Join us this week to learn about some of the top YouTube myths.

Our guest this week, Mark, talks about Fabula Ultima Role Playing.

William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, Gretchen Winkler

Welcome to

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User Friendly 2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,

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Technology architect.

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And this is User Friendly 2.0.

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As always, I am your host Bill Sikkens.

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Joining me Gretchen,

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Bill welcome to this week's show!

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Hello there. Hello.

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So we're going to be talking

YouTube myths and covering

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some of the top fake YouTube stories

that came off as being true.

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Be doing that after the news

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and then the next segment, bill, you're

going to be covering a role playing game.

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And what's the name of the game?

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Abdullah. Altima.

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Yeah, we'll get into that good interview

coming up on that.

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And then we're going to be talking

at the end of the show mall.

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So if you haven't seen the final episodes

yet, we'll give it right now.

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It's a spoiler.

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Spoiler alert.

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Spoiler I can't talk. Evidently.

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But we're going to be

talking about some stuff,

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so you might want to mute that part of it.

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Go watch them all, and then come back

and listen to the end of the show.

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The show will be better than mall,

but you know, it's my opinion at least.

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Oh, I don't think so. Sorry.

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I can see the comments now.

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Anyway, next week we are actually going

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to be having a pretty cool interview

with meta.

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Of course, the parent company of Facebook

and Instagram,

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talking about some of the unique things

that they are doing to help

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keep children safe online.

So that'll be coming up next week.

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So until then, let's

go ahead and jump into this week's news.

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All right, Dave Loney

perfectly explains why

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Darth Vader doesn't speak in the mall.

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Shadow Lord finale.

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Oh, that was part of the spoiler.

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Spoiler. What?

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I think that one we can get away with.

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Reporting by Gizmodo on this.

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And basically they did an interview with

felony, and I'd like to invite him here

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so that we could interview him

about this too.

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But in the lack of that happening,

we'll go ahead and just go through

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what he talked about.

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And basically his interpretation

is that the version of Vader

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is more machine than man,

emotionally hollowed out and essentially

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functioning as the Emperor's weapon

rather than a traditional character.

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And the emperor

at this point would have been Sidious.

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So there might be some truth to that.

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Yeah, and there's also a comic

book that also deals with

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Mall and Earth.

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Vader.

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You know what if

if they actually got in a fight.

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Yeah.

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And, well, this is one of the first canon

confrontations between the two.

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From what I understand, I don't know

if it's happened before in canon,

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but I don't know

if the comic books are canon.

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That's a question for probably Michael

Regina or somebody else.

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Yeah.

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You know, again, just email us.

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Would be happy to have you on. All right.

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And we'd be happy

to have the person in the next line on to.

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So what's our next?

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George Lucas surprises

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Star Wars fans with a

May the 4th announcement.

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Yeah. And I'm glad to hear

he's back in the public.

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And also happy birthday.

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This Thursday is his birthday

so happy birthday George Lucas.

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All right.

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So what's going on here

is for Star Wars Day, which is May 4th.

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May the force be with you.

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For anybody that doesn't know

where that comes from is he's talking

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about a new installation coming later

this year where fans will get a look

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at the original Star Wars

trilogy and prequels that he worked on.

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Article from ScreenRant covering this.

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And it's the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

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where this is going to take place,

opening on September 22nd.

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And we probably should go down there

and see it for ourselves.

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And it's not just it sounds like

it's not just Star Wars art,

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but it's a huge art collection of.

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That's what my understanding is.

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Yeah, I actually heard of this.

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Not what he's doing here.

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This is news,

but the actual museum, as it were.

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And I think it'd be something really cool

seen.

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And it's very well respected.

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So, you know something?

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Definitely. I'd love to see it to do.

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And like I say, I've heard about it.

You know where it is.

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I probably should know

that it's in Los Angeles, I believe.

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Yeah, I could do that.

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I could get down there.

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I think that would be a good road trip

for the show.

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So, you know,

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or jetpack trip, I.

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I'd be up for that.

I'd be totally up for that.

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Of course. You can only be in the sky

two minutes.

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It'd be a lot of hops,

but would still be fun to do.

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All right, well, Japan.

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Japan's deep space mission brought back.

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And asteroid sample with all five

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DNA building blocks.

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All right, so interesting thing here

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that our solar system is very special

and we're the only planet in the universe

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with life on it.

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And to have life, at least

the way that we know it, requires DNA.

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Of course, there's also people that

honestly believe the planet's flat topic

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for another time.

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But hey, you know, I wonder

if the sun spins around us to still

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and don't know

those people can go burn a witch.

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But we'll do is talk about

what's actually going on here.

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And that's the fact that finding DNA,

especially all the pieces of DNA

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that would be required on

an asteroid, is kind of a big deal,

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because it addresses that a little bit,

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and confirming the presence

of these things that make up life.

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You know,

as far as what we consider life to be.

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So I, you know, from that standpoint, it's

just kind of cool

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to see where this is going.

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And I will tell you, the research

on this stuff is growing exponentially.

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We're getting a lot

more information on things now.

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That's actually very much

something that comes from fact

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and not a guess,

you know, that kind of a thing.

