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My generation was one of the first to grow up in front of a TV Screen. I guess that’s not necessarily a thing to brag about, but it was true. Saturday morning cartoons were a big deal for me. I would get up early and grab a big bowl of overly sugared breakfast cereal and settle down in front of the massive console TV in our basement for about 4 hours of formative brainwashing. That means my comedy sense tends to come from Loony Tunes.

Or at least it started with Loony Tunes. Bugs Bunny make that wrong turn at Albuquerque always left me in stitches. As I grew up my comedic sense grew as well and the next bit of comedy gold that became my favorite was The Monkees. Mixing music with laughs was right up my alley. Follow that with my all time favorite, the Muppet Show (which I own on Blue-Ray by the way) and you can get a fair idea of my formative years.

In my teens I started to watch all of those comedies I wasn’t supposed to watch. Comedies like Our Man Flint, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Caddyshack, and of course Porky’s. And of course once I reached that milestone of adult hood I became enamored with the darker comedies like Raising Arizona and The Big Labowski.

Finally lets not forget that my generation was the one that really started the Big Comedy Concerts. Richard Pryor: Live and Smoking, Eddie Murphy’s Raw, and George Carlin’s You are All Diseased. They were all funny irreverent, and outlandish.

What does this have to do with roleplaying you might ask?

In every group I have ever roleplayed with, Comedy has been important. Whether it’s just a player breaking up a tense scene, or specifically including outlandish and slapstick situations for fun. Comedy plays a roll.

In this episode Christina and I are going to talk about the Comedy Genre. About it’s important elements and how it can add to your roleplaying games.

Christina, you’ve heard about the comedy that entertained me growing up, What about you?

[Kick to Christina]

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Welcome to you heard it here last where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.

This week is going to be a little different. Ok, it’s going to be a lot different. My partners in crime are all busy I needed to get something up, but in reality, I’m just the voice and they are the brains. It makes news a little one sided.

But what I am good at, is consuming my favorite hobby.

So instead of news you’ve already heard we are going to talk about gift ideas you’ve already seen.

That’s right, it’s that time of the year were everyone is doing their own special gift buying guides for that table top gamer in your life. They are going to be filled with dice…Norse Foundry by the way, or dice towers, or the D&D Players Handbook. You know the usual.

Well, I have opted for something different.

I am going to give you a quick rundown of some gift ideas for the adult gamers in your life.

Some of these gifts I have and can recommend, others I just saw on the interwebs and went

Damn!

So, without any further ado here are a few gift ideas for the adult gamers in your life.

https://findfamiliarspirits.com/

https://tabletopbeard.com/

https://www.hammeredgametables.com/

https://www.coldsteel.com/swords/

https://www.reliks.com/

https://www.lastexittonowhere.com/

https://benshot.com/

So, there you have it some gift ideas for adult gamers for the upcoming holidays and remember, you heard it here last.

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Steve, Mike and Christina gather around the microphones and chat. No plan, no script, just chat.

And we ended up with a great episode.

We talk about what we would like to see in the gaming space, applying educational theory to gaming, and how to bring other cultures into gaming while still being sensitive.

It was just like getting together for a cup of coffee.

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.

https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2024/10/dd-gets-a-stout-and-bourbon-for-its-50th-anniversary.html

https://dragonsmilk.com/dnd/#yes

Well, it looks like D&D and roleplaying have grown up. When I started in the hobby it was for kids, but that’s just not the case anymore. Coming on November 16th of 2024 New Holland Brewing and Distilling Company in Cooperation with Wizards of the Coast will release “D20” a new limited edition bourbon barrel aged beer. The 11% stout is not for the faint of heart and comes from New Holland’s Dragons Milk line of beers. This limited edition is specifically made in cooperation with Wizard’s Dungeons and Dragons line of roleplaying games. 

But before you get to excited the adult beverages don’t stop there. They are also releasing Dragons Milk “Origin” Mead Cask. This is a bourbon whiskey finished in mead barrels. So, if the 11% beer doesn’t get you, the 100 proof whiskey might.

Christina, what do you think about this release specifically and what are your thoughts on the hobby “growing up” with these adult tie-ins.

[Kick to Christina]

Next, we go to what I would call more of an engagement article then actual news. 

https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2024/10/dd-five-great-undead-for-a-haunting-horror-adventure.html

Bell of Lost Souls staff writer J.R. Zambrano wrote a little seasonal article about 5 great undead for your Halloween horror adventures. Starting off the Lich, and then making there way through Banshee, Dullahan, flameskull, and finally Skeleton the article gives you some interesting ideas to add to your adventures. I was especially happy to see Banshee there. This often-overlooked screaming ghost can be a ton of fun to add to a campaign. And for those of you that have no idea what the Dullahan is, it’s your typical headless horseman. Another fantastic addition for this time of year. My only beef with the article, no Zombies. I mean let’s face it, they are the most popular movie monster for a reason. They are just damn fun.

