Before Monstober is upon us.

Shocking though it may be, coming up with monsters on a daily basis might not be as easy as it sounds. Yes, I can stat almost anything I see into a monster or creature of some kind with little effort, I find coming up with creative, interesting, and playable beasties takes a bit more effort.

I’m ever so thankful for Dragonbane and the Dragonbane Bestiary for making it a little easier to come up with new monsters. The format used makes life easy and convenient for Game Masters to implement or even build a new monster on the spot.

I remember making monsters for Old School Essentials, Dungeons & Dragons 5E, Shadowdark, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. It takes a fraction of the amount of time I spent building monsters for that game to come up with something cool for Dragonbane. It’s a breath of fresh air for GMs not to have to worry about all the extra little mechanics being 100% in line with established worlds. There are a lot of little statistics that simple don’t exist on Dragonbane monsters that the GM can easily fill in later if needed. (Most of the time it won’t be necessary.)

Back To That Break I Mentioned.

Some of my medications were adjusted recently and it’s making things a little easier to function in some ways. The pain is a little easier to live with and theoretically the depression is improving. (And yay I haven’t been locked up yet.) The brain fog and other fun side effects such as drowsiness are still present, but it’s bearable compared to what was going on.

I’ve been looking at Outgunned Adventure RPG, the standalone sourcebook that has its origins in Outgunned, the Action Movie RPG. That review will be up as soon as I get a chance to write one. I like the system so far. It’s great for short campaigns, loosely linked one-shots, and sequels. There’s lots to explore Indiana Jones or Lara Croft style.

Italian TTRPGs might be the wave of the future.

I recently received a copy of Outgunned Adventure in the mail, which I will be reviewing shortly. Thank you, Uberstrategist. I would like to mention that Uberstrategist  (website: https://www.uberstrategist.com/) represents some of the companies who bring us amazing tabletop games from all over the world, including Modiphius, Free League Publishing, and even Chaosium. Free League Publishing recently brought 2 Blind Mice (makers of Outgunned) under their umbrella which is how I learned about it.

I was unable to back Outgunned Superheroes on Kickstarter, but I’ve read through the quickstart rules, and it looks to be an absolute banger of a supers game so far. I’m a sucker for supers games even if it’s just to dip my toes in before going back to ICONS, where my main game universe of superheroes exists. While I haven’t seen another supers game come out of Italy yet, I expect those days are coming.

I think the US tabletop game market is undergoing a bit of a renaissance era with Italian RPGs similar to the way boardgames from Germany became popular 30 years ago. (A trend which continues today, btw.) Recently Fabula Ultima and Gates of Krystalia have made a big splash here in the States. A fantasy based game called Twilight Sword is also coming to Kickstarter soon was announced at Gen Con.

In a somewhat odd ironic tangent, Fabula Ultima, Gates of Krystalia, and Twilight Sword are also based on Japanese anime/manga style “table talk” RPGs. I find this fascinating because I’m also a major otaku nerd and have been for decades. Not to be outshined by the Italian designers, a Japanese company recently announced the return of the anime inspired Sword World game to the US. Will any of these games outshine Dungeons & Dragons? We’ll see what happens.

Part of the reason I think Outgunned and subsequent Director’s Cut system games are becoming popular is because they embrace a different attitude than D&D 5E. I have to admit explosions, gunfire, and movie helicopter crashes sound a lot more exciting than angsty Tiefling baristas crying in their $7 lattes over not getting invited to the Strixhaven prom. At that point, yes I would rather jump out of an exploding helicopter without a parachute than listen to some girl with horns whine about not being a first choice. The Director’s Cut system is very fail-forward game that favors cinematic heroics and bravado over pass-fail dice rolls and stacked modifiers that don’t seem to matter anyway.

Critical Role has shot itself in the foot.

We’ll say foot… yeah. I think Mercer might have been aiming that proverbial hand crossbow down range at some other part of his anatomy, but we’ll say “foot” for now. It’s my opinion, but Darrington Press had an excellent opportunity to drive one of the last nails in the Wizards of the Coast D&D coffin and they blew it big time.

I think it’s time to mention Daggerheart again. Critical Role Campaign Four had the best opportunity to showcase Daggerheart and ride the popularity wave to success almost unheard-of in the industry. What happened? They chose D&D instead.

Add to that a new Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and some sketchy cast member choices such as Aabria Iyengar. Then announce it’s going to be a “West Marches” style game when they clearly show they have no idea what that term means. Now they have a recipe for what is most certainly abject, horrible failure. But that’s okay, because Mercer is just a player in this one for now.

Look, I’m not saying every campaign should have manly guys doing macho things, but I’ve seen the characters they’re bringing to the table for this “West Marches” style game. Not every game needs a massive wall-of-meat barbarian with a 5 Intelligence in order to be cool. But it’s rapidly becoming apparent that Critical Role has done better in the past in terms of all of their choices. It would be so cool if the game could just go back to Matt Mercer and six of his voice actor friends playing D&D in his basement and enjoying the game regardless.

