Further to Dael's little comment regarding Harengon. Was anyone else disappointed that one of the Harengon thugs in Wild Beyond the Witch light wasn't a brute named Thumper?
Monster action improvements are very promising. This is one the strongest bits of Pathfinder 2e as a DM - the monsters all have unique flavourful stuff, even the minions.
For running video game stuff in TTRPGs - one of the best things I ever did was run a series of adventures set in the Dragon Age setting (Thedas) using D&D 4th edition. The way 4e was built is brilliantly designed to fit the vibes of DA.
Regarding the new stat blocks for monsters in 2024, I like them a lot, but I believe they made a small mistake with the incubus and the succubus, because they leaned a bit too much in stereotypes: the fiend boy as a cruel torturer and the fiend girl as a horny seductress. Instead of dividing it by male and female i would have given them forms (e.g. Form of Temptation and Form of Torment) so that you can have succubi seducing OR scaring the shit out of people with nightmares, and incubi focusing on damage OR being the bard representation of the Lower Planes XD
like the skeleton keys in ToA too. i forgot all about them. that area was pretty fun part of the game. Lettuce Pray....i was expecting you to offer to run a vegetales adventure dang, why the funko hate lol the Tiamat one is amazing :D
Forbes Magazine, one of the preeminent business news outlets (about 150 million consumers) ran an article in their Business/Entertainment section about the 4th Season renewal of The Legend of Vox Machina. That is pretty mainstream.
Madison Square Garden: indoor sports arena that seats 19,500. The Theater at Madison Square Garden: a stage located under the arena that seats up to 5,600.
I think the changes to Legend of Vox Machina circumvent the redundancy of casting resurrection in the actual D&D game. The changes make for a better story than the game mechanics provided.
27:07 Dael's discussion of the evolution of "mainstream" as a term was interesting because it makes me think of what knowledge is included when something gets market penetration. I wonder if the definition in part means something gets popular outside if its target demographic with folks who don't really know or care about its context. For instance, I was at a cookout over the summer when one of my non-gamer wife's good girlfriends asked me if I had heard of or watched a show she just found and loved called Vox Machina. She's a pretty mainstream interests person, but liked Vox Machina because she likes fantasy as a reading genre - she didn't know it had anything to do with D&D or Critical Role. And it was similar to the way I didn't know when the Wesley Snipes Blade movie came out back in the day that it was a comic book movie - I just thought vampires and the Goth aesthetic from the early 90s had hit Hollywood.
I did this with a player who basically wanted to play All Might. Worked with him and gave him several epic moments and it still wasn’t what he really wanted to play.
I feel called out! 😱 I always build character's from 1 to 20. I also adjust them several times as the game progresses, but unless the session before a level up is a complete surprise where my character doesn't make sense as I thought (which may happen), I like knowing where they're going so I can get the next level up done in like a minute. No spending any more precious game time on that stuff than I absolutely need, it's difficult enough to get 5 adults in a room to play and I'm here to play, not look ar my friends as they weigh and read options in the books. 😂
50:35 The discussion about character builds is interesting to me because it says something about approach to D&D. I've definitely played in campaigns where I decided to try a build that I saw on some UA-cam channel. But I didn't come to my GM and say I want to try build X or Y. When the group was talking about what we wanted to do, when it became obvious we needed a spellcaster, I said I can play a druid. Anybody mind if I play a turtleman? But it wasn't super relevant that it was a spore druid build that I found on a UA-cam channel.
I got the same email (twice) saying there was an error in processing payment for the DMG and that the order had been cancelled. The email had 'test' in front of the email address and it looked odd. I verified they had processed the payment in my bank account. Next day they sent an email saying it was emailed in error. I received the book just today from FedEx.
Taking a break from doom to enjoy GFG podcast: Any game where I feel like there is good, deep lore I would be interested in that RPG. For example, I do have the Dragon Age RPG which is mechanically NOT GREAT but if I could find people to play it with I'd give it another go because I'm comfy in that setting. Two others that come to mind readily? _Greedfall_ from Spiders could feasibly be made into a small-scale system, and I was *over the moon* earlier this year to learn that Magpie Games will be releasing a _Fallen London_ TTRPG which is something I've been wanting since the first time I experienced the 'neath. FWIW, I feel like I already mentioned it in this channel, but on my site I (and some friends) are doing salty book reports on novels -- everything from the classics to bad fanfic. As part of a project I've decided that I was going to re-read the _terrible_ Ravenloft novels from the 90s and.... well, hopefully my reviews are entertaining, but more than that I hope the new novel is better than those things were. 🤣 I also explore the problems of "how does this novel service the greater product that is D&D / Ravenloft" and .... it's honestly not a clean answer! Yellow Flags: Everything you guys said 100%--especially Dale's reinforcing that Session 0 is not just for safety tools, and I think Ben's 2 questions are so important not just for reasons he mentioned, but also because of that whole "I want to _win_ D&D" mentality can often lock out the other players and remove their ability to have fun. I have a few others, but this comment is already pretty long. 😊
Can I just say, while I do understand the ups and downs of additions and how they play, one major advantage of every new edition is the ability to add an older edition material as a surprise component to game play. Nothing like a lich so old and reclusive it's still running off 1e spells and rules.
