
What happens next is that I’ll use their Patreon to try and get in touch. They’ve social media linked up and nearly 10,000 supporters. That’s enough for nearly $20,000 each time the team pushes. Impressive, huh? It may well be the case they don’t have time for Geek Native, but I’ll try to spotlight them without a Q&A if it comes to that.
If you’re a Geek Native Patreon, then you can vote now for who will appear in the spotlight next month. As usual, there are five choices. They are;
All those made the shortlist because they’ve not been nominated before and have been recently active on DriveThruRPG. The latter means they’re more likely to respond if I email them. There’s no point trying to communicate with someone who abandoned their RPG studio’s email address many years ago.
However, if third-party creators from the DMs Guild are more your thing, I’ve good news. Lots of it. At the end of this podcast, I’ll tell you about a DMs Guild free money competition I’m running.
Firstly, until the 12th of December, 10% of proceeds from DMs Guild sales are being donated to the DOTS RPG Project. This not-for-profit makes Braille dice and helps to make RPGs accessible in other ways. They were recently added to the DMs Guild list of causes that publishers could support, and it’s great to see OneBookShelf getting in on the action.
Secondly, until the 12th, the code DECGEEK10, all capitals, will get you 10% off any DMs Guild purchase of digital and community content stuff that costs more than $10.
In other words, you can’t use the coupon on a $5 one-shot adventure. And you can’t use it on print-on-demand nor Wizards of the Coast content. But, find a third-party download that’s at least $10 this week, then buying it puts $1 back in your pocket, and $1 goes to DOTS.
I feel the love, but I can tell you who isn’t. That’s Fandom. They run all those fan wikis and own D&D Beyond.
I predict they’ll want to take on OneBookShelf and even Roll20 in due course. They own a 5e alternative called Cortex, a rule system from Cam Banks.
This week was the launch of the Cortex license. Just as Wizards of the Coast have a license to let third-party creators publish and sell via the DMs Guild, Fandom want to do the same for Cortex.
That license was released this week, and it wasn’t popular. What was promised was a healthy and supportive community.
When RPG creators began to pick at the legalese in the Fandom license, they didn’t like what it seemed to say.
It seemed to give Fandom ownership of anything other people created if they wanted it. Including game mechanics.
It seemed to use language sometimes used as code for anti-LGBTQ talk.
It also banned creators from listing their content, under certain conditions, on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io.
I guess the first thing to say is that Fandom and Fandom Tabletop has said, “Err, we’ll look into this.” Okay, they didn’t use those words, but I don’t sense they’re picking this hill to die on.
They clearly need creators, and if the license won’t work for creators, the ball is back in Fandom Tabletop’s court. I guess we’ll have to see what their lawyers say. These will be lawyers more used to taking user-generated content on wikis and framing a license agreement that allows the company to sell ads on those same pages.
It’s also the case that the Cortex Creator Studio isn’t live yet. That’s not just the DriveThruRPG and Itch competitor, but also a toolkit to help creators produce and publish Cortex stuff.
It’s long-delayed, but the world has been bizarre for years.
There’s a silver lining, I think. Two. Firstly, it’s clear that RPG creators are the type to poke the legal text and mobilise when they see something that doesn’t look fair or right. This is good.
Secondly, and for Fandom Tabletop, this is publicity. Okay, it’s not great publicity, but I’ve never seen awareness of Cortex Creator Studio so high. Previously, frankly, at times, it felt like I was the only geek speculating about this.
Remember back at the start of the year when Fandom bought the marketplace Fanatical and I got all excited about it? I was told I was being daft. Maybe I was, but I still sense the potential for gaming-changing ecosystem shifts here.
By the way, Fandom’s struggles this week have inspired the title of the podcast. There may be game-changing ecosystem potential, but it’ll be a struggle.
It might also be a whiff of a struggle but Roll20 did their first-ever Cyber Monday sale this week. It’s on until next weekend, and it drops the cost of annual subscriptions. The news will suck if you renewed and missed it.
But why did Roll20 take part this week? Astral Tabletop is on hold but lurks under OneBookShelf’s protective arm.
Demiplane is partnered with TaleSpire and is launching Pathfinder Nexus and the World of Darkness Nexus.
