Hello and welcome to the weekly Squirrel podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I'm one of the sword Smiths
of Larfar. And today?
Today, we're going to be going over Azag from Dank Dungeons,
Lex Mandrake, but also lots of other people.
A whole list will go over of writers and artists.
Music from Loot. The Body, the watch for the
podcast listeners is is the tape.
It's a cassette tape. It's a beautiful cassette tape.
Fuck it. Let's just go over how pretty
everything is. First of all, a zag.
This is a very it's an old school style role-playing game
in a very I would say like sword and sorcery setting.
And I how I did So this is not everybody, but this is how I
define it when people ask me, right?
Let me rant real quick. To me, there's a difference
between. Sword and sorcery.
Wait, wait, wait. OK, now go.
OK, so there's a dip to me in my head.
Cannon. There's sword and sorcery and
sword and wizardry, right? A lot of the shit before Tolkien
was sword and sorcery, You know, Moorcock and and Ashton Smith.
Like all your all your weird like Elrix and everything like
that, right? Weird shit like astral projecte
shit like scimitars and deserts and shit, right?
And then sword and sorcery, right?
And then sword and wizardry is your standard Europe, but not
Europe. Like quasi magic, middle evil
sword Shields and Wizards that all look like Gandalf.
That's the two branches of fiction in my head as far as the
setting. The only two branches of
fiction. That's right, all of fiction
fits in those you. Know basically in fantasy.
So this is very sword and sorcery.
We'll go over the, I mean, it literally says Lovecraft, Conan,
Hyperborea, you know, sword and sorcery.
It's cool. Setting's great.
The book is absolutely gorgeous. We'll get into that a little bit
more. But I have.
So first we got actually volume one, the first time this came
out printed by LFOSR, it was 2 volumes, Volume one and volume
to I have them both. It was volume one, the rules,
Volume to the world. It's printed on that thick LFOSR
paper and like a real thick nice paper all the way through.
It came with a bunch of cards on that nice thick stock for the
character sheets. And it also came with the tape.
This was the first version this version actually came out in.
Let me tell you, I had this up the last time, but then we moved
our episode. So this version originally came
out in October of 2021, printed from LFOSR.
The book itself on Azag was originally published in March of
2021. After this sold out
instantaneously before I even got a chance to buy it, this
version this is I paid much more.
Later second hand. They put out a second copy where
they actually combine the two books together into the one that
I'm holding right now. And you still got the cards on a
different kind of paper. It's not quite as nice.
The cover of this one is still beautiful, but the inside paper
it's still nice. But it's a it's a shiny paper,
it's not that thick, you know, LFOSR paper.
And it goes from an almost square Zine.
That volume one and volume to was to a pretty classic like the
American version of A5 Perfect Bound versus the original ones
still got the cards, but you were also you were able to get
the Dream Thieves written by Diego Noguera.
Yeah, the first adventure for Azag.
And this came out in April of 2022.
I was digging through the Itch page and about six months ago
someone asked and Lex Mendrick said that they were talking to
somebody else about potentially doing another adventure for
Azag. So maybe we'll see that at some
point. I'm glad that it sounds like
maybe there's going to be more for that.
So that's that's the whole a zag line is volume one and volume to
and the tape for the first release and then the the
combined A zag perfect bound with the Diego Noguera Dream
Themes adventure for the second release and that's what we're
going to be going over today. We'll dig into that a little bit
more to that though. Got a couple things to talk
about. First if you're app, if you're
but, but. I was just going to make jokes.
Just just do the thing. If you're listening right now,
this is week two of the World of Kuroga giveaway Go Back Black
Rainbow Society, the expansion to Hell Knight over on
Kickstarter right now. But we are giving away the
hardback of Warpland. Gabriel was extremely nice and
sent us a copy of Narrow City, which we gave away last week to
Ozo Warpland. This week and next week will be
Hell Knight. I don't know why I keep saying
Hell City. It's hell night.
Those are words. That's that's.
Hell City night. Yeah, hell City night.
But this week we are giving away the hardcover warplan.
It is beautiful. It is gorgeous and you have to
just go follow us on like the tweet.
I don't even give a fuck if you follow us realistically.
I just want like the tweet so I can I know what your name is to
so I can I can pick you. But go like that by the end of
the episode, and we might pick you.
And even prior to that, before we hop into it, we're hopping
into stuff. We have more stuff to talk about
for later this week. That'll be at the end of the
episode. Yeah.
Jump to the end if you don't want to hear us.
We're. Going to hop into other stuff,
you know. Yeah, we're going to go, we're
going to look at something else real quick.
And that something else is this, I say and then I don't break it
up. We're doing really this, hey,
listen, we're getting there. It's not our normal time or day.
I think that's a lot of time. So Earth after death, the post
apocalyptic survival role-playing game, it says I had
this for those in podcast land. I switched to a Kickstarter
window experience, new and exciting post apocalyptic
wastelands and this advanced OSR inspired game and spiritual
successor to TS Rs Gamma World. This is an interesting game.
I've heard about it for a while. They actually had a kind of like
the quick start original version of the Wastelands Handbook.
Wieslander's handbook at Exalted a while ago and I snagged it.
It's interesting, I read it a while ago, It's cool.
You can actually get the download of this for free on
their page, which is always good.
The link should be higher because you have to scroll way
down to get it says click free. This should be the first thing
at the top. What's interesting is the PDF
uses a different cover. It looks like a lot of the same
characters, but it's a little bit different cover than the one
that's on the one from Exalted. Both are good.
It's just interesting that it's a little bit different.
But when I read through, it seems like most of it's pretty
much the same. So did you get a chance to read
through this? It's interesting.
Let's go through the page a little bit so that you guys all
know what's going on. It's got 16 days left to go.
It's about halfway to its goal. It's at 4700 Bucks on about a
$9500 goal. I believe it's in Kanuki and
though, so there's a conversion. Yeah, $13,000 Canadian.
Yeah. The city I once knew as home is
teetering on the edge of radioactive oblivion.
A 300,000° baptism by nuclear fire.
I'm not sorry we had it coming. A scourge of white hot atonement
will be our wake up call. Hope for our future is now a
stillborn dream. The bombs begin to fall and I'm
rushing to meet my love. Please remember me.
There is no more earth after death.
Bars. Right.
Post apocalyptic role-playing game, dungeon and hex crawling.
Smorgasbord of adventure, horror, exploration and combat.
The spiritual successor to Gamma World, which I've never played.
I would either. But I do.
But I do have a first edition box out of it.
Have you read it? Yeah.
No, it's still in the plastic. It's so funny, it's.
Right next to my first edition of Boot Hill and Star Frontiers.
Yeah. Oh and my first edition
Traveler. Nice.
The finest emulation of CRPG is like Wasteland and Fallout
tabletop. And bloody good fun.
So this is a really interesting, post apocalyptic, very Mad Max,
You know, Fate. Fallout World, yeah, it's all
the stuff you want from that. It's really interesting.
As I said, like I got a chance to read through the entire
Wastelanders handbook. It's cool.
It's really neat. I don't know if I'm specifically
the target audience for this, because for anyone here on the
show that listens to us regularly, we are rules light
boys here. And this is not heavy by any
stretch of the imagination, but there is parts of it that kind
of lean into the crunch. Not in a bad way.
That's the point there. There are people out there that
like a little bit more crunch and I.
Think that's very much inspired by like what's it Wastelander?
And then like the like classic Fallouts and like uses like an
action point system, which both of those do as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah.
So they they say that they use a novel new system called the AP
system. It's D20 roll under.
There's a bunch of numbers. And then to munch on other
numbers. I think they even make a joke
here where they say there's a page that's not too breezy, but
it's neat. Like I said, the mechanics are
very interesting. They everything you want in
there. The gun system is interesting.
The vehicle system is interesting.
It's a really interesting game in general.
You can get the waste liners handbook before and now you can
also get. I'll scroll back up to what I
just passed in a second. There is an Overseer's manual
now, which is basically like your GM guide, but it's a bunch
of other advanced crafting settlements, vehicle combat
optional, a ton more optional rules, diseases, weather, all
the stuff you need to actually run the game.
Like a shit load of stuff to run the game so you can get both and
including the Apocalypse Dream Zine, which is a collection of
adventures. One of the reasons we're talking
about this. Not only does it look like an
interesting project, but not friend of the show part of the
show. Best friend of the show.
Yeah, per person who like is, I think they're just a there are
some questions. Member of the TWS team.
Member of the TWS. We're a family, OK?
Family, we're a. Family.
This is a community, yeah. If buzzwords to quit a job, Josh
Demansky will be writing a cakewalk, a horror filled true
dungeon crawl involving a sport stadium, hidden treasures and
creatures and etcetera etcetera. And not only that, right next to
Josh de Manti on here in his his logo we got Luke Gearing.
Regular friend. Yeah, regular friend of the show
luminary regular shit poster. Yeah, creating Over the Moon.
A point crawl dungeon set inside the abandoned Over the Moon
pierside theme park filled with traps, rabid machines and a
deadly secret. Both of them will be writing
adventures for this if it gets funded.
Like I said, still have 16 days. About half the campaign left.
It's about halfway. It'd be nice to push that.
There's a lot of really great artists on the project as well.
Roland's. I'm not even going to pretend to
say her last name. It is I I will not offend you in
that way, Roland. I'll try Kelland's, but there's
accents and things. A lead artist on the project so
if this is their art, it's fantastic, that's great.
Also Justin McElroy, Alex Apriano, Mike Dosher, Kirby
Peru, Francisco Sova, Woof Draw, SCAP and Soul links to all of
that all the way through there. There's a list here that goes
through all the content that you can have six player strains, 12
backgrounds, combat and etcetera, etcetera, or even over
the overseers, the manual. A lot of accolades here
including you know, people saying nice things about it like
rise up comas like Josh Mccrew and and Hodag.
Go check out the Hodag RPG. Tim.
Ober Mueller And then there is a little breakdown here that talks
a little bit more about melee and range combat and guns and
everything. So you get a little hint at the
mechanics. But if you want a full, full
view of the mechanics, there's a a big graphic here on the front
that says click here, try it for free and you can download
basically the entire book that I'm holding the original Zine
just as APDF for free to check out the system.
Like I said, it's really interesting.
I like a lot of parts of it. It is a bit crunchy for me, but
that's because I'm I'm old and have ADHD and I need lighter
stuff. I'm not the target audience, but
I think if you are the target audience, this is really, really
interesting system with a lot of fun heft to it.
So definitely check it out, go back this, support it.
I'm looking at the tiers. It's relatively inexpensive.
I don't know why my shit's chopped off here, so let's open
it up a little bit. The full digital release is $36
to get everything in PDF. The full physical release is
$70.00. That's going to be GM screen
hardback book multiple scenes like all of that stuff that's
going to be with all of that and then you can there's like some
limited tears at like 150 bucks and and everything like that 185
for making a monster or whatnot. So go check that out.
As I said it's going to be interesting project.
I'd like to see it happen. It would also be awesome to see
anything written by Josh and Luke gearing so that is Earth
after dark post apocalyptic survival RPG.
Go check that out on Kickstarter right now.
I'll drop the link into all the stuff below.
So, So yeah, that's what's going on.
So we're gonna go over a zag now.
Let's do it. I'm ready.
If I would've I I booped to the second page instead of the cool
art page, so got for a God damn this cover dude.
Great. I mean such a great.
Cover God. Incredible.
I actually this is, I'm sure this is the artist I like Party
in the Front, but what's his actual name?
We never know. Well, let's Scroll down and then
we'll scroll back because this can be listed here.
The Louis Mello is, I believe they're the same person who did.
Speaking of Josh Mansky again, they did a cover for one of Josh
Mansky's adventures in the series with Oh my God, Josh
don't hate me. The it's right there.
I can see it. And the two knots, You know what
I mean? Like the the weird.
Yes, you know what I'm talking. About I gotta go to go to Zitch
page right now. I'm like fuck, what we talking
about? Zed in two knots, right?
And is that is that what I'm saying?
My, my, my internet's actually shitting out on me.
Whoa. We're freezing, Yeah, sorry.
Oh, are we freezing on the pot? No, I was just, I was just
making sure you're in there. So I'm in the weird mood today,
you know? I'm all over the place.
Well, calm the fuck down. Nope.
Did you go to this page yet? Yeah, let's see.
Yeah. Is it in two knots?
See. I knew.
I know I knew. Different different different
artist is. It no, no, no, no, no.
It's the it's the other. It's the second scene in that
series. Oh, OK, I believe you.
Do you? Do you really?
I just know him from all the cool I I follow him on several
social medias, actually totally not having anything to do with
tabletop games because they make really cool art.
Yes, by by their username. So I'm not a.
Cool guy. Nope, not at all.
I'm not a huge Tangled. Tangled is the the other one
that's from the afterthought committee.
It's the Level 0 funnel for OSC and yeah with cover art by Lewis
Mello. Let me, I'll, I'll just throw
that up into here real quick just to he.
Also, he also did the art for Cyberpunk augmented cover.
Oh yeah, yeah. Interesting.
Right now I'm full of interesting packs, so you.
You were just full of it. You know you got it.
You got? It I got it.
You're full up on it, buddy. Yeah man, we are.
Really, We are. We are cruising today.
We are killing it. Yeah, let's fucking go.
If you're listening along, you're welcome.
Yeah, this is all for you. Yeah, I keep trying to to to
grab this and it's pissing me off.
Let's see if I can just copy paste it on here.
Just don't look, if you're if you're listening, you're doing
great. But if you're watching along,
just eyes down for this. Part, you know, Yeah.
So anyway, so yeah, the cover is absolutely stunning and and I'm
obsessed with getting it onto the screen.
So for you guys in podcast land listening to us fumble and
fumble and fumble, I'm not going to edit this out, 'cause, you
know, I don't. So that's all for you.
Yeah. So anyway, so this is the cover
for Tangled. This is from after the
documentary. This is from Josh again, Look at
that cover there. It's absolutely stunning.
Yeah, it's really, really beautiful.
They do amazing work. The layers on that cover are
absolutely fantastic and that's one of my favorite things about
the way they do with their collage art.
And the same thing comes through with this Azac cover.
It's clearly flat because it's two-dimensional, but yeah,
obviously 2 dimensional people. But the layers of the statue
with a mountain behind it and then the the the tower here,
coming forward to the dancers, coming forward to the person
watching. Coming forward to you looking
like you're peering through the the trees and the underbrush
with the little, the little lizard right in front of you, as
if you're looking at the scene kind of unfolding before you.
I couldn't. It's such a perfect a piece of
art. But second, for this setting
it's dead on. It's so perfectly weird and
like, yeah, the the whatever those people are dancing around
and worshiping it has that like, you know, soul, soul, swords and
sorcery always has this really weird, like astral occult thing
going on. It's like, Oh yeah, like a
monster from the outer dark or whatever.
Or you know, they're worshipping set, the great Serpent of the
dark. It There's always really good
vibes like that, and this perfectly fits into that genre.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like I always viewed
again, just in my. Again, this is, this is not the
definitions of things. This is my defining.
Right now, by the way, if you're listening this word.
