Love hearing about City of Mist. I am an old friend of Amit, its creator. We actually worked together 20 years ago on a ttrpg called Hidden Light, it was the first game we ever worked on, it was interesting but very unpolished so we never published it. We met through roleplaying, he run a campaign for us called... City of Mist, it turns out the idea for the game was brewing in him for a while
I was 4 years old when the D&D cartoon was on Saturday mornings. I was fully into action cartoons and loved it. I even had a couple of the D&D action figures, one of which, Strongheart, made an appearance on an episode. I believe he's on the 2024 Player's Handbook cover.
Firefly i always felt hit this weird side genre of gritty scifi. The best i know to call it is "Space Western" or "Sci fi Blues" Because it doesnt really align with a set of notions or tropes but more a vibe. And the closest to describing it is this wild west gritty by your bootstraps in space that blues music leans toward. Cowboy Bebop , and the early bits of Mandalorion season 1-2 leans so hard into this. I tend to love it whenever it shows up :D
Dark Angel was awesome, and it could have been so much more if it had gotten the ratings and budget it deserved. That show should have succeeded on the strength of Jessica Alba's performance alone!
I generally dislike established campaign settings such as the Forgotten Realms. I don't know the lore of the realms, which is dangerous when being a DM, because inevitably one of the players will chime in on the lore and say it works like X when I was planning Y. I prefer creating my own world and lore and I make it very general. I'll get more specific when the players enter and encounter more aspects of an area.
This x1000. I love Dragonlance to bits, but between "I might get a fact wrong" and "every square inch has already been covered in a book" it never felt like there was room for anything of my own.
I 100% agree with you. For my homebrew world I’ve done the main brush strokes and only start painting details in one of two situations. Either my players are headed down that path, or I’m personally interested in fleshing out that bit of lore.
Eberron is my go to for DnD. Love the world and the lore it does have, and I also love the mysteries and questions intentionally baked into the setting that allow room for creativity and storytelling.
Initially didn't think that I was fall in love the way I ultimately did with the eberron setting but after DDO was one of my first really long time played MMOs with some family and friends and my wife I really fell in love with it
The first half of Masters of the Universe: Revelations was a masterclass in nostalgia mining. It spoke directly to the original series, carried on the story, but allowed itself to evovle to a modern audience and sensibilities. It blew me away some of the choices they were making, and I loved it!-until the second half came out, and they (mostly) undid all the really cool advancements they made in the first 5 episodes, in an effort to reach back to the status quo (and in the process, fall prey to the worst mistakes of nostalgia mining :-S). In my heart, Teela took over as He-Man and Evil-Lyn became the new Sorceress of Greyskull. Thank you Dael for a Dark Angel reference! :-D
As for high vs low magic and the books TTRPG players read, look at the popularity of Brandon Sanderson series'ses, Name of the Winds series, and Wheel of Time series. These are in the top ten most read series on most websites, along with Tolkien, Game of Thrones and Chronicles of Narnia. There are many low magic and high magic settings among books but high magic is harder to do in TV and movies. As for what do the players like more, they like D&D because its the most popular and thus you can find players.
I played the one shot at the game store and enjoyed it. It uses the new rules, and I used it to get an idea of how those would work. I will say this: those magic items are very OP.
I was very young and watched the D&D cartoon every Saturday morning while it was on air. I knew of the show but not the game. I loved it, and I think a lot of young viewers did, but they produced less than 30 episodes, which back then was only 1 season. ***SPOILERS for Uni and the Hunt for the lost Horn*** I'm holding out that the free one-shot isn't the Venger adventure. Venger isn't the bad guy of the adventure, only makes an appearance at the end, serves only as a plot device, and is in no way interactable.
OK, I was a nerdy kid in the 80's and I *lived* for that D&D cartoon because that and Gummy Bears were the two high fantasy shows. I *do* remember it being incredibly spotty in terms of availability because it was still a controversial property at the time due to the lingering panic. It would run for a few weeks, and then it would get pulled because someone would complain and the network would stop airing it for a few months. Whenever I would see those kids climb into the Dungeons & Dragons ride mine cart my heart was filled with joy. To try to look back would be folly--nostalgia is a poison. But I would definitely try out the one-shot, and I would consider watching a quality reboot on Netflix or the like.
In reference to remarks at 17 minutes or so... one of the things I have lifted from weekly television for my DnD campaigns is the "Previously on..." model where I will highlight things that happened 8 sessions ago that I reasonably expect will come up this time. Conversely, just as the Recurring character / Plot device is about to reveal itself, you can describe a scene from earlier in the campaign in the way movies or television do to remind audiences of important events / folks from the past.
Regarding the polymorph question, most of these situations can be resolved by just following the fantasy of the spell or power. The fantasy of polymorph is that you turn into a sheep and gain it's hit points. When you're no longer a sheep, you loose the hit points.
