Audio EXP Podcast: #219 – RH2e

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 25th of November, and the episode title is “RH2e”

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #219]

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TheNatOne is in the Spotlight thanks to votes from Geek Native’s generous patrons. TheNatOne, the publisher of the D&D Heartbreaker, The RedHack, gives us the podcast title.

Thanks to TheNatOne, we can announce a new edition of the game: The RedHack Second Edition, ie, RH2e.

The RedHack will be easy enough to play for anyone familiar with D&D, which is part of the point, but not D&D, which is also the point. One of the significant differences is in power; in D&D, you’re impossibly better than the average farmer Joe after a few levels. You’re not in the RedHack. They can still jump you.

That’s still going to be the case in RH2e, and, for now, things might change; we know what the difference between the first and second editions will be.

Feats are being replaced with Drives. The system is more streamlined, and Drives are like motivations that urge PCs on.

The magic system is being redone with spells cast on different levels. Lastly, the GM gets a Reckoning Die, which might help the baddies or give the PCs a Drive to spend.

Creative Director Bronwen and I are just back from our local indie RPG club. Bronwen is a newbie, but it wasn’t a case of me saying, “Hey, if you want to write for Geek Native, you need to go mad for tabletop RPGs.” as she was eager to go.

Indie games can be very different from typical D&D, and tonight was no exception, as we helped playtest a GMless card-based story game with roots in From The Queen.

You might think our indie kudos is high and mighty this week, perhaps, but we’ve also been tracking and megathreading Black Friday. I hope we got the balance right, and let us know if not, with some deal discoveries and not too much spam.

I’d like the blog to pay for its hosting costs, which is a long way off, so any affiliate money we get from sales is especially welcome.

The other advantage is that we get to scout for cool stuff. For example, I wrote about Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza and hadn’t heard of it before. It looks like a messy game to play with drinks and food.

You’ve got a deck of cards with quirky art. On your turn, you flip a card and say the next word in the sequence. So, if the person before you had said “Goat” then the next word is “Cheese”, so you say “Cheese”.

I would lose track. I know it.

The cards you flip also have one of the five words: Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese or Pizza on it. I know I’d end up reading the card.

If the word matches the card, like you say “Cheese” and flip “Cheese” then it’s a snap-like reaction game to capture the cards. That’s where I see the wine glasses going flying.

While I was eying up slapping card games, Bronwen was one of the first media professionals in the UK to watch There’s Something in the Barn.

That’s a horror comedy about an American family who inherited a house in the middle of nowhere in Norway with a big barn that they try to turn into an Airbnb. As a result, they annoy their local murderous elf.

I notice mixed scores on IMDB, but our local horror expert gives it the thumbs up.

Also getting mixed reviews is the latest Shadowrun RPG. When Shadowrun Sixth World launched, it got mixed reviews, and fans will always buy it; I nearly did, but there were still plenty of harsh words for the finish and production quality.

Now you can get the Berlin Edition of Shadowrun. It’s a new twist on the core rules, with the setting moved from Seattle to Berlin.

After a short delay, Catalyst gave everyone who had already paid for Seattle via DriveThruRPG, free copies of Berlin. Some people had bought both by then. My hope is that the Berlin edition has a better polish, but I’m not sure I can justify buying any more games.

There’s also a new Shadowrun sourcebook called Scotophobia. I didn’t know before, but do now, Scotophobia is not a fear of Scottish people, but of the dark.

I can almost link a fear of the dark to Stormlight. Stormlight is an epic fantasy from Brandon Sanderson, and a tabletop RPG is coming from the disruptive author; it’ll Kickstart next year.

We’ve mentioned how RH2e will have a Reckoning Die; Stormlight will have a plot die. The difference is that the player rolls the plot die, but only when their character is doing something risky or dramatic. Sanderson has Andrew Fischer, who worked on board games like Fallout and Descent and the RPG Star Wars: Age of Rebellion as the lead designer.

In the outros this week, we have the Bundle of Holding’s Cornucopia and a Sine Nomine bundle with the deluxe editions of Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number.

Humble has a 5e mega bundle.

On that note, keep safe. It’ll be December soon and see you next week.