Defining if you if you think of fantasy different than I do,
then you're wrong apparently. But to me, a sword and sorcerer,
I always felt a lot more esoteric and sword and wizardry
also always felt more arcane. If that makes sense.
Absolutely. So yeah, it's it's weird.
It's weird. That's the thing that I always
felt like I I never think of a lot of the kind of like, again,
Europe, but not Europe, Western fantasy and and think, man,
that's super fucking weird, you know.
But with sword and sorcery, it's always just like, yeah, that's
really weird. There's like a portal to like,
you know the the astral plane and you're going to go battle
some eldritch thing and then come back and have your memory
wipe so you can get on a boat and then go battle Vikings and
shit. Like, you know, like it's it's
it's weird shit, it's like a. Mad Lib of dark fiction, You
know, Yeah. Exactly.
And then all the bad Wizards have bowl cuts, you know?
But yeah, Azag, obviously. Again, just.
Like in real life. Just like in real life, yeah.
If you see someone, if you see a grown human being with a bowl
cut, be careful. Blind.
They're evil, yeah, Especially if they sound like Darth Vader.
So we should. Review this game.
Huh. No, no.
We're only 30 minutes into the show.
Anyway, here we go. We're going in so credits again.
Lex Mandrake. Chris Chris Boudreaux,
Diagonaguera, Sofia, Al. I suck at names.
I always think I see them right in my head.
And then I try to say it out loud and I can't.
It's a LDULA Aldu Lejean. I'll say Mahar Magas.
These are all people that wrote rules, fiction or setting the
writers of the game artist Liz Mello on the cover, Logan Stall
for interior art and Daniel Walthall for the world map and
then music once again from Loot the Body.
I actually listened to it on Band Camp while I was reading
the book. So did I.
So go check out. Already 2 minutes of it.
Yeah, it's only 5 tracks, so it's really good.
The last one's like 11 minutes, but it's it's really good.
A lot of play testers published by LFOSR Leo, where you at?
And there I guess there's like a there's some stuff in it that
kind of relates a little bit to Troika.
So there is a the whole legal disclaimer, this ain't Melsonia.
I didn't feel too much Troika in it, but it.
Is in there dice mechanic that's troika is?
It, yeah. They in the foreword, they talk
about like how they specifically do that 'cause they basically
get rid of like the the second thing, I'm not a huge fan of
Troika for the The Matrix, the the the second thing.
That's the first thing. Yeah, they get rid of the Matrix
and use a similar ish kind of thing but with dice.
So it's like a dice chain, but it does say that it's rules
inspired by Fighting Fantasy and Troika and sitting inspired by
Lovecraft's Dreamcycle, Howards, Conan and Smith's Hyperborea.
So a lot of very, you know, pre 1960s pulpy sword and sorcery.
Goodness, you know, finance. I was good.
I was gonna make him misogyny. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was gonna make a comment. I was like, that guy's gonna
come comment on our fucking video again.
So, so one thing that I really love, it's it's all it's very
much hyperlinked. Even all of the writers and
artists in here, there's links to all of them that'll link out
to Twitter pages and Bing Camp page and stuff.
Love that. That's fantastic.
The on the right side of the page throughout the entire
scene, the kind of layout is there.
It's two column and there's a black line down the middle of
every page which I like. It looks really nice the.
Right side of this. Yeah, the right side of this is
the contents page and it each of those is also hyperlinked.
But in our version of the PDF there is no there are no
bookmarks, but but on the each page it does say that man, I
must have deleted that page. It does say that there was a
version put out, I believe in 2023 where they went through the
book, fixed some typos and fully bookmarked it.
I don't have that version though because I didn't get this from
ITCH. I got this as a direct download
from LFOSR when I got the book. So I don't have the updated PDF,
and I'm not going to pay another $10.00 for the updated PDF when
I already have it. Bookmarks are nice, that'd be
it'd be nice to have it, but if it if it was a drastic
difference or two, EI would. I'm not going to pay 10 bucks
for the PDF already have for bookmarks, so we will not hold
them against them that they don't have bookmarks because
they do, just not in the version we have and we'll just assume
that they did it well. Yes, You know, yeah, I'm
comfortable with that, so. Yeah, so the big difference
between So we're using the version 2 PDF.
This is the second print version that went out.
So it's the combined version of both of the original scenes into
one book. I will say I do think that the
two scenes is better in the way that it's kind of put apart.
I I like because it is literally a rules book and a world book.
So when I want to sit and read setting and fiction stuff, I can
just pull this one and when I want to read the rules, I can do
this one. But that is not to say that this
isn't, this is bad by any stretch of the imagination.
It's really good. It's just I do love.
I love when things are like one big volume, but at the same
time, I think I like even more and I'm developing overtime.
I'd rather have a bunch of little scenes because when I
want the part that I want, I can just have the part that I want.
I think it kind of depends for me on the thing, but I will say
that this seems like one of the things right.
I kind of want 2 little scenes for.
It. Yeah.
Well, and the cool thing too, is that you get that second scene.
The art is in here, of course, but the second scene does have
the really, this really, really beautiful art of this like giant
bat creature thing. Kind of snooze in a way.
So that's really, really cool. Again, not to say that this
version is in any way bad at all.
I just, I really liked the way that the world, the rules were
were separated in the original version.
What they do in this version is they kind of memento it a little
bit, kind of if you know the way that works.
But basically what they did, there's a lot of short fiction
throughout the book and between each section they basically
stick a piece of short fiction. So to start the next section,
there's always like a one page of something set in a zag in
some way, shape or form. And so it's cool, it's easy to
skip if you don't feel like reading the fiction.
So when I first read it, I read it in the bigger book, so I
didn't have to take these other ones out of the plastic because
that's where they're going right back into.
But I read all the rules and everything that was not fiction
1st and then went back and read all the fiction as like, you
know, a big story and that was a fun way to read it.
So yeah, so the full word. This is 1 giant page with a
whole lot of writing on it. It's really interesting.
Did you skip this? I did skip this.
There's a lot of blocky texts in here where I'm like, man, you
know what you could do? You can make this less blocky
text, and this is one of them. I don't.
I don't disagree with you, but I'll explain why I do.
When we get there. I don't mind the forward at all
because the forward here is really interesting because they
tell you right off the bat this whole like, you know what RPG
is, right? It's this, You have dice, you
have pens, you have paper. So like, you're not telling me
that. It's it's more of just like, I
wish more books had this forward here.
I really, really do. Because it literally says, like,
This is why I made the game, This is what inspired the game,
this is what inspired the rules for the game.
This is what inspired the setting.
This is why I chose these parts to inspire the setting.
It goes into the whole thing about Howard and Lovecraft and
all that and basically says like how can we do all of that shit
without like the weird racism and misogyny, you know without
the over sexualization, without all of that.
They're like we're we're pulling out all the parts that we really
loved and leaving behind all the parts that we don't need to
bring into 2024. So I I really like it.
And then again it starts saying in a roundabout way this is the
setting, this is, this is This is why I'm doing it.
This is why I put it the way together that I wanted to and
then goes into like think the artist and and and talk about
like actually putting all together.
I wish more books had this. It's only one page long and
really getting to hear from the the writer from Lex about how
and why they put it together the way that they did was really
interesting and give you a nice insight and I think that would
be helpful on a lot of other games.
It's only in one page it looks a little dense but it it's worth
the read to kind of get into the the mind of the creator.
So it's really it's it's worth reading.
We're not going to read it it it's interesting though I liked
it world map of the known world. It's interesting.
The world is round. I say that unlike Hyperborea,
where the world is flat, I guess also around, but like flat.
It's cool to see this too, because a lot of the short
fiction specifically references a lot of the places on the map.
Absolutely, yeah. Which and I really like.
I really like the way that they use the short fiction instead of
really just giving you chunks of like setting material to to set
those areas a little bit more as opposed to there is some setting
material for those areas. But I love when you can get in.
It's not implied setting, but it's not, it's not giving you
just like textbook version of setting.
It's allowing you to read the fiction to get the vibes a
little bit more really interesting.
I like that a lot, The name of the world, so the headers for
all of the each section do this specific vibe right.
They have this style of writing which is a very sweepy you know,
almost I I almost looks like brush pen kind of font at the
top. Then they do a rectangle piece
of art, usually bursting out of the frame which looks really
fantastic. And I don't know if you noticed
that every setting is each section is color-coded.
Yeah, I guess it is. Yeah, I guess I did kind of
notice that, yes. Yeah, so the first section is
yellow and it is the world. It's a picture of a boat leaving
like a city, with the boat kind of coming out towards you with
like these pterodactyl like creatures flying next to them.
They're coming out at you. And then first you get into the
first piece of fiction. This is from Lex Mandrake.
This is a cool one. It kind of gives you the, the,
the initial kind of where are we?
What is a zag? You know, from the perspective
of somebody in it and traveling and saying like, some people
call it this, some people call it that.
You know, it's really good. It's really interesting.
I liked it a lot. I do really like that part,
yeah. Yeah.
But names of the world. Yeah.
Mm hmm, sorry, my my Adobe Acrobat just crashed on me.
So I'm like listening to where you are without being able to
follow along. Oh, no, you're good.
Yeah. So we're not gonna read any of
this short fiction by the book. Read it.
It's good. I like it.
Yeah, remind me when we start. Whenever I pick some piece to
rant about the layout, remind me to just rant about something
else. Character sheet, whole page
here. That's fine.
I like it. Easy to extract that right out
and use it. The character sheet.
We can talk about that little bit when we get to talent.
I yeah, the character sheet do. You have feelings about it.
I don't have feelings about it, so.
Yeah, yeah, I do. When we get to talent, I'll talk
about it. I like the character sheet.
It's a hand drawn character sheet and still legible.
The the whoever has, whoever wrote this has way better
paymanship than me. I like it.
It's clean, it's nice, It's easy enough to be a card.
And on the character sheet on the side there's even like the
initiative order, the distances, there's some of the rules you
need, like right on the sheet, which is always really nice.
You don't have to reference some things, all right, So going into
rules, the yellow section here. So there is a section here for
safety tools right off the bat. It's lines and veils.
Use them if you need them. It's always nice to always
encourage them, even just as a nice setting of the the bases
for you. So how to roll?
So basically this game has two types of roles.
It is a 2D6 system, kind of sometimes.
For the most part. At its at its core, yeah, it's a
2D6 system. There are opposed rolls also
called rolling against, and there are unopposed rolls, also
called testing right? In either case you do 2D6 kind
of most of the time sometimes. So making an attack for example
is opposed roll, which is really interesting.
We'll get into that a little bit more, but both anytime you make
an attack, both people always roll dice against each other,
which is cool. And then an unopposed roll would
be like searching for something. So you might do a test for an
awareness ability. I don't mind that.
I think it's interesting. It's interesting to frame it
that way into being opposed to being unopposed and and framing
like everything you do as whether you're being opposed in
doing it or unopposed in doing it.
Yeah, I don't necessarily have an issue with it.
I think it's fine. Yeah.
I mean, I always love roll under and I do like later on when we
get to skills. I like how you build the
thresholds specifically. I do actually really like that
system, so. Oh yeah, I I forgot to say.
So when you're doing the opposed rolls, it's it's higher wins.
But when you're doing the tests, it is equal to or under.
Yeah, which is which is cool. It's a roll over roll under D6,
sometimes modified. Yeah, which if you've read
Troika, you know where some of the stuff comes from a little
bit more too. Yeah.
So it's interesting. I like it.
I think it's one of those things where I'm reading it.
I'm like, man, I feel like you're getting confused knowing
when to do what. But it's so like once you do it
twice, like you're fine. It's, I think.
It's a lot of share though. You understand when you're
opposing another person or force.
Right. You want higher.
Yes. Yeah.
Like if I'm looking for something or I'm doing skill or
whatever, yeah, I think it makes sense to me.
You know, yeah, no, it absolutely does make sense.
It does make sense. It's just one of those things
where like when you're reading it, you go really.
But it's one of those things where you know like the second
you do it once you're gonna be like it's that's that's it's not
an issue it's a non issue. And again I've read Troika
modifying roles is where the game kind of gets really
interesting. So this is where the dice chain
cannot comes in right. So when a situation is tilted in
a negative or positive way, the gym can choose to modify the
dice rolls right to to reflect the dynamics.
This is accomplished by changing the die type involved.
The higher the die, the more impactful the situation.
So dice can be changed from 2D6 to 2D8 to 2D10 or 2D12 depending
on the severity. So for example, a thief is
loaded down with treasure attempting to escape an area.
They could be encumbered. So the DM could say roll 2D8 for
your test roll, right? So because it's a test roll,
it's a roll under right? So this is the part that I'm
curious about though and I don't know if it's just a bad example.
My brain goes, I need to roll under my value.
Oh yeah, no, no, no. It's higher dice.
So your average to roll is higher, so it's harder to get
under. Never mind my brain worked this.
I had the same problem when I first read it.
So basically your your threshold is going to stay the same, but
your dice will get bigger which means your average roll will be
higher. So yeah, so that's kind of how
advantage, disadvantage, like difficulty class, like all of
that works in this is basically, I don't think it's a 2D6 system,
but my my it's not an issue. My curiosity is 2D62-D82-D ten
2D12. If 2D6 is the base, I want to
know when the heck you're ever going to be rolling 2D10 or 2D12
to. Yeah, I don't know that I'm
incredibly enthused about this part I actually have in my notes
can modify die size. Why like this the the little my
note says I I don't think I like this.
Like I think the beauty of the the role under and even like the
role like opposed modifier like especially for role under is
that it's very much on the play like the player like the player
if they fail it's on them because they they rolled it's
their threshold that they're beating right.
And I feel like there's also like, yeah, there's a weird
vagueness with like, OK, well, the dice can go up and down.
This is kind of an example. But yeah, when do I roll 2D12,
like twice, you know, much bigger die size.
You know, like, what does that look like?
Like, I think maybe with this is like a step up, step down.
Like, yeah, you know, one of you has the high ground, you know?
And you know how important that is, especially with lightsabers.
So yeah. And on this opposed roll, like,
the enemy's going to roll D fours because you have a better
positioning. I can kind of get that.
But like, I think maybe there's just a little vagueness in here
for me. Yeah, I also go I go ahead.
No go for it. Finish it up.
No, I think that was the finishing of my thoughts ago.
Yeah, so, so OK, so let's so my my original thought too was
like, where's the de force and? Oh, does it say De force?
Yeah, I just pulled it out. No.
There are no de force, right? Yeah.
So you your base role is the lowest possible modifier on that
chain, right? As opposed to one being higher,
one being lower, you know what I mean?
So like, I think this would be really interesting if it was
like you're a 2D6, and like if you have like advantage roll 2D
four, and if you have disadvantage roll 2D8, that'd be
interesting. I'm really curious about the
dice chain though, going again, this is something I think will
come out in play, but I'm curious again, like when you
yeah, when are you literally doubling the difficulty?
But the other thing too is the average of 2D6, right?
Is 7 right? Yes.
OK. Do you know what the average of
2D8IS? No, I don't know what is it.
It is two more than that. Right, OK.
Yeah. And the average of two D 10.