Anything would be better that this almost literal three ring circus they’re planning right now. Three different smaller groups on the Brennan Lee Mulligan railroad regardless of what they claim the campaign is just sounds lame. Mercer is probably going to end up splintering off into his own breakout group to try to salvage the season at some point. Either that or it’s just time to admit the whole thing has gotten out of hand, end the series once and for all. Maybe it’s time for Matt and company to move onto other things. This is becoming Dimension 20 with a different stage and cast.

Tinfoil Hat Time!

Did anyone else think it was a little suspicious that Christopher Perkins and Jeremy Crawford went over to Darrington Press right as Daggerheart burst onto the scene? And does it look odd that no one has really replaced them at WotC yet as a side note? Then, I’m going to put a piece of red yarn on a thumbtack and stick it to Critical Role Campaign 4. Isn’t it strange that they suddenly chose D&D over Daggerheart.

But Matt Mercer and Travis Willingham went on Dungeoncraft on YouTube for an interview with Professor DungeonMaster. Link to that video here. I thought it was a good interview. The Professor got right to the question we’ve all been asking, “Why D&D?!?”

Now, here’s where I still think things sound a bit suspicious. I like Professor DM, but we know he is friends with WotC as well as Matt Mercer. In my conspiratorial mind there is no way Mercer doesn’t have a NDA signed with WotC. I didn’t expect him to go into any interview and simply blurt out, “WotC slid me a pile of cash to run D&D for CR C4.”

But that well was poisoned when Travis Willingham said there would still be a bunch of us out here saying we’d heard from “secret sources or email leaks” that it was an inside job. I don’t need an inside source or an email leak, brother. I been around the block a few times and I know how this stuff usually works. (Sorry, cough, my inner pro wrestler got loose again.) But now no matter what we say out here in the media, the CR guys are right and we’re a bunch of crazy conspiracy clowns.

I’ll go back to the most tried and true method of unraveling any mystery: Follow the money. Who has the most to gain by Critical Role playing D&D? Matt and company did switch over from Pathfinder originally. (Can’t just go with a game because it’s fun and we enjoy it, now can we?)

Please advocate for the games you love.

It feel sad for a couple of reasons when I think about this situation with Daggerheart. First, if I created a brand new game that was selling out whole print runs in the first week following release, I’d advocate for that game. (My lips to your ears, God.) Second, it’s freakin D&D. No offense to the 5E.2024 fans, but any DM can walk in off the street and run an actual play of D&D.

Wizards of the Coast profits from this arrangement twice over if you really stop and consider it. First, they get all that continued free advertising/endorsement for D&D by a cast of popular voice actors. Second, they get to bury Daggerheart before it really takes root and cuts too far into the bottom line. It could have been the next Pathfinder, now it’s the next My Little Pony RPG.  

The real disservice here has been done to the fans.

Basically, this massive cast and crew have just said, “We’re sticking to D&D because we don’t think you’re smart enough to handle us playing Daggerheart.”

Wow, way to slap the hordes of Daggerheart fans right in the face. We’re used to WotC treating the D&D fans like crap, but this is a new low for Critical Role. Did they really stop to consider what they were doing in the slightest before making this announcement? Do they think so little of their own creation at Darrington that they didn’t beg Matt to ask Brennan Lee Mulligan have to learn a new game?

When I was fully immersed in the convention scene, D&D was the lowest common denominator default game. If you didn’t have any other events or just wanted to chill for four hours, you played in a D&D one shot. I know I ran several of them.
Now there are so many other choices for fantasy games. You wouldn’t catch me running D&D because I’d be talking nonstop about Dragonbane until my voice gave out and they had to drag me out of the convention hall clinging tenaciously to my white board the whole way. The same logic should apply to Matt Mercer and Daggerheart. It’s your baby, for crying out loud!

Back to our original topic before my blood pressure goes too high.

Superhero games and covert ops/spy games are kind of my fallback genres of roleplaying when I’m not doing fantasy. I have to kinda be in the mood for horror and October is coming, so we’re chilling out before the big horror game push. Outgunned kinda covers both of my fallback genres at once.

To that end, I’m creating a couple of campaign outlines. One is for a sort of roguish action force spy game; the other will be an all new superhero campaign setting. I want to create something outside of my usual four-color heroic fare into more of a vigilante Bronze Age game that will be aptly suited to Outgunned style play. The bad guys might not always win, but at least they escape to start all over again.

I’m striving for campaign beats more akin to Teen Titans, X-Men, or early years Detective Comics as opposed to JLA or Avengers. We’ll save the world shattering over-arching mega plots for when people have gotten a feel for the game world and maybe the mechanics a little better. Or I throw the Director’s Cut mechanics out the window and convert the whole thing to FATE or some other system. We’ll see how it goes.

With everything going on in the world right now, we need games.

We need some good old fashioned dice-rolling, saving-the-day heroics right now for a few hours to offset all of the terrible news in the world. Let me bash the monster in the head and grab some loot, save the dragon from that pesky princess, or fly the cat out of a burning tool shed. Anything that distracts from the real world for a few hours is golden regardless of what form it takes.

Thank you for being here with me today. I appreciate you. Keep it real, but please strive for positivity, too. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy in your life.