I think that when you're using a pre-established setting, whether Forgotten Realms or Star Wars, you and your table have to be comfortable with changing events (like stopping Anakin's fall in the Clone Wars or defeating Palpatine) and not having perfect knowledge of the setting/deviating for the sake of the game or adventure. Edit: It's actually one of the things I don't like about the Avatar TTRPG. It heavily hints at not disrupting The Lore, so none of your adventures technically matter unless you're playing post-Legend of Korra (because that time period doesn't have lore yet).
21:12 I'm pretty sure Dale meant to say "ROOT", referring to the RPG about counter insurgent woodland creatures, and not "ROOTS", an RPG that should never be made based upon Alex Haley's award winning novel and miniseries based on the transatlantic slave trade. 😅😅😅
I might have " hacked " worldbuilding😂 How? I just make a fantasy version of the place where I live! Rip out ALL modern stuff like modern roads/ buildings etc. I make an overview map the non digital map maker tool way, of my municipality, also a few more zoomed in maps of locations with say a tavern or such, print it out. THEN I find either a hexagonal map roll or the hard fold brick map thingy with the left handed red dragonborn thats smokibg a pipe on the cover. I use some baking paper sheet or even cardboard to make exact hexagon. I place them on the printed up maps thats on A4 format. I will draw in hexagons using the cardboard shape. Then lastly , set together the areas and try to accurately mark forests, woods, lakes and convert/ even remove modern roads unto the plain white hexagonal maps. Some steps but worth it, IF you want hexagons. I recommend screenshotting of your pc desktop with the wanted map sizes, since its a bit fiddly printing/ copying directly. Try to get the measurement be it kilometers or miles etc in one corner of the picmap you want to print out
I think a big problem for tv and movies with high magic, is its hard to create a hurdle that isnt immediately overcome with an instant solution spell without it feeling like a deus ex machina or explaining the rules of the magic so it doesnt feel like a cop out that there isnt a spell like that already, especially if there is a main character well versed in magic. But if in a game a player has that instant solution spell, it feels rewarding because they chose to learn that spell not necessarily knowing it would come into play.
Just because I want to have my feedback out there. I listen to this podcast mainly for TTRPG news and the discussion around it. Listener questions are when I tend to listen a bit more lightly.
I think when it comes to detail, you really gotta look at what best serves the players you have. For many, I wouldn't spend ANY time building/defining the setting beyond a Jackson Polluck background of mish mashed colors. Because they have zero interest in anything beyond what their characters are interacting with/impacting through their actions. They aren't there for the story so much as realizing their "builds" potential. However, for a smaller sect of players, having a robust setting truly entices them to interact with it on a deeper level. For instance, the Forgotten Realms is both quite defined (history-wise), but also very open because much of it hasn't been developed or showcased in DECADES. Want to play a goliath? Have you heard of the Ordning? Want to play a necromancer? Have you heard of the Warlock's Den? It has so much history, BUT, that history is so remote, that as a DM you could spend 5 minutes looking at the history to inspire about 90% of your campaign. It feeds your imagination while not really making you feel locked in to so pre-determined setting choices. Again, it just really comes down to the type of player you DM for.
I really enjoy detailed settings. I love many settings, but Eberron is definitely my favorite. No other setting achieves "what would a world be like if D&D magic and creatures were real" like Eberron does. Everything in Eberron exists logically therein.
Honestly - players of ALL experience levels LOVE being told "This is a zombie apocalypse setting". Its my favorite 3-4 shot for introducing players to GURPS and every single time everyone has been excited.
I feel like the trouble with "Is D&D good for low fantasy" is that the response has to be "well, what do you mean by low fantasy?" Because for some people if there's a dragon or elf it's automatically high fantasy and for some it's low fantasy as long as only one or two people in the setting are called wizards (even if every other character is also clearly superhuman).
As far as world building goes and detail the beat book ive seen in this regard is explorers guide to wildemont. Its great every town and location has a description and plot hooks for various levels.
Ben 42:25 "rings of power, is that high magic?" Ben Ben Ben, "one ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them" . Forging it really cannot be considered low magic. 🧑🏫
The last question made me do a deep dive on the rules glossary in the new book, and I don't think losing temporary HP makes you do a save for concentration. Concentration says you make a save when you take damage Damage says it's the loss of HP And temporary HP specifically states it is not hp
In my experience as someone who has been trying to play 5e in a low magic setting for some time, you really need to cripple the 5e system in order to achieve the feel of low magic. Spells and supernatural super hero levels of power are too central to the design. So, I've been working on something just short of a total overhaul mod for the game to make it low magic for a while now. Like years. Completely redesigned magic system, overhaul to classes, ancestry, a wound system, and a dozen other tweaks.