Guess how many more than that is, is it's a 2D10.
Two more than that. Two more, what do you think the
average on 2D12 is? Well, since I just pulled it up,
I know it's 13, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's roughly each each advancement in this dice chain
is basically +2. Yeah. +2 So you're going, so I
could just. So wait, hold on, I could just
do +2 then. You could, you could, I don't
mind not doing that because that's just the average, your
odds of actually hitting that like is like hitting any direct
number is like 16% or something like.
So there is way more swing potential in it, but this comes
down to, I guess my my question with this and this isn't, this
is just my thought process out loud is like, what's the like?
What's the point? Like what what you said is like
why? Why did why did they decide to
make this a dice chain specifically?
Because like if you could do the same thing by just doing a + 2
or a -, 2, you you have roughly the same thing.
You're still rolling dice and then just getting a + 2 or a -,
2. So they're still swing to it,
right? There's more swing once you're
going to two D12 versus 2D6 plus two or two D 6 + 6 or something
like that, you know what I mean? It's very different, but I'm
curious why you're starting at the very bottom of the driest
chain for difficulty. You know, you and me both are
not huge fans of GM setting difficulty values anyway,
because it it, it instills kind of a even subconscious level of
not antipathy. You know what I mean?
Like, what am I looking for? Like a ME versus GM?
Adversarialness to the GM. I will say that I I'd like to
modify my position there in that I've read a couple games
recently where there's only like 3 difficulty options and like,
no, you just pick from these three.
I'm like OK, that feels a little better than like 5 E you know
are my favorite game where I'm just like yeah, it's a 14, it's
a 13, it's a 15, it's a 16. It's fuck knows.
I will say yeah I am a bigger fan of the role under because it
really puts the the onus off. Thank you for iterating that for
on the player and I don't know, I don't know that I have like a
massive problem with dice modifier.
I think it's a little vague and I think also yes starting at the
bottom I do think is an issue for me because there should
always be a step down, you should have it be harder for
you, right. And I guess the quick, the quick
answer to that is like we'll just step up the enemy then, but
you know. Yeah, that's.
So that's, that's, that's interesting, you know, because I
mean the other thing too is if you're able to modify versus
like if this is an unopposed role, Oh yeah, the only, the
only way to to modify it is to make it harder, right.
And then if it's an if, it's an opposed role, if you're using
this dice chain system, the only way to modify it is to make it
easier theoretically. So I think this is one of the
ones where I really want to see it play.
I want to play this ice chain, see how it feels 'cause this
could easily be one of the ones where we go, oh never mind, this
is this works totally fine and. There's been play rules in the
past that have been like that, so.
But looking at it objectively, I had the same issues you had
where where my first thought too was like.
This feels complicated and I'm curious if the what you get from
it is worth the complication. Yeah it's isn't true.
So another take on this and and we'll move past this one rule
here pretty soon because that's my file thing on and I'm I'm
sure you're close down on it. But the only like the first
thing came to mind in reading this rule was Wolves upon the
Coast. Because in that one you know
it's 2D6 system but you can make them roll 3D6 if it's a little
if it's like a more difficult task which once again not
something I'm in love with but it's very clean because you're
really just adding one more die of the same size you know.
And so I think it's a little bit easier to parse out maybe
internally in my brain. Yeah, I mean they definitely,
there's a part in here I can't remember where it is, where they
specifically talk about wanting to use the dice chain and stuff
like that. And I'm so you know if that's
your thing is you just really wanted to use a dice chain and
this is the way the dice chain work, that's totally fine.
Again, this is one that I want to to play and see before you
know giving like a this doesn't work and I don't like it.
You know, I'm just curious. These, these are the things that
I think when I first see it is. Yeah, these are things that keep
going through. Yeah, yeah, you know, honestly
standard. So this the stats and their
uses. You got 3 stats, Skill, stamina
and Luck. Skill is a representation of how
good your character is at stuff. You get points and there's
thresholds and we'll go over that later.
Stamina is a representation of your character's health and
endurance. It's basically your HP kind of
in a in a good abstracted way. When you brought to 0 stamina
you were unconscious. It must be healed by given time
to recover. If you lose stamina while
unconscious, you die, and then Luck is a representation of how
lucky your character is. The stat is tested in a variety
of situations, but is reduced every time it is tested
successfully, and it's a stat that you can use on ability
testing when you are untrained in that ability.
So it's a, it's a. It's a nice catch all for you.
Yeah, I like the stat spread this, by the way.
The scale stem luck. It's interesting.
I do. I really.
I didn't at 1st. And as we read through, I'm
like, OK, go ahead. No, it's because it's a skill
based game, not a staff based game.
You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, which it does well,
but skill based games aren't my favorite.
But we'll get to that. So the social encounter before I
read it. Initial thoughts.
Oh, I was not massively stoked on this.
I'm not. I don't.
I'm not a fan. I read it one time and I did not
take any notes on it and I was like I don't want this is your
section of this book anyway so. Yeah.
So I so it's an it's interesting.
I I think it's an interesting mechanic.
It's a it's a cool way to say if you want rules for so everyone
bitches about not having rules for social encounters all the
time. That's true.
They do, right. So they give us rules for social
encounters and that's great. They're not my favorite.
Basically it's poker, it's Texas Hold'em, and that's just social
encounter but with dice. So let's go through it real
quick and then I'll say what what I'll say stuff, because
that's what I did. So social encounters are
mechanics. They're triggered when the
players in GM controlled entity, like in ABC, you're at odds with
each other. So first of all, you determine
your there's five steps to this determine your opponent's
disposition. Everyone has.
Every monster has a disposition. It's either listed, and if it's
not, you can do There's a one through 6.
There's hostile, angry, wary, and different, friendly and
helpful. Again, everything is opposed or
unopposed rolls. So each of these dispositions
has a dice D4 all the way up to D12, with hostile and angry at
the top of D12, right? That can be anything, right?
So when the social encounter begins, the gym will tell the
players where the opponent is on that list, right?
Are they at indifferent? Are they at wary?
Are they angry? Whatever.
What are they? So Step 2, the players will roll
in secret. The players roll 2D6 and their
opponent rolls two of the die type designated by the
disposition, right? So if you're wary here, it's AD
10, so you, the player, roll 2D6.
I roll 2D10 and you keep. That D force.
So there are AD fours though. I just realized this.
In in this specific. Oh, OK, good.
Gotcha. Did you see?
Because maybe I'm wrong, but I there are no D fours listed in
the modifying roles and it specifically talks about the IT
says dice maybe change from 2D6 to 2D82-D10 or 2D12.
It never says 2D fours. Yeah, I guess you're right.
It's just interesting that almost immediately afterwards
there's the post role where the enemy can have 2D fours.
Where the enemy can have two D fours, yeah, that's what's in.
So I think the enemy might be able to have them, but I don't
know if the GM can modify the player.
I mean obviously you can do whatever the fuck you want but
like when we're going over system, system matters, you know
SO2D4 here. Yeah that's what's interesting
is like they exist in the game but it it's not listed in the
modifying role section. So so you roll in secret.
So basically like I roll 2D10 because I'm going to say my guys
wary, you roll 2D6 and we both keep that hidden.
We keep that number hidden for what we get.
OK. And then Section 3 is called up
the ante. So basically you, I don't
remember the Texas poker and the Texas, the Texas hold'em names
when you get the first three cards and and you get to no.
When you know your first two cards, you keep secret.
You know what I mean? I'm just saying words all the
way. I know that's.
Correct. I think the the river is like
the fifth card. I don't know, but basically if
you're playing Texas holdem your first two cards, you get face
down and no one sees them. That's exactly what just
happened. You'd get two dice you you know
roll them and you see what your what your dice are and you keep
those number hidden. Then you up the ante.
You go around the table. Each participant can choose to
ante, so doing so represents the players or their opponents,
adding to their side's argument in an attempt to tilt the odds
in their favor. This can be illustrated by
offering relevant or valuable items.
So basically, you're supposed to not just use a mechanic, you're
supposed to actually flavor up your ante.
Like give a speech, give something cooled, give
something, contribute something to the social encounter, right?
And if you contribute something to the social encounter you get
to spend, you spend one luck and you roll another D6 and the GM
may choose to lower or raise this luck cost depending on the
narrative. That's another time the GM can
change it. They can be like actually it's
going to take you 3 luck for this.
The GM controlled participant can anti but do not spend luck
to do so. All anti dicer revealed and kept
on the table. My immediate question with that
is what's the limit? Because they can just fucking
anti all day then #4 fold or double down after every so.
I also think though that like in step #3 everyone sees that the
new your new die, so you they can see that you roll A6 or A1
or whatever right? So step step #4 fold or double
down. After everyone has had a chance
to ante, the players or the opponents have the option to
fold, doing so into social encounter.
If the players fold, there's no change in their opponents
disposition. That's it.
The social encounter is over, you folded, you're out.
Alternatively the players may choose to double down.
Doing so takes us back to Step 2, adding more secret dye to
both sides pools and giving another chance anti folder
double down. This comes with the risk so this
is adding more secret dye. When a player does this spin one
luck and roll 1D6 the GMA choose to look so it never says in
Section 3 if you continue to like keep that number hidden or
not. But in Section 4 it specifically
says adding more secret dice to the pool.
So I'm not sure then if the the new roles are visible or not.
I would make them visible so then you can be like, oh they
got a one, they got a six you know.
But we'll see step #5 reveal and resolve both sides, reveal all
hidden dice and add any Oh yeah see and add any anti dice.
So never mind. So all the anti dice are
visible. Whichever side has the highest
value wins. If the players win, the
opponent's Disposition is set wherever the players want.
So I can get take them from wary to helpful.
You know, if the players lose, their opponent's Disposition
drops by one step, then another step for each time the players
double down. This may trigger combat.
So if you're at Wary and you ended up twice and lose, I can
bump it all the way to Hostel and we immediately go into
combat. Yeah, this is a this is a
procedure. It's a procedure.
It's definitely a procedure. What's that one procedure based
TCRPG? Yeah, this is this is errant
core right here. Yeah, yeah.
So I think, I think this is, I personally think this is really
interesting. I think 222 couple of things
right off the bat. One one of the only real issues
I see with this system is how mechanical it is and how easy it
would be to just have zero RP or narrative in it whatsoever.
You could literally just be like rolling dice, going dice.
It can turn into a mini game really quickly.
And the only part of the system that really talks at all about
inputting any narrative or RP is like one line in Section 3 where
it says if you want to anti up, contribute something, you know,
give, give. But it specifically says offer a
relevant item or valuable or an or a piece of information or
taking a persuasive action. Like, I don't.
I would have liked a lot more about being like, really dig
into it, you know, do whatever. I don't.
I definitely don't hate this. This is definitely not for me,
and I agree I think it would. It would benefit a lot from
maybe a lot of it or all of it being my moved over a little bit
to more of a narrative like RP thing that also uses the dice
mechanic. But fairly clever system, you
know. I think it's.
Clever. It's one of the things that I
think is clever, but I'm not going to use, you know, like the
Trigistec. Yeah, but here's the other thing
too. Here's the other problem.
The the quote UN quote problem I have with it, right, is it
specifically says like when you ante up, you can roll 1 lock
dice, right, And then do something narrative, but it
doesn't matter. That's my problem, is it doesn't
matter what you do, right? If I if I give you a little item
or I give a 15 minute speech, you get one D6.
Right. So you're gonna have a lot of
people like falling into unless there's a lot of GM
encouragement, a lot of GA, lot of buy in, and a lot of people
like really making in a thing. If it starts to like wind down
at all, it's just going to be rolling dice because like what's
the difference to get AD six, you can just do the minimum
amount of ever and still get the same role, right?
Yeah, it's. Not like incentivizing actual
social activity. It it's it.
It's a gamifying social, you know.
It's a little more social activity as a game, but yeah,
like, this is an. Unlisting role.
Like, yes, yeah, yeah. But like I said, the other thing
too is like, you can do anything you want narratively to just get
the dice and that's the only part of this that has anything
to do with it. But like, so that means nothing.
That I do realistically matters because if I anti up five times
and every five and all five times like I have, I give a
speech and people are like crying because it's so great.
And the next time I give away like a + 20 magical sword and
like I can do everything possible, but if I roll ones and
everyone on my dice, I lose anyway and it doesn't fucking
matter. You know what I mean?
Like, that's the part that I'm not a huge fan of is because it
is all 100% just dice for luck on your dice rolls and you know
and you're spending luck to to increase.
But if the bad guys can ante every time you ante, then you're
always rolling against potentially the same exact
number of dice but like higher right off the bat.
And realistically, no matter if both sides are anteing all the
time and the averages are roughly the same, like it really
just comes down to your very first dice roll.
Then like everything you add after that, again, doesn't
really matter what I like, I don't.
I think the card mechanic is interesting.
You know what I think would be a, a, a.
A. More interesting, in my opinion,
game to use for this interaction or a a similar mechanic you
could create is a blackjack mechanic.
Oh yeah, where it's a social encounter, I want to convince
you without pissing you off, so I want to get as close to
convincing you as possible. Without going over.
But if I go over, I have, I have tipped.
I've tipped the scale against me, you know?
Yeah. Anyway, that that is a
procedure. It is a procedure.
I think that works just fine. I.
Yeah, I can definitely. Try it.
It definitely makes sense. It definitely is cohesive and
would definitely work. It just doesn't feel very RPS.
It is. It is a lot.
It is a level of scaffolding that I do not.
I I do not want or need and not, and I'm not saying that
derogatorily. I think people out there who
want more scaffolding in their social encounters.
I think this is great because it really gives you everything that
you need for it. You know.
But I personally don't like systems that have social
encounter rules, because I think social encounters should all be
done in RP, but everyone's entitled to their own style of
game. I think people that lean way
more into the PBTA world might find this really interesting.
Yeah, I agree. I think it's a very much a good
like a realm of people. Yeah, people that that that
really like more scaffolding in their game and if people tell.
Me about combat. Yeah, so combat is fairly free
form, which is my favorite. It's like, let me give you
extremely specific rules for social interaction.
Immediately after but. Free form combat.
It's interesting. So Combat NASAG is free form.
They say that, but it kind of is this.
It's kind of it's OSR combat when tensions come to a head
fight and break out so important notes on combat.
Unless stated, every combatant is only able to deal damage once
in a round with your GM's permission.
Many talents can be attempted untrained by substituting,
substituting luck. We know that and feel free to
attempt any action and then the GM will just tell you what to
do. I like that.
I think that's one of the best things.
Do whatever the fuck you want and then it just becomes like an
either opposed or unopposed role.
So actions that you can do in combat.
You'll be mostly making opposed rolls, but you can also make
some unopposed rolls, but moving position yourself however you
would like. You can close the distance
between you. Anyone that is nearby you will
get the distances in a little bit.
This assumes you would also be taking another action.
If you don't want to take another action, move twice the
standard quick action. To make a general action that
can be done quickly, Draw a weapon, cut a rope, that's
whatever you can. Do this in conjunction with the
movement or another action, but not both.
So you can. Here's your action economy.
Move twice, move into an action right or move and take a quick
action or but not a quick action and you do a quick action and
arrange or melee attack but you can't move.
