0:00

This week on the Eldridge Lourcast.

0:02

Wait, what was my line? Are

0:04

you familiar with Lawwin Shadowmore? Yes.

0:06

Would you be excited to see

0:08

it as a D&D supplement? No.

0:10

Want to just talk about video games

0:12

for an hour? In search of smuggler

0:14

secrets, it is a grackenheim adventure. It's

0:16

on D&D Beyond a reasonably deadly dungeon

0:18

crawl with some cool puzzles. Cobol Press

0:21

announcing their cozy RPG. Read a workshop

0:23

and it's putting their Shire cozy game.

0:25

Really? Yeah, you get to play as

0:27

a hobbit in the Shire and just

0:29

like decorate your home and like make

0:32

bread and eat cheese. Like what more

0:34

do you want? D&D Beyond has put

0:36

through another erataa Rata to the 2025

0:38

monster manual. more right now. Hello everybody

0:41

and welcome to this week's

0:43

episode of the Eldrich Lawcast,

0:45

the number one tabletop RPG

0:48

podcast to suffer the worst

0:50

tech issues known to man.

0:52

That's probably not true because

0:54

we probably wouldn't be here

0:57

if that was the case.

0:59

Anyway, my name's Ben Byrne and

1:01

I am joined as always by James

1:03

Haek in the flesh. Today, what a

1:05

special episode because we also have joining

1:08

us this week, Monty Martin and Kelly

1:10

McLaughlin, the dungeon dudes themselves, welcome Jen

1:12

once more to the Eldridge Lawcast. Lovely

1:15

to be back. Always a pleasure to

1:17

be here. Yes, indeed. Monty Martin, what

1:19

is a video game that you think

1:22

has influenced your writing or game design

1:24

the most? This one is really tough

1:26

for me, I think, because it's such

1:28

a hodgepodge. I mean, I'm gonna take

1:31

it way back to like, when did

1:33

I realize I like... the RPG genre

1:35

and go for like a deep cut with

1:37

the super Mario RPG on

1:39

the super Nintendo yeah yeah that

1:41

that was my first like like

1:44

role-playing like I remember getting it

1:46

and I remember playing like being

1:48

like oh this is like a

1:51

kind of like isometric I didn't

1:53

know the word what isometric was

1:55

even at the time this is

1:58

like an isometric Mario and going

2:00

to jump on a Goomba and

2:02

being like, what is this battle?

2:05

What even is this? And I

2:07

was so angry because I thought

2:09

it was just going to be

2:11

like a semi-3D Mario. And then

2:13

I was like, oh, this is

2:15

really good. It's kind of like

2:17

that whole thing of where we're

2:20

like, the dish of food is

2:22

served before you, and you throw

2:24

the minor temper tent from being

2:26

like, I hate this, and then

2:28

you love it. that set me

2:30

off on the whole like oh

2:33

square is like square does really

2:35

good games and so that was

2:37

like that was the game that

2:39

then brought me to final fantasy

2:41

and then like from the the

2:43

broader spectrum of like role-playing games

2:45

and then knowing what an RPG

2:47

was I think that that's where

2:49

oh then D&D is just another

2:52

role-playing game. So yeah, I would

2:54

say that I think that Super

2:56

Mario RPG first like RPG game

2:58

that I played. I'm a huge

3:00

fan of Cosmic horror, Aldrich horror,

3:02

and horror in general. And so

3:04

a lot of horror games have

3:06

deeply influenced my writing. I'm going

3:08

to give two quick answers and

3:10

then one extended answer as my

3:12

answer. The game that introduced me

3:14

to RPGs, even though technically it's

3:17

not really an RPG. I think

3:19

at the time it was labeled

3:21

as an action RPG was a

3:23

legend of Zelda, a link to

3:25

the past. Yeah, that would have

3:27

been the other one. That game

3:29

was the first game that I

3:31

played that had such a sweeping

3:33

epic story that I was like,

3:35

I love this. I was very

3:37

young and I didn't know the

3:40

video games could do that. And

3:42

that was, it was also like,

3:44

Zelda is whimsical and beautiful, but

3:46

it's also. dripping in horror elements

3:48

if you actually pay attention to

3:50

a lot of the subtext, especially

3:52

a link to the past, has

3:54

a lot going on there. My

3:56

other answer is mass effect, the

3:58

mass effect trilogy. If you want

4:00

to, a lot of people don't

4:03

even equate this, but Mass Effect

4:05

is definitely cosmic and elder horror

4:07

in a video game. And a

4:09

lot of people are like, no,

4:11

it's an action, RPG, and it's

4:13

like, well, pay attention. There's all

4:15

the elements of elder horror there.

4:17

But probably one of the single

4:19

most influential games to me ever

4:21

that has influenced all of my

4:23

writing and everything I do is

4:26

resident evil four. very much cosmic

4:28

and altered horror because they move

4:30

away from the T virus and

4:32

they went into like a parasite

4:34

that they were injecting into people

4:36

that then caused their like heads

4:38

to explode and tentacles to come

4:40

out and all of that stuff

4:42

and that game I played through

4:44

it five or six times in

4:46

like the year that it came

4:48

out. I knew every secret, I

4:51

knew where every little blue medallion

4:53

that you had to shoot was,

4:55

I knew how to get all

4:57

the ammo where all the guns

4:59

were, I loved that game and

5:01

it's funny to think back and

5:03

be like, those, that kind of

5:05

trifecta of those games was really

5:07

the gateway to everything that I

5:09

do now and everything that I

5:11

love. So I give a lot

5:14

of props to all three of

5:16

them, but especially Resident evil four.

5:18

If we're talking about the first

5:20

video game RPG I ever played,

5:22

that like... started me liking RPGs

5:24

as a genre. That would be,

5:26

I guess it's a little obscure

5:28

now, it would be Bandai Namco's

5:30

Tales of Symphonia. Oh my god,

5:32

yes! I haven't played that game

5:34

in years, but I played it

5:37

to death. I mean, you know,

5:39

it's a 70-hour JRP. I played

5:41

it a dozen times. I loved

5:43

all the customization. It does one

5:45

thing that I wish I could

5:47

do in a tabletop RPG, which

5:49

is your characters discovering new combat

5:51

arts mid-fight. When it comes to

5:53

dungeon design, Legend of Zell is

5:55

a huge inspiration always. When I

5:57

was leading called the Nether Deep

6:00

over of Wizards, there's a series

6:02

on YouTube on game. design called

6:04

Boss Keys. But I think you'd

6:06

like this one. I feel like

6:08

I need to check this out.

6:10

You should check it out. Mark

6:12

Brown at Game Maker's Toolkit. He

6:14

does series on video game design,

6:16

but I love to look at

6:18

that and try and sort of

6:20

reverse engineer it into how has

6:23

his insight onto video games and

6:25

their inner workings. They did a

6:27

good one on God of War,

6:29

Ragnarok. I think you'd like that

6:31

one. Yeah, yeah. Because you like

6:33

that game a lot. Just so

6:35

him dissecting it a little bit,

6:37

I think would be fun to

6:39

see. It would be fun to

6:41

see. You know, Zelda Dungeons are

6:43

big puzzle boxes. And the world

6:45

of Metroid, Supermetroid and Metro Prime,

6:48

are these big interconnected worlds. And

6:50

so in the call of the

6:52

Netherdeep campaign, there is this big

6:54

sort of mega dungeon at the

6:56

end of it that is full

6:58

of little interwoven connections between the

7:00

different zones of the dungeon that

7:02

reward both sort of narrative and

7:04

puzzle solving exploration. And that's the

7:06

sort of thing that I love

7:08

to put into the dungeon design

7:11

itself. And for one last thing,

7:13

before I take all your time

7:15

up, is fire emblem. When I'm

7:17

doing big battles, the tactical maps

7:19

of those games, the strategy, RPG

7:21

elements that are inherent in D&D

7:23

already, cause me to look back

7:25

on fire emblem. I've had players

7:27

at my D&D game. see me

7:29

draw this huge expansive, you know,

7:31

sort of almost war hammerish terrain,

7:34

grid map. And we're like, okay,

7:36

Joey's going to get us to

7:38

play some fire emblem, basically. Is

7:40

there an example of, oh, oh

7:42

my God, yes, when we did

7:44

valican clans here at Ghost Fire,

7:46

when we were creating the rating

7:48

system, I took some maps from

7:50

the Game Boy Advance fire emblem

7:52

games. and use them basically as

7:54

like temp art when I was

7:57

prototyping that system for leadership. Because

7:59

the shape of those maps and

8:01

the way they put physical impediments

8:03

in your way to kind of

8:05

force you to think about how

8:07

you're engaging other units was, you

8:09

know, even though that's on a

8:11

grid-based, you know, sort of chessboard

8:13

system, and our rating system is

8:15

very much not that. It's more

8:17

like a flow chart point-by-by-point. That

8:20

idea kind of got distilled down

8:22

of how am I going to

8:24

engage the enemy based on these

8:26

sort of... structural limitations of where

8:28

gates and forests and mountains and

8:30

lakes are forcing me to go

8:32

around and make these decisions. Gotcha.

