Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. And I'm the death of the golden
age of tabletop RPGs. Oh man, welcome, welcome,
welcome to the first episode of 2024.
Start with the banger there, dude.
That's probably going to be. This is my it'll be my best
intro of the year, it'll date this episode, but anytime anyone
who knows us comes in like listens this episode, they're
going to be like, oh, I know what that is alluding to, so.
I love. I love that.
That's us.
We're we, we are New Year. What did I say?
New Year. New Time.
Same idiots. Here on the Weekly Scroll
podcast. This will probably be our normal
tabletop role-playing game review time going forward.
Thursdays around 10:00 in the morning, we're we're condensing
some stuff, some schedules changed and that's us.
That's it. That's it.
Have a good day. Y'all.
Yeah, we're bringing that joke into 2024 Two.
Yep, it's it's coming with us. I'm also going to stop trying to
scream into the mic in 2024. Not gonna happen.
I'm gonna try. Before you get this though, I'm
gonna try. I'm.
Gonna try a grown hair this year.
Do it. I'm just I'm.
Hearing him back, full, full head of hair.
You're almost there, buddy. Yeah, I'm so close.
All right, so today on the Weekly Scroll podcast, we are
looking at the job the Andre Novoa of Games Omnivorous.
Let me turn the blur off of this for just a hot 2nd so you can
see this a little bit more clear.
How beautiful is this book, dude?
Oh, do you? Say I?
Yeah, it's great. Yeah.
It's a really, really. Very good one.
So this is one for the podcast listeners out there that you
should at the very least go to games on nervous.com and look
at. You should just also come to our
YouTube and subscribe and watch, watch the episode.
But it's such a beautiful book. It is.
It's a it's a very thin book. I love that.
It's hard cover though. I think it's perfect for this
and it's perfect for games. I'm nervous they don't not make
good stuff. You should definitely listen to
our our our interview with Andrey from games.
I'm nervous. Great, talking about if.
I do say something. Myself.
Oh, such a how. First of all, how great was he?
And just. Amazing.
I mean, it was just really, it's a really great interview because
he did all the talking and was very illuminating about the
process and I was like, this is amazing, so.
Yeah, we can just sit back and listen to someone who is like at
the top of what we like, talk about why they are that and it
was fantastic. So the job this.
Book is fantastic. Yeah it's a it's a cream colored
cover and it's got a a person on the front hauling away giant
diamonds. But the diamonds are it's all
matte except for the diamonds which are a nice shininess and
it just elevates the quality of the book into exactly what you
think game that on rivers would put out the art style all the
way through. The graphic design is amazing.
Again, this is from Andre Novoa. The Now, I'm going to try to say
this right because they put the pronouncement on Blue Sky and
I'm going to fuck it up and I apologize forever.
But you know one of our favorite graphic designers in teach RPG
space right now is Guilliermi Guntijo, the work in this book?
Insane. Insane.
Really really, really incredibly strong.
I mean it's it's beautiful to go through this book.
It is definitely like it is definitely a love letter to like
graphic design and tabletop RPG is like it's really, it's still
very readable. I wouldn't say it's like a full
like complete art book, but it is like no very very high end
graphic design. Yeah, no, it's still a it's
definitely still a book. But the way that they do the
design throughout and and just the style of the design is
really fantastic. What's funny, not what's funny.
One thing is when I first saw the previews of this when games,
I'm never just posting it. I think I even literally
commented like as soon as I saw this, I was like, oh, that looks
like Ontio's work. And then I was like, oh, that is
Gontio's work because it looked like, I don't know if you've
ever seen one of Gontio's games. It's called Blurred Lines.
It's it's got a similar vibe to it.
So it looks it definitely is reminiscent of this, but this is
this is great, so why don't we why don't we get into it and
show the people how cool this is?
So the job is a heist game, right?
It's about you're running a heist.
Are you a heist game guy? Ryan I'm.
Not, I'm not. Here's the thing I I I hate
heists. And but I like this game because
what I don't like about most heist games is it to me.
I don't know. I I feel like it's very
difficult to do a heist game without doing a railroad in
that. Like at any point the GM could
just be like, oh, ten guards come in, you're done.
You know what I mean? Like, it never feels earned.
It always just feel, and it all feels kind of the same.
Oh, you have to get past the surveillance and fight one set
of guards, but like, you're still going up in the building.
Like, it's it's this thing that I just don't really enjoy.
And obviously, I'm not a fan of Blades in the Dark.
I think that's that's it. I like a lot of the Forged in
the Dark. I don't like the flashback
mechanic of like, the heist thing.
I think that Dusk Wall is a fucking awesome setting and it's
very weird to just do weird heist stuff in like a setting
full of like magic, current of the centuries stuff to just be
like let's just do hikes. So it's flashbacks.
I think it'd be better as a standard RPG setting.
So to answer your question, no I generally don't like heists but
the way that the job does. But what do you like about them?
Not did you like? What do you like about a regular
I? Listen, I like the whole
flashbacks thing. I'm a big I love Ocean's 11, and
if you're listening to this right now and you're like
Hunter, you have terrible taste. I don't care what you think.
Ocean's I think sometimes just yeah, I think sometimes you just
make enjoying a movie makes it good.
I really like Ocean's 11. Like I I I like the and the job
does this really well as we go through it.
Like the crew dynamic, like, yeah, you have a grease man, you
get the pickpocket, you get the con on it and they all fill
their little roles. I find it enjoyable.
I like Blades in the Dark more than you, but I wouldn't say
that I love it. I do really like this game.
But my question is, what other game than the job does a good
crew heist thing? 05 E Fuck off.
Hey, listen, the golden age is over, you know.
Oh yeah, it's definitely not the dumbest take I've ever heard.
But yeah. So there aren't a a ton of heist
games, but there should be. Do more, make more heist games.
I just think that any games that are really doing heists, most of
them don't do heist well and rely too much on manipulation of
rules as opposed to rules that support the heist.
You know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of combat games
that do that a lot that have like a sneak mechanic, you know
what I mean? That's about it.
I like the the idea of like giving the player characters
like ownership over part of the narrative to where they can
manipulate it, so you know. Yeah.
Something. Again, the caveat to saying I
don't like heists is I don't like them because of all the
reasons I just said I love. I would love to run the job
because it does all the things that I just said.
So let's let's hop in and take a peek and kind of dig through
this. So again, the cover, gorgeous
piece of graphic design, but again the cover of the actual
book with with that you know the the the different treatment on
the diamonds definitely has an elevation.
But how? How clean and beautiful is that?
Yeah. Definitely hits you with a lot
of that like late 70s, early 80s graphic design vibe.
The whole way through Definitely lends to the like.
The original Ocean's 11. The original Italian Job.
Thinking of it also kind of reminds me of, oh gosh, I'm not
thinking the Pink Panther, but like something for there's
something anime if not like time period, that also does this very
like kind of like big block color, is it?
Yeah, I don't know. Something.
And the whole and and the design to to help to to talk to the
audience. This little bit, it's all like,
it's also solid colors. Like it's solid colors mostly
shapes. You know, a lot of like straight
lines or like one big solid curve on the sun.
But it it's, it's a specific style you have to check out.
But as soon as you see it, you go oh OK And then even the the
page on the inside, I love this too with the guy sneaking
towards like the little diamond and all of the blocks.
But that's like the dice going around, which we get to such a
great piece here, and then we get to the job.
A game of glorious heist and everything that can go wrong in
them from games. Omnivorous.
Seriously. This, this, this feels like a
small thing that they kind of threw out at the end of the year
and I love it so much, like. Yeah, I definitely think it.
I feel like, I mean, I know people are aware of it, but I
think it deserves more noise around it.
I wonder. I also, I kind of wonder too a
little bit. And then me.
I'm totally wrong. And you can tell me if I am
Andre, but I kind of feel like Andre usually does a lot of like
the production, the behind the scenes stuff and really put
something out. And I kind of almost wonder if
he's just like, oh, it's just my thing.
I don't really need to push it too hard and just kind of like
put it out there. You know what I mean?
Yeah, But it definitely deserves deserves more.
So. Credits and acknowledges.
Page obviously concept and running.
Andre Nuvo. Like we said, graphic design and
gilier. Megan Tijo art stolen from the
public domain editing and proof reading by Walton Wood,
fantastic editor. There's some play testers, some
special thanks especially to Andre Tavares and Emma Acosta
for the incredible feedback. Emma Costell does some great
work, check them out as well. And acknowledgement.
I really like this cuz there's a kind of a ludalogy of game
design fiasco for the cinematographic story game
design Dread for the tumbling block tower.
Yeah, Tin candles for the minimalist character creation
apocalypse world for the 2D6 narrative system.
It's not a PBTA game. Leverage for the heist theme.
Honey Heist for the minimalist heist themed RPG.
You know, I've never even read Honey Heist.
I'm a huge fan, I actually. Was thinking that I read this.
Have read The Bear is always at the top of Itch and I just
haven't got around to it. I own so much Rowan, Rook and
Deckard and Grant. How it's stuff that I really
just need to read it. And then there's a huge list of
movies that. Really, really good movies on
this. List Yeah.
Thomas Crown Affair, Ocean's 11. Italian Job, Inside Man.
Inception. Now you see me.
Logan Lucky baby driver. Lupin, obviously.
Kaleidoscope. The asphalt jungle top, yeah.
There's a lot of really good movies, and there's also Now You
See Me. Yeah, you know what?
As a as I, it makes sense. Like there's a lot of the heist
set up. No, totally.
Let me. Do this like magic card that
flies around 10 yards. It's definitely a heist movie.
