One Question Answered on the Marvel RPG Status

 

Apparently Marvel has announced - or at least is taking orders for - a new sourcebook on the Avengers. Good! That should cover a lot of ground and combined with the X-Men book that's already out and the Spider-Man book coming soon that really just leaves the FF as the last of the big four classic groupings not covered. 

The 2024/5 Monster Manual Kerfluffle

 

Yeah ... yeah ... so they took orcs out of the Monster Manual. Drow too. It's the "50th anniversary of the game" edition and they took two pretty significant D&D monsters out of the monster book. 

Now I've read massive discussion threads online about how this is good or bad and watched some takes on YouTube as well. I've seen WOTC's sort-of-stated position that "if it's a playable race in the PHB then it's not a monster in the MM" which is just a ridiculous take. Let's look at why:

First up there is a set of generic NPC statblocks in it which are pretty much human. The suggestion is that one can just reskin those as an orc commoner or wizard or whatever. Except that there is nothing provided to further customize them by species such as orcs, say, seeing in the dark, or being tougher than a human, or perhaps going berserk or hitting harder in some way.

So what are we trying to do here?

If the point of the book is to provide the numbers a DM needs to run opposition for their party of player characters then there should be ready-to-go stats for all of the typical D&D monsters. I shouldn't have to make calculations or edits or apply templates for the typical common versions of these things. If this is a great approach then why not use it for other beasties too? How about a single "dragon" statblock for each age category and then just reskin it by saying what color it is and changing up what kind of damage the breath weapon does? You could do the same thing for giants and many demons and devils as well.

Except the point of the monster book is to provide a variety of interesting things for players to encounter. Quite a bit of time they will end up fighting but not always. But if they do end up opposing each other then mechanical differences matter a great deal - even if it's not a straight-up combat. Does this thing have a high save vs. charm abilities? How about AoE damage spells? Does it get by with a higher armor class or is it a huge block of hit points?  Does it have any special senses? Immunities? What is it good at? What is it terrible at? All of this matters.

Taking iconic D&D "monsters" out of the core D&D monster book is a terrible decision made for no solid reason. 

Secondly I saw some discussion of how the tastes of modern players are different than they were years ago which is why Orcs are a playable race - players today, mainly younger players in this discussion, expect different things in their fantasy. Sure, that's fine - we've had half-orcs in the game from very early on and it's not a huge leap to just go full-orc. That doesn't concern me a great deal. But D&D is it's own fantasy "thing" at this point with its own settings and assumptions and expectations and one of those is that orcs are a very common low-level opponent and Drow are a pretty common mid to high level opponent. Adding in some new player options - sure. Taking DM options away? Why? How does it make the game better? I have yet to hear how this makes for a better game.

World of Warcraft is often cited as an example of how players have come to see orcs as a playable race. Sure, they are in that game and that spilling over into D&D really isn't a huge problem. But if one plays an  Alliance character you will be fighting orcs in great numbers in the game. So why do we only get one part of that situation and not the other?

Next up I believe that organized intelligent races as enemies are hugely important to a D&D campaign. Sure, the big monsters are cool but infiltrating the underground Drow city full of a variety of dark elf types is a huge challenge. Orcs, Drow, Goblins, Bugbears, Giants ... all of these should have multiple statblocks reflecting different roles in whatever civilization they have - not fewer, and not "zero". Sure there can be a basic Orc Warrior entry but then there could also be Orc Berserker, Orc Ambusher, Orc Fire Wizard, Orc Priest of X, Orc Necromancer, Orc Greater Chieftain, etc. Drow could have similar takes and specialists. This has been a concept going back to AD&D even if it was often "for every 50 orcs there is a boss that fights as a hobgoblin and for every 100 there is a big boss that fights as an ogre". 

Third edition pretty much went back to one entry per monster but then had a bunch of templates you could add to these statblocks for the weird stuff but it also had a the option for adding class levels to monsters which opened up a huge number of options by turning the PHB into a monster options book as well. Now granted, you had to do the work ahead of time but on the upside you could end up with the Fiendish Orc Priest of Gruumsh who had a magic item he could use and 7 levels of cleric so it was a lot of fun with a bit of prep. 

Fourth edition went with my favorite approach to this by including no less than 7 statblocks for orcs alone: Orc Drudge, Orc Warrior, Orc Raider, Orc Berserker, Orc Eye of Gruumsh, Orc Bloodrager, and Orc Chieftain, tactics for each type, sample encounter groups for various levels, and a list of results for an Orc Lore check at various DCs!

But sure, just taking them out is much better. 

(Drow have 4 entries + bonus info in MM1. They get more later. Goblins get 7. Hobgoblins get 7. Humans get 6)

The 2014 5th Edition Monster Manual carried this forward with 4 distinct statblocks for Orcs and Drow. Goblins were down to 2 and Hobgoblins had 3. 

