Epic Adventure

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Has this ever happened to you?
Your party makes its way room to room through the dungeon fighting monsters at every turn. And then the climactic battle with the evil wizard and their minions. Three hours of dice rolling combat later you finally win.
As your characters stand around and survey all the damage they have caused and gather the loot, the GM says “The volcano you’ve been fighting in is about to explode. Without the wizard’s power to keep the lava at bay you only have minutes before the chamber is filled?”
And the players answer with “We grab the stuff and run out”
Good job, way to beat the big bad guy, on to the next adventure.
Wow, that was boring
For far to long in far too many adventures the only action has been seen as combat. Inside the initiative rounds the players have to make decisions, use resources, and the stakes feel very high. Outside the initiative rounds, nothing has any stakes.
That is what we call a wasted opportunity.
On this episode we are going to talk about action and combat and why the two terms are not synonymous. When you can master action outside of combat you open an entirely new world of roleplaying. One where tension, stakes, suspense, and decisions mater and the game feel way more immersive.
Christina, With Leviathan Rising coming out soon this topic seemed right on point, because in Leviathan Rising you can’t really fight the monsters, can you?
[Kick to Christina]

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.
Let’s kick things off with the seedy underbelly of publishing.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/diamond-bankruptcy-settlement-hits-snag-as-sparkle-pop-files-objection.720559/
Well, maybe that’s not fair, although this is where my friends who aren’t fans of capitalism point to me and say “Told Ya So”.
We talked last month about the long running Bankruptcy of Diamond Comics Distribution and the fact that several game companies had millions of dollars of stock held up due to the bankruptcy proceedings. This has led to Paizo having some cashflow problems and laying off staff. Other companies like Green Ronin have had to lean into crowdfunding for legal bills, all while trying to get back their product from Diamond Comics.
This is a very complicated case, Bankruptcy isn’t as simple as somebody unable to pay their bills, especially when you get into the distribution and consignment side of things.
Then along comes Sparkle Pop. Sparkle Pop is a spin off Limited Liability Corporation that spun off of Ad Populum and collectible and toy holding company. They were created right in the middle of the bankruptcy case for the sole purpose of sliding in and purchasing warehouses owned by Diamond Comics, which would give the access to the contents of said warehouses. They then started selling the product in the warehouses against court orders.
You would think that would get them into hot water, but it hasn’t. Instead, they are holding up the entire settlement saying they haven’t gotten their money. Money, they didn’t earn, money they shouldn’t have access to, and money that is hurting businesses in our hobby.
Have I oversimplified things, mostly. But I have a history of keeping things simple. And this is, in my opinion, simply unethical.
Christina, as our in-house ethicist, let’s talk.
[Kick to Christina]
Since we started off with a pretty negative story, we might as well stay in the headspace.
Ok, that’s not fair, and maybe I should try a positive spin on this next piece of news.
https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/dan-ayoub-interview-ogl-lessons
In a recent interview with Wargamer. Dan Ayoub the Head of Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons talked about his first year in the position and the steps D&D has taken to fix some mistakes made during the OGL scandal. Dan says the biggest thing he has done is to listen and his work will never be done listening.
It reminds me of the answer everyone gives when doing a job interview: What’s your biggest negative, the thing you don’t do well. And you answer with “I work too hard”
Bullshit.
The whole interview just screams bullshit. I trained in PR and making press statements and after reading the interview twice I still can’t find where he answered a damn question.
But, to be fair and try and stay positive let’s point to the fact that D&D had a strong presence at GenCon for the first time in decades and that they have made amends with some of the old creators and worlds that made D&D what it is today. So maybe there are positive things coming out of WOTC right now, just don’t look for them in this interview.
Chistina, what did you take away from this interview?
[Kick to Christina]
And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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Ok, wait a minute…they’ve got rules for guns in this. Sweet!
I remember saying that exact line when I first dove into Steve Jackson’s GURPS. The Generic Universal Roleplaying System had come out of their skirmish system Man to Man which I had loved. This was 1986 and the 18-year-old me was looking for new roleplaying games.
Sure, I had done my early work on D&D. I had even played around a little with Gamma World and Traveller, but even at 18 I was a history nut. I was reading Cornealius Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far at the time and Alexander Dumas the Three Musketeers was already solidified as my favorite book. So as soon as I saw this new game that had rules which would let you mix fantasy with reality and bring in historical roleplaying, I was hooked.
GURPS would become my favorite and only roleplaying game for a good decade and don’t get me started on Call of Cthulhu. 
Using GURPS I would run and play in historical and realistic based games set in Three Musketeers world of 1620s France. The Wild West of the 1870s. The Espionage filled world of the 1980s. The Vietnam jungles of the 1970s. The beaches of Normandy in the 1940s. and even the creepy cornfields of Kansas in the 2010s. I personally find that I prefer games set in realistic and historical settings then the pure fantasy settings found in most roleplaying games.
On this episode Christina and I are going to talk about running games in a historical setting and give you some tips and tricks and address some myths to help you transition your games into something really special.
Christina, you do a lot of gaming in those alternative history settings. It’s really the same thing, right?
[Kick to Christina]

