Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for November 30th, and the episode title is “What not to say if you really wanted to buy Hasbro”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #264]
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Sketchy Van RPG won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
And the interview with Andrew is up. I always check how I should refer to someone in an interview. Sometimes, I’m talking to a designer, sometimes a writer and sometimes it’s the CEO or president.
For Sketchy Van I talked to a Space Wizard. At this point, let me shout out about Andy’s TikTok, where you can listen to the sometimes neon-bearded designer contemplate infinity and games.
It was a previous RPG Publisher Spotlight winner, Terry Maranda, who did us a favour this week. On the blog you can find a free preview and STL files for a creature called the Ynnil. If you need them, there’s a 5e stat block, too.
It’s all free despite the Kickstarter for Sol’Kesh already been funded. Sol’Kesh is a speculative evolution bestiary, which is a great idea. What if lizards had to evolve to cope with slightly magical prey and lived on a magical island. What if the predators of those lizards also had to evolve to keep up? You can see how this gets interesting quickly.
The Ynnil is such a lizard, and it’s awesome to have its 5e stats and be able to print off the minis. Thanks, Terry!
Also, thank you to Christian Nommay who got in touch with a heads-up about Titan Effect Zero.
Titan Effect is a tabletop RPG about bio-augmented physic spies. It’s currently available for Savage Worlds and early next week it’ll also be available for the Year Zero Engine.
Perhaps I was unkind, but I asked Christian whether he could do it – support the game over two systems. He’s confident. He says he can. He won’t abandon Savage Worlds but concedes it is different to the Year Zero Engine.
I thought that was a considered response.
Another considered response this week comes from Heidi Gygax who is the daughter of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax.
She has commented on the debate about The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977 and points out that Gary was a loving father and husband. I can believe it.
She also concedes that, by today’s standards, he would be considered sexist.
We don’t know if he would have changed his views if he had lived longer but we do know he was proudly a biological determinist.
There seem to be a few people out there who take offence at the idea that Gary Gygax was a biological determinist despite Gary being proud of it. Weridly, the same people, while being offended by the term, also seem to defend the view. It doesn’t make sense to me.
It also doesn’t make sense to me that Musk talked about buying Hasbro because doing so put the shares up, making it more expensive for him to do so.
Hasbro is much cheaper than Twitter. The social media network was worth about $44 billion before Musk’s political views and tampering chased users away. Hasbro is worth around $9 billion.
Based on how Musk has run X, it’ll cost Hasbro about $7 billion in its value is he takes over and demands a reprint of The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977.
By the way, if you’ve bought The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977, then you might be onto a winner with it. Perhaps this edition of the book will become a rare collector’s edition.
While we’re talking about buying stuff I’ll acknowledge we skirted Black Friday. There was no megathread from us. However, did share my Ring doorbell tip. That’s straightforward; buy a second battery. You’ll have to charge the first and while that happens you’ll need a second battery.
By the time this podcast is out, you’ll be able to buy Raven Crossroads, although it might just be available in Polish.
Bronwen has written this up, and what we know about this new The Witcher book. It’s a prequel.
I can’t place this other Bronwen find in anywhere else except as the second last article in the podcast. She’s gone and found a trailer for Popeye the Slayer Man.
That’s a low budget live action movie with a murderous, muscled Popeye. Don’t expect many survivors.
Lastly, there are loads of bundle deals, some of which we’ve got in Routintely Itemised, many of which we haven’t written up but I find time for fantasy-punk rebellion at the Bundle of Holding for Heart and Spire.
This double feature of Rowan, Rook & Decard RPGs is about surviving class wars and magic.
On that note, keep safe, eat your spinach and see you next week.
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