New to the podcast and big Pathfinder lover here. Re: Pathfinder news - Paizo is really good about making these big events. With any of the things that are changing the living world of Golarion, it brings with it tangible plot points, events that can shake up the world of Golarion at your gaming table (if you happen to be running your campaign in that setting or even if you happen to incorporate some elements that are affected by the event [in this case, using the Golarion-specific pantheon]), brand new adventure paths that a table could play through, as well as new character options. The War of Immortals has brought two new classes, which have been in playtest for about a year, which don't even need an understanding of the event to use. It caters to the more crunchy and fluffy players/DMs at the same time, and I really appreciate the effort they put into it. I only came across Ghostfire a week ago, and I am already in love with it. Have been a huge fan of Dael's content for a while now and love that there is a TTRPG news podcast I can enjoy so much. Keep it up!
Same. I only discovered the podcast after I stopped playing dnd, moving onto other systems. It's definitely one of the best, less angry, less clickbaity Podcasts out there.
The death rules in Daggerheart are pretty similar to the death rules in Fabula Ultima. When you drop, you can choose between getting captured, going out in a blaze of glory, or burning resources to just barely escape. This is similar to what I've been doing with death saves for a while. At least since I started watching Star Trek Lower Decks. When you drop, combat continues. On your next turn you find yourself standing on the banks of The River. The Boatman is there waiting for you. You look around and in the distance you see The Black Mountain sporadically illuminated by lightning. If you choose to go to The Boatman you die, and on your next turn you can burn up whatever resources you had left to help the party escape, survive, or barely win. If you choose to start walking towards The Black Mountain you are out of combat, and you may be out of the game for a while, but eventually that character will return in one form or another.
36:00 I know what Dael is talking about here, though PF2e is better at this than PF1e. Back then, new additions seemed to trample over old ones or completely contravene the format used by the old rules. You can definitely tell that every aspect of PF2e was designed to easily accommodate new content. It does lead to some weirdness - certain categories, like magical tattoos and rituals, feel strangely empty because they're actually future-proofing; Paizo just hasn't filled up those categories yet. _Pathfinder: Rise of the Ritattooual,_ coming 2026, featuring the return of the Ritualist and an all new class - and Tattoodler.
The Skyrim analogy is really funny to me because I've used that as a counter-example for years why it's strange that people only play one game system. How odd would it be to have a conversation with someone and say "Hey are you excited for the new Spider-man game?" but they say "Ugh, no. What does it do that Skyrim doesn't? I can just mod in flying, which is better than webswinging anyhow. Plus, the game looks way too complicated."
Sure, but in ttrpgs the conversation, in my experience, usually goes more like "hey, check it out, I modded Skyrim so you can webswing!" and someone says "just say you hate video games"
@MonarchsFactory that's absolutely an equally frustrating conversation to have. You definitely will have dealt with a larger volume and far more aggressive than any of the conversations I've had with my players.
@MonarchsFactory it's an exaggeration for sure, but honestly not that far from several conversations I have had. Probably the most frustrating was during the OGL debacle - one of my playgroups was going on a fury about how angry they were, "WOTC ruined MtG and now Dnd," "Hasbro is sucking the game dry," "dndOne is going to be terrible" ... and so on. So I said "Well, would anyone like to play another game? I just bought Forbidden Lands." Every one of them said "No that's okay, I already know how to play 5e."
@@MonarchsFactory This is actually a really great point, because I often half make it. I wouldn't consider myself a video gamer or board gamer even though I would ideally be playing them every week. To me a lot of people who play D&D are like people who play Mario Party and Mario Cart with there friends once a month. While they technically play videogames, I wouldn't call them a gamer.
29:00 What would it mean for a system to *not* be hackable? That isn't really much of a superlative when you could ignore the rules of any given system and implement your own in their place. I don't understand why D&D is complemented in this way so consistently, not because "other systems can do it too", but because… every system can do that. Who's gonna stop you?
Certainly some systems would lend themselves to hacking more. Systems with lots of interconnected rules make it more challenging. To that end, DnD 5e is not an especially hackable system at all. It can be hacked fine, which goes goes show pretty much anything can as you say.
i think an important aspect of the digital vs physical conversation is the experience. video games and music took a while to become mostly digital and the experience is pretty similar. physical books are still pretty popular even with e-books and audiobooks getting huge. i think its largely because of the experience of opening the book, feeling the pages, get that great old book smell. itd be like replacing physical dice with digital ones :D another part for ttrpgs especially, is that a lot people probably play to escape the digital world.
Best thing about watching to the very end is the shade thrown at Perth. I mean, let's be real - they didn't even bother naming the states, they just call them Western Australia, Northern Territories, and South Australia.
There is also Queensland, and Victoria, because you couldn't name two states after the Queen... or could you? Full disclosure, I'm an Aussie. Our state names are boring. Our cities are better. Except Townsville. That's just silly, and I've lived there so I feel qualified to say so.
Re: CFR spoilers... Kind of? But Sam did roll damage dice at the time in question, so they didn't explicitly say "this thing happens because of the narrative we agreed on":
True. But I don't think the number rolled actually mattered to matt. He probably looked at thull's current HP and did some quick math to find what dice roll would "average" out to be enough to kill. Then Sam actually rolled under the average and he just said... um yeah... its enough, she died.
