TWIG’s The Spellbook – Episode 34 – Shadowcon/Monster Of The Week

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.070 --> 00:00:08.529
In a world within our world, they've created a world unlike.
2
00:00:09.609 --> 00:00:14.900
Any other world. Dungeons and Dragons. And a game like
3
00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:19.160
D & D fuels their imagination and makes them feel special.
4
00:00:19.739 --> 00:00:22.460
The ogre is amused by your joke and allows.
5
00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:25.579
You to pass. Dad, I'm just curious. What is it
6
00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:28.660
about Dungeons and Dragons that suddenly leapt out at you
7
00:00:28.739 --> 00:00:32.579
at age 60? Dungeons, it'd be the dungeons. Just what
8
00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.530
I love about role-playing games is being told exactly what
9
00:00:36.630 --> 00:00:36.929
to do.
10
00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:37.979
Me too.
11
00:00:38.359 --> 00:00:41.009
You should introduce yourselves. Hey guys, what's going on? You
12
00:00:41.049 --> 00:00:45.590
are listening to 93.3 CFRU. This is Guelph and Campus
13
00:00:45.630 --> 00:00:49.450
Community Radio. My name is Mike the Birdman Ashkewy, and
14
00:00:49.490 --> 00:00:52.670
you are listening to The Spellbook, the show that is
15
00:00:52.789 --> 00:00:57.960
dedicated to the tabletop role-playing game hobby. Whether you are
16
00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:01.539
checking out the inner sphere and you're touring around with
17
00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:03.359
the word of Blake, which I really hope you're not,
18
00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:08.170
or perhaps you are checking out the latest scientific steampunky
19
00:01:08.209 --> 00:01:12.269
inventions of the Dungeons & Dragons world of Eberron, have
20
00:01:12.310 --> 00:01:15.280
I got a show for you. Anyway, I am not
21
00:01:15.379 --> 00:01:18.640
alone as I trek through... And we just literally got
22
00:01:18.670 --> 00:01:23.180
in the door from Grifcon's ShadowCon. I am joined with.
23
00:01:23.620 --> 00:01:29.120
Hi, I am Damian MagicalHackMorphit. And as Mike said, we
24
00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:31.040
just got back from ShadowCon.
25
00:01:31.239 --> 00:01:34.480
Yeah, so as you guys are hearing this, it is... Well,
26
00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:37.719
you're hearing this on a Wednesday, but this is Saturday night.
27
00:01:37.739 --> 00:01:42.109
We've literally just got in from Grifcon's ShadowCon, which is
28
00:01:42.150 --> 00:01:45.469
the one-day event that happens during the fall... and kind
29
00:01:45.510 --> 00:01:50.010
of leads up to the bigger convention that happens later
30
00:01:50.250 --> 00:01:52.799
on in the spring in Peter Clark Hall in the
31
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:57.739
basement of the University Center. So today's conversation is going
32
00:01:57.760 --> 00:01:59.540
to be a bit of a two-pronged approach. We're going
33
00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:02.640
to talk about our experiences today with ShadowCon, and you're
34
00:02:02.659 --> 00:02:05.959
hearing in the background my kitten Bishop, who's decided to
35
00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:09.960
lose his ever-loving mind because he's very food-motivated and he's
36
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.319
a gremlin. Thanks, Bishop. Continuing off the show I intended
37
00:02:14.379 --> 00:02:18.030
to do before he showed up. Yeah, so we were
38
00:02:18.090 --> 00:02:22.419
there this morning. We arrived at around probably about 9.30,
39
00:02:22.419 --> 00:02:26.770
10 o'clock. And we actually had a really good turnout today,
40
00:02:26.810 --> 00:02:30.530
all things considered. The Pathfinder Society was there. They always
41
00:02:30.550 --> 00:02:34.909
have a very large presence. I find particularly at this
42
00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.560
con during the fall. And Damien and I decided to
43
00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:42.919
run two different games this year. I decided to run
44
00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:48.009
Marvel Multi-Universal Roleplaying, which is put up by Marvel and
45
00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:50.710
authored by Matt Forbeck, who we've had on the show before.
46
00:02:50.729 --> 00:02:54.590
And we'll probably talk to Matt, hopefully sometime soon, about
47
00:02:54.629 --> 00:02:59.229
a different book that he recently wrote. And Damien, what
48
00:02:59.250 --> 00:03:00.490
was the game you were running?
49
00:03:01.009 --> 00:03:04.659
My intention was to run some Blades in the... Sorry, no,
50
00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:08.819
not Blades in the Dark. Monster of the Week. Now.
51
00:03:09.819 --> 00:03:12.300
Today was kind of an interesting bag. So we had
52
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:14.659
a few people come up to the table asking what
53
00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:17.159
we were doing. More often than not, we were the
54
00:03:17.379 --> 00:03:22.389
where are the Pathfinder guys people. But a very pleasant
55
00:03:22.449 --> 00:03:27.030
surprise happened. So we had another kid who joined us
56
00:03:27.050 --> 00:03:32.979
who actually we played Star Trek with last Grifcon. I
57
00:03:33.180 --> 00:03:36.530
can't remember whether he was in the Star Trek... dalek
58
00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:39.250
or the star trek cyberman i want to say he
59
00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:39.629
was the.
60
00:03:39.689 --> 00:03:41.689
Cyberman cyberman because that's the one i was in.
61
00:03:41.810 --> 00:03:45.580
Yeah so uh so this kid came over but we
62
00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:49.560
also have family of three there was uh the father
63
00:03:49.659 --> 00:03:52.840
and his two sons i didn't cast their names but
64
00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:56.629
i remember the characters the dad was wolverine uh one
65
00:03:56.650 --> 00:04:00.610
of the sons was bishop and the other kid was Gambit,
66
00:04:00.810 --> 00:04:05.120
and you played... I was Nightcrawler. So what I did
67
00:04:05.159 --> 00:04:08.900
was kind of a riff on X-Men 97 Season 2.
68
00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:12.780
So Marvel released a series of character packs, and you
69
00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:17.199
got the animated versions of the characters from the show.
70
00:04:17.720 --> 00:04:21.139
I don't know how different they are mechanically from the
71
00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:23.139
ones who may have been in the X-Men expansion that
72
00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:28.060
came out last year, but everybody had a flipping blast...
73
00:04:28.829 --> 00:04:31.930
And I ran a riff kind of on Marvel Zombies.
74
00:04:31.970 --> 00:04:35.670
The storyline that I had set up is Cable had
75
00:04:35.769 --> 00:04:39.550
come back from the future and had let the X-Men
76
00:04:39.949 --> 00:04:43.670
of 1997 know that in about a year to two
77
00:04:43.730 --> 00:04:47.649
years time, there was going to be a deadly viral
78
00:04:47.930 --> 00:04:51.769
outbreak in New York City where the Avengers would eventually
79
00:04:51.810 --> 00:04:56.600
become infected with the hunger virus from Marvel Zombies. and
80
00:04:56.639 --> 00:04:59.480
the world would end and it would start or it
81
00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:05.680
would end in the future where cable was from with apocalypse, uh,
82
00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:09.910
being infected by the virus. And he had subjugated Ultron
83
00:05:10.509 --> 00:05:13.649
to help him with his plot. But what had happened
84
00:05:14.009 --> 00:05:17.110
is you guys had followed a series of clues that
85
00:05:17.129 --> 00:05:19.829
I'd laid out. And I kind of put on the table, uh,
86
00:05:20.170 --> 00:05:22.689
aim had a lab, which is advanced idea mechanics. So
87
00:05:22.709 --> 00:05:27.500
the guys in like the beekeeper suits, um, a Hydra, uh,
88
00:05:27.579 --> 00:05:31.459
led by Baron Von Strucker in Sokovia. There was a
89
00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:36.060
hidden Hydra base. And I think I introduced a third faction,
90
00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:37.680
but they were pretty quickly eliminated.
91
00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.939
Yeah. It was, uh, near Dr. Doom.
92
00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:44.819
Yeah. So I made some shenanigans up how, you know, Dr.
93
00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.879
Doom was doing something in Latveria, but these guys had
94
00:05:48.019 --> 00:05:54.490
snuck in on diplomatic visas, uh, to enter Sokovian airspace. They, uh,
95
00:05:54.870 --> 00:05:57.699
negotiated with Baron Von Strucker. And I think I had
96
00:05:57.819 --> 00:06:01.339
Madam Mask there. I didn't name her, but I knew
97
00:06:01.379 --> 00:06:04.579
who she was via stat wise. And yeah, it ended
98
00:06:04.660 --> 00:06:09.639
with shenanigans. The big final confrontation is Alex Summers, AKA
99
00:06:09.819 --> 00:06:14.689
Havoc of X-Force have been turned into a Marvel zombies. Well, Mr.
100
00:06:14.930 --> 00:06:19.389
Sinister was the one behind the genetic experimentation to create
101
00:06:19.410 --> 00:06:22.829
the hunger virus virus. and profit from it while collecting
102
00:06:22.889 --> 00:06:28.829
genetic material. And, yeah, they freed X-Force, whereas you were
103
00:06:29.009 --> 00:06:30.029
dropping bombs.
104
00:06:30.170 --> 00:06:32.769
Oh, yeah, that was great. I got to drop one
105
00:06:32.810 --> 00:06:36.079
Sentinel's head on another Sentinel, and then I got to
106
00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:36.720
drop Havoc.
107
00:06:37.139 --> 00:06:42.779
Yeah, it was really dramatic. The dad, so Wolverine, was
108
00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:47.759
fighting Havoc. He fought Mr. Sinister, dealing more than half
109
00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:51.490
of his health in, like, a single strike. It was
110
00:06:51.569 --> 00:06:55.649
a very cool game. You guys also fought Toad that
111
00:06:55.800 --> 00:06:58.040
Strucker had hired as like kind of like a hench
112
00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:02.160
person to guard the base. And it was awesome because
113
00:07:02.180 --> 00:07:05.800
like once the action kind of kicked off, It really
114
00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:09.600
felt like you could hear the X-Men 97 theme going
115
00:07:09.660 --> 00:07:11.480
as the action was unfolding.
116
00:07:11.779 --> 00:07:14.899
Now, to be fair, everybody else fought Toad. I was
117
00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:19.519
ninja-ing my way through the labs and stealing information.
118
00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:23.680
Yeah, it was a surprisingly fun game, and I kind
119
00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:26.500
of pulled a lot of this from the hip. And
120
00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:29.519
one thing I do want to say is convention gaming
121
00:07:29.579 --> 00:07:31.459
is different, and we've kind of touched upon this in
122
00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:35.379
a previous episode. Convention planning for a game can be
123
00:07:35.459 --> 00:07:39.060
remarkably different because I was supposed to run another game today.
124
00:07:39.079 --> 00:07:42.660
I was supposed to run aliens evolved by freely publishing.
