#166

[@paulbigbee]

Free League’s _Lord of the Rings_ highlights what the 5E **engine** is capable of, and helps separate “D&D” from other RPGs that use the aforementioned engine. What really matters is how the designers attach genre-specific mechanics to the engine. I say all this because it points to Dael and Teos’ point on the possible long term strategy for “Beyond”: not being solely about D&D but rather anchored to anything based on the 5E ruleset.

[@mactireliath2356]

I bought a physical copy of Acquisitions Inc. It is one of only a handful of books I bought because of their idea longevity

[@dziooooo]

20:37 that's true for a tiny minority of big book games. Vast majority of indie TTRPGs can be picked up, ubderstood and brought to the table with a FRACTION of time and effort that D&D requires.

[@dziooooo]

44:29 "what's fun for you and your players" it's the question you need to start with. Like, I don't run published adventures, because I enjoy sandbox and not knowing where exactly I'm going to end up. I usually prepare a simple first arc with some floating rumors and hooks, and then it all depends on what the players become invested in. For a longer, multi-arc campaign I usually don't even know who the Bad Guy is exactly, except in the most broad sense (Creatures from another plane? Invaders from another kingdom? Necromancers?). For one of my current campaigns all I started with was "meddling hags". For another one it was "evil being trapped in a dimensional prison, trying to break free". I literally have "THIS IS THE BBEG" written somewhere in my notes when I figured out what that evil being was.

[@OpenWorldAddict0]

This was great to see, since i watch both shows Wednesday morning as i am doing my morning routine.

[@kurtoogle4576]

Great to see Teos!! A great treat! But I'm also hoping that we get to see James Haeck soon! Gotta get the band back together! ;) Missing you, James!

[@GhostfirePodcasts]

We miss James, too. Rumor suggests they should be back next week, but hopefully it’s not a GM false rumor!

[@GregMcNeish]

@@GhostfirePodcasts I rolled real low on my Insight, so I'm believing that rumour 100%!

[@danrimo826]

It cracks me up that if there is an Elon Musk scandal we'll be able to call it "elongate" 😂

[@johnmagowan6393]

I'm still waiting for my Shawn Merwin's Iconic Headset

[@matthewsnow-zj1cu]

Now we just need Mike Shea on here along with the other #1-6 podcasts, so you can combine to make an UltraMechaPodcastZord. Exodus’ lead James Ohlen also created the Odyssey of the Dragonlords (a Greek Mythos inspired campaign setting and level 1-20 adventure) with the Arcanum Worlds imprint before his time as part of “Big Bro.” He and Drew Karpyshyn were both also responsible for world building and creative direction on Mass Effect 1 and 2, so Ben rolled well on his Perception. As to whether fans will follow a Labyrinthine trail just to get a copy of a TTRPG for an unreleased sci-fi video game with an unproven appeal, I’ll just say the key to opening the Cryptix was hidden in the 2nd letter of every third word in the response email, after walking it through ancient Celestial, of course.

[@wade138]

I think it's also important to note that this is the first digital marketplace for LOTR 5e or The One Ring. You cannot get the content on Alchemy, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds or Foundry VTT. A lot of the other Free League titles are readily available on those platforms but LOTR content has not been. It's a huge get for WOTC to add that content to D&D Beyond. Prior to this, if you wanted to play you needed the physical books or PDFs.

[@CunningSmile]

Ironic hearing all the suggestions you need to know the ending of a prewritten campaign from the company that released Fables "start playing now and we'll tell you how it ends in 6 months" 😂

[@lithrandil290]

Ok I disagree on the boring part, Jon Peterson is a great author and it is full of delightfully subtle academic humour. Very interesting and hilarious.

[@OldBrenda]

I find adventures of about 10-12 sessions are best (for my group). And as such, I like to know the whole adventure as well as possible. I’ve run longer campaigns and still read the book ahead of time.

[@dezopenguin9649]

My biggest takeaway from this podcast is that that awesome Fallowheart campaign Ben described in that one video on this channel was an actual campaign that real players got to play through and I am deeply envious of those players! (Also, that "Great Beast" bastion event sounds like the equivalent of a critical fumble on bastion management: "The bad news is, your bastion is now an abomination-choked dungeon from which up to 6 occupants got away to tell whatever tale their shattered minds could recall. The good news is, we know what adventure we're starting next session!"

[@AMRosa10]

I have thought that a Slayer's Take (Critical Role Monster Hunting Guild in Vasselheim) style campaign would be fun for a group that likes to focus more on combat, with a side helping of exploration and wilderness travel. It could be run as a monster of the week type game, but with the addition of Bastions, it could be cool to build out a story where the PC branch out to form their own guild, and then are competing for contracts with their original masters.

[@duzzo1]

You could even play it using Slayers RPG...

[@badmojo0777]

MY advice for DMs. If you know how your campaign s going to end before it starts, Just write a book. The players choices should help hape the campaign, and if their choices dont matter, then whats the point?

[@digitaljanus]

That Watch Dogs iconic hat was so iconic, Ben got the iconic protagonist's name wrong. 😄 I don't know much about Exodus, I'm just happy to see Hasbro trying to create new IP instead of just marketing their existing 20+ year old IP or buying up an existing brand.

[@drokangel]

I love my copy of Aetherial Expanse and my book mark. Well called out, Teos. I look forward to including the content with my Epic Legacy game that has a party of gods, one of which is a pirate captain god of death.

[@dziooooo]

29:01 i was THIS close to preordering Starfield. Bullet dodged!

[@CromwellTheArchaeologist]

46:39 Dael is telling us to put away the targeting computer and use the Force.