The funny coincident is that BG1 was published at the end of 2E AD&D and BG2 at the start of D&D3E. And only 1 year between them. and now we got BG3 at the end of D&D5E
Their community is primarily comprised of legacy players. Legacy players like legacy products, legacy products are physical books. This is probably why this hurt them.
I'm not sure that vaunted flexibility of 5e is unique. I think that's just how RPGs work... I don't think there's a game I've played where I couldn't just "mod" a rule and have the game still function.
I'd also argue that there are many rules that do break 5e when changed. Getting rid of concentration or giving people spell slots too early. Giving martials another attack each round or making guns a ranged weapon that rolls a 1d20 damage die. Your understanding of 5e means you recognize you can't make consequence free changes to these sorts of rules/content. But really that's true of all rpgs. Some rules are core and foundational, some are window dressing. You play any system for a bit and you'll recognize what is window dressing and wallpaper and what is structurally integral.
Really enjoyed the Pathfinder discussion but you are missing a bit of context. Pathfinder's main product line are the adventure paths. The rules are secondary. That's why all the rules are available for free on Archives of Nethys as well as through Foundry VTT. Even the setting can be consumed through fan made youtube channels and wikis. Only the adventures are 100% paywalled. And the APs are not released as one hardbound book but instead divided into smaller volumes, usually 3 or 6 with 1 released monthly. And you can subscribe to the product line.
The ability to need a dedicated space has been a double-edged sword for physical media in recent times. On one hand, if you have everything digitally, then that is more physical space for you to use for whatever purpose. On the other hand, owning something physically gives a confirmation of ownership that owning digital stuff cannot provide. It's all taste in the end, but TTRPGs methinks has more value as physical media as its origins is traced back to physical interactions, before livechat and streaming were even a blip of someone's imagination.
People keep saying that D&D 5e is very hackable, but I don't understand what makes it any more hackable than most games. All TTRPGs take place in the imaginations of the people playing, so you can do just about anything you can think of. I haven't read every game out there, but I'm struggling to think of a game that is so inflexible that you couldn't include something like a "blaze of glory" mechanic. Maybe PvP games would require more strict rules because they're competitive? I dunno. I've never read a PvP TTRPG. Anyway, my point is that I don't see what makes 5e more flexible than anything else. I feel like I'm missing something.
They say it's hackable because they've been playing it a long time and are very familiar with the rules. They know which ones to break and which ones not to. Exploding a PC and killing an enemy - easily done. Making a class that has the ability to do three concentration spells at once - not good. You know those things once you hit system mastery. And once you hit system mastery, every other system looks harder to hack.
I think it's because 5e often feels incomplete. Sometimes by design (simplicity, rulings not rules etc), sometimes because stuff slipped through playtesting, sometimes because it holds onto stuff that's there because of D&D tradition and not necessarily because it's fun. And so people feel the urge to fix it.
100% I haven't played a single rpg that was any less hackable than 5e. I'd argue I've played a few that were more, but for the most part you can just modify all rpgs.
Speaking for myself, wanting the real book is tactile. I relate it to when I take notes. Notes taken in a digital form, just typed I don't remember, I do remember then when I write them down. I remember books better when I turn a physical page than when I read it in kindle. I have no idea why that is, and that may just be a subset of humanity (or just me). I think James is right for a lot of people - there's a pride about it, but that's no different than people displaying all the books they've ever read on a shelf. Are you going to re-read all of those? Probably not, so why keep them? Um.. because I like them as objects?
I think it's easier to promote a physical book for an established IP, or a product by an established game designer, while a new game or product in a PDF with a print on demand would be easier in my opinion.
As a Merwyn-alike elder who's still got my early-80s Greyhawke and Palladium 1.0 book proudly displayed on my shelf (but I can't find my Red Box stuff), the idea that there is a book or a paper back module suggests that even if I buy it as an ebook, I can still imagine it sitting on my shelf. This is silly but I play a game about dragons and dungeons with mathrocks so I'm okay with that
I'm not super worried about MCDM/DH/ToV/etc. eating other indie games' lunch. I strongly suspect that the kind of people who only buy into one system are almost exclusively D&D players. The kind of people who are even open to trying other systems, in my experience, tend to be the sort who collect more games than they end up playing. Buying Candela didn't stop me from buying Wandering's Call; buying A5E didn't stop me from buying Pathfinder 2e, which didn't stop me from buying Pathfinder SWADE, which won't stop me from buying Daggerheart.
This Paizo event sounds inspired by World of Warcraft. Sargeras defeated, the sword piercing the world, Azerite scattered across the realms...it's not 1-to-1, but I see some parallels.
Probably best sold the way Unity or Unreal are sold. Stick it to a popular, but not too pricey license (uuuh... Malazan? Kingsman? Knives Out? (?)). GURPS can be quite elegant and intuitive when it's curated and slimmed down to only what a specific game needs. SJG just has it on a backburner until they figure out what to do with it (has been this way for like a decade).
The Blaze of Glory thing wasn't the first Daggerheart thing that CR has used in this campaign I don't think... FCG has had "stress points" throughout the campaign. I don't think it's the same stress points Daggerheart has today but I think it was their first version of that mechanic.