8:34

Yeah. I feel like I need

8:36

a trifecta as well, which everybody,

8:38

obviously for me it's the witcha,

8:40

quest design, the idea that you

8:42

know, like people can be haunted

8:45

by things or their shoes went

8:47

missing or... They believe there's something

8:49

in the woods which have real

8:51

world explanations around those superstitions, but

8:53

in the witcha. No, it's true.

8:55

There is a monster in the

8:57

woods and you can go fight

8:59

it and you can kind of

9:01

come up with a solution for

9:03

that problem. The moral ambiguity, obviously,

9:05

you mentioned God of War, Ragna

9:08

Rock. And I think the thing

9:10

that they're not RPGs, per se,

9:12

when the thing that that I

9:14

really admire about those games is

9:16

that their story is so rich

9:18

with theme. and kind of like

9:20

subtext yeah you know it kind

9:22

of inspired me to be like

9:24

yeah D&D or role-playing games can

9:26

can have this as well right

9:28

like they can tell stories that

9:31

are more meaningful than necessary necessarily

9:33

kill drag and save princess or

9:35

grab gold or whatever it happens

9:37

to be but for my obscure

9:39

pool I'm gonna pull trials of

9:41

mana Okay, which is only the

9:43

name it's gotten recently. It used

9:45

to be called something else because

9:47

it hadn't been, I don't think

9:49

it had been like officially localized

9:51

into English. Oh, second and sets

9:54

it. That, yes. And I played

9:56

it on an emulator back when

9:58

I was a kid. But what

10:00

that game has is not only

10:02

choice that molds the story, depending

10:04

on which character you choose to

10:06

be part of your three party

10:08

members, but also the fact

10:10

that when you unlock the mana

10:12

stones, you can subclass what your

10:15

initial character can do. Really built

10:17

that sense of choice and that

10:19

sense of ownership of the character

10:21

that I wasn't necessarily getting in

10:23

a game like even Crono Trigger

10:25

or or Pokemon Yeah Crono Trigger

10:27

would be the other one right

10:29

I think I played that just

10:31

before trials I feel like we've

10:33

like between us all I feel

10:35

like we've just listed some of

10:37

the greatest video games ever created

10:40

yesterday although you know we haven't

10:42

talked about portal and follow which

10:44

That's true. Greatest, like, yeah, for

10:46

me, portal is, like, everyone,

10:48

I'm talking objectively greatest. It's

10:50

probably one of the portals. Want

10:52

to just talk about video games for

10:55

an hour? Yeah, yeah. Well, well. The

10:57

number one video game podcast. Well, speaking

10:59

of video games, there's a little bit

11:01

of news here. There are kind of

11:04

scraps of news came out over the

11:06

last week. This first one, Chris Cox,

11:08

CEO of Hasbro, was talking in an

11:11

investicle last week. And talking about

11:13

making a new, Hasbro, this

11:15

is making a new AAA

11:17

game in partnership with Sabre

11:19

Interactive, who made famously Space

11:22

Marine 2. Oh, yeah. Sabre

11:24

Interactive is a big company.

11:26

It's worth mentioning, but Chris Cox

11:28

specifically shouted out the studio. which

11:31

I believe is in Russia, which

11:33

created Space Marine 2, talking about

11:35

how it will be a single

11:38

player game with multiplayer elements and

11:40

they're going to use the swarm

11:42

technology that was used to bring

11:45

the tyrannids to life specifically

11:47

within Space Marine 2, I believe. There

11:49

is no word on if this is

11:52

a D&D game. It actually could be

11:54

any Hasbro IP. It probably makes more

11:56

sense as like a Transformers

11:58

game or something like that. I was

12:00

going to say, if it was

12:02

a D&D game, what would you

12:04

want to see out of the

12:06

Space Marine 2 developer? But maybe

12:08

you want to transform this game.

12:10

I don't know. Have either of

12:12

you played Space Marine too? I've

12:14

seen it a bit, yeah. Actions,

12:16

hack and slash. Over the shoulder,

12:18

hack and slash, shooter. Devil may

12:20

cry. Oh, I guess like more

12:22

God of War. The gameplay loop

12:24

feels similar, like you've got your

12:26

weapons. You're basically going down a

12:28

pretty much a mostly linear path.

12:30

cutting through hordes of enemies. I

12:32

find it pretty difficult. I mean,

12:34

I play by myself, but it's

12:36

a challenging game. The multiplayer element

12:38

is pretty cool to it as

12:40

well. And I mean, I definitely

12:42

do think like as someone who's

12:44

a fan of like just the

12:46

games workshop IPs, general, like they

12:48

definitely nailed it right in terms

12:50

of. Is it the same studio

12:52

that made like vermentide and stuff

12:54

like that? Or is that a

12:56

different developer? No. I don't know.

12:58

I want to say that's a

13:00

different developer but I don't actually

13:02

know. Listen, over-the-shoulder shooter makes me

13:04

think of Left for Dead and

13:07

that basically Warhammer Left for Dead

13:09

is vermentide and I would love

13:11

to see some sort of B&D,

13:13

four-player co-op, dungeon bashers sort of

13:15

thing where it's like low-on narrative

13:17

but high on character chatter. Yeah.

13:19

That's what I love about Left

13:21

For Dead, right. the four-player party

13:23

into a goblin cave and it's

13:25

like your job is to cut

13:27

your way through this goblin cave

13:29

like that's a fun game right

13:31

there like just drop me into

13:33

like classic D&D scenarios with the

13:35

four-player party and everybody gets to

13:37

choose their class. Throw a beholder

13:39

boss at the end have a

13:41

red wizard who's summoning zombies and

13:43

spirits and stuff like that I'd

13:45

play I play the hella that

13:47

well wait isn't that kind of

13:49

like The new Dark Alliance game

13:51

that no one played. That was

13:53

the bad news that I had

13:55

on the flip side. Is that

13:57

Dark Alliance, I think, just the

13:59

last week, went offline permanently because

14:01

it was not a successful game.

14:03

So if you wanted to play

14:05

a left for dead style D&D

14:07

game, you missed your channel. Yeah,

14:09

well I didn't hear anything good

14:11

about it anyway. So you want

14:13

a good one. Yeah, I think

14:15

the perennial challenge with any D&D

14:17

cross media property is the tension

14:19

between having like a recognizable story

14:21

and making your own characters and

14:23

then having that. people engage with

14:25

that in that way and I

14:27

think that like the RPG elements

14:29

like I mean Baldur's Gate 3

14:31

has the name recognition and the

14:33

deep story and you get to

14:35

make your own characters if it

14:37

was going to be a D&D

14:39

based thing it's like are they

14:41

going to tie it into something

14:43

else doing another never winter nights

14:45

or something like that right but

14:47

where you can recognize like the

14:49

D&D continuity there but if they

14:51

were like this is Dark Alliance

14:53

3 I don't know if just

14:55

give me cursive straw but as

14:57

a playable video game you know

14:59

yeah I agree I don't know,

15:02

maybe Blood of the Dawn Walker

15:04

or whatever, it's cool, maybe that'll

15:06

be good. Get Konami in here

15:08

and make the Castlevania crossover. That'd

15:10

be pretty cool. That'd be pretty

15:12

cool. Speaking of crossovers, we have

15:14

some pretty big news this week.