I'm very disappointed no one made a "Safety Dance" reference after Ben said "You can late pledge if you want to". Man, I think the next question on the player -> character -> ____ red/yellow flags discussion needs to be on turning those red/yellow flags into green ones. Because a lot of the red/yellow flag character concepts are popular archetypes from other media that people want to play. The mime Artificer who makes invisible objects isn't a problem child like the broody loner Rogue because everyone and their mother hasn't seen a dozen Mime Artificers in their favorite books and movies and decided they need to play that, but the edgy Rogue or the skeptic in a setting where gods canonically exist and empower PCs and NPCs (guilty. Not sure how I walked myself into that very obvious trap that I'm well aware of in this next campaign). Like, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's tricky.
I don't mind players having a build as long as it goes along with a story or reason why the character would make those choices. Fortunately my players don't usually multi-class and do crazy stuff.
I would think that like 90% of players at least have some kind of idea of what their character build is going to be about when they make the character.
I always insist that if they want to multiclass they have to have a new source of the new skills. Could be another character, could be an npc teacher, could be something else, but they don't just suddenly become a fighter or a wizard out of nowhere. With some other classes it is easier. Developing a Warlock or a Sorcerer can be easier than selling that suddenly you've become super skilled in some other area. But I'm usually pretty chill about it, and I'd rather if they have a build in mind they tell me early so I can set them up for it in the narrative.
Gated regions has been wildly successful in m6 recent campaigns. I chat about that and other design strategies during my game art streams. Swing by say hi :)
Oddly enough, I find it to be a red flag when a player shows up *without* a build or strong character plan. That void relates directly to the character concept, and a weak or non-existent concept often ends up being the classic Chaotic Neutral PC. Plus, those players always end up taking far longer to level up than everyone else. I've had players not level their PC in the two weeks between sessions because they weren't sure where they wanted to take the PC. So, if a player has a strong character concept backed with a solid mechanical plan, that's one sign of an A+ player.
As both a user and a publisher on DrivethruRPG I have issues with the filtering system, even before they fully implemented it. I suggested to them long ago to maybe use "AI assisted", "AI generated" as filters, and something else that's not "handcrafted", because it sounds pretentious and it doesn't distinguish between say a hand drawn map vs one made with inkarnate. Do I want to filter out all ai generated art? Yes. Do I want to filter a campaign or a supplement that has some ai elements in it? Not necessarily, but I don't have a choice.
**This question is strictly for the actual people who do the thumbnails** Last week, it was the out of context quote. This week, the fake shocked face at...pieces of paper. Why?
To Shawn - when I create my character I create him all the way up to 20 so I can see where the character will end up, but this is based on initial character thoughts, however this is always open for change. I had a druid that ended up taking 4 levels of warlock due to an encounter my character had during the campaign. But I feel the plan allows me to keep the character on tract with his motives as opposed to have no consistency to his motives.
45:27 I fully agree. In my experience players with a build planned out tend to not appreciate the lower levels of play, seeing them as annoying roadblocks before they can get to the Good Stuff they planned for higher levels. This can work for some parties, but I'm not interested in playing like this. It's too goal-oriented for me, I don't want to view the adventures through the utilitarian "does this bring me closer to level up and the next step on my character progression path" lens. I want to get sidetracked, be surprised, explore, interact with the world and change my mind.
That crystal door backtrack dungeon feels too obviously railroady. That makes me want to ask how much HP does the wall next to the door have. If I have to search a dungeon for a crystal then search for which crystal I already found that is now turned off I'd just be more interested in using Mundande and common magic items to bypass that whole obvious railroad or just ignore it and murder everything then go back for locked doors or just ignore them all together. Videogames work for exploration because its a visual format and pays off well, taking notes and walking around is much less viseral and doesnt pay off the same when roleplaying. Veilguard is not a good game to take inspiration from, it's not even a good Dragon Age game. Take insipration from Silent Hill, Metroid, or any of the other roleplaying games that encourage exploration, not a game that is going to be out of date by the time the editor is done with the episode.