@@tslfrontman a system for a small group isn't really comparable to a company trying to recreate 5e, making enough similar that it feels the same but legally distinct with their own flair to it. Idk. I'm excited for it. Better that then support wotc.
Stephen Glicker of Rolls for Combat want to become president of WOTC. But then I was told that only those that do not want the role should be considered.
Question about Vecna Eve of Ruin, do y'all think they will make high level combat fun? I'm a bit apprehensive about it since I assume modules stick to the rules and high level combat while sticking to the rules is just a slog in 5e
Is it possible the reason it's harder to get RPG players excited about digital products is that basically every TH-camr and their dog has been s***ting on digital products with their pearl clutching about the evils of D&D Beyond?
Dael is way more optimistic than I am about BG4 being fun and good without Larian. I don't feel like there really are all that many developers doing retro style RPG's like BG3 and doing it really well or at anything like that standard. That's part of the reason BG3 has been so successful. Larian built themselves up to be the one studio in the world with the expertise and experience to pull that off at the level of quality and features as they did. Any other studio is going to be starting from a MUCH more humble position and will have to fight and claw their way up to even remotely matching BG3, much less trying to surpass it. Honestly there's not very many companies that can even match Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2. Honestly, I think going strait after a developer for BG4 is a mistake. I think it would make more sense to develop other games set in D&D that may be inspired by BG3, but aren't actually part of the franchise. Heck they could even license the engine from Larian and make direct spinoff games. Give us Waterdeep, or Candlekeep, or something in Dragonlance! BG4 shouldn't happen until the opportunity is there to make a game that actually meets and surpasses BG3 in many ways even if that means waiting for Larian to be ready to make D&D again down the roat. But meh... That's just my opinion. I'm sure they'll farm out BG4 to someone, and we'll get A game... a forgettable game that squanders the franchise's potential... but hey it'll capitalize on the brand!
The only electronic content I’ll buy is when a hard copy is not available, or I need the content on DnDBeyond, and in that case I buy both hard copy and DnDBeyond version…and I do that with trepidation…for the reasons!
So interestingly, I'm not referring to harvestmen, either. I think in the US/CAN they're called cellar spiders, but in Aus are the arachnid most associated with the name Daddy Longlegs.
I mean, it is a ridiculous arguement that d&d is not competing with other rpgs; that assumes they have 100% market saturation and there is no one who plays Dragons of Drakenheim that has not purchased the entire WotC product line. They may not be actively marketing towards GURPS players, but that is largely because they are going after the uninitiated market because there are more people that have never played a ttrpg than gurps players. Just like WotC does not actively market to the native Portaguese speakers any more; they do not get a significant return on their investment. They are not competing with Disney; they are not making movies and sold off their studio. They are getting out of movies because they are not making them money. If anything, they are competing with Matel or Asmodee because their markets actually over lap and they are relatively the same size.
Generic Universal Role Playing System! They should let the company that made Solasta design Baldur's Gate 4! They already know the basic 5E stuff! My favorite RPG's and systems: 1-Cypher(generic), 2-Teenagers From Outer Space(anime), 3-Gamma World 4E(not based on D&D 4E)(post apocalyptic), 4-All Flesh Must be Eaten(zombie), 5-Battlelords of the 23rd Century(sci-fi), 6-Pathfinder 1E(fantasy), 7-5E(fantasy), 8-Palladium system(generic), 9-AD&D(fantasy), 10-Shadow of the Demon Lord(sci-fantasy/horror) and 11-Star Frontiers(sci-fi)
Amen! I kinda miss Gurps.. 😢 So.. our little indie are trying to develop a new game system we're calling, initially "Crunchy Roll" TTRPG to go along with my new world "Khor The World of Many Portals." Kickstarter next year. 😊
Game glut is not a new thing D&D happened then everyone came up with a system some based on D&D some entirely new only a few systems took off and most released one or two products and faded away the more nitch something is the less chance it has of taking off ... interesting subject but the base line is that glut has always been an issue just like comics
could you possibly think of a more ridiculous name ? Fresh bottom burp ? ... it is instances like this that make me wonder whether Crit Role should be avoided , taken seriously or just be remembered fondly ....
i will say i have no interest to ever buy any PDFs. i will buy a book, a zine, a pamphlet, or a vinyl record where the insert for the album is an adventure, but not a PDF. there's no dopamine in PDF acquisition. :P
There really isn't a high from downloading a pdf. But I won't turn down a free PDF with the physical book. It's the reason why I don't buy books from Amazon and rather buy straight from Free League and Evil Hat. Printing a small cropped image of a spell list or feature is pretty clutch. Bundle of Holding is amazing but it isn't the same as having Shadow of the Demon Lord in print. Buying the whole set for $30 is cool though.
That's definitely a personal preference, because I buy a whole lot of TTRPG PDFs and I'm always excited to play them. I do like having some physical components (character sheets, tokens, maps, etc.), but I don't mind at all having the book only in digital format.
Physical copy vs. soft copy. I don't have to worry about opening my physical book and the pages being blank because a license agreement changed. My physical books also don't require a recurring subscription fee. If I like what you've got, I'll buy physical. As mentioned above, if it comes with a PDF when I purchase the physical copy, then BONUS because Control+F is great! Also some physical books gain value over time. Not the case with digital copies.