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Of course, the one exception to guessing

is quantum physics.

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That's sort of fact.

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But anyway, outside

inside joke, outside of that,

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outside of that,

we're seeing a lot of different things.

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So Daily Galaxy covered this and goes

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into a lot of detail

on what's going on here.

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Sir John's is the writer and it's

definitely something worth the read

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the Daily Galaxy.

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Com and you'll find it right there.

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Lord of the rings

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star wants to be Harry

Potter's new Voldemort actor.

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So what do you think?

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I don't know, I mean, he's a great actor.

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We're talking about circus,

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right, Andy circus for

he played their home.

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Yeah, and he's a great actor, though

I'm having a hard time

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wrapping my mind around him

being a Voldemort.

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But, you know, he he's very talented,

so who knows?

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The one thing I will say is circus

is known for doing different things,

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but very different concepts

and is a very well respected actor.

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And I think if

somebody could pull that off,

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I think he would be able to do

it. It'd be very different role for him.

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But sometimes that's fun, you know?

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And there's nothing wrong with that.

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As long as you're able to jump into it

and do it.

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And Eric, your actor,

I'd actually like to see him in the role.

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I, I think he would do a good job.

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Yeah, we'll see what happens.

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And if he gets that,

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we'll have

to, you know, have a discussion on that.

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But I don't think we'll be disappointed.

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No I would think he would give it his all.

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He's. Yeah. All right.

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NASA just dropped

12,000 space photos from Artemis two.

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And some of them are unlike anything ever

captured.

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So it's interesting to see again.

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You know,

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we were just talking about stuff

that science documentation

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and all these things are coming together.

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And with the technology we have now,

it does make this easier.

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Not that they didn't have,

you know, cameras on some of the past

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missions, but now, as we all know,

a camera is smaller.

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You can do more with it.

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You don't have film and

all the other stuff that the last time.

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And think about it, the last time

we actually went to the moon,

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we were just in fact,

that mission invented

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the camera lens

that we used today in our phones.

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You know, that was designed for that.

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And it was huge.

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And in however many years it's been it's

gotten smaller and it's,

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you know, interesting to see where it goes

from there.

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And 12,000 pictures are kind of cool

and I don't know, how do you discuss

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pictures on the air?

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This is something

you almost have to see in person

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to really,

you know, be able to to appreciate that.

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I think there was one photo of the moon.

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And just like all the textures and details

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and just like, wow,

it was just kind of cool.

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Well, and that's the other thing too,

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you know, high megapixel 4K video

8-K video on some of it.

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And that's also a little bit

of a difference from the standard

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definition, grainy,

you know, stuff that they had before,

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which at the time was amazing

to be able to even see it like that.

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But yeah, I've seen this. Now

just go to NASA's website.

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There's a link right on the home page

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that will take you to the photo

based on this, but

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be prepared to spend some time in there

because it's really cool.

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And these are a lot of photos.

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They do have them set up in categories

and things to make it easier to look at in

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search, but again, it's kind of amazing.

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I think our next step is going to be

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holographic in the sense

that being able to do that,

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we actually do have the technology

for that.

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It's just not widely distributed yet.

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But being able to do that, to be able

to see, you know, even more detail.

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But Gretchen, like you say on

these images, you can see things that

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and for discovery too,

if having that kind of data available,

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the researchers are seeing things

that they didn't know existed before too,

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you know, so

it's a kind of a cool thing for everybody.

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Speaking

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about finding things, American high school

students used artificial intelligence

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to map 1.5 million

previously unknown objects in space.

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So this is an interesting thing.

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We talk about AI a lot around here,

and this would be a positive use,

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I would think of it.

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California student a name of Matto Paz.

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I hope I'm pronouncing that right.

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Used AI to analyze old NASA

telescope data and identify

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roughly 1.5 million

previously unknown objects in space.

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And now, keep in mind

this is not new data that we just got.

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This is stuff that NASA had on file

and has been there in some cases

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for a long time.

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And it's just looking at it again,

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some of the things

that came out of AI scale,

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just to give an idea of it, is roughly

200 billion rows of infrared observations

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that were not seen before, covered

about 450

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million objects

in the car, in the car, in the sky.

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How about that?

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And you know, I don't think

I have that much stuff in my car.

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Even before I came,

about 450 million in the sky.

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You know,

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the model identified

about 1.9 million variable objects

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and roughly 1.5 million

never previously cataloged,

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includes things like exploding stars,

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quasars, eclipsing

binary star systems, possible

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black holes, and other objects

whose brightness changes over time.

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So yeah.

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That's even more than there are Starlink

satellites in orbit.

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So, you know.

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Yeah.

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So anyway.

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But yeah, using modern technology

and computers and AI

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and these type of things to look at

some of this information does make

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what it was considered old information.

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We got what we could from it.

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Oh we can scrape

well evidently a lot more.

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Well how much more. Well in the billions.

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So yeah.

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All right.

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Please have reportedly used license plate

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readers to stock romantic interests

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at least 14 times in recent years.

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Article

published by the Institute for justice.

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A Christopher Ingraham

is the writer on this.