@@dziooooo I've tried a few of them, including those mentioned. Not really for me. I'm interested in narrative gameplay, primarily, and those systems mostly emphasize lethality and the dungeon crawl. It's difficult to have a through narrative when you never have a character that lasts more than a few sessions. I also prefer a bit more crunch to my games, though I do think that the rulings not rules mindset is correct, at least according to my tastes. In the end, 5e--at least the core engine of 5e--is still my favorite system after playing about 20 different systems at this point (as much as it is in vogue to hate on it, criticize it, or say "people only play it because it's popular and don't know any better"). So I figured I'd just create my own apparatus and bolt it to the engine.
@@ChristopherRoss. Makes sense, if these are your preferences, I don't have a good suggestion that would be a great fit for narrative focus AND mechanical crunch AND low magic, out of the box.
I am excited but also worried for the Welcome to Nightvale RPG because I’m not sure I could capture the right uncanny valley yet charming vibe if I tried to run it.
As someone who was prime cartoon watching age in the 80s and grew up on TMNT and Transformers and GI Joe and Thundercats, I never watched a single episode of the DND cartoon.
Favorite non-TTRPG setting would be the world Christopher Nolan created that contains both Inception and Tenet. It is a world like our own, but contains this occluded dimensional layer of reality that only few bear witness to.
Big fan of fleshed out worlds just not the ones wotc touches. Anything goes, magic is for everyone is just boring. I need more vague and evocative magic. I don’t want everything to be a spell. Gimme abilities and skills EARNED through the story. Wanna get the Tough feat? Better find the underground fight club or monastery and get the ish kicked outta you for awhile
I was an American kid born in 84 and a huge nerd and I never heard of the D&D cartoon until I was in my 30s. Just a small anecdote. It wasn’t a smash hit from my experience.
There might be other examples but I think the instance of powerful, dangerous magic that Ben's talking about at 51:34 might be when Yennefer casts Burning Hands in a battle and it completely eliminates the opposing army like a chopper full of napalm. S1E8 ua-cam.com/video/IowS8DCuC7E/v-deo.html
A question about the kickstarter: How much are you leaning on the 2024 rules? My group is interested, but we play and will continue to play 2014 dnd. Will the original product be a better fit or is the 2024 aspect of the remaster only a small part? Im mostly worried about stuff like weapon mastery being a core feature also in grim hollow now, which is something i would not like to use..
The new Grim Hollow books are being designed around 5e 2024, and as with the new PHB it’s intended to be largely compatible with the 2014 version of the rules. If you don’t mind some minor translation (i.e some subclass features changing level based on class, or understanding the “bloodied” condition) the new books will be more fully featured than the original Grim Hollow core books.
I thought the discussion about sales was a little ridiculous... 3700 books probably only covers YT creators, who often have more than one copy. I went to a single local store to pick my copy and saw what was at least 100 packages there waiting to be picked. In 1 single store.
The grerat thing about D&D is how modular it is, ITs a fantays Kitchen SInK system, the problem is people think that means you are entitled to ALL of the options, OPTIONS are great but not all options fit into evey rcampaign setting.
I'd put my preferred setting to player creation ratio at like 75/25 to 90/10 in favor of the setting being in stone. The past has happened. The world exists, the players are there to change the future not the past (unless you get time travel going, but that's on you). Give players enough space to ask for "Oh I wanna be from a tiny fishing village over here" and add that, but don't go adding a war god if your setting doesn't have a war god. In my setting warlock powers come from a handful set of specific beings and there are no other ways. If you want a character with a different warlock story save that warlock for a different campaign. Here we've got a group of outer realm beings and those are the patron choices. I've been fiddling with an original system and its 100% built on its setting. I've given huge flexibility in the character creation, so the trade off is that the players have a more specific world to fit into. Like I have a warning about having multiple demigods in the party, part of it is a mechanical system and part is "the setting really shouldn't have this many major demigods running around" so the DM is encouraged to increase the danger and that it will warp the world quickly because of these choices.
RE: the Polymorph clarification. When rules exploits come up in game talk or play, be very direct that you don't want to use them and that it would be helpful to warn the rest of the group outside of gameplay. Reinforce positive behaviour!
I’m Gen X and was the perfect age for the D&D TV show. I loved it as a kid. I couldn’t find anyone to play with for years, but I was all into that cartoon, pick-a-path adventure books, etc. I am a weirdo of a certain sort and I am largely anti-nostalgic. Most of my peers are eating it up and I kinda hate it. I want new things. They can be riffs on old things but they need to do something seriously inventive. It feels kind of lazy and trying to get easy money from suckers. But that is very flavored by my anti-nostalgism. Pretty sure that’s not a word.
I think it requires too much work to make dnd 5e work for anything but heroic high fantasy. You have to change so many things that you are better off just playing a system designed for whatever style you want.