RE: AI Dungeon Master. The difference between an AI ( *as in, programmed AI that exists already in video games* ) Dungeon Master and a human one is what the DM is made of. Plot points, random encounters, setting, atmosphere, etc? All can be done by a human on the spot or pre-programmed as a script. The only reason why I think they do not appear to pursue making video games that "simulates" the tabletop experience is that they do not know how to make a game that *turns people into DMs* and it seems to be an understanding that there is a severe lack of DMs in this generation of TTRPG players. EDIT: Clarification because people seem to be confused at the scope of AI and what I meant vs what they think I meant.
The one thing that's missing completely from the AI DM is INTENT and ability to adjust on the fly. And I don't think it can be added without completely changing the fundamental assumptions the current generation of AI is built on. So sure, you can have plot points, random encounters and atmosphere, but you won't have anything foreshadowed, you won't build a satisfying reveal, you won't have players' weird ideas incorporated into the plot. I can see it maybe working for little bite sized pieces of generic content with a very limited scope. But if you try to get a LLM to build you a coherent campaign, it will fail completely.
@@dziooooo _"The one thing that's missing completely from the AI DM is INTENT and ability to adjust on the fly."_ I dunno where you are basing your perception of AI from, but AI can be programmed to change patterns based on feedback it receives and, if on a controlled space like a video game, it can be done seamlessly and even without prompt to the player. It's just a matter of how much of a wall of text the programmer would deal with, and players will never even know that, like how they may never know the DM's intent. _"you won't have anything foreshadowed, you won't build a satisfying reveal"_ We have TV shows, movies, books, and many pre-prepared media that does foreshadowing and its authors can pull off satisfying reveals. Live human interaction is not required to make storytelling, which includes foreshadowing and plot reveals. _"you won't have players' weird ideas incorporated into the plot"_ Until we have AI that perfectly mimics human's thought process, this is the only thing AI cannot do. However, DMs are not required to give in to players' ideas, and _"illusion of choice"_ exists, so unless your DM admits to lying in that regard, there is the possibility that they have prepared for your ideas to take place, which is no different from a script being prepared that players would make those triggering actions.
@@MarxMayhem it's a glorified auto complete at the moment and you can't make it do something like what you're describing without completely changing the foundations, the step ZERO. "Perfectly mimic human thought process..." You're talking about iterating on the concept of a salad and somehow creating an actual functioning rainforest. And we currently have only a vague idea of what "human thought process" is actually like, and you're talking about replicating it with a clippy currently eating its own tail? Please. And the reason foreshadowing and reveals work in TV shows and books has nothing to do with audience interaction or lack thereof. It's done by the AUTHOR understanding how a story works, how to use or subvert the conventions the given medium is built on, how to introduce story beats and how to work with target audience expectations. Generated content doesn't have an author who can understand anything. It can bang four cliches together until something vaguely resembling a boring and disjointed plot falls out. If you're excited by the quality of stuff LLMs can produce, you need to play better games...
@@dziooooo Do not confuse AI's only ability to be generating content from a pool of resources. "AI" has been the blanket term for anything related to intelligence of machines. If that's broad, that's because it is, but I'm specifically talking about *programmed AI* (that video games already use), not the generative one. The "AI" that you have in your head is not the "AI" I'm describing. You are fighting a battle I didn't start, nor was I advocating for the "AI" in your head. But just in case I need to be clearer: My entire argument is that *a well-prepared script that a programmed AI will follow* can substitute for a decent DM, specially if the players only need continue forward to a specific goal- which video games already do. LLMs do not need to be brought up. Video games, specially Visual Novels, with branching paths for story already do this. Even outside of video games, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books are designed with this principle. A human can create new or edit existing branches, but I'm saying an "AI DM" don't need to do this, limiting player choices so players can't go off-script. You may call it "preemptive railroading", but that also means teaching players that some ideas are best run with a human DM instead, inspiring them to look for one or, best case scenario, become the DM they seek.
New to the podcast and big Pathfinder lover here.
Re: Pathfinder news - Paizo is really good about making these big events. With any of the things that are changing the living world of Golarion, it brings with it tangible plot points, events that can shake up the world of Golarion at your gaming table (if you happen to be running your campaign in that setting or even if you happen to incorporate some elements that are affected by the event [in this case, using the Golarion-specific pantheon]), brand new adventure paths that a table could play through, as well as new character options. The War of Immortals has brought two new classes, which have been in playtest for about a year, which don't even need an understanding of the event to use. It caters to the more crunchy and fluffy players/DMs at the same time, and I really appreciate the effort they put into it.
I only came across Ghostfire a week ago, and I am already in love with it. Have been a huge fan of Dael's content for a while now and love that there is a TTRPG news podcast I can enjoy so much. Keep it up!
I no longer play DnD but stumbled upon this show, and it has become the only podcast I consistently listen to. I just find them all pleasant.
I don't play D&D anymore either but same! They are all so dang nice and have interesting things to say
Same. I only discovered the podcast after I stopped playing dnd, moving onto other systems.
It's definitely one of the best, less angry, less clickbaity Podcasts out there.
Thanks, folks! We certainly appreciate you stopping in week to week, and are glad you enjoy the show.
It’s the best RPG culture podcast out there.
