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You Heard it Here Last

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

https://www.enworld.org/threads/2024-diana-jones-award-finalists-announced.704637/

We are going to start this week off with the Diana Jones Award Finalists. The Diana Jones Award for excellence in gaming was founded in 2000 and presented at the first ceremony in 2001, It is awarded to a single recipient each year at an industry-only event the evening before the start of Gen Con.  The award exemplifies excellence in gaming among "people, products, companies, events, movements, concepts, or things" of that year. 

The finalists for this year are;

Adepticon, Ami Baio, Fastaval, TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida, and United Piazo Workers.

Christina, any of the finalists jump out at you?

[Kick to Christina]

How about you Mike. Thoughts on this year’s finalists?

 [Kick to Mike]

https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/pre-order-available-for-r-talsorian-games-new-cyberpunk-edgerunners-mission-kit/

Moving on to one of our favorite topics, Cyberpunk, R. Talsorian Games has announced the upcoming Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit in conjunction with CD Projekt Red. The box set contains three books totaling 120 pages, pre-generated characters from the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners universe, themed dice, maps, standees, and more. The set is designed to integrate players directly into the storyline aftermath of the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners finale.

This sounds like what I have been waiting for. What about you Mike?

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, are you looking forward to this one as well?

[kick to Christina]

Well, there you have it, tune in next time for all the news you’ve already heard.

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With this episode we wrap up the Pirates of Drinax Campaign.

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

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/dandds-new-rules-will-be-available-under-a-creative-commons-licence/

We are kicking off today with yet more D&D News. It’s funny how much we talk about a game we don’t play. But that’s a topic for another day. Today we are talking about the fact that the new D&D Rules that is being called D&D 2024 for now will be released under a Creative Commons License.

Wizards of the Coast has already put 5E material in their SRD or Systems Reference Document which allows third party contributors to use the rules in their products and now promises that all of the new game material will also be available in the SRD.

Now we can talk about something that is not D&D Related.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/asmodee-owner-to-split-into-3-companies.703830/

Embracer Group, the Swedish company that owns Asmodee, Edge Studios, and Fantasy Flight Games will split into three different companies. With over 9,000 IPs this is bound to have an affect on games we love.

The company has been going through a rough time with hundreds of layoffs and closures and this move is being made to allow the different groups to publicly trade and focus on what the do best. The three groups are Asmodee (table top gaming), Coffee Stain & Friends (Premium and Free to Play Online Gaming), Middle Earth Enterprises & Friends (LOTR Content, Dark Horse Comics, and Tomb Raider) 

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Before we get started, I want to give a shout-out to Distaff over on our Discord server. They hit us up asking for more in our Anatomy of a Campaign series. Thanks for listening and for the feedback Distaff. That was one we forgot about.

Christina and I had recorded Episode 3, but the audio quality was just too bad to release. We put it in the queue to get back to it, and then with the holiday’s it got lost in the shuffle.

So here we are revisiting the Pirates of Drinax campaign.

Christina, do you remember where we left off?

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On this episode of You Heard it Here Last, Christina and I talk about the upcoming D&D 2024 and the opening of Kickstarter Season.

Check it out for news you have already heard.

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I don’t remember if it was my first visit to the public library, a Carnagie Public Library of course, but it was definitely the first time I strayed away from the children’s section and started looking for books to read.

The adult side of the library was very different. No cartoon covers in bright colors, just rows and rows of big fat books, they all looked the same. And they all looked like they were more than I could handle. But then I found them.

They were in their own section. Rows and rows of small little paperbacks with colorful covers and images of … cowboys.

The authors name on the books was Louis L’amour and they were my first foray into adult fiction.

I read them all, and loved every minute of it. I still have an old copy of The Daybreakers laying around somewhere in the house.

I grew up towards the end of the Western era in Hollywood, Bonanza and Gunsmoke were still on TV, but they would be gone very soon replaced with shows like Kojak and MASH. The westerns of the decade spent more time deconstructing the genre then telling western stories and John Wayne’s last film the Shootist hit box offices in 1976.

Many of you out there look at the western as an outdated genre, one that has little place in the hustle and bustle of 21st century storytelling. And of course, when it comes to roleplaying nobody is playing a western, right…

Right?

Well, we are here to point out that you are likely playing a western and don’t realize it. Just like with our Sci-Fi episode where we determined that almost everything in roleplaying could be considered Sci-Fi. I would argue that almost every story our table top roleplaying games are telling is a western.

The importance of the western can not be understated. The mythic and timeless stories are tied closely into the three pillars of roleplaying; Social, Exploration, and Combat.