I just once when I was like, I don't know, 22, like on a date
with a girl, like her place and she let her pick the movie and
she picked the inside job and I just remember like 45 minutes
and we looked at each other and she was like, I'm really sorry.
Nice. Yeah.
So first printing 500 copies. That's it.
That's one thing I love too. It really hits me in that weird
douche bag or you spark part of me that says they'd love small
print runs. So I can later be like, ha ha, I
have one of those, you know? Yeah, you are a staunch
collector. I am, yeah.
I got two of these. So moving on to the day of, the
contents which is not hyperlinked are the.
Bookmarks I actually didn't even look.
There are bookmarks, but there are no hyperlinks unless I'm
clicking. Wrong.
Nope. No hyperlinks.
Dismiss. I don't know what I just did.
I didn't want to highlight that this is long enough.
I think it would be nice to have hyperlinks in here, but it's
also pretty light the whole way through.
So whatever that has bookmarks, I'll take it.
There's a player rules, there's a crew section, the budget
section, the preparation section, the action, and that's
all just player rules. And then there's a whole referee
section, which is talking about referring the job, the escape,
creating briefs, compatibility in the plan sheet.
So really the rules of the game beginning to end for the most
part, are only about 20-3 pages long.
Yeah, and then a lot of really good references for the for the
referee to to help their side of the of the heist go forward.
So it's like 20-3 pages for the rules, but like nine of those
are just characters. You know, it's such a light
game, but there's so much steps that can be had in it.
That's great. So what is this?
This is what I here's the thing. I love a what is this way more
than like a what is an RPG section.
There's the start of movies don't have a what is a movie
like commercial. You know if you're playing on
RPG in order RPG. So what is this job is an RPG.
Boom. That's what it is.
What? Do you think I was gonna say, I,
I we've said this several times and I think that there's like an
interesting discussion to be had there about like movies don't
open with that. But I feel like that is like,
well, there's kind of this understanding about what the
movie is by it being this ubiquitous experience that we
all have watching a movie. Not that everyone's played a
tabletop game, but that's just me talking about that.
Thought so. Yeah, but I think we've also
talked about the games that need it and the games that don't like
this. Is very true.
This is not a game that needs it.
I'm glad they didn't have it. But again, I think we've talked
over and over again. Mouse Reader is one of our
favorite games and what is a TTRPG section in Mouse Reader is
important because it could be a lot of people's first game.
So I think it's. I don't think the job from Games
Omnivorous is gonna be a lot of people's first and especially
not the referee that decides to pick this up.
But what is this? It's a table top game.
You need some people. You need some dice.
The rules in the book offer guidelines and tools.
The game has a clear objective. You pull off a heist.
You either do it or you don't. That's it.
But not doing it can be just as memorable.
So don't worry. If you're caught, it's a story
that counts. One of you must take the role of
the referee. The referee follows a clear set
of procedures. They run the heist for the
players and present trouble that may arise.
The referee exist to make the story memorable, not to make the
player's lives miserable. That should be.
In a lot of books the other players take on the roles of a
caper crew, Each of you a specific role and teamwork is of
the essence. Make sure you prepare the heist
well, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
So the requirements. I love this page like the the
the the goggles here with the eyes on it.
Such play a sheet, a crew member sheet or a piece of paper, 70s
funk music, spare paper for taking notes, a bunch of 6 sided
dice. This is interesting.
At least ten of them, and they must have edges circa 15mm and
rounded corners. I'm like that's very specific,
but I assume it's because of the stack.
Yeah, it's for the stack. Yeah, it makes sense.
It makes. Sense like it's size, dice that
are like flat all the way to the edges, you're going to stack it
to the seedling. Absolutely, man.
I I was thinking most about the edges like yeah, I guess if it
has like very cornered, the corners are sharp, it's like
easier to stack. Your rounded corners are going
to slide. So Dice Stack is cool, yeah?
Yeah, we'll get we'll get to the dice stack, how to read this
book with your eyes and A and AI don't know 10th grade American
education, I guess is that when they're familiar, players should
read the rules for character creation, budget preparation,
etcetera. Referees should carefully read,
etcetera. So going through the basics,
again, just scrolling down the bottom real quick to look at the
graphic design at the bottom of this page.
My goodness, I love the the red yellow theme throughout.
The entire thing is absolutely stunning and just this quasi
poster style with the like the guy on the left and everything
like that. It really collaging in all of
these scenes is fantastic. The the guard or the cop with
the with like broken glass over it, the upset on bus and stuff.
It's just vibes. Vibes for days.
We don't, we it's a book, so we're not rating vibes this
time. But if we were rating vibes, I
mean I think the art and this definitely reinforces that like
70s heist vibe really well. Super Bowl, You feel it the
entire time. And not only that, the the
actual layout of the book is extremely readable all the way
through. Like the font choice, the the
mostly black on white or there's never a time.
There's really like not a harsh contrast and a good way for for
reading. So the basics.
The game wins into a narrative play style.
The heist is described by the referee as much as the players,
the game is played their sequence of scenes, and it's
really broken up into two styles or to two different phases of
play. This is, however, unlike in most
narrative games, the Java is not complex character arcs full of
interpersonal drama between players, et cetera, et cetera.
It's mostly about designing A ridiculously memorable heist and
attempting to beat the game. Because this is a THRPG, you can
win or lose. It's been takes about 3 hours, 1
1/2 for each section. So the first is Preparation
phase. Players receive a brief, which
we'll go over later, detailing the location that they're
robbing, the object they're stealing and their budget and
six known complications. And then the preparation phase
is them planning out 12 scenes across to to that deals with
those six complications throughout the preparation
phase. And then basically you hand that
detailed plan to the referee who has been listening the whole
time and taking notes on what could go wrong.
You hand that to the referee and that is in the preparation phase
and then you go to the action phase and that's where the
referee actually guides the players through the scenes that
they had planned out and they're going to be dice rolls based on
on character abilities and things that happened throughout.
And then there is the dice stack which which will surprise you
with a little bit and that takes about another hour and a half.
So it's a 3 hour game total. Would love to play this, Can't
wait just. It's just how do you do this
digitally? Unless you have one elected dice
stacker, you know, which is fine.
Yeah, I think that's the, you know, that's that's the answer,
yeah. But I think you could definitely
do it. Yeah, I mean, it really comes
down to that's it. It's like you just the only
reason you have to be together is for the dice.
So I mean that could also be part of character creation is
like who's got the steady hands quote, UN quote and like you get
to be the stacker, you know, let me get to the crew.
The crew. The crew I you're after the good
stuff. Gems.
Diamonds. Gold bullion.
A Picasso painting. Faberge eggs.
The Crete. The Queen's crown.
Nothing short will do. You live fast, You think fast.
You move fast. The one thing that scares you is
getting caught. Not because prison per SE.
You could pull off escape anyway, but because of the
endless shame creating characters.
Pretty simple, right? You're going to choose from one
of the eight available roles. There's no repeating roles,
which I do love that. Print the respective sheet,
choose the name of the parents, study your role stunts and make
sure you use them during the heist and start playing.
Where are the sets? Also in the center.
Another great like very collagey, like 70s like movie
poster. Everyone stand in and someone's
like gone out. Very implies a lot of action and
it looks great. I also, I really like the
there's a lot of times throughout this section where
they have these like asides in the book where that are this
like cursive writing and I feel like it's a really good change
of pace. It also adds to it, but like
that thing that says print the sheet or don't and there's a
whole explanation on like it's literally so simple.
You have to write down like 4 things.
So if you don't want to print the sheet like you don't have
to, which is great. But those little asides, I think
are so like Vibey 2 because it's in this curse of like
handwriting. It almost looks like someone
took the person wrote a note in it.
It's so good. It's so good.
Got the official heist info and a little note written by your
like a contactor, you know? But yeah, where are the stats?
So there aren't traditional stats in this game.
Yeah, the stuff you do is pretty much defined by stunts and
inventory. So you need to be aware of what
those are and like how to use them in the heist.
This design choice has two reasons this game is meant.
Oh yeah, that's right. This game is meant for one shot.
It's not like a you're not building a character long term.
The second a big part of the game is the Preparation phase
phase, which replaces traditional character creation,
planning, the heist itself. Having them both would add too
much time to this game. Imagine if you like had to, like
spend like an hour building a character and then preparation
phase is an hour and a half. And then, yeah, it's much
better, much more lightweight for what this is.
Yeah. And this is when we get to
characterization like we'll we'll we'll talk about it more.
But like I this is what I was talking about in the beginning
whereas like this is a game designed to do this versus a
game that you can try to do this in.
You know what I mean? Like I don't need to know a
decks and a strength and all that sort of stuff because do
you know the dexterity of Frank of Was is a Frank Ocean?
Johnny Ocean? Tim Ocean What's his name?
Frank Ocean is is the artist is Danny Ocean Danny.
Ocean. That's what it is.
But now I'm only going to call him Frank Ocean.
So. Do we do we need to know his
dexterity or his strength? Or do we just know what he can
do? Yeah, no, because they have a
grease man for all the dexterous stuff, you know?
Exactly. And that's.
But that's what he can do. And none of these people are
superheroes. So I love that.
There's no stats. Who cares about any of that
crap? Just tell me what you can do.
What? What can you do for me?
You know what I mean? Like what?
What? What can you bring to the job?
So what do they bring you? Down so let's we're going to
read through 1 character. Let's do the pickpocket. 14 is
on the page OK but the RI mean if we want to stop and they
still look at the R as we scroll through the and the character is
really very good. Well, we could also just do like
a quick like what? Like what each one is and then
go fully over 1 so people know what all the classes are.
So the animal handler. Also, the names are going to be
very indicative, but I'll read the little blurb because they're
good. You're the Tiger King, the Dog
whisperer, the ultimate bear Wrangler.