125
00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:46.529
And unfortunately I went on Demi plane last night. So
126
00:07:46.569 --> 00:07:49.329
no shade at these guys, but their website was having
127
00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:54.009
massive errors and I couldn't make character sheets. So when
128
00:07:54.029 --> 00:07:56.129
I was trying to prep for my game, I was like,
129
00:07:56.310 --> 00:07:59.329
I can't make anything. And yes, I could have printed
130
00:07:59.379 --> 00:08:03.399
out sheets and done them by hand. But I wanted
131
00:08:03.500 --> 00:08:05.420
to have it efficient so I was good to go
132
00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:09.379
so I could re-review the rules and craft the adventure
133
00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:12.839
rather than worrying about the nuance. Because one of the
134
00:08:12.980 --> 00:08:16.259
big problems with convention gaming, and we've talked about this previously,
135
00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:18.560
I want to say, you don't want to lose a
136
00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:20.439
lot of time in character creation. If you can't get
137
00:08:20.519 --> 00:08:23.149
in and out in 20 minutes, you're going to run
138
00:08:23.189 --> 00:08:26.709
into significant problems. And even today, I was kind of
139
00:08:26.769 --> 00:08:29.610
racing the clock. Because I know those kids and the
140
00:08:29.649 --> 00:08:31.430
dad had another place to be. And one of our
141
00:08:31.470 --> 00:08:36.629
other players, Cyclops, had to go to a Pathfinder game. Yeah.
142
00:08:36.889 --> 00:08:38.470
And I kind of like, because I did have like
143
00:08:38.509 --> 00:08:40.070
a plan where like you were going to go to
144
00:08:40.110 --> 00:08:42.570
the AIM base. It was going to be overrun by
145
00:08:42.590 --> 00:08:44.929
the zombies. And then I was going to send you
146
00:08:44.970 --> 00:08:47.929
to the future with Cable. And you were going to
147
00:08:48.029 --> 00:08:53.980
fight Ultron and Apocalypse in his citadel in like the
148
00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:57.679
year 2600 or something. I had a lot of stuff planned.
149
00:08:58.590 --> 00:09:00.610
but you guys didn't need that. And that's kind of
150
00:09:00.629 --> 00:09:02.769
the beauty of convention games. If you need to pivot
151
00:09:03.070 --> 00:09:06.850
really quickly, if the other players don't know the storyline
152
00:09:06.909 --> 00:09:10.220
or the published scenario, you can just be like, oh yeah,
153
00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:11.379
and this happens.
154
00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:15.879
And that's one of the things that I like myself
155
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:21.919
about not running published material, because you know what? If
156
00:09:23.029 --> 00:09:26.450
through the process of the game, it turns out that
157
00:09:26.529 --> 00:09:30.269
the players spend a lot more time on in part
158
00:09:30.750 --> 00:09:34.309
one than I expected they would. I can then go,
159
00:09:34.409 --> 00:09:37.009
you know what? I don't need to worry about, you know,
160
00:09:37.110 --> 00:09:40.649
part three. I can skip that and just go right
161
00:09:40.690 --> 00:09:45.340
to part four and essentially make up that time.
162
00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:45.879
Yeah.
163
00:09:45.889 --> 00:09:46.340
As needed.
164
00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:48.340
Cause like you and I kind of noticed this at
165
00:09:48.419 --> 00:09:51.179
Griff con the last time we went, which is earlier
166
00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:54.840
this spring and we were playing call of Cthulhu. And
167
00:09:54.899 --> 00:09:57.340
I would argue our game master kind of ran into
168
00:09:57.379 --> 00:10:00.409
the same issues. Like our keeper, he's like, they're spending
169
00:10:00.429 --> 00:10:02.600
a lot of time here where can i cut some
170
00:10:02.669 --> 00:10:06.620
time and i could kind of tell things were a
171
00:10:06.620 --> 00:10:08.960
little bit different like okay he's clearly making up for
172
00:10:08.980 --> 00:10:11.220
time and that's not a bad thing because the adventure
173
00:10:11.340 --> 00:10:14.269
kept the momentum And I had you guys make a
174
00:10:14.309 --> 00:10:17.309
lot of investigation roles, perception roles, because I wanted to
175
00:10:17.330 --> 00:10:22.250
really set the scene. And Marvel is a surprisingly cinematic game.
176
00:10:22.330 --> 00:10:26.529
It runs on 3D6. There's a lot of nuance and math,
177
00:10:26.590 --> 00:10:30.629
but once you know how the math functions, it's really fast.
178
00:10:30.870 --> 00:10:34.629
I mean, even, like, really, there's not all that much math.
179
00:10:34.970 --> 00:10:39.080
The most math, honestly, is, yeah, when you do damage.
180
00:10:39.149 --> 00:10:41.269
But even that, it's one die.
181
00:10:42.620 --> 00:10:44.960
times your multiplier. Yeah.
182
00:10:46.419 --> 00:10:48.879
Plus your ability modifier. Yeah.
183
00:10:48.919 --> 00:10:51.799
So you might get someone reducing the damage or upping
184
00:10:51.820 --> 00:10:53.740
the damage. You may have like an ability that says,
185
00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:57.620
if you do X, this happens. And it worked out
186
00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:01.000
tremendously well. And I really wanted to set the tone
187
00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:04.399
for these kids because they couldn't have been any older
188
00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:07.240
than like, 12 and that's being very generous.
189
00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:11.370
Yeah. Like I was picturing them like around 10, 11.
190
00:11:11.370 --> 00:11:13.450
Yeah. So I'm thinking, all right, I got to crank
191
00:11:13.470 --> 00:11:16.149
the action. And I said to the dad, we need
192
00:11:16.169 --> 00:11:18.169
to have a talk about consent. So you need to
193
00:11:18.230 --> 00:11:20.590
know what is going on here. And I'm like, you
194
00:11:20.690 --> 00:11:23.370
always like no sexual stuff, like no problem. But I'm like,
195
00:11:24.029 --> 00:11:26.509
how do you feel about violence? He's like, yeah, we
196
00:11:26.549 --> 00:11:29.309
can deal with them. Like, are you cool? If it's
197
00:11:29.610 --> 00:11:32.169
like an action movie, he's like, yeah, sure. I'm like,
198
00:11:32.669 --> 00:11:35.830
you're okay if I approach Walking Dead levels of violence.
199
00:11:35.870 --> 00:11:37.769
He's like, yeah, sure, go for it. Just don't be
200
00:11:37.889 --> 00:11:39.289
overly graphic. And I really wasn't.
201
00:11:39.590 --> 00:11:42.320
Yeah, it was like basically, go Walking Dead, but no Negan.
202
00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:46.919
Yeah, exactly. People still get splattered, but it's more, as
203
00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:50.440
the one kid, it's like an egg shattering. And I'm thinking, okay,
204
00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:53.450
you get what I'm going for without me going super gross.
205
00:11:54.389 --> 00:11:57.889
And it was such a rewarding experience. So big thanks
206
00:11:57.909 --> 00:12:02.220
to Wolverine, Bishop, and Gambit You really brought it. Our
207
00:12:02.379 --> 00:12:06.279
fearless leader Cyclops really got into it. You with your accent.
208
00:12:06.299 --> 00:12:08.970
I think you really brought up that kid's role playing
209
00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:09.419
as well.
210
00:12:10.090 --> 00:12:11.970
Oh yeah. That was fun. And that was actually one
211
00:12:11.990 --> 00:12:14.529
of the reasons why I picked Nightcrawler because I could
212
00:12:14.590 --> 00:12:16.990
do just a minor silly accent.
213
00:12:17.370 --> 00:12:21.190
Yeah. And have fun with it. Yeah. Like seriously, it
214
00:12:21.230 --> 00:12:23.289
was such a fun time. I got a chance to
215
00:12:23.350 --> 00:12:26.669
bring out my new narrator screens. Like I bought the
216
00:12:26.870 --> 00:12:30.690
one for X-Men. I brought the one for Um, just
217
00:12:30.730 --> 00:12:32.990
the regular narration kit. And one thing I did, cause
218
00:12:33.090 --> 00:12:35.549
I almost, this is something I'm definitely going to do
219
00:12:35.570 --> 00:12:38.950
in the future. I had my character sheets laminated. I
220
00:12:39.009 --> 00:12:41.990
picked the X-Men 97 cast and I'm like, Hey, when
221
00:12:42.009 --> 00:12:44.049
you lose health, let me know. When you use focus,
222
00:12:44.129 --> 00:12:46.629
let me know. When you start marking off karma, let
223
00:12:46.649 --> 00:12:49.360
me know. And you could just dry erase on the sheet.
224
00:12:49.379 --> 00:12:51.529
I also took the opportunity to print off a few
225
00:12:51.700 --> 00:12:56.100
cheat sheets. Marvel's a system without going too deep in
226
00:12:56.120 --> 00:12:59.340
the powers of You can literally learn that off of
227
00:12:59.379 --> 00:13:01.279
two sheets. You can literally teach the game in about
228
00:13:01.299 --> 00:13:01.759
five minutes.
229
00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:05.529
Yeah. Like, honestly, the only thing I had to look
230
00:13:05.750 --> 00:13:08.950
up was what some of my powers did.
231
00:13:09.149 --> 00:13:12.450
Yeah. And honestly, a lot of them are pretty self-explanatory,
232
00:13:12.950 --> 00:13:14.860
which was kind of nice. But overall, this was a
233
00:13:14.909 --> 00:13:20.419
super successful Shadow Grifcon for us. Went a little bit
234
00:13:20.500 --> 00:13:23.879
different for you, unfortunately, but that's what we're going to
235
00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.059
talk about tonight. is the game you wanted to run,
236
00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:28.639
but at the same time, we'll kind of get into
237
00:13:28.659 --> 00:13:32.309
the nuance and into the weeds of it as well.
238
00:13:32.350 --> 00:13:35.429
But once again, big thanks to Dean and the crew
239
00:13:35.610 --> 00:13:38.190
at Grifcon for putting this together and for Peter Clark
240
00:13:38.210 --> 00:13:40.370
Hall and the University of Guelph for hosting us today.
241
00:13:41.210 --> 00:13:45.360
There was also, I don't think I actually told you this.
242
00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:49.250
So I was grabbing lunch at Creelman Hall today. And
243
00:13:49.299 --> 00:13:51.370
this kid saw my Green Lantern ring.
244
00:13:51.590 --> 00:13:52.990
Yeah, you mentioned that, yeah.
245
00:13:53.049 --> 00:13:55.570
And this kid lit right up. He's like, oh my God,
246
00:13:55.590 --> 00:13:58.710
where did you get that? So there's going to be
247
00:13:58.730 --> 00:14:00.690
a review coming up on the show probably like a
248
00:14:00.730 --> 00:14:02.710
week or two. I got it from the Ring Foundry
249
00:14:03.230 --> 00:14:06.360
on Instagram and I let him try it on. He's like,
250
00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:08.220
oh my God, this thing is so heavy. I'm like,
251
00:14:08.779 --> 00:14:12.399
it's almost like your very will carries it. So yeah,
252
00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:15.080
that was a really, really good time. So anyway, guys,
253
00:14:15.100 --> 00:14:16.679
we're going to take a break here on the spell book.