To be fair Metroid is doing the same thing, just being a bit more subtle about it by making the keys/crystals actually tools that you can use and need in a few particular places to proceed. Ultimately both are pretty similar to the colored keys in Doom in the way that they guide players through the map/dungeon. I don't really consider it railroading unless you truly do have only a single possible path through your dungeon. It's really just gating parts of the dungeon off until your players have completed another section first. Though I do think being more subtle about it is better than gamifying it too much. Maybe you need to meet an NPC to get past some area, or a tool as in Metroid, ect. Better yet, offer multiple solutions, including if your players come up with something crazy that just might work, roll some dice and go for it. Even if you had some super important thing they were supposed to get by doing it the other way you can just quantum ogre your important McGuffin or NPC to another location for them to find later. Let 'em cook.
I am glad that the new PHB specifically called out that optimisation of a character is absolutely a valid part of the game. It is really disheartening when DMs seem to think optimisation is mutually exclusive with great roleplay and shared story telling.
Ben's face when he was trying to work out Shawn's Lettuce Pray joke was hilarious.
Further to Dael's little comment regarding Harengon. Was anyone else disappointed that one of the Harengon thugs in Wild Beyond the Witch light wasn't a brute named Thumper?
Monster action improvements are very promising. This is one the strongest bits of Pathfinder 2e as a DM - the monsters all have unique flavourful stuff, even the minions.
6:55 “Omu was the city where campaigns go to die”
So true. I had to laugh because otherwise I’d cry.
For running video game stuff in TTRPGs - one of the best things I ever did was run a series of adventures set in the Dragon Age setting (Thedas) using D&D 4th edition. The way 4e was built is brilliantly designed to fit the vibes of DA.
Lettuce Pray, Plantfolk Cleric
As opposed to the lizardfolk cleric, Velocipastor?
😂
Regarding the new stat blocks for monsters in 2024, I like them a lot, but I believe they made a small mistake with the incubus and the succubus, because they leaned a bit too much in stereotypes: the fiend boy as a cruel torturer and the fiend girl as a horny seductress. Instead of dividing it by male and female i would have given them forms (e.g. Form of Temptation and Form of Torment) so that you can have succubi seducing OR scaring the shit out of people with nightmares, and incubi focusing on damage OR being the bard representation of the Lower Planes XD
Sentient Lettuce would be a great band name.
Reaper Miniatures had a Dire Cabbage mini in their last Kickstarter!
like the skeleton keys in ToA too. i forgot all about them. that area was pretty fun part of the game.
Lettuce Pray....i was expecting you to offer to run a vegetales adventure
dang, why the funko hate lol the Tiamat one is amazing :D
Having a player show up with the whole "my pc is rich, has a small army at his disposal and is a demigod" is the epitome of hell to the no.
That could be fun with the twist that it's all just in his head, with him imagining he has all that.
I mean, a great session 1 could be them losing all of that. Big motivation to go adventuring and try to eventually get it all back.
Forbes Magazine, one of the preeminent business news outlets (about 150 million consumers) ran an article in their Business/Entertainment section about the 4th Season renewal of The Legend of Vox Machina. That is pretty mainstream.
Madison Square Garden: indoor sports arena that seats 19,500. The Theater at Madison Square Garden: a stage located under the arena that seats up to 5,600.
A world tour to... two countries.
Justice for Snagglebum!
First time watcher, listener for about six months. Interesting experience getting faces to the voices…
I feel like Shawn wore his sassy pants today and it pretty fun.
Ruuuude Dael (nah you're right it IS cold in Melbourne).
I think the changes to Legend of Vox Machina circumvent the redundancy of casting resurrection in the actual D&D game. The changes make for a better story than the game mechanics provided.
27:07 Dael's discussion of the evolution of "mainstream" as a term was interesting because it makes me think of what knowledge is included when something gets market penetration. I wonder if the definition in part means something gets popular outside if its target demographic with folks who don't really know or care about its context.
For instance, I was at a cookout over the summer when one of my non-gamer wife's good girlfriends asked me if I had heard of or watched a show she just found and loved called Vox Machina. She's a pretty mainstream interests person, but liked Vox Machina because she likes fantasy as a reading genre - she didn't know it had anything to do with D&D or Critical Role. And it was similar to the way I didn't know when the Wesley Snipes Blade movie came out back in the day that it was a comic book movie - I just thought vampires and the Goth aesthetic from the early 90s had hit Hollywood.
