Total Pebble Knockdown

Last week, Klaus Teuber, the legendary game designer who created Catan, passed away. So, we are talking a bit about Catan, specifically the differences between the board game and the dice game that came later. How did the mechanics change in the process and what had to get sacrificed to make the switch? Nathan finally gets to talk about this modern classic board game.

What are realistic expectations that new players should have going into TTRPGs? During our live show our crew started talking about the influence of livestreams and liveplays on roleplaying games. Is it unrealistic to expect an epic roleplay experience out of the gate? And is there really a problem with NOT doing an epic campaign?

So, you have a PC that can fly. This can cause some issues with creative problem solving if you can just fly over the terrain. What can you do to make flying characters included in your party without overshadowing the abilities of everyone else? Let’s soar over that topic as we go Delving Deeper.

E3 2023 has been cancelled. But not for the reasons it had been cancelled the last few years and that might bode really badly for future conventions. Has the digital age completely changed how video game companies release information to the public?

Stay awhile and listen. We played in the Diablo 4 open beta and had some thoughts on what we saw. Did Alex see anything change since his time in the closed beta? Did Nathan get to raise an army of the dead? And more importantly, what did he do in the game? Time to fight some digital demons.

The Paladin is a classic D&D class and it’s no surprise that it returns in One D&D. Test material was recently released from Wizards of the Coast showing off what the paladin will potentially look like. Let’s go through our holy warrior level by level to see if they are any less boring than they were before.

Do you actually need a dedicated healer in your party? Can other D&D classes fill the role outside of the cleric, druid, paladin, etc. that might fill that role? Also, is it even a good idea to have a dedicated healer or is that counter-productive? That is what we are discussing on this week’s Crit Think.

Many people are committed to playing D&D 3.5E and many will stan for 5E, but did you know there were other versions of Dungeons & Dragons? Yes, there were. One that rarely gets discussed is 3E because of it’s relatively short lifespan before 3.5 dropped. But what did 3E do and what was changed in 3.5E that made it so much better? On this Delving Deeper, Nathan talks about what he found out about 3E, the stuff it added, the stuff it brought back and ultimately the stuff that got changed afterward.

More One D&D test material has been released by Wizards of the Coast. This time it’s about the Druid and Paladin. On this Mechanically Speaking, we go into the Druid. How does this test material change Wild Shape? Is the Circle of the Moon still cool? Can we be a tiny elephant?

In a follow-up to our discussion on the PS6, we talk about the main reason for the Sony document that got revealed. Intriguingly enough, it has little to do with the PS6 and far more to do with Call of Duty’s future on Sony consoles. What if GamePass gets Activision/Blizzard titles? What happens if they become exclusive to Microsoft? We will look at some of the heavily-redacted documentation to see what Sony is actually talking about.

After picking up the PDF of Kids on Bikes, Nathan noticed an interesting piece about collaborative world-building early into the RPG. So, let’s talk about how it implements this collective ideation and how we would build a town using this fraemwork.

Should you tell your players about the bad guy’s weakness? Also, should the biggest bad guy have a weakness in the first place? Should your players be given another way to fight that opponent? Is there a conveniently placed lever for a trap door? All this and more on a Crit Think.