254
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:17.960
And when we come back, we're going to talk about
255
00:14:18.659 --> 00:14:22.169
uh monster of the week griff con wants but also
256
00:14:22.190 --> 00:14:24.470
just talk about the game in general so for the
257
00:14:24.509 --> 00:14:26.509
spell book i've been mike the bird man that's been
258
00:14:26.529 --> 00:14:28.830
damian magical hack and when we come back we'll talk
259
00:14:28.870 --> 00:14:32.279
about all these and more right here on the only
260
00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:35.259
show in guelph that i'm aware of about tabletop role
261
00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:36.940
playing once again this has been the spell book on
262
00:14:37.019 --> 00:14:38.659
guelph and campus community radio this is 93.3 cfru.
263
00:14:43.740 --> 00:14:46.830
We are Paisley Road Public School with our grade four class.
264
00:14:47.570 --> 00:14:57.269
And you're listening to CFRU. Welcome back to the Spellbook
265
00:14:57.409 --> 00:15:03.340
right here on 93.3 CFRU Guelph Community Radio. As we
266
00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:07.179
are talking about our experience with ShadowCon and a little
267
00:15:07.220 --> 00:15:08.279
bit of Monster of the Week.
268
00:15:08.659 --> 00:15:10.659
Yeah, so before the break there, we were kind of
269
00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:16.740
breaking down our adventures together. with the Marvel Multiverse role-playing
270
00:15:16.779 --> 00:15:19.460
game put up by Marvel. And yeah, like I said,
271
00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:22.659
we had a fantastic time. These guys would have fought
272
00:15:22.700 --> 00:15:27.210
Apocalypse and Ultron had we had a few more hours. Genuinely,
273
00:15:27.250 --> 00:15:29.690
I was surprised how well everybody was engaged, because we
274
00:15:29.710 --> 00:15:32.610
played from like 11 until like 3 o'clock.
275
00:15:33.029 --> 00:15:33.750
Pretty close, yeah.
276
00:15:33.909 --> 00:15:37.669
We played a long time, and those kids, I could
277
00:15:37.710 --> 00:15:41.909
have been teaching them algebra, and they were dialed right in.
278
00:15:42.990 --> 00:15:47.549
it's nice to see the hobby engage from a different perspective.
279
00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:50.610
And then we'll talk about monster of the week after this.
280
00:15:50.690 --> 00:15:56.129
But one thing that Wolverine said to me is you
281
00:15:56.149 --> 00:15:59.120
guys like board games. This is like a board game,
282
00:15:59.129 --> 00:16:02.019
but it's a little bit different. This was their first
283
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:07.519
time ever playing a TT RPG. And it genuinely made
284
00:16:07.580 --> 00:16:12.570
me so happy that, Just to hear these kids are engaged.
285
00:16:12.649 --> 00:16:16.590
They were willing to try something new. Bishop was clearly
286
00:16:16.690 --> 00:16:21.110
coming out of his comfort zone. And Gambit's like, all right,
287
00:16:21.350 --> 00:16:23.970
this is cool. Let's go. Oh, yeah.
288
00:16:23.990 --> 00:16:26.389
He was definitely YOLOing it.
289
00:16:26.669 --> 00:16:27.929
Like, YOLO it is then.
290
00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:28.580
Yeah.
291
00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:34.320
And the thing that really made me happy, because obviously Wolverine...
292
00:16:34.840 --> 00:16:39.240
So Wolverdad was not prompting them to think the kids like, well,
293
00:16:39.259 --> 00:16:43.250
can we jam the transmission? Is anybody listening? Like, like
294
00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:45.230
these kids were thinking out of the box.
295
00:16:45.289 --> 00:16:48.730
Yeah. Like, yo, that was, that was awesome to see. Like,
296
00:16:48.769 --> 00:16:52.110
especially like after Cyclops there was like, oh, I forgot.
297
00:16:52.509 --> 00:16:55.809
They're probably listening. And then the kids are like, well,
298
00:16:56.610 --> 00:16:58.669
or sorry, it was Gambit who was like, well, what
299
00:16:58.710 --> 00:17:01.889
if one of us talks really loud? Will that cover
300
00:17:01.929 --> 00:17:04.640
the full, the microphone and cover things up? And like,
301
00:17:05.079 --> 00:17:13.589
that is awesome. And honestly, seeing kids, seeing like seeing
302
00:17:13.650 --> 00:17:16.450
kids coming into the hobby, seeing new blood come into
303
00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:21.990
this hobby is, it's awesome. I like, I love seeing
304
00:17:22.029 --> 00:17:26.150
it because that means that the, the future of this
305
00:17:26.170 --> 00:17:27.759
hobby is secure. If that makes sense.
306
00:17:27.799 --> 00:17:31.380
Yeah. And, and the fact that they didn't cut their
307
00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:35.750
teeth on D and D and, They didn't do fantasy.
308
00:17:36.369 --> 00:17:40.289
They do something that is recognizable. Like Marvel is everywhere.
309
00:17:40.369 --> 00:17:44.569
It's ubiquitous at this point. And it was something that
310
00:17:44.609 --> 00:17:48.049
was not a D 20 based game. So they didn't
311
00:17:48.089 --> 00:17:50.490
have to get lost in the mechanical crunch of here.
312
00:17:50.519 --> 00:17:53.740
Here's like a D four, a D six, a D eight,
313
00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:57.839
a D a 10, a percentile, a D 12 and
314
00:17:57.900 --> 00:18:00.920
a D 20. Here are three six sided die. One
315
00:18:00.940 --> 00:18:03.710
of them is a different color. what did you get?
316
00:18:03.730 --> 00:18:08.339
Add this number. Yeah. So impressed. Now, this is where
317
00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:11.599
things took a turn, not necessarily for the worst, because
318
00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:16.559
we had a very in-depth conversation with a nice gentleman
319
00:18:16.619 --> 00:18:20.140
who came up, but you wanted to run Monster of
320
00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:23.269
the Week, and that plan got a little sidetracked.
321
00:18:23.849 --> 00:18:28.970
Yeah, like, the Marvel game went Swimmingly.
322
00:18:30.529 --> 00:18:34.809
Unfortunately, there were people who were.
323
00:18:34.450 --> 00:18:37.950
Seemingly not necessarily into trying out Monster of the Week,
324
00:18:37.990 --> 00:18:41.450
which is unfortunate. But like that kind of goes to
325
00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:45.099
something that we were talking about yesterday when I came
326
00:18:45.140 --> 00:18:51.039
into town where human beings, unfortunately, are creatures of habit.
327
00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:58.519
And it is really, really hard to. to get people
328
00:18:58.579 --> 00:19:01.960
to try new games, especially ones that they hadn't heard
329
00:19:02.029 --> 00:19:07.789
of because like you, you know, of monster of the week.
330
00:19:07.829 --> 00:19:08.089
Yeah.
331
00:19:08.750 --> 00:19:14.210
Um, you've played others, other stuff using the apocalypse world system. Yeah.
332
00:19:14.630 --> 00:19:19.849
But like you yourself have said, like, you don't know this.
333
00:19:20.089 --> 00:19:22.690
You don't know the system. You don't know how monster
334
00:19:22.710 --> 00:19:25.109
of the week works. You kind of do. Cause you've
335
00:19:25.130 --> 00:19:29.519
played masks, but it's, it's new and it can be,
336
00:19:29.559 --> 00:19:32.160
that can be intimidating. So like, I kind of understand
337
00:19:32.220 --> 00:19:36.109
that like it's, it kind of puts people off, especially
338
00:19:36.170 --> 00:19:42.230
because like with Marvel, that is a recognizable IP.
339
00:19:42.269 --> 00:19:46.309
Yeah. Like it has that iconography where it's very eye catching.
340
00:19:46.430 --> 00:19:48.910
And I had this thought as we were leaving today,
341
00:19:48.930 --> 00:19:53.839
as we were beginning, to pack up i wondered genuinely
342
00:19:54.779 --> 00:19:57.450
was it the fact that i had the dm screens
343
00:19:57.549 --> 00:20:02.009
and the books out advertising that possibly so i was
344
00:20:02.069 --> 00:20:04.890
thinking as we were getting on the mobility bus to
345
00:20:04.930 --> 00:20:07.430
come home today i was like I wonder if you
346
00:20:07.509 --> 00:20:10.869
had a GM screen that has the customizable art up
347
00:20:10.950 --> 00:20:14.849
front that if you put Monster of the Week as
348
00:20:14.910 --> 00:20:19.769
like your middle panel and you did like Sam and
349
00:20:19.809 --> 00:20:26.799
Dean Winchester, Buffy, Hellboy, and like Blade or something like
350
00:20:26.940 --> 00:20:30.029
on the four panels. Would that get people going, ooh,
351
00:20:30.390 --> 00:20:30.990
what's this?
352
00:20:31.509 --> 00:20:35.349
That might work. Actually, that's one of the things that,
353
00:20:35.390 --> 00:20:38.589
now that you've mentioned it, I might look at the
354
00:20:38.750 --> 00:20:42.190
Evil Hat website at some point this week and see
355
00:20:42.430 --> 00:20:46.890
if they have a GM screen, like an actual bespoke
356
00:20:46.910 --> 00:20:49.569
GM screen. And if anybody from Evil Hat is listening
357
00:20:49.849 --> 00:20:54.529
and you want to reach out, the email address is
358
00:20:54.630 --> 00:20:58.599
thespellbookshow at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. Um,
359
00:20:59.779 --> 00:21:04.160
but yeah, it's having that I'm, I'm sure having something
360
00:21:04.180 --> 00:21:08.160
like that would have helped. Um, I do plan in
361
00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:12.960
the spring when, uh, I come back to Guelph for, uh, Griff,
362
00:21:13.069 --> 00:21:15.829
Griff con proper. Um, I, I am going to run
363
00:21:15.849 --> 00:21:17.950
this again. Yeah. I think it'll be a little bit
364
00:21:18.190 --> 00:21:22.869
easier because that's going to be like, people will have
365
00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.420
to sign up. Yeah. And it's going to be posted
366
00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.210
on the site. People will be able to see it.
367
00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:29.880
People will be able to see like the, the description
368
00:21:29.900 --> 00:21:33.289
of what I want to, uh, like at least the
369
00:21:33.690 --> 00:21:35.730
kind of vague description of what I want to run.
370
00:21:35.769 --> 00:21:37.849
Cause I'm gonna run the same thing I was planning
371
00:21:37.890 --> 00:21:40.549
on running today. Um, because I think it would just
372
00:21:40.589 --> 00:21:42.710
be kind of cool. Uh, but that'll also give me
373
00:21:42.730 --> 00:21:44.309
a little bit more time to flesh it out too.