So yes, this is a weird direction to take. As a DM more mechanically distinct representations of a type of monster give me more options to work with when placing that monster in my campaign. That helps me differentiate "a patrol of" vs. "a camp of" vs. "a city of" as my players journey around the setting. Having some other ways to adjust them as well like templates or level adjustments or size adjustments just enhances those selections, and even if I don't intend to use goblins in this campaign, reskinning is only made better with more complimentary types - those 4E goblins made a mean band of gnomes if the PC's got on the wrong side of them. 

Give me more monsters - not less, especially in the "Monster Manual" that so many campaigns will be based on. Taking them out means that if I want to run old adventures (like I am doing) using the 2024 rules I have to either sub in another statblock (hopefully not one I'm going to be using in the same adventure), make up my own entirely (seems kind of stupid to have to do this for orcs of all things), or I have to fall back on the 2014 version since this edition is Totally Backwards Compatible. This feels like a lot of effort for something as common as "orcs"  in a D&D campaign - because they should have just been in the MM to begin with.

Finally, The idea that being a playable race should mean no entry in the monster book is just a strange take. No other game does this. 

• In Runequest I'm pretty sure you can play a Troll via one of the supplements but you will also likely fight them at some point. They are one of the signature races of Glorantha and have been detailed pretty extensively as a culture for over 40 years but they are also still opponents to be fought. 
• In Pendragon you play knights and you will also likely fight some knights. 
• In Traveller you can find character creation options for almost any intelligent race and you can also find statblocks for them to be used as opponents. 
• In Star Trek you can play as a Klingon or a Romulan or any number of aliens and you will often end up fighting any of those plus other Federation species! 
• Even Paizo, who gleefully included goblins as a playable race in Pathfinder 2E, have a "goblin" entry in Monster core - with multiple statblocks to boot!

(Honestly, think about how many times Klingons end up fighting Klingons in the shows and movies.)

Again, no other game takes this stance because no one feels like it is necessary or improves the game. 

Yet here we are. Thankfully Tales of the Valiant does include a couple of entries for Orc in the Monster Vault (Drow too) so we will just continue using that for this campaign.

Status of the Marvel Multiverse RPG?

 

There are a lot of great superhero RPGs out there right now:

• Mutants and Masterminds is still chugging along. There aren't a ton of new things out there but they've been doing adventures lately which is about the only thing the game hasn't thoroughly covered.
• ICONS is another mature RPG that is still cranking out new material.
• Champions is not one I hear much about anymore but it is still producing things like .. .character creation cards? I'm not sure I get that but I'll have to take a closer look.
• The Sentinel Comics RPG is one of the newer entries in this category and the latest thing there is the new version of the starter set which is probably a good thing but I wish they were doing more! I'll have to cover it in another post but this is a very promising game that just needs a little more attention.
• Absolute Power is the new version of Silver Age Sentinels. It's been out for a year or two now and has decent support so if you think a BESM approach to supers is interesting it's worth a look. This one is probably worthy of a separate post as well.

All of the above games are currently in-print and have pretty solid support beyond the basic rules but there was one potentially giant new entry in the field in the last couple of years that many of us were interested in - the Marvel Multiverse RPG, published by, well, Marvel itself. My own account of a tryout game is here and I thought it was worth considering as a real option. 

For Marvel we saw the main rulebook come out in 2023 along with a starter adventure and  since then we've seen an "Adventure" - Cataclysm of Kang and an "Expansion" about the X-Men. That's decent enough and there is one other announced book coming which is the Spider-Verse Expansion. There was also a set of Marvel Dice and a short Deadpool adventure that came out around the time of the movie last year.

Recently though I saw new copies of the core rulebook show up at a local Half-Price Books. Not one copy, but multiples. Now Half-Price is a pretty regular stop for my wife and I - there are quite a few of them around DFW - and we hit them whenever we are out and about. Over the past few weeks I've seen multiple new copies in multiple stores in the area. That's not a great sign for a new game as that means they are remaindered or whatever the official industry term is and sold off as a bulk lot. It happens from time to time but being fairly aware of what shows up on the RPG shelf in local used bookstores sometimes things jump out like this. So I am concerned about how the game is doing - I decided to check around online.

The MMRPG D616 Facebook group used to consistently show up in my FB feed as a group with "10+ posts a day" as recently as last year. Now it's down to "5 posts a day". Well ... 

The MMRPG Reddit group has slowed from maybe around 5 posts per day to roughly 3 per day. Not as dramatic as FB but it does seem less active. 

There is also a starter set that was supposed to be coming out from Gamefound that has been delayed from September-November to "early next year" which is ... now. It funded in February 2024. It's causing some friction. Beyond that there were some other accessories mentioned like GM screens and maps and power cards and more dice  - all of them seemingly tied to some of the supplement books. None of them have appeared or seem to have release dates. None of that is good. 