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I found out about attorney Steve Leo,

who has a channel on the internet.

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If you don't know who he is, check it out.

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A lot of great stuff on the law,

but this is something

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that we just talked

very recently about surveillance.

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In fact,

I think it was last week. Recently.

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Yeah.

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Something like,

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you know, kind of we're going into

how many cameras

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there are in these type of things

and the possibility that the data

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could or almost

it was more when it would be misused.

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And because that's going to happen,

you know, it is.

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So you have a situation here

where this isn't security camera footage.

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This is talking about things

like flock cameras,

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which is a brand that's been in the news.

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There's more than one

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manufacturer of these, but it's, you know,

that type of a thing where cities

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and other municipalities are putting

these cameras all over the place.

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And every time someone drives through

an intersection and takes a picture

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of their license plate,

the bumper stickers on their car,

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the color of their car,

the make and model and other information.

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And this is put into a database.

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And these databases are shared

among departments.

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And that kind of a thing.

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And access to it is not very well

restricted or controlled.

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So you have a situation where the police

pretty much have open access to it.

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And fortunately, most of our police

officers are doing the job for the right

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reason.

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Do a wonderful job in any occupation,

you're going to have a few

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that are kind of the bad apples, right?

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And that's what we're seeing here.

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And unfortunately that picks up the news

but romantic interest.

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So in other words,

the individual police officers

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was chasing his or her girlfriend

or boyfriend, whatever the case may be,

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and using the system to be able

to see where that individual went,

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at what time they went, their extra, etc..

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So yeah.

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This is a thing, and it's a thing that is,

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you know, the whole idea of surveillance,

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it's something I don't think

a lot of people are really aware of,

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because this is kind of coming in

very quietly,

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and there's a lot of it out there.

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And because cameras

are easy to manufacture, they're cheap,

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you know, by

standards of what they used to be.

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And we have massive ability to store data

sets that we didn't used to.

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It makes all of this possible.

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So if you think about it, you have a city

where you put these

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license plate reader cameras

at every intersection.

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That is an intersection that's major

in the town, even if you just do

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the ones where they have the red light

cameras, something like that.

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And there's a lot more places

than just that where these things exist.

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But even if you just do that,

you could search the data set

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and find out

pretty much where anybody goes.

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And I don't know about you,

but I don't like surveillance like this.

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And I think a lot of people find this

to be a huge invasion of privacy.

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They've had some things

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that have really stuck out in the news

to like

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there was one instance,

I don't remember what city it was in, but

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they'd put up one of these cameras

and it was facing right into somebody's

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driveway.

They were like on the corner it's facing.

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So every time they pull in and out

or their visitors come in.

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This has been documented

by law enforcement.

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Yeah. These people are law abiding.

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They've never done anything wrong,

you know.

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And and they started filed a complaint

and the first thing they were told

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was, well, it's it's there

and it's going to stay there.

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And so they don't get paid

for being The Truman Show, No they don't.

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If they did, you know,

but it still have to be by choice.

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That's the other thing, is this.

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You don't have a choice, right?

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So they ended up

getting with the local news station.

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From what I remember of that story,

the news station started

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talking about this on the air,

and all of a sudden the camera got moved.

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Imagine that, you know, the media

shining a light on it.

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So it's unfortunate that's what it takes.

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But this type of a thing is

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something that really bad things

can happen from it.

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And we're just talking about here people

that are allowed to access the system.

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Now, there were repercussions for the

police officers in this type of a thing.

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The most recent incidents,

they were suspended.

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I think they might have been fired

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or they're in the process

of looking at that right now.

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But it's it wasn't

it didn't go without a punishment.

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But the point being is

that it's still possible to do.

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And my question on this is, even

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despite everything else,

even the argument,

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if it helps law enforcement and all that

kind of stuff, let's say we accept that.

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I think there's other ways to do it,

but that's my opinion.

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I'm entitled to it.

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But let's say that, you know,

someone accepts that, okay, great.

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Valid to their opinion.

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What happens when the system get hacked?

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Because it's going to happen.

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It's not an if it's a win.

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And other state actors

like or in countries that are not friendly

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to us, could have information

on our civilian population very easily

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and be able to just know stuff

that we don't want them to know.

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We don't want the police to know.

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We certainly don't want the,

you know, Russian monsters to know.

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So it's, you know.

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So in any event,

we're going to keep our eyes on this

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because this topic is definitely something

we got a lot of feedback.

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Thank you for that

from talking about it last week.

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And we'll do a Q&A coming up on it.

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And I think more people that find out

about what's actually happening out there,

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the more we can push back and maybe

get a little bit of control under this.

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Sony to pay

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7.85 million in PlayStation

store settlement.

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What to know.

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All right, Bill,

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how many times have they been sued now

and had to pay a settlement?

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I, I don't count I don't count either.

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I know it's been more than one

and it's been more than two,

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over the years.

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The most egregious one

was a number of years ago.

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The network went down

and it was down for months,

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and they never refitted anybody.

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Their money,

they did give ability to download games

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that from what I understand,

people didn't want.

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But you know, so it's like,

okay, what's going on here?