Christina, Thoughts on Halloween monsters?

[kick to Christina]

And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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A couple of weeks ago Christina and I talked about game reviews on our You Heard it Here Last show. I questioned to relevance of reviews and voiced concerns about making sure the reviews weren’t biased. Afterwards, I started questioning my approach to the topic. I felt like I came across very negative and left the listener with the feeling that you shouldn’t trust game reviews.

That wasn’t what I intended.

The more I thought about it the more I felt the topic deserved some more time and probably an insider to really get to the bottom of it. That’s when I remembered GenCon and Rob De Ville.

Rob De Ville, among many other jobs reviews games for Epic Table Games a game developer, publisher, and reviewer, Rob seemed like the perfect person to bring in and talk about game reviews.

Rob, Thanks for taking the time and talking to me.

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“The evil wizard stumbles backwards and falls to the ground. There is a sigh and then nothing. He’s dead.”

Everybody at the table cheered

“I search his body!”

“I look for chests!”

“Is there anything that looks expensive!”

The players all scramble for loot.

I flipped through the book

“Ok, let’s see, you find 200 gold pieces, 40 silver pieces, and 20 copper. There is a scroll of magic missile and a scroll of water breathing, oh and a +1 dagger.”

“That’s it?” I could tell that everyone was a little dejected, but I didn’t know why.

“There are 2 minor healing potions as well.”

“Ok”

That was it. No more excitement, they just marked them on their character sheets and moved on.

It took me a while to realize that I had completely screwed up loot. I didn’t look at it as part of the story, as a scene unto itself. Instead, it was just mechanical. Something to jot down on a character sheet. I had missed a great opportunity to improve the players, the game, and the setting.

I wasn’t the only one.

Handling loot seems like a very simple thing, but if not done right can screw up the game just as quickly as a TPK. In this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about Loot and give you some ideas for your games.

Mike, what’s your favorite piece of loot you ever rewarded your players with in a game?

[Kick to Mike]

What about you Christina?

[Kick to Christina]

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last where we talk about news you’ve already heard.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/mongoose-acquires-twilight-2000-and-2300-ad.707036/

Mongoose Publishing is at it again. Recently we discussed that Marc Miller had turned over publishing of the Traveller RPG to Mongoose and now they have picked up the rights to Twilight 2000 and 2300 AD. Mongoose has been publishing 2300 AD under licensing since 2007 and currently Free League has the publishing rights for Twilight 2000. Mongoose reports nothing will change and Free League will continue with Twilight 2000 until the current licensing phase ends.

While not necessarily canonical Twilight 2000, 2300 AD, and Traveller all feel like part of the same universe and this seems to open up a huge IP space for Mongoose going forward.

Mike, what are your thoughts?

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, your take?

[Kick to Christina]

Our next item was a minor if interesting article from Rascal News

https://www.rascal.news/oh-captain-my-captain-rpg-simon-and-schuster/

The article starts with “On September 24, Simon & Schuster’s Adams Media released Oh Captain, My Captain! a Descended From The Queen RPG by James D’Amato. This marks the first time in recent memory that an imprint of the Big 5 (the largest entities in book publishing, which include S&S, Penguin Random House, Hatchette Livre, HarperCollins, and Macmillan) has produced a standalone tabletop roleplaying game.”

I guess I have a longer memory, because TSR had a publishing deal, albeit a rather strange one, with Random House in the 1980s and for a long time Dungeons and Dragons was a common sight in traditional bookstores of the day. But, to be fair the low sales of RPGs dropped them from consideration by traditional publishing houses decades ago.

This is what I find interesting. The article discusses the possibilities that TTRPGs might once again become a hot product at the traditional publishing houses and how that’s a good thing, however, the traditional publishing companies are not in a good place write now.

Indie publishing and self-publishing, especially with the creation of Kindle Unlimited have done a number on the traditional publishing companies and they no longer hold the book world in a vice grip. This almost seems like a desperate grab by the Big 5 to gain some market share.

Mike, thoughts?

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In 1977 Marc Miller, bored with the Chess Club at Illinois State University, made his way to the Strategic Games Club…the rest they say is history.

Ok, for those of you that have no idea who Marc Miller is or why the fact that Chess is boring matters I’ll go a little deeper.

Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman created the roleplaying game Traveller, that’s with 2 L’s by the way, in 1977 born out of games at that Strategic Games Club.

Traveller is the quintessential sci-fi roleplaying game, building on the science fiction novels of the 1960 and 70’s and coming onto the scene just after Dungeons and Dragons and before Star Wars.

My first dive into Traveller started in 1983 with the Classic Traveller Starter Edition. I still have the boxed set buried somewhere in a pile of old games. I remember stumbling across it in my friendly local gaming store and being taken by the cover art. Three heroes wearing golden armor with a space ship flying overhead.