The death rules in Daggerheart are pretty similar to the death rules in Fabula Ultima. When you drop, you can choose between getting captured, going out in a blaze of glory, or burning resources to just barely escape.
This is similar to what I've been doing with death saves for a while. At least since I started watching Star Trek Lower Decks.
When you drop, combat continues. On your next turn you find yourself standing on the banks of The River. The Boatman is there waiting for you. You look around and in the distance you see The Black Mountain sporadically illuminated by lightning.
If you choose to go to The Boatman you die, and on your next turn you can burn up whatever resources you had left to help the party escape, survive, or barely win. If you choose to start walking towards The Black Mountain you are out of combat, and you may be out of the game for a while, but eventually that character will return in one form or another.
Ben from Question has a genuine Melbourne.
36:00 I know what Dael is talking about here, though PF2e is better at this than PF1e. Back then, new additions seemed to trample over old ones or completely contravene the format used by the old rules. You can definitely tell that every aspect of PF2e was designed to easily accommodate new content. It does lead to some weirdness - certain categories, like magical tattoos and rituals, feel strangely empty because they're actually future-proofing; Paizo just hasn't filled up those categories yet. _Pathfinder: Rise of the Ritattooual,_ coming 2026, featuring the return of the Ritualist and an all new class - and Tattoodler.
The Skyrim analogy is really funny to me because I've used that as a counter-example for years why it's strange that people only play one game system.
How odd would it be to have a conversation with someone and say "Hey are you excited for the new Spider-man game?" but they say "Ugh, no. What does it do that Skyrim doesn't? I can just mod in flying, which is better than webswinging anyhow. Plus, the game looks way too complicated."
Sure, but in ttrpgs the conversation, in my experience, usually goes more like "hey, check it out, I modded Skyrim so you can webswing!" and someone says "just say you hate video games"
Not to say you *haven't* had the types of conversations you cite, just that I can only react from the version of those conversations I experience
@MonarchsFactory that's absolutely an equally frustrating conversation to have.
You definitely will have dealt with a larger volume and far more aggressive than any of the conversations I've had with my players.
@MonarchsFactory it's an exaggeration for sure, but honestly not that far from several conversations I have had.
Probably the most frustrating was during the OGL debacle - one of my playgroups was going on a fury about how angry they were, "WOTC ruined MtG and now Dnd," "Hasbro is sucking the game dry," "dndOne is going to be terrible" ... and so on. So I said "Well, would anyone like to play another game? I just bought Forbidden Lands."
Every one of them said "No that's okay, I already know how to play 5e."
@@MonarchsFactory This is actually a really great point, because I often half make it. I wouldn't consider myself a video gamer or board gamer even though I would ideally be playing them every week.
To me a lot of people who play D&D are like people who play Mario Party and Mario Cart with there friends once a month. While they technically play videogames, I wouldn't call them a gamer.
29:00 What would it mean for a system to *not* be hackable? That isn't really much of a superlative when you could ignore the rules of any given system and implement your own in their place. I don't understand why D&D is complemented in this way so consistently, not because "other systems can do it too", but because… every system can do that. Who's gonna stop you?
Certainly some systems would lend themselves to hacking more. Systems with lots of interconnected rules make it more challenging. To that end, DnD 5e is not an especially hackable system at all. It can be hacked fine, which goes goes show pretty much anything can as you say.
i think an important aspect of the digital vs physical conversation is the experience. video games and music took a while to become mostly digital and the experience is pretty similar. physical books are still pretty popular even with e-books and audiobooks getting huge. i think its largely because of the experience of opening the book, feeling the pages, get that great old book smell. itd be like replacing physical dice with digital ones :D another part for ttrpgs especially, is that a lot people probably play to escape the digital world.
Best thing about watching to the very end is the shade thrown at Perth. I mean, let's be real - they didn't even bother naming the states, they just call them Western Australia, Northern Territories, and South Australia.
There is also Queensland, and Victoria, because you couldn't name two states after the Queen... or could you?
Full disclosure, I'm an Aussie. Our state names are boring. Our cities are better. Except Townsville. That's just silly, and I've lived there so I feel qualified to say so.
Re: CFR spoilers... Kind of? But Sam did roll damage dice at the time in question, so they didn't explicitly say "this thing happens because of the narrative we agreed on":
True. But I don't think the number rolled actually mattered to matt. He probably looked at thull's current HP and did some quick math to find what dice roll would "average" out to be enough to kill.
Then Sam actually rolled under the average and he just said... um yeah... its enough, she died.
Rule of cool/sacrifice. Trumps RAW.
@@PalleRasmussen ummm ok.? that really has nothing to do with what i was talking about
@@shadomain7918 I think it does, and more with KKRDM's comment, but you do you.
A scorpion and spider fighting each other? That'd be a vacation story to remember!
The funny coincident is that BG1 was published at the end of 2E AD&D and BG2 at the start of D&D3E. And only 1 year between them. and now we got BG3 at the end of D&D5E
5e isn't going anywhere yet - they're just doing a rules revision for the system. It's like v5.3, if you consider XGtE and TCE to be 5.1 and 5.2.
Their community is primarily comprised of legacy players. Legacy players like legacy products, legacy products are physical books. This is probably why this hurt them.
Yay, it's the CORE FOUR!
I'm not sure that vaunted flexibility of 5e is unique. I think that's just how RPGs work...