I wonder if some of the accessories are being held up or "reassessed" due to sales numbers maybe not being what they were expecting. The lack of announced books beyond the Spider-Verse book also does not feel great. I know a lot of this is anecdotal and I'm not trying to jump too far to conclusions - it's been a fairly slow-grow game line but it does seem to have gotten really slow here of late. I've been watching these things for a long time and what I'm seeing here is not positive. 

Let me say that I hope I am wrong about the direction things look to be heading. A thriving Marvel RPG could be a great way to both bring in new players and pull existing players away from D&D as their only game. I hope that we are just in a slow period where a company new to RPGs (Marvel) is working with a new partner on accessories (CMON) and things are just taking extra time. If that is the case I'd love to see a new Avengers book or Fantastic Four book announced - there is a FF movie coming out after all - for later this year. I'll be crossing my fingers as I watch for the next update on this game.

Top Ten Anticipated RPGs for 2025

 

EN World does this every year and I usually try to comment on them. I'm running a little late but I thought it was worth bringing up. The list and discussion is here.

10 - Starfinder 2E: Well I own a PDF of 1E but that's it and I've never run or played it so while I'm very aware of it I am not feeling a ton of anticipation. The straight up fantasy-in-space thing just has never really been my thing despite a love for Rifts and 40K and the occasional D&D/Gamma World crossover back when. I'm not sure why but I think a lot of it is the setting - expanding outward from their fantasy planet while leaving a big gap in recorded history as far as what happened to the place just does nothing for me. Maybe it's topo generic-feeling. So many other interesting settings out there that mix magic and tech - this one just never clicked for me.

9 - Alien Evolved: Another new edition of a game I haven't played.  We don't do a lot of horror here and if we did I'd probably lean more towards something like Mothership but I haven't done anything with that one either so ... no real anticipation here either.

8 -13th Age Second Edition: Well I did the Kickstarter for this one so yeah, I'm interested. Some genres just click with you and D&D-style fantasy will always be one of those for me. I liked 13th Age when it came out but I never ran it. I will make room to at least give it a tryout this time as I like what I see in the previews. It's just different enough to make it interesting. So yes, "anticipated" for sure.

7 - Coriolis The Great Dark: Well if you either haven't heard of it or weren't paying attention to it ... at all ... it's hard to say you were anticipating it. I've heard the name over the years and after perusing the Kickstarter page it looks interesting. I'm getting Expanse vibes from it and that's not a bad thing. I'm just not sure my players would choose it for "dark exploratory sci-fi game" over say 40K Wrath and Glory. It was not "anticipated" but I'll keep an eye on it.

6 - Dolmenwood: I did the Kickstarter here too so yes, it's definitely anticipated. It's another OSR thing but it has what looks to be an interesting setting and a lot of support material. I think it's a sandboxy campaign one could finish, to some degree, and not just another generic fantasy world. It's a big forest with specific inhabitants and an English folklore-y background and that approach and the art really pulled me in - all of the art on this post is from Dolmenwood.

5 - Discworld: I love the Discworld series of books and I've been reading them since the 80's but I've never felt compelled to make it an RPG setting. Even when the GURPS version came out I didn't really feel the need to get it, run it, or play it, and that is still true today. I don't think anyone could run it the way Pratchett wrote it and it's just not going to feel right in my opinion. Humor is a huge part of these books and running a comedy RPG that everyone at the table finds funny is damn near impossible in  my experience. I've been very aware of this new edition as a big time Kickstarter but I have no interest in it as a game.

4 - Draw Steel (the MCDM RPG): I became aware of this one only after the Kickstarter had run and I will say I am interested in seeing how it comes out as a lot of the descriptions of the rules look really interesting. For something that originated with D&D it looks like it's dumping or changing a lot of the core D&D concepts and I do wonder how that will go over with people who came in with 5E. I'd say it's "anticipated" here now.

3 - Daggerheart: Never heard of it, don't know anything about it. Looking at the web page doesn't tell me enough about how it works, what it aims to do, or how it's different from the endless supply of other fantasy RPGs to make me want to dig into it beyond that. So no, not anticipated.

2 - Cosmere: I am certainly aware of this one after the Kickstarter hype but I haven't read enough  Brandon Sanderson to care. I can't see much about the mechanics but it looks like it uses standard RPG dice. Yet another fantasy RPG ... I don't have any attachment to the books so I'm going to give this one a pass. Not anticipated here.

1 - Legend in the Mist: I know City of Mist has had gained some attention  - lord knows I see enough ads for it online - but I haven't played or run it, don't own it, and the modern urban fantasy thing is just not my genre. It looks fairly FATE-y or Apocalypse World-y and that's fine but this new version says it's a rustic fantasy using a similar system and ... just not my thing man. I would probably play it if I encountered someone excited about running it but this is not a game I'm going to drive with my players. So no, not anticipated here. 

Things not on this list that I am anticipating:

• d6 System Second Edition
• Ashes Without Number
• Deadlands: Abominable Northwest
• Savage Rifts: Europe

Among others. There are definitely games to look forward to this year and if tastes vary as to which ones well, hey, that's part of the fun of this hobby. 