15:16

There is a brand new adventure

15:18

that you can get on D&D

15:20

Beyond right now by one Monty

15:22

Martin, Kelly McLaughlin, the dungeon dudes.

15:24

It is called... In search of

15:26

Smugler's secrets, it is a Drakenheim

15:28

adventure. It's on Dandy beyond. Monty

15:30

Kelly, tell us about it. So

15:32

in Search of Smugler's Secret is

15:34

a new adventure location in the

15:36

city of Drakenheim that takes a

15:38

group of adventures into the sewers

15:40

below Drakenheim, searching for a lost

15:42

Smugler's tunnel that is rumored to

15:44

be in there that could be

15:46

a good passageway. into the inner

15:48

city, which is very difficult to

15:50

get to. This adventure will have

15:52

you meet some of the factions

15:54

from Dungeons of Drakenheim, decide who

15:56

you're going to work with, and

15:58

maybe who you're going to betray,

16:00

deal with some of the iconic

16:02

monsters, and hope. survive the dangerous

16:04

sewers of Drakenheim. It is a

16:06

low-level adventure and it is great

16:08

for people who are both interested

16:10

in the world to Drakenheim and

16:12

looking for a sample to get

16:14

started and get a taste of

16:16

the world that Monti and I

16:18

have created. But also if you

16:20

already own Dungeons of Drakenheim and

16:22

you're thinking to yourself, I'm going

16:24

to get started playing, but boy,

16:26

do I wish there was a

16:28

sewer adventure site in this book.

16:30

Well, you can add this into

16:32

your existing campaigns as an adventure

16:34

site for your players to visit.

16:36

So it works for all fans

16:38

new and old of Drakenheim. The

16:40

adventure was inspired by some of

16:42

the early parts of the original

16:44

actual play campaign that we couldn't

16:46

quite figure out. at the time

16:48

of writing Drakenheim had to best

16:50

present them in the book. And

16:52

so we had this opportunity to

16:54

kind of develop all those out

16:56

a little bit more and build

16:59

what is a little bit of

17:01

a nicely self-contained dungeon crawl adventures.

17:03

So even for people that aren't

17:05

running the whole Drakenheim adventure are

17:07

just looking for a little taste

17:09

to see. if our group would

17:11

enjoy it, or just want like

17:13

a reasonably deadly dungeon crawl with

17:15

some cool puzzles. It's a fun

17:17

nonlinear sort of dungeon crawl that

17:19

has this nice self-contained element to

17:21

it to run in probably one

17:23

really long game session or like

17:25

two or three shorter ones. Oh,

17:27

also there's one new monster. Yeah,

17:29

wait, so how big is this

17:31

thing? How big is this new

17:33

Dragon Hind book? It's a five-room.

17:35

dungeon, but each of those rooms

17:37

is kind of its own. Yeah,

17:39

like two of the, two of

17:41

the locations are kind of like

17:43

three room dungeons on their own.

17:45

So that's what I say. It's

17:47

like a five room dungeon with

17:49

three room dungeons as each room

17:51

in the five room. A five

17:53

room dungeon that we're talking about

17:55

is actually abstracted because it involves

17:57

traveling from one room to the

17:59

next in the sewers, which could

18:01

run you into an encounter of

18:03

some sort within the sewers itself.

18:05

So there's like some abstracted navigation,

18:07

but there are five core places

18:09

in the sewers that you need

18:11

to check out to see which

18:13

one might be the secret smuggler's

18:15

tunnel. And then you're reporting back

18:17

to the faction you decide to

18:19

work with. on the information you

18:21

gather or backstabbing them and giving

18:23

the information to another faction, do

18:25

whatever you want, it's open-ended. And

18:27

along the way you're going to

18:29

solve puzzles, you're going to maybe

18:31

talk to some fish people and

18:33

decide if you want to murder

18:35

them or be friends with them,

18:37

there's a whole bunch of fun

18:39

shenanigans that can happen in the

18:41

sewers of Dragon Act. Yeah, I

18:43

feel like there's almost like a

18:45

hidden fifth ending, if you will,

18:47

with a, I don't know whether

18:49

you'd call it a faction or

18:51

not, I don't want to give

18:54

too much away, but there was

18:56

like something written in there that

18:58

I was like, oh, that's pretty

19:00

cool. I could see a party

19:02

totally ending the adventure in that

19:04

way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, well,

19:06

because one of the things that

19:08

we like to do with our

19:10

adventure sites and like one of

19:12

our philosophy is with that we

19:14

take in general when we take

19:16

in general when we're writing like

19:18

an adventure, like an adventure site,

19:20

like an adventure site. is that

19:22

we don't presuppose that combat is

19:24

going to be the only way

19:26

the party engages with each location.

19:28

And so, and we also don't,

19:30

well we present one possible solution

19:32

getting through each of the various

19:34

passage ways because of course the

19:36

players at the set of the

19:38

adventure are given this old smugglers

19:40

map and they're said and the

19:42

factions basically tell them we found

19:44

this map. We don't know if

19:46

this information is true, if it's

19:48

accurate, if it's accurate, any of

19:50

these access points that the map

19:52

purports to work still work. And

19:54

we don't have expended, we need

19:56

you because you're expendable adventures that

19:58

we can just pay and not

20:00

value yet, you're not yet a

20:02

valuable faction agent. So take this

20:04

map. Go explore and find out

20:06

which of these three points identified

20:08

on the map actually lead under

20:10

the city walls. And then each

20:12

of those three points represents this

20:14

this kind of like micro dungeon

20:16

environment where the players can either

20:18

figure out, oh, this is actually

20:20

a direct pathway through that just

20:22

works, but there's a complication with

20:24

some monsters that are dwelling there

20:26

that the players can engage with

20:28

its combat or interaction. and then

20:30

the other sites represent places where

20:32

the players, they might be away

20:34

under the city walls if the

20:36

players can figure out the way

20:38

to do that, which could be

20:40

everything from actually solving a puzzle

20:42

to realizing, oh, there's explosives at

20:44

this other place. We're going to

20:46

bring those back and blow stuff

20:49

up and make our own way

20:51

through. So kind of give a

20:53

lot of different fun solutions that

20:55

the players can engage with and

20:57

then even decide if they want

20:59

to double-cross the faction that they

21:01

work with. It sounds like you

21:03

give the players a lot of

21:05

agency to explore and act as

21:07

they choose That's that's our philosophy

21:09

through all of the Drakenheim books

21:11

It was always intended to be

21:13

sandboxy With play like we we

21:15

present the entire city in the

21:17

Drakenheim book is just like here's

21:19

all the locations and here's what

21:21

the factions want It's up to

21:23

you to decide how you're going

21:25

to navigate that and so even

21:27

on a micro level when we're

21:29

creating a single adventure site for

21:31

this smaller sample book, it really

21:33

is still, we want it to

21:35

be able to capture the elements

21:37

that make Drakenheim special, which is

21:39

that open-endedness of like, the players

21:41

get to choose really how they

21:43

engage with each of the locations

21:45

and how they engage with the

21:47

factions. And both of those are

21:49

really important to the design philosophy

21:51

that Monti and I take. And

21:53

to connect that back to like...

21:55

games that influenced us from earlier.

21:57

This is why like Fallout New

21:59

Vegas is such like an important

22:01

cornerstone of like everything Brockenheim really

22:03

because you know instead of a

22:05

nuclear wasteland, we have an Eldridge

22:07

contaminated wasteland. But, you know, in

22:09

Fallout, New Vegas, one of the

22:11

things that always struck me with

22:13

that was that there was some

22:15

that based almost every location in

22:17

the Mojave, in the game, there

22:19

are multiple reasons and multiple quest

22:21

hooks that send you to those

22:23

locations and multiple outcomes from what

22:25

happens depending on which factions you

22:27

are working with. Like, like several

22:29

of the vaults, there's one vault

22:31

that. is filled with plants. I

22:33

remember this one because it's one

22:35

of those ones where I think

22:37

almost every faction in the game

22:39

can send you there for some

22:41

reason. And so you get kind

22:43

of embroiled in all these different

22:46

conflicts and have to decide how

22:48

you're going to choose things. And

22:50

of course, because we try to

22:52

take that idea with everything that

22:54

we do with Drachenium. And of

22:56

course with this adventure, it's a

22:58

little bit more simple than that

23:00

because one of the things that

23:02

we like to that's important to

23:04

us with Drakenheim is that the

23:06

low-level characters don't necessarily burn their

23:08

bridges right away in the adventures.