I don't think there's a game I've played where I couldn't just "mod" a rule and have the game still function.
I'd also argue that there are many rules that do break 5e when changed. Getting rid of concentration or giving people spell slots too early. Giving martials another attack each round or making guns a ranged weapon that rolls a 1d20 damage die.
Your understanding of 5e means you recognize you can't make consequence free changes to these sorts of rules/content.
But really that's true of all rpgs. Some rules are core and foundational, some are window dressing. You play any system for a bit and you'll recognize what is window dressing and wallpaper and what is structurally integral.
Really enjoyed the Pathfinder discussion but you are missing a bit of context.
Pathfinder's main product line are the adventure paths. The rules are secondary. That's why all the rules are available for free on Archives of Nethys as well as through Foundry VTT.
Even the setting can be consumed through fan made youtube channels and wikis.
Only the adventures are 100% paywalled.
And the APs are not released as one hardbound book but instead divided into smaller volumes, usually 3 or 6 with 1 released monthly. And you can subscribe to the product line.
Classic Fantasy/Mythras all the way! The elegance of the d100 Chaosium styled engine is a joy to run, and easy-to-use for new players.
The ability to need a dedicated space has been a double-edged sword for physical media in recent times.
On one hand, if you have everything digitally, then that is more physical space for you to use for whatever purpose. On the other hand, owning something physically gives a confirmation of ownership that owning digital stuff cannot provide.
It's all taste in the end, but TTRPGs methinks has more value as physical media as its origins is traced back to physical interactions, before livechat and streaming were even a blip of someone's imagination.
People keep saying that D&D 5e is very hackable, but I don't understand what makes it any more hackable than most games. All TTRPGs take place in the imaginations of the people playing, so you can do just about anything you can think of. I haven't read every game out there, but I'm struggling to think of a game that is so inflexible that you couldn't include something like a "blaze of glory" mechanic. Maybe PvP games would require more strict rules because they're competitive? I dunno. I've never read a PvP TTRPG. Anyway, my point is that I don't see what makes 5e more flexible than anything else. I feel like I'm missing something.
It's not, just a lot of people are afraid of trying new games and rationalize that by saying 5e is easy to hack.
They say it's hackable because they've been playing it a long time and are very familiar with the rules. They know which ones to break and which ones not to.
Exploding a PC and killing an enemy - easily done.
Making a class that has the ability to do three concentration spells at once - not good.
You know those things once you hit system mastery. And once you hit system mastery, every other system looks harder to hack.
I think it's because 5e often feels incomplete. Sometimes by design (simplicity, rulings not rules etc), sometimes because stuff slipped through playtesting, sometimes because it holds onto stuff that's there because of D&D tradition and not necessarily because it's fun. And so people feel the urge to fix it.
100% I haven't played a single rpg that was any less hackable than 5e. I'd argue I've played a few that were more, but for the most part you can just modify all rpgs.
Yeah it feels like a justification for sunk cost fallacy
Speaking for myself, wanting the real book is tactile. I relate it to when I take notes. Notes taken in a digital form, just typed I don't remember, I do remember then when I write them down. I remember books better when I turn a physical page than when I read it in kindle. I have no idea why that is, and that may just be a subset of humanity (or just me). I think James is right for a lot of people - there's a pride about it, but that's no different than people displaying all the books they've ever read on a shelf. Are you going to re-read all of those? Probably not, so why keep them? Um.. because I like them as objects?
I think it's easier to promote a physical book for an established IP, or a product by an established game designer, while a new game or product in a PDF with a print on demand would be easier in my opinion.
As a Merwyn-alike elder who's still got my early-80s Greyhawke and Palladium 1.0 book proudly displayed on my shelf (but I can't find my Red Box stuff), the idea that there is a book or a paper back module suggests that even if I buy it as an ebook, I can still imagine it sitting on my shelf.
This is silly but I play a game about dragons and dungeons with mathrocks so I'm okay with that
I'm not super worried about MCDM/DH/ToV/etc. eating other indie games' lunch. I strongly suspect that the kind of people who only buy into one system are almost exclusively D&D players. The kind of people who are even open to trying other systems, in my experience, tend to be the sort who collect more games than they end up playing. Buying Candela didn't stop me from buying Wandering's Call; buying A5E didn't stop me from buying Pathfinder 2e, which didn't stop me from buying Pathfinder SWADE, which won't stop me from buying Daggerheart.
This Paizo event sounds inspired by World of Warcraft. Sargeras defeated, the sword piercing the world, Azerite scattered across the realms...it's not 1-to-1, but I see some parallels.
GURPs doesn't really sell itself well
The thing that made GURPS big was the setting books! Conan, Car Wars, DiscWorld, Ogre, Wild Cards, Star Trek, Myth and The Prisoner among others!
Probably best sold the way Unity or Unreal are sold. Stick it to a popular, but not too pricey license (uuuh... Malazan? Kingsman? Knives Out? (?)). GURPS can be quite elegant and intuitive when it's curated and slimmed down to only what a specific game needs. SJG just has it on a backburner until they figure out what to do with it (has been this way for like a decade).
Hippie mofo here. James was right the first time, Bioware actually did develop Baldur's Gate, it was like their second game.
