Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for the 19th of August, and the episode title is “The calm after the storm”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #207]
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Gamenomicon is in the Spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.
I am late, but the interview with Gamenomicon is underway, and I hope to get it back in time for this month’s feature.
It’s been two weeks since the last podcast, and it was a planned break. What wasn’t planned was the close encounter with a van.
I’m okay but lucky. I was waiting to cross the road when suddenly my vision filled up with speeding metal; there was blood, and my glasses exploded. Or an order like that.
Putting it together afterwards, I’m pretty sure a delivery van clipped my glasses off my face, and I must have started to react to turn my head and save my nose.
It was a bit messy then, but nothing wipes and plasters couldn’t cover or clean up, and I was back out that same day, missing only one Edinburgh Festival show.
So, that’s why Geek Native’s been a bit empty this last fortnight. Bronwen is also alive, well and winning distinctions for her art, and I have been busy in Edinburgh and the world’s largest arts and culture festival. I think we both pulled several 20-hour days in a row. I was the only one who thought kissing a van at high speeds was a wise idea.
Right, excuses over. Let me tell you who the September candidates for the RPG Publisher Spotlight are. The list is as follows;
Okay, what follows is about two weeks of highlights, although they’ve been a distracted two weeks.
I’m kicking off with Dragon Ball Z ears, or, more specifically, Dragon Ball Z earbuds from Final. I think they look pretty cool; orange and black for Goku, white, yellow and blue for Vegeta, and a slightly lowered powered model of white and purple for Frieza.
Earbuds are in my mind because they’re not sitting on my head. Bronwen noticed an article about the rise in popularity of earbuds and, I think she’s right, connected it back to the problem some gamers are having with dents in their heads.
Yes, that’s right and icky; some streamers have shaved their heads to show they have got a significant impression in their skulls where their phat headsets rest.
I’d move to earbuds, too. I wouldn’t want a flat head.
However, I’d settle for a flat world, provided it was disc-shaped. You see, in an overlap of Geek Native and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I got to interview Marc Burrows, who wrote the first Terry Pratchett biography and then later got to watch the comedy-but-informative lecture during the festival. If you can, get tickets for The Magic of Terry Pratchett and, if not, buy the book.
In RPG news, the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game started a trend on DriveThruRPG and did something different.
Firstly, Marvel’s tabletop RPG is now out. You can get it on DriveThruRPG but not as a PDF. In fact, you can’t download it at all.
What you can buy at DriveThruRPG are Roll20 modules. Roll20 and DTRPG are now siblings.
I wonder whether Marvel will ever release a digital version or whether they’d worry about pirates. However, this RPG seemed to trigger a wave of core rules appearing as PDF and Roll20 bundles or just Roll20 installs on DriveThruRPG.
https://www.geeknative.com/160156/everyday-arcana-evil-genius-confirm-wotc-copyright-clash/One of those is Everyday Heroes from Evil Genius Games. At Gen Con, Evil Genius stopped referring to their forthcoming 5e modern setting as Urban Arcana and started calling it Everyday Arcana.
Urban Arcana was supposed to be the Everyday Heroes reboot of the Wizards of the Coast old d20 Modern book of the same name. But now, Wizards said no, so Evil Genius simply called the game Everyday Arcana, which I like better, and moved on.
If you were tracking the competition to design the world for it, then that is over and was won by Shadows Surrounding World of Adventure, which will get its own book.
A licensing deal that is going ahead is the Welcome to Night Value, which is a popular podcast now working with Renegade Game Studios.
For regular listeners, sorry to say, Renegade never did come through with the interviews they promised me.
Since Gen Con has been gone, we’ve also had and missed some big news. I note that Paizo confirmed Starfinder second edition is on the way. It’ll be compatible with Pathfinder Remastered. Pathfinder Remastered isn’t Pathfinder’s third edition but an updated second edition. The dates also mean that Pathfinder don’t-call-it third edition will compete head-on with Dungeons & Dragons don’t-call-it sixth edition.
Since we’ve onto D&D, I should point out that Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants is out and not without drama.
One of the artists employed by Wizards of the Coast used AI art and shipped it to them. WotC updated its rules to clarify to artists and illustrators paid to create art that they should not do this in the future.
I’m sure the arrival of AI in D&D came earlier than people were expecting, albeit not by WotC’s design. However, I recommend an article from new Geek Native author Matthew Hall called It may not be time to freak out about AI just yet.
It makes some powerful points, including that we’re many years away from actually having AI. What’s commonly called AI these days really isn’t general AI.
I had an altogether more human encounter with Andy Lever, albeit via email, ahead of Tabletop Scotland. He, in the form of Lost Haven Art, will be taking the forthcoming RPG Abbadon: The Thirteen Seals to Perth.
It’s a game that’s deadly and with elements of horror. Like me, you’ll get to demo it if you’re in Perth this coming weekend.
That’s right, folks, no Audio EXP podcast next week. I’ll be refusing to rest and recover. Instead, I’ll be gaming late into the night.
Geel Native also has an interview with Benn Graybeaton of Nightfall Games. Guess where Benn and Nightfall will be at this coming week? They’ll be in Perth and Tabletop Scotland.
I got to talk to Benn about Nightfall’s plans for the Terminator RPG, the Maggot Machine RPG and the Musketeers Vs Cthulhu.
There are two weeks of bundles to whisk through before we finish up; sorry to say that some have been and gone but let’s start with Green Ronin’s Blue Rose, which is a TTRPG of romantic fantasy and with a few days left on the Bundle of Holding.
There’s a double feature of Shadow of the Demon Lord there, too and in support of Shadow of the Weird Wizard, which is on Kickstarter.
In Humble and fiction, there are Pathfinder Tales. This deal strikes me as an excellent way to get into Pathfinder lore ahead of don’t-call-it 3e.
Or, if you’re strictly an RPG bundle person, Humble still has time on the clock for the Traveller sci-fi RPG deal.
Lastly, on DriveThruRPG for Cubicle 7’s birthday, there’s nearly $300 worth of Warhammer second edition for $50. That’s not the latest, but the core rules for Warhammer 2e are still a Mirthral bestseller.
And on that note, I’m back into the shadows of travel, chaos and schedule management, so we’ll next get to chat in early September. Looking forward to it and see you then.
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