Do a range attack and a quick action two out of three What it
sounds like. So range attacks is a roll under
on a range weapon talent and if you hit damaged ice is is
indicated and they can roll armored ice to reduce and melee
so this so range attacks are roll against and I'm sorry roll
under like the unopposed. Yeah and melee attacks are roll
against exactly what it sounds like.
If you roll higher roll damaged ice is indicated by your weapon.
If they roll higher they roll damaged ice against you as
indicated by the weapon or stat block.
Whoever is taking damage may roll their armor dive to prevent
damage. The interesting part that I'm
not that I'm curious about. One of my favorite things that I
love about Durf is this, like all combat is opposed roles and
whoever wins the role does damage.
So if five people hit one person and that one person wins every
time, they're hitting five people.
This specifically says unless stated otherwise, each combatant
can only deal damage once in a round.
So what happens if two people back-to-back attack the same
person and they roll higher? Huh.
You know what I'm saying? No, I totally know what you're
saying. I would let them do damage.
I would just ignore that roll right now.
Exactly so spells roll under established spell threshold.
Boom. Slow actions make a general
action that takes time to complete, like interacting with
the trap or whatever. Usually this action cannot be
used in addition to another one. So basically if you want to take
your whole action to do something complicated, you don't
move, you don't do a quick action.
You just say like I'm going to take my time in combat and focus
on this one thing and do maybe a a compound action or something
initiative. This is kicking it back old
school. Basically each type of action is
how you do the initiative. So there is no initiative role
in like rolling to see who goes first.
You are. It goes.
Movements, quick actions, range attacks, melee attacks, spells,
slow actions. So anybody that's moving all
move at the same time. Anyone.
This is a quick action. All those are quick actions.
Anyone doing a range attack? All those are range attacks.
So when the players choose to do what they choose to do
determines when they act each round.
Here's a priority of each action from the quickest and longest.
If more than one combatant falls in the same initiative spot,
their actions happen simultaneously.
In the case of a polls rolls, this reduces number of roles
made. For instance, if a player oh
this is what this is what fixes it.
I forgot if for instance, if a player and their opponent both
make melee attacks, they only need to make one opposing roll.
So like if I chose to attack and you chose to attack, we only
roll like we just do the one attack because it's opposed
anyway, and we don't each get one, we both do one together.
That still doesn't negate if I choose to attack and Bob chooses
to attack, and we both choose to attack you.
Yes, right. Uh huh.
What I'm saying.
Yeah, I feel like this is another one I'm going to play
out. So I also always find initiative
orders like this really interesting.
I've never played a game, actually.
Like, I've read games that use this kind of initiative.
I've never actually played one. And so I always wonder how this
feels in practice. Yeah, I I think it'd be really
interesting. My only question, I guess
because I don't think they say it specifically, is do you need
to choose all of your actions prior to this starting or after
each initiative round? Are you changing it?
Because my thought is you pick all your shit before the
initiative round starts. It's not.
It's not adapting as you go. The thing is, like with this
specific initiative system, I don't know that I have enough
experience to even have an opinion about it, because I
don't know. I don't have an opinion either.
I'm really curious. I'm really curious if you if I
if I say I'm going to, I'm going to move, I'm going to and then
I'm going to stab someone with my sword, right?
And then I move and the person I want to step with them sort of
moves away. Do I suddenly now say actually
I'm going to do a range attack? I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think so. I think you pick what you do and
it's really interesting when you see what you wanted to do
suddenly isn't a thing anymore, you know, then what do you do?
We run into kind of one of the first things that is kind of a
beef that I have a giant Mt page.
The bottom half on page 6 is just, it's like half the it's
1/4 of the pages, it's blank. And that happens a ton through
the rest of the book. There's times where half the
page is completely blank, and it's very interesting.
It's great, and I'll talk about why when I find out a more
egregious version of this. So measurements, combat,
traveling in game. So rounds are 10 seconds.
When you're traveling long distances.
There's a whole traveling section we'll go over in a
little bit in game time. So outside of the two situations
above, which is traveling in, combat in game time is real
time. Meh, what?
Like whatever. So use a clock or timer to keep
track. But it also says make sure, like
things like enemy patrols or time straps.
That makes sense. But it says the players might
always choose to skip ahead by doing very little for a set
amount of time. So I can just say, well actually
we're just going to move forward 10 minutes, but then suddenly
you're not in real time. But I I don't think it's real
time like it is now 4:00, it is now 5:00.
I think it just means like if you're if you're taking 10
minutes to look at a room, it's 10 minutes in the dungeon.
Actually 10 minutes. Yeah, which is fine.
It's it's way better. It's way better than.
Like the torch, time is a real time mechanic because you can't
then jump forward in time you know this specifically allows.
For that I I almost think that that doesn't really need to be
written down. You know, like it if you're at
your table, like we're just going to skip ahead 10 minutes,
like 10 minutes are going to go by like it.
I don't. I don't know.
Once again, it's, I think he's a scaffolding.
I'm just like, I don't need this.
Yeah, but that's me. Yeah, it's fine.
It's fine. It doesn't bother me that it's
there. It wouldn't bother me if it
wasn't, yeah. I would say that overall like
stuff in this game that that I would necessarily like.
Like, I don't. I don't think it's bad, you
know. No, no.
No, no, no. Yeah.
It's just it's interesting. Distance is exactly what you
think it is. close, near far. You've played an OSR game.
As God intended. You know size and weight.
Same thing. Small and light is 1, medium and
to moderate is 1 large. Heavy is 1 huge.
Very heavy is one. Guess what?
You know what all things, all those things are, right?
Love. It so the the traveling mechanic
is interesting. I do like it and I actually use
something similar to it. So when I did the evil campaign
for our Our Dark Kingdoms, anytime we had long travel, I
turned it into a kind of like 40 style challenge like a like a
ability challenge, right? And what I would have is like
each I would break it up into specific sections.
Everyone would pick a section and I would tell them kind of
what's going on, like what what's their ish.
And they would have to narrate a story.
And at some point in that story I would call for an ability
check and they could use a skill, but once they use that
skill, someone couldn't use the same skill like on the next one.
So everyone couldn't just like fight each time or something
like that. And they could pick their
difficulty 15 or 18 if they got. If they pass the 15, then no one
dies in any of this stuff. But like basically whatever
they're try attempting in the story, it all goes bad and you
have to narrate how you all got away, right if.
But if you succeed, the story goes your way and you continue
on. They they got items, they did
things, you know, whatever. If they pick 18 and they
succeed, the next person gets the advantage.
So it's basically like a point crawl where they have to come up
with a narrative. This feels very similar and I
really like it. Yeah, it it it it's a it's
interesting. And this does this the same
similar way. So covering large distances is
meant to be told a story their encounters.
So here the players roll on a table associated with the area
they're traveling in or through to see what kinds of encounters
befell them during the journey. A low roll represents a
difficult encounter, while a high roll is an easier
encounter. Their counters are never meant
to block the progress, but they do incur costs and encourage
collaborative narrative. These encounters should be
presented as questions, such as you found yourself chased by a
terrible monster, How did you escape?
After the players talk about what they did, the GM adds to
the story representing cost or benefit, and you can go through
the location section in the Places section.
Not hyperlinked. I will say one of the other
beefs I have with this. The whole way through is there's
a lot of references to other sections or parts where it's
like roll armor dice, but nothing that says find armor on
page this. You know what I mean?
I wouldn't mind like AC page X, you know, throughout this little
bit more, little bit of usability issue.
So there's a whole huge places section where you can roll D6,
encounter tables and all sorts of stuff.
So there is a one through 6 here on the penalties and cost
benefits which are really interesting.
There's a harrowing passage, difficult passage, risky
package, a risky package, a risky package, Uncertain,
casual, and fortuitous. So best and worst.
There's three in each one. So for heroin, you could the
worst penalty. You can lose magic item, or lose
2D6 Amina, or lose 1D6 luck. The fortuitous?
You gain a magic item, you regain 2D6 stamina, you regain
one luck, and there's like a mixed bag in between everything
else spending luck. Basically, yeah, when a player
wants to tip the odds in their favor, they can use luck to re
roll a die. Or if you are unskilled in a
talent, you can use luck to replace that.
And then there's other options here.
You can increase the threshold, you can add value like a melee
attack, damage or armor roll, so you can actually use luck to
increase the damage. If you want avoidance you can
use a luck roll to avoid magical calamity recovery.
You can roll up to to recover stamina interesting and then
using abilities untrained. This last part and basically it
this is what it's talked about with like the luck thing.
So you can substitute your their your luck stat for any threshold
or bonus an ability would call for but succeed.
Succeeding drains a character's luck and but also could justify
them learning and no ability later.
Some abilities require blah blah blah.
So this page here, I understand that it's the last page in the
section, but the entire right side of the page, remember I
said there's a black line in the middle For those in Pakistan is
completely blank. It is completely.
Black almost. The next page as well so.
I know, right? And there's no, there's no art.
There's it's so little spot art through this book.
Yeah, it's crazy to me. But then suddenly when you get
to the armor section, it's like slammed all over it, like that's
a huge miss to me. The other thing that.
Especially for the second version, like if this was the
initial version, I'd be like yeah, whatever.
But they keep. Going please keep.
Going, oh, the fact this is the like almost the omnibus or like
the second version that they put out and this is supposed to be
the full book. It's like you need to put some
spot art in here. So thank you, thank you for
that. Because remember, I say remind
me later to tell you something, right?
Both versions are exactly the same ones, just bigger.
Let me explain. So see how this book is the
first version is square. Yes.
OK, I'm actually gonna turn the Blur off for this.
For those listening to Podcast Land, imagine my background.
Imagine it's not blur anymore, I have my blur so actually so you
don't see the room for once. OK, so you see this, it's more,
it's it's not completely square, but it's much more squarish than
than a perfect bound, right. So when we.
Let's go to this page, let's go to this specific page, Let's go
to the rules page here. OK.
All right. You see this for those in
podcast land, you're not going to see it.
Do you see how much space is at the top?
Oh. Right.
Here, OK and you see how much space is at the bottom.
Well, there's also a whole empty side right there.
Wait, wait. Here we go.
This you see? You see how much space is here
at the top right here? Yes.
Yes, but look at your PDF. See how much space is at the
top? There is way more space at the
top and how? About how about the bottom
right? OK, so then when we look at the
same page and this one, they just lengthen the.
Pages and not change anything else.
They LinkedIn, the pages. It's the, it's even the exact
same font size. It's everything.
Let's specifically let's pull this out.
And that's points right there, brother, let me tell you.
So there was no reformatting, there was no restructuring,
there wasn't anything. What they did right was they
literally just took, let me let me lay these out so you can see
it in a way that's that way that I want.
You to so you've already done this.
You did this experiment. Yourself, of course, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, they're exactly the
fucking same. What the fuck?
It's exactly the same. Fuck, it's exactly the same
size. Why would you do that?
It's just one is like an inch and a half shorter so it fills
more of the page and the other just has like massive.
I know when you're reading the PDF you don't notice it as much,
but when I was reading the book, there is so much empty page top
and bottom because they didn't make it bigger, they didn't make
it wider, they didn't do any. Work.
Yeah, when you're holding up the book and looking at now and now
look at the PDF, I can see it. But it's just like they didn't.
They just put it in a larger size, but they didn't even need
to put in a larger size book. They could just have the same
size. Book they could have just, yeah,
they could have just they just made a perfect.
One my thought. Is these are probably more mass
producible because it's it's the perfect bound like and that's
why like the paper is like a gloss paper inside this version
of it versus the other side that has like the thick untreated
paper and the V1. But that blew my mind when I
realized it because I was like man it just when I was looking
at this. It doesn't look as bad when
there's so much empty space at the bottom.
And then as I'm reading this, I'm like, wait a minute, wait a
minute, like they're not using like, a good like.
You've been waiting this whole time to drop this bomb.
Huh. Yeah.
And you you you set it up for me
without me having to specifically say it.
But yeah, there's like a solid. Weird choice to make, but like I
truly bizarre choice to me. There's basically an inch at the
top, an inch at the bottom of every single page.
It's just blank white. It's two inches of pages that's
just gone. So they didn't reformat anything
because that was my curiosity. I'm like, why aren't there so
much blank space? Why don't you just reformat it?
There's no reformatting. It's literally.
And again, it's not that it is big or anything.
It's the exact same size as one that's basically 2 inches
shorter. You can see the size difference
here, but it's printed the literally the exact same font
size, the exact same everything is almost.
It's just a print inside with page with paper that's like two
inches longer. My mind is blown.
You've just busted this scandal wide open.
We got to go to the press now. Yeah, I do.
I will say the second one, they did a much more vibrant cover.
I don't know if you can see the differences now on the podcast.
Yeah, huge vibrancy. So that's really interesting.
I think the lack of spot art is a huge miss for me, period.
But I I don't. I don't know what I can feel
besides like weird disbelief about like the fact that the
second version is is like 2 inches bigger, but it's the
exact same size. That's.
That's so truly strange to me. Like there?
Yeah. So moving on.
Another great piece of art for the City of Masks.
Another blurb of fiction you should buy?
Yeah, shout out. We were talking about something
else they did the other day. What were we talking about?
Primal Oh yeah, they have a new, they have a new, they have a new
adventure out on PDF. 50% off if it's still available on
pre-order. Yeah.
Fare roll, baby. And then we get to character
creation. Let me pull up my notes for
character creation. Yeah, so pretty simple.
Seven steps. You roll your stats.
Each of them has a different like roll mechanic before each
stat. It's not just three D6 for each
like in some of the traditional roll under games.
And this one for skill, you roll one D 3 + 3 and stamina.
Oh man, I rolled a character up and I don't know why I did the
character sheet. That's OK Stana.
It's two D 6 + 12 Makes sense. This is your health for the most
part and a couple other things. So it will be the highest.
And then your luck is 1 D 6 + 6 and after that you're going to
generate one magic item. My note here is generate 1 magic
item in parentheses. Sick because it's very fucking
cool. I love the weirdness of starting
with one magic item and the magic items are weird.
I think the one I rolled was a mirrored, a mirrored Talisman.
And whenever you touched it, you could go into essentially a
pocket dimension that then you could leave at free will.
I'm like, oh, you have just like a little storage shed, you know,
a little home that goes with you.
Yeah, very cool stuff. We'll get to that table.
You got that pocket dimension on a rope situation?
Yeah, yeah, we will. We'll.
Get to the match. You're not talking about, are
you not? Are you not?
Understand what I'm saying? You never, I think.
I do what What is that reference though?
It's like you remember like when people would like play like that
and like the rope would stand like stand up or whatever.
It's like that. But you can.
When you climb the rope, you go up into like a pocket dimension.
Perfect that. Anyway, yeah, then you're gonna
choose three mundane items from the item section, not
hyperlinked and also not page number written down.
They should have put it there. Add them to your inventory.
It's assumed that you have basic stuff like a few days of food
and in clothes. You were gonna create 3 traits.
Is that the next one? I just skipped back to my
distribute skills across talent and spells you wish we'll get to
and I think is really very cool and I guess by Ryan says.