You speak in animal and you know how to train them for grandiose
heist. People see you as an eccentric,
but who isn't really. And then there's a quote.
I believe in integrity. Dogs have it.
And it says wash your hands on the character art.
It's like petting like, is that a Gator?
Yeah, he's petting a Gator belly, Yeah.
Just just wash your hands next to it.
Funny. You know this reptiles spread E
coli man. This is the one character class
that stood out to me in the heist because I would have never
thought about having an animal handler in the heist.
But it totally, I mean it totally works it.
Totally works, and I'm sure that it's in one of the heist movies
that I haven't seen. I'm not thinking of.
Yeah, totally. But of all the ones, like,
you're right, like I was when I got to this as the very first
one, I was just like, well, I think they're alphabetical, I
think is what it is. But I was like, oh, that's
interesting. But also that's awesome.
Like you could just, like, pull a mouse out of your pocket and
have it go run an errand. Like that's dope.
Yeah, it's a very good idea. I liked it a lot.
Definitely not within my own head cannon of heist.
But I'm like, oh, maybe I'll add that to my internal iced head
cannon. The next one is going to be the
boss. This is your your Frank Ocean.
The boss. You pull the strings, call the
shots. You dress well, talk well, and
seduce well. You are all the Danny oceans,
Frank Ocean of the world. Scotch on the rocks and ace up
the sleeve people like you, even if they don't. 13 million and
you drive this piece of shit to pick me up?
The boss Great. I.
Think they're saying I'm a lot today I can tell I'm sleepy.
That's a sign of me being sleepy.
I have a card here that reminds me not to say I'm all the time
and I still say it all the fucking time.
The boss is cool. I think they're big stunt.
Everyone gets four and we'll we'll go over one more in
detail. But the boss's big stunt is that
they can get you one ridiculous piece of transportation.
Not a car, but literally like a helicopter, a fucking jumbo jet
or some shit like that. That's like the one thing that
they they bring everything together, but they also they get
that one big fucking that one big thing, the helicopter, you
know? The tank.
This is just always a tank. The tank.
Yeah. The bruiser.
You're a thug, a hooligan, a mean machine.
Working as a bouncer is not exactly your dream job, nor
beating punks for the local mafia.
So here you are, taking orders, making millions and crushing
bone. Let me stop here.
Right there. Literally.
I love the the Don't touch Her across.
Yeah, I can tell you right now though, like when you think of
the Bruiser and the Heist movie, what do you think of I?
Think the Bruiser and the Heist movie.
I don't know who's one. Person one person immediately
comes in my head. It's that one.
It's that one British dude who was like an ex soccer player who
like doesn't talk in like fast, like the like gone in 60
seconds, but he's in like all of them as like the guy that.
Beats everybody up. 100% the Dude That Will.
Always pop my head. Gone in 60 seconds since I was
like a child. And I've I've it's fine.
Nick Cage. Yeah, I love that weird blonde
Angelina Jolie. Yeah, yeah.
I love how in every Nick Cage movie, he's always like, it's
time to get caged, you know? OK, next I.
Visited I visited his his grave, future, grave in New Orleans.
Oh yeah, Do you know? That guy.
Is is a Coppola? Is he?
A Coppola. Yeah, like Francis Ford Coppola.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like the nephew or some
shit over one of them. Yeah, he's like a A Yeah, Yes,
but. Super random 32nd aside, in New
Orleans you can't bury people because it's too wet and the
coffins just Bob up to the top of the surface.
That's the reason. No, it is.
Vampires. Yeah, well, yeah.
Also vampires. Yeah, but so everything is
mausoleums down there. So when you go on tours, you can
actually tour through the mausoleums.
Freaking. Nick Cage has a pyramid as a
future mausoleum for him, and when he was bankrupt, he lost
everything except for his fucking pyramid mausoleum,
because I can't take it away from UPI, because there's some
law about like death stuff or whatever.
And obviously I got tons of money again.
But yeah, you can go visit his future pyramid grave site in a
New Orleans mausoleum graveyard. I I respect his eccentricity.
You. Know hardcore, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it comes of the community. The con artist.
Confidence games. Schemes.
Ripoffs, scams and stratagems. Fake passports, fake bills and
fake IDs. Multiple identities.
Endless connections. This is where you thrive.
And these waters. You're the shark.
Catch me if you can. This is a good one.
I always really like a con artist.
I like. I like a likable liar, you know?
Yeah, the genius. You were the brightest in your
class. At age 10, you hacked into your
school teacher's computer. At age 14, you hacked into the
government database. People seem petty and trivial to
you. Limited, one might say.
Pull the plug on that laptop and we're all dead.
It's your little hacker hacker character.
You know, as much as I love playing a wizard, the like, real
world equivalent of being like a genius hacker does not ever
appeal to me quite as much. You know, like you'd think like
that. I feel like that's the most
comparable thing to a wizard when you're playing like a more
grounded, A realistic game as like a genius hacker, but like.
No. You don't think so?
If I if, if I was playing a grounded game like.
Because when I think of Wizards more than anything, like either
my mind goes to like dark warlock occult bullshit or goes
to just fucking weird old dude that collected too much weird
old shit. Like I think of the wizard from
like the sword and the stone when he goes and he's like
bubbling and shit's like popping all over the place.
So it would be to me, it would be more of like a like an
eccentric collector, you know what I mean?
Did you say the wizard in the Sword of the Stone like Merlin?
Yeah, that guy. OK, it's just like like, yeah,
you know that one obscure wizard in Merlin?
That one guy, I don't know if you've heard of him before, he
from this old story. Actually also a pretty decent
show. Great.
That's such a fucking. Yeah, it's like, it's one of
those sci-fi underrated series, You know that was on sci-fi,
right? Oh, you're talking about the
show where he's young and shit. I never finished it, but it was
really good. I really like.
It's a pretty like, it's not like ground breaking, but the
whole time through you're like this is pretty good.
So yeah, it took me an episode or two to be like, oh, that's
not Giles from Buffy. But but yeah, it was good.
I I enjoyed it. I watched multiple seasons of
it. It was.
It was actually, yeah, underrated and really good.
The Grease Man. You were once an Olympic
medalist or a circus Acrobat or a failed stuntman.
No one really knows, to be honest.
No one really cares. You squeeze at the tightest
faces, and that's what matters. Can anyone Get Me Out of here?
Love the Grease Man. Probably the pickpocket's my
favorite, but this is my second favorite.
I just like the weird, nimble guy, you know?
Yeah. Oh yeah, 'cause his some of his
stuff, like the boneless one and stuff like if you can explain
it, you can pop out of any piece of furniture like.
In oh, I feel like the. The Grease Man in one of the 11
movies, I think was it where the it's always.
The same guy. The little Asian guy, like,
packed himself. And he's not all of them.
So, Oh yeah, the the first one's when he gets into the box.
Yeah, yeah. So he's a great grease man.
Yeah. Onto the pickpocket.
Huh? Interesting.
On to the pickpocket. Your grandma once lost you in
the mall, and when you came back with three and you came back
with three wristwatches. Five years later, your BF FS
mom's diamond necklace vanished. Everyone blames you.
And they were right. Here you are.
Now you see it. Now you.
That's the quote. Yeah, that's that's the whole
thing. That's right.
Do you want to go ahead and go
through this one? Because it's the one I want to
go through. Yeah, do you want me to read it?
Yeah, go for. It so yeah, character sheet,
this is, this is pretty much you give the character sheet, so you
get that little word at the top. Yeah, it's got that got them at
the top you get, you write down your name, you write down your
appearance and there are 4 stunts that you get and you get
all of them. You can use them and most of the
stunts throughout each one, a lot of them give you, it's a
little bit different, but a lot of them give you kind of like 2
for the action phase and two kind of like bigger almost like
meta or preparation phase things.
And then at the bottom of each one is the same, kind of like
briefcase with four items cause the inventory is important and I
really like that through. But for the pickpocket the four
stunt you get one is pickpocketing to get advantage
and actions that involve stealing a small object from any
target, particularly when the target is in close proximity or
buy like contact which is perfect for the pickpocket
steal. I'll get to that one.
Next let me do safecracking advantage and actions that
involve delicate tasks like picking locks or complex
mechanisms, setting up detonators or tinkering with
delicate equipment and the likes.
Then there's Magic Tricks, which I thought was interesting for
the pickpocket. I felt like this was a little
bit more of a comment thing, that it makes sense for this
guy. Magic Tricks is choose a magic
trick, cards, dice, or even sawing someone in half.
Whenever you perform it, you have advantage to impress and
install an entire audience. And then the final one, and I
love this, is Steal the Stack once during the action phase if
the stack, which we'll get to if the stack reaches 6 or more
dice, you may steal one die from it.
If the stack falls, it counts as a collapse.
Narrate your intervention, love it.
It's great. One of my other favorite moves
because I love the meta aspect of it too.
If we go back to the Bruiser, they have a move called Happy
Birthday Punk. Once during the action phase you
may blow on the dice stack and remove all dice that fall from
the stack. And you have to narrate how you
intervene to de escalate so you can lose these facts and knock
over the whole stack and like potentially save a stack if you
can blow hard enough on the dice.
That has a really very, I like, I like that you have to narrate
it too. Like, I like how's the bruiser,
how's the bruiser come through and de escalate.
It's like, well, the way a bruiser does, you know.
That's one thing that's through all of these stunts that like
outside of the ones that are like advantage to this specific
thing in a scene, any of the ones that are a little bit more
meta like that or or involve like a little bit kind of like
pulled back lens, always say narrate it, narrate it, narrate
it. And throughout the whole book
there's this, there's this thing that says the players like tell
the story just as much as the referee and like they're the
ones coming up with everything, they're doing it and pushing it.