RPG Stuff

 

Yeah I'm still running that. We did take a break while I was dealing with the other stuff but we have started back up and Session 16 will happen this weekend barring extended weather complications. They actually made it into the Temple Proper last session in a way I have never seen before. There were several highlights (including an illusion that fooled everyone for a bit) but nailing multiple party members with a lightning bolt -twice- was particularly enjoyable. If the old bounce-it-off-the-walls rules were still a thing they would have been in serious trouble. The players take on it is available here. I am looking forward to the next visit as they try to figure out where they are and what is going on in the temple.

Beyond that I haven't done a whole lot else. With one game running every weekend there is not much need for active development on another. I offered to split our time between two games (alternating weekends) if it would make scheduling easier for some of my players but it was universally rejected - they want to stay focused on the one game. So for now that's what we do.

I have gotten some Kickstarter stuff in and there is probably more on the way but for now it's mostly being set aside for future use.

The Circle of Life Swings Back Hard

 

I had started working on some posts last month after taking a break and then things just started to come up.

My father had been fighting cancer for several months. A year ago everything was fine - especially considering my parents age. Then as the 2024 progressed it went rapidly downhill. Over the course of six months we went from "something is wrong" to "cancer" to "hospice care" and a hospital bed in the living room as he could no longer climb the stairs. Then in early November he lost consciousness for a few days and left us on a Saturday morning. It's not an easy thing even when you know where things are headed. There's "this is going to happen" and then there is "it's happened" and crossing that boundary is big. I don't just mean myself here - my mom had to deal with this and after being together for over 60 years she gets to contemplate going on alone. It's a hard thing. 

Yes, my parents got married a long time ago and stayed together for the whole ride - more than I have managed to do - and that means I have had both parents my whole life and my kids have had all of their grandparents their whole lives until this year. Now in 2024 they have lost both grandfathers which is not a great thing to look back on.

The main outcome of this day-to-day has been that mom needs more help with things, particularly all of the things dad used to handle around the house or with the cars or with the technology side of things. That mainly lands on me and so there has and still is some adjustment to how to handle those things and there are still all of the other things to deal with too - accounts and stuff and what mom wants to do with the house and the rest of her life. These are all new experiences but I'm trying to make it more of a positive by looking ahead to how I (well, me and the wife so "we") can try to make it easier down the road for everyone ourselves. I don't have to like it all but I can at least try to learn something from it.

Now for the "circle of life" part

So when dad passed that morning I had let the kids know earlier where things were going and Blaster came back with "we are at the hospital". My son got married a while back and they are expecting and yes, the universe decided to go poetic and so later that night, about 12 hours after my dad departed, my first grandbaby arrived.

I had been hoping dad would hang on long enough to meet his first great-grandkid but but he didn’t quite make it. I like to think there still might have been something as they passed each other with one arriving and one departing but that might just be me thinking about it too much. Insert spiritual passage/song lyric/Star Trek quote of your choice here as a lot of stuff crossed my mind that night.

It made things complicated for Blaster too as he couldn’t be there for the end while he was dealing with the beginning across town. Lots of mixed emotions all around that day.

The ray of sunshine here has of course been baby Nickname As Yet Undetermined who reminds us all that life goes on and the future is still out there. He picked a complicated day to arrive but he made it here happy and healthy and we are all very glad for that.

I have to look at 2024 as a year that is not my favorite one for sure - but had a very wide range of good and bad and one of the most emotionally complex days I've experienced.

Now we start the new one and hopefully we find a more upward trajectory as it goes on.

More to come for sure and more of the usual stuff coming soon.

The I-Took-A-Month-Off Update Post

 

It wasn't really planned but it ended up working out that way. No particular crisis, just fell down the priority list in a busy month. I do plan to do more here in November and December to finish the year strong. 

That said last night was our 3rd Halloween in this house and years 1 & 2 we had all of one trick-or-treater each year. We do live out in the country a bit and the houses are spread out and there are no street lights so we just assumed that was normal. Then last night we had at least twenty! So it almost turned into a crisis. Had to pull some reserves out but it ended up OK. We do a lot of outside decorating so maybe that has some kind of cumulative effect and it finally came together this year.

The Temple campaign continues - I stopped posting about it here but we have not stopped playing. I will start catching up on session reports next week and link over to the Obsidian Portal report for each one as reading the players' take each week has been a lot of fun. I do love having a steady, regular campaign with a real commitment from the players so it's a good thing right now. 

I have picked up some new RPG stuff - rulebooks and supplements here and there. The revised Necessary Evil set came in, as did the anniversary edition of Night Train for Deadlands so the Kickstarter stuff is feeding that need but I am trying to maintain focus and not get distracted with other games.