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So this one is to settle allegations

tied to digital

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purchases made through the PlayStation

store lawsuit centered around claims

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that customers, especially children,

may not authorized in-game purchases

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without sufficient safeguards,

something called microtransactions.

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We've talked about that before. Two.

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Oh yeah.

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So eligible users

may be able to receive compensation

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depending on what purchases were made

and whether they qualify

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under the settlement terms.

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So something that you may be able

to get some money back on it.

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But you know another topic.

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Let us know what you think about it.

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Because I think in many ways,

modern games really are becoming too

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dependent on microtransactions.

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So you're still spending the 60, 70, $100

whatever

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for your game,

but to be able to play it completely,

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you still have to spend more money

to get stuff within the game.

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Bill, you disagree with me

because you know about this?

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No, I feel that a lot of AA game

companies,

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big names are very predatory

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and nickel and dime

everything about their games.

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Yeah.

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And and I'm someone who plays

gotcha games, which are very predatory.

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You know, they have fear of missing out

scenarios and stuff like that.

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They try to prey on.

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And I really do feel, though,

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that a lot of big Triple-A game

companies are doing the same thing.

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And that's why I'm very big on independent

game studios personally.

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Because they tend to put out

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very good products

and with a lot of heart in them.

395

Yeah, absolutely.

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And and that's very true.

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And I think just on that thing,

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support the independent studios,

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because the other side of it is

you have somebody that is dedicated

400

and is trying to do a very good job

and usually does,

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but they're not just part

of some faceless company where they can

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just, you know, pay out

well, what, 728, 5 million?

403

And it doesn't even really affect

their bottom line.

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And nothing against Sony.

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But it does seem like

there have been instances where this

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where it's taken a lawsuit or some kind of

407

outing to get them to actually care

about a problem and resolve it.

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And, you know, that type of thing is

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just it's a bummer that it's that way,

but it is. So.

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All right.

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Well, another thing to get into,

and we've talked about this

412

a little bit in

the past is fake news stories.

413

And if you don't know

if you're on the internet,

414

you might possibly run into something

that somebody posted that's fake.

415

You know, I'm

sure both of you are shocked to hear that.

416

Oh yeah. So along those lines.

417

We have covered a couple stories that are

fake and we've covered them as fake.

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But the thing of it is,

419

is there's some stuff out there

that's really caused some problems.

420

So I thought it'd be interesting

421

just to respond to some of the questions

that are coming in on this to talk about

422

some of the top ones.

423

This isn't exactly a top ten list,

but it's just top stories.

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First one

is something called the Momo Challenge,

425

and these go back a few years

in some cases.

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Okay, so a creepy character named

Momo was supposedly contacting

427

children online and convincing them

to self-harm or commit suicide.

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Now, obviously that would be horrible

if it was true.

429

There was no verified evidence,

430

almost no verified evidence

of an organized challenge to do this.

431

But the thing of it is,

432

is you have a situation

where parents are very concerned

433

about these kind of problems.

434

We're going to be talking about it

next week of what's being done about it.

435

But the people that put this out

spread terrifying visuals, warnings.

436

News outlets picked it up

and reported unverified claims.

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YouTube creators

made dramatic, exposed videos, you know,

438

and it just went on

that way. It's interesting,

439

by the way, the original

440

Momo image was actually a sculpture

by Japanese artist.

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Okay, Corsica.

442

Isaiah I do not.

443

I apologize in advance

for pronouncing that wrong,

444

but it was not something

that was created for this purpose.

445

It was of art, you know? So.

446

Wow. All right.

447

Some of the other ones we've heard about

TikTok blackout challenge,

448

death wave, TikTok first, not YouTube,

but it appeared on both.

449

And this was a massive viral

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TikTok trend that was encouraging kids

to choke themselves in conscious reality.

451

Some tragic incidences occurred,

but experts argue

452

the scale was exaggerated,

and it was actually the media coverage

453

and other things that created

the situation, not the other way around.

454

So that's another thing

too, is reporting on dangerous trends

455

actually creates the trend.

456

And I think that's definitely an example

of what happened here.

457

You know, now, one of the ones

that I remember, this was the killer clown

458

epidemic.

459

This is about ten years ago

that this came out and was

460

There were

461

organized gangs of terrifying

clown stalking neighborhoods nationwide.

462

What's that city in Nevada

that has the clown hotel Goldfield?

463

I think

464

Tony Tonopah, I think it's.

465

And now, if you want creepy clowns

and it literally is next to a cemetery,

466

go stay there.

467

But as far as this was going on,

what happened is it was something again

468

that started getting covered

and worked its way up.

469

Most instances were pranks, copycats,

or outright fabricated reports amplified

470

online and YouTube prank channels

and local media coverage fed each other.

471

So they were kind of going in each other

and building up on these different things.

472

This one I found amusing.

473

At least it didn't hurt anybody,

at least not that I'm aware of.

474

But there's a lot of people

that don't like clowns,

475

and this kind of really amplify

that a little.

476

Yeah, I imagine, you know,

and then the last one we're going to cover

477

today, one of my favorites

is that 5G towers cause Covid.