So like I really. Do know there's a really
interesting one called What's happening here.
Same kind of thing once during the action phase.
If one of the crew is in trouble, you may appear out of
the blue in that scene and take over the situation.
Describe how you got there. It's so good.
I do. I do love though when we get
later in the book, there are like kind of there are still
rules that apply to that where like it can't be like it it
can't be out of blue. You can't in the previous scene
say that like you weren't even in the building and suddenly be
in the building. There has to be some type of
through line. But I love that.
Like, there's not really like if it's one of your stunts, you
don't have to roll for it to suddenly just like be there.
You can be like, well, I'm doing that, but it makes sense because
I was like next door in the last scene or something.
It's I. It's so good.
Was that the last? Oh, the wheel man.
I forgot about the wheel man. Another one that I actually do
often in my internal heist a head can.
And also forget about the wheel man.
Do you ever see Baby Driver? Yeah.
Hell yeah. Hell yeah.
I love I. Haven't seen it, actually, So
oh. Yeah.
It's a good movie. Every person who I say it to is
like, oh, it's really, really good.
It is a good movie. I enjoy it.
Yeah, the wheelman. You're the king of the road.
The traffic lights, terror. No Reds or yellows you see, but
the greens? Only one thing turns you on, and
that's the smell of gasoline. Baby groomer has it.
You pour it on your coffee. Need a ride?
I I miss the smell of gasoline. I really do notice you don't
smell anymore. Yeah, I do.
I love the smell of gasoline. I think it smells.
I love the smell of gasoline. Yeah, ever since they put like
all nozzles, now have to have that, like, like the the fume
sucker. It's really disappointing.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, obviously. Good for our bridge, but it
smells. It smells good.
So the next part. This is so the crew has won.
This is the budget. This is 2.
So the referee tells you your budget for the heist and each
heist the value differs. I think later on they say that
the the kind of standard heist value is usually around 250K,
but the things you can get are extravagant gear, common crap
vehicles. That's pretty self-explanatory.
Extravagant gear really goes to the budget.
Common crap you'd actually don't.
A lot of it you don't really need to account for in the
budget common cheap unremarkable equipment that you always have
access to. Well it's not that you don't
have to account for it, it's just that you don't have to do
anything to get it. Like in the setup phase if you
say I have climbing equipment you just have it versus
extravagant gear where like you can't just have a Lamborghini,
you have to explain how you got it.
And then vehicles. So common vehicles are always
available at no cost. Oh so I assume the common crab
is no cost in two. Extravagant vehicles are not
available for purchase. The only way to get an
extravagant vehicle, specifically jet engine boats,
jet planes, submarines, helicopters, tanks is the boss
of Stone that says that. So how does your inventory work
And using gear? So each crew member has four
spaces for equipment. You start the game with no
equipment and I love this. It's kind of the same concept as
like gear bubbles and troika and etc.
So during you don't write anything down during the
preparation phase or anything like that.
But during the action phase, if you need a piece of gear, you
can just say you have it and then mark it into one of those
four slots. So the only way you can't have
it is if you don't have the budget anymore for that piece of
gear or if you don't have any inventory slots left for that
gear. But if you're in the middle of
doing something and you're like, oh shit, I need safety goggles,
you can just have safety goggles.
You just fill it in. And if safety goggles cost, you
know, 100 bucks, you just mark 100 bucks off the budget.
I love that. The the whole concept of kind of
trying to think of the word that I mean for it's not ephemeral,
but just like it's like Schrodinger's gear.
It's there, but it's not there. You know what I mean?
Kind of thing. I I love that idea.
It's my favorite way to do inventory.
Durf does it with supply. The vanilla game does it with
gear bubbles. Troika does with gear bubbles.
I just love the idea of of the how in the inventory works that
way. So using Gear Gear allows the
crew to perform action that would otherwise be impossible.
For instance, you can shoot someone only if you have a
firearm you can see in the dark only if you have a night vision.
Goggles, you can communicate with each other only if you have
in your comms there are free may give you advantage for having
the right gear, but they may also call for disadvantage if
you use it wrong. So again, I like the idea you're
not rolling a deck, you're not rolling this.
If you have night vision goggles you see in the dark, that's it.
And if you don't, you don't. I love that.
It's great. There's a price list here in
most games. I hate that.
I love it in this. It's it's so necessary.
It's the budget is such a huge part of it, so.
It does, yeah. The budget's a whole function.
It does a price list on. This one does make a lot of
sense. It's not a normal TDRBGA because
I don't care how much a shuffle costs in D&D because honestly
I'm either gonna be able to buy it or just murder you and take
it like that's how they say this design.
So this is not like that. So and again I love the the
handwriting behind the budget at the bottom but I think the
cheapest thing on here is maybe like 1000 bucks and it's an
electric lighter but it with the Super powerful flight and that's
that's expensive for an A luxury for for.
A lighter, crazy lighter, but an EMP bomb. $1,000,000 Yeah, I
think the most expensive thing after the the $1,000,000 is is
there some $50,000 stuff on here?
There's 150K for 100. For 1:50.
But then you're looking at things like military drones and
and invisibility cloak for 100,000, you know, so there's
some crazy shit, but your budget's blown if you have that
stuff. But I like that they there's a
there's encouragement throughout to get fucking ridiculous and I
enjoy that. So the preparation, so the
referee will slide you the brief.
So the brief is an object, a place, the budget and the
complications. There's an example brief here
that says the Mona Lisa is the object, the place is the Louvre.
The budget is 200 K And the complications, I'm not going to
list all six, but they're for example, security cameras are on
all floors overseen by two officers in a control room
that's a whole. That's one of six complications
triple glass ceiling Dome in the hall of the Mona Lisa.
That's number two door pressure alarms in the in the painting
like like the whole like you know Catherine Zeta Jones dips
beneath lasers kind of situation that that's that's the thing
complications overview complications are obstacles but
they also a hint and how things are done.
I really love this part. So it you can really kind of
guide the heist a little bit by saying oh there's like 4
patrolling guards or whatever. Usually that's going to be night
time. If there's metal detectors and
bystanders, usually that's going to be daytime.
So you can kind of in the way that you write the brief, either
guide or just be aware of how you write the brief.
So there's consistency in the way that it's done.
Because the way you write your complications can really
determine a like the kind of like starting base for for how
the entire heist is going to be done really a lot of the time
between day and night and if you're around people or not
around people. So I really enjoy that part.
So there is a thing and right here that says however don't be
afraid of putting yourself in unnecessary trouble when you're
writing the whole preparation phase right.
Be realistic to a point. Get weird with it.
But it's OK to let it get close to to to be in a really tough
situation that you're going to have to roll yourself out of
later. That's that's it's fun.
Don't forget it's supposed to be fun.
I I can kind of see the like people doing it the first time
and being a little bit more reserved, but as they realize
kind of how it goes the second or third time it's you know.
You want those sweaty moments? You want to be between a rock
and a hard place and be like, you know, I gotta maneuver my
way through, you know? Yeah.
Cuz what's the rest that's gonna happen is you're gonna fail A
roll, get a ad, dice to the stack and and you know have to
narrate your way out of it, which is.
Which is fine and fun. Yeah, the one of the last on my.
Table and my table. If you messed up, I actually
straight hit you in the face, so yeah.
We'll just kill you. Yeah, everyone damage that my
characters take in our games, that's one punch they received.
That's one real life damage. How many HP do you got IRL
buddy? So I do like the very last part
of this page says don't shy away from the outlandish, The sillier
the better and the most intricate, creative and complex
the heices are the more the the funnier it will be to play it.
So great. First of all I know we we've
kind of stopped talking about the graphic design on the page
but like the layout of of the page throughout, I love the
note. The brief is written on a note
but the next page, the primer page, it's like half black, half
yellow. Really, really enjoy the the
split between the two and the again, black, yellow, red vibe
all the way throughout. I feel like there's this like
from this point on. There's still some pages that
are like white background, the majority of it that have text
over. But from this kind of point on,
it really takes us like big colors on the entire page And it
works really well. Yeah, but it's interesting.
It's like, it's not until you get into like the preparation,
it's like, OK, now flip, now it's like all these colors
everywhere in a yellow background, black background.
That's the I think. I think I mean I'm sure it's
intentional you know it is absolutely intentional does
great yeah. But like, having things be kind
of straightforward. Black or white, you know, very
readable, very straightforward. And then jumping into the weird
part of it is like, you just say it's such a like, flip into the
like, if I was sitting at the table doing this and I flipped
to this page, my heart rate would definitely go up by a
couple and be like, right, We're fucking doing it, Fucking doing
it. It feels like a natural
progression. Yeah, and it's so good and
especially and then when we get to the referee page, love love
that spread. So because we're, I'm not even
looking at this in spreads, but like in spreads a lot of this
makes a lot of good sense too. So the plan you come up with a
plan, you write it down, there's 12 scenes.
The main rule is that you must include all the complications.
So you have to actually address all the six complications.
And generally you try to have like one or two scenes address
each one. And then there are they do a
good breakdown of like the stages of like when you should
be doing things and there's 123, there's four stages, there's an
infiltration stage which is usually scenes one and two which
is actually breaking in. There's a deployment stage,
scenes 3 through 6, where you're getting people and stuff in all
the right places. Infiltration that says choose
one complication to deal with. Here a deployment says choose
two, Execution is scene 7 through 10.
You're actually executing the heist and there's two
complications here. And the escape is scenes 11
through 12 and you should choose your last complication here.
But I do love the the instruction at the top of this.
It says to facilitate formulating the plan, follow
this structure. But this is flexible.