RPGs did blow up in conjuction with a Netflix series. Stranger Things was a huge factor in the growth of D&D
The Blaze of Glory thing wasn't the first Daggerheart thing that CR has used in this campaign I don't think... FCG has had "stress points" throughout the campaign. I don't think it's the same stress points Daggerheart has today but I think it was their first version of that mechanic.
TOV didn't even make the thumbnail? Lol
Personally I'm not stoked for what just seems like a multi-year 5E heartbreaker project.
My own system didn't even take this long from scratch 😂
@@tslfrontman a system for a small group isn't really comparable to a company trying to recreate 5e, making enough similar that it feels the same but legally distinct with their own flair to it. Idk. I'm excited for it. Better that then support wotc.
Stephen Glicker of Rolls for Combat want to become president of WOTC.
But then I was told that only those that do not want the role should be considered.
Question about Vecna Eve of Ruin, do y'all think they will make high level combat fun?
I'm a bit apprehensive about it since I assume modules stick to the rules and high level combat while sticking to the rules is just a slog in 5e
Is it possible the reason it's harder to get RPG players excited about digital products is that basically every TH-camr and their dog has been s***ting on digital products with their pearl clutching about the evils of D&D Beyond?
21:45 - I"m totally someone just sort of making things. :P
Looking both internally and externally. That means Kyle gets to do the job until they find somebody better.
Dael is way more optimistic than I am about BG4 being fun and good without Larian. I don't feel like there really are all that many developers doing retro style RPG's like BG3 and doing it really well or at anything like that standard. That's part of the reason BG3 has been so successful. Larian built themselves up to be the one studio in the world with the expertise and experience to pull that off at the level of quality and features as they did. Any other studio is going to be starting from a MUCH more humble position and will have to fight and claw their way up to even remotely matching BG3, much less trying to surpass it. Honestly there's not very many companies that can even match Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2.
Honestly, I think going strait after a developer for BG4 is a mistake. I think it would make more sense to develop other games set in D&D that may be inspired by BG3, but aren't actually part of the franchise. Heck they could even license the engine from Larian and make direct spinoff games. Give us Waterdeep, or Candlekeep, or something in Dragonlance!
BG4 shouldn't happen until the opportunity is there to make a game that actually meets and surpasses BG3 in many ways even if that means waiting for Larian to be ready to make D&D again down the roat. But meh... That's just my opinion. I'm sure they'll farm out BG4 to someone, and we'll get A game... a forgettable game that squanders the franchise's potential... but hey it'll capitalize on the brand!
Any system is infinitely hackable, bruvs. They're systems.
The only electronic content I’ll buy is when a hard copy is not available, or I need the content on DnDBeyond, and in that case I buy both hard copy and DnDBeyond version…and I do that with trepidation…for the reasons!
daddy long legs is what I call a crane fly .... harvestmen are not in my experience called daddy long legs ... : )
So interestingly, I'm not referring to harvestmen, either. I think in the US/CAN they're called cellar spiders, but in Aus are the arachnid most associated with the name Daddy Longlegs.
I mean, it is a ridiculous arguement that d&d is not competing with other rpgs; that assumes they have 100% market saturation and there is no one who plays Dragons of Drakenheim that has not purchased the entire WotC product line. They may not be actively marketing towards GURPS players, but that is largely because they are going after the uninitiated market because there are more people that have never played a ttrpg than gurps players. Just like WotC does not actively market to the native Portaguese speakers any more; they do not get a significant return on their investment.
They are not competing with Disney; they are not making movies and sold off their studio. They are getting out of movies because they are not making them money. If anything, they are competing with Matel or Asmodee because their markets actually over lap and they are relatively the same size.
I’m sure someone in the comments is already pointed this out, but GURPS stands for generic universal role-playing system
There is another reason to leave early of course. Somebody might have offered her a better job.
Generic Universal Role Playing System!
They should let the company that made Solasta design Baldur's Gate 4! They already know the basic 5E stuff!
My favorite RPG's and systems: 1-Cypher(generic), 2-Teenagers From Outer Space(anime), 3-Gamma World 4E(not based on D&D 4E)(post apocalyptic), 4-All Flesh Must be Eaten(zombie), 5-Battlelords of the 23rd Century(sci-fi), 6-Pathfinder 1E(fantasy), 7-5E(fantasy), 8-Palladium system(generic), 9-AD&D(fantasy), 10-Shadow of the Demon Lord(sci-fantasy/horror) and 11-Star Frontiers(sci-fi)
Amen! I kinda miss Gurps.. 😢 So.. our little indie are trying to develop a new game system we're calling, initially "Crunchy Roll" TTRPG to go along with my new world "Khor The World of Many Portals." Kickstarter next year. 😊
Solasta was brilliant and they'd make a great BG4
crown & skull ?