I think I'm the only one who thinks that's cool.
That's OK And then you're going to create 3 traits.
It says here to use always or never statements.
I do kind of like the idea. I don't know if I would use
always or never in mine for my character I put like really
loves or really hates. I think much like RP in general,
the first time you play D&D, your character is you in your in
in your version. If you were cool, right?
If you were cool, elf, you just. Play yourself cool, damn it.
Right. Yeah.
I always like I always say play before I'll play whatever.
So I I like for your first character or if you're not as
experienced of an RP or using always and never because it
really makes it archetypal and it lets you really dig into a
thing. And I think the more experienced
you get an RP. That's why.
Like the first character is always like I'm an elf fighter,
the dual wields whatever. But like your 10 characters,
like I'm a I'm a, I'm a bumblebee riding a, a polar bear
on a bicycle, right. Like you know that with a
switchblade, you know got 8 personalities like that's your,
that's your 50th character because you've already done it,
All right. You're challenging yourself.
I like. Earlier a new character.
The always and never is. I like it almost.
Yeah, making it almost archetypal, like I'm always mad
when I see Hunter, you know, like and then it allows you to
always be something and then allows you to add vagaries and
later. So I I do think that's really
interesting. I ran a cool game for a while
with in when I was living in Texas where I hold their their
flaws essentially from things they said as they were playing.
And so like at one point the woman was like, Oh my character
does not like kids. We're really bad with kids And I
wrote that shit down and later on they had to interact with the
child and they're like Oh no, you're bad with kids.
And they were like Oh no, I am. But if you like, I think that
that's me very much loading onto my own plate stuff to do.
But I think this works incredibly well and I think it's
a good idea. And then the 6th step, which is
not the last one, the 6th one, is to discuss the group dynamic,
kind of about how your party typically works together, what
kind of party is, who you are within the sphere of this party.
And then the last step is to name your character.
At the bottom of the page we do have some examples of character
traits and examples of group dynamics.
It's interesting that these examples are right here, because
there's been a few instances above this where there was some
empty space in the page, and I think some examples could have
been dropped in, yeah? Bro.
Well, why are you Are you agreeing?
Did we? I I had just I I looked away for
a second on my ADHD. Did you get to the next page?
No, no, we're getting there. Oh my God.
So between sessions, pretty much you're going to powwow about the
last session that you played, either at the start of a session
or at the end of a session and discuss highlights.
And the GM is going to dole out 1D6 luck recovery for to reward
players for like very like highlight moments or heavy RP
moments or moments where they really leaned into the dynamic
that they're taking in the group.
And then there is over half of a pay like, I mean I guess this
is, it's a lot of empty space. It's a really ton of empty
space. And then the next page is going
to be more ridiculous because it's a whole half empty page.
Yeah, a couple of pieces of spot art.
We've done all really well here. And I think also to kind of
reinforce the vibe of this because we're very there's these
large sections of like prose in between the chapters, which are
great. But if you don't want to read
them, if you or if you're not the person who like literature
really sparks that for you. You need the imagery.
It's so much empty. Space.
This is what the page looks like.
I'm holding it up like look at look at.
In the book, it's really more empty space than it is actually
written. It's.
Yeah, it is, yeah. Especially in the book that's
got the inch at the top and inch at the bottom.
That's blank. Top and bottom?
Yeah, absolutely. It looks this is This isn't a
ridiculous spread. It's, it's.
Yeah, it's. Yeah, anyway.
Yeah, so moving on to the half empty page going to between
adventures, you could just discuss basically just like what
your characters do in between adventures, if they're working
on a skill or talent. Also gives them time or also
it's also this time also gives the player the opportunity to
rework their group dynamic based on ways it may have changed due
to the narrative of the last adventure.
Cool training wheels to have on cool scout footing to have.
I don't you know it is what it is.
Character advancement between adventures.
Characters can attempt to increase their rank and already
trained abilities. You rule 1D6 under the current
use tally. Great mechanic that is not
explained well here. I might actually just go ahead
and explain this mechanic. Whenever you use an ability or a
talent that you have, there's a little column next to it that
says uses and you mark it every time you use it.
And then when you want to advance, you have to roll under
however many marks you have, Which is a great idea because
the more you use a talent, the more likely you are to be able
to improve based on that. Yeah, and once you roll under
it, all use tallies are removed after that.
To learn a new ability, a player must pick one and declare it,
typically one that they've attempted untrained or has some
like narrative reasoning for it. Do you really like that?
Or if they decide laureate, they may do this only once between
each adventure, Then the GM either rolls or picks from the
chart below to help explain what learning the new ability cost
the character. I'm always rolling by the way.
I would never pick. Yeah, and then they don't.
I don't like this. Did you read these?
I think I did. I cannot.
Oh, I do. Remember there's a reduce in
rank one. And then I was like, I'm.
All that, all that, and I don't mind that.
So #1. The process was dangerous and
you nearly died living. A turbo scar reduced stamina by
4, #2 strange forces blah blah blah reduce luck by two.
Number three, the training was so consuming blah blah blah like
reduce your rank and a random trained ability by 1 #4 price
demanded, blah blah lose 1 random magic item.
Number 5 There were those who believe your new training is
forbidden, blah blah blah Like a GM choose a powerful monster
that hunts you the entire time and #6 you find yourself deeply
indebted, blah blah blah blah blah.
You have a powerful enemy that was that is gonna come make a
single demand of you. So I personally I love that.
I think the cost for advancement is fantastic.
In a brutal game where everything sucks, I would be all
about that and in my mind I go sword and source can get weird
and brutal, right? But there's nothing in the game
so far that has said damn, this is fucking brutal as fuck.
Yeah, this is all negative. I do like the five, and six are
my favorites. Because it's story.
Yes, because it's a story, because you know their cost.
I don't really love the idea of like, hey, you're going to
permanently lose for stamina and you could potentially do that
multiple times. Yeah, it's like, why would you
even? Why would you even try?
I don't. Know.
Yeah, like, why would you even try?
That's my whole point is like, why would you even like?
To me, again, it all comes down to incentive, right?
Like you want to increase your stats, you can do stuff better,
but you can potentially lose. For Stamina, you could release
20. Just for learning a new ability.
So it just makes it so that you never want to learn a new
ability. Exactly.
Like, so there is no point to advancement, right?
Like people will because that's the game, right?
But like, the first time I get fucked, I'm just gonna be like,
Nah, I'm staying dumb, but I'll just like, I'll just.
Upgrade my current abilities over and over till they're
perfect, you know? Exactly.
Exactly like there. It's such AI like the idea of
learning something new should come with a cost.
Yeah. But as soon as it's gamified in
a way like this, where the cost is like 5 and six, I think are
great. I think being like something
hunts you like the something's going to come find you.
But like, as soon as it's like you want to increase your stats,
so there's a risk that you will actually decrease a very
important stat by a lot. To me, I'm like, why would I
ever do? Why would I ever do that?
The way I rolled this is I would make this a 5050 cable and I'd
be like one and two or one. Two and three are nothing.
Nothing happens, right? You just do it and then four you
you have to pay with a powerful magic item.
Five and six the the way they are right now.
I keep them actually. I just would remove the first
three and just be like it's a 5050 chance.
Either nothing happens and you just learn a new ability or or
you get fucking in debt, essentially, you know.
Yeah, I mean, I don't even mind the things that are there to an
extent. Like the process was dangerous.
You nearly died living a terrible scar.
Period. Period.
What's your scar? What's your scar but like?
Do your stamina by 4, you know. Yeah, what's what's your, what's
your stamina? I mean, what what's your role
for stamina? When you first start, it's not
that great. Your stamina could be like 5
like. No, I think it's a little bit
higher than that, but you know. What I'm saying?
Because it's two D 6 + 12 for stamina, but like.
Still, Still. Four is a four is not a small
amount. You know, one maybe.
But also like I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't overly punish
them. I'm fine with things once I like
you. So I'm fine with things being
punishing and even wasn't a 5050 table like I'm saying where
you're like 01 and two, nothing happens.
Three is a cost and and above is a cost, right.
I think that's even fair. But this is just like, oh, this
just sucks all the way down. And I'm fine with that.
But this feels like a mark board table.
Like, you know what I mean? Like it's just such a random bit
of, like, punishing brutality in a system that, like, didn't.
I don't feel like it feels out of place.
I like it. I think fuck you.
But not this doesn't feel like it fits in this game.
There's a lot of back and forth going through this.
Even in the example of like we had a super crunchy procedure
and then right afterwards like it's really opens format.
It's like, what is the thing you know?
How do you define the thing? What's the thing trying to do?
Yeah, all good questions I had asked, OK.
See the Amaranthine city? I love these arts.
The in between arts with the new color coding.
All sorts of spirals are really good too.
You know, like just the the dream of the Amaranthan city.
It's like, fuck that, bro, Let's let's talk about some sorcerers.
Yeah, another great piece of fiction that adds a lot to the
world. If only they had done spot art
like the way they do this, it'd be, this would be.
It'd be amazing. Abilities.
Yeah. What did I put here?
Cool. So abilities, There are two
categories of abilities. They're all abilities, all
right? There are talents and then there
are spells. Whenever you create your
character, you distribute the. Your skill that you roll is a is
a static stat, but it's also the amount of points you have to put
into talents and spells. It's a.
Stat and a pool. It's a stat and a pool that you
spend. You distribute these points,
right? You cannot have a maximum of 6IN
anything, even as you you level up and you and you move forward
calculating talents. So for there's there's three
ways essentially, right. There's role under.
So for role under stuff you're building a threshold.
Threshold will be whatever the rank of that talent is plus your
skill stat you roll under that. There's role bonus, which is
when you're rolling, Opposed is a bonus to the role.
If you have a 2IN something, you just add 2 to your role and then
special says. Here Special is usually listed
as just your rank and it has some kind of triggering effects.
I don't. I don't know why the word
usually bothers me right there. Doesn't bother.
Me. OK, well, it might be it'll.
It'll last from vagary. You can always add something
later and be like we didn't say specifically.
It doesn't, you know. That is very true, yeah.
Using a talent. Using talents.
I put Why? Yeah, talents.
OK. I don't know why I wrote it like
this. Are meant to trigger in
different situations based on the type of talent.
Was I drunk when I wrote these notes?
God damn. I'm just going to read the
thing. Listen, I took notes, guys, but
apparently they're not very good.
Oh, I know what I put here. I put here.
This repeats roll under and bonus stuff from calculating
talents above. That's what I wrote here.
I'm a dumb idiot and maybe I was smoking when I wrote this, but
there's a little bit of repetition here about how roll
under and and roll bonus stuff works.
Specials will trigger either optionally or automatically.
For casting spells, you spend stamina to add that much rank to
the spell that you are casting. That's right, there's blood
magic in this bitch. This create This creates the
threshold for your role and then it says check for requirements
for spells and then roll 2D6 equal or below the threshold.
It's a it. It's roll under.
Yeah, it's just you don't add, you just add stamina as your
bonus versus adding like your skill or your or your rank or
anything like that. Yeah.
No, you add that value to your
rank. Rank still counts.
To your rank in Oh yeah, yeah yeah, you rank in the spell.
Yeah 'cause you can rank up in your spells.
Correct. You don't have to spend stamina.
Technically, yeah, no. But you can.
Yeah, but you can. Which I think's cool.
Yeah. Yeah, There.
I feel like there. I read through this and I feel
like there's more words than there needs to be. 100% more, do
you? Also, what's the what's the
last, what's the last part of that?
Casting a spell thing, That's super important.
Oh, Oh yeah, If you fail the role, period.
By the way, not crit fail. If you fail the roll, you have
to roll on the Magical Calamities table and look at the
end of the spells we're definitely going to roll on.
Because I do enjoy that table. And like, I feel like the spell
casting in this is fairly significant and your ability to
modify your spells is also fairly significant.
So I'm actually kind of OK with like not crit fail.
If you fail you're rolling on magic calamities.
It also carries that kind of swords and swords for you.
Like magic is dark and fucked up and you don't really want to get
in bed with that unless you're a crazy person like Hunter in
every game. Yeah, and now here is use tally,
which I guess is an appropriate space for it, but it mentions it
before and I wouldn't mind it higher up.
When you use the ability in play, you add a tally to the
uses column and then when you try for advancement you roll
under that. It's an advancement thing now.
So anytime you use an ability. It's so small there.
God, the digital version makes it feel so.
Yeah, anytime you use an ability, you mark the use.
I think those are too small for that character sheet.
I think this is the old one. I think the new ones are
definitely bigger. I did.
They they yeah, There's a there's a form syllable version
digitally and which is great and it works really well and that's
what I use because I made a character.
I'm doing this and shocker, it was a caster.
Yeah. So talents.
There are several talents. They're all pretty good.
This really leans into if you want to make your character like
a Dexy Reflex person, you put in Reflex and you can roll under
let's just do reflexes roll under.
I like that it says it on each one.
It tells you if it's roll under roll bonus or special, you are
adequate at avoiding danger. When a situation calls for you
to dodge, such as a ranged weapon attack, certain spells,
and some environmental hazards, you may choose to test this
ability. If you are wearing armor, add
your armor die to this role. This role under SO is like a bad
thing, right? If your role is successful, you
avoid any negative effects. The talents are very grounded.
There's some cool stuff in here, but it it's.
Huh. What am I thinking here, Ryan?
What am I thinking? Read my mind.
What? Are you thinking?
It's stuff that I feel like in a lot of ways will be very
available to all characters in other games.
Because. It's a skill based game.
It's like, no, you have to have the skill or else you're going
to use luck to do this. Yeah.
So that's why I don't like this at all.
Yeah. There isn't like here.
I go. Oh, I think there's some
reformatting the rules that can make this a little bit more
approachable to like everyone should kind of be able to dodge
and you can't. You kind of can't hear.
You just have to use luck, and that's you spin luck as you use
it. And so it kind of really limits
what you're going to be able to do.
Also because Luck has so many other things that you can do
with it, it'd be weird to kind of use it for this when you can
use it for all other kinds of stuff.
There's is something missing to deal with this problem that they
kind of rolled into luck and I don't know that that's the fix.
No. So my biggest issue with a lot
of this is exactly what you said.
And this is my problem with any system that has feet.
It's one of the reasons that like I started out with like
being a fan of Dragon Band and then I became less and less of a
fan of Dragon Band over time because we started getting it's
like Heroic Abilities and like half of them should just be shit
people can fucking do. And like, that's my biggest
problem with with feats in 5E is like brawling's a feat without
the feet, you can't do it. But why the fuck can't everybody
brawl? Like it just bothers me when you
when you put stuff that everyone.
So for example, like basically it's saying that like, you just
it's not that you can't do it right.
Like if you have Constitution, you can you can roll
Constitution, you're just not as good at it, right?
But like, there's some stuff here that I think should just be
like, there could have been like A4 stat and that could have just
been like a combat stat. And then you could pick like
combat things that you're a little bit better at.
But here's here's my other issue with it, right.
So like, the talents are like Constitution, Reflexes,
Strength, Willpower. Like things that are normally
stats, Strength, Willpower, Deception.