Anyone who plays on roll 20 or similar at this point has folders and folders of homebrew, so much so that there’s no reason to switch to 2024 phb because they “fixed “ the 2014 issues, so it would be a much more jarring switch. No need to make a side jump to a system that’s doing the thing they already did but in a different way. I’d wager those are typically the people that are against the new phb where pen and paper people love knowing they don’t have to look over a new players shoulder going “ don’t pick monk they won’t keep up, rangers are terrible just be a ranged fighter, if you’re gonna play a martial you’ll need great weapon master…” etc.
In my 40 year sof experience, modenr gamers dont want to play the wizarsd butr they ddo want to ALL play martial classes WITH magical abilities. They tend to want to be able to do a little bit of EVEYRHTING becuz the avg D&D player has ZERO cncedpt of TEAMW PORK, and knowing your role. You dont hav eot be good at eveyrhtring, jsut FILL YOUR NICHE! whihc is what ive always loved about D&D, , but i also love plaing in a bad and football as well. being a piec eof the machine that is greater than its sums. the NEw Gen also sees magic a SPOWERFUL when it fact its jsut another game \mechanic, AS WELL as players think they want MORE OPTIONS! when expeirence shows that the player sobsessed with mor eoptions ar etraditrionally the ones who nee dLESS options lol
When it comes to making game systems and how they tie into a setting, don't start with the idea that you are going to make a game system firbtgat setting. Make a game system that achieves a specific player experience that supports the theme and tone. D&D and other d20 games use a d20 roll and often add a number to skew results one way or another. This leads to more games where the players can live up to a super hero fantasy. Call of Cthulhu and other d100 games and skill point based have you roll under the number of points you've put into a specific skill on your character sheet to achieve a success. This means that unless you are heavily specialized in the specific thing you are trying, your odds of success are not that good. 2d6 games often use similar bonuses and penalties to their rolls that d20 games use, but 2d6 makes a natural bell curve of success and failure that a d20 never will. Almost any subsystem or niche mechanic can be tacked onto a base game system. If you need mechanics for vehicles, guns, lazers, social interactions, or whatever genre cliche is integral to the setting you're aiming for, then come up with those subsystems as needed, but the base game hascto be built on a solid foundation that begins with the most common die roll the players will make and the success rate of that roll.
"Bouncy Castle, Forgotten Realms D&D" makes me sadly grimace. If you don't judge it by years of WotC's lame ass supplements, the Forgotten Realms is neither cheesy nor generic. Whether you like it is subjective, as with all things; but the Realms are not generic. They have deep lore with very specific flavors. If you feel the need to shoehorn in every goofy species, adventure path, etc... that WotC has released, sure it gets watered down and feels generic. That's not the real Realms, to me.
as upsetting as it is to say, Harry Potter is the most popular fantasy setting in the world. it's not high magic or low magic, its what you do with it.
This seemed like an interesting premise for discussion until the guy who makes his living designing RPGs and creating UA-cam videos decided he needed to go on an anti-capitalism diatribe. Your entire vocation is dependent on capitalism my friend.
WOTC promotes the MAGIC of the game as it attracts newer players but LOW MAGIC is a bettert game, for the DM and for a more gournded blaanced game. You can have a caste rin the group FULL of CASTERS. Not only does it remove any gorunded relaity and believeabilty but a gourp full of caster sis MUCH harder for a DM to balance out. I dont mind a high fantasy game,m AT ALL! my only real problem is the newer generation thinks its THE ONLY way to play the game. Players cant come into the game expecting a Wtcher, GOT, Lord of the Rings atmnosphere but no one is playing a human and everyone is casting spells, Those genres are LOW MAGIC in comparison. Magic is AWEOSMe, every should pay a caster at some point, just not all at the same time.
Thank you, Dael. Your Dark Angel reference makes my old heart happy.
Dark Angel getting some love? :O i knew Dael was my favorite :D
great discussion as usual!
Love hearing about City of Mist. I am an old friend of Amit, its creator. We actually worked together 20 years ago on a ttrpg called Hidden Light, it was the first game we ever worked on, it was interesting but very unpolished so we never published it. We met through roleplaying, he run a campaign for us called... City of Mist, it turns out the idea for the game was brewing in him for a while
I loved Dark Angel. It was a great series.
I was 4 years old when the D&D cartoon was on Saturday mornings. I was fully into action cartoons and loved it. I even had a couple of the D&D action figures, one of which, Strongheart, made an appearance on an episode. I believe he's on the 2024 Player's Handbook cover.
I watched the d&d cartoon as kid and loved. It was a product of the times. I think it could be good if they did a revival similar to netflix Voltron.
Firefly i always felt hit this weird side genre of gritty scifi. The best i know to call it is "Space Western" or "Sci fi Blues"
Because it doesnt really align with a set of notions or tropes but more a vibe. And the closest to describing it is this wild west gritty by your bootstraps in space that blues music leans toward.