23:10

But the possibility of that, like

23:12

if the players really take things

23:14

in a catastrophic way, they always

23:16

can. And they can solve things

23:18

in different ways. They can navigate

23:20

things in different things. Especially, you

23:22

know, in the writing process, one

23:24

of the things that's always tough

23:26

is that I'm a big fan

23:28

of backtracking. I love it when

23:30

an adventure makes you backtrack and

23:32

sometimes not everyone loves it but

23:34

I love it. I love it.

23:36

I love it. I think we

23:38

got specific feedback at our initial

23:40

pitch where they were like why

23:42

do they have to go through

23:44

the whole dungeon twice and we

23:46

were like we thought it was

23:48

cool. Yeah. And they were like

23:50

can we not do that? Yeah.

23:52

Because originally the original version of

23:54

the adventure was that you would

23:56

explore the passages. And then if

23:58

you found one of the passages

24:00

that worked, you had to then...

24:02

Take a faction representative and show

24:04

them that it worked And and

24:06

in an escort style mission and

24:08

we would escalate the situation when

24:10

you returned that whatever you didn't

24:12

deal with the first time Was

24:14

now there to mess you up.

24:16

Yeah, the second time through but

24:18

but then we simplified it a

24:20

bit more and You're kind of

24:22

just going in one end and

24:24

coming out the other but the

24:26

the the intrigue of still There's

24:28

there's two factions and Dracenine we

24:30

have five factions But we simplified

24:32

this one by doing probably the

24:34

two, two, two, we picked two

24:36

factions that are very popular with

24:38

our audience, but that directly oppose

24:41

each other at the outside of

24:43

the campaign. And so, you know,

24:45

one of them says, hey, we

24:47

found this map, go check it

24:49

out. And then the other one

24:51

approaches you on your way into

24:53

the city and they were like,

24:55

that map belongs to us and

24:57

this information is valuable to us.

24:59

So we want to pay you.

25:01

to screw over the other faction

25:03

and work for us. And then

25:05

they give you a separate exit

25:07

point to what the first faction

25:09

gave you. And so depending on

25:11

which faction you want to work

25:13

with you have to leave the

25:15

sewer at a different point and

25:17

give the information you found to

25:19

the right faction and thus make

25:21

mild enemies of the faction you

25:23

didn't give the information to. Well,

25:25

it is available on D&D Beyond,

25:27

as I said, right now in

25:29

search of Smugler Secrets. It's up

25:31

for $14.99 USD. If you want

25:33

to grab it, get a taste

25:35

of Drakenheim. Or I believe if

25:37

you get Dungeons of Drakenheim and

25:39

in search of Smugler Secrets together,

25:41

you get a small discount on

25:43

them. So go check it out.

25:45

Yeah, I'm really bad at ending

25:47

these segments. Speaking of Magic the

25:49

Gathering. Do we either review Montiel

25:51

Kelly? Because Dale's usually our Magic

25:53

the Gathering expert on this podcast.

25:55

Or either review. Oh boy. Magic

25:57

players? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah,

25:59

I just. got back into paper

26:01

and all of it this year

26:03

I was like I kind of

26:05

felt the it like it's like

26:07

the seven-year it's like once every

26:09

couple years it's just like I

26:11

gotta get get back into it

26:13

and and I refuse yeah it's

26:15

fine you you're you're you're free

26:17

no no you're allowed but I

26:19

just like I think I'm gonna

26:21

go back in are you gonna

26:23

come with me and I was

26:25

like no man I can't so

26:27

no it's been it's been kind

26:29

of fun I've been playing both

26:31

I've been playing both online I've

26:33

been playing both online and through

26:36

arena and through arena and through

26:38

arena and through arena and through

26:40

arena and There's a wonderful game

26:42

shop that's up the street from

26:44

our studio that has a really

26:46

nice, really nice community. I mean,

26:48

in Toronto, you're kind of spoiled

26:50

for it. Are you familiar with

26:52

Lawwin Shadowmore, the setting? Yes. And

26:54

would you be excited to see

26:56

it as a day and day

26:58

supplement? No. I'm completely indifferent to

27:00

that. I think that by a

27:02

country mile, Ravnica was the most

27:04

exciting magic set to put... as

27:06

a D&D setting. I think Lorwin

27:08

was actually the set that came

27:10

after Ravnica. And Lorwin was actually

27:12

like when I stopped playing Magic.

27:14

I think the other one I

27:16

would have been more excited about

27:18

and I think a lot more

27:20

people would probably wouldn't have been

27:22

in a strad. But I feel

27:24

like in a strad, Strad von

27:26

Zarovich, Ravenloft. Like maybe it's not

27:28

a lot of new ground. So

27:30

so maybe Lorwin feels like it's

27:32

addressing a... niche that they're looking

27:34

at in their in their settings.

27:36

Lauren's a cool place and I

27:38

think that they're like returning to

27:40

it always, but as far as

27:42

me being like, oh, this will

27:44

be a cool setting to play

27:46

in, not for me, personally. Yeah.

27:48

For folks that don't know, so

27:50

Lawwin, Dash, Shadowmore, I believe, Please

27:52

Magic the Gathering fans don't eat

27:54

me. It's kind of like a

27:56

dual setting. where it's kind of

27:58

fay feeling kind of animal spirit,

28:00

a lot of folk are playing

28:02

fay spirits that live in the

28:04

forest of Lawland. which is very

28:06

idyllic and it's the ever summer

28:08

and things are really nice there,

28:10

but then it changes into shadow

28:12

more and kind of plays with

28:14

that duality of the fay between

28:16

the summer courts and the winter

28:18

courts. And so yeah, Wizards have

28:20

announced that they're doing a supplement

28:22

book like the Ravnica book from

28:24

a few years ago. I don't

28:26

know when this is meant to

28:28

be coming. They said earlier in

28:30

the year that there was like

28:33

an October mystery book that was

28:35

unannounced on their slate for this

28:37

year. I don't know if that's

28:39

filling that slot or whether it's

28:41

coming early next year. It's a

28:43

fine branding opportunity. Why not just

28:45

make a fair wild book? We've

28:47

got domains of delight already. I

28:49

feel like as cool as Lorwin

28:51

is and I'm not a huge

28:53

magic hat either. If we're dealing

28:55

with the duality between Faye and

28:57

Shadows, D&D's got that already, you

28:59

know, let's do something that leans

29:01

into the D&D multi-person wizards love

29:03

so much. I think they're trying

29:05

to capture the crossover though in

29:07

a way that like, let's get

29:09

more people playing D&D and there

29:11

is value in that, but at

29:13

the same time, as a person

29:15

who got out of magic, like...

29:17

12, 15 years ago, it's all

29:19

new to me. So like you

29:21

throw me a setting from Magic

29:23

and I'm like, cool, new D&D

29:25

setting, neat. I know nothing. So

29:27

like you guys, you guys say

29:29

whatever, LORWIN, shadow more. And I'm

29:31

like, new D&D setting, neat. I

29:33

feel like there's other settings that

29:35

I might have put higher than

29:37

LORWIN for a D crossover, for

29:39

breaking new ground, like one of

29:41

the ones that I would be

29:43

like, now you got my attention.