Like, you know, Stealth, things like that.
Things that are normally stats are now talents.
But here's here's the issue that I have, right?
So how do you determine, how do you determine your skill
threshold and pool? What's What's the dice?
So it is A1 D 3 + 3 for when you roll skill.
So I roll. I rolled A6 when I made my
character. And the lowest you can get is a
four, right? Yeah.
So that's not a bad spread. It's not a bad spread, right?
Except except when you're looking at small numbers, right?
So I can my skill is a four to start and then I get 4 talents
that I could put one point in, right?
You start with a base of 6 and get 6 talents as opposed to some
type of inverse, right? Right.
As opposed to being like if you start with a 4, you get 6, you
start with the six, you get four and five and five is the middle
ground, right? A little bit of balance.
So the issue that I have is when we're talking about
specialization, right, We're not.
Because my base, before I add any modifiers on everything on
this list is a four, and your base on everything on this list
is a six. Damn.
And then I only have 4 talents. If I put one in each, I would
also only have 4 talents. Think about.
That. Yeah, and then you also you get
6 talents, so. You are literally just every
way. That's every way.
Damn, I did not even think about that.
And the moment you said it, I'm like, oh fuck, you're right.
That stat, it's too heavily weighted.
That's too heavily weighted. That's my.
Point. That's my point.
I I think I think the way to fix
that would be to. Damn.
Yeah, would be to break these down into maybe categories.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Right. And then have like a role for
each category and then have like a pool at the end or whatever.
You know what I mean? So like kind of but no it can
still be talents. But like say you take all of the
combat, say you take all of the combat ones right?
And you roll like 1D3 for your base combat right?
And then you can if you roll A1 you get a one in each combat
whatever. But then you roll like a A5 in
all of the like sneaky ones or whatever or like the non combat
ones. So like you can still break it
down by talent but your base isn't the same.
For literally what like 20 fucking talents.
You can at least break it up into like 4 sections of talent
where the base can be a little different.
Like all of the magic you can have a spell talent like base
stat. That's the issue I think with
having one base stat for all of these.
Again, like I said, you are literally if you have a six and
I have a four, you are better at everything than me.
On top of knowing more talents than me immediately, I think the
fix, the real quick fix, what I would do is what I said.
If you roll A4, you get to pick six talents where you get a
point in and if you roll A6, you get to pick four and five, five
as a middle ground, right? So you have, you have a lower
threshold to start but a higher number of talents you can be in.
And the other one is you have a higher threshold to start but a
lower number of talents to be in.
There's at least a bit of balance there.
But again, if I start with a four base with four talents,
these are with a six base and six talents.
I mean, imagine how far how many different ability advancement I
have to risk to even go up. Get that many?
Yeah. Cuz also, it's like if you want
to get new abilities, it's just gonna cost.
It's gonna fucking nickel and dime the fuck out of you.
You know, cuz I could, I could be trying to get that even.
Just get to the six talents that you started with and I roll -4
Stamina, I roll -2 Luck. And I'm still now at four base
with four talents -4 Stamina, -2 Luck.
Still not even close to where you were.
I. Didn't even think about the
implication, the fact that it like because it is your
threshold like and the number of talents you get like if it gives
the really fucked up, fucked up exponential relationship.
And imagine starting with a low stamina too.
You can't do spells, you know what I mean?
You know so well you could. You could.
You have to spend. You have to spend.
Sam, you just. Can't but you know but you know
yeah. Anyway so that was my initial
issue is I think the talents are I think there's some talents in
here that are too broad to specifically make them talents.
But I know people that like skills and talents that like it
that way and that's fine. But I think the base the base
threshold is is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're you're
right. I agree with you.
But moving on for the sake of of brevity, which we're all so good
at. Spells, there's much talent.
You can read them all there. There are some cool ones on
there, There they'll give you your character, your character,
the feel that you want. I do to agree that they can be a
little bit more categorized and investing in categories, but
whatever spells. They're also, they're also very,
very mechanicky, yes. Everything is very mechanic key.
For a game that up until this point has been relatively free
form, kind of, everyone is literally like, you get specific
points to do this specific thing, to add this specific
thing to do this specific thing, and then tell me how spells are
the exact same fucking way. Oh, I like Forbidden Lore,
though. Real quick.
We'll talk about Forbidden Lore just because I think it's a
funny one. Forbidden Lore is one of the
talents, but right before spells.
That is role under you studied strange and Mystic writings when
trying to understand something about the supernatural.
You may have your GM test this abilities, the GM roles and hide
the result. Then you ask them a yes or no
question about the topic. If the role was successful, they
must give you a correct answer. If the role was not successful,
they must give you an incorrect answer.
If you are attempting this ability untrained, you lose luck
regardless of the role. I just think this is really
funny because you can be like reaching to your forbidden
knowledge. Like is this right?
And you're like, yeah, it's probably right.
And then later on you're like, fuck, it was totally wrong.
I. Love that idea.
It's a fun. Interplay with the GM and like
you don't really know whether or not what you got was the truth,
so. Well, I if I was going to do
that, I would cut out the probably like if if if they ask
me a question I'm just going to be like they're gonna ask me
like does does this room have a secret door?
And I I I rolled so that it was a fail.
I'd be like no, it doesn't. But it does.
No, you said probably in the way you were pronouncing it in the
way you were saying for an example, But I love that idea
even for like perception checks for some things where like
what's your stat? And then I'd roll behind the GM
screen and be like, no, you don't see anything.
Yeah. And you would never know.
You wouldn't even get to Meadow. Whether you saw something or
not, you know. Yeah.
So spells. Spells Dan.
There's some cool fucking spells man.
I mean they're all the chant of the aegis, the first one, I just
think they're vibey. The sound of this chant
manifests a translucent field of resistance.
This field covers either a large pre designated area you have
marked. Or a Dome around you and
everything near you. Big big letter N near and big
letter capital L large. When casting choose either magic
or physic matter. Physical matter.
The thing you choose finds it difficult to picture at the
field. If magic is chosen, the spell
effect that would cross the field at don't and spell is
trying to go through have their final casting result multiplied
by your rank in this ability plus one if the physical matter
is chosen. Arrows and other flying debris
that would cross the field don't, and creatures trying to
move through it must test luck or appropriate ability with
their result multiplied by your rank in the ability plus one, or
be repelled. I just like it's a force field.
There's a lot of stuff going on. It's a little too crunchy, but
it's a force field, you know? I appreciate the force field.
I also like mind web. Mind web is probably my favorite
one. I think this is the one that I
put for my character. I wonder how I'd save that
character. I.
Probably shut down my computer with it open and didn't save it.
Did I save it? I did not save it.
Man, look at why. Why am I the way that I am?
I don't mean we are. This is an episode for us,
though, man. We are.
All well, I.
I might actually cut out pauses in this one.
I kind of put like 4:00 AM. So yeah, mind web.
I like mind web. Create a mental link between
yourself and any creature who bear a special mark or move
through a warded area. I just like that you can just
set up a a mind reading trap. They have a chance to resist you
trying to read your mind. But you could just make a room
and ward a room, and anyone who walks into that room, you can
read their, you can attempt to read their mind.
And I think that shit is fucking cool.
Yeah, my issue, my issue that I have with this is how randomly
like the system has been pretty lightweight until we hit talents
and spells and then suddenly I feel like I'm reading 5E.
Yes, it does get a little bit crunchier here.
I mean a lot. A lot of the stuff in the spells
is fluff, you know. But like for example, like when
you're reading the chant of the ages part, like you get to a
point where you when you start to fall into a rhythm where it's
like it's all of this but you have to add 1 and then climbs
your rank and do all this. I'm like honestly dude, it's a
force field. Just say it's a force field.
Magic can't get in, arrows can't get in.
If something wants to get in, roll against it, boom, you're
done. You know what I mean?
That's I think a lot of the spells are really vibing really
interesting. I just I am very curious as why
they became so crunchy and numbers focused and and I I
bounced off a lot of the spells where I'm like this is really
interesting but I feel like you could this could be simplified
and still keep the vibes the same which is really interesting
to me. I think you know with the having
everything, I mean the entire game is built around the talent.
So like, I understand it to a point.
But my my other thing too is like my character sheet is not
big enough to write a spell on, you know what I mean?
Yeah, the form Fillable one was fine for it.
But that character sheet, Yeah, yeah.
And then, moving on, we have the The Magical Calamities, which I
think is cool. You want to roll on the Magical
Calamities. Sure, yeah, I'll roll on the
Magical Calamities. What are you rolling on this AD
3? D6. 3D6 I rolled 13. 13 Couldn't
read off from him. Type something real quick the.
Spell is cast, but it's effects, but it affects unintended
targets or its effects are the opposite of intended.
GM's choice exactly how the spell is reversed.
Dig it. Cool.
It's a force field. Guess what?
You're stuck in it now. Yeah, now you cannot leave the
force field. Yeah, there's some fun.
So 10 and 11 are the high points on the bell curve for this.
So for 10 roiling smoke pores from you filling nearby area,
obscures vision and provokes fits of coughing, Takes an hour
and dissipate. Great.
If for for being the midbranger, you're going to hit more fairly
often. Like that's a great one.
There's not massive cost to it, it's mostly an inconvenience and
an 11. An 11 is genuinely a good one
and it's very ridiculous. Nature inverts around you.
Water turns to fire, fire turns to ice.
Barren ground grows, plants lust, vegetation Withers and
dies fucking just like you're on.
Like you cast a spell and you're on the lake and the lake around
you turns to fucking fire. Yeah, absolute weirdo nonsense.
I love it. Yeah, not.
But here, here's the thing. That's fucking awesome.
That's fantastic, you know? You know, that's how, in my
opinion, and again, this is the way that I like magic.
That's just what one of the spells should have been like
that easy I don't like. Like I said, a lot of the spells
get so much into like multiply X by 10 for your rank and then
subtract 3 from your ability to add 2 to your luck and stuff.
And I'm just like or ice turns to fire like you know what I
mean? Like I definitely prefer.
We both prefer at least I'm, you know, I'm putting words in your
mouth a little bit more free form magic and it's it to me, it
just it. When I first got to how crunchy
the spells were, I was just surprised.
But yeah, so dude, dude, on the back on the book.
I think you've seen this a couple times throughout.
Great piece, great piece of art. I love this.
The invasion. This is a red section.
The last one was purple, I believe.
So this section is color-coded red.
I love that it's color-coded. By the way.
I think that's fantastic. This is a great piece.
It'll go into a piece by Mahar Mandahas for another narrative
section here, and we're in the items now.
So if you wanted spot art before you got a shit load of it, now
would have been OK to spread it a little bit more out through
the book. But we're getting to a section
now which is basically going to be tables for the next like 5
minutes, So items are interesting.
Anything reasonable can go into an adventurers pack.
I like that. Basically.
If it's if it's an adventure equipment like fucking you know,
pitons and shit, you just have it.
That's cool. But weapons are there.
I I, I, I I think maybe they adapted like the matrix or
something for this. I don't.
So dagger is 1 D 10 + 1, swords are 3D, four Spears are two D 4
+ 2, staff is 1 D 6 + 2 and a Mace is 28 + 2.
Why? I don't have any idea, honestly.
I was like, oh, that's fucking confusing as fuck.
You're ready, brother. And it's just like when I when
you really look at the dice mechanics and stuff, an average
of AD 10 is what? Like like 5.5 or something like
5:00-ish plus one. So you're averaging AD 6 on a
dagger. You're averaging AD 6 on a
dagger, but with the. And when you look at a Mace,
right, the average of AD 8 is what?
Like a 4 + 2 is a six? Yeah, yeah.
So, like, it's just such a weird if it's to make everything feel
different, OK? Yeah.
That's OK. That's a choice.
Heavy weapons. Same way, two handed heavy
weapons. Great sword 3D6 small one D12 +
2 acts 2D10. It's just such AI.
Don't know. It's a very interesting spread
and I I don't know if it's I'm not I I my brain has not
decided. And this will definitely be
something that comes out in play that I'd like that it's weird
and quirky or I don't like it. One handed weapon should always
be AD six. You know, I'm totally.
I think my biggest issue is that there's like a a like modifiers
to the dice on all these if they were all.
Just like. Different die sizes and like
different amounts of dice. I'll be like I'd still be like
This is weird, but I'll try it out.
But the fact that it's like some of them have +2, some has a plus
one, one is a + 3, Longo is a + 3.
It's just like OK. It's so weird to just to to.
I don't know if I've ever seen a game where the weapon
automatically comes with a dice with a damage modifier.
It's interesting. Because like the floor for how
little damage you can do is much higher than it would be in other
cases, which kind of makes sense when you're talking about
weaponry. It's weird sometimes when I hit
you with a massive weapon, if it does one damage.
Seems peculiar, right? Scrape That gets us Scrape.
Yeah, I don't know how much my yeah, I know.
But you should more say, like, oh, the great sword that I slide
swing at you always does 3 damage, at least like that makes
a lot of sense to me. Yeah, at least makes a lot of
sense to me. The spear that I stab you with
always does at least four damage.
OK, you know, there is a line of logic behind that.
I'm like, OK, I do. There's something here that I
get, you know? Yeah, it's interesting, yeah.
Yep, it's. Interesting armor.
I I just don't know if I've ever seen a system like you said.
Like I've seen systems where like like a system that I'm
working on. For example, like the you roll a
number and that gives you your damage and then you add like +1
if you have a light weapon, right?
But to say I you roll D6 for your sword plus one
automatically, it's just interesting because there's
nowhere that the modifiers come from except for the weapons
themselves. It's interesting.
I like it because it's quirky. I is one I want to see in play.
Our and also say no. Sorry.
One last note, coming from the point of view of someone who
runs a bunch of games. The only reason this bothers me
is for running the game players. If you give them a weapon and
you're like, this is how much it does, they will learn how much
damage that weapon does. They'll be really on the
character sheet and they only need to.
They'll stumble. At first they'll learn people
are not stupid, but like if I tell, if they write down one D 8
+ 2, after a while they're going to just do.
They're going to know each time. But when you're deciding damage
as the game master, that's where I don't like having these weird,
quirky damages, because it's just like, fuck, a little like
assigned to each of these people, you know?
And then I have to do the math for all of these people instead
of just being like, yeah, it's one D6, it's one D6 of advantage
1D6 of disadvantage. I mean, I don't mind that, but I
think that that's if adding a + 1 to a die roll really throws
your math. So it's not.
That it's just there's so there's now so many different
echelons of damage that you can assign to anything.
Not just weapons, but just things that happen, you know?
I guess, but I think this is specific to weapons.
Would you say that like a rock falling out of the sky has to
have like A1 D 2 + 3? Now you know what I mean like.
I would say that if I play Wolves Upon the Coast, I know
how much that damage that does because there's only several
damage bands and they're all laid out.
I mean it just one more. It's one more thing for me to
calculate as I'm running a game. It's a level of, it's a level of
quirkiness, complexity. Like, I don't necessarily.
I don't disagree with you. Yeah, yeah, I I don't know.
This is one. I think that I learn more into
liking it because it's different than than not liking it.