Game glut is not a new thing D&D happened then everyone came up with a system some based on D&D some entirely new only a few systems took off and most released one or two products and faded away the more nitch something is the less chance it has of taking off ... interesting subject but the base line is that glut has always been an issue just like comics
270 different systems (not games) currently according to RPGgeek
Steven glicker for Wizards CEO!
could you possibly think of a more ridiculous name ? Fresh bottom burp ? ... it is instances like this that make me wonder whether Crit Role should be avoided , taken seriously or just be remembered fondly ....
th-cam.com/video/hpNObGWjvNc/w-d-xo.html Yeah you got me with that spoiler, more lead time would be appreciated.
i will say i have no interest to ever buy any PDFs. i will buy a book, a zine, a pamphlet, or a vinyl record where the insert for the album is an adventure, but not a PDF. there's no dopamine in PDF acquisition. :P
There really isn't a high from downloading a pdf. But I won't turn down a free PDF with the physical book. It's the reason why I don't buy books from Amazon and rather buy straight from Free League and Evil Hat. Printing a small cropped image of a spell list or feature is pretty clutch.
Bundle of Holding is amazing but it isn't the same as having Shadow of the Demon Lord in print. Buying the whole set for $30 is cool though.
That's definitely a personal preference, because I buy a whole lot of TTRPG PDFs and I'm always excited to play them. I do like having some physical components (character sheets, tokens, maps, etc.), but I don't mind at all having the book only in digital format.
There is an incomparable amount of dopamine found in "Ctrl+F" though 😂
Physical copy vs. soft copy. I don't have to worry about opening my physical book and the pages being blank because a license agreement changed. My physical books also don't require a recurring subscription fee. If I like what you've got, I'll buy physical. As mentioned above, if it comes with a PDF when I purchase the physical copy, then BONUS because Control+F is great!
Also some physical books gain value over time. Not the case with digital copies.
RE: AI Dungeon Master. The difference between an AI ( *as in, programmed AI that exists already in video games* ) Dungeon Master and a human one is what the DM is made of. Plot points, random encounters, setting, atmosphere, etc? All can be done by a human on the spot or pre-programmed as a script. The only reason why I think they do not appear to pursue making video games that "simulates" the tabletop experience is that they do not know how to make a game that *turns people into DMs* and it seems to be an understanding that there is a severe lack of DMs in this generation of TTRPG players.
EDIT: Clarification because people seem to be confused at the scope of AI and what I meant vs what they think I meant.
The one thing that's missing completely from the AI DM is INTENT and ability to adjust on the fly. And I don't think it can be added without completely changing the fundamental assumptions the current generation of AI is built on. So sure, you can have plot points, random encounters and atmosphere, but you won't have anything foreshadowed, you won't build a satisfying reveal, you won't have players' weird ideas incorporated into the plot. I can see it maybe working for little bite sized pieces of generic content with a very limited scope. But if you try to get a LLM to build you a coherent campaign, it will fail completely.
@@dziooooo _"The one thing that's missing completely from the AI DM is INTENT and ability to adjust on the fly."_
I dunno where you are basing your perception of AI from, but AI can be programmed to change patterns based on feedback it receives and, if on a controlled space like a video game, it can be done seamlessly and even without prompt to the player. It's just a matter of how much of a wall of text the programmer would deal with, and players will never even know that, like how they may never know the DM's intent.
_"you won't have anything foreshadowed, you won't build a satisfying reveal"_
We have TV shows, movies, books, and many pre-prepared media that does foreshadowing and its authors can pull off satisfying reveals. Live human interaction is not required to make storytelling, which includes foreshadowing and plot reveals.
_"you won't have players' weird ideas incorporated into the plot"_
Until we have AI that perfectly mimics human's thought process, this is the only thing AI cannot do. However, DMs are not required to give in to players' ideas, and _"illusion of choice"_ exists, so unless your DM admits to lying in that regard, there is the possibility that they have prepared for your ideas to take place, which is no different from a script being prepared that players would make those triggering actions.
@@MarxMayhem it's a glorified auto complete at the moment and you can't make it do something like what you're describing without completely changing the foundations, the step ZERO. "Perfectly mimic human thought process..." You're talking about iterating on the concept of a salad and somehow creating an actual functioning rainforest. And we currently have only a vague idea of what "human thought process" is actually like, and you're talking about replicating it with a clippy currently eating its own tail? Please.
And the reason foreshadowing and reveals work in TV shows and books has nothing to do with audience interaction or lack thereof. It's done by the AUTHOR understanding how a story works, how to use or subvert the conventions the given medium is built on, how to introduce story beats and how to work with target audience expectations. Generated content doesn't have an author who can understand anything. It can bang four cliches together until something vaguely resembling a boring and disjointed plot falls out. If you're excited by the quality of stuff LLMs can produce, you need to play better games...
@@dziooooo Do not confuse AI's only ability to be generating content from a pool of resources. "AI" has been the blanket term for anything related to intelligence of machines. If that's broad, that's because it is, but I'm specifically talking about *programmed AI* (that video games already use), not the generative one. The "AI" that you have in your head is not the "AI" I'm describing. You are fighting a battle I didn't start, nor was I advocating for the "AI" in your head.
But just in case I need to be clearer: My entire argument is that *a well-prepared script that a programmed AI will follow* can substitute for a decent DM, specially if the players only need continue forward to a specific goal- which video games already do.
LLMs do not need to be brought up. Video games, specially Visual Novels, with branching paths for story already do this. Even outside of video games, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books are designed with this principle. A human can create new or edit existing branches, but I'm saying an "AI DM" don't need to do this, limiting player choices so players can't go off-script. You may call it "preemptive railroading", but that also means teaching players that some ideas are best run with a human DM instead, inspiring them to look for one or, best case scenario, become the DM they seek.