374
00:21:44.349 --> 00:21:46.630
Yeah. Like I think next year I'm probably going to
375
00:21:46.890 --> 00:21:50.329
probably going to run Marvel. Um, I don't know whether
376
00:21:50.430 --> 00:21:52.609
I want to run Star Trek or if I want
377
00:21:52.630 --> 00:21:54.759
to run Alien. They're both properties I have a very
378
00:21:54.819 --> 00:21:58.019
strong IP or like a very strong love for, but
379
00:21:58.059 --> 00:22:01.259
I'm wondering what's that going to look like? But that's
380
00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:05.220
a conversation for later on this year. So let's get
381
00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:08.599
to the main topic of today. So as you mentioned,
382
00:22:08.619 --> 00:22:10.470
you wanted to run Monster of the Week. You pitched
383
00:22:10.529 --> 00:22:12.869
it to me. I printed these off at work. So
384
00:22:12.910 --> 00:22:16.289
big thanks to Manitou Wigwam, which is the indigenous center
385
00:22:16.329 --> 00:22:21.460
that I work for here in Guelph. And it was...
386
00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:23.440
You pitch it to me as you... You're like, you
387
00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:25.880
fight monsters. If you've ever seen Supernatural, if you've ever
388
00:22:25.900 --> 00:22:29.099
seen Buffy, this is right up your alley. And you
389
00:22:29.140 --> 00:22:31.980
sat me down last night, and we watched a 10-minute
390
00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.289
video of a gentleman explaining it. And you show me
391
00:22:36.329 --> 00:22:39.309
the playbook. So that's been a really long time since
392
00:22:39.329 --> 00:22:43.470
I played Masks. And I'm thinking, okay, I get this.
393
00:22:43.809 --> 00:22:47.990
And it really... Like, how you generate characters in this,
394
00:22:48.190 --> 00:22:50.150
I love how fast it is. It feels like I
395
00:22:50.170 --> 00:22:51.430
can make a character in less than five minutes.
396
00:22:51.730 --> 00:22:58.579
Oh, guaranteed you can, because the playbook itself also doubles
397
00:22:58.900 --> 00:23:02.680
as your character sheet. So all of your stats, everything
398
00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:06.130
is right in front of you. As you're going along, like,
399
00:23:06.150 --> 00:23:09.829
I'm just going to use the chosen playbook, which is
400
00:23:09.890 --> 00:23:12.369
right in front of me right now. As you're going along,
401
00:23:12.390 --> 00:23:17.589
it says, okay, you get these moves. Plus, you get
402
00:23:17.630 --> 00:23:21.450
to pick from, you know, an option of five more moves. So, like,
403
00:23:21.490 --> 00:23:25.049
you can make it so that you make a showy
404
00:23:25.150 --> 00:23:29.019
entrance and distract people. Or you can make it so
405
00:23:29.059 --> 00:23:31.019
that you hit a little bit harder and do an
406
00:23:31.119 --> 00:23:35.579
extra harm worth of damage. You can also make it
407
00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:41.329
so that you are invincible and you have just two armor. So,
408
00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:44.769
things do two less damage to you. Everything does two
409
00:23:44.809 --> 00:23:48.099
less damage to you. Which, you know, that can be awesome.
410
00:23:48.140 --> 00:23:52.680
And it allows you a level of customization for your
411
00:23:52.740 --> 00:23:58.890
character that not a lot of systems can do easily.
412
00:23:59.309 --> 00:24:01.809
And I like how it's basically at a glance, like
413
00:24:01.910 --> 00:24:05.019
at the top of one of the playbook pages, there's like, OK,
414
00:24:05.099 --> 00:24:08.420
here's like three or four possibilities or how your stats
415
00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:11.970
could go. Now customize it. Yeah, exactly.
416
00:24:12.109 --> 00:24:15.559
And, like, so that's actually one of the things I
417
00:24:15.579 --> 00:24:19.059
was going to get to next. On each playbook is
418
00:24:19.099 --> 00:24:22.319
two pages. That's it. That's all you really, really need
419
00:24:22.359 --> 00:24:26.099
to play the game. The GM is going to need
420
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:29.099
the book just because there's some more descriptions of, like,
421
00:24:29.140 --> 00:24:33.029
the basic moves in there. But, like, for, again, using
422
00:24:33.089 --> 00:24:35.430
the chosen playbook, because, again, it's right in front of me,
423
00:24:35.769 --> 00:24:38.740
there are five options for And you pick one of
424
00:24:38.779 --> 00:24:43.380
those options. And then you fill those ratings. Into the
425
00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:46.319
front of the sheet. There you go. You have your modifiers.
426
00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:49.789
Which I thought was really cool. Just the fact like.
427
00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:54.730
There's not that many options. But that's not a bad thing.
428
00:24:55.369 --> 00:24:59.950
It's simplified to the point where. Here is your stats.
429
00:25:00.329 --> 00:25:02.890
Here is how things are going to play out. And
430
00:25:03.430 --> 00:25:10.660
go to town. Like it's. It's deceptively simple. Oh, yeah.
431
00:25:10.700 --> 00:25:15.819
But therein lies the fun. Yeah. Because with that simplicity
432
00:25:15.859 --> 00:25:20.950
in character creation, you can make some pretty complex characters.
433
00:25:23.990 --> 00:25:26.529
Speaking from experience, my character that I was playing in
434
00:25:26.569 --> 00:25:34.440
a fairly long campaign was the Spellslinger. So, like, think Willow.
435
00:25:34.460 --> 00:25:35.059
Yeah, Willow.
436
00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:40.130
That's actually exactly where I was going. You can summon things.
437
00:25:40.190 --> 00:25:46.390
You get combat magic that you can use to blow
438
00:25:46.470 --> 00:25:54.549
things up. You also have extra little bonuses. You can
439
00:25:54.910 --> 00:25:57.700
make it so that spells are easier to use for you.
440
00:25:57.789 --> 00:26:01.279
You can make it so that specific basic magic that
441
00:26:01.319 --> 00:26:05.099
you use, that anybody can use, is easier for you.
442
00:26:06.569 --> 00:26:10.529
um so and that all kind of you know ties
443
00:26:10.589 --> 00:26:15.079
back into the fact that this game is set up
444
00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:19.740
so that you can hit the ground running and make
445
00:26:19.779 --> 00:26:21.000
your character your.
446
00:26:20.980 --> 00:26:24.539
Own yeah because like when i looked at the playbooks
447
00:26:24.579 --> 00:26:26.319
and i'm kind of thinking like okay what would i
448
00:26:26.380 --> 00:26:29.059
want to do here and again i mentioned characters like
449
00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:32.579
like blade and hellboy and sam and dean winchester and
450
00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:35.819
i got thinking i You know, you could realistically have
451
00:26:35.859 --> 00:26:43.119
a party of a Ghostbuster, Ash from Evil Dead, Nancy
452
00:26:43.180 --> 00:26:48.150
from Nightmare on Elm Street, and I don't know. I'm
453
00:26:48.170 --> 00:26:49.750
trying to think of another character. You could have a
454
00:26:49.809 --> 00:26:53.990
character out of the Hellboy universe like Abe Sapien or
455
00:26:54.109 --> 00:27:00.450
any member of the BRPD. That's awesome. It just happens.
456
00:27:00.690 --> 00:27:03.180
And I love... There's a section in this. I don't
457
00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:04.259
know if we're going to get to it in this
458
00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:06.460
particular break, but I love how once you get all
459
00:27:06.500 --> 00:27:11.269
your stats filled out, go around the table, determine relationships. Yes.
460
00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:17.690
That is... Like, Masks does something similar. It's... The way
461
00:27:17.730 --> 00:27:20.329
they do it is a little bit different because that
462
00:27:20.509 --> 00:27:26.690
kind of... There's actual mechanics behind it. But with Monster
463
00:27:26.710 --> 00:27:33.109
of the Week, it helps to... Tie your investigators, your
464
00:27:33.140 --> 00:27:38.910
monster hunters together because Sam and Dean were their brothers.
465
00:27:38.990 --> 00:27:43.809
They have that relationship outside of just, you know, hunting monsters.
466
00:27:44.599 --> 00:27:47.960
And yes, hunting monsters is a big part of their relationship,
467
00:27:48.140 --> 00:27:52.079
but it's not everything. And that's something that I think
468
00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:54.880
a lot of games ignore.
469
00:27:55.180 --> 00:27:55.400
Yeah.
470
00:27:55.900 --> 00:27:56.599
Yeah.
471
00:27:56.599 --> 00:27:56.799
100%.
472
00:27:56.799 --> 00:28:01.039
Especially, you know, the, the quote unquote triple A titles.
473
00:28:01.559 --> 00:28:04.380
Yeah. Because like, here's your background. Here's a couple of skills.
474
00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:06.970
Maybe you get something neat out of it and never
475
00:28:07.009 --> 00:28:08.369
shall we talk about this again?
476
00:28:08.670 --> 00:28:15.809
Well, and even past that it's, here's your background. No,
477
00:28:15.950 --> 00:28:19.039
don't worry about how you tie into the rest of
478
00:28:19.059 --> 00:28:19.440
the group.
479
00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:19.819
Yep.
480
00:28:20.680 --> 00:28:25.230
It's, It's all about you. Yeah. Whereas with Monster of
481
00:28:25.269 --> 00:28:28.710
the Week, you know, looking at one of the playbooks
482
00:28:28.750 --> 00:28:32.789
right now, you know, your relationship with one of the
483
00:28:34.430 --> 00:28:38.609
other monster hunters has romantic potential. But so far it
484
00:28:38.670 --> 00:28:39.470
hasn't gone further.
485
00:28:39.690 --> 00:28:42.279
Yeah. And I could actually see that played out in
486
00:28:42.380 --> 00:28:48.640
Buffy fearing the relationships. Xander and Willow were buds. Xander
487
00:28:48.680 --> 00:28:53.299
has feelings for Buffy. Yep. Giles is the glue that
488
00:28:53.359 --> 00:28:58.539
holds the group together. Oz is the outsider as things go.
489
00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:01.839
And like I said, I love how the relationships are
490
00:29:01.900 --> 00:29:05.420
built in. But speaking of relationships, we have to honor
491
00:29:05.460 --> 00:29:08.140
the station here and check out some of our lovely
492
00:29:08.180 --> 00:29:11.869
public service announcements. Maybe you'll hear mine from Manitou Wigwam.
493
00:29:11.970 --> 00:29:15.410
I don't know because typically I do these, but you
494
00:29:15.470 --> 00:29:17.460
never know. So, yeah, we're going to take a break
495
00:29:17.500 --> 00:29:22.099
here on Guelph and Campus Community Radio. This is 93.3 CFRU,
496
00:29:22.099 --> 00:29:27.740
250 watts of amazing power that you simply cannot control. So,
497
00:29:27.789 --> 00:29:30.750
once again, I'm Mike. That is Damien. And we will
498
00:29:30.769 --> 00:29:39.930
be back right here on The Spellbook. My name is Emily.
499
00:29:40.299 --> 00:29:43.400
I'm hanging out in the studio with Isaac from College Heights.