29:45

plane of magic. This was like

29:47

also part of my prime time

29:49

when I play magic. It came

29:51

out after Miradin, if you don't

29:53

know, was probably the most overpowered

29:55

set magic the gathering has ever

29:57

made. Like in the modern era

29:59

of magic. So like you go

30:01

back to the 90s, there's some

30:03

broken stuff, but then Miradin... was

30:05

like the first step that had

30:07

the new car, the redesigned card

30:09

face and it was like, it

30:11

blew the doors off the power

30:13

level. And then Kamigawa came out

30:15

afterwards and it was not nearly

30:17

as powerful. But I think that

30:19

both of those settings, both Miradin,

30:21

Miradin's really cool because everything's an

30:23

artifact in that world. Like it's

30:25

a weird like, everyone has like

30:28

metal growing out of them and

30:30

their like, even nature is existing

30:32

because it turned, I think the

30:34

story of it is that it.

30:36

turns out that the whole world

30:38

is artificial. And like that, like,

30:40

I would have been here for

30:42

Miradin. And Kamagawa is really cool

30:44

because they came back to Kamagawa

30:46

and they progressed technology in Kamagawa.

30:48

So it started out as very

30:50

much a like feudal Japan inspired

30:52

setting. And then they went cyberpunk

30:54

with it. And that was pretty

30:56

recent too, wasn't it? And that

30:58

was very recent. Yeah, and I

31:00

think the cyberpunk Camagawa, like just

31:02

in terms of the flavor, the

31:04

design, everything, really, really cool. Like

31:06

I'm here for that. So and

31:08

I feel like that represents like

31:10

something really different. I think what's

31:12

interesting is to go with what

31:14

Joey was saying earlier. Why do

31:16

something that already feels like D&D's

31:18

doing it when you can do

31:20

something like that? where it's just

31:22

like we've never seen that in

31:24

D&D or at least very little

31:26

of it so to do like

31:28

feudal Japan cyberpunk that sounds yeah

31:30

awesome. I also just will say

31:32

like at a very very high

31:34

level I feel like wizards could

31:36

if they really wanted to get

31:38

some ground out of just taking

31:40

the core concept of magic the

31:42

gathering as it's like the core

31:44

law of magic the gathering is

31:46

that you're you are a multiverse

31:48

traveling insanely powerful spellcaster that can

31:50

move from world to world to

31:52

world to world. And there's a

31:54

part of me that's just like

31:56

why not release just a source

31:58

book that covers that idea as

32:00

a campaign archetype? Or even like,

32:02

I feel like it would be

32:04

really cool if they wrote a

32:06

campaign that was like, the player

32:08

characters are planes walkers, but they

32:10

don't know it yet. There are

32:13

sparks awakened, and now they are

32:15

sent on a voyage through the multiverse,

32:17

which the multiverse is like hot, so

32:19

hot right now. I think like that

32:22

would actually be kind of rad as

32:24

an adventure. Like I'm kind of here

32:26

for it. I don't know.

32:28

Loorwin's cool, but like

32:30

not the most exciting, not

32:33

the most exciting crossover they

32:35

could have chosen. I feel

32:37

like the conclusion that we've

32:39

drawn is anything, anything else

32:41

could have been cool. Yeah,

32:43

yeah. Well, can they tempt

32:46

you then with this other

32:48

kind of slight piece of

32:50

news? Dragon Delves, which is

32:52

their Dragon-themed supplement, it's an

32:54

anthology of Dragon-themed adventures coming

32:57

in July. They've revealed the

32:59

two covers of it, the

33:01

main cover by Greg Staples

33:03

and the alt cover by

33:05

Justine Jones. What do you

33:07

think? These look cool? I

33:09

don't know. They're covers. Those

33:11

are some dragons. Sick. I

33:13

love dragons. Didn't we just

33:15

get a dragon book? And

33:17

we just, but these are

33:20

Dragon Adventures, aren't they? I

33:22

was thinking about this, what

33:24

was it called? Something, something's,

33:26

Bizbons, functionally like... because the

33:28

new dragons are so cool. I mean, there's

33:30

plenty of other like non, like,

33:32

core dragons in the future. Yeah,

33:35

I think you've seen dragons, which are

33:37

pretty, they're pretty cool. Also we

33:39

get, that book still has the Drake

33:41

Warden, which I think is one of

33:44

the coolest rangers we got. Yeah, I

33:46

think that's still relevant, but it is,

33:48

it is surprising to me that all

33:50

of these, like, core 10 dragons,

33:52

chromatics and metallics,

33:54

you are getting this redesign. So

33:56

close off the heels of

33:58

the 5E drachanamicon. essentially. You

34:00

know what, I'm gonna quickly look up fizzvins

34:03

because I get this, you know, we've been

34:05

doing this podcast for a couple years now.

34:07

We're closing in on four years of doing

34:09

this podcast and I remember when we were

34:11

reporting on like, they've shown the

34:13

cover of Strict Haven or whatever that

34:15

supplement was called, you know, the Magic

34:17

School one. Yeah. And that was years

34:19

ago now like that was three years ago. I

34:21

think it was 2021 2021. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

34:24

And so I think that Fizzbins

34:26

was probably longer ago than you

34:28

necessarily remember. Yeah, you're probably right

34:30

about that. But yeah, I don't disagree

34:33

with you. I think the difference with

34:35

this one though is that it is

34:37

an anthology of adventures. I think is

34:39

what they said before, so it's kind

34:41

of more. Do we know if they're

34:43

new adventures or if they're going back

34:45

into the vaults? Think new. I don't

34:47

know, I don't know for certain, but they

34:49

haven't communicated that these are going to be

34:52

classic adventures. Well, I'd be delighted to see

34:54

that, honestly, you know, the layers of theorests

34:56

that we put out are book of layers,

34:58

the aptly titled book of layers from

35:00

Coble Press. Any of these monster layer

35:02

supplements, I think, are just great for

35:04

the game. Right? I mean, especially iconic

35:07

monsters, like dragons, like dragons, if you

35:09

know you're going to be fighting. just

35:11

having one of those available to pop out

35:13

when the players get there. I mean, it's

35:16

common wisdom by that point. I'm not saying

35:18

anything new here, but that's one of the

35:20

best things that a DM can have in their

35:22

back pocket. I mean, it's sort of

35:24

given you a full story. It's just

35:27

like if you're home brewing, which most

35:29

dams are, it's just like a toolbox.

35:31

I mean, speaking of layers and monsters,

35:33

like monsters of Drakenheim will feature a

35:35

grouping of layers, right for some of

35:37

the monsters, which yeah I agree having

35:39

that sort of stuff is super

35:41

you know just throw it on

35:44

you need a last-minute session or

35:46

thread them together to create a

35:48

campaign is really useful so. Absolutely.

35:50

Dragon Delves coming July 8th 2025 and

35:52

then kind of like pulling the

35:54

steering wheel to the hard left or

35:57

right or just like turning a corner.

35:59

Copold press. and announcing their cozy RPG,

36:01

River Bank. River Bank is a

36:03

new RPG from Cobol Press. You

36:05

join an intelligent society of anthropomorphic

36:07

animals and enter their life of

36:09

cake and tea time by the

36:11

slow part of the river. Notable

36:14

really, because it's Cobol Pre, I

36:16

don't know if this is their

36:18

first, but it's a new RPG

36:20

that they're doing that is not

36:22

connected to 5E in anyway. And

36:24

it's totally very different from 5E.

36:26

It almost sounds more like good

36:28

society sort of. social interaction. Is

36:30

this up anybody's alley? I look

36:32

at it. I, I, there are

36:34

cozy refugees I love. Fantasy One's

36:36

a Reutama is a really good

36:38

one that I played before, a

36:40

lot of fun. And it's not

36:42

like, it's not like cozy games

36:44

that have outlived their welcome yet.

36:47

You know, there's a Rita workshop.

36:49

They're digital division. It's putting out

36:51

the shire, cozy game, tails of

36:53

the shire. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's

36:55

waiting for us. It's coming out

36:57

in like a few weeks. Like

36:59

a few weeks. I'm anticipating it's

37:01

coming out in like a few

37:03

weeks. I've, like a few weeks.

37:05

I'm anticipating it. sick. Yeah, right?

37:07

Yeah, you get to play as

37:09

a hobby in the shire and

37:11

just like decorate your home and

37:13

like make bread and eat cheese.