I mean generative AI is garbage, but I'm mostly here to thumbs up Dael's absolutely top tier UA-camShockedFace on the thumbnail.
bats equals legs
Red flag: The triton PC named Aqua Velva. (I wish I were making that one up.)
I did this with a player who basically wanted to play All Might. Worked with him and gave him several epic moments and it still wasn’t what he really wanted to play.
I LOVE ALL Ghostfire Podcasts videos!
The Professor would be proud of you.
I feel called out! 😱 I always build character's from 1 to 20.
I also adjust them several times as the game progresses, but unless the session before a level up is a complete surprise where my character doesn't make sense as I thought (which may happen), I like knowing where they're going so I can get the next level up done in like a minute.
No spending any more precious game time on that stuff than I absolutely need, it's difficult enough to get 5 adults in a room to play and I'm here to play, not look ar my friends as they weigh and read options in the books. 😂
50:35 The discussion about character builds is interesting to me because it says something about approach to D&D. I've definitely played in campaigns where I decided to try a build that I saw on some UA-cam channel. But I didn't come to my GM and say I want to try build X or Y. When the group was talking about what we wanted to do, when it became obvious we needed a spellcaster, I said I can play a druid. Anybody mind if I play a turtleman? But it wasn't super relevant that it was a spore druid build that I found on a UA-cam channel.
I got the same email (twice) saying there was an error in processing payment for the DMG and that the order had been cancelled. The email had 'test' in front of the email address and it looked odd. I verified they had processed the payment in my bank account. Next day they sent an email saying it was emailed in error. I received the book just today from FedEx.
Taking a break from doom to enjoy GFG podcast: Any game where I feel like there is good, deep lore I would be interested in that RPG. For example, I do have the Dragon Age RPG which is mechanically NOT GREAT but if I could find people to play it with I'd give it another go because I'm comfy in that setting. Two others that come to mind readily? _Greedfall_ from Spiders could feasibly be made into a small-scale system, and I was *over the moon* earlier this year to learn that Magpie Games will be releasing a _Fallen London_ TTRPG which is something I've been wanting since the first time I experienced the 'neath.
FWIW, I feel like I already mentioned it in this channel, but on my site I (and some friends) are doing salty book reports on novels -- everything from the classics to bad fanfic. As part of a project I've decided that I was going to re-read the _terrible_ Ravenloft novels from the 90s and.... well, hopefully my reviews are entertaining, but more than that I hope the new novel is better than those things were. 🤣 I also explore the problems of "how does this novel service the greater product that is D&D / Ravenloft" and .... it's honestly not a clean answer!
Yellow Flags: Everything you guys said 100%--especially Dale's reinforcing that Session 0 is not just for safety tools, and I think Ben's 2 questions are so important not just for reasons he mentioned, but also because of that whole "I want to _win_ D&D" mentality can often lock out the other players and remove their ability to have fun. I have a few others, but this comment is already pretty long. 😊
6:28 fun moment for the players too when they finally get to see what's on the other side of that pesky door that's been there since session 1.
Good stuff
52:10 D&D is pro wrestling, let the gm know your plans so the bad guy knows where to land
Can I just say, while I do understand the ups and downs of additions and how they play, one major advantage of every new edition is the ability to add an older edition material as a surprise component to game play. Nothing like a lich so old and reclusive it's still running off 1e spells and rules.
I'm very disappointed no one made a "Safety Dance" reference after Ben said "You can late pledge if you want to".
Man, I think the next question on the player -> character -> ____ red/yellow flags discussion needs to be on turning those red/yellow flags into green ones. Because a lot of the red/yellow flag character concepts are popular archetypes from other media that people want to play. The mime Artificer who makes invisible objects isn't a problem child like the broody loner Rogue because everyone and their mother hasn't seen a dozen Mime Artificers in their favorite books and movies and decided they need to play that, but the edgy Rogue or the skeptic in a setting where gods canonically exist and empower PCs and NPCs (guilty. Not sure how I walked myself into that very obvious trap that I'm well aware of in this next campaign). Like, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's tricky.
I don't mind players having a build as long as it goes along with a story or reason why the character would make those choices. Fortunately my players don't usually multi-class and do crazy stuff.
I would think that like 90% of players at least have some kind of idea of what their character build is going to be about when they make the character.
I always insist that if they want to multiclass they have to have a new source of the new skills. Could be another character, could be an npc teacher, could be something else, but they don't just suddenly become a fighter or a wizard out of nowhere. With some other classes it is easier. Developing a Warlock or a Sorcerer can be easier than selling that suddenly you've become super skilled in some other area. But I'm usually pretty chill about it, and I'd rather if they have a build in mind they tell me early so I can set them up for it in the narrative.