500
00:29:43.529 --> 00:29:52.170
And you're listening to CFRU 93.3 FM. Welcome back to
501
00:29:52.210 --> 00:29:57.509
the Spellbook right here on 93.3 CFRU Guelph Community Radio
502
00:29:57.710 --> 00:30:02.079
as we are talking about Monster of the Week. Now,
503
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:05.099
one of the things, just to jump right into it,
504
00:30:05.559 --> 00:30:08.960
I really like about this system. We've talked about a
505
00:30:08.980 --> 00:30:13.000
couple of things that I like. But one thing that
506
00:30:13.339 --> 00:30:19.750
this system does that I've only ever seen happen other
507
00:30:19.849 --> 00:30:22.869
Apocalypse World games do, and I think this might be
508
00:30:22.910 --> 00:30:28.450
just baked into the system, is the way they do advancements.
509
00:30:28.990 --> 00:30:29.369
Okay.
510
00:30:29.630 --> 00:30:33.750
So with the way Monster of the Week handles advancements
511
00:30:34.650 --> 00:30:41.619
is every time you fail a roll, you gain an
512
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:42.480
experience tick.
513
00:30:42.980 --> 00:30:46.420
Yeah, I've never seen that in any game that I
514
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:49.380
can think of And I've played a lot.
515
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:51.180
Masks does it. Yeah.
516
00:30:51.309 --> 00:30:53.970
But in the one time I played masks, cause it
517
00:30:53.990 --> 00:30:57.490
was literally like a one shot. This never came up
518
00:30:57.529 --> 00:31:00.470
in my game master at the time. Justin just never
519
00:31:00.549 --> 00:31:04.039
mentioned it to us. And that's an interesting mechanic. And
520
00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:08.019
it's a really easy way for you to keep track.
521
00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:12.599
You as a player to do your, your own bookkeeping.
522
00:31:12.700 --> 00:31:16.890
Cause you're not bogging down your storyteller with, man, how
523
00:31:16.950 --> 00:31:19.150
much XP did I gain? You can just like, okay,
524
00:31:19.170 --> 00:31:20.069
I failed. Boom. Done.
525
00:31:20.549 --> 00:31:24.720
And what's really good about it is if you fill
526
00:31:24.920 --> 00:31:27.480
all five of your, cause everybody gets five experience boxes.
527
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:32.440
If you fill all five of your experience boxes during
528
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:37.559
the session, you immediately get your advancement. You erase those
529
00:31:37.880 --> 00:31:39.769
experience boxes and you keep going.
530
00:31:40.289 --> 00:31:44.259
See, that's really cool. Like I really dig that. Like, and, Again,
531
00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:47.140
the flexibility. Now, who makes this game? You said Evil Hat?
532
00:31:47.259 --> 00:31:48.539
Yeah, this is Evil Hat Productions.
533
00:31:48.599 --> 00:31:52.380
Yeah, I love how simplistic it is. And simplistic doesn't
534
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:55.789
have to mean bad. In fact, I think you could
535
00:31:55.809 --> 00:31:59.670
make a pretty compelling case that these Powered by the
536
00:31:59.730 --> 00:32:02.670
Apocalypse games, depending on what IPs kind of slapped on it,
537
00:32:03.309 --> 00:32:05.650
I think Avatar runs on a similar system, but I
538
00:32:05.670 --> 00:32:06.029
don't know.
539
00:32:06.390 --> 00:32:06.950
I would have to look.
540
00:32:07.089 --> 00:32:09.029
Yeah, I'd have to look, too. Actually, that may be
541
00:32:09.049 --> 00:32:10.569
a mag, but I don't know. I'm probably getting them confused.
542
00:32:10.609 --> 00:32:15.150
Anyway, point of the matter is, this is... perfect for
543
00:32:15.210 --> 00:32:18.269
conventions it's perfect for conventions or.
544
00:32:18.309 --> 00:32:20.490
One shots for for like a special event.
545
00:32:20.230 --> 00:32:22.789
Or something yeah it's perfect for conventions it's great for
546
00:32:22.970 --> 00:32:28.079
one shots honestly i even like this for short to
547
00:32:28.140 --> 00:32:33.420
medium campaigns um the podcast that i was on uh
548
00:32:33.660 --> 00:32:38.420
daniel's dread tales we did a i think it was
549
00:32:38.519 --> 00:32:43.019
like eight-month to a year-long campaign. Wow. Granted, you know,
550
00:32:43.470 --> 00:32:46.839
the episodes were, like, every other week. But still, that's
551
00:32:46.859 --> 00:32:50.220
pretty long. Yeah, that's still effectively six months of weekly
552
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:55.460
gaming with this. And, you know, my character that I played,
553
00:32:55.480 --> 00:32:59.180
that was the one where I played the Spellslinger, they
554
00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:02.599
eventually became a god, but still.
555
00:33:02.619 --> 00:33:05.210
As one does. Yeah, as one does. Yeah.
556
00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:08.690
I actually was kind of halfway through the campaign angling
557
00:33:08.750 --> 00:33:14.230
for that. Um, and yeah, like it's, it gives the
558
00:33:14.369 --> 00:33:20.789
freedom to like the simplicity of the system gives the
559
00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:26.029
freedom to get creative with what you're doing. Um, I
560
00:33:26.069 --> 00:33:30.210
mentioned earlier magic with the magic in the system. It's
561
00:33:30.359 --> 00:33:34.309
actually kind of similar to how it works in invincible, uh,
562
00:33:35.210 --> 00:33:39.410
Where you have a few things that you can do. Like,
563
00:33:39.450 --> 00:33:42.950
it's like you can summon things, you can, you know,
564
00:33:42.990 --> 00:33:49.339
create effects. But it allows you as the player to
565
00:33:50.259 --> 00:33:55.490
be like, I want to summon, you know, an aspect
566
00:33:55.829 --> 00:33:56.809
of Jormungandr.
567
00:33:57.130 --> 00:33:57.250
Mm-hmm.
568
00:33:58.180 --> 00:34:02.150
The world serpent from Norse mythology, if you are unaware.
569
00:34:02.630 --> 00:34:07.150
I thought I recognized that from the God of War games. Yeah.
570
00:34:08.210 --> 00:34:13.929
And if your GM is down for it, done. And honestly,
571
00:34:14.389 --> 00:34:16.719
even if they think it's really powerful, that can just
572
00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:19.719
turn into big magic, which means you might need some
573
00:34:19.820 --> 00:34:22.679
extra stuff or it might take you a bit longer
574
00:34:22.739 --> 00:34:23.300
to get done.
575
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:28.639
But it's still doable. Now, in the system of Monster
576
00:34:28.659 --> 00:34:30.780
of the Week, is there, like, is there, like, a
577
00:34:30.889 --> 00:34:33.530
world lore built around it? Do they just, like, here's
578
00:34:33.570 --> 00:34:35.929
the system, here's the basic idea, now go to town?
579
00:34:36.190 --> 00:34:41.110
There is, like, a basic world lore.
580
00:34:41.190 --> 00:34:47.309
Like, it's assumed that you, as the GM, are going to, like,
581
00:34:47.489 --> 00:34:55.260
flesh out most of what's going on. And, like, it's honestly...
582
00:34:55.559 --> 00:34:59.420
super easy to just set it in the real world
583
00:35:00.179 --> 00:35:03.840
because that's kind of the the lore that you're using
584
00:35:04.110 --> 00:35:08.349
yeah is you're you're you know it's it's just like
585
00:35:08.369 --> 00:35:12.789
with supernatural it's set on earth so you have all
586
00:35:12.809 --> 00:35:15.469
the lore of earth to work with which you know
587
00:35:16.010 --> 00:35:18.650
admittedly is kind of a lot see i'm.
588
00:35:18.570 --> 00:35:22.690
Looking at this now there is a supernatural ttrpg and
589
00:35:22.730 --> 00:35:25.949
i can't remember who put it out I think it
590
00:35:25.989 --> 00:35:28.400
was the Cortex. I think it runs on the same
591
00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:29.639
system that Smallville does.
592
00:35:29.659 --> 00:35:29.940
Okay.
593
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:32.480
I don't recall correctly off the top of my head.
594
00:35:32.500 --> 00:35:34.300
It's weird that there's a Smallville game.
595
00:35:34.679 --> 00:35:38.559
Yeah. And honestly, it's built mostly on relationships too, which
596
00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:42.199
is kind of cool. But yeah, it's got a funny
597
00:35:42.239 --> 00:35:47.159
dice system. It's unnecessarily complicated. What I like about this,
598
00:35:47.199 --> 00:35:49.300
when I started, when you pitched me the idea, there
599
00:35:49.340 --> 00:35:52.559
are two things I'd love to do. You could put
600
00:35:52.780 --> 00:35:56.369
Friday the 13th in this setting yeah so easy you
601
00:35:56.409 --> 00:36:00.409
could have you could run a session where you are
602
00:36:00.570 --> 00:36:03.400
replaying the events of nightmare on elm street three of
603
00:36:03.420 --> 00:36:07.760
the dream warriors really easy you could even have there's
604
00:36:07.800 --> 00:36:12.059
like a portion of the chucky tv show uh that
605
00:36:12.099 --> 00:36:14.030
show deserved to season four and i will die on
606
00:36:14.050 --> 00:36:17.170
this hill uh that being said um there's a point
607
00:36:17.230 --> 00:36:23.489
where alex um or yeah yeah alex is the kid
608
00:36:23.550 --> 00:36:27.719
that Chucky was chasing for years. And, you know, eventually
609
00:36:27.739 --> 00:36:29.639
he wants to transfer his soul, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
610
00:36:30.380 --> 00:36:32.860
And there's a point where he's traveling around with the
611
00:36:32.920 --> 00:36:36.639
other survivor from Child's Play 2. And I'm thinking, you
612
00:36:36.659 --> 00:36:41.539
could literally do, fight Chucky in this game. And it
613
00:36:41.599 --> 00:36:43.900
reminds me of a comic years ago. I think it
614
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:48.219
was called Hack Slash, where this was literally just a pair.
615
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:51.269
One of them was a monster, like a Frankenstein or something.
616
00:36:51.980 --> 00:36:55.380
And another one was some woman who was like demonically
617
00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:57.960
empowered or she had like some mystical ability or whatever.
618
00:36:58.420 --> 00:37:02.360
But their goal was to wander around the United States
619
00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:06.980
and fight monsters. And I'm saying like, I love how
620
00:37:07.019 --> 00:37:09.659
this isn't tied to any specific lore if you don't
621
00:37:09.780 --> 00:37:10.400
want it to be.
622
00:37:10.599 --> 00:37:11.380
Yeah, exactly.
623
00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:15.519
So if you want to fight Jason, Freddy, Pinhead, you've
624
00:37:15.539 --> 00:37:20.289
got such flexibility here that you it really opens up
625
00:37:20.349 --> 00:37:22.530
the door. And I think what I like about this,
626
00:37:22.739 --> 00:37:26.699
it's very GURPS-ish. And GURPS, for those of you that
627
00:37:26.719 --> 00:37:28.780
don't know, is a game published by Steve Jackson Games
628
00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:34.039
called Generic Universal Role-Playing System. Its biggest weakness is its name, GURPS.