478

Yeah, I remember that

the way that came out that 5G

479

wireless signals either

caused Covid 19 or weakened immunity.

480

Now, 5G is simply a generation of

cell phones that we pretty much use now.

481

It's a frequency that they run on

and a standard, but that's all it is.

482

But this led to people burning

cell towers tearing.

483

Yeah,

they were tearing down the cell towers.

484

Yeah, the engineers fixing

it were threatened.

485

They had people going out

to work on the stuff

486

that they'd actually be threatened

487

on the job site, and the misinformation

really got out there.

488

It was just

one of those conspiracy things,

489

but a really, really bad

one that caught on.

490

All right.

491

Well, with that, we're going to be talking

Dad and mom next segment.

492

We will be right back

493

from the future.

494

He's got a really big computer

495

and he uses it uses it every day.

496

And he uses it uses it in every way.

497

What she uses for you know, I'm not that

498

sure because he's just here.

499

Welcome back.

500

This is user friendly 2.0.

501

Check out our website.

502

User friendly

503

show is your one stop for sending

your questions, sending your comments,

504

reviewing back episodes,

and looking at all of the new things

505

coming up and from user friendly media.

506

Something that we are proud to be able

to support is the Cyber Hawk franchise.

507

Use the word user friendly at Amazon

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508

your purchase of your next hardcover book,

or $2 off your Kindle.

509

Again, that's Cyber Hawk at Amazon,

and if you would like a direct link,

510

go to the user friendly show, check

on the shop and click to it from there.

511

All right.

512

Well, we're going to have an interview

coming up here, Bill, that you got to talk

513

to some cool people about.

514

Fabula Ultima. Am I saying that right.

515

All right.

516

Well good friend of mine two

I sounds great.

517

Let's just go to the interview

and welcome back.

518

It's me, Bill Snodgrass,

and I'm here today with my friend Mark,

519

who is also a game master,

to talk about a game system called Fabula.

520

Ultima.

521

So you of course are the new DM for that.

522

How do you feel about it?

523

It is a

524

it's an

interesting you take definitely different

525

from what I'm usually doing

with Dungeons and Dragons,

526

but it is a

527

group style

528

tabletop system

and it is a new experience.

529

Definitely looking forward

to doing more of this.

530

Yeah, I know it's been quite a change

for you and me

531

being the ND backgrounds,

especially fifth edition

532

older.

533

Which leads us into the second point on

this is the mechanics

534

and how they compare to Dungeons

and Dragons,

535

because most of our listeners

are probably used to college or Dungeons

536

and Dragons, and this is quite a change

from that using, you know, for stats

537

which are connected to a die size

between a d6 and a d12.

538

And you roll

two of those stats to confirm anything.

539

Oh yeah,

540

it is definitely it's not a major

541

overhaul of the systems that, especially

since you and I did start it off

542

or have a lot of interactions

with the d20 system,

543

the call system, and various other ones,

544

like the exploding dice of other systems,

like on the Five Rings

545

or even the World of Darkness stuff.

546

This one is a bit more

547

I want to say

548

saying is simplified

as not doing it justice,

549

but it gives more creativity

550

than heavy on the mechanics.

551

Yeah, that's what I read into two was

I was used to the

552

structure that D&D set forth and Fabula

Ultima in

553

just how you character creation is done,

how your roles are done

554

really kind of widened

my horizon on what was possible.

555

That was something that

556

I believe you also kind of trailblazer

on that one too, when

557

this even go further back, because you and

I known each other for long enough, as

558

when you went into the honey heist

559

game and some of the other

560

and some of those other games, like,

561

even like recently Eat the Reich.

562

Dan Way, like my friend

you when you started the trail

563

bracing of going

checking all these other new systems,

564

I was like, all right.

565

Why am I pigeonholing myself into

the usual systems that are very popular?

566

Might not try something new

and try something different.

567

So if I have Ultima,

it tickled my fancy of like, oh,

568

this kind of reminds me of Final Fantasy

Fire Emblem, all those other

569

RPG games

I used to play when I was much younger.

570

So which is to cite

as their creation for it? Yes.

571

I know that the character creation

is really interesting

572

because you start at level five

and you have to pick

573

at least two separate classes,

and there's what, a dozen classes

574

to pick from,

plus more with the extra books,

575

actually.

576

So cycling back to the character creation,

577

that was also one of the biggest appeals

to me.

578

A lot of the other games,

or at least the other mechanics of,

579

is you have to progress to a certain level

or a certain rank,

580

or a certain.

581

Degree of a class

582

or role or race to get a certain benefit

583

that you really want

for your character build and have.

584

It ultimately really goes more into

you want to build this character.

585

Here is a class. Here's all their skills.

586

You can pick and choose these skills

as a level up.

587

You're not locked into saying like,

oh, you need to have seven levels of,

588

let's say, a guardian or weapon

master to have

589

all the skills

you want or apostolic level skill.

590

I can also use the simple example of

591

Dungeons and Dragons

classic multi-class build.

592

They everyone, everybody wants

at least maybe

593

action surge from level two fighter or

594

the rage ability from the barbarian.