We haven't been playing much in the way of miniatures lately but of course that hasn't stopped me from reading rules and acquiring figures. Last month the big 40K focus was all the new Blood Angels stuff  so I am amassing a nice new pile of Primaris Blood Angels that I will be working on for the foreseeable future. I've decided to treat them almost as a separate new army - combined with the Primaris stuff I already have - and see what I can do using that mindset. More on 40K stuff next week.

My dissatisfaction with the current state of 40K in general did send me off down a seemingly inevitable path: Exploring One Page Rules and Grimdark Future. This is a set of rules (and figures) that have been developing for around 5 years now as a lighter (and cheaper) replacement for 40K. The basic rules are free, the army lists and builder are free, and the bigger Advanced Rules document is all of $4.99. The rules are solid, the army lists re-create every 40K faction (including Knights) and add some new ones as well and they also have 3d printer files for a bunch of alternate figures for these armies too.

Now I admit the OPR/GDF fanatics showing up in every damn 40K group or forum over the last few years had me rolling my eyes on an almost daily basis. When someone in a 40K forum asks about a particular army or rule problem they have encountered I don't need three people telling them to  go play OPR games - it got to be really irritating and I think it's bad behavior to evangelize one game every time someone mentions a different game. The answer to every 40K rules question is not "go play Grimdark Future" and this habit amongst some of its players put me off of the whole thing for quite a while. 

But ...

Seeing my Space Marines losing units this codex ... seeing my Orks losing units to Legends ... knowing my beloved Grey Knights are rumored to be getting a revamp next year, and then seeing the Blood Angels losing multiple unique characters ... I felt like I had to take a look at other options. Having done that now I have to tell you that it is a very very good option indeed. I won't get too into it here but I will talk more about it next week too.

Oh look they decided to combine the 4 books I bought a few years ago into one and add in the minor powers as well - maybe I'll pick it up down the road.

Now besides the 40K and 40K-adjacent stuff I also got into a WW2 mood and decided to revisit my Flames of War stuff. I had been working on a North Africa Mid War setup with British, Americans, Germans, and Italians, but I just wasn't feeling it. With a couple of books about Soviet tank units sitting on myself I started looking at what I had and ended up working on T-34s and KV-1s for a mid-war eastern front army. It looks like I have enough Germans to make a decent opposing force for them as well but getting the Russians built and painted is the priority right now. It's going to take some time but the numbers are still smaller than most of my 40K armies so I'm going to prioritize it and see how much I can get done in November. 

I also picked up the new 3rd edition rulebook for Bolt Action. Haven't read it yet but I have some starter sets sitting around and for this game I want to focus on the Pacific option and finally build those Marine and IJA forces sitting on the shelf now. This will probably come after I get the FOW stuff at least built and basecoated so it may be next year but reading the rules and sketching out a force for each side will give me some non-paint work to do. 

Boardgame-wise I picked up the 40th anniversary (!) edition of Axis and Allies which I will likely manage to play sometime soon. Other than that I added a few wargames that I likely will not get to play anytime soon but hopefully that changes. The occasional eBay deal plus GMT's annual Fall sale plus some of their P500's fulfilling now as well mean I have to find some new shelf space this month. It's not a terrible problem to have but it's a still a problem on some level.

So there's the catch-up talk - steady RPG time, continued work on old miniatures while checking out some new stuff and some new wargame stuff as well. More on all of this next week!

2024 D&D PHB Not-So-Shockingly Sets New Sales Record

 

This isn't exactly a surprise but according to the press release posted in this thread at EN World the new PHB is the fastest-selling D&D thing of all time. Alright. That's good for the game and for RPG's in general to a degree and promoting numbers like this is what companies do when launching a new product. It is still a little weird to see D&D treated like a mainstream product - like a videogame launch in many ways. They quote a number of 85 million "D&D fans" and I expect people on the internet to run with that number as though it's the number of people actually playing D&D which we know it is not - because if it was they would have said so. That's a nice squishy number that could include anyone who's played Baldur's Gate 3, for example, and should not be taken as hard evidence of anything.

That said I don't want to downplay WOTC's success here: they've helped to make D&D a bigger thing than it has been in a long time, if ever. They don't get all of the credit, as despite my own lack of interest the streaming stuff like Critical Role clearly had an impact, and they've had some stumbles as well like the OGL thing last year. But, even given the boost from other factors, they a) made a version of the game normal people - casual players - could understand and b) came up with a business model that involved a limited number of books per year that didn't drive everyone crazy or radically change the game - issues with 3E and 4E that limited their success to a degree.