629
00:37:34.940 --> 00:37:39.179
And it allows you to strap in whatever components work
630
00:37:39.199 --> 00:37:41.269
for you. If you want to have a horror game, cool.
631
00:37:41.289 --> 00:37:43.590
You want to add cyberpunk tech, like here's GURPS cyberpunk.
632
00:37:43.610 --> 00:37:46.730
You want to add in magic, GURPS magic. GURPS Supernatural.
633
00:37:46.750 --> 00:37:48.190
You can throw in all those sorts of things. And
634
00:37:48.210 --> 00:37:49.650
I have a feeling with this game, because it's Powered
635
00:37:49.670 --> 00:37:55.010
by the Apocalypse, you can mix and match playbooks, right? There... Like,
636
00:37:55.710 --> 00:37:56.860
there's some flexibility.
637
00:37:57.280 --> 00:38:00.480
I'm pretty sure that there are ways that you could
638
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:08.079
potentially grab, like, a Masks playbook and, like, shoehorn it in. However,
639
00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:11.469
in addition to the, like, 12 playbooks that are in
640
00:38:11.590 --> 00:38:17.139
the core book, there are... a ridiculous amount of other
641
00:38:17.260 --> 00:38:23.219
official playbooks that you can grab. Like Daniel from my
642
00:38:23.239 --> 00:38:28.349
old podcast, the character that he was playing was, I
643
00:38:28.889 --> 00:38:33.530
think it's the Displaced, which is effectively you are somebody
644
00:38:33.989 --> 00:38:37.989
taken from history, shunted through time into the future.
645
00:38:38.449 --> 00:38:39.289
Okay, very weird.
646
00:38:39.309 --> 00:38:45.070
Yeah, like he was playing... Very Assassin's Creed-ish. Kind of, yeah.
647
00:38:45.130 --> 00:38:52.840
He was playing Roland from the Fantastical Tales. Okay, interesting.
648
00:38:53.019 --> 00:38:57.280
He always referred to himself as Roland from history. It's
649
00:38:57.360 --> 00:39:00.699
kind of funny. But I'm going to kind of backpedal
650
00:39:00.719 --> 00:39:02.949
a little bit here. And it's kind of funny that
651
00:39:02.969 --> 00:39:08.050
you mentioned the Hack and Slash comic. Because one of
652
00:39:08.110 --> 00:39:12.739
the playbooks in the basic set of 12 yeah is
653
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:17.679
the monstrous you can play a monster that hunts other monsters.
654
00:39:17.800 --> 00:39:21.349
Yeah and that's i will admit that's what captured my
655
00:39:21.889 --> 00:39:27.190
attention so i write for a podcast called weekly spookies
656
00:39:27.269 --> 00:39:30.960
hosted by my buddy enrique couto And he's also the
657
00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:33.239
guy that used to host Welcome to Primetime, a Freddy's
658
00:39:33.300 --> 00:39:38.000
Nightmare podcast. And I wrote a series of stories, and
659
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:41.719
I call them Carolyn Quinn Vampire Hunter. And her big
660
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:46.150
shtick is she's half vampire, but she's also half gifted,
661
00:39:46.250 --> 00:39:49.940
so half superhero. And when I heard you pitch the
662
00:39:50.039 --> 00:39:54.420
monstrous to me, I'm thinking, yo, I could make my,
663
00:39:54.980 --> 00:39:58.400
my characters from my game, from my, not my game.
664
00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:00.239
My stories come to life.
665
00:40:00.420 --> 00:40:00.539
Yeah.
666
00:40:00.599 --> 00:40:04.920
I'm thinking this is interesting. Like this, like, like today,
667
00:40:05.019 --> 00:40:07.409
if we were going to play, I was going to
668
00:40:07.550 --> 00:40:11.170
create Carolyn Quinn, my troubleshooters, what she is in the
669
00:40:11.210 --> 00:40:14.349
world of Carolyn Quinn. Or there's my other person. Who's
670
00:40:14.369 --> 00:40:18.409
an agent of the Bureau of paranormal assets or, I
671
00:40:18.429 --> 00:40:20.929
think I can't remember. I I'd have to look at
672
00:40:20.949 --> 00:40:23.739
my own lore, but basically she's like a low rent
673
00:40:23.920 --> 00:40:24.420
ice man.
674
00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:25.000
Nice.
675
00:40:25.039 --> 00:40:29.300
Like she can't hurl like the Titanic size icebergs at you,
676
00:40:29.940 --> 00:40:32.739
but she can cool your drink. And her big shtick
677
00:40:32.860 --> 00:40:36.780
is I have powers, but that doesn't define me. I'm
678
00:40:36.860 --> 00:40:39.610
a competent FBI agent first and foremost.
679
00:40:39.670 --> 00:40:39.889
Yeah.
680
00:40:39.989 --> 00:40:43.630
So her big shtick was I come to crime scenes and,
681
00:40:44.389 --> 00:40:47.599
to preserve the evidence because I can keep them cold.
682
00:40:47.659 --> 00:40:50.019
I can stop decomposition from happening.
683
00:40:50.139 --> 00:40:50.780
That's neat.
684
00:40:50.840 --> 00:40:52.619
And that's something, and you know what, that's what I
685
00:40:52.659 --> 00:40:55.480
want to play. I don't need to play hell boy with,
686
00:40:55.519 --> 00:40:58.719
you know, the pacifier or whatever his big guns called.
687
00:40:58.739 --> 00:41:00.400
And I was like, no, I want to play something
688
00:41:00.420 --> 00:41:03.320
a little bit different. And that's what I love about
689
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:04.440
this idea. Yeah.
690
00:41:04.579 --> 00:41:10.599
And like the, the system itself allows for those nuanced characters. Um,
691
00:41:11.300 --> 00:41:14.989
and yeah, especially once you get into the, the, the
692
00:41:15.050 --> 00:41:18.610
point of like where you're leveling up and gaining advancements,
693
00:41:19.030 --> 00:41:23.210
because with every playbook, you have a couple of options
694
00:41:23.530 --> 00:41:27.289
where you're allowed to take a move from a different playbook.
695
00:41:27.610 --> 00:41:31.119
So there's a lot of customizability here. Yeah, exactly. It's
696
00:41:31.139 --> 00:41:33.739
not like multi-classing and D and D where you really
697
00:41:33.780 --> 00:41:36.079
got to commit. Like if I'd rather have like the
698
00:41:36.139 --> 00:41:39.670
paladins lay on hands ability and But maybe I don't
699
00:41:39.710 --> 00:41:42.190
want the auras. I can't just pick and choose what
700
00:41:42.230 --> 00:41:43.110
abilities I want.
701
00:41:43.309 --> 00:41:51.059
Yeah, exactly. And it allows for that natural generation of
702
00:41:51.579 --> 00:41:57.559
a character that is your own. When we did the
703
00:41:59.070 --> 00:42:03.090
Invincible interview and we made the characters for that, Onyx...
704
00:42:04.119 --> 00:42:08.150
originated as Spellslinger in Monster of the Week.
705
00:42:08.650 --> 00:42:09.829
That's cool.
706
00:42:09.849 --> 00:42:13.929
This was the system that created that archetype. And I've
707
00:42:13.969 --> 00:42:15.880
now used that archetype a few times.
708
00:42:16.610 --> 00:42:21.500
Yeah, like... Still. There's so much flexibility and versatility in this.
709
00:42:21.539 --> 00:42:24.300
And the fact that it does open up, you can
710
00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:31.929
relive any of your favorite television shows like Buffy, Angel, Supernatural, Lucifer, Constantine, Reaper,
711
00:42:31.969 --> 00:42:34.269
if you wanted to be a little bit funny. Tucker
712
00:42:34.309 --> 00:42:38.030
versus Dale versus evil taught in the book of pure
713
00:42:38.090 --> 00:42:39.550
evil is another option.
714
00:42:39.769 --> 00:42:42.710
I mean, as well, like going back to the monstrous playbook,
715
00:42:42.730 --> 00:42:47.809
which I had mentioned, if you wanted to, you could
716
00:42:48.369 --> 00:42:52.530
create Chucky as your monster hunter.
717
00:42:53.469 --> 00:42:56.070
Which would be really interesting. Maybe like Charles Lee raise
718
00:42:56.130 --> 00:42:59.400
on like a redemption tour. Um, but yeah, so we're
719
00:42:59.420 --> 00:43:01.440
going to take a break here on the spell book.
720
00:43:01.480 --> 00:43:04.409
You are listening to Guelph and campus community radio. This
721
00:43:04.710 --> 00:43:08.690
is CFRU, broadcasting proudly from the University of Guelph campus
722
00:43:08.769 --> 00:43:11.309
in the University Center. We'll be back right after this.
723
00:43:11.349 --> 00:43:13.210
I've been Mike, that's been Damian, and we'll be back
724
00:43:13.710 --> 00:43:15.469
right after whatever the hell this is.
725
00:43:15.489 --> 00:43:23.320
Hey, this is Hayden from Metz. You're listening to CFRU
726
00:43:23.420 --> 00:43:34.690
in Guelph. Welcome back to the Spellbook right here on 93.3
727
00:43:34.690 --> 00:43:42.630
CFRU Guelph Community Radio as we're talking Monster of the Week. Now,
728
00:43:43.329 --> 00:43:46.429
I'm going to kind of go back into the anatomy
729
00:43:46.590 --> 00:43:48.449
of the playbook a little bit more. I know I've
730
00:43:48.489 --> 00:43:51.139
been jumping around a little bit, but I'm a yapper.
731
00:43:51.179 --> 00:43:54.380
That's what I do. One of the things that I
732
00:43:54.519 --> 00:43:58.119
really like about this system.
733
00:43:59.260 --> 00:43:59.559
Is luck.
734
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:07.320
So every playbook has seven luck that they can spend.
735
00:44:09.539 --> 00:44:14.989
I do believe it is per session, but I'd have
736
00:44:15.050 --> 00:44:18.590
to go through the book to double check that. Now,
737
00:44:19.369 --> 00:44:25.590
what this does on the surface, its main purpose is
738
00:44:26.110 --> 00:44:29.039
you can change a roll to be a 12. which
739
00:44:29.079 --> 00:44:31.900
means you automatically succeed with the best possible outcome you
740
00:44:31.940 --> 00:44:38.449
can get, or you can avoid all harm, which is neat.
741
00:44:40.469 --> 00:44:47.610
Its second ability depends on your playbook. So when you're
742
00:44:47.690 --> 00:44:50.409
using luck, you have to take the good with the bad.
743
00:44:51.289 --> 00:44:53.230
And I'm going to just open to a random playbook here,
744
00:44:53.849 --> 00:44:55.289
hopefully one we haven't spoken about.
745
00:44:55.309 --> 00:44:59.320
All right. Like you'll have to tell me like, which
746
00:44:59.380 --> 00:45:02.619
are the different playbooks that we currently, what could have
747
00:45:02.679 --> 00:45:03.599
we selected today?