Fantasy Grounds is established on the software front, and you can buy content for it at the DMs Guild. Foundry VTT seems to be going great guns with its buy-once model.
That’s just a handful of the plentiful competitors. I don’t know why Roll20 did Black Cyber Weekend deals, but it feels like a response to robust competition.
Can Disney and Marvel compete with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast? The parent companies have a close working relationship, but Marvel is getting back into RPGs and not with a 5e superhero game.
The Marvel Multiverse RPG playtest will be on sale next year. Yes, the playtest book, not the complete core rules. You have to pay to take part in the playtest.
Marvel has relationships with geeky stores worldwide and knows how to sell to us. They’ve had to develop that skill to survive until the success of their movies and the Disney deal.
One tactic is variant covers. You can get one cover from Amazon. There are others available and restricted to certain stores. Some fans might buy more than one; some might seek out one in particular.
I noticed both the Momoko variant and the Lubera variant listed on Forbidden Planet. New this week.
That’s the heads-up, by the way. If you are collecting covers or want one, in particular, the pre-orders are open. I’ve no idea whether they’ll sell out, but I guess they could.
It also means at least three different covers for a playtest. I wonder how many different covers the full Marvel Multiverse RPG core rules will have?
Not that variant covers are exclusive to Marvel, and Modiphius did many for Dune.
This week I reviewed The Dee Sanction and I got my edition from Kickstarter. It’s a hardback cover that I don’t think you’ll be able to get anywhere else. At the very least, it’s a variant.
The Dee Sanction is an RPG worth your time from Just Crunch Games. It’s from the team The Cthulhu Hack and All Rolled Up.
The game is set in Tudor, England, and your character has been caught practising magic. As a result, you’re conscripted into the country’s struggle against the return of the supernatural.
It’s not as doom-laden as a Cthulhu game, but your PC is only slightly supernatural and really shouldn’t be going toe-to-toe with the monsters.
Also, from the investigators poking their noses into the supernatural family of is Brindlewood Bay. I’ve never played it and never had the chance to be a retired old lady who pits her wits against occult foes. One day!
And perhaps when I do get to play, I’ll have the new edition, and yes, new cover, The Gauntlet announced this week. It’s going into print.
Sometimes there’s a long gap between those first editions and the latest print. Pathfinder dates back to 2007, and some of those original books are lost, and many are certainly out of print.
The good news is that a partnership between Paizo and OneBookShelf’s DriveThruRPG is bringing them back. There are already 10 old Pathfinder titles now in the print-on-demand menu.
Sometimes it’s precisely a year between editions. Last year, Storm Crow’s D2020 sold out. The large d20 was decorated with all sorts of weird notes from the year we had. This year, you guessed it, there’s a 40mm commemorative D2021.
Sides include zombie minks, game stonks and dogecoin. There are even stickers to switch in a few alternatives like Squid Game if you prefer.
In a way, I hope there’s no need to do a D2022.
Roving reporter Jill Harness went to SDCC Special Edition with a few Geek Native missions. On the site, you can see the clever way some cosplayers took on the mask rulings in intelligent ways – spoiler, which means wearing a mask.
But, since we’re talking about the trend of having weird years, let’s dip into the cosplay trends evident at the in-person event.
Millennial childhood favourites are in, but sexy cosplay is less popular. In fact, Jill snapped lots of clever genderswaps and even Harley Quinns that showed lots of imagination and skill rather than skin.
Captain America and Spider-man are also in fashion, and there’s a photograph of a Spider-man in his undies, so that observation about showing skin clearly isn’t a one-size-fits-all rule, and it’s a trend.
Before we go, there are two bundles and that DMs Guild competition to tell you about.
One bundle is the 10th Jingle Jam. In it, £35, which is about $50, will get you £650 or about $900 worth of computer games, including some big ones. More importantly, the Yogscast backed event helps charities.
Also helping charities, because we want everyone to be happy, are the two Paranoia RPG deals at the Bundle of Holding.
Lastly, I’ve $20 of DMs Guild credit to give way. You need to pop over to the blog, and there are links in the show notes, log into the system and let me know how crucial third-party content is for 5e. That gets you a chance to win the money.
On that note, let’s wrap there. Keep safe; good luck with your struggles, but you’re on your own against the zombie mink, and see you next time.
Join (or start) the healthy debate. Share your observations below.
