Epic Adventure

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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

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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 at the end, or the beginning of the end, or…well I guess it’s been going on for a while now, but…let’s just start with I told you so.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/is-the-5-5e-dark-sun-going-to-remove-controversial-aspects-of-the-setting.720375/
Dark Suns, the very mature themed D&D setting that is coming back in 2027 will be released in shrink wrap due to its content. Let’s call that a win. Greg Bilsland--D&D executive producer--has confirmed that the content is being reviewed by sensitivity readers, and that the setting will not need to focus on elements such as slavery in order to make it feel gritty and oppressive.
Well, you lost me a sensitivity readers.
Dark Suns was mature, dark, down right evil in places and that’s what made it good. Everyone was a slave and that was far from the darkest aspects of the setting. When they announced that it was coming back I cautioned that it was going to be watered down for the modern audience.
Do I think this setting should be played with children. No
Do I think this source book should come shrink wrapped so unaware and unprepared eyes don’t flip through it. Sure
Do I think you can remove the things that make the setting dark and have the same experience. Absolutely not.
Ladies and gentleman, whatever Wizards of the Coast ends up printing will not be Dark Suns. It will just steal its name. The darkest thing in that book is going to be the title.
Christina, am I overreacting?
[Kick to Christina]
Next up we have a topic that’s been going back and forth between us for awhile now. Crowd Funding costs. EN World has a great article about the rising costs of crowdfunding.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-ttrpg-kickstarters-merchandise-and-600-markups.720290/
The article talks about profitability and the 600% markup. That seems a little excessive. With our own Dr. Stiso’s Leviathan Rising coming to Kickstarter in January we have been talking costs. As currently planned the hardback book will sell for around $60 dollars, but Kickstarter pledges today are all about the add-ons and add-ons cost money. Not just to the buyer, but to the seller as well.
Christina, with your new game Leviathan Rising coming in the very near future what are your thoughts?
[Kick to Christina]
And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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For those of you that were lucky enough to get a chance to play Leviathan Rising at GenCon, you are welcome. It was a great time and we got to see players laugh, clap, applaud, cheer, and generally have as much fun as we were hoping.
Leviathan Rising is a hit.
But, it’s going to be better.
The rules are written, it’s been playtested, and now we are going into pre-production to get all the art, stories, lore, and special abilities fleshed out so that by GenCon 2027 you can hold the full rulebook in your hands.
On today’s episode we are going to talk to Christina about writing the game. The rules, and how it went at GenCon. And as usual Mike and I will be throwing in our own observations.
So, let’s kick this thing off, Christina, let’s start with GenCon. How did it go?
[Kick to Christina]

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Welcome to you heard it hear last where we talk about news, you’ve already heard.
Paizo is in the news again. But this time it sounds like good news
https://www.enworld.org/threads/paizo-may-finally-get-its-inventory-back-from-bankrupt-diamond.720248/
It seems that Paizo and Diamond Comics Distributors have reached an agreement to release millions of dollars of Paizo inventory they have held since January of 2025. Diamond Comics originally intended to sell the stock to pay their bills, but a flurry of legal activity brought that to an end. This agreement is a big deal for Paizo.
I attended the Paizo address at GenCon and was very critical of the way it was structured. It was clear to me that Paizo built a wall to avoid having to talk about any of their financial troubles, but after this announcement it is clear that they couldn’t because of this legal settlement.
Mike, what does this news mean for Paizo going forward?
[Kick to Mike]
Christina, Will Paizo bounce back right away or will it take some time to get their stride back?
[Kick to Christina]
Up next is as they say, something completely different, and I think that is pretty cool.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/classic-horror-dark-conspiracy-rpg-returns-using-traveller-rules.720279/
The classic dark horror urban fantasy game Dark Conspiracy’s is back and this time with a different rules system. Dark Conspiracy was originally printed by Games Designer’s Workshop in 1991 and the setting was post-apocalyptic where the players were demon hunters facing off against an incursion of monsters in a near future world. The game has had three editions by three different companies, but the new version is being published by Mongoose and will be using the Traveller rules. That might be a first for me. I don’t think I have seen the Traveller rules used to play anything other then Sci-Fi. I love Traveller so I think this is pretty cool. I only hope they keep the lifepath system.
Mike, What do you make of this?
[Kick to Mike]
Christina, what about you, does this interest you?
[Kick to Christina]
And there you have it, all the news, you’ve already heard.