Cowboy Bebop , and the early bits of Mandalorion season 1-2 leans so hard into this. I tend to love it whenever it shows up :D
Dark Angel was awesome, and it could have been so much more if it had gotten the ratings and budget it deserved. That show should have succeeded on the strength of Jessica Alba's performance alone!
I was obsessed with that show
It was Jensen Ackles big break too, before Supernatural :)
@@zTom_oh man, I completely forgot this was him!
I generally dislike established campaign settings such as the Forgotten Realms. I don't know the lore of the realms, which is dangerous when being a DM, because inevitably one of the players will chime in on the lore and say it works like X when I was planning Y. I prefer creating my own world and lore and I make it very general. I'll get more specific when the players enter and encounter more aspects of an area.
This x1000. I love Dragonlance to bits, but between "I might get a fact wrong" and "every square inch has already been covered in a book" it never felt like there was room for anything of my own.
I 100% agree with you. For my homebrew world I’ve done the main brush strokes and only start painting details in one of two situations. Either my players are headed down that path, or I’m personally interested in fleshing out that bit of lore.
Its so general but too much at the same time that you get a stronger flavor by making something yourself.
Eberron best setting also would love seeing Keith Baker on here if you could get him
Eberron is my go to for DnD. Love the world and the lore it does have, and I also love the mysteries and questions intentionally baked into the setting that allow room for creativity and storytelling.
Initially didn't think that I was fall in love the way I ultimately did with the eberron setting but after DDO was one of my first really long time played MMOs with some family and friends and my wife I really fell in love with it
The first half of Masters of the Universe: Revelations was a masterclass in nostalgia mining. It spoke directly to the original series, carried on the story, but allowed itself to evovle to a modern audience and sensibilities. It blew me away some of the choices they were making, and I loved it!-until the second half came out, and they (mostly) undid all the really cool advancements they made in the first 5 episodes, in an effort to reach back to the status quo (and in the process, fall prey to the worst mistakes of nostalgia mining :-S). In my heart, Teela took over as He-Man and Evil-Lyn became the new Sorceress of Greyskull.
Thank you Dael for a Dark Angel reference! :-D
As for high vs low magic and the books TTRPG players read, look at the popularity of Brandon Sanderson series'ses, Name of the Winds series, and Wheel of Time series. These are in the top ten most read series on most websites, along with Tolkien, Game of Thrones and Chronicles of Narnia. There are many low magic and high magic settings among books but high magic is harder to do in TV and movies. As for what do the players like more, they like D&D because its the most popular and thus you can find players.
I played the one shot at the game store and enjoyed it. It uses the new rules, and I used it to get an idea of how those would work. I will say this: those magic items are very OP.
The dieselpunk aesthetics of The Rocketeer and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow could be a fun setting. Tomorrow City RPG may scratch that itch.
This is an adventure based on one of the episodes with a rival to Venger stealing unicorn horns.
I was very young and watched the D&D cartoon every Saturday morning while it was on air. I knew of the show but not the game. I loved it, and I think a lot of young viewers did, but they produced less than 30 episodes, which back then was only 1 season.
***SPOILERS for Uni and the Hunt for the lost Horn***
I'm holding out that the free one-shot isn't the Venger adventure. Venger isn't the bad guy of the adventure, only makes an appearance at the end, serves only as a plot device, and is in no way interactable.
OK, I was a nerdy kid in the 80's and I *lived* for that D&D cartoon because that and Gummy Bears were the two high fantasy shows. I *do* remember it being incredibly spotty in terms of availability because it was still a controversial property at the time due to the lingering panic. It would run for a few weeks, and then it would get pulled because someone would complain and the network would stop airing it for a few months. Whenever I would see those kids climb into the Dungeons & Dragons ride mine cart my heart was filled with joy. To try to look back would be folly--nostalgia is a poison. But I would definitely try out the one-shot, and I would consider watching a quality reboot on Netflix or the like.
I have the D&D cartoon on DVD, I don't know that I've taken the time to watch all of the episodes even now, but I still have a soft spot for it.
In reference to remarks at 17 minutes or so... one of the things I have lifted from weekly television for my DnD campaigns is the "Previously on..." model where I will highlight things that happened 8 sessions ago that I reasonably expect will come up this time.
Conversely, just as the Recurring character / Plot device is about to reveal itself, you can describe a scene from earlier in the campaign in the way movies or television do to remind audiences of important events / folks from the past.
I was thrilled when after I ordered Crooked Moon, I saw Shawns name in the credits.
Dark Angel for the win!
Regarding the polymorph question, most of these situations can be resolved by just following the fantasy of the spell or power. The fantasy of polymorph is that you turn into a sheep and gain it's hit points. When you're no longer a sheep, you loose the hit points.
I think that when you're using a pre-established setting, whether Forgotten Realms or Star Wars, you and your table have to be comfortable with changing events (like stopping Anakin's fall in the Clone Wars or defeating Palpatine) and not having perfect knowledge of the setting/deviating for the sake of the game or adventure.
