Tavern Chat

Joe and Tenkar return for another Friday night of mayhem and D&D memes...

BlizzardActivisionKing employees are seeking to organize and possibly unionize. Was Paizo's Workers Union merely a move on the chessboard for the Communications Workers of America (CWA)?  https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/employees-of-activision-blizzard-file-unfair-labor-practice-charge-against-gaming https://www.inverse.com/gaming/activision-blizzard-union-abetterabk-could-change-the-game...

Why do so many players enjoy player Murder Hobos? I strongly suspect its the adrenaline rush attached to risk and reward.

Glen and Tenkar are back with a Friday Night Livestream

When George from Emperors Choice offered to send me a few copies of various Arduin releases for me to cover, I never expected this amount, not just the pure number, but literally the amount of gaming content. Christmas arrived early for your Tavern Keeper ;) https://empcho.com/

Last week Geek Native posted an article that Paizo was changing the word "phylactery" to "Soul Cage", and that they mentioned such change in the preface of their newest release in their current Adventure Path. Aside from the fact that "Soul Cage" is simply boring, it appears that Paizo is making such change more for getting the credit for doing so instesd of such change being "the right thing to d...

How detailed do we need our adventures? At what point is too much detail detrimental to adding a commercial adventure to your campaign. Is less more?

Diamond Comics got hit with a ransomware attack and has yet to fully restore functions 3 days later. Robinhood - the stock trading company - got hacked by a hacker who got access to the data of 7 million customers.  Just how vulnerable is OneBookShelf, Frog God Games, Paizo, Goodman Games, Itch.io and so many others?   https://bleedingcool.com/comics/diamond-comics-switches-to-emergency-...

Back in the old-time, Google+ and Forums ruled the roost. Blogs were looming large. Today, Google+ is dead, blogs are dying, and forums are suffering. It is the day of social media, podcasts, and YouTube. Do you read RPG forums? Which ones? If you don't, why not?

No one has "game designer" as a fall back position in their potential jobs list. You become a "game designer" because you want to create games, not because you failed in some other occupation.  There are so many would be game designers, and so few positions that pay a fulltime salary, that anyone going into the "game industry" as their primary occupation better think good and hard. Because if...

The failed G4 Network will return later this month and Invitation to Party is one of the network's new shows. Live audiences on Twitch and Youtube will affect the direction of each episode. https://www.thathashtagshow.com/2021/11/11/g4-announces-dungeons-and-dragons-presents-invitation-to-party/

Well, it looks like "Duck" Leason is returning home, leaving the Dungeon Hobby Shop without its curator. Ernie Gygax states that the DHS Museum is closed, but will open to gamers by appointment.

There is a potential deal in the making between Gail Gygax and Luke Gygax, re: the EGG Revocable Trust (Gary Gygax's Estate)

I read this in a thread at ENWorld, announcing the recruitment by WotC of a Senior Game Designer position.  It is a painful truth. https://www.enworld.org/threads/wizards-is-hiring-a-senior-game-designer-for-dungeons-dragons.684230/

Bad Mike & Tenkar are joined by Douglas Cole (Gaming Ballistic, Dungeon Grappling, Dragon Heresy, and much more. Nordland Bestiary and Enemies Book launched 11/18/21 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamingballistic/nordlond-bestiary-and-enemies-book?ref=39cpby&token=7308c8b7

As I've been delving into Arduin, I've been treating it almost like an archeological dig. I've been more interested in essays than crunch, and I've been focused on finding how the earlier works have influenced later and current game design. Is this the path the viewers want me to walk?

Continuing my perusal of Arduin, I take a look at Space Aliens & Other Aliens in Fantasy RPGs. Dave's words are likely more inciteful than he had envisioned, and I'm glad to have found them.

Returning to Arduin, I take a look at Dave's article Notes on Alignment and Playability. While I don't agree with everything Dave writes in this piece, it does encourage one to think "outside the box" in terms of alignment.

I spoke earlier today with George DeRosa, VP at Emperors Choice. Emperors Choice owns the TM and Copyright to Arduin and a ton of unpublished works by David Hargrave. There are large plans for Arduin in 2022. Also, orders are now being taken at https://empcho.com/about-arduin/  Huge thanks to George DeRosa for taking the time out of his day to talk with me.

I've started to delve deeply into The Arduin Trilogy. Although I own the books in print in their original digest size, I find them easier to read in the nicely laid out and formatted PDF. Today I was struck by Dave's article on DM's Vs Angry Players, and thus I remark on it.

There is a current discussion going on in the gaming community at large about where certain publishers and others in the community stand politically. The Tavern, and by extension, your bartender, is very much apolitical. That apparently is a political stance detested by both extremes.

We were promised the LotFP Referee Book in January of 2019, and even that date was supposed to be a joke, as it was so far in the future it would be completed far in advance. Here we are in September of 2021, and the Indiegogo page hasn't had an update since Feb 28th, 2020.  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lotfp-hardcover-referee-book#/updates/all

Justin LaNassa was nice enough to post a meme about me on Facebook. I put it into context.

When we think Basic D&D, we usually think of Holmes, Moldvay, and Mentzer. We don't usually include Troy Denning and Doug Stewart to the Basic Set Masters List, but they do belong.

As mentioned on ENWorld, there have been 9 TTRPG Kickstarters that have surpassed 1 million dollars in backers' money. What is going on? https://www.enworld.org/threads/as-one-million-dollar-kickstarter-ends-another-appears.682458/