Gated regions has been wildly successful in m6 recent campaigns.
I chat about that and other design strategies during my game art streams. Swing by say hi :)
Oddly enough, I find it to be a red flag when a player shows up *without* a build or strong character plan. That void relates directly to the character concept, and a weak or non-existent concept often ends up being the classic Chaotic Neutral PC. Plus, those players always end up taking far longer to level up than everyone else. I've had players not level their PC in the two weeks between sessions because they weren't sure where they wanted to take the PC. So, if a player has a strong character concept backed with a solid mechanical plan, that's one sign of an A+ player.
As both a user and a publisher on DrivethruRPG I have issues with the filtering system, even before they fully implemented it. I suggested to them long ago to maybe use "AI assisted", "AI generated" as filters, and something else that's not "handcrafted", because it sounds pretentious and it doesn't distinguish between say a hand drawn map vs one made with inkarnate. Do I want to filter out all ai generated art? Yes. Do I want to filter a campaign or a supplement that has some ai elements in it? Not necessarily, but I don't have a choice.
**This question is strictly for the actual people who do the thumbnails**
Last week, it was the out of context quote. This week, the fake shocked face at...pieces of paper. Why?
"Sentient Letuce" is a dig at former UK prime minister Liz Truss?
"Do people care [about AI]?"
I care. I despise the rise of AI art and writing, and will absolutely favour human creators.
LoVM was number 1 show on Amazon and several other countries. It might not be mainstream per say, but it’s gotten really big
I had the same message on my DMG preorder getting canceled, but also, the Marketplace shows it is being shipped. IDK, wtf is happening.
How do you feel about PvP, @dailydael ? I really want to play a Harengon fighter, he snacks on lettuce for his second wind feature.
Her most recent video had pvp in a dread scenario
FYI, Scions of Elemental Evil on Beyond is free regardless of subscription. I’m not subscribed, got it just fine.
To Shawn - when I create my character I create him all the way up to 20 so I can see where the character will end up, but this is based on initial character thoughts, however this is always open for change. I had a druid that ended up taking 4 levels of warlock due to an encounter my character had during the campaign. But I feel the plan allows me to keep the character on tract with his motives as opposed to have no consistency to his motives.
It is a red flag. Full stop.
Legend of Vox Machina is the reason I subscribed to Prime. I do need to finish Citadel before my subscription ends though.
45:27 I fully agree. In my experience players with a build planned out tend to not appreciate the lower levels of play, seeing them as annoying roadblocks before they can get to the Good Stuff they planned for higher levels. This can work for some parties, but I'm not interested in playing like this. It's too goal-oriented for me, I don't want to view the adventures through the utilitarian "does this bring me closer to level up and the next step on my character progression path" lens. I want to get sidetracked, be surprised, explore, interact with the world and change my mind.
Are the changes so massive we should stop working on our own system and just use dnd5.5?
That crystal door backtrack dungeon feels too obviously railroady. That makes me want to ask how much HP does the wall next to the door have. If I have to search a dungeon for a crystal then search for which crystal I already found that is now turned off I'd just be more interested in using Mundande and common magic items to bypass that whole obvious railroad or just ignore it and murder everything then go back for locked doors or just ignore them all together. Videogames work for exploration because its a visual format and pays off well, taking notes and walking around is much less viseral and doesnt pay off the same when roleplaying. Veilguard is not a good game to take inspiration from, it's not even a good Dragon Age game. Take insipration from Silent Hill, Metroid, or any of the other roleplaying games that encourage exploration, not a game that is going to be out of date by the time the editor is done with the episode.
To be fair Metroid is doing the same thing, just being a bit more subtle about it by making the keys/crystals actually tools that you can use and need in a few particular places to proceed. Ultimately both are pretty similar to the colored keys in Doom in the way that they guide players through the map/dungeon.
I don't really consider it railroading unless you truly do have only a single possible path through your dungeon. It's really just gating parts of the dungeon off until your players have completed another section first. Though I do think being more subtle about it is better than gamifying it too much. Maybe you need to meet an NPC to get past some area, or a tool as in Metroid, ect. Better yet, offer multiple solutions, including if your players come up with something crazy that just might work, roll some dice and go for it. Even if you had some super important thing they were supposed to get by doing it the other way you can just quantum ogre your important McGuffin or NPC to another location for them to find later. Let 'em cook.
I am glad that the new PHB specifically called out that optimisation of a character is absolutely a valid part of the game. It is really disheartening when DMs seem to think optimisation is mutually exclusive with great roleplay and shared story telling.
Dragon Age Veilguard? 🤢...🤮