Audio EXP Podcast: #263 – Speculative evolution and fine lines

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for November 23rd, and the episode title is “Speculative evolution and fine lines”  

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #263]

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Sketchy Van RPG won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.

I got questions over to Andrew at Sketchy Van just this morning. Let’s see if we can get a post up before the end of the month.

With us at the end of November, I’m wondering if is it too early to start talking about… The Fantastic Four movie?

Too late. It seems everyone is. We’ve Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards and now Julia Garner has been confirmed as the Silver Surfer. It sounds bold and interesting.

It’s also not due until July 2025. That’s more than seven months away. My concern is this; a movie with this much early hype will have an almighty struggle to live up to it. With a presumed gender flip on the Silver Surfer you can imagine the status quo Clerics will be out in force to complain as well.

In the meantime, we’ve the synopsis, written up by Bronwen on the blog.

We’ll have the live-action for How to Train Your Dragon in cinemas a full month before the Fantastic Four.

Bronwen’s pounced on the trailer for Dragon, which I can’t get my head around. It looks so much like the animation and it looks nothing like the animation at the same time.

The trailer is out super early, too. Does that mean we’re just a month away from a Fantastic Four trailer? What festive and New Year surprises are the big media companies planning?

The trailer I spotted and had to hunt down on YouTube is the latest from Amazon and their Love, Death & Robots rival Secret Level. I popped that back up on Geek Native as the trailer is for the D&D episode.

I think it looks like it could be a machinima; in other words, animated using a computer game engine. If that computer game engine happens to be Unreal Engine, then that’s the same system powering Wizards of the Coasts’ official virtual tabletop.

If Amazon and WotC haven’t used Unreal Engine for their Secret Level episode, isn’t that a missed opportunity? On the other hand, if they have used Project Sigil, which is the code name for the VTT for a TV episode, then that’s a world first. I hope their PR mavens are on the ball.

I’m not saying that the D&D episode of Secret Level has to be Frankensteined together with Unreal Engine scenes to be any good. It’s just that there’s that possibility of an interesting twist.

And, actually, I just wanted to make that point to introduce the Frankenstein graphic novel that Bronwen noticed by Kerry Gammill and El Garing. It really looks impressive, with the black and white preview art just brimming with life.

Which seems appropriate.

We can stick with the art and life theme for the next story and talk about Terry Maranda’s Sol’Kesh speculative evolution bestiary.

The project is still on Kickstarter, has hit funding goals and is a clever piece that blends creative energy with science together. “Speculative evolution” means asking ‘what if’ on a scenario, and in this case, we have a magic island as our foundation to take us to 5e stat blocks and art for a new host of creatures.

Sticking with gaming, there’s mixed news about Gaming Ballistic. The company is becoming a hobby. That’s better than it going away completely, but it’s a shame that Kickstarter demand can’t go up all the time for everyone, and in defiance of uncertain economic times. I know I’ve had to cut back dramatically.

There’s good news from the industry too as Cakebread and Walton return, albeit without Walton but with new partners for Peter Cakebread. This is the publisher behind the official  Abney Park’s Airship Pirates RPG and Clockwork & Chivalry.

Last week, we had the release of D&D’s new DM Guide, and I remember summing up the reviews as largely positive except when they came from other publishers. Kobold Press was one of them, and they’ve now apologised for their post. They’ve said;

We’re going to leave opinionated reviews to the community and press. There are other places to get that. It doesn’t need to come from here.

Actually, it’s pretty easy to find other publishers who routinely share reviews. It’s also easy to find TTRPG media sites with publishing arms. Geek Native does not. We don’t even lock content behind the Patreon, leaving that for voting rights, gifts and the very occasional directional steer.

It’s a fine line to walk, I concede.

The other bit of news that I want to touch on here that I didn’t write up on Geek Native before the Friday newsletter came out was Elon Musk.

Ah man. I remember a time when I was hyped about Space X, Tesla and even the Hyperloop.

Sadly, this billionaire seems to have radicalised himself and likes picking fights to earn attention and more money. This week, Musk told Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast to “burn in hell” when he read what someone else had to say about the 50th-anniversary book The Making of the Original Dungeons & Dragons.

What gets my goat is that this tribe of people seem to want to defend their right to be sexist and exclusive and are proud of it most of the time, yet they get upset when those words are used to describe their behaviour.

Anyway, you can see why I put this story after Kobold Press found hot water in their attempt to review a competitor-peer’s book: because I’m deep in danger territory with this piece.

I will encourage you to read Christian Hoffer’s write-up about the angry man on EN World because they did a great job.

In bundles, and we do have some this week, there’s the Telltale Collection on Humble that’s worth checking out.

There’s also a combo-crowdfunding and Bundle of Holding offer for Two Little Mice’s Household RPG.

Lastly, happy birthday to the world’s longest-running sci-fi series. Doctor Who aired on this day back in 1963 for the first time.

On that note, keep safe, shelter from Storm Bert and see you next week.