Use it only if it makes planning easier.
Discard it if it becomes a hindrance.
I love that, yeah. And then the scene's primer.
So these are kind of like rules for the scene.
So each crew member has to appear in two scenes has to
multiple characters can appear in the same scene.
While some scenes can be performed solo, each scene must
describe one explicit course of action or intention.
A single sentence is enough, clearly identifying the crew
member of their actions. So every you can't just have a
scene where like nothing really happens.
Everything has to progress the story.
All complications, all six complications have to be dealt
with. You don't forget to world build
as much as you want. You don't need to ask the
referee. And this is I think this is
going to be the hardest part for players, especially people with
D&D brain is you don't have to ask the players, you build the
world. So it says specifically is don't
ask the referee. Is the vault directly linked to
the police, to the police's alarm system or how many
security guards are in the surveillance room you pick you
can just say oh you know what like the vault actually is
linked to the police's alarm system because that's fun and
interesting and exciting to get around.
So if if you were, if you're with players who are are
especially in the like 5 Ed and D brain of just like feed me the
story so I can make A roll. I think that's gonna be the
hardest part for people. And I think in early people of
refereeing needed to be like you're building the world you
decide, you decide, you decide, you tell me the story, you
decide. And I think this is a great game
to try to help people break out of DD brain.
Think OK, Cinematographically that word is used like four
times and it's just a big long word and I love it.
It's great, but it's it's, you know, it doesn't roll off the
tongue super great. Think, think, think like a movie
script. Use gear eccentrically and
extensively. Get crazy.
Use a helicopter. Crew members can appear in a
place only if there's a logical reason for them to do so using
actions performed in previous scenes.
I was saying with like those random like pop out of furniture
shit and the scenes must be written down.
A plausible timeline with no flashbacks, no flashbacks like
you Andre. And the last thing is apotheosis
of the grand escape. That's it.
I like the setup scenes. That's the next part.
Did you are you a big fan of the setup scenes?
I enjoy them. I believe so.
Well, I can't remember. I had a thought when I was
reading this last night and I can't remember what it was.
All right, well, my brain's a little.
Mushy right now let. Me tell you all about setup
scenes and see if it picks it back.
So this is optional, but I would definitely use it.
So it says basically at the show the action phase you can do like
the pre stuff for it. So there's like tropes involving
setup. So specifically like practicing
something like the birds are beating up some guards or
whatever. There's reconnaissance which is
like actually like watching the guards movement and writing down
notes and stuff. It's all the stuff like you you
get the crew together and then you go out and prepare for the
the actual heist. These are called setup scenes,
so it's kind of between the preparation and not you can
remember. Also, I would absolutely do
this. Sorry, my brain is much.
But tell me why I I was immediately thinking of of I
think it is actually Ocean's 11 when they do like the practice
like robbery of the safe that they build and then they play
that footage for like as they're actually robbing the real safe.
Yeah. So good.
Yeah. I really like.
So disguising yourself as hired staff makes sense.
The not enough dough is funny where it's like you only have a
budget of 200,000 but you need something that costs more so you
can just do a precinct where you steal the thing that you need,
which I think they do in one of the oceans movies too, where
they do steal like an EMP or some shit like they do.
Yeah, yeah. So it says why these scenes?
It's because it's it's, it's interesting, it's fun.
You can set up stuff so that it makes sense later.
Like there might be times where it it would be hard to make the
action go from etcetera, etcetera, etcetera throughout or
you might need like a weird interesting piece of equipment.
So it makes a lot more sense when you get to one of the
example ones. There's a part where in the
setup scene one of the guys like has an interaction with like a
housekeeper or a janitor or something.
And then during the heist suddenly like the janitor pops
out and it's that guy and it's like, oh, during the setup scene
he put himself in that place. So that's cool.
The only part about this that I think is is is interesting and I
think I would be just a little fuzzy on is there's heat that
you can get from setup scenes. So you can actually start the
game with dice in your stack already if some of your setup
scenes might bring heat to the crew.
But I there's not a really solid explanation for when it
wouldn't. When it wouldn't, it says
depending how hard or realistic each setup scene is, the referee
will decide if this brings heat. The referee evaluates each scene
1 by 1. The initial dye stack starts
with that. There's not really an example
here of that. And later like they do, they
talk about some setup scenes and then say like there's three dice
with it, but like not which ones did and why.
So I think like super easy stuff.
I don't know if it would bring a lot of heat, but maybe like
stealing something beforehand, I would definitely give heat to
absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
I like that type of to discretion, but I think maybe
some more parameters laid out would be nice.
Yeah, I don't think, I don't think it's necessarily that
hard. And you can kind of pick and
choose like, I don't mind like, I think maybe even just like one
specific example of like what is heat and what's not heat would
be really, really nice. But but it's not, it's not by
any means breaking whatever. So next there's an example plan.
And I love the fact that there's an example plan through this.
Do you want to talk about the example plan?
Yeah, we're robbing the fucking Louvre in Paris.
We're stealing the Mona Lisa. Yes, that starts with a budget
of 200,000, which I I did not deep dive the referee section
nearly as hard as a ship. I believe that that's like
fairly, like considerable for a budget.
I think the standard, the average is 250 K so it's just a
200 and 5250. It's 250, so it's a little like.
I do like that this example is a continuation of the example.
Like earlier, it's the Mona Lisa, yeah.
It's the same one and the. Same complications and I enjoy
that a lot, yeah. Yeah, so who We have a boss, a
con con artist, a grease woman, a genius and a bruiser.
They all have names. The best one's amazing, Jenny.
Just because that's a that's a good name.
Yeah. Has examples of the set up
scene. Monsieur Gerarda sends a guard
to the hospital and takes his job at the museum.
Livingston advises a special surveillance system is of course
engineered to make cameras go black by removing a small
electrical circuit. Writ sets up a meeting with the
museum director to sell her a new surveillance system.
While there, he performs a magic trick with a cleaning staff
member. Amazing.
Jenny practices a with a replica of the painting.
Georgina pulls a few strings to secure a helicopter.
That's right, because Georgina's a boss.
So he's like, yeah, I got a tank.
A tank's going away on the roof. Yeah, And then it goes through
the job scene by scene. Then it breaks up between
infiltration and deployment. The kind of like standard
framework that is optional to use the.
Form framework, yeah. It's a good example.
It's a great. Example and I really love that
they specifically highlight in which in the what you're
supposed to do, which is like in the preparation 'cause you would
write all this down and hand it to the referee.
They specifically say in scene 2 we're gonna address complication
one, in scene 11 we're gonna address complication 2.
So it's not that everything has to be done in order, which is
which is really cool. I I this is such a great, great
example. And also how about the fucking
graphic design on this? Like this clipboard with like
the halftime? On it's actually a little
clipboard, so the example stamp on it the example.
So good. The action.
So the referee picks up the plan and runs the scenes one by one.
This part should take an hour and a half, with each scene
lasting no more than five to 10 minutes of play.
A wobbly dice stack instills tension, and that's fair.
When to roll. The referee tells you when you
should make A roll. Typically this happens when your
crew member does something risky, like climbing a smooth
surface or fighting someone. Follow the referee's lead
actions. Simple actions automatically
succeed, which, thank you for writing it down.
I always appreciate. It's like, yeah, simple stuff,
but more complicated actions. It's a 2D6 system and it works
like a 2D6 system. Yeah, so 26 fail, improvise an
alternative action and add dice to the stack which is on the
next page. 7 to 9 the action's action succeeds but you must
take a set back which is on page 28, not in line hyperlink or add
dice to the stack. Your choice, except in the
escape stage, when you must add dice and then 10 plus, is just a
success. And then you may remove one die
from the stack. Advantage and disadvantage.
Crew members get advantage by calling a stunt or using
appropriate gear. That's pretty much all you have
as a character in this game. The referee imposes
disadvantages whenever they see whatever fitting.
It's just like, all the time. Yeah.
Advantage. You roll 3, ignore the worst.
Disadvantage, you roll 3, ignore the best.
Also like that's a funny way to word it just of all of our
examples of advantage and disadvantage.
But I'm like Oh yeah that's like you're right that is that's
that's that is it's a very clean way the instead of writing in
multiple senses like, yeah, it's good.
That's it, yeah. I really enjoy in the core
mechanic of the game that there is never a time where like
there's not an option to add or take away from the stack.
The stack is ever present because even on the mixed
success part, you have to decide to either take a set back or
just add to the dice. So there's always a choice.
You're either putting a dice on, you're either tasting, taking
the dice off, or having to choose which is the most likely
outcome between narrating like a set back.
You succeed but have a set back, and that's really important.
I think a lot of people in two D6 that really get some hung up
is partial success which I I'm not a fan of.
It's it's mixed success parcels discuss me It's like you don't
do what you wanted to do all the way which I disagree with.
It's what this says is what makes sense to me.
The action succeeds but there is also it's not.
It's not kind of. It's yes but and I really like
that they specifically put in here.
They specifically say the action succeeds.
But so this very specifically says like you still get to do
what you do but other shit happens.
And I really, I really like that.
That's that's my favorite mechanic.
A7 and nine you're you're you'd get to do what you want to do.
You do punch that guy in the face but you know another dude
comes in behind you. You know you.
But you break your hand when you do it.
Yeah, so I really there's there's the the French job they
do throughout here with Jenny and Livingstead and all that
stuff. A great example of play like
it's it's a page and 1/2 of an example of play that you should
really read. It specifically goes through the
dice, why they're rolling the dice, what a set back looks
like, what all of that looks like.
It's an incredibly well written example of play and I love the
red, yellow, white on it. Again, graphically.