37:15

Like what what what what more

37:17

do you want? What era? So

37:19

in Riverbank, you're balancing animality and

37:22

poetry a kind of your two

37:24

stats. Are you balancing hobbitry and

37:26

adventurousness in the shire? What a...

37:28

I mean I actually don't think

37:30

you're playing an adventurous hobbit and

37:32

entails from the shire. You're playing

37:34

like the guys that don't leave

37:36

the shire, you know, like you're

37:38

just there. This is interesting because

37:40

this is not like a red

37:42

wall treatment on... No. No, like

37:44

this is actually let us have

37:46

tea and cake. Not like we're

37:48

cute animals, but we actually are

37:50

breaking up the swords and fighting

37:52

each other like like the artwork

37:55

is delightful and cozy and there

37:57

is not a sword or a

37:59

bow and arrow or a spellbook

38:01

inside. It reminds me of the

38:03

art reminds me of. something and

38:05

I'm trying to remember what it

38:07

is. Childhood. Like it just kind

38:09

of like it's it's a frog

38:11

and toad. Frog and toad. Frog

38:13

and toad. You don't know the

38:15

Children's Series, frog and toad? Is

38:17

this like a North American thing

38:19

that I'm sure? I actually feel

38:21

like it's so British to me.

38:23

British thing. Yeah. Another American author.

38:25

Oh, wow. Yeah. Is this like

38:28

winged in the wheel eyes? It's

38:30

literally just a frog and a

38:32

frog and a toad that are

38:34

cozy. together and like they I

38:36

see little clips of them all

38:38

over my social media yeah because

38:40

I as a cozy person see

38:42

a lot of cozy material and

38:44

like they have little things like

38:46

them sitting at a table and

38:48

one of them will be like

38:50

I think I'll have another biscuit

38:52

said frog I will too said

38:54

toad and that's the whole thing

38:56

it's just you know yeah eat

38:58

more biscuits drink more tea relax

39:00

more but I think this sounds

39:03

like a game that I would

39:05

play for a four to six

39:07

episode arc. I would do like,

39:09

I don't know if I would

39:11

do like a three year campaign

39:13

of drinking tea and cakes, drinking

39:15

tea and eating cake, but I

39:17

would do like a short stint

39:19

now and then and like maybe

39:21

revisit it later and like be

39:23

like, all right, we just finished

39:25

a D&D campaign, let's do something

39:27

cozy for a few sessions, you

39:29

know. Yeah, I agree. I mean,

39:31

this is not a, industry changing

39:33

or anything like that, but it

39:36

is nice to see, you know,

39:38

we have seen the the sundering

39:40

of 5E as we called it

39:42

previously with all these different kind

39:44

of 5E supplements between the Tales

39:46

of the Valiant was the word

39:48

I was looking for in DC20

39:50

and things that are fundamentally kind

39:52

of 5E but not. and then

39:54

more fivey rivals that don't use

39:56

that core system like draw steel

39:58

and dagger heart and now it's

40:00

interesting to see some of these

40:02

traditionally sort of fantasy RPG studios

40:04

who have talked about you know

40:06

MCDM famously talked about a dagger

40:09

heart and sorry not dagger heart

40:11

they draw steel them all straight

40:13

in my head. And not being

40:15

the only RPG they want to

40:17

make. It's kind of nice to

40:19

see Cobol Press. Like find that.

40:21

You know, on the fragment, I

40:23

think we also have the fragmentation,

40:25

maybe not the fragmentation, but definitely

40:27

the embracing of the cozy genre,

40:29

because like I feel like since

40:31

Humbelwood, we see it and actually

40:33

you want to talk about magic,

40:35

the gathering crosso, crosso, like cute.

40:37

woodland creature animals living life trying

40:39

to just make it in the

40:41

world but this is this this

40:44

one specifically is very much on

40:46

the not looks like not on

40:48

the violent side which I think

40:50

you know I think having an

40:52

RPG that maybe isn't necessarily focused

40:54

around violence and violent conflict is

40:56

probably a good thing that just

40:58

have more of. This is maybe

41:00

a mild aside, but I think

41:02

it relates to this and an

41:04

earlier conversation is anybody here played

41:06

the video game Coffee Talk It

41:08

was absolutely brilliant and all that

41:10

it is that's that's the like

41:12

narrative RPG that's set in Seattle,

41:14

isn't it? It's in Seattle but

41:17

with fantasy characters like there's like

41:19

an orch and a mermaid and

41:21

like all of these characters come

41:23

into your coffee shop and you're

41:25

the barista who just has to

41:27

make the right drink for them

41:29

and the more accurate you are

41:31

with your drinks the better their

41:33

stories are and so it was

41:35

actually such a I played it

41:37

during COVID and it helped me

41:39

get through. So yeah, I'm now

41:41

I'm like, could I, could you

41:43

make an RPG out of being

41:45

a barista at a coffee shop

41:47

serving fantasy characters? Probably. So there's,

41:49

it's just like the cozy genre

41:52

is just such a beautiful genre

41:54

to play in and it actually

41:56

can be way more fun than

41:58

you thought. When you describe Coffee

42:00

Talk, it's like, how do you

42:02

make a game out of that?

42:04

But then you play it and

42:06

you're like, I love this and

42:08

I can't really explain it, but

42:10

I just do. we got to

42:12

play good society a couple of

42:14

months ago now, maybe early January,

42:16

I'm trying to remember. And I

42:18

was surprised at how high the

42:20

emotional stakes were in that game,

42:22

because you kind of, you know,

42:25

maybe that's a silly thing to

42:27

say because Jane Austin novels are

42:29

all about kind of high emotional

42:31

stakes veiled within polite English society

42:33

and how society kind of entraps

42:35

people into certain behaviors. But we

42:37

ended up role-playing. I was one

42:39

of two brothers and I was

42:41

kind of the mess up of

42:43

the two brothers who was always

42:45

getting the other one into trouble

42:47

and the other one was really

42:49

responsible for making sure the family

42:51

had respect and wasn't being, there

42:53

was no scandal or anything around

42:55

the family. I was surprised, my

42:58

brother was played, was being role-played

43:00

by a guy called Danny who's

43:02

a great dude, really good role

43:04

player and I just felt like

43:06

I was like, oh my God,

43:08

I think I'm gonna cry in

43:10

this game about like. a balloon

43:12

not getting blown away in by

43:14

during a picnic, you know, like

43:16

a dirigible not getting blown away

43:18

during a picnic. I'm sorry. I'm

43:20

such a mess. Yeah, you can

43:22

still play dark fantasy in. Anyway,

43:24

speaking of dark fantasy, firing to

43:26

the last bit of news, D&D

43:28

Beyond has put through another erata

43:30

to the 2025 monster manual. Specifically,

43:33

one of the changes this has

43:35

made is fixed to the carrying

43:37

crawler problem that we mentioned on

43:39

the law cast a couple of

43:41

weeks ago when Logan was on.

43:43

Basically, the carrying crawler in the

43:45

2025 months to manual requires you

43:47

to make a dexterity save against

43:49

being paralyzed and then you could

43:51

repeat the save on your subsequent

43:53

turns, but being paralyzed means you

43:55

automatically failed dexterity saving throws in

43:57

the new version of the rules.

