This episode, Keepers Murph, Dave, and Bridgett chat with industry superstar, leader, coach, author, screenwriter, professional GM (and more), B. Dave. Walters. Bridgett got super distracted with both his and Murph’s voice– hence the episode title. We’re not sorry.

The Campus Crier is where we talk about recent Mythos-related events and happenings in the world. This episode was recorded on January 26, 2023. Pound-sign facts.

Something that will come as a surprise to no one who funds TTRPG Kickstarters, Funagain Logistics is closing. Another casualty of the Covid-inflicted shipping crisis – they just couldn’t keep up with the chaos and demand on their operations. They will fulfill their current agreements and continue shipping through April 30th, but after that no more complaining about Funagain and their shipping of Free League kickstarters.

Update on Laird Barron and his condition, a GoFundME campaign has been started for the author Laird Barron who has been hospitalized in serious condition. Mike Davis from the Lovecraft eZine has organized this and so far they have managed to raise over $133k. Laird is still in the hospital but in stable condition, though he still has a long way to go, and that is going to cost a lot of money. American healthcare is bullshit.

Aint Slayed won the Top Actual Play Podcast from ENWORLD!  Congratulations!!! Amazing team, fantastic games, and well deserved award for sure. Welcome to the Hall of Fame yo!

The OGL Fiasco rolls on. In the two weeks since we last recorded, the situation has evolved, and yet, everything that was put in motion with the leaked OGL 1.1 has continued in play. Wizards, through D&D Beyond, issued not one but two statements. The first when they tried to just “whoops we’re sorry!” and then slightly alter the terms of the new OGL. And then after that just made things worse, they apologized again and then created a new 1.2 OGL which they have actually released as a draft this time for the community to help determine the terms. Or something like that. 

Meanwhile, as mentioned before, out of all the chaos many game companies have collected their D&D toys and left 5e behind. For good. Paizo, creator of the largest OGL 1.0 licensed-games Pathfinder and Starfinder, has announced they are creating the irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC). They are tracking a still-growing list of companies that have joined them, at least 1500 publishers as of recording, including Chaosium, EN Publishing, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry and Roll20, Frog God Games, Goodman Games, Green Ronin, Kobold Press, Pelgrane Press, and many many more. You can find a link to an updated list on the Paizo community boards. 

It looks like Wizards is now in full reputation rescue mode now, but it looks like the damage has been done. WOTC has also announced they are going to release the core rules of D&D as Creative Commons content later on another sure sign that they are desperate to fix their image. There is a movement to boycott the upcoming D&D movie that has gained some traction. People hope to send a message to Wizards that they don’t appreciate being viewed as dollar signs, and so they want to flip that around and hurt Wizards and Hasbro where it counts. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves arrives in theaters on March 31, 2023 and you may want to avoid seeing it in the first week or so when it’s in theaters to help send a message.

It seems like most of the big moves have played out, at least for now, and if Wizards wanted to stop people from making money on 5e then they have most definitely succeeded. But we haven’t seen the actual ramifications yet, as content creators are still moving things around, the ORC isn’t actually a thing yet, and OGL 1.2 is trying to squeeze its way back into the collective consciousness. So we stay wary and alert, passing our Spot Hidden rolls with EXTREME success.

We have a Patreon! To back us you can click the button on the sidebar of our website, mu-podcast.com or head over to Patreon directly at www.patreon.com/mup!

Dave’s movie night is on! February 25th! Give me a couple days to organize it, but we should have surveys out by the beginning of February. Mark your calendars!

We have our MUP Discord and we are all there! We invite all of our listeners to come and enjoy the community of horror gaming and cute pet pics. LInk in the show notes: MU Discord server invite link: https://discord.gg/vNjEv9D 

And thank you mucho mucho to our new editor Moe for editing this episode. Thanks Moe! And thanks Nate for editing 263. Great first edit.

“Sending happy belated birthday love to Emmy, from backer Adam! This dog in the basket is too much. I can’t even. Happy birthday sweet girl! Tell your Dad that Auntie Bridgey says it’s okay for you to her extra belated birthday treats!”

B. Dave Walters!

His academy: https://www.undisputedacademy.com/

Lead designer: https://motherlandsrpg.com/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/writing-about-dragons-and-shit/id1566161120

And most people know him as Victor on LA by Night (Geek and Sundry)