Layout wise fucking. Really incredibly appealing to
read through. It is also a really good example
and it follows a thing that we've talked about previously
that I always really, really like When we read through
tabletop games is when all of the examples follow the same
group or same people. And you're just like, it's like
this ongoing narrative inside of the game about a group that
yeah, I I don't know why, but I always really love that.
Yeah, it's it's so good because you you feel, I mean I feel like
it creates more engagement with the game and with the fiction
too, because you know when you get to the example you're going
to hear more of the story. Like it pulls you in a little
bit more and it's really, really fantastic and they do a great
job here. They go through multiple scenes
in the example scene 2, scene 4, scene 7, like multiple scenes,
you get all the way through and then you get to the dice stack.
So during the game, you'll be asked to form dice stacks.
Each stack starts with zero and you stack as high as you can.
So you get 3 stacks for the entire thing.
Your first stack is a little tension.
You add one dice each time you're supposed to add dice.
So once the first stack falls and you get to your second
stack, every time you have to add dice, you have to add 2 dice
to the stack, right? And then the third stack.
Guess what? You have to add 3 dice every
time to the stack and the only way you win the game is if the
third stack is standing or I guess fewer stacks.
But odds are not in your favor for that when you get it.
So it says. If the third stack does not
collapse, the crew is victorious and you can enjoy their spoils
on some tropical island on the other side of the world with
umbrella mojitos and Cuban cigars.
Such a good mechanic. Like that third stack, though,
adding three dice at the time. You're like oh fuck dude, Like I
I mean that you do it twice and like.
Right. This is going to fall.
Yeah, so we get to a page here. I I kind of want to throw this
into spreads for a hot second. This is a great page that
really, really. Oh no, I hate when that happens.
So it's it's the spreads are off because there's no page in the
beginning. You know what I love to do?
A lot of times you can just insert a page in the PDF, but I
didn't do that. So we're going to go back to
just the single page view, so it's no players beyond this
point. So for those listening spoilers
beyond here, this is a referee part.
If you, if you want to play this game, don't listen anymore but
let it play anyway. So we get the we get the thing
on our podcast, so great fucking spread here.
It's like falling dice. There's police line, there's
like a dice stack in the background.
There's you know the popo, more dice like a a plane flying away
in the background with someone hanging from the bottom like
just a fucking great spread here.
And it says referees only don't go past this part.
So real quick run through on the referee.
So refereeing the job. It talks about the brief,
creating the brief. We've already talked about the
the the parts of that object location budget complications.
It specifically says go see Chapter 7.
There's the preparation where it says it's your job to give them
the brief and then to listen to what they have to say so that
you can take notes on where things could go wrong.
Your whole job for an hour and a half is just sit there and
listen and take notes. As a referee, there's a thing at
the bottom that says you will need to improvise.
Make sure you are comfortable with that.
If you're not a good improviser, play this game to get better at
it. I'm saying don't not do it, but
this is the game to to try to spread your wings.
But give details about the physical space, the space the
players are in, what they see, what they hear, what they smell,
how tall the building is, Ask for rolls whenever it feels
natural. Make use of setbacks and
interesting complications. A lot of the times with
complications they're going to come back about you later.
One of the examples before was someone had a mix so they forgot
a screwdriver on a table in a room where they had tied up
guards and then in a later seen on a the guards like use the
screwdriver to escape and like come running after you.
That's an example of like setting up a set back to come
back to bite them later in the butt.
And it specifically says wait a couple scenes and then have that
come back. So the action pick up the plane
to run the crew through the scenes they devised don't shy
away from asking the players for help.
What color is a building? What does it smell like when
you're running the scenes? Interact with the players, Ask
for roles. Each scene should only take 5 to
10 minutes. Your job through this is to
really guide them through the plan that they already had.
I think that this is like maybe one of, if you are not the most
comfortable improvising, but you want to get better.
I feel like this is maybe, like, maybe one of the pinnacle games
of like, practicing that because there's just such this group
narrative thing going on and like, it so clearly established.
Like, yeah, I just asked the player characters what they
think as well, you know? Yeah, because I play.
The character. And there's and there's just,
it's so much less crunchy mathematically that you when
you're improvising you have to worry about like, oh, setting
DCS or like stuff like that. Like you can just it's purely
narrative and they're rolling dice to interact with that
narrative. So you don't have to worry about
the weight of like stats and stuff, yeah?
It's great. Another reason 2D6 is one of my
favorite with very low modifiers is because you don't have to set
DCS. You don't have to set target
numbers. You don't have to have that math
in your brain at all. The target is always what the
target is. I love games where the target is
always the same and maybe you tweak it a tiny bit, but that's
it Like D&D anyway. Sure.
So running scenes, it basically, you know it, it goes through.
It's a really good thing to read through, but if you've read a
lot of books, a lot of it is is more reinforcement than
anything. Dice stack speed is important
though. This is interesting, so it says
the first stack will most likely take time to collapse.
Maybe four or five or even 6 scenes.
Says this is fine, don't get stressed about it.
The second and third stacks will definitely collapse more
quickly. Obviously you're adding
exponential more dice, so you should probably aim at having
the crew assemble the third stack in the last two or three
scenes so you are kind of corralling a little bit to add
the tension in some. The game starts slow and is
designed to get abrupt intense at the end.
If you're already in scene six or seven and the first stack did
not collapse, think about asking for more rolls, because the only
way to add dice to the stack is to add more rolls.
So if you're if you're not really asking for a lot, pick it
up. If the dice are collapsing too
fast, slow it down. You know, do that kind of stuff.
A section on player rolls, it really just goes through when an
action succeeds. It specifically calls out, yes,
but on 7:00 and 9:00 they do succeed on what they want to do
but you get to add a complication and then the
section on it failing. And then there's a whole
breakdown on like how to build a good set back.
Their problems that come back to haunt the players in underlined
subsequent scenes. A typical set back would be
player getting injured as you climb the wall your feet slipped
but you moved on later in the heist.
Remember that climb you're actually bleeding roll a
disadvantage. So like if something happens,
just be like, OK, that happened and then, you know, maybe throw
a little something that might allude to something, let a
couple of scenes pass and then and then, you know, hit him with
it. There's a whole referee FAQ page
here on how to dealing with setup scenes.
Can you refuse the scene theater of the mind, How to use gear?
What happens? Great page.
Read it. It's awesome.
Another cool spread here with all the eyes and like the making
a play in thing and then to get to the escape.
Love this part. There's a success or the
failure. If the stack does not fall, you
win. Good job, you escaped mojitos,
Cuban cigars, you know, do whatever you want to do.
The failure is really interesting.
I enjoy this a lot. So if this third third stack
collapses, the heist is over. The game either stops right
then, or you can use these rules, which I really enjoy.
So you can narrate A chaotic escape.
The crew member who made this that collapse is caught.
That's it. Game over.
You done, Joe? Like you are going to jail, but
all other players have exactly 1 minute to write down on a piece
of paper what their crew member will do.
But whatever they do, it must involve at least one other crew
member, and players cannot talk to each other during this phase.
Love that. So when the time is up, players
reveal their writings. They now have exactly 3 minutes
to work out a logical story based on what they've written.
Select one player to be the spokesperson.
When the time is up, the the spokesperson explains the escape
to the referee who compares it to the notes.
If the referee finds inconsistencies, they may send
crew members to jail. If the escape the notes are
consistent, all crew members escape and they're free to play
the next time. I love the idea that like, yeah,
four people sitting around and if this person says they do this
and this person says they do that, like they they're caught.
Because there's no way that they could tie that in the story.
But if somehow player one and player three say they meet up
with each other without ever talking to each other and like
escape through the window, then it's just like, that's great.
You didn't have to talk about it, but somehow you knew and
then it's just gone. I love the idea that like, if it
makes sense, sure. And if not, like you're fucked.
You just get this little chaotic 4 minutes at the end to maybe,
maybe do it, maybe don't. And I love that.
Creative writing project guys. How the fuck am I getting out of
here? What makes sense?
There's a whole chapter here on creating briefs.
It really, it really breaks down the object, the place, the
budget. Right here it says the default
budgets are on 250. Ki love this, this this kind of
swami looking guy. I think that's, I don't know if
that's the correct way to say that, but he's got the, the,
the, the the, you know to search the Internet for brochures for
real life places and print them out, give them to the players
with the briefs so they can pinpoint scenes.
I love the idea of handing them a literal folder that actually
has like brochures from the Louvre tucked into it and like
but like photographs. So you could actually print on
like print paper like as if you had really like scouted it out a
little bit and and had it in there like clipped.
You know, people always like flip up one page or whatever and
so. Really, if I sat down and play
like a highest game and they were like did a real world
location and they like, here's they brought pamphlets and then
like some photos, I'd be like, this is them.
I love shit like that, you know? Pretty my fucking jeans.
Like, it's like you give me a real dossier that looks like a
really stealing from the Louvre. That's that's amazing.
So yeah, there's a whole page here in possible complications.
I love all of the graphics for these.
They're. The graphics are really of
really fantastic. And then it follows along with
the black, red and yellow motif and it's just so like the heat
sensor one. That's what I was going to say,
the same color motif. It's so good that I love the dog
one too, like just a slight angle with a red ear in the
back. It's small but like it's it's
great but like. I gotta say, dogs or tigers.
Yeah, I I would. I I wish that they would give
these out as as little tokens or whatever 'cause I would
literally just be like I slide those off or like put those onto
a sheet. These.
I would rip these right off the fucking PDF and use these just
as as. I wish they'd do patches.
I wish more non mothership games did patches, you know?