43:59

So it was kind of a

44:01

bit of a bug there. That's

44:03

now been changed to constitution saving

44:06

throws across the board. for the

44:08

carrying crawler specifically, but even the

44:10

initial save? Yes, yes, yes, because

44:12

the way that saving rolls and

44:14

now worded seems pretty smooth to

44:16

always want the same save that

44:18

inflicted the condition to be the

44:20

one that can get you out

44:22

of the condition. Anyway, the reason

44:24

this is newsworthy though is because

44:26

they just kind of rolled, the

44:28

carrying crawler change is the only

44:30

one that I can note. because

44:32

they rolled this Arata into the

44:34

previous Arata that they released about

44:36

two weeks ago. All the monsters

44:39

are listed in the same list,

44:41

so you can't tell which were

44:43

changed when. That's not necessarily an

44:45

issue, but the bigger issue is

44:47

that the Arata is actually pretty

44:49

difficult to find on D&D Beyond,

44:51

it's in the D&D Beyond change

44:53

log. There's no like a Rata

44:55

page or anything like that, which

44:57

is an issue for anybody who

44:59

owns the book. who still has

45:01

the previous version of the carrying

45:03

crawler and not just that, there

45:05

are monsters that have had their

45:07

armor class tweaked, there are monsters

45:09

that have had their health tweaked,

45:11

you know, small changes, it's a

45:14

small thing, but it would be

45:16

nice if they made that more

45:18

easily accessible for people who had

45:20

the books. If you're a war

45:22

gamer, you're no stranger to errata

45:24

and needing to be aware that

45:26

some printed rules may not be

45:28

accurate after a couple of months

45:30

or whatever, but... Yeah, well, you

45:32

know, this was a major addition,

45:34

a major issue in fourth edition

45:36

D&D where that was the first

45:38

time the Wizards had a digital

45:40

platform. And one of the things

45:42

before you is a very tactical

45:44

game is just like in tabletop

45:47

war games, there was a lot

45:49

of errata and it got to

45:51

the point where there was so

45:53

much errata that early books, the

45:55

player's handbook was a sort of

45:57

notable, almost a sort of infamous

45:59

example, is that people would exaggerate

46:01

a little bit and say, you

46:03

know, the player's handbook has more

46:05

erata than it has original pages.

46:07

And, you know, that's sort of

46:09

become myth and legend at that

46:11

point, but that's the danger you

46:13

run into. When you try and

46:15

update a physical game, like a

46:17

digital game and have a change

46:20

log and all of that, if

46:22

your rod is not really clear,

46:24

then yeah, you're wasting people's money

46:26

who bought the digital book. And

46:28

for the conspiratorially minded out there,

46:30

one might get the sense that

46:32

they would prefer you have the

46:34

digital edition and not the physical

46:36

book at all. I don't believe

46:38

that, but I do think from

46:40

a best practice standpoint, but you

46:42

know. Keep the errata low. Keep

46:44

the errata low. Even if you

46:46

think there's an error or something

46:48

like that, it's better to just

46:50

let it ride, honestly. Unless it's

46:52

a serious feedback loop bug like

46:55

the carrying crawler. That's a reasonable

46:57

change. But all the AC and

46:59

HD tweaking, it's like that's fine

47:01

if you're playing a digital game.

47:03

But I think D&D Beyond has

47:05

convinced some people within wizards that

47:07

they are running a digital game.

47:09

and not a game that's pointed

47:11

on paper in a lot of

47:13

cases. I think it's very challenging,

47:15

like on the opposite side of

47:17

things, because especially with a monster

47:19

book having recently put through one

47:21

and having a much smaller team

47:23

than than Wizards, even when you

47:25

are going through the final math

47:28

checks on something, it's really difficult

47:30

to find everything. And I think

47:32

one of the benefits that I

47:34

think in the independent publishing sort

47:36

of thing, and to catch those

47:38

errors, and so that you have

47:40

something that goes to backers and

47:42

get one final pass through the

47:44

net to catch all those things,

47:46

that's one of the benefits of

47:48

being able to do that in

47:50

the independent publishing sort of thing,

47:52

and to catch those errors, and

47:54

so that you have something that

47:56

goes to print that at least.

47:58

The difference between 5,000 people looking

48:01

at a book and finding errors

48:03

and even a team professional editors

48:05

who it's their job to do

48:07

it. It has blown my mind

48:09

how much just the audience consuming

48:11

it for the first time who

48:13

has never seen the work, right?

48:15

Because I've even learned this about

48:17

myself is like, I cannot proofread

48:19

my own writing. My brain reads

48:21

the sentence and it remembers what

48:23

I meant and does not see

48:25

the errors. Right. It's a real

48:27

struggle for myself in that regard,

48:29

and I find that even when

48:31

you work with really talented people,

48:33

the teams that work on role-playing

48:36

game books are still small, and

48:38

as soon as it goes from

48:40

the team of two, three, five,

48:42

a dozen, 20 authors, to thousands

48:44

of readers, the ability to crowdsource

48:46

all those things of like, yeah,

48:48

it probably should, like, I'm not

48:50

mad that things like that. slip

48:52

through the cracks. I very much

48:54

understand how that happens, having gone

48:56

through the other the other side

48:58

of that process, right? I don't

49:00

think the errata is the problem

49:02

or mistakes in the book, because

49:04

those are going to happen, especially

49:06

for such a big book. And

49:09

our PG books are so much

49:11

that goes into them as opposed

49:13

to like even just a novel,

49:15

you know, in terms of art

49:17

and pages and rules that reference

49:19

other pages and all this sort

49:21

of stuff. We were talking about

49:23

this recently on the law cast.

49:25

For me, it's just as Taos.

49:27

at Alpha Stream was saying on

49:29

Blue Sky, it's just, can we

49:31

surface this a little bit better?

49:33

Yeah, for people who use the

49:35

physical books, because I obviously wouldn't

49:37

have known about it if it

49:39

wasn't for Taos, and I think

49:42

maybe Enworld did an article kind

49:44

of pointing this out. So that

49:46

being the case, we are going

49:48

to jump into, I think we've

49:50

got time for a quick listener

49:52

email here. Yes. This coming. Oh,

49:54

before we move on to emails,

49:56

I want to give a shout

49:58

out for a cool experience. I

50:00

was down in Preston, which is

50:02

in Melbourne, if you're not Nazi,

50:04

and I went to escape room

50:06

called Ukio, like the Japanese art,

50:08

the ancient painting style Ukioa, the

50:10

floating world, and wound up doing

50:12

an escape room from, that my

50:14

friends had heard at a pack's

50:17

a couple of years ago, we

50:19

were mean to try for ages,

50:21

called The Crumbling Prince, that's sort

50:23

of inspired by Studio Ghibli and

50:25

Legend of Zelda vibes. It's a

50:27

narrative escape room, something I've never

50:29

done before, right? Usually in a

50:31

escape room you're locked in a

50:33

building and you have a strict

50:35

60-minute timer with which to solve

50:37

some devious, but sometimes a little

50:39

bit disjointed puzzles in order to

50:41

find the key that opens the

50:43

door. And usually there's a bit

50:45

of a theme like you've been

50:47

kidnapped by an evil wizard or

50:50

you've been locked in a dungeon

50:52

or you're trying to do a

50:54

heist and get the money and

50:56

get out or something like that.

50:58

This is an untimeed game with

51:00

a story, a sort of emotional

51:02

story actually of a prince of

51:04

this sort of cherry blossom veiled

51:06

valley whose friends have been lost.

51:08

You're trying to uncover sort of

51:10

the root of the dark magic

51:12

and the despair at play here.

51:14

And it was just one of

51:16

the best escape rooms I've ever

51:18

done. I almost wish Dale was

51:20

on this podcast because I want

51:23

to see the look on her

51:25

face when I say, this is

51:27

probably the best use of AI

51:29

I've ever seen. A rare day

51:31

for me when I sing the

51:33

praises of LLLMs, but it was

51:35

really incredible work. They had this

51:37

prince, this is sort of a

51:39

scarecrow really standing in the middle

51:41

of the room and it was

51:43

an LLLM chatbot. that had been

51:45

fully voice acted by a real

51:47

person who's a local Aussie Indian

51:49

musician whose name I can't recall

51:51

offhand. But you could just speak

51:53

in a loud clear voice anywhere

51:55

in the room asking, hey Prince,

51:58

what's going on here? Or the

52:00

Prince would ask you questions like,

52:02

what is wisdom? And this is

52:04

one of the puzzles that you're

52:06

trying to sort of unravel the

52:08

root of the emotional story being

52:10

told here. And there were cameras

52:12

as well. There was a moment

52:14

where we had to sort of

52:16

collect eight peaches that had been

52:18

hidden throughout the room, place them

52:20

all in a basket. And then

52:22

we would say, hey Prince, we

52:24

found your peaches. And the cameras

52:26

in the room would see them.