595

But sometimes those abilities or mechanics

596

don't mesh well with other classes.

597

Biggest example rage from the barbarian.

598

Does that work

when you are trying to do spellcasting

599

or wearing armor? So

600

yeah, that was

601

that was quite a difference that I found

though I in my character,

602

I was specialized in the spellcasting,

so my stats don't lend well towards

603

martial classes

as well as they do towards the support

604

and magic classes.

605

There is a friend,

606

Jebus.

607

He has his setup for tank and way

608

martial set up, and probably wouldn't

be able to cast a spell where the dang

609

well there is that.

610

There is some bit

more specialization on that part.

611

I had seen some of those mixed classes

where

612

because of dice, like they had them set in

613

the standard, the

614

generalists and the specialists

615

the way they had like the Da, the D10 and

616

the D6 actually was surprised was

they used it, some of them use it a d12,

617

but you had to reach certain stuff

for that.

618

Going back onto the character building,

619

it's definitely more user friendly

620

once you start

getting understanding the rules and

621

the mechanics of it.

622

Me as a first time storyteller,

that's the difference.

623

I'm not a Dungeon master storyteller

624

for Fabula Ultima, I have to.

625

Still remember

626

there are still some core rules here.

627

Like, again,

there are things that I'm not fully

628

knowledgeable about it yet, but that's why

I have to also keep reading it as well.

629

Keep reviewing myself, and

630

within that

631

I'm also looki that I have good friends

that have the patience.

632

And of course you also help me out

to the supplement ideas and information

633

because I'm not going to remember

everything right away.

634

But going into that,

635

those mechanics, they are,

they're user friendly.

636

You just need to know some of the core

ideas or the core themes of like bonds.

637

That's something

that's a new kind of mechanic

638

for Fabula, Ultima,

and one of the key ones

639

combat as well.

640

You don't have to go to crazy about

641

like the clock or scenes too much.

642

It does help,

643

but you can sort of more or less

644

just kind of dive into it as both player

and as a storyteller.

645

Yeah, that was what I really noticed about

it too, was character creation.

646

Once, once I understood how to do, it was

only about ten 20 minutes per character.

647

If I was really just starting out.

648

I know I did a

649

lot of help to get everybody else set up.

650

Because it was simple enough to do that.

651

It wasn't.

652

I didn't really have to

653

feel like I was handholding

as much as I do with dad sometimes.

654

Oh man, I remember those days.

655

Especially like I myself.

656

When I first started with Dungeons

and Dragons.

657

I did not know anything about it.

658

I just, well, you know my story of how

I started with Dungeons and Dragons.

659

That was hilarious.

660

Yeah, yeah,

661

yeah, all I did was

I wanted to impress somebody.

662

But anyway,

663

getting to that point, though.

664

There's nothing wrong

with the hand-holding thing,

665

but it's just that it can become a chore,

666

especially when said people don't want to

667

learn the mechanics anymore

or they're just taking the easy way out.

668

Hence why I uploaded the core.

669

I upload those PDFs into the game itself

670

so I can immediately like, all right,

pull this down and look at this here.

671

Okay. This is what we have to do.

672

This is how we have to do things

673

that you're using.

674

Rule 20. Yes.

675

Well, Tony has been very nice,

at least to me.

676

Anyway.

677

I'm fortunate I used a day like mode.

678

Dark mode?

679

I'm surprised.

680

Doesn't show that kind of,

681

leniency that.

682

Yeah.

683

That being also said,

returning back to the character creation,

684

so I didn't the one thing

I definitely enjoy with that,

685

with character creation, you work

with a theme and idea of a character.

686

Okay.

687

I want this guy to be literally the wall.

688

And there are certain classes

that work with each other.

689

They synergize well enough.

690

And then if you really just

691

want to make a character

that's your own flavor of what it means

692

to be a defensive character,

you can also go that way as well.

693

It's excuse me.

694

It's not.

695

It's not so core combat dependent.

696

There are other ways to solve situations.

697

You're not just simply,

oh, you must follow

698

this particular build path or

699

do the

700

the min max rolling kind of thing.

701

Yeah,

that was something I noticed to speaking.

702

You know, we use the example of the wall.

703

One of our players is

friends is doing that.

704

And he did what was it three levels

in Guardian which gives him the ability

705

to step in front of another player

whenever there's damage dealt to them.

706

He is carrying two shields,

all Captain America style.

707

He is,

708

just his armor class.

709

Well,

his defense score is 20 or something.

710

Wasn't it 21?

711

Yeah. And

712

then he also took ranks into Fury,

which is kind of their barbarians class.

713

So he can take provoke, to draw enemies,

to make them attack him and

714

different things like that.

715

And I know he was thinking

about going into weapon masters

716

so that he get multi attack and things

like that, so that he's really doing

717

the output less this wall.

718

Yeah. And

719

that's your thing too is like

720

it is like going back onto the whole D&D

part to

721

there is some

722

compatibility rather

723

the skeletal parts of it

such as we were just talking

724

about defense

and magic, defense and dragons.

725

We just consider it

AC like the armor class.

726

But without Ultima,

727

it's not just a one defense.