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Welcome to you heard it here last where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.
Let’s start off with some news that’s close to our heart. Oddfish Games has announced that Wordleaf Media is joining their Leviathan Rising team. Wordleaf Media is a TTRPG focused publishing support company that provides professional editing, layout, graphic design, art, and creative content. This is going to help bring the amazing rules of Leviathan Rising to life in the upcoming Kickstarter scheduled for a January start.
https://www.wordleafmedia.com/
Christina, since this is your game, what’s the addition of Wordleaf Media mean for the production of Leviathan Rising
[Kick to Christina]
But wait, that’s not all the news on the Leviathan Rising front. Oddfish Games has also announced that the cover for the Leviathan Rising book will be created by Sammy Castillo.
https://www.castillostudios.ninja/
Castillo Studios has provided art content for Batman, Detective Comics, Legends of the Dark Knight, George Romero’s Toe Tags, Green Arrow, Catwoman, Spider-man, Savage Dragon, G.I Joe, Magic The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, Fangoria, and Rolling Stone Magazine, just to name a few.
We had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Sammy at GenCon and are very excited to be able to announce her as the cover artist for the upcoming Leviathan Rising.
Christiana, are you jazzed to have Sammy working on the cover?
[Kick to Christina]
And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers is one of my favorite books of all time. I first read the classic in junior high and I was immediately blown away. It was like reading my favorite super hero comics, but it was a classic. It’s one of those books that made me want to read, and that’s a love I have never lost. I tend to read a lot, rarely going back to books I’ve already finished, but The Three Musketeers is the exception to that rule. I have read the book 4 times now and what is amazing is that every time I read it, I look at it completely different, and I connect with a different character.
That Jr. High me was all about D’Artagnan. The young brash kid trying to make something of himself. To prove himself and to fight for the queen and for his country. I connected with that character and loved him.
I picked the book back up a decade later. I’m in my early 20’s starting a career. And this time it was Aramis. The intellectual, the reluctant soldier, the scholar, the lady’s man. He was complex, interesting, and always seemed to have something going on. He made me feel smart and refined.
Fast forward another decade and this time it was Porthos. I had always overlooked Porthos. He was comic relief and not really important. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Porthos was the heart of the group. He was what really held them all together. He also has the most tragic story of the entire group.
My last read of the book in my 50’s really brought Athos into the limelight. I had always liked and appreciated the character of Athos, but I never truly connected or understood him. But just as I move into my later years. Recognizing the weight of life’s baggage. How decisions stay with you forever and the weight of quiet leadership.
On this episode we are going to dive into The Three Musketeers and talk about the characters, the archetypes, and why they made an excellent adventuring party in the novels and would continue to make an excellent adventuring party in your games.
Christina, what was your initial impression of the Three Musketeers?
Kick to Christina