I I do really like the fact that your weapons can't like very
rarely you're gonna do one damage in fact, to any of them.
I. Don't think they ever can.
Yeah. They never can love that, even
if they're a little minimum of two.
Yeah, I like that a lot. And again, like every dice is
different, even if the averages kind of roll out to the same.
So it I I really think it makes every single weapon feel
different. Mm hmm.
Which is interesting. I I just am generally in the
camp of like all light weapons do D6 flavor it versus
mathematically doing it. But it's it's interesting.
I like it. It's interesting.
Armor and Shields. Worn armor comes in three types.
Light, medium, heavy, big shock. You roll an armor die guess what
it reduces your stuff. Light is 1D6, medium is D8,
heavy is D10, and Shields are used to prevent all damage from
a single application of force. However when they are used a
player test luck on a field the shield is broken.
Barry OSRI like it. It's how armor should always
work and fucking job resources, ammunition.
I like this. Guess what?
No one gives a shit. If you have a weapon that
normally needs a lot of arrows, you are not too dumb to not have
enough arrows. The only thing that you do is
instead you choose to have the character test luck after
expending a large number of them, and if they fail, you're
out. I like that.
That's I love that. That's great.
You shot 1 arrow, Who cares? You shot one.
But if you're in battle and you shot like 30 arrows, roll for
me, for your luck. If you failed, you're out of
arrows. I like that.
There's discovering items, there's rolling for finding
items, the effects that items have.
There's a magic items table, which I thought, which I think
is really cool and interesting, but also kind of like I love
tables where no matter what you roll, it always works.
And there's some stuff on here that, like, makes me scratch my
head. My first thought was what if I
roll a Helm of of Null? Oh yeah?
What's? The Wait a minute, a helm of
null crystal or something like that, right?
So like I'm literally rolling a helmet that when touching it
renders all things non magical, makes it unable to cast a spell
except that the crystal effect gives you spells to cast.
You know what I mean? A couple of things like that
that I'm just like I I think it's really fun and interesting
like if you want to roll one up. So basically the way magic items
work is there's ADD 24 table or two D12 table for the type of
item, crown, Talisman, axe, whatever.
There's a 2D12 table for type and effect which is basically
that. It says prefix, and then there's
a 2D12 table of the suffix Suffix.
That's what I was saying. So the suffix, which is 2:00 to
12:00. So I was saying of like if I do
the null of of Azag or of of protection, whatever, like any
of the ones that gives you magic.
But you're it's built of stuff that negates magic.
I'm like would you just say that it negates magic except for what
you're doing? You know, there's a couple of
things like that, but what did you do?
OK so I have a helm of copper and then the suffix of
Etherealness. So copper the.
Copper Helm of Etherealness. Yeah, so while holding, wearing,
or wielding this item, you would lose stamina.
If you would lose stamina, reduce that loss by 1.
Nice. Cool Etherealness.
At any time, you may test luck on a success.
Gain the ability to pass through solid matter for 10 minutes.
On a failure, lose half of your stamina rounded up.
Yeah, it's an interesting way to do magic items, because
basically you're saying each item gets 2 traits.
Yeah. Yeah, and the traits sometimes
work really well together, but on this table I tested a bunch
of them. Sometimes there's a little bit
of life friction between them. You probably should dial the
second table in a little bit more.
Mm hmm mm hmm, mm hmm. And I also think it does say
prefix in suffix. So I think it would have been
interesting to in my mind, like do the prefixes and then do the
items and then do the suffix, if that's how you're gonna write it
out, as opposed to doing the items and then.
Doing the two helm of the theory illness not yeah helm copper out
of the line yeah. Yeah, but a lot of them really
interesting. I mean, like I said, the crystal
one that I picked is pick three random spells.
Whoever is holding, wearing or reeling this item has one rank
in each of them. That's sick.
Yeah, that's like. Automatically just get a rank of
three spells. Like when you get to all of the
suffixes are of something or someone, of reflection of a zag
or protection of the nether world.
The really interesting super vibe.
Like again, I wish magic worked more like this through the
spells and stuff too. A little bit less crunch, a
little bit more interesting effects.
And again, like every single page on this has like 3-4 pages
of spot art all scattered. I don't know why the red section
got so much spot art and all the rest of them didn't.
We'll cruise through some other stuff.
This is the picture from the back of the book.
The giant bat creature. No, you're just chilling.
Love that. It's real cool.
Yeah. The webs of Biserone Another
fantastic. Some of the these header pieces
before the narratives are such amazing fucking art.
Another piece by Lex Mandrake called Ugg Spiders.
Then we get into a huge section we're not going to go through
maybe we'll touch on a little bit but it is the IT is all the
tables for all the places every. So this is your this is like
your varn style world guide to fucking everywhere which is
great and in the world book in the first one we're now into
what all of that was like. All of this stuff that we're
getting into is all the fiction plus these parts.
So for example, it says below are the main regions known to
the world, the coin roads, the Crescent C, the verdant basin
and it includes all like the cities and important areas of
that with some spot art. And it's great, yeah.
Yeah, do you like these little tables?
I like It's like a little encounter tables for each area.
I thought they were interesting. They they give you some flavor.
They also make it pretty easy. If you wanted to iterate on them
and make your own stuff. You kind of get a good feel for
each city, and I do like that they have it divided up by like
the areas by larger area, you know, that's really interesting.
I will say like varn. On the other hand, you randomly
generate everything, so it's not quite the same.
No, no. No, it's just Gazetieri, you
know. Yeah, but I do, I do like
exactly what you said that the like there is the there's an
overarching area that all the important parts in it and each
of those important parts in it has AD 6 table for encounters
and interesting stuff in it. Like, it's just it's really cool
to be able to just be like, we're here, we're there, boom,
and you go. I think it's weird on page 46
how there's like a header for the Virgin Basin over a
completely empty half of a page. 46 Scrolling down.
I did not deep dive this area this section by the way.
I did. Oh, well, that.
It's that Heather's on every single.
Yeah, it's weird. It's weird there, But it's on
all of the verdant basin pages also.
Put, put All right, that's going to drive me now.
The intractable general. This is a light blue section.
A great piece of art with this. I love this all duels yeah yeah
spell though we didn't read but is a spell ability where you
fucking duel? Yeah, and and the loser takes
magical calamity. It's like, it's so cool.
I love that. I love that people people's an
interesting section. Basically this is the way that
you can generate a bunch of NPCS, but the NPCS have matrices
like I've never seen this before and I love it.
I love it so much. This might be my favorite part
in the entire book. So basically what happens is do
me a favor and roll. 3D6 Yeah, three.
Well, is it 3 or is it just two? D6 So each is separating a role
for the NPC column. So I need a background.
Oh yeah, I guess roll 3D Six, yeah.
Cool 316. So you are a step hunter.
Duh. That's your background.
Your motivation is you owe a great debt to a ruthless Guild
leader. And then was it 6?
Yes. Yeah, And your entire body is
covered in tattoos that you believe gives you powers.
OK. So you get to give you power,
you just believe that they do. Hey, maybe your belief is what
powers them. OK, yeah, so you have a
background of motivation and a unique trait for any NPC, right?
So that's 386 tables. You have an endless number of
NPCS, right? But then right, there are plot
hooks for all of the major sections we already talked about
in the places section. So this one specifically is the
the coin roads, which is an area you actually take the NPCS
background and motivation, right?
So what did you roll? A3 and A1.
Click back Yes. Step Hunter So you go on The
Matrix, you go down and you go down to three and one, and it
gives a specific plot hook for every NPC's background and
motivation. So say you rolled A, A5 and A4,
you would literally go down to five and four right in each
section of all of the plot areas you talked about before.
There's plot hooks for every section for the entire matrix of
matrix C of NPC. Half of an empty fucking page.
Here again, it's huge Crescent C There's like literally like
great glaciers. There's just endless pages of
matrices where you can mix up your every NPC with a different
plot hook for each different part of the world.
This is the strongest part of the book.
Oh my God, how fucking cool that is Like one of the greatest
ideas fucking ever. Like use 2D6 tables to generate
plot hooks for every area and the 2D6 is generated by the
different backgrounds and motivations.
But on top of that, you yourself will also get an own unique
trait that is just unique to that NPC too, because it's not
affecting the Matrix like. It's.
So fucking smart. I it's.
I'm in love with this part. It's so fucking clever.
I love it. So good.
Yeah, this is pretty good. Hey, looks good.
There's smaller in 59. Yeah, yeah, the most random.
OK. Anyway, so this guy again, the
the guy in the back of the book again for a second time, and I
think we're gonna see him in the back for a third time.
We see the same piece R three times the got in silver.
There's a really amazing looking like like ironish looking golem
shooting stuff out of his eyes. It's it's an insane piece.
Another piece by Lex Mandrake. Then we get to the B series
section. The B series section's
interesting. I think they they put this
random piece of spot art over the yeah, I completely agree
odds and it's they there's there's the monster section and
then there's like a a, a like eel over the bronze giant
header. And I kept in my brain
immediately going, it's talking about opening a door and I don't
see a door on the eel. And it took me a little bit to
go. The eel is literally just a
monster spot art that has nothing to do with the bronze
giant on that page. Interesting.
So the monster is really interesting.
Basically what they do is each monster has a paragraph of
flavor and then it has two to three like dashes of stuff.
So metal body, living heart, while their bodies are made of
metal, etcetera, etcetera. Test luck to find this thing.
They're bound by prophecy and then it gives you skill,
stamina, armor, damage and size for each one.
And then AD 6 disposition table for each one.
That's interesting. I think there are some that I
read through. I really like a lot of them.
There are some that I read through where some of, like the
flavor bits get a little bit mechanical or could easily have
just been flavor. Like there's a lot and I like a
lot of flavor here, but sometimes it gets a little bit
much. A lot of empty pages where there
could have been dope monster art, but a lot of the monsters
are incredibly vibey, incredibly like setting, like lore.
A lot of lore building and the implied stuff for the monsters,
really, really great. I think, honestly, I think the
whole world section we'll get well, I'll say that critique at
the end. Page 69, Half empty 70.
I'm not going to keep saying how much is half empty.
It's half the book. It's a lot of the book, and like
it's Now I know that looking at the actual book, it's even worse
on the physical edition. Yeah, yeah.
So every monster page, basically it's 11.
It's two monsters per page, basically, one on each half.
And if it doesn't fill the whole half of that page, the rest of
the page is just blank. It's plenty of space for art.
I know money is money and art costs money.
Yeah, I would. I would Let's crowd fund and get
some more art in the book and then that is the end of the
book. That's Azag.
This is that guy again on the back.
The the Horned man with the broken Sword and the flower.
Love that piece of art. Third time we've seen it in this
book though. Dave Dungeons, LFOSR.
That's the end of the book here. All right.
Let's cut straight to our review scores and get that done.
So obviously it's a book. So we're going to do it like a
book, art and layout that we we apparently don't do a lot of
reviews anymore. I think we did two last month.
Yeah, crazy. So when we do review scores, we
give ratings on five metrics, up to 10 points each, for a total
of 50 points. Art and layout is the art in the
book and the layout of the book. It's all the visual parts of the
book. Layout, visually, usability is
how well the book is used, right?
Are there references to pages when you need it?
Are the sections in an order that you know usable?
Are all the things you get with it usable?
Is it hyperlinked? Is it bookmarked?
You know all of that kind of stuff?
Rule set. If it's a new rule set, do we
like it? If it's an adapted rule set, how
well is it adapted? Originality is what it sounds
like. It's it's all of those things.
Is it new? Different.
Does it do anything new or different?
Value is bang for your buck. The cost of the thing, but also
all the rest of the stuff you could potentially get with it.
Generators, character sheets, adventures, all that stuff.
And then the total score is what all that adds up to.
So art and layout Two very opposing parts in this.
What are your thoughts? Well, hey, listen, the art
that's in here is great. There's just not very much of
it. And the layout is fine except
all of that ton of empty space everywhere.
Like, that's pretty it's it's pretty egregious, like kind of
aggregating it all towards the end of what we went through and
what I've seen, I'm like, oh, that's pretty bad.
There's a lot of empty space. There's a lot of empty space and
it feels awkward. And the book with that extra
inch above and below versus the old version, it's like, suck
dude there. I mean, that's bread you showed
earlier. It's just like, well, fuck, it's
mostly empty. I will say and.
What's crazy is that there is fucking no play examples in this
entire book. There's a massive amount of
empty space and there's not one damn play example.
It's like, you could have filled so much of this space with just
like different color, font, quotes, example of play.
Hey, the rule that we just went over here is an example of that
rule being, I mean, like, we have a good grasp on rules, but
like a lot of people like that shit.
I mean, I still actually do like that stuff, but like, a lot of
people really like it because it gives them something like
tangible to grasp with the rules and not just conceptually in
their own mind how they think it's supposed to work.
Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for it to be better,
you know. Yeah.
So I will say, I will say that the, the I do think that the
second book does suffer by trying to be a combination of
the first two books. I think the better version of
Azag is the 2 versions, the rules book and the world book.
I do think that it is better and I think this is the this is
clearly the intended way because this is the first way.
This is the way they decide to do it and I do think that it
suffers by trying to adapt it into the second book.
But this is the book we're looking at, so this is what we
have, right? So art wise, I think every piece
of art in here is fantastic, every single month Spot art is
great. The the full art pieces with the
with the titles for the narratives above them.
Yeah, I think that's Logan Stall.
My fucking God. Those pieces are amazing.
The cover the covers this one specifically from Is it Louis
Mello? Yeah.
I want to make sure I get that right.
What did you say their Twitter name was?
Party in the front. Oh my God, dude.
My They're artists. In they are so good.
I follow them on the I follow them on every social media.
I follow them on Tumblr. Yeah, so good.
I think it sets the vibe so well.
The art that's in the book sets the vibe so well.
The narratives and it sets the the vibe so well, I'll get to
other parts. So the art is amazing.
The layout, I gotta be honest, it's not good.
It's not. I think it's readable.
It's extremely readable. My issue is right, So I'm saying
thermal art in there, right? Art costs money.
Okay, okay. Here's the other thing you can
do, right? You have 6 writers in the book.
You know how many little blurbs, how many little like setting
quotes, item descript, like descriptions, things like that
you could like sprinkle in there a little bit more narrative in
there. Like you said play examples
could be there's the stuff, the other thing you know the other
thing that you can do when you can't afford a lot of art.
Make your layout more interesting, right?
Like I have no problem with blank space on a page, no
problem. But if you're going to have that
much blank space on a page, use the blank space as layout
handles. For example, had a lot of pages
that had like one paragraph on it and it never felt as if.
Because you know why. Yeah, because it was on purpose.
Because you know why? It's because they never put it
in two columns and stuck in the top left of the page.
They would center it on the page a little bit more.
They would do different things with it.
And not only that, we've also read plenty of books where
there's a lot of empty space. And what they do, they put color
in the background. They put design in the
background. They tweak the layout to fill
the empty space with literally anything but massive, massive
swaths of plain white. And they know that because they
do fill parts of that with with spot art, right?