728

All for everything.

729

You have your physical defense,

your magic defense.

730

And you may be great

in taking physical attacks because either

731

the enemy can't hit you

or they do minimum to no damage,

732

and then you have your magic defense

and that sucks.

733

Or it's a lot lower magic casters

can have a better chance of hitting you.

734

I kind of work the same thing

with the enemies as well.

735

They have the different stats, also the

different elements which I actually like.

736

It's pretty easy and stuff.

737

Yeah, I know they got what is it?

738

Vulnerabilities, immunities, resistances

and absorption which is the scary one.

739

Yes, there it is.

740

Very Final Fantasy that

741

I remember with that

because as soon as I saw it was like, oh,

742

that's going to be dangerous.

743

Oh yeah.

744

No, it's been fun.

745

I know that we've done

just a few encounters for combat,

746

and you've basically thrown goblins

747

at us, skeletons

and some barbarians or bandits.

748

Yes, absolutely.

749

Ax brigades I actually I actually pull the

Ax brigades right out of the core book.

750

Yeah, that was that was a heck of a fight.

751

I wasn't sure who was going to make it

or not on that one, to be honest,

752

I was I because I did a few test

runs like, okay,

753

I can't give them exactly 5 to 5,

so let me try and do a 3 to 5, okay.

754

That might work. And then

755

one of our other players who was a fear,

756

he was right up there like,

oh no, they're going to gang up on him.

757

Yeah.

758

But he held out that was

759

and his abilities kicked

in which he started doing more damage

760

because he was below half health,

which is called a crisis mode.

761

And it has some mechanical benefits.

762

That was interesting.

763

That was a new interest to me

too, was the crisis mode.

764

Because like in D&D,

when you bring a creature

765

down to bloodied, I submit in the

766

I think it was in the fourth

edition mechanics,

767

when a creature gets below health,

they start losing more health or something

768

like some sort of bleed effect.

769

I don't remember exactly the thing, but.

770

In that particular case,

771

when for crisis mode in Fabula

Ultima, it sort of came to my mind.

772

Similar to a

773

the Tales

774

The Tails game, where

some of the characters, when they lose

775

a certain amount of their health,

they go into like a berserk or state or

776

powered up state.

777

Kind of as you said, it's crisis mode.

778

It's do or die in a way.

779

And I mean,

780

that was really interesting on that.

781

But I've noticed to the combat

782

is way more fluid than I feel in dad

sometimes.

783

Like sometimes you get stuck going, oh,

784

what do I do?

785

What do I do?

786

And in Fabula Ultima, I mean,

I know we're all fresh and new to it,

787

so we're not really

using a lot of the extra things like,

788

hinder and stuff

that are building or skills and stuff.

789

But even then, I felt like the times

that we had to even run

790

into opportunities, which occurred

during critical, was very quick

791

to continue moving along

without too much hesitation.

792

Oh yeah,

793

that was actually funny too.

794

Speaking of our opportunities

795

and the speed of the combat, our

796

our wall, Jeeva stepped out

because he thought it was going

797

to take a few minutes

and we were already back up to his

798

his friend right away.

799

He does that on us. But

800

he was surprised and so was I

of how fast the combat flowed.

801

But it made sense.

802

It was like you got the only thing

you really have to roll for is who

803

which side goes first, does a bad

the bad guys or the enemies go first?

804

Or do you go first?

805

And then of course,

whichever side takes that

806

lead, it's basically enemy

ally, enemy ally.

807

It's fast.

808

And not only that, but the part that I

809

this is the part that I really love

the most too, with the combat, is

810

that you guys can choose

where you want to start off in.

811

Oh yeah.

812

So I was like,

that's been massive tactical help.

813

Oh yes. I was like, oh,

814

we're not worried about movement.

815

Even so, I mean, there's

816

there's just so much less to really worry

about during your turn because it

817

is that Final Fantasy, you know, one side

versus the other from the old school.

818

Yes. Speaking of movement, like that was

819

the other thing

that was really impressed about.

820

I was like they said, oh, you don't

have this movement thing or because

821

let's go back like with some of the.

822

Like besides dad and

823

Legend of Firing so well

doesn't have that really with movement.

824

But dad in particular

has a lot of that movement speed.

825

Sometimes you'll find yourself in

826

those really big maps

or big battlefield areas,

827

and you just cannot get to your opponent

or to decide in time,

828

especially if, say, you have an objective,

we need to save these people, but

829

everybody moves at

830

30 or 40ft of movement speed.

831

You can't really get to them in time

if they are two 300ft away.

832

And the enemy is kind of like in your way.

833

If but to you discuss things

with the storyteller, it's like,

834

okay, I'm going to do this and this,

and then we're going to try this here.

835

That's basically like

the set of the scene is like, all right,

836

this goes going to engage the enemy.

837

This part of the group

838

is going to basically get around the enemy

and free the hostages,

839

which is where it comes into what

clocks and objectives. Yes.

840

Yeah.

841

And those are set up on where each round

there's a new segment to the clock,

842

and they can be any amount of segments

to set up what you need to do. Or

843

let's say you're is an objective,

844

like you need to blow up a ship's engine

or something like that.