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Normally we'd all be sitting around the microphones, arguing over games, movies, roleplaying, and whatever other rabbit hole we decide to wander down. But this week... well... life got in the way in the best possible fashion.
We went to Gen Con.
You know, there are some places that just have an energy all their own. A baseball stadium on Opening Day. Walking into Disney for the first time. Maybe your favorite band's concert before the lights go down.
Gen Con has that same feeling.
But for many of us our favorite time isn't actually when the convention is packed.
It's setup day.
You walk through those giant convention center doors and everything is buzzing. Forklifts are backing up. Pallets of games are everywhere. Booths are half-built. Someone is hanging banners thirty feet in the air while somebody else is frantically looking for a roll of duct tape they swore they packed.
The halls are busy...
But they're not crowded.
Not yet.
That's the strange part.
You've been here before. You know exactly what these halls are going to look like in less than twenty-four hours. Right now you can actually see the floors.
Tomorrow...
You won't.
Tomorrow every aisle will be shoulder to shoulder with gamers, collectors, cosplayers, families, creators, publishers, artists, dice goblins, card sharks, miniature painters, and people carrying bags that somehow weigh more than they do.
You know it's coming.
And everyone setting up knows it's coming too.
That's what makes setup day so fascinating.
Every booth tells a story.
Somebody spent years making the game sitting on that table.
Someone mortgaged vacation time, emptied a savings account, drove across three states, or spent months designing artwork just hoping people will stop, smile, and say...
"Tell me about your game."
That's where we are this year.
Over at the Oddfish Games booth we've got a whole table full of products we're proud of. Adventure Scents. How to RPG With Your Cat. Cooking with Dice. Radiance.
And this year...
Leviathan Rising.
It's Christina Stiso's brand-new roleplaying game, and we've poured an incredible amount of time, creativity, testing, rewriting, and plain old worrying into getting it ready for people to experience.
And that's the thing about Gen Con.
Hope.
Every publisher hopes people stop at their booth.
Every game designer hopes someone sits down to play.
Every artist hopes somebody notices their work.
Every creator wonders...
"Did we make something people are going to love?"
You don't really know.
You can playtest for months.
You can have friends tell you it's great.
You can polish every page until you're convinced you've found every typo.
But none of that answers the only question that really matters.
Will complete strangers care?
That answer doesn't arrive until Thursday morning.
Ten o'clock.
The doors open.
And then...
It happens.
Thousands...
and I mean thousands...
of gamers surge into the exhibit hall.
They actually have a nickname for it.
The Running of the Nerds.
And I say that with absolute affection.
It's glorious.
People aren't running because they're escaping danger.
They're running toward games.
Toward their favorite publishers.
Toward limited editions.
Toward demos they've been waiting all year to play.
Toward that one booth they've had circled on their map for six months.
It's one of the happiest stampedes you'll ever witness.
There's nothing quite like it.
Because for four days, Indianapolis becomes the center of the gaming universe.
Now, because Gen Con has a funny way of consuming every waking hour we had planned for recording, we didn't have time to put together a traditional episode this week.
So instead...
I grabbed a couple of microphones.
I wandered the convention.
I cornered my co-hosts.
I talked with friends.
I chatted with designers.
I may have accidentally eavesdropped on a few conversations that were just too good not to share.
What you're about to hear is Gen Con as it really happens.
Not polished.
Not scripted.
Just real people experiencing one of the greatest gaming conventions on Earth.
We're going behind the scenes.
We're getting first impressions.
We're talking to people while the excitement is still fresh.
And that's where we're going to begin.
Our first guest is someone pretty special to us.
He had just finished playing one of the very first public games of Leviathan Rising.
The dice had barely stopped rolling.
The adrenaline was still there.
The story was still unfolding in his mind.
Before he had time to overthink anything, we handed him a microphone and simply asked...
"So... what did you think?"
Here's his immediate reaction, recorded just moments after the game ended.