Dude, even just stickers. So you could literally just have
like a sheet where you put these down as stickers would be
fucking amazing. Like a Boy Scout badges or
whatever. Oh yeah, dude, if you got this
as like, I I defeated the reinforced doors and you got
like a sticker or a patch or a badge or something like that for
doing that, that'd be so dope. I mean, I don't know if it's
thematic, but like, that's it. Anyway, so there's now there's a
bunch of example briefs and my goodness, the layout on these as
if they're like movie posters but with the brief attached to
them. Some of the best shit Like
period in fucking not only like. Movie posters, but like, really
good ones. So good, there's the low hanging
proof. I love it says directed by the
referee. And there's even like the PG13
here it says copyright 2023 Fake Films LLC.
Like, it's great, so eat. So there's the low hanging
fruits, There's the fish and golden chips where you're
stealing from like the the the Royal family and you get the
horns. I really love that one.
Again, a lot of like halftone collage, like poster art in this
marble like flesh get back to Alcatraz and and there's a
compatibility section. It just talks about like being
able to use this as like a mini game within another campaign.
Like if you're and you get and being able to use it for.
Like if you want to do this in a dungeon just switch it up like
and just instead of having a budget just have to be the gear
that you actually have. But this would be so great.
I love the idea of games that use mini games to do something
different. Like if you want to do a heist
in 5 E just play 5 or play a different game but like play 5 E
and when you want to do a heist just stick the job in or another
heist game and then go back to the regular thing, you know?
That's how I feel about the oh God, what's the What's is it
clean spirits? Yes, as like as like.
I'm like, that is the most, it's the most perfect game to slide
into another game that you're already doing, yeah, but yeah.
Making a series of mini games. This is the exact same thing,
though. It's like you could easily slide
this into another game that you're doing and like run a
heist with good heist rules. Yeah, it's so good.
And then at the back there's there's sheets, there's plan
sheets, there is your character sheets, there's the you can
print the the, you know the the crew sheets, all that stuff.
And then much like a lot of my games on nervous stuff, it's CC.
It's Creative Commons 4 point O international license, share,
copy, redistribute. All of it.
Just give attribution to games. Omnivorous.
I also love this when the book tells you the book was designed
with the open Sands 9/11 and the guy soaks 2732 specimens.
Like it gives you like the typefaces and and stuff like
that. I love that, especially like
when we're doing promo, I like to like try to use a lot of the
that. Kind of thing.
I was like, I know you love that shake because you're making all
more promo. It's hard to make it match if
you don't know what they're using.
Dude, a lot of times I'll literally just straight up like
there's there's websites like I'll just, I'll just copy copy
paste a piece of font and then just go to website that's like a
typeset Finder and throw it in and be like oh it's you know,
fucking Garamond or some shit, you know.
And then there's the back cover, which is also fantastic.
I love the people falling down off of the dice stack.
It's really great. And and that's the end of the
book. You're after the good stuff,
Jim's diamonds, gold bullion, etcetera.
The job is a tabletop game where you can win, lose, you prepare,
and you, you commit a heist. That's it.
Fucking I. Love the ramping up, like die
Stack by the way. Like, I know we're right there.
And now I'm just like, I'm thinking like, oh God, like it's
like kind of tense and it just progressively just be way more
tense. And then you knock over the
first one, you're like, oh fuck, it's like when I add 2 every
time you're like, oh God. Really good, really good.
All right. So first scores of the year
clearly I mean it's a book, it's a hardcover book.
I don't care that it's 48 pages. This is one of those things
that's like Zine book that we talked about a lot of times like
a Zine can be up to like 70 ish pages and still be stapled
together. And if it's stapled together
realistically I guess we're we're we're reviewing it is is
that's the thing if I have a semi game Zine we're doing a
book review. Yeah.
If it's 70 pages, I think it's it's we're across into book
territory. This is like a very lean book,
but like this still is in book territory.
Yeah. Well and again it's the fact
that it's it also is physically a book as well like it kind of
it kind of forces itself into that category.
So the the 30 to 70 range is going to be a very, that's gonna
be where we're having to have discussion.
The thing is, like, what do the creators call it?
Do they call it a scene? You know, like.
Well, it says the Games Omniverse book.
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying.
It's like if the creators call it a book, then that also is
probably gonna. And also if if we do talk to a
creator beforehand that we're going to review their game, like
we'll ask like we've asked creators before.
We're like, this could be a scene, it could well, we could
do a full book review. What do you want?
And they almost always say, I give me the full fucking Monty,
you know. And so we do, we give it to
them. So especially if you listen to
our year end review for 2023 and if you didn't go check it out,
it's really good. We've been told, I also think
that yeah, we did a good job, apparently better than last
year, someone said. And we really appreciate the the
kind words about that. So we have 5 metrics for books,
10 points each. Five is bang average, nothing
good or nothing bad. Max score of 50, highest we've
ever given us like a 44. We do art layout, which is just
the like layout, as in like how it looks, not necessarily how it
works. Quality, quantity.
All this stuff for art usability is the layout.
How it works, Is it readable? Is it hyperlink?
Does it bookmark? Do the maps work?
Do the character sheets work? All that kind of stuff.
Rule set? Do we like the rule set?
Is it good if it's adapted? Is it adapted?
Well, Originality, it could be setting, could be rules, could
be anything. It's just whatever level of
originality the game might have and value is the bang for your
buck. Not only the the book itself,
but does it come with character sheets, third party licenses,
extra content, online generators, all that shit, So
art and layout. My goodness, we're starting the
year real strong on this. And this is a strong first art
and layout. It's so good.
And you know what's interesting
is if you compare this to something like Hell Knight, for
example. Absolutely fucking love the art
and layout that it's insane, it's fantastic.
But this is readable, you know. It is readable, that is, which
drops the usability a little bit handmade, you know so.
Oh, it it it it it's lack of readability was was counteracted
by how fucking awesome it was and the fact that you got a
readable PDF later. But the fact that this one is
artistically fantastic and readable is great.
I mean, gun tio fucking my God dude.
This book is absolutely stunning.
I mean, what are you thinking? I mean, there's art in it.
It's poster style collage. This is if you're gonna do
public domain art, this is how to fucking do it.
You put it into a complete style of your own.
It's so just. I think the layout's pretty
fantastic. I it's mostly like 2 column ish.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, kind of.
Yes, kind. Of, you know, yeah.
I think the like boxes on all the pages work really well.
They fit in really well. They don't feel like they're
standing out. Your eyes are drawn to where
they're supposed to go. I mean, this is like a a really
very strong eight for me. I could, I could, I could be
convinced to go potentially higher.
Yeah, I mean I for me, this this, this scratched the 9 box
for me. I mean, I think, I I think I'm
good with a nine on this one. So yeah, I that's that's where I
was at. Because realistically when you
think of like artistically the art all the way through,
amazing. I love the layout, I love the
spreads, I love what they did with the halftone.
I think the consistency of the style all the way through where
every single page is just reinforcing the vibe over and
over and over again. Not just in the art, but also in
like the layout of the page as far as like the color of the
page, the icons used on the page, the split sometimes where
like half the page is red, half the page is white, half the page
is yellow, half the page is black.
I think it's it not only is the art great, but the way the
layout is done like you said. One of the things that I think
really elevates it from an 8 to an iron for me is the switch in
kind of motifs in the different kind of fit, like phases at the
book. Almost the basics are pretty a
little bit more reserved. The preparation phase bumps it
up and then you get to the referee section where so much of
it is like black. It has kind of a different vibe.
I think that the attention to detail on that really elevates
that to me. So for me, I think that I think
this is a pretty solid 9, if you're cool with that.
I'm super cool with that. Totally.
Yeah, right, Usability. It's a book.
It's super usable. The pages are thin.
It's split in a way unlike a lot of books we've read where like,
all of the shit you need for the players is in one section.
All the shit you need for the referee is in a different
section. You don't have to parse.
I know, it's only like it's less than 50 pages.
You don't, but you don't have to parse it.
And realistically you could print like 2-3 pages out of
this, including a crew sheet. And have everything you need as
a player to run the entire game. Period.
You don't really need anything outside of that.
Even just a plain sheet gives you enough.
Yeah, and you can get the sheet and you can print everything
out. And that's really cool.
It gives you these tools to use. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.
I mean, it it has bookmarks. It doesn't have hyperlinks.
I don't think it has a physical silk book ribbon, right?
No, but it's. I mean, it's only 48.
I know, so I know this right? This is a little bit.
Listen, this is the things we talk about when it comes to
usability. Yeah, no, I agree with you.
I agree with you. I do think.
I mean, even the printing of this is really beautiful.
It doesn't have a silk ribbon. But you can see like the there's
like a like this the like a little bit of like ribboning,
threading on the inside. It's not just like, you know,
held together by glue on the sheets.
It's such a well, like it's a good print.
This ain't this ain't POD is what I'm saying.
You know what I mean. I do think when we look at
usability though, we're hyperlink people.
We got to put out that hyperlink merch.
The lack of hyperlinks in this, I don't think it's as egregious
because of the size of the PDF. If you're 30 pages or less, it
doesn't bother me at all really. If it's not hyperlink, it's such
a short document but I and it is bookmarked but I I I do think
the step up in PDFs to actually hyperlinking and there are a lot
of references to other pages I think would be nice to be able.
To click the page like, yeah, you're right, the hyperlink
maybe doesn't bother me, but like the fact that there are
page references that are hyperlink to my bro, that's that
is kind of. Yeah, I don't remember if a lot
of a lot of the other games I remember stuff has hyperlink
PDFs or not, I don't remember. Either.
I mean, I'm pretty sure there's no positive mouse runner is like
online tools for this either. Not that I don't know.
There's a need for it. There's no What would you do?
Like randomly generated character?
They're all there. You don't do anything to do
characterization. Either, you know.