They also appear, at least right now, to be successfully pulling off an edition change that they aren't calling an edition change. One might say "desperately" trying to call it not an edition change. I get it - a new edition is a great reason for people to jump off of the train, especially when you have the mass market audience D&D has achieved. Most normal people are not excited about paying for another set of rules for a game they already play or learning a new set of rules: "Why can't we just keep playing with what we have?" That's a completely reasonable point of view. But much like the videogame industry I mentioned above - particularly with bigger members of the industry - many game companies depend on new editions to make money because the main rulebook is the one thing everybody tends to buy. Games Workshop is the king of this and has been for some time but TSR/WOTC and Paizo are members of this society and I'd say Modiphius is moving in this direction as well. WOTC has not used the word "edition" much at all in their conversations instead using "revision" as more of the go-to descriptive term and bending over backwards to emphasize "backwards compatibility" which ... ah ... sure. It's nice and to some degree correct but I don't know that it's built to let you run a 2014 Paladin right alongside a 2024 Paladin - will the subclasses cross? I don't know yet but I would guess not without some rejiggering on the DM's part. 

Looks a lot like the last one on the inside

I do have a copy though I have not yet read it and have no plans to run it at this time. I made my D&D-type-fantasy-rpg-of-choice some time ago in favor of Tales of the Valiant and I (and my players) are perfectly happy with it. I do figure it's worth going through to see what the new standard will be. I'll post up my thoughts once I do that with comparisons to the prior version and to ToV. 

Outside of interesting ideas from competitors my other issue is the continuing push by WOTC to move towards D&D Beyond as the "standard" way to play the game and consequently the push towards a subscription fee for a tabletop game. I will not be joining this particular bandwagon and while a lot of companies are busy cross-promoting streamers and setting things up on various online tool sets I just have zero interest in playing the game this way so my take on D&D 2024 will strictly be as a set of RPG books used at the table. 

So it looks like 6th edition will continue to be the juggernaut when it comes to RPGs. Not really a surprise and it is nice to see a company making an effort to not instantly invalidate everyone's books for a new release of their game. Time will tell how it all goes but it all looks pretty optimistic for now. I'm going with the Rising Tide outlook here and hoping that continued good news for D&D will help all of those other games we like too, from ToV & PF2 to smaller names like Mutants & Masterminds, Twilight 2000, and Savage Worlds. It's all looking good for now.

40k Friday - World Eaters 2024

 

I've been working on these guys a lot this year after slowly building up a force for years and learning some lessons along the way. I've had a lot of parts sitting around, some of them painted, but it didn't feel like a cohesive army. After their line update last edition I had to think through how I wanted to handle some things and if I wanted to reallocate or replace anything. Thoughts below:

• The Lord of Skulls is painted and it's still a current and useful model so yes, I'm keeping it in my Khorne force and not moving it to the Iron Warriors - my "normal" chaos army for 40K
• The Maulerfiend is still current and still has a place - now I just need to finish him. I may add a second one too as things like this I like to take in pairs, at least, as it means you might actually get to use them in a fight.
• The Defilers - I have two of these in a scorpion configuration that was a popular option a few years back. I like them, I think they help build out the "daemon engine" options for the army and I think two is enough. I know the model is old at this point but it's one of those things that helped build up the "legend" that is chaos in 40K - especially when this almost goofy/kinda creepy spider-walker-thing showed up in Dawn of War. I like them whether they're "meta" or not so I will keep them and try to finish painting them.
• Heldrake - I have one, it's painted in Khorne colors and while it could use a bit more finishing I love the way the things look. I'm keeping it, even if flyers seem like a forgotten unit in this edition of the game. I've thought about getting a second or even a third at times over the years but I haven't yet. For now it can look good in the display case.
• Helbrutes - Another unit that seems out of favor with the competitive types these day and another case where I don't care. The idea of a chaos marine army without dreadnoughts is just dumb to me so my 3 painted helbrutes from various editions and with various levels of conversion will remain a well-loved part of this army.
• Rhinos - I built and base coated 3 of them years ago as I started putting this force together and now I may finally have time and the motivation to finish them. I bought extra bits and some special bling for them and everything. They are still useful and still the same model so yes, 3 rhinos - another thing defining feature of a chaos marine army.
• Land Raiders - I picked up two of these a year or two back when I saw a bargain deal. They are mostly built and mostly painted but it's not all good work and they have some damage so they need some TLC before I will be happy with them. The big tanks are still useful though, and they can haul any of the infantry in the army and with two of them I am in the sweet spot of "enough" but not "too many or too few" for most battles. 

• Juggerlords - I have a few from old school Rogue Trader versions to the 2E metal ones with the plasma pistol rider to the newer plastic ones - though not the latest Lord Invocatus version. Right now I'm thinking of using the painted plastic one as him and finishing some of the metal ones to use as generic juggerlords.
• Kharn the Betrayer - I have the old metal model built and primed and that's probably what I'm going to use for now. He's a mixed blessing at times, occasionally killing his own troops, but the World Eaters don't get many characters in these newer editions so I feel like he has to be an option. Plus he's been around forever so he's kind of a legend. So yes he will probably be leading the berserker squad that gets left out of having a master of executions.
• Master of Executions - These guys are one of the newer "power" units in the army. Everybody takes at least one and you could take up to three. Considering they  are a solid melee character that grants their unit Fights First ... well, I have 3 of them. I just need to get them finished.
• Daemon Princes - well they split them into "flying" and "not flying" now and while the flying one adds speed and hitting power it doesn't do much else. The walking prince is also mean in combat and adds an invulnerable save aura to buff nearby units which is a fairly big deal - so I built a new ground-pounder for this army and will be painting it shortly to add to the collection of 2-3 flying princes I already had. Daemon princes are fun - I liked the old metal kit (not the original one - that was awful - but the 3rd edition one), I liked the previous plastic kit a lot, and I like the newer plastic kit too. The good thing is that they're all close enough in scale you can use them in the same army and it's no big deal.
• Angron - I have him, he's built and primed but not painted. He's actually the first - and for now only - primarch I own. He will definitely see both the painting and the playing tables.