748
00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:06.940
I will go through that in just a moment. So
749
00:45:07.099 --> 00:45:10.239
I've opened up the flake playbook. So again, like I said,
750
00:45:10.860 --> 00:45:13.219
when you use your luck, you mark a luck, you
751
00:45:13.239 --> 00:45:15.860
change roles as well, or you avoid all harm. However,
752
00:45:16.699 --> 00:45:19.960
with the flake, if you're playing as the flake, when
753
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:22.800
you spend a point of luck, you pick an aspect
754
00:45:22.860 --> 00:45:25.409
of the current situation that, And the Keeper will tell
755
00:45:25.469 --> 00:45:32.619
you what other conspiracies that aspect connects to. So it
756
00:45:32.739 --> 00:45:35.820
could end up being a little bit like muddying the
757
00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:39.360
waters and confusing the situation for you as the Flake
758
00:45:39.699 --> 00:45:45.909
and giving you maybe information that you don't need. Okay.
759
00:45:46.010 --> 00:45:48.610
Is the Flake the dork or something?
760
00:45:49.469 --> 00:45:53.880
So the little blurb for the Flake is, Um, everything's connected,
761
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:57.380
but not everyone can see the patterns and most people
762
00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:00.460
don't even look that hard. But me, I can never
763
00:46:00.519 --> 00:46:03.699
stop looking deeper. Molder. I can never stop seeing the truth.
764
00:46:03.909 --> 00:46:06.670
I spot the patterns. That's how I found the monsters
765
00:46:06.789 --> 00:46:09.150
and that's how I helped kill them. So basically the
766
00:46:09.190 --> 00:46:09.969
conspiracy theorist.
767
00:46:10.309 --> 00:46:13.929
Fox Molder. Yeah. That's awesome. I never would have guessed
768
00:46:14.110 --> 00:46:15.710
Molder would be called the flake.
769
00:46:15.769 --> 00:46:16.090
Yeah.
770
00:46:16.170 --> 00:46:18.489
That's awesome. So now.
771
00:46:19.170 --> 00:46:22.409
As you mentioned, I have 12 playbooks sitting in front
772
00:46:22.429 --> 00:46:22.630
of me.
773
00:46:22.849 --> 00:46:23.409
Yeah.
774
00:46:23.570 --> 00:46:26.960
So in order, they are the chosen.
775
00:46:27.280 --> 00:46:27.800
So Buffy.
776
00:46:28.079 --> 00:46:30.579
Yeah. Your birth was prophesized. You are the chosen one.
777
00:46:32.059 --> 00:46:35.420
There's the crooked. Been around the block.
778
00:46:35.500 --> 00:46:36.380
Bit of this, bit of that.
779
00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:37.400
You're the criminal.
780
00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:38.219
The thief.
781
00:46:39.139 --> 00:46:42.840
You're the shady person. It's fine. Everybody has a past.
782
00:46:42.980 --> 00:46:43.739
Yeah.
783
00:46:44.059 --> 00:46:47.989
The divine. You're essentially the physical embodiment of an angel.
784
00:46:48.449 --> 00:46:51.150
Or other, like... Divine power.
785
00:46:51.190 --> 00:46:59.070
Divine being, depending on what sort of religious or spiritual...
786
00:46:59.389 --> 00:47:00.360
Some whole origin.
787
00:47:00.489 --> 00:47:01.300
Yeah.
788
00:47:01.719 --> 00:47:05.460
Pretty much. You have a boss. They're not on this plane. And,
789
00:47:05.699 --> 00:47:08.739
you know, they may want you to do things that are.
790
00:47:09.679 --> 00:47:12.280
Good? For the supernatural, yeah. Yeah.
791
00:47:12.760 --> 00:47:13.960
Yeah, actually, that's perfect.
792
00:47:14.099 --> 00:47:15.539
Yeah. The expert.
793
00:47:17.010 --> 00:47:19.789
I've dedicated myself or my life to the study of
794
00:47:19.849 --> 00:47:22.590
the unnatural and I know their habits and their weaknesses.
795
00:47:23.010 --> 00:47:26.530
So they're the like, they're the Giles. Yeah.
796
00:47:26.610 --> 00:47:26.989
Yeah.
797
00:47:27.150 --> 00:47:28.389
That would be the perfect Giles.
798
00:47:30.050 --> 00:47:30.489
The flake.
799
00:47:30.610 --> 00:47:32.389
That was the one that we had spoken about.
800
00:47:32.429 --> 00:47:33.070
That's Mulder.
801
00:47:34.710 --> 00:47:41.010
The initiate. Essentially a cult member. OK, since the dawn
802
00:47:41.030 --> 00:47:43.969
of history, we've been the bulwark against the darkness. They
803
00:47:44.010 --> 00:47:46.369
think they're the good guys. They may be. They may
804
00:47:46.429 --> 00:47:46.809
not be.
805
00:47:48.530 --> 00:47:54.480
I see them as the watchers from the Highlander show. Yeah.
806
00:47:54.659 --> 00:47:57.800
Wasn't there like a council in Buffy as well?
807
00:47:57.940 --> 00:48:00.750
Yeah, there were like there was like a group of watchers,
808
00:48:00.849 --> 00:48:03.809
but you only ever saw Ethan Rain show up and
809
00:48:03.829 --> 00:48:05.099
he was a jerk. Yeah.
810
00:48:05.440 --> 00:48:09.900
So like it's, it's essentially there. You're like shadowy underground cult.
811
00:48:10.280 --> 00:48:11.079
Wolfram and heart.
812
00:48:11.460 --> 00:48:14.739
Yeah. Yeah. Wolfram and heart. That would be a perfect
813
00:48:14.800 --> 00:48:17.800
way of describing him. The monstrous. Yep.
814
00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:22.449
Hell boy. Hell boy. Blade. Blade. Yeah.
815
00:48:22.550 --> 00:48:25.789
If you wanted to, like I said, be Chucky and
816
00:48:25.829 --> 00:48:29.949
hunt monsters. Yep. Or something similar to Chucky and hunt monsters,
817
00:48:29.989 --> 00:48:31.269
because I think that would be kind of cool.
818
00:48:31.469 --> 00:48:32.030
Yeah.
819
00:48:32.329 --> 00:48:35.730
The mundane monster. You're just a normal dude.
820
00:48:35.809 --> 00:48:36.590
Yep. Xander.
821
00:48:37.190 --> 00:48:40.030
Yeah. Uh, the, the blurb is that you heard about
822
00:48:40.090 --> 00:48:43.530
how monsters only pick on people with crazy powers and, uh,
823
00:48:43.570 --> 00:48:46.699
who can fight back on even terms. Yeah. Me neither. Um,
824
00:48:50.079 --> 00:48:53.639
the professional. Uh, it's kind of strange to have a
825
00:48:53.699 --> 00:48:56.159
regular nine to five job. Uh, it's kind of strange
826
00:48:56.179 --> 00:48:58.659
when your regular nine to five job is to hunt
827
00:48:58.679 --> 00:49:02.719
down monsters. Like you're just a dude that honestly, Sam
828
00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:03.099
and Dean.
829
00:49:03.360 --> 00:49:07.659
Yeah. Sam and Dean. Yeah. They're professionals or any agent
830
00:49:07.699 --> 00:49:11.570
with any agency, like a BRPD agent.
831
00:49:12.170 --> 00:49:13.349
Anybody from the men in black.
832
00:49:13.590 --> 00:49:16.489
Yeah. I've never even thought. Yeah. You can really bring
833
00:49:16.530 --> 00:49:19.900
the MIB in this really because monsters doesn't have to
834
00:49:19.940 --> 00:49:23.460
mean from hell it could mean millions yeah yeah that's
835
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:24.579
really clever.
836
00:49:24.219 --> 00:49:28.719
Actually there's even an argument to say that fox maulder
837
00:49:28.840 --> 00:49:33.039
is also the professional I can see that too. Yeah.
838
00:49:33.340 --> 00:49:35.679
Cause that's kind of his nine to five. Cause that's
839
00:49:35.739 --> 00:49:37.199
the department he works in. Yeah.
840
00:49:37.239 --> 00:49:39.590
He draws a paycheck from the feds. Yeah.
841
00:49:39.699 --> 00:49:42.329
Actually maybe Scully would be the professional.
842
00:49:42.349 --> 00:49:45.210
I could see Scully doing that. Cause Mulder might fit
843
00:49:45.269 --> 00:49:46.389
more the expert.
844
00:49:46.670 --> 00:49:48.449
Well, I was meaning the, well, I think the flake
845
00:49:48.489 --> 00:49:53.849
for Mulder. Yeah. And the professional, or even the mundane
846
00:49:53.889 --> 00:49:54.369
for Scully.
847
00:49:54.570 --> 00:49:59.110
Yeah, like, there's a lot of neat overlap with this,
848
00:49:59.130 --> 00:50:02.360
with a lot of pop culture shit. Yeah. I'm honestly
849
00:50:02.380 --> 00:50:04.579
surprised how much I dig this. I'm really sad we
850
00:50:04.719 --> 00:50:07.219
didn't play this today. Oh, in the spring.
851
00:50:08.179 --> 00:50:10.880
Next, we have the Spellslinger, and the blurb for this
852
00:50:10.960 --> 00:50:13.860
is just perfect. Fight fire with fire magic.
853
00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:17.409
Yeah, willow. Yep. Yep.
854
00:50:17.769 --> 00:50:20.760
Then you got the Spooky. Um, I can do things,
855
00:50:20.940 --> 00:50:24.400
things normal people can't, but there's a price. I haven't
856
00:50:24.440 --> 00:50:26.719
paid it in full yet, but the bill's going to
857
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:30.710
come due soon. Um, so like, yeah, you're, you're the
858
00:50:30.769 --> 00:50:34.809
kid with the strange powers. Um, 11, 11 things. Yep.
859
00:50:35.610 --> 00:50:35.789
Yep.
860
00:50:37.469 --> 00:50:42.599
And then finally the wronged, they took my loved ones.
861
00:50:43.260 --> 00:50:46.820
Back when I wasn't strong enough to fight, but I studied, trained,
862
00:50:46.980 --> 00:50:49.639
and now I'm ready to cleanse the world of their taint.
863
00:50:51.110 --> 00:50:51.780
Any Slayer.
864
00:50:52.309 --> 00:50:56.070
Any Slayer. Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.
865
00:50:56.269 --> 00:51:03.340
Yep. Man. Yeah, there's a lot of mechanical depth in this. Clearly,
866
00:51:03.389 --> 00:51:08.420
whoever wrote, whatever development team was behind this, they watched
867
00:51:08.480 --> 00:51:11.199
a lot of TV and a lot of movies, and
868
00:51:11.260 --> 00:51:12.099
they're better for it.
869
00:51:12.530 --> 00:51:15.130
You know what? You know who I think could also
870
00:51:15.530 --> 00:51:18.789
fit into the archetype of the wronged? And this is
871
00:51:18.809 --> 00:51:20.989
going to sound weird. The Punisher.