While I can go on for hours about Westerns, Mike, you never really got into the western. When did you recognize how tied in it was to most rolelplaying games.

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last.

We are going to start this week with some good news for D&D 5E, or at least for the Dungeon Dudes.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-dungeon-dudes-notch-up-another-million-dollar-kickstarter.703873/

Unless you have been living under a rock you heard that Cynthia Williams the president of WOTC has resigned.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/wotc-president-cynthia-williams-resigns.703723/

Finally, Steve Jackson Games, a game company near and dear to my heart, that’s right my first email address was at io.com, just released their stakeholder report for 2023 and it’s “mehh”

https://www.enworld.org/threads/steve-jackson-games-releases-stakeholder-report-for-2023.703757/

Well, there you have it, everything we’ve got at “you heard it here last”. Tune in in a couple of weeks for more news you’ve already heard.

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For me it started with Blade Runner. I remember being blown away by the majestic sweeping images while Vangelis played in the background. It was that mixture of noir and sci-fi, dark tech and it just oozed attitude.

Snow Crash was next, the 1992 novel that really opened my eyes to the full cyberpunk experience. Ghost in the Shell, Altered Carbon, Akira, Battle Angel Alita, the Matrix and more recently Kacey Ezell’s Second Chance Angel rounded out my hard drive.

As for roleplaying I played in a short lived GURPS Cyberpunk campaign, and while I enjoyed it, I felt like it was missing something. Something that didn’t quite connect what was in my head to the game we were playing. So, a couple of years ago when Mike asked if I was interested in playing Cyberpunk Red I jumped at the chance. It was fun and I had a good time, but to be honest, it was missing something. That same something that was missing the first time I gave it a go. The cyberpunk in my head just wasn’t jiving with the cyberpunk in the game.

Then, at the urging of Mike and Christina I downloaded Cyberpunk 2077. And that was it. What I had been missing in those games is what I found in 2077. The world of cyberpunk. The world your characters lived in. In the table top attempts, the story took front row to the world, but for cyberpunk to really flourish the world has to take priority over the story. What is it to be human? What is it to truly live?

After a few hours of 2077 I hit Mike back up.

“So, I would love to play more cyberpunk, especially in the 2077 world.”

His response was “Well, I’m working on it”

And here we are. We thought this would be a perfect opportunity to talk more Cyberpunk while getting a behind the scenes look at how Mike goes about building a campaign.

Mike, I described what I was always chasing in cyberpunk. What about you? What draws you to cyberpunk?

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On this episode of You Heard it Here Last, Mike and I talk TTRPG sales and the new Fallout TV Show.

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Preparing to run a new game can be daunting. A game master must design the world the players will be adventuring in. They will need to create a compelling story, a reason to adventure. They will need to fill their new world with set pieces, action, and amazing locals. Finally, they will need a villain, a character that will compel the players to risk their own lives to stop it’s evil machinations.

As game masters we often find ourselves excited for the first night of the campaign. The scene is set and everything is ready to go.

Then the players make their first moves.

“Let’s stop by the blacksmiths shop before we go, to see what they’ve got.”

“Uh ok, lets see…the blacksmiths shop, got it. You see the blacksmith working behind a forge.”

“Cool, what do they look like…Are they young or old? Do they look like they know what they are doing? Hey excuse me! How long have you been working iron in this town? Do you live above the forge? Have you ever seen a shield like the one I’m carrying?”

And, all that hard work sits unused in the notebook while you have to create an NPC on the fly.

The Non Player Character is one of the most important aspects of any roleplaying game, but it’s the one we typically spend the least time creating. Good NPCs will make an adventure, while bad ones can derail things faster than you can image.

A great example of this just happened in our groups Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. In the opening session I introduced Lt. Poole to the players, specifically one player character Dr. Lillian McKay. Dr. McKay was a pathologist working at the hospital so it only made sense that she would be familiar with some of the NYPD Homicide detectives. With an Appearance Score of 85 it also tracked that the overworked, out of shape, rumpled detective would have a little bit of a crush on the pretty doctor. So while the Lt. would intimidate everyone else, he would probably over share a little with Dr. McKay. Bring her some coffee and bagels, while dropping off confidential police files, checking up on her occasionally just to make sure she was ok.

When I killed him in a very brutal manner, I could see the player visibly get a little angry, and that’s when I knew I had pulled it off.

It did piss you off a little didn’t it Christina?

[Kick to Christina]

Today Christina and I are going to talk about creating compelling Non Player Characters and give you some tips and tricks to do this quickly and on the fly.

So, Christina, How do you like to start creating your NPCs?