Audio EXP: #133 – The D&D ecosystem

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 29th of January 2022, and the title of this episode is “The D&D ecosystem”

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #133]

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As If Productions is in the spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.

Sadly, there won’t be a Q&A with Tod of As If. He’s run out of time due to a busy month. I’ll push on regardless and write something up between now and the end of the month. Yeah, so very soon!

This weekend I’ve also been reading other people’s reviews of the £35 Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse: 1 which is due out in days and the £140 D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set which is out now.

The logistics crisis stopped the gift set from being available over Christmas. I bet Wizards’ accountants are feeling the pain of that.

If you’re wondering why there’s no Geek Native review of these nor, for that matter, of any of the recent D&D books, it is because I don’t have them.

Don’t get me wrong. I like D&D 5e. It’s transformed the hobby, and it very much works for me as a high fantasy system, but I don’t feel the need to complete the set, let alone rush out to buy the latest book.

I’m in my mid-40s, and the urge to complete sets has died, and I don’t feel it. I’d rather spend my money on curry and a beer, or, er, the next shiny Kickstarter that attracts my fickle attention.

I do want to add value to Geek Native readers, though. If I can come up with a way to do that for D&D books without simply adding noise to the echo chamber, that would be great. I noticed that Wizards of the Coast have a new communications agency here in the UK, so maybe that’ll open the door of opportunity for us, maybe not, but I don’t see any downside.

Now, did you notice the sneaky caveat I put in there?

I said I liked D&D as a high fantasy system. Does that mean I don’t like it for low fantasy? Well, the magic system makes low fantasy impossible, but you can, of course, change the rules.

I’ve seen D&D adapted for sci-fi or cyberpunk, and if you’re prepared to take a laser cutter to the rules, you can do that. I don’t think it’s the rules that make a good night of gaming, the rules simply help you achieve a good night of gaming, and therefore D&D 5e can be adapted to pretty much anything.

As a result, we have got a growing ecosystem of 5e games. A company that’s adding to that ecosystem and testing just how much D&D should or could be adapted is Steamforged Games. The British publisher had two big pieces of news this week.

One is that they’ve teamed up with Jagex to bring RuneScape, that old MMO, to the tabletop. There will be a RuneScape board game and a RuneScape RPG.

I don’t know RuneScape terribly well at all, but it’s high fantasy, and Steamforged Games will be using 5e for it.

The second piece of news is nothing more than a confirmation of what must have been excepted but certainly has caught people’s attention. Steamforged had previously announced they would be doing an official Dark Souls RPG.

Yes, the Dark Souls computer game of one-mistake-and-you-are-dead darkness.

And yes, Dark Souls RPG will be 5e-powered too. I get why some people are flustered, but I don’t think it’s worth drama over.

After all, if you have strong opinions as to which system Dark Souls should use or which type of system, then couldn’t you whisk one up yourself for your own private use?

Sticking with the D&D ecosystem, I nearly fell out of my chair last night when I noticed a new Wizards of the Coast authored book on Amazon UK.

In truth, I’m not sure it’s WotC’s at all.

The hardback in question is Dungeons & Dragons – Behold! A Search and Find Adventure. Yes, Amazon does list WotC as the author, but a company called Farshore is the publisher.

They’re the company behind the D&D Annual, so I think the book is officially licensed. And that’s it.

There’s also no description of what we’ll find inside. I expect it’ll be illustrations filled with many people and lots of action, and each will hide more items or people like a D&D themed Where’s Wally.

There’s also a Wizards of the Coast author entity on Amazon that explicitly calls out the license. That’s how I found this box set of 100 D&D postcards.

Inside are 50 pieces of iconic D&D art with, yeah, a postcard format on the back. Do people send postcards anymore? I thought of them as occasion neutral occasion cards, you know, like wishing someone a speedy recovery or congratulations on a new job or flat.

I appreciate you could just collect them, though. There’s two of each, and so you could even do both.

I guess what we’re exploring here are the various tiers of partnership in the D&D ecosystem, which deals are significant partnerships, which just proceed with permission or even which just fall under the OGL and SRD. The scope of possibilities is confusing, but the results are straightforward.

It’s not just Wizards of the Coast where the tie-ups and tie-ins can get confusing.

This week I blogged that FASA would split Earthdawn from Demonworld and push back, but not entirely cancel, plan to do a Demonworld RPG.

I reported that because that’s what FASA said. I quoted extensively from their announcement; they explained why they had to separate the two.

Imagine my discomfort when the designer on the project, on Twitter, challenged the headline. The two properties were never connected. Why was I suggesting they were?

Well, I was suggesting that because the publisher insists they are.

Yikes. I didn’t fancy being caught in the middle of that one.

If the FASA story is one of disunity in the ecosystem of games, then the DrivethruRPG one is the opposite.

DrivethruRPG is testing a new spotlight feature to promote Indie RPGs on their platform. This is unity as we’ve the retailer coordinating across publishers. It’s not a sale or bundle deal, just a visibility push.

So, for now, until the 4th of February, you can visit the Cozy Games Indie Gallery to see what they recommend.

Another way to keep track of what might be worth your time is the Geek Native “Free to Download” tag page. There’s an RSS feed for it if that’s your jam.

The latest addition to that is Modiphius’ Homeworld Relevations Quickstart.

That’s a coming 2d20 game based on the old computer game of the same name. The quickstart is more than enough to give you a good taste of the game.

Let’s look at the bundles and competitions before we head off.

The Bundle of Holding has two deals. One is Goodman Gems which has books like the DM Campaign Tracker and The Dungeon Alphabet. These are system-neutral aids for gamers.

The other is Suspense Radio which is a less common audio collection. In this case, we’ve crime thrillers from the 40s and 50s to listen to. Audio plays from the radio of their age.

On Humble, there’s the Humanoids megabundle. That includes work from Alejandro Jodorowsky, who’s been in the news for the unmade Dune movie he was attached to. Some crypto-bros bought NFTs of some old Dune stuff, perhaps thinking that would empower them to push on with some Dune projects, only to discover that’s not how copyright worked.

Lastly, if you want to cross D&D with Rugrats and see what happens, you can win a copy of Babies and Broadswords from Geek Native. I’m not promoting the competition on generic forums. I want to try and keep it to gamers only, so, right now, you have got a good chance of winning if you take part.

And on that note, let’s wrap there; look after your broadsword, and see you next week.