Edit: It's actually one of the things I don't like about the Avatar TTRPG. It heavily hints at not disrupting The Lore, so none of your adventures technically matter unless you're playing post-Legend of Korra (because that time period doesn't have lore yet).
21:12 I'm pretty sure Dale meant to say "ROOT", referring to the RPG about counter insurgent woodland creatures, and not "ROOTS", an RPG that should never be made based upon Alex Haley's award winning novel and miniseries based on the transatlantic slave trade. 😅😅😅
I might have " hacked " worldbuilding😂 How? I just make a fantasy version of the place where I live! Rip out ALL modern stuff like modern roads/ buildings etc. I make an overview map the non digital map maker tool way, of my municipality, also a few more zoomed in maps of locations with say a tavern or such, print it out. THEN I find either a hexagonal map roll or the hard fold brick map thingy with the left handed red dragonborn thats smokibg a pipe on the cover. I use some baking paper sheet or even cardboard to make exact hexagon. I place them on the printed up maps thats on A4 format. I will draw in hexagons using the cardboard shape. Then lastly , set together the areas and try to accurately mark forests, woods, lakes and convert/ even remove modern roads unto the plain white hexagonal maps. Some steps but worth it, IF you want hexagons. I recommend screenshotting of your pc desktop with the wanted map sizes, since its a bit fiddly printing/ copying directly. Try to get the measurement be it kilometers or miles etc in one corner of the picmap you want to print out
Completely agree that a more defined a setting is, the less autonomy you have to tell your own stories within it.
F*CK, I know the Laundry Files! It IS good.
I think a big problem for tv and movies with high magic, is its hard to create a hurdle that isnt immediately overcome with an instant solution spell without it feeling like a deus ex machina or explaining the rules of the magic so it doesnt feel like a cop out that there isnt a spell like that already, especially if there is a main character well versed in magic.
But if in a game a player has that instant solution spell, it feels rewarding because they chose to learn that spell not necessarily knowing it would come into play.
Just because I want to have my feedback out there. I listen to this podcast mainly for TTRPG news and the discussion around it. Listener questions are when I tend to listen a bit more lightly.
I think when it comes to detail, you really gotta look at what best serves the players you have. For many, I wouldn't spend ANY time building/defining the setting beyond a Jackson Polluck background of mish mashed colors. Because they have zero interest in anything beyond what their characters are interacting with/impacting through their actions. They aren't there for the story so much as realizing their "builds" potential.
However, for a smaller sect of players, having a robust setting truly entices them to interact with it on a deeper level. For instance, the Forgotten Realms is both quite defined (history-wise), but also very open because much of it hasn't been developed or showcased in DECADES. Want to play a goliath? Have you heard of the Ordning? Want to play a necromancer? Have you heard of the Warlock's Den? It has so much history, BUT, that history is so remote, that as a DM you could spend 5 minutes looking at the history to inspire about 90% of your campaign. It feeds your imagination while not really making you feel locked in to so pre-determined setting choices.
Again, it just really comes down to the type of player you DM for.
I really enjoy detailed settings. I love many settings, but Eberron is definitely my favorite. No other setting achieves "what would a world be like if D&D magic and creatures were real" like Eberron does. Everything in Eberron exists logically therein.
Honestly - players of ALL experience levels LOVE being told "This is a zombie apocalypse setting". Its my favorite 3-4 shot for introducing players to GURPS and every single time everyone has been excited.
I feel like the trouble with "Is D&D good for low fantasy" is that the response has to be "well, what do you mean by low fantasy?" Because for some people if there's a dragon or elf it's automatically high fantasy and for some it's low fantasy as long as only one or two people in the setting are called wizards (even if every other character is also clearly superhuman).
I have a lot of Free League, love their books, as with the "Witcher Watch" would love to hear a little Free League drop every now and then.
Dael proppin' my home town on that hat.
As far as world building goes and detail the beat book ive seen in this regard is explorers guide to wildemont. Its great every town and location has a description and plot hooks for various levels.
Ben 42:25 "rings of power, is that high magic?"
Ben Ben Ben, "one ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them" . Forging it really cannot be considered low magic. 🧑🏫
The last question made me do a deep dive on the rules glossary in the new book, and I don't think losing temporary HP makes you do a save for concentration.
Concentration says you make a save when you take damage
Damage says it's the loss of HP
And temporary HP specifically states it is not hp
Aus and NZ only got 1000 exclusive cover PHBs between us.
Gonna be lots of tearfully unfulfilled preorders.
In my experience as someone who has been trying to play 5e in a low magic setting for some time, you really need to cripple the 5e system in order to achieve the feel of low magic. Spells and supernatural super hero levels of power are too central to the design.
So, I've been working on something just short of a total overhaul mod for the game to make it low magic for a while now. Like years. Completely redesigned magic system, overhaul to classes, ancestry, a wound system, and a dozen other tweaks.