• Chaos Spawn - I have a few uncommitted models sitting around. I will probably dedicate a pair to the force as they do have some utility as objective-achievers in the later versions of the game.
• Jakhals - don't have any of the new kit and have had a long-standing policy of "I don't play chaos marine armies to run normal human cultists" but I can see some utility here considering they are ridiculously cheap points-wise. I am leaning towards converting some AoS Blades of Khorne troops I've had sitting around for years to build a couple of squads as they look suitably barbaric and are already in-hand. 
• Eightbound - this was the hot new unit they introduced for 9th and there are two versions - Eightbound and Exalted Eightbound - which are way too similar looks-wise and game stats-wise to get really excited about as separate miniatures but they do look suitably gnarly and they are definitely "meta" for this edition so I have two boxes I will probably be building as Exalted. I have not even started this yet.
• Terminators - the other Elite type squad for the World Eaters they are in a weird place. The other two god-specific armies have special terminators but the world eaters do not. I don't know if they will stay that way, or if special termies will be coming along later, or if the eightbound are supposed to fill that role entirely. Much like the helbrute situation I don't like the idea of a chaos marine army with no terminators so I'm going to build some, probably 10, and then I suppose they will potentially become Iron Warrior auxiliaries if we get some special Khornate terminator squad later in 10th or in 11th. 
• Finally - Berserkers! - The heart of the army! The most melee of melee marine options ... if you're running a World Eaters force without berserkers you're doing it wrong! This month I finally finished 30 of them that I had been working on this year. I am using the old berserker kit because I have a bunch of them so I decided to rework them to remove the power fists  - no longer an option - and add on some 3rd party eviscerators that I liked since that's the new heavy melee option. I had to rejigger the number of plasma pistols in a squad too since that changed. Hopefully, since GW has locked in on making squad options tied directly to the kit options, this mean I should be good for at least a few years.
  
  The new kit looks fine but I already had these so I did not want to replace them all. Besides the 30 I finally finished, I have about 20 more of the old ones and then one more squad of converted loyalists, mostly space wolf parts, that should make for a good squad too. That takes me to 60 total once I finish them and that's the most you can take in the latest editions of the game so I am done after that. 

Things in the army that I do not have yet:

• Predators - I have some spare predator tanks on the shelf so I've been thinking about adding one to the force. I don't know how long they will remain a part of the army rules-wise but it's not always about the current edition and more guns would be handy.
• Forgefiends - I do not have one for this army and I am not really sold on adding any. I think the maulerfiend is a better fit here but you never know. 

The shelf is filling up

The other consideration here, one I have been paying more attention to lately, is that I don't care that much about rules for the current edition. Editions come and go but I keep my armies so as I build or rebuild them I am trying to keep them usable in pretty much every edition. base sizes may change here and there but if that's the biggest issue it's really not that much of a problem. If a unit disappears from the codex I'm not going to toss it - I may play 5th edition again someday and it will be waiting on the shelf when I do. It's just something to think about if you plan to make something a "lifetime" army. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session5: In the Dungeon of the Moathouse

 

We begin with a round of stew and stories back at camp as the ranger and the paladin and the fighter all utilize their backgrounds to buff the rest of the party - this is a Tales of the Valiant thing where some backgrounds get a nifty ability to add temp hit points by various means. Beyond the mechanics this has added some fun during exploration and combat as party members speculate on what's going in to the Paladin's chili pot next.

Note: This is the DM's take on the session. For an in-universe player's perspective on the thing click here.

As we sit in camp the party eventually realizes that there is an 8th figure seated at the fire - Inigo Vulnstack, a roguish elven associate of Braeden's (the ranger) - has appeared seemingly out of nowhere and offered to join the group's expedition. With the ranger vouching for him, the rest of the group accepts - another sword will no doubt prove useful.

This was the session where one of my regular  players who has thus far been absent was finally able to join us and so we worked him in as quickly and simply as possible, which turned out to be pretty damn appropriate for the character he created. The relationship with the ranger was invented on the spot to be fleshed out later. This was probably the least painful way to bring in someone new and a bit of a surprise to my players as I have dropped in new characters in far more complicated ways such as being carried off in a sack by beggars, as the only intact statue outside a basilisk's lair (where a convenient stone to flesh scroll was discovered), and via the traditional found chained-to-a-wall-upside-down-and-naked approach  - but I went easy this time.