I had just watched the Return of the Jedi a few days earlier in the theatre so I had to get the game, and boy it did not disappoint.

What disappointed me was all my friends. I couldn’t find anyone to play it with me. But that was ok, because the character generation portion of the book was so good it was like a solo game all on its own. I made so many characters…or at least tried to make so many characters, a lot of them didn’t make it. But we will come back to that.

Fast forward a few decades and finally I get to run a Traveller game.

It was a blast and if you want to hear all about it listen to our “Anatomy of a Campaign” series.

Christina, do you remember the first time you ever heard of Traveller?

[kick to Christina]

There are a lot of versions of Traveller out there, many of them still being played, and while we might discuss bits and pieces from the other versions, we are going to focus this discussion mostly on the new caretaker of the Traveller Legacy, Mongoose Publishing and their 2nd Edition Version of Traveller.

Christina, before we dive into Traveller give us the disclaimer.

[Kick to Christina] – We aren’t getting paid for this. They didn’t give us any games or material or support. We actually played the game, a lot.

Now that the official stuff is out of the way, what do you like best about the system?

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last where we talk about news you’ve already heard.

Let’s start with our favorite toy company and their ability to stay in the news.

https://futurism.com/hasbro-ceo-ai-dungeons-dragons

https://screenrant.com/dnd-ai-controversy-dungeons-and-dragons-fans-hasbro/

At a recent Goldman Sachs Conference, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks admitted that the entertainment conglomerate not only plans to build bespoke AI systems in the future, but that it's already begun using it in development of games including "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Magic: The Gathering."

He claims that currently they are using AI in house. He is quoted as saying;

"It's mostly machine-learning-based AI or proprietary AI as opposed to a ChatGPT approach. We will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid."

Of course, this has caused the internet to meltdown over the last week or so.

Christina, here we are again, just another day at Hasbro.

[kick to Christina]

[kick to Mike]

This next piece isn’t so much a news article as a question, especially leading into some upcoming podcasts we are recording. Are game reviews you read online real?

Recently I opened up my browser and started looking for news to discuss on this episode and I came across a prominent game review of a game I own. I bought the game because I was a huge fan of the source material, but upon getting it I discovered the absolutely worst game mechanics ever. This thing was a massive, over engineered dud! I wouldn’t let me dog chew on it, it was that bad.

But the reviewer, who admitted they had been given a copy of the game for the review, gave it solid marks, even glowing at points.

So, I ask again. Are online game reviews real? Are they worth anything?

[Kick to Christina and/or Mike]

Finally, I need to report some sad news. At GenCon I had the pleasure of meeting Howard Andrew Jones, a favorite author of mine. I absolutely loved his novel ‘Lord of a Shattered Land’ and could not wait to pick up his new one ‘The City of Marble and Blood’. He spent several minutes talking with me and signed a copy of his book.

A few weeks ago, Howard Andrew Jones announced that he had inoperable and fatal brain cancer.

Our thoughts, prayers, and meditations go out to him and his family.

Do yourself a favor and pick up ‘Lord of a Shattered Land’

Thanks again and join us next time for news you’ve already heard.

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I remember opening up “Keep on the Borderlands” the first module I ever ran. It came in the D&D Basic Set and I thought it was very cool. The players started out in a keep, a perfect base of operations. It had a tavern, a blacksmith, a provisioner, and a chapel. Everything a growing adventuring party needs. From there the players would travel to the Caves of Chaos and explore underground lairs of beasts an monsters. You know, the dungeons of dungeons and dragons.

To be fair I don’t really remember much about those first games I ran. I remember the feeling of running them and how much fun I had, but I don’t remember the details.

As a game master I quickly moved away from the Modules and started doing my own thing. I would read modules, but then always felt like I had a better idea. So, I tended to do my own thing.

Fast forward several years and I was playing more GURPS. Steve Jackson’s Generic Universal Roleplaying System. That system was well known for its source books that help you world build, but had few written modules. That was perfect for me.

After decades of making up my own adventures I decided that I wanted to run some of those talked about modules and, being a huge fan of Traveller decided our groups next game would be Pirates of Drinax (listen to our series The Anatomy of a Campaign for details on that one).

I hated it.

Ok, I didn’t hate the idea or setting, but as a game master I hated being tied to the books, trying to make incidents and events happen that I was unfamiliar with, no matter how much reading I did. And of course, with every player question I found myself diving into the books and spending far to much time trying to find the answers.

I should have learned my lesson.

But I didn’t. After Pirates I decided to take on an even bigger challenge with Masks of Nyarlathotep.

And 30 episodes in, I am having a miserable time (please don’t tell my players that)

Personally, I like to make it up as I go.

But that’s just my opinion. Some people love pre-written modules. Other’s prefer sandbox worlds and settings and still others enjoy the Western Marches style…oh, is that a new one for you. Don’t worry we will cover that.

In this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about the type of campaigns. What’s good, What’s bad, and why?