Not to be That Person, but it really sounds like you'd have a great time with one of the low-magic OSR games, like Cairn or Shadowdark?
@@dziooooo I've tried a few of them, including those mentioned. Not really for me. I'm interested in narrative gameplay, primarily, and those systems mostly emphasize lethality and the dungeon crawl. It's difficult to have a through narrative when you never have a character that lasts more than a few sessions. I also prefer a bit more crunch to my games, though I do think that the rulings not rules mindset is correct, at least according to my tastes.
In the end, 5e--at least the core engine of 5e--is still my favorite system after playing about 20 different systems at this point (as much as it is in vogue to hate on it, criticize it, or say "people only play it because it's popular and don't know any better"). So I figured I'd just create my own apparatus and bolt it to the engine.
@@ChristopherRoss. Makes sense, if these are your preferences, I don't have a good suggestion that would be a great fit for narrative focus AND mechanical crunch AND low magic, out of the box.
I am excited but also worried for the Welcome to Nightvale RPG because I’m not sure I could capture the right uncanny valley yet charming vibe if I tried to run it.
Supernatural and Charmed are soooooooooooooo good
As someone who was prime cartoon watching age in the 80s and grew up on TMNT and Transformers and GI Joe and Thundercats, I never watched a single episode of the DND cartoon.
Favorite non-TTRPG setting would be the world Christopher Nolan created that contains both Inception and Tenet. It is a world like our own, but contains this occluded dimensional layer of reality that only few bear witness to.
Big fan of fleshed out worlds just not the ones wotc touches. Anything goes, magic is for everyone is just boring. I need more vague and evocative magic. I don’t want everything to be a spell. Gimme abilities and skills EARNED through the story. Wanna get the Tough feat? Better find the underground fight club or monastery and get the ish kicked outta you for awhile
Ben Byrnes looks beautiful today. (as does everyone else, but ben especially)
I was an American kid born in 84 and a huge nerd and I never heard of the D&D cartoon until I was in my 30s. Just a small anecdote. It wasn’t a smash hit from my experience.
There might be other examples but I think the instance of powerful, dangerous magic that Ben's talking about at 51:34 might be when Yennefer casts Burning Hands in a battle and it completely eliminates the opposing army like a chopper full of napalm. S1E8 ua-cam.com/video/IowS8DCuC7E/v-deo.html
I remember Dark Angel!
A question about the kickstarter:
How much are you leaning on the 2024 rules? My group is interested, but we play and will continue to play 2014 dnd.
Will the original product be a better fit or is the 2024 aspect of the remaster only a small part?
Im mostly worried about stuff like weapon mastery being a core feature also in grim hollow now, which is something i would not like to use..
The new Grim Hollow books are being designed around 5e 2024, and as with the new PHB it’s intended to be largely compatible with the 2014 version of the rules. If you don’t mind some minor translation (i.e some subclass features changing level based on class, or understanding the “bloodied” condition) the new books will be more fully featured than the original Grim Hollow core books.
@@GhostfirePodcasts alright, that sounds great. You have me as a backer then!
Wonder if they all know that the FireFly setting is part of the Aliens universe.
Paranoia is a setting inspired by Kafka, Orwell, and the Marx Brothers
I thought the discussion about sales was a little ridiculous... 3700 books probably only covers YT creators, who often have more than one copy. I went to a single local store to pick my copy and saw what was at least 100 packages there waiting to be picked. In 1 single store.
The grerat thing about D&D is how modular it is, ITs a fantays Kitchen SInK system, the problem is people think that means you are entitled to ALL of the options, OPTIONS are great but not all options fit into evey rcampaign setting.
I'd put my preferred setting to player creation ratio at like 75/25 to 90/10 in favor of the setting being in stone. The past has happened. The world exists, the players are there to change the future not the past (unless you get time travel going, but that's on you).
Give players enough space to ask for "Oh I wanna be from a tiny fishing village over here" and add that, but don't go adding a war god if your setting doesn't have a war god. In my setting warlock powers come from a handful set of specific beings and there are no other ways. If you want a character with a different warlock story save that warlock for a different campaign. Here we've got a group of outer realm beings and those are the patron choices.
I've been fiddling with an original system and its 100% built on its setting. I've given huge flexibility in the character creation, so the trade off is that the players have a more specific world to fit into. Like I have a warning about having multiple demigods in the party, part of it is a mechanical system and part is "the setting really shouldn't have this many major demigods running around" so the DM is encouraged to increase the danger and that it will warp the world quickly because of these choices.
RE: the Polymorph clarification. When rules exploits come up in game talk or play, be very direct that you don't want to use them and that it would be helpful to warn the rest of the group outside of gameplay. Reinforce positive behaviour!
I’m Gen X and was the perfect age for the D&D TV show. I loved it as a kid. I couldn’t find anyone to play with for years, but I was all into that cartoon, pick-a-path adventure books, etc.