52:28

And sort of these stories would

52:31

unfold in a very natural and

52:33

organic way that had clearly been

52:35

programmed and lovingly handcrafted by humans

52:37

in a way that the the

52:39

generative AI that I rail about,

52:41

it seems like every other episode

52:43

of the lorecast. It has the

52:45

human touch that that simply does

52:47

not have. And it strikes me

52:49

as the use of AI as

52:51

a tool to enhance human creativity

52:53

or to open up new avenues

52:55

of human creativity actually, rather than

52:57

just being a way to cut

52:59

corners and reduce headcount and save

53:01

a big software company CEO a

53:04

couple of dollars every day. It

53:06

was really something special and they're

53:08

opening up an even more expansive

53:10

and puzzle driven room in April

53:12

here in Melbourne if you're in

53:14

Melbourne if you come here for

53:16

packs unplugged. I really want to,

53:18

packs, packs, is what I mean

53:20

to say, packs and plugs in

53:22

Philadelphia. packs Australia in what, October,

53:24

October every year? If you come

53:26

in and check it out, because

53:28

that new room they're opening is

53:30

continuation of the story and it's

53:32

not a boss fight. The folks

53:34

there ran me and my group

53:36

through a sort of pen and

53:39

paper play test version of what

53:41

they're going to do in the

53:43

room they're building now. And it

53:45

involved tests of speed and reflex.

53:47

in a way that is sort

53:49

of video game inspired, but I've

53:51

never seen done in an escape

53:53

room before. And given how impressed

53:55

I was this week, I really

53:57

expect a lot out of them.

53:59

Well, this is the interesting thing

54:01

about what you've described to me,

54:03

because we've talked about it a

54:05

little bit before recording today, is

54:07

that this doesn't sound, it sounds

54:09

like an escape room in like

54:12

genre maybe, but it doesn't in

54:14

terms of like being in a

54:16

physical space and solving puzzles, so

54:18

to speak. but it doesn't actually

54:20

sound like an escape room. No,

54:22

because you're not trying to escape,

54:24

which sounds like a cool kind

54:26

of like role-playing evolution of the

54:28

genre. Because I've done things like

54:30

interactive theater before, where I've popped

54:32

down, I've been like a gangster,

54:34

and I've been like, ah, you

54:36

gotta find this place and do

54:38

the thing. And when you get

54:40

there. You're going to speak to

54:42

this person and then the audience

54:45

who are all like having drinks

54:47

in a bar or whatever, asking

54:49

me questions and I'm giving answers.

54:51

But there's, I don't think this,

54:53

but there's been kind of an

54:55

air of like hookiness around that.

54:57

I think for people and kind

54:59

of like very thinly veiled level

55:01

of role play. Having come from

55:03

my theater background and had conversations

55:05

with some of my friends that

55:07

are still working in theater about

55:09

some other their interactive projects, I

55:11

did a playtest for a friend

55:13

of mine of mine and I

55:15

said. You're just trying to trick

55:17

the audience into playing 10 candles

55:20

with you. And for my part,

55:22

I think what I find very

55:24

interesting is, yeah, a lot of

55:26

interactive theater in particular, I think,

55:28

is trying to pull the genre,

55:30

like pull out from role-playing games.

55:32

It's very rare when you find

55:34

an interactive experience like what you're

55:36

describing James that that actually captures

55:38

so much of that thought and

55:40

integrates technology like that. Yeah. Yeah.

55:42

And that's the thing right you

55:44

were talking about this sort of.

55:46

pokiness at play. And I, as

55:48

soon as I realized that I

55:50

was in for, right, that it

55:53

wasn't a sort of traditional escape

55:55

room, that's immediately what my worry

55:57

was too. And I came out

55:59

really shocked actually at how sort

56:01

of attached we became to our,

56:03

to the Prince, to the companion,

56:05

to this chat bot that we

56:07

were talking with, because it was

56:09

so well written. It was so

56:11

well written and well programmed and

56:13

honestly well performed that in a

56:15

way that I Don't think I

56:17

would have gotten if we'd had

56:19

sort of a game master in

56:21

the room with us Because it

56:23

didn't feel realistic per se, but

56:26

it it's sort of allowed I

56:28

mean to get into a suspension

56:30

of disbelief that I don't think

56:32

a real human would have allowed

56:34

me to weirdly enough. Yeah, it

56:36

reminded me of when I did

56:38

like a murder mystery dinner theater

56:40

for a company once and I

56:42

was told like staying character the

56:44

whole night, you can't break character,

56:46

staying character. And I was like,

56:48

all right. And then we had

56:50

to like sit down and have

56:52

dinner with the audience, right? So

56:54

I'm sitting at this table in

56:56

this conference room like eat my

56:58

dinner and dinner in character. And

57:01

the lady sitting on my left

57:03

turns to me, she goes, oh,

57:05

so do you do this a

57:07

lot? And I go, yeah, like,

57:09

you know, I make money for

57:11

the boss over there and I,

57:13

you know, like staying in character.

57:15

And she went, oh, okay. And

57:17

a wall just came down between

57:19

us. And she was like, I

57:21

am not interested in interacting with

57:23

this performance. I'm going to turn

57:25

over here and talk to this

57:27

person instead, because I think there

57:29

is a level of uncomfortable of

57:31

uncomfortable nurse. that exists there for

57:34

people who don't play role-playing games

57:36

in particular. When it comes to

57:38

interacting with someone who's clearly doing

57:40

the role. I don't want to

57:42

get on my soapbox, but I

57:44

think that that's the biggest barrier

57:46

with the genre of interactive theater

57:48

is that role-playing. games have to

57:50

have already like create an environment

57:52

where people can do that and

57:54

like there's this environment of trust

57:56

right like I think that that's

57:58

the the the key one of

58:00

the key things with with a

58:02

role-playing game to make it work

58:04

is that there needs to be

58:07

trust between the players between the

58:09

game master everybody needs to construct

58:11

that But an environment where you

58:13

have a pay, like an audience

58:15

that is coming in to interact

58:17

with actors who they don't know,

58:19

it's actually really hard to create

58:21

that level of trust. You have

58:23

to work really hard to get

58:25

there. Once you do, you can

58:27

do amazing things. Just like when

58:29

you play a role-playing game with

58:31

a group of people that all

58:33

trust each other, you can go

58:35

places that you can tell stories

58:37

that you just aren't. Trust is

58:39

like the magic ingredient of a

58:42

long playing game, right? And with

58:44

any interactive experience, really. I think

58:46

there's a lot to be taught

58:48

there as a game designer about

58:50

creating immersion and a sense of

58:52

suspension of disbelief through atmosphere, because

58:54

that level of atmosphere, they created

58:56

really wonderful. Well, speaking of trust

58:58

and atmosphere, you can trust that

59:00

this podcast will be bringing you

59:02

more atmosphere next week. Because we've

59:04

got to end this episode. You

59:06

can join us live on Twitter.

59:08

We're here every Monday 6 p.m.

59:10

Eastern Standard Time, 3 p.m. Pacific

59:12

Standard Time, or it is Tuesday,

59:15

10 a.m. Usually, Australian Eastern Time.

59:17

Monty Kelly, where can folks find

59:19

you if they haven't checked out

59:21

your stuff before? We are over

59:23

on YouTube at Dungeon Dudes. Awesome,

59:25

go check it out. Go give

59:27

us likes and stuff over there

59:29

and subscribe and we'll see you

59:31

next time. I've been Ben Byrne

59:33

here with Monty Martin Kelly McLaughlin

59:35

James Hague and we will be

59:37

back next week with another episode

59:39

of the Eldridge Lawcast. Whoa wabada

59:41

Woobada! I can't remember the sign-off

59:43

that we came up with. I

59:45

like wabada boobbez. But it's happened

59:48

since you've been out. Oh no!

59:50

Woo -blah -doo! I

59:52

can't remember what

59:54

it is. It's

59:56

something like that. It's

59:58

something like for Dante

1:00:00

to come on.

1:00:02

for Dante to come on. And...

1:00:04

for two weeks

1:00:06

weeks, he'll change up the above

1:00:08

it, is it? Wow, waw,

1:00:10

something? Oh No, can't

1:00:12

remember. remember. Oh, no. It's

1:00:14

all Adam's fault,

1:00:16

isn't it?