872
00:51:21.929 --> 00:51:26.860
I could very easily see that. Yeah, like... Yeah.
873
00:51:26.920 --> 00:51:31.199
Like, you could definitely use him as an inspiration for
874
00:51:31.239 --> 00:51:36.519
a character. Because who's to say... And, like, Kingpin was
875
00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:38.960
far from a normal dude.
876
00:51:39.079 --> 00:51:40.280
Yep. Like.
877
00:51:40.780 --> 00:51:43.809
I think actually canonically he does have some sort of
878
00:51:44.010 --> 00:51:46.449
either mutant or superpower.
879
00:51:47.110 --> 00:51:49.309
Canonically, I don't think so. I think he's just he's
880
00:51:49.690 --> 00:51:53.309
he's considered an Olympically trained human, even though he looks
881
00:51:53.329 --> 00:51:55.219
like a big fat dude. But he's not like he
882
00:51:55.239 --> 00:51:57.300
has like less than three percent body fat. He's just
883
00:51:58.059 --> 00:51:59.300
really incredibly bulky.
884
00:51:59.860 --> 00:52:01.900
Like, that's the thing is like, he's stronger than his
885
00:52:02.039 --> 00:52:03.139
body should be.
886
00:52:03.219 --> 00:52:03.619
Yeah.
887
00:52:03.780 --> 00:52:05.539
Like, so I don't think it's like a, you know,
888
00:52:05.579 --> 00:52:08.659
an eight year superpower, but like he's stronger than the
889
00:52:08.760 --> 00:52:09.320
average bear.
890
00:52:09.400 --> 00:52:12.360
When I hear wronged, I could also see, you could
891
00:52:12.380 --> 00:52:14.280
make a pretty convincing argument for blade.
892
00:52:14.639 --> 00:52:14.860
Yeah.
893
00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:18.079
As you know, people killed his mom. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Like,
894
00:52:18.260 --> 00:52:21.139
like there's a lot of cool Marvel, like a lot
895
00:52:21.179 --> 00:52:24.539
of midnight sons type heroes who would fall in hell.
896
00:52:24.599 --> 00:52:30.659
When you go back to, um, the, the spell slinger, Dr. Strange. Yep.
897
00:52:30.800 --> 00:52:34.280
Any like a number of like DC heroes, like John,
898
00:52:34.659 --> 00:52:37.599
actually the wrong, Ooh, the spooky one. I'm thinking you
899
00:52:37.619 --> 00:52:39.760
could probably even do John Constantine.
900
00:52:40.039 --> 00:52:40.320
Yeah.
901
00:52:40.599 --> 00:52:44.719
In here. Really easy. Or from invincible Damien hell blood
902
00:52:45.300 --> 00:52:47.159
would probably fall under monsters.
903
00:52:47.179 --> 00:52:47.360
Yeah.
904
00:52:47.380 --> 00:52:50.539
Like there's so many comic book here. Like there's so
905
00:52:50.659 --> 00:52:54.920
much here. Like I'm genuinely surprised how well this fits
906
00:52:55.119 --> 00:52:55.960
the genre.
907
00:52:56.539 --> 00:53:00.260
The Wronged, you could also take inspiration. Well, either The
908
00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:04.969
Wronged or The Mundane, you could take inspiration from John Connor.
909
00:53:06.150 --> 00:53:08.150
Or Tommy Jarvis from Friday the 13th.
910
00:53:08.190 --> 00:53:08.409
Yep.
911
00:53:08.849 --> 00:53:12.829
Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street. Yeah.
912
00:53:13.190 --> 00:53:19.360
And you've mentioned some of the AAA movie monsters a
913
00:53:19.500 --> 00:53:23.559
few times. You could, if you wanted to as a group,
914
00:53:23.860 --> 00:53:26.889
if you wanted your group to do this, you could
915
00:53:27.429 --> 00:53:30.889
go and hunt down all of these monsters. Maybe in
916
00:53:30.949 --> 00:53:35.239
your world, all of these monsters actually exist and are
917
00:53:35.280 --> 00:53:36.039
terrorizing people.
918
00:53:36.059 --> 00:53:38.639
Yeah, there was like a really cool comic book. It's
919
00:53:38.920 --> 00:53:42.909
stupid as hell, but it was Ash versus Evil Dead
920
00:53:42.989 --> 00:53:44.269
versus Jason and Freddy.
921
00:53:44.449 --> 00:53:45.230
I've seen that.
922
00:53:45.329 --> 00:53:46.969
And the group was called, I think they called themselves
923
00:53:47.010 --> 00:53:48.369
the Nightmare Warriors.
924
00:53:48.389 --> 00:53:48.489
Yeah.
925
00:53:49.300 --> 00:53:52.030
And it was like all the surviving people from all
926
00:53:52.090 --> 00:53:55.269
the movies. And it's all them teaming up to fight
927
00:53:55.389 --> 00:53:58.090
Freddy and Jason. And it was really cool. So you
928
00:53:58.110 --> 00:54:05.639
had like Tommy Jarvis, Alice, like Kina from Freddy versus Jason.
929
00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:07.599
Maggie turns out to be like a bad guy from
930
00:54:07.619 --> 00:54:11.960
Nightmare on Elm Street 6. There's a lot of cool
931
00:54:12.119 --> 00:54:15.679
possibilities here, which we only have about a minute and
932
00:54:15.699 --> 00:54:17.719
a half left here on the show. This is something
933
00:54:17.780 --> 00:54:23.130
I genuinely want to explore more. I am very impressed
934
00:54:23.489 --> 00:54:26.889
by what I've heard. And because it's spooky season, you
935
00:54:26.929 --> 00:54:31.349
know what? You've got a couple days till Halloween. Look around.
936
00:54:31.590 --> 00:54:33.010
You might be able to get this on Amazon. You
937
00:54:33.030 --> 00:54:36.150
could check the dragon here in town. Maybe even Indigo
938
00:54:36.190 --> 00:54:36.690
might have it.
939
00:54:37.090 --> 00:54:38.030
Drive-thru RPG.
940
00:54:38.130 --> 00:54:39.949
Yeah, or drive-thru RPG if you need it, like, right
941
00:54:39.989 --> 00:54:43.829
this damn second, which I suggest you do. This could
942
00:54:43.849 --> 00:54:49.400
be a really fun little Halloween gathering. Oh, 100%. Like,
943
00:54:49.420 --> 00:54:53.960
you grab some snacks, put on something in the background,
944
00:54:54.219 --> 00:54:56.780
and just play. Because one of the things I love this,
945
00:54:56.800 --> 00:54:59.889
and this will be my final point, the storyteller doesn't
946
00:54:59.949 --> 00:55:01.570
have to roll a damn thing.
947
00:55:01.590 --> 00:55:06.309
Exactly. Exactly. You, as the storyteller, just sit back, relax,
948
00:55:06.849 --> 00:55:09.429
and let people know whether they passed or failed.
949
00:55:09.530 --> 00:55:13.280
Yeah, like, this is a wonderfully game that doesn't require
950
00:55:13.340 --> 00:55:15.880
a whole lot of prep. You can just bring out
951
00:55:15.920 --> 00:55:18.619
your playbooks, bring out your pads, your pencils, mark down
952
00:55:18.719 --> 00:55:22.929
whatever character you are, and Mulder can team up with
953
00:55:23.010 --> 00:55:25.210
Sam and Dean and Buffy, and they can go take
954
00:55:25.289 --> 00:55:29.449
on Freddy, Jason, and Pinhead, and Michael Myers, and this
955
00:55:29.510 --> 00:55:33.289
is how it is. Michael or Dr. Dr. Loomis would
956
00:55:33.309 --> 00:55:37.050
be the expert, too. Yeah. Yeah. There's so no. Actually,
957
00:55:37.070 --> 00:55:39.110
he would fit under the wrong because. Yeah.
958
00:55:39.489 --> 00:55:44.010
Now, was it Sam that ended up getting like possessed? No,
959
00:55:44.030 --> 00:55:46.110
it was Dean that ended up getting possessed. Yeah. So
960
00:55:46.469 --> 00:55:49.679
there's actually even an argument for saying Dean could be
961
00:55:50.920 --> 00:55:51.800
the divine as well.
962
00:55:51.860 --> 00:55:55.179
Yeah, it's true. Like, there's so much. I want to
963
00:55:55.219 --> 00:55:57.230
talk more. But we can't because we're out of time.
964
00:55:57.989 --> 00:56:00.070
So once again, guys, we will be back next week.
965
00:56:00.130 --> 00:56:02.429
What are we going to be talking about? I don't know.
966
00:56:02.630 --> 00:56:05.639
Go check the Book of Prophecy. I don't know, and
967
00:56:05.679 --> 00:56:09.699
neither do you. So we'll be back next week right
968
00:56:09.739 --> 00:56:14.840
here on ThisWeekInGeek.net and CFRU 93.3, Guelph and Campus Community Radio,
969
00:56:14.840 --> 00:56:16.900
250 watts. So for the Spellbook, we have been.
970
00:56:17.440 --> 00:56:19.219
I have been Damian Magical Hackmorph.
971
00:56:19.469 --> 00:56:22.710
My name has been Mike the Birdman. Please be safe
972
00:56:22.949 --> 00:56:28.250
this Halloween. Um, be responsible. Please don't trash the campus
973
00:56:28.409 --> 00:56:31.909
or the residences, but Hey, go up there, spread some joy,
974
00:56:31.929 --> 00:56:34.969
eat some candy. And I'm not even kidding. When I
975
00:56:35.010 --> 00:56:38.800
say this, I'm putting up my Christmas tree, watch my Instagram,
976
00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:41.239
and I'm sure you'll see a bird man ODST. So
977
00:56:41.260 --> 00:56:44.199
we'll catch you guys again next time, right here on
978
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:47.820
the spell book. Bah humbug. It's not enough.
979
00:56:48.059 --> 00:56:50.260
We have a gallery of villains to look out for.
980
00:56:50.460 --> 00:56:53.019
But now we could be infiltrated by a shape changer.
981
00:56:54.050 --> 00:56:55.889
I can't even tell if any of you are acting
982
00:56:55.929 --> 00:56:58.920
strange because you've been replaced or because this group is
983
00:56:58.960 --> 00:57:02.559
full of weirdos. Thanks for listening to this episode of
984
00:57:02.639 --> 00:57:06.079
The Spellbook. If you happen to have any comments or suggestions,
985
00:57:06.380 --> 00:57:10.840
please send us an email at thespellbookshow at gmail.com. We'd
986
00:57:10.860 --> 00:57:13.380
love to hear from you. And if you're hungry for more,
987
00:57:13.420 --> 00:57:17.440
you can find Mike at thisweekingeek.net covering a variety of
988
00:57:17.500 --> 00:57:22.849
nerdy topics. and Damian on YouTube at MagicalHackMates for more
989
00:57:22.909 --> 00:57:26.630
TTRPG conversation. That's it, man. Game over, man.
990
00:57:26.829 --> 00:57:27.510
Game over.