I am a weirdo of a certain sort and I am largely anti-nostalgic. Most of my peers are eating it up and I kinda hate it. I want new things. They can be riffs on old things but they need to do something seriously inventive. It feels kind of lazy and trying to get easy money from suckers. But that is very flavored by my anti-nostalgism. Pretty sure that’s not a word.
DARK ANGEL MENTIONED!!!
Yea. Book fantasy the most popular are like lotr, Harry Potter, Brandon Sanderson, Eragon and more
13:30 So you mean Traveller?
High magic fantasy film and television requires a higher budget than low magic.
I enjoy settings designed to be expansive like TES and Warhammer Fantasy.
I think it requires too much work to make dnd 5e work for anything but heroic high fantasy. You have to change so many things that you are better off just playing a system designed for whatever style you want.
But nobody gave their thoughts on AI this week!
@5:30 Oh man. Stuck in Honolulu?
Firefly is one of my favorites but it is not unique, it is just Star Wars from Han's perspective rather than Luke's.
❤❤❤
Dael mentioned Power Rangers!!!! What????
Anyone who plays on roll 20 or similar at this point has folders and folders of homebrew, so much so that there’s no reason to switch to 2024 phb because they “fixed “ the 2014 issues, so it would be a much more jarring switch. No need to make a side jump to a system that’s doing the thing they already did but in a different way. I’d wager those are typically the people that are against the new phb where pen and paper people love knowing they don’t have to look over a new players shoulder going “ don’t pick monk they won’t keep up, rangers are terrible just be a ranged fighter, if you’re gonna play a martial you’ll need great weapon master…” etc.
In my 40 year sof experience, modenr gamers dont want to play the wizarsd butr they ddo want to ALL play martial classes WITH magical abilities. They tend to want to be able to do a little bit of EVEYRHTING becuz the avg D&D player has ZERO cncedpt of TEAMW PORK, and knowing your role. You dont hav eot be good at eveyrhtring, jsut FILL YOUR NICHE! whihc is what ive always loved about D&D, , but i also love plaing in a bad and football as well. being a piec eof the machine that is greater than its sums. the NEw Gen also sees magic a SPOWERFUL when it fact its jsut another game \mechanic, AS WELL as players think they want MORE OPTIONS! when expeirence shows that the player sobsessed with mor eoptions ar etraditrionally the ones who nee dLESS options lol
When it comes to making game systems and how they tie into a setting, don't start with the idea that you are going to make a game system firbtgat setting. Make a game system that achieves a specific player experience that supports the theme and tone.
D&D and other d20 games use a d20 roll and often add a number to skew results one way or another. This leads to more games where the players can live up to a super hero fantasy.
Call of Cthulhu and other d100 games and skill point based have you roll under the number of points you've put into a specific skill on your character sheet to achieve a success. This means that unless you are heavily specialized in the specific thing you are trying, your odds of success are not that good.
2d6 games often use similar bonuses and penalties to their rolls that d20 games use, but 2d6 makes a natural bell curve of success and failure that a d20 never will.
Almost any subsystem or niche mechanic can be tacked onto a base game system. If you need mechanics for vehicles, guns, lazers, social interactions, or whatever genre cliche is integral to the setting you're aiming for, then come up with those subsystems as needed, but the base game hascto be built on a solid foundation that begins with the most common die roll the players will make and the success rate of that roll.
"Bouncy Castle, Forgotten Realms D&D" makes me sadly grimace. If you don't judge it by years of WotC's lame ass supplements, the Forgotten Realms is neither cheesy nor generic.
Whether you like it is subjective, as with all things; but the Realms are not generic. They have deep lore with very specific flavors. If you feel the need to shoehorn in every goofy species, adventure path, etc... that WotC has released, sure it gets watered down and feels generic. That's not the real Realms, to me.
as upsetting as it is to say, Harry Potter is the most popular fantasy setting in the world. it's not high magic or low magic, its what you do with it.
This seemed like an interesting premise for discussion until the guy who makes his living designing RPGs and creating UA-cam videos decided he needed to go on an anti-capitalism diatribe.
Your entire vocation is dependent on capitalism my friend.
WOTC promotes the MAGIC of the game as it attracts newer players but LOW MAGIC is a bettert game, for the DM and for a more gournded blaanced game. You can have a caste rin the group FULL of CASTERS. Not only does it remove any gorunded relaity and believeabilty but a gourp full of caster sis MUCH harder for a DM to balance out. I dont mind a high fantasy game,m AT ALL! my only real problem is the newer generation thinks its THE ONLY way to play the game. Players cant come into the game expecting a Wtcher, GOT, Lord of the Rings atmnosphere but no one is playing a human and everyone is casting spells, Those genres are LOW MAGIC in comparison. Magic is AWEOSMe, every should pay a caster at some point, just not all at the same time.