Yeah, I mean, I I guess, but I think that's So what do.
You think of reusability, I mean.
I think it's. I think it's about average.
I mean it's I I wish it had hyperlinks, but it does have
like I said, it does have bookmarks.
I think that the the book is laid out in a way that makes a
ton of sense. So that that clearly adds to
usability. That's why.
That's one of the reasons that we broke usability away from
layout and move layout to a completely visual thing is
because there are so many books where we're like, the layout
looks great, but like I have to flip to 10 different sections
just to understand the rules of the fucking game.
So I think the content is laid out incredibly well.
Everything you need is highlighted in the ways that you
need it. There's.
When I finished reading this book, I had no question on how
it worked, and I think that the layout and the way it was
designed as far as the usability really fed into that.
So I don't know. I'm probably like a yeah, 7:00,
I was gonna say seven. Yeah.
And you held up fingers that also said seven.
So I completely agree with you on that.
So seven for usability. I mean hyperlinks would have
bumped into an 8. I think that again like the the
way the content is laid out this in in such a short book is
important and it's great. Not rule set.
Yeah. Great great rule set.
Very very simple 2D62-D62-D. Next week's success.
I don't know if you know this about me.
I kind of like 2 to 6 make success and I love that they
reinforce over and over again, yes, but I love that they
reinforce over and over again. Push the narrative.
I think it's fantastic. Again, I don't want to play a
heist game at all, but I would play the shit out of this.
I can't think of something that I would change about this.
The only thing that, if I had to be nitpicky as fuck, would be a
slight bit like one more line about what about the optional
heat? There's only the only thing
where I'm like, I would just pick, but if there was a maybe a
little bit more explanation of which one was he and which one
wasn't, it's the only thing. But I mean, other than that,
fuck. Like, what are you thinking?
I mean. I think if you know I love a
minimalist game, this has no SAT.
There's no HP. You know, you roll, and if you
fail, you add to the stack. And then if you fail, you have
to like, OK, So what are you going to do instead?
Narratively. And I'm like, that's pretty
good. That's pretty cool.
That's the thing about this is it's like in in the, in the in
the context of genre discussion and you know, etcetera,
etcetera. This is a story game hard like
this to me plays way more like Fiasco than it does like D&D,
you know? So, like, it makes sense.
There's no stats, there's no HP, there's none of that bullshit.
It's all narrative and it's all designed to be improv and
narrative. So you know, it's not relating
it to D&D as much as like I said, relating it to Fiasco.
So, like, yeah, I So what do you think?
No. What do you think?
Give me a number. You feel?
Yeah, you're you're feeling passionate.
I want to hear A10. No, I'm kidding.
No. For what it is and what it does,
I it's the best heist game I've ever read.
So for that, that's important. You know what I mean?
And then this, you know, there's some subjective aspects of this
where I'm like, yeah, but I love combat games, but like I would
play the shit out of this. I'm I'm between an 8:00 and 9:00
on this pretty easily. What are your thoughts?
I'm let's go with an 8. OK, yeah, I I don't know.
There's nothing you could really change about it.
I don't know either, but I'm feeling that's where I'm that's
where my gut's telling me so. Yeah, like I said, I was between
an 8 and a nine on this. And yeah, I mean, we've only
ever given 110, so nine is the highest you can go and eight I
think I that's probably just our subjectivity on like style and
whatnot. But yeah, absolutely, this is.
This could easily be a nine on a different day where we're not as
tired. Originality.
I mean, fuck, what do you, what do you, what do you do?
I mean, let's talk about art wise, layout and everything like
that. Originality the the 70s like.
Heist thing. Insane.
The style of game two like this
is straight up narrative heist game in exactly the way that we
both actually like heists. Like, name me another game that
does this and I guarantee if someone says heist, a lot of
people are gonna say Blades in the dark, Blades in the dark,
Ain't this Blaze and dark again. I don't think that rule system
is designed to do what it wants to do.
And this does rule system. Every aspect of it feeds back
into itself constantly. What are your thoughts on
originality? I mean, yeah, it's a really
great heist game. It's not the only heist game, it
is a very specific style of heist game, although I would
also say it's pretty open to interpretation as well.
But it really is this like call back to these classic heist
movies in a way that other heist games aren't really, they're
they they just do it differently.
So I think this kind of stands on its own as its own thing.
Although one thing I haven't read Honey Heist.
So could be the same game for all I know.
I love a game that I can play Frank Ocean, and you know,
that's all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, me, A towel.
I'm Dirty Dancing. Yeah, that's I'd like.
I'm going to be imagining Frank Ocean leading a heist gang.
Yeah, yeah, poorly at Long Island over.
Yeah, Earl Sweatshirt. I think it's like a like, you
know, I think, I think it's like an 8 again for me, for
originality. OK, so here's the thing.
Either rule set or originality, one of these is a nine pick one.
No, you pick one. I I I'm good with either of
those. So all right.
I got I got mush brain today. My brain's my brain's extra.
Extra soft today and extra. We're going, we're going. 9 on
rule set Because honestly, here's the thing, with rule set,
I can't think of anything else that I want to do.
I think for what this does, it's perfect.
Like I I. Wouldn't add anything to it, so.
No, and I wouldn't take anything away.
There's not a single thing I would take away originality.
I think this is a solid eight. Other heist games exist but not
in in the style of this. There I there's another there's
not a game out there that can make that lets me play.
You know Ocean's 11. And again we grew up in the age
of fucking heist movies and of of remakes of of heist movies
and they're great Value wise. I don't much like most of games.
I'm never it's just not expensive.
You're not happen to be looking it up, are you?
Really? Not expensive, I.
Mean I bought 2 and didn't really think about.
It, it's €25, that's what, 27? $27.00 and it's a thin.
It's a thin book. It's only 50, but it's a.
Gorgeous book. It's very, very pretty.
It's a nice a look on the shelf. It's nice to give you.
I mean, listen, I've seen people putting 50 page zines for $35
and wanting you to pay $15 for the PDF as well, $25 for the PDF
and the Zine of the quality of games.
I'm never yeah, value wise, this is fantastic.
You can print all the crew sheets, you can print everything
that you want. It's CCBY.
All you have to do is attribute, attribute.
I think as far as like not having a need for really
anything beyond that, the value on this is is pretty fucking
good. You know what I mean?
What are your thoughts? I think it's good.
I think it's a good price for what you're getting, you know?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Where where are you at? I don't know.
I I don't know. You know, I think it's a good
price you'll get. There's not really anything else
online for it, which I don't necessarily think it may be a
detriment for this game. I don't.
Think I'm saying there's nothing else you would want or need.
Yeah, yeah, so have you. Like they give you like 6 brief
examples in the book. It's very true.
I mean, I think another again, it's a strong eight, you know.
Yeah, I think it's a strong, I think it's a strong eight.
I mean, just 'cause it doesn't need more, doesn't mean that,
like games that like have more don't deserve higher.
But I think that's an easy, that's an easy eight for me.
So realistically, I mean if this was hyperlinked, the lowest
score on it would be and eight. This is immediately like in the
running for for top game of the year at the end of the year and
I think it absolutely fucking deserves it.
I I think for what this game is, this to me is reminiscent of
what we thought about 9 lives to to Valhalla in a way that like
it's perfect for what it is. I very much agree.
I was actually thinking that a little bit ago.
I'm like, it's very much the same kind of minimalist way.
It's just really good at doing a thing, you know?
Yeah and if you're if you're if you do that thing well then then
you're killing it. So that's a 41 on the first
review of the year from games Omniverse product.
Andre Navola fantastic game. I would love to play.
I would love to play this. I really hope we can get this
stream again starting strong. I imagine unless some fucking
bangers come out, this is going to be in a top five.
Multiple ones at the end of the year.
My gosh, will this be in the art and layout One at the end of the
year at least. Great game, Love it.
Have no idea what's coming up next on the docket.
Our January is jam fucking packed and February with Zemo
and everything is going to be just a stack, so expect to shill
out episodes I think we have. Maybe I was going to take.
All of February off and you can just handle Zemo on your own, so
there you go. I I generally think we have 10
to 12 episodes planned just for January so far and that's not
even touching on Zemo even though some of those are prepped
for Zemo that are coming out like the last week or two.
So expect a lot of weekly scroll.
Again, thank you everyone so much for the end of last year.
We really want to start this year strong and hit hard.
We are going to do. We said we're going to do less
interviews and we have like 10 planned.
But after Zemo and even through Zemo, what we would love to do
is consistently get back to doing more games.
We had fewer games than we kind of wanted to last year and a lot
more interviews. We, we.
Regardless of what we do, I would like to make sure we get
at least three, if not all four every month so we can end the
year on like 50-50 fucking games, you know?
And I'll be down for that. I it's funny because we've been
doing some interviews and I've been like, yeah, I want to do
less interviews. And then we did, you know, the
games on the nervous interview. I'm like, damn, that was really
good. We should do some more.
Yeah, I really think we're just gonna be a little bit more picky
about it. And I do think that we should do
a little bit, lend a little bit more stuff to our monthly
crowdfunding thing where we can talk about people's projects,
where we might love them and their projects.
But as far as our schedule and our time, I do wanna be a little
bit more. I want to take care of me in
2024, you know what I mean? So like, I'm not going to
sacrifice sleep as much when we can address projects otherwise.
So I mean but if you're if you're fucking Andre Naval,
we're going to talk to you. You know what I mean?
Like, you know there's some people you just can't say no to.
But again, thank you everyone for all the support from last
year. Thank you for your support
continuing forward into 2024. This was a banger first episode.
Expect more very soon. You're all amazing.
That's it. Love you too, buddy.