Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for the 6th of April, and the episode title is “Gremlins and Conpulsion”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #236]
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Greyplains won the April vote, which is usually the case for the first week of the month. I’ve yet to get in touch to persuade the creator to participate in an email Q&A. That’s a task to do this weekend.
There was no podcast last week as I was at Scotland’s oldest tabletop games convention. That’s Conpulsion and this year it was not in its usual home of Edinburgh University’s Teviot because the 130 year old building is closed for renovations that will take years.
Thankfully, under the guidance of Ben McCallum, Conpulsion found a new home in Edinburgh’s Pleasance and the oldest part of that dates back to 1893.
Ben was convention director for two years and is calling it a day. It’s a tough gig, several big names are moving on from conventions across the UK this year, but Conpulsion is a not-for-profit and relies on volunteers. The search for a new convention director is on.
I’ll get back to Conpulsion in a bit because I got to play some games but first I want to run through the five RPG creators, curators or community moderators for the May RPG Spotlight. If you’re a podcast patron, then you get to vote and can do so in a private poll.
The five candidates for next month’s RPG Publisher Spotlight are:
In lowlights from the week, we’ve had technical gremlins. Yesterday was an extended internet outage, and I’m still catching up. My computer seems to recognise only every other mouse click, and none of the usual fixes seem to work, nor does changing the mouse, and I’m not flush with cash. Don’t worry, though. You won’t hear me roaring in frustration and flipping the table during this podcast because I can edit it out.
In highlights from Geek Native, let’s start with our write-up of Chris Cocks, the Hasbro boss, talking about Magic: The Gathering and D&D after 50.
He says there’s no evidence Hasbro is killing Magic: The Gathering by flooding the market, and while some financial firms downgraded Hasbro initially, they changed that rating later.
Due to declining birth rates, Hasbro is moving more to digital and away from toys. The future also holds TV shows, computer games and, hmm, maybe a movie.
The OGL drama was a mistake, and Hasbro is keen to work with streamers to ensure that D&D remains popular.
Bronwen also wrote up that Converse has a D&D collection and I think that’s a great idea but I personally think their shoe designs are a little weak. Why not go full dragon? Why not give me slime shoes? I can’t even tell that some of the patterns are supposed to invoke D&D.
Bronwen also did me a favour by not just writing up Pocket Quest this year but also by putting together an eye-catching cover montage. There are over 90 heist-themed RPGs and supplements in the DriveThruRPG special event this year.
Each has to be less than 25 pages, so it means you can quickly get into something new, which is the idea.
Guess who’s been working hard while I’ve been at gaming conventions and coming home to dead technology? Bronwen has been tracking Joker: Folie A Deux and we’ve got audience reactions to the musical sequel and the trailer.
Alright, so let me tell you a bit about the games I played at Conpulsion.
I played my first game of Feng Shui. Now, back in 2015, Ed, a former reviewer looked at Feng Shui 2 and wasn’t impressed, calling it expendable. But, I enjoyed my game of it, playing a gun nut and would do so again.
Feng Shui is all about recreating, kinda, those madcap Hong Kong action movies of the 80s and 90s.
I played my first game of Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which was a hoot, and a convention is a fantastic opportunity to try a game that your usual TTRPG buddies won’t touch.
I also played a game in development called Cursed Be Our Name by Chris Dean. I think it could get to a good place, although I was lost by the details of the system. Broadly, though, everyone has Curses which act as powers and influence how characters act. The system has you work scenes to get advantages and disadvantages which you trade off to cancel out.
I also got a game of Runesword which was run by the author Greig Watson, and I’d consider buying it. One of the gamers at the table snapped it up the very minute the game ended. It reminded me of Warhammer, but with rules more streamlined and the default world a bit higher in fantasy while still as grim.
Lastly, I got my first game of Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland, that’s edition one, the second edition isn’t out yet. In that game, which uses Handiwork’s Silver Road system, you are mesolithic shamen and the system rewards cooperative storytelling with tokens you’ll need to defeat the supernatural horror at the end.
I’m not sure how cohesive our game was, but I really enjoyed the system.
If you’re feeling that you’ve missed out on some TTRPG action then I’ve good news because Geek Native wrote-up two freebies.
The first is Ruin from The World Anvil. Ruin is inspired by games like Darkest Dungeon, and while it does need the Monard Echo ruleset to play, those are also free to download.
I also looked at R3volution from Skavenloft, which is designed for one-shots and is really about a necessary revolution and how the momentum of it ends up devouring its own children.
There are five bundles, some of which are two-parters, for our outro. On the blog, I’ve been trying a bit of a different approach in bundle covering with a bit more history and insight into the games on offer. Does that work? Or do people just want the links to the games on sale?
In no particular order, all at the Bundle of Holding, there’s John Carter of Mars which is from Modiphius and on the 2d20 system.
There are the 5e-powered and unpronounceable Ruins of Symbaroum, which is a dark fantasy.
We also have the Coen brothers-esq Fiasco from Bully Pulpit, which I’d absolutely leap on as a convention game.
Goodman Games has loads of d20 Monster Guides and their usual food bank charity benefits once again.
Lastly, there’s a double Knights of the Dinner Table offer, which is a great way to get your digital mitts on some wholesome comic book actions.
On that note, may your technology treat you kindly, I’ll see next week.
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