[@zTom_]

How about "Hasbrodeus" if Musk takes it over? It feels like a Hellish scenario to me! :)

[@gedece]

Drivetrkru offers PDFs I own, I wouldn't buy a 5e LOTR game in Beyond because: What happens when Free League finds their LOTR license expires? Will Beyond take it out of everybody's libraries because they never really bought it, only rented it?

[@paulsavas2394]

Just “Bro” 😂😂😂

[@davec1]

Shawn wins the internet today.

[@paulsavas2394]

Indeed! Can’t wait to watch the whole vid later!!! Once again they produce one of the best RPG Talkie/Thinkies on the web’nn

[@jackdubois1512]

"On struggle street" is the most australian turn of phrase.. "She be roit?", "Naoi mate, struggle street", "too easy"

[@matthewsnow-zj1cu]

On 12/10 D&D’s Facebook shared a post about the Exodus Player’s Handbook. It will be interesting to see if it uses an adaptation of the 2014 or 2024 D&D rules or some other bespoke system. But it is interesting that the social media team for Dungeons and Dragons would encourage people to sign up for info and cross promote the Exodus PG if this is just an incidental offshoot, as has been surmised.

[@MagiofAsura]

24:45 If recent AAA flops have taught me, past glory means NOTHING towards the quality of a current project.

[@ChristopherRoss.]

I have an idea for the Lorecast: a "when is Lorecast" website. Similar to what Critical Role had (has?) that is basically just a countdown with the time of the episode listed for the user's time zone.

[@troelsrohde2134]

I almost finished ToA and Omu is by far the best part.

[@nicksturgeon4557]

Wait, Scholastic is in Australia too?

[@f.a.santiago1053]

Maybe that new game will be WotC's Starfinder.

[@dantherpghero2885]

They still own the IP for Star Frontiers. TSR put out a Buck Rogers game, but I don't know where the IP for that stands.

[@wolfinstedd]

seem to recall reading this in reference to to James Ohlen: Is that 3 books published on dmsguild he dose not get any money from as he pay employees of hasbro. That why all 3 books all money goes to extra life It also reason why odyssey of the dragonlords and raiders of serpent sea will not see dndbeyond release. Kinda thankful we still have. Drive-thought RPG rigth to buy pdfs for odyssey and raiders

[@jackdubois1512]

Wizards might be moving towards presenting dnd beyond as a "5e" space, sort of bringing all the d20 5e games back in under the umbrella of 5e as a kind of dnd modular framework. It would be nice if this had the effect of taking the focus away from hsbro and such corpo overlords in the dnd discourse and back to debating about the best ways to "build" your game, like how dnd began in the before times, the longlong ago?

[@jasonreeves1826]

LotR 5e only goes to level 10. I've considered using those classes with 10th level capped 5e spellcasting classes for a lower powered setting I'm working on.

[@tonysladky8925]

Exclusivity sounds like a good marketing strategy for a TTRPG. That's not a medium that lives or dies by having lots of people simultaneously able to read and play the game, right? A handful of people scattered around the world being the only ones able to own and read the book is what you want for a new TTRPG, right? /s I think it's also worth noting: Elon got loans to buy Twitter, some of them from very powerful people who, if you believe the conspiracy theories, have a vested interest in social media being a right-wing cesspit rather than a place where people organize the Arab Spring. I don't think those people are going to pony up for Hasbro. I'm not a runner of published adventures, but I recall a very good Colville video about how to read a published adventure. "Read the end of the adventure first so you know the ending you're supposed to be building towards" was a key piece of that advice.

[@davidstell6745]

What worries me about LoTR 5E appearing on D&D Beyond is that, given the success of Free League's titles, this could represent the first stage of a take-over bid by WoTC. Free League has won a load of Ennies for their product range and are my personal favourite, bar none, producers of RPG games. In particular, the titles I absolutely love are 'The One Ring' which is the (much better) basis for this 5E LoTR version, 'Alien RPG' and 'Blade Runner' RPG with honourable mentions for 'Vaesen', 'Dragonbane' and 'Twighlight:2000'. Given the success of the portfolio, I fear that Free League could be a rich target for Hasbro/WoTC, although I really hope I'm mistaken . Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy D&D too, but Free League produce a distinctive style which I prefer, and I'd really hate to see their games turned into auto-bland D&D versions. The dominance of D&D in the RPG market is such that other producers of RPGs have an uphill struggle to tempt gamers to try something new, hence the increasing number of 5E versions of third-party games. As Ben mentioned here, starting a new system is like trying to learn a new language, but the variety provides a more enjoyable gaming experience. I started playing D&D in 1981 and loved it, but later I tried systems like Runquest 2E, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy RPG, MERP, Paranoia and Star Wars RPG. Each of these were very enjoyable and had distinct flavours to the game, yet I do not often get to play most of them any more. Why? Because trying to find inexperienced players who are willing to step outside of the D&D Comfort Zone is a real challenge. Are they ever missing out?

[@markt7177]

There is a huge difference between Coke and Pepsi. Coke only!!!

[@jarydf]

Teos is right to not mention the fool and his folly. To do so is to fall into his trap.

[@aurvay]

Elon's Twitter acquisition helped Trump win and now he's worth $447 billion. Almost double what he was worth a year ago. Who's the fool now?

[@johnmagowan6393]

I hate Elmo but if he turns Hasbro into BRO. I'm so for it!

[@badmojo0777]

Get your books now beofre Elon does to D&D what he did t Twitter LOL~!! furhte rproof that no corporaitons ownes THE GAMe as long as youve got your books :D