So if if you're going to have that right, fill it with
something filled with writing, filled with color, filled with
design, filled with anything it like, I again, I know that art
is expensive. Not saying that that was the
thing that stopped it from being filled there, but fill it with
words, fill it with background, fill it with literally fucking
anything. It's just egregious because it's
not a couple of pages. It's like.
No, it's not a couple of pages, yeah.
Half half of the entire monster section is blank.
Yeah, they're also, If you're gonna put spot art somewhere,
the monster section should have a ton of it, because I don't
know what they look like in your mind, you know?
But. Why did we get 15?
Like and I like items, right? But it there's it's not like
they're unique magic items. They're boats and swords and
stuff. And again, they're great pieces,
but I would much rather have blank space in the item section
because honestly in a lot of the item section they're filling
spot that doesn't need to be filled, but all of the monster
sections are empty. So I'm torn on this because I
think the art is fantastic and the layout is subpar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going with the six for this
one. God, I think you're being
generous, but I'll go with it. Put in a 5 then.
No. What was the last thing that got
a Ted? Whatever have you last?
Art and layout? Fuck if I know, man.
I'm gonna give it a six just because art is so fucking good,
but just know that the art is. Really very good if I.
Was judging the layout on its own, it would have a three or
four, I'm gonna be honest with you.
It's the layout's. Pretty brutal, so.
Yeah, OK, usability. Well, so the the new update
digital we don't have has bookmarks.
Right, supposedly. The hyperlinks in the table of
contents are probably fixed in that as well.
We're assuming that's fine. Is.
There anything wrong with the hyperlinks in this one?
They all. Work.
Yeah, they all work do. They not.
And the table of contents? No.
Remember you can mouse over it, it becomes a little hand and
then when you click it. Doesn't do anything.
They are broken. All the hyperlinks in this are
broken. Hey, man, I listen.
I'd be looking at stuff. I'd be seeing things.
I got my eyes open. Huh.
Yeah, well that's important. I can only assume that they're
fixed in the new version. I I would very much assume that.
Let's get the benefit of the Dow.
Yeah, I'm fine with that, other than I think my biggest issue is
how many fucking words are in all the descriptions.
Like there's plenty of stuff in here that just does not need to
be quite as worthy as it is. That would make it more usable
and easy to reference at the table quickly, you know.
It also might help layout because you're I know some of
those spots, It's they they put stuff on the next page because
they would have had like a tiny bit.
So they put half of it, then cut out a couple of words and just
scrunch it up. Verbose as hell, yeah.
But I think it's in. I think the I don't have a lot
of issues with the order in which things are in.
And yeah, I mean it. It's fine for me.
How are you feeling? It's fine.
I think what I really would have liked.
They do reference a a number of times.
They'll say it's in this section.
I would like a page number there.
I would love a page number there, and I'd love an inline
hyperlink to that page. Yeah, I'm not going to give them
the benefit out to assume that they put inline hyperlinks in
the entire book at. All quite any stretch, yeah.
But you can't inline hyperlink a real book.
And there's a number of times where, like I think that all
100% of the time, because a rules book for the most part is
it's a guidebook. It's a textbook for you to learn
how to play if you use the word use tally.
Before you've explained use tally, you should tell me where
I can find use tally. That is, that is the one that
jumps out to me. If you talk about armor dice,
before you explain how armor works, you should tell me where
I can go read it because I'm going to look around to see wait
is armor next wins armor? You know what I mean.
So that's my only My only real issue is a lot of times it will
reference where it where you can't find it.
But I would prefer a page number and I would really like
references the first time something new is introduced so
that I can see that and then come back.
That's my only real big thing for usability.
I think the world map is great. I do think the character sheets
worked really well. I don't really have a lot of big
issues. I mean, again, I don't think
they have hyperlinks, and I think page numbers in the book
would be better. But bookmarks, hyperlinks.
I love the links to every single person involved in the book.
There's a link to be able to find them, which I think every
single book should have. I have no real issue with
usability. I don't think it stands out at
all. That's my thing is like, it's
it's not, I don't have any good things.
I don't have any bad things to say.
Like it's about. It's about, yeah, it's about a
six. I think it's a bit, it's a
little bit better than average. It has all the minimum.
It has all the minimum requirements rule set.
Fine, I'll hate it, you know? I mean, I I agree.
I think talents and magic get too crunchy.
But for the most part, the role under and then the role opposed
make a lot of sense. It doesn't.
It's not confusing. I I I could easily parse out
when to do what and where. I think I'm I do like the weapon
damage and how it creates this like higher floor for weapons.
I feel like it makes all actions and combat more meaningful
because how many times you spend your turn doing 1 fucking damage
or something or you know whatever to somebody it just
feels like, well that fucking sucked man.
I'm OK with things being a little bit more fun or feel a
little more meaningful. Yeah, I like.
I like this. I I'm not like, screaming off
my, you know, the roof of my building about it.
But like, I do really like this. I so it's a weird one for me
because I like that they do some things that are different.
I really do, cuz I always love to see new interesting
mechanics, right? But I feel like there's I feel
like there's just some parts of mechanics where hello you're we
just had someone drop in the chat and your fiction is
fantastic. Thank you so much for writing
it. Really it's it's really fucking
good. My issue I guess with the rules
is like, I like that they do some some weird stuff because I
like weird stuff. But I just, I don't know if I
would use some of the weird stuff.
Like I personally this I think I would try.
Here's the thing with with RAW and System Matters and stuff
like that. Try it before you hack it at
least once because you might go hot.
Actually, that works. You know what I mean.
So I want to try the Social Encounter Texas Holdem game.
Yeah, I would like to try that. I I want to try it at least
once, but I feel like once is all I'm gonna do.
I think the initiative kind of. Feel.
Like that, yeah. I think the initiative system,
the adaptation of that, where it's like by action type, is
really interesting. Not a lot of games do it.
I think some older games did it, so I think that's really
interesting. A lot of the other stuff like
time distance, standard OS are totally fine.
I love the travel mechanic, the point crawl narrative.
I think that's a really strong part of it.
Very cool, yes. And then the character creation
part, my my biggest issue with the characterization is you know
this like the game is built around the talents and
abilities. And I I'm really curious like
you said, like if your base that is 4 versus the six you're
shitty and everything you know that's a different that's
literally adding a whole nother D6 Oh yeah +2 you get +2 most
everything. The moment you pointed out I'm
like, oh, the weight of that actually is.
Crazy. Like crazy.
Everything. You're better at everything.
So like that to. Me.
Like is really interesting. I mean, I like character
creation. I think it's really interesting.
I like we said skill, stamina, luck is a great spread.
It's really interesting spread in a game that's clearly a it's
a it's a talent and skill. It's a skill game, not a stat
game, you know? Yes.
So again, I'm torn. I really really like parts of
it, and other parts of it like this is 1.
That I really want to. To see and play.
But I also think, like character advancement, I think needs to
complete readjust, because I don't understand why there's
this weird level of brutality to it that makes you want to, like,
not learn anything new, right? And that's just for gaining new
abilities, that's not for advancing current abilities that
you have. Right.
But again, I started with only four talents and you only start
with four and I started with six.
So, so in order to. Try to even get to where you
started I'm. Risking my actual stats.
You know, so I'm torn on the whole set, I think.
I think there's a lot of fun, neat, interesting things.
I think it's good adaptations. Of parts of Troika and some of.
The older stuff, like they said, Fighting Fantasy.
But there's other parts of it where like, I don't know, I'm,
I'm torn. I'm torn.
So I I'm thinking of 6. I'm thinking of six, yeah.
Originality. OK, here's where we're shining,
in my opinion. OK yeah, is the originality.
I think that the what. I just said the.
Parts let's go by section. So like originality in the rule
set. I think the that social
encounter mechanics people bitch for it all the time and you get
one. It's I think it's interesting.
It works. I think it works.
It's just, I don't think it works in the way that I want to
do social encounters, but I think it's really interesting.
Yeah, I do too. And I agree.
Everyone's like, where's the social mechanic And and here's
one and I feel like this is a cool one.
To like spark inspiration to create other social mechanics,
like I think your blackjack ID was really cool and I think
there's other directions to go from there.
But yeah, that's pretty cool. I think that I I love sword and.
Sorcery Games I. Know that there are some out
there, but like I honestly, as far as like indie games go, can
you name me a bunch of like, sword and sorcery?
You know, like Moorcock, Howard. Like, like.
Style games out there because UVG kind of is.
It leans more science fantasy. In the same way that.
Kind of. Levar is a little more.
Not at all exactly science fantasy.
There's a lot of fun, neat science fantasies.
I think the setting. I also think the originality,
like the way that they did the narrative and how much of the
world building is in really great little blurbs, like almost
like these tiny little short stories.
So cool. I wish more books did that.
I've said that over and over again.
I could use that more in in most books that we go through.
It'd be cool to have whole barbs like that.
Don't give me no. Keep going, I.
Was thinking swords and sorcerer games.
I don't know, Is that what you were asking?
I mean, I can think of. I can think.
Of definitely a few. I mean Black Sword hacks.
The first one that hops out at me, War Plans is another great
one. Yeah.
Yeah, it leans that way a little bit more.
Yeah, it leans that way. It's between this and like Mark
Borg for me, because there's a little more brutality.
In that one, yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's not.
It's definitely. I know there's other ones that
I'm just. Not thinking of, but it's
definitely not an overdone like TTRPG genre, you know?
Yeah, I dig that. I like.
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give them the benefit of
of being, of, of doing. This too of saying I love that
they did the first version as a rules book and a world book and
the way that they did the the character matrices I think is
really fantastic. I mean, I do think it leans into
a little bit like, I'm sure there's some inspiration from
the troika backgrounds where you roll to get your background and
something that too. So I think there's a lot of
originality in the rules. I think there's a lot of
originality in the art, the style, the vibes, the way that
things are put together and laid out.
So I think this is one of the parts where it really shines.
What do you think? You know you I've done this so
far. You do this one I'm at.
I'm at minimum of eight. For this I think.
I think I'm there too, so. Yeah.
Value I. So it's 10.
So here's so here's problem. Here's so here's the problem.
So here's the problem. There's.
A store where you can get it physically from and you cannot.
Get it from that store anymore there.
They are not. Taking orders and I think
they've empty out their stock on everything.
So really your only option is to get it on itch dot IO as a
digital version. It is $10.00 for the digital
version if I'm not mistaken. Am I correct?
I think it's 10 bucks. Yeah, and that comes with the
world map as its own PDF. File.
Azag, the form fillable character sheet and then the
Azag version 2A5, which I believe is the updated version
with the better hyperlinks and stuff for $10.
Very responsible, you know, I I you can't get the physical tape.
Oh, I forgot to even show the physical tape this thing is.
Beautiful, by the way. It's a really, really luscious
purple. And it's got like gold writing
on it. Yeah, it's beautiful, yeah.
And then it's got the, it's the, the, the actual piece inside.
And then it's got like the the listing inside.
I was almost hoping for like a stat or something, but you know,
but so you can, you can get this on band camp.
I mean you can listen to everything for free on band
camp, but like support, like the body, they make amazing music.
Check out their entire page. But the soundtrack for this is
great. Like you said, we both listened
to this while we were reading. It definitely set some mood so
you can get the tape, you can get the PDF for $10 and
honestly, like a 70 plus page book for 10 bucks is a great,
great cost for APDF, the form, fillable character sheets, the
maps, all that. I mean, it sucks that you can't
get the physical anymore, but that has nothing to do with the
creator. Maybe they'll be able to find
another place where you can. I hope they do, 'cause I would
like to get into physical. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So it's pretty standard for
value I think the TI think getting.
A soundtrack is really fantastic for two.
I think I'm at least a 7 for the value.
I think I'm at 7 for this one. So we are at.
A 18 plus. 8 plus. 7. Or we have.
Like a 32 ish or something 8 + 8 plus.
Oh why am I doing eights? Yeah, what are you doing?
Eights 6 + 6 + 6 + 8 plus. 7. 33 Damn a brain.
So here, So here's this one. I think that I think that our
metrics don't take into account some of the strengths of this
book. I think that the.
Game is better. 33's a fine score, but I think that that
it's a little bit better than that.
I think the rule set is fine. I but I think the setting
really, really, really shines. Another reason I really like the
world book versus rule book in this because you could literally
just take the world book in this and run it in any OSR setting or
with any OSR mechanic like you could you could run the into the
odd with this and that. It'd be totally fine.
I think that the one of the massive strengths are the
writing, the narrative, the the setting the world vibe and that
doesn't really come out in our. That doesn't really come out in
our metrics here. There's not, there's not setting
and lore as a as a metric. So I do think that as a setting
and lore book, it's fantastic. The art's fantastic.
I want to play this game. I feel like if we play this game
they might bump up a couple points because I it could be
interesting. But I think where we're at, this
is about good. That's where we're at.
Do you want to? Let's do the giveaway.
Oh yeah, the giveaway. I'm right.
We are going to be giving away a copy.
Of Wharfland if you have not. Liked that tweet?
It is. Too late.
So for those out there, before I even get to my Twitter, this is
what I do. I go to the Twitter, I count how
many people there are, I roll the dice for that many, I'll
roll it in chat and I count from the bottom because that's the
first people that liked her at the bottom and then to the top.
It doesn't matter if it's top, bottom, bottom, top.
I just always pick from the bottom because they were the
first people that interacted and numbers are are variable anyway.
So we're getting away the hardcover of war plan from
Galvao Coroga. Go check out the Black Rainbow
Society of the Hell Knight expansion over on Kickstarter
right now. Next week we will be giving away
Hell Knight with some bonuses with that too and that'll be a
last hour giveaway and I think the following week the campaign
and so check that out. So I'm going to go to our.
I'm going to go to our page. I'm going to.
Find. The this, I'm going to get to
the this and I'm going to count 12344 12:00.
Well, if if Gavro Koroga wins his own book, I'll just have to
mail it back to him. And.
Yeah, he also has. OK, listen, Gavro, you have two.
Twitters One Gavro Caroga. One Caroga Gavro.
Pick one. I keep tagging one and then it's
the other one. Good tagging, all right, Yeah.
So I'm going to roll. Let's.
Go, you son of a bitch. Guess who won?
I'm. Going to roll again, obviously,
because Gavro can't win his own book.
Oh, they're. Gonna say.
Ozo 45678. Not no, it's.
It literally was Gabriel. No, I told Gabriel on to.
I told Ozo not to not to do this 121. 2345.
Six, meet Castle. Christian Sorrell meet Castle
Game where we 234567 meet Castle has won.
The We're planned, you'll know. Me Castle from being an awesome
editor, putting a lot of stuff out.
A lot of Mothership Countdown from Tacticians of Om and check
all that stuff out as well. So that is our episode for
today. Check us out tomorrow when we
are going to have the fellows from Liminal Horror, Josh and
Galvin archives going on to do a writing seminar on how to adopt
A mystery for their Twisted Classics Jam for Luminal Horror
prior to the release of their next Luminal Horror expansion.
So thank you so much for being here.
Check out Azag. It's definitely worth getting.
Definitely worth checking out. The rules are interesting.
The setting is fantastic. The writing is even better.
That's it. That's us.
I'll see you later buddy. Farewell.
Bye.