845

You get so many rounds

846

that you have to be working on it

to do that,

847

which is something that

848

Dungeons Dragons

doesn't really have at times.

849

It does have mechanics, but

850

I think that's the problem.

851

Or not really the problem.

852

It's just that's

one of the main key differences, is that

853

a lot of mechanics

tend to be more focused on certain things.

854

Best way to say is, like with Dungeons

Dragons, you have the fantasy,

855

you have the combat,

you have like the archetype classes

856

have the ultimate wood.

857

It kind of provides here

from my perspective and biased opinion.

858

Yeah, I'm saying bias opinion.

859

So I'm actually enjoying Fabula Ultima

more now.

860

You got that freedom.

861

You're not limited to just saying, okay,

I move up to this here

862

and I can't reach the enemy,

so I'm going to just stand there.

863

In this case, it's just like, no, I'm

going to this location or this objective.

864

I'm going to do these kind of things.

865

And also.

866

You have a bit more

867

creative liberties

and a bit more freedom to that

868

because you had to do more role play,

more communication with your storyteller

869

and also the people you're playing with.

870

And, you know,

871

time is kind of run a little short,

but there's also that they have come out

872

with four books currently,

which is the Poor book, High Fantasy

873

Atlas, The Atlas of Natural Fantasy,

and The Atlas of Techno Fantasy.

874

And they just did a Kickstarter

875

in February for the first beast area,

which is beautiful from what we've seen.

876

Previews of.

877

Yes, I was I was very taken aback,

especially when you were pointing out

878

some of the creatures.

879

So I was like,

oh wow, some of these are beautiful art.

880

And that's what I call my attention

to most.

881

And back in the past two with all the

other tabletop games is always the art.

882

When I

883

love you some Raven loft art.

884

I was a sucker for classic horror

and for goth girl.

885

So yeah, there we go.

886

Anyway, that being said, art,

especially when it is done by proper

887

artists and people

888

who showed that love for the passion

for the work and everything.

889

You see it,

you feel, get a feel for it and

890

it tickles the the fancy.

891

You're like,

oh, let me go ahead and try out this game.

892

Let me try this thing out here.

893

Yeah, yeah.

894

So you I'm guessing

you would suggest this to people. Yes.

895

It is user friendly for both storyteller

or people who want to run the game. It's

896

also user friendly for players who want to

give it a just give it a try. And

897

you don't have to

know every single little rule or mechanic.

898

Just know some in the basic stuff.

899

And if you're very D&D brained

or other brain system,

900

just think of how be converted and

901

you'll be able to rock and roll

pretty easily with that.

902

Yeah.

903

And I know if you're going out

and looking for the hardcover books,

904

you can find them

905

and they have links inside them

when you buy them to get the PDF as well.

906

So if you pick it up,

907

say Barnes and Noble or someplace

you can get the PDF as well.

908

Otherwise I know you can find them online

through drive through RPG

909

or other places,

probably for Kindle and such.

910

Again,

911

Fabula, Ultima,

it has been an amazing game.

912

Thanks for joining us today, Mark.

913

Thank you for inviting me.

914

All right. Next thing on the agenda here.

915

If you have not seen the final episodes

of mall, you might want to mute right now.

916

Fair warning.

917

All right, Gretchen,

what did you think of it?

918

I really enjoyed it. And

919

I one of the things that I found

920

was extremely fascinating is

that they have managed to be consistent.

921

So if you have, like previous stories in

the Star Wars universe, they make sense.

922

It isn't like it's like a soap opera

in the old days where all of a sudden

923

somebody's brother shows up

and he's the one that did it right.

924

Everything is consistent.

925

Like in rebels, Maul says,

I can't defeat that guy.

926

He tells that to Ezra

and and he's referring to Darth Vader.

927

And he has an encounter with Darth Vader

in Maul shadow Lord.

928

Right. And it is impressive.

929

It also follows a comic book

that I'd read where

930

Mall and Darth Vader have at it.

931

And one of the things

that mall finally says to Darth Vader

932

in the comic book,

how are you able to keep up the hate?

933

And Vader finally explains to him

is, I hate myself.

934

Interesting.

935

He hates himself more than anything.

936

He's so miserable.

937

That's why he's able to keep up the hate.

938

And the fascinating thing about mall

is malls.

939

A little bit like a Sage Ventress

in that he is evolving, right?

940

You can see him starting to pull away

from the Sith, so I'll leave it at that.

941

Okay.

942

Well, you know,

I just have a little bit to touch on,

943

but let us know what you think about it,

because I really enjoyed it.

944

And I know most of the feedback

we've been getting has been positive.

945

There's a few people

that don't like different things,

946

and we'll talk about that too,

because it's actually more stuff

947

that makes sense

than some of the other things.

948

Anyway, definitely worth checking out

if you haven't already streaming on Disney

949

Plus till next week.

950

This is User Friendly 2.0, keeping

you safe on the cutting edge.

951

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952

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953

by User Friendly Media Group incorporated.

954

All rights reserved.

955

The content is the opinion

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956

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957

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958

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959

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