As the day dawns Bubo the Owl familiar plays recon drone again and surveys the moathouse from the air. They poke around the upper level a bit more finding an empty tower and an abandoned hideout of some kind in the main hall but soon enough it's time to head down the staircase and into the dungeon.

The familiar thing may turn into a serious annoyance at some point as it feel more like a Shadowrun rigger thing than typical D&D fantasy as there's no limit on duration or distance like there would be with a spell. Basic 5E familiars were only good out to100' or so - this came up in a prior campaign - but ToV's ritual makes some significant improvements. In general I play with an attitude that the bad guys don't care about your pet rat or bird or whatever until it attacks them but I will probably be keeping an eye on this one for AoE spells and things to interrupt Bubo's ridiculous efficiency - he ain't flying 100' overhead in a dungeon. There is also a lot of humor tied to him now too as it was noted that if he just had a printer option he could spit out a map after doing recon of an area ... then the dot-matrix sounds start coming out and the whole group cracks up. 

My party managed to completely miss the giant spider hiding in the ruined tower because they were very careful about opening the door to it, looking in, but never stepping in, and then closing the door and walking away - even after noting that they saw shiny coins on the floor!

They also let the bandits get away as I had the main bandit lair close and lock the main doors as they saw the group approach. My guys did not try to force them, and then left overnight so I had the bandits sneak out using their escape route. I do have them lurking in the area for a hopefully fun ambush next session but right now as far as they know whoever was in the moathouse just ran off.

Heading on down into darkness various light spells are cast and stealth is employed here and there and a trash pile briefly investigated but as they begin exploring a set of dungeon doors and torture chamber they spot zombies - then more zombies, and more zombies! Reinforcements appear from behind each door until they have fought 12 zombies in all! Recovering from the fight and searching the area they are also apprehensive about what might come through the other door but they do find a secret door and ladder down hidden side one of the columns. 

I could have adjusted the zombie encounter to spring all of them at once but I stuck with the original script of two more zombies from each cell in succession each round because I just like it and it's a little more memorable. With a 8 PC's no, they were not likely to be in serious danger but i wanted to play it out as written. I did use the Monster Vault version where they have a chance to stay standing unless hit really hard and some of them did manage to last longer than they should have.

They do eventually press on though and find a small room with a very slippery floor and ... another door. After some moments of physical comedy here involving bad rolls and heavily-armored-low-dex fighter types they do eventually get themselves organized and open up the other door into the bedroom of a large, angry ogre. Battle commences!

But poor, poor Lubash only lasts two rounds as Xyzzifax the wizard pulls out the Lesser Wand of Petrification he looted in the dungeon outside Saltmarsh and zaps the ogre with it. Lubash promptly fails his save - a Con save no less - and is now Restrained. Undaunted he throws javelins at the party in the doorway as they take shots at him. Then at the end of his turn he fails his save again, and on round 2 he fails it yet again and turns to stone before their very eyes.

Now this was a bit disheartening for the DM as he is supposed to be a tougher encounter but this wand took him out fast. Even if he had made a save or two he was running out of hit points fast as that condition gives attackers Advantage on all attack rolls and gives him Disadvantage on all attack rolls. So it was turning into a very one-sided fight regardless of his actual petrification. Thankfully this item only has 1 charge so it's a 1/day item with a small chance to crumble after it is used but what can I say - they picked a dangerous target and with a little bit of luck they managed to neutralize an otherwise dangerous opponent. 

After this there was exploration and looting and more poor word choices as the heroes discovered another secret door with a staircase and landing ... and some prisoners! Information is gathered and thanks are offered, and they decide to escort the new acquaintances back to Hommlet and safety. 

So far it's so good though I will say there can be a lot of overhead running 8 PC's ranging from 1st to 3rd level. It's manageable for now it just means we run a little slower than we would with  4-5. Right now I am not dramatically changing up encounter numbers even with this many characters in play - I am just working in the Monster Vault versions of the creatures and I will probably work in some other monster book sources as well as the game goes on. I expected more variability in turnout but so far that has not happened. I may tweak some wilderness encounters - since they are mostly later additions anyway - but  once they get to the temple proper I probably won't need to as they don't do stealth well and will probably be pulling in chunks of each level as they start fighting through them. If it gets too stupid I will make some changes but I don't want to punish them for doing well - I just may need to do something to balance out the numbers a little more evenly. Back in the early days 8 PC's was not terribly unusual but 8 5E type PC's are quite a bit more capable then what we had back then. I'm not doing anything yet but I might as things develop.

There was a ton of laughing this session as it felt like we finally had the whole band back together and we were cracking up at inappropriate humor all through the run. It was a lot of fun and that helps to keep these things going.