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Warmup: Tanner to Justin

Intro

Dungeons and Dragons is evolving. Wizards of the Coast has come out with some major announcements in the last few weeks and today, we’re going to talk about them.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Tanner Weyland, here with my cohort Justin Lewis. Together, we are going to learn how to craft better stories for you and your players as you DM sessions of D&D 5e and soon-to-be OneD&D (more on that later). Before we get to the meat of our conversation, let’s go through some housekeeping items.

First of all, our next one-shot is coming up on September 17th at 2:00 Mountain Time. All the spots are taken up, but you can still watch by going to betterdungeonmaster.com/watch to enjoy a good game of D&D.

Our next one-shot will be on October 22nd, and we are still nailing down the exact time for the one-shot, and we’ll let you know when we know. The important bit of information is that there is, at the time of this recording, only one open slot left in that one-shot. After that, we’ll be opening up our November singup. If you want to explore “The Web of Waking Dreams”, an original horror one-shot created by friend of the show and guest host Bone Daddy Rob from This Dungeon Is Occupied, go to betterdungeonmaster.com/one-shot and sign up today.

Last thing I want to mention is that we need your help, desperately. Justin and I are committed to giving you amazing content, but sometimes we’re a little too close to the work. We need outside eyes and ears to tell us what is actually helping you become the very best dungeon masters possible. So to do that, go to betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback and fill as much or as little of that survey as you want. All of it is useful to us to make better content that tears down your barriers to ultimate DMhood. 

Main Content: Wizards of the Coast Presents - The Facts

1. Wizards will be releasing OneD&D in 2024.
2. OneD&D will be created on the foundation of 5e but with input from the players
3. OneD&D will have a virtual engine created from the Unreal Engine to help facilitate online play
4. OneD&D Playtest material will be available periodically on DnDBeyond. 
5. Now and beyond will be releasing digital/physical bundles
6. Races changed to “backgrounds,” and the feats differentiate them.
7. New race added, kind of the opposite of teaflings.
8. Spelljammer is now released which are sourcebook for D&D in space.
9. New resources for DragonLance will be released including a new companion board game that can be used to play through war scenarios.
10. Initial Rule changes:
11. Nat 20 automatically succeeds.
12. No Monster/DM crit attacks.
13. Magic attacks don’t crit, but physical attacks do.

Intermission: Warmup Cont.

Main Content Cont: Wizards of the Coast Presents - The Opinions

Justin:

Tanner:

Questions for discussion

• Is the Virtual TableTop a good thing?
• Price concerns
• Constraint on creativity
• Push the envelope
• What is the purpose of Crits?
• 
  

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

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i'm there

m welcome back to how to be a better d m before we get into

the show let's jump into the warm up that we do with every show tanner

and kind of going along with our theme of creating maps that i was talking

to about the show building one shots you have the task you know you're playing

with your group and they want to go to this dungeon that you just made

up so now you have the task to populate the dungeon with three at least

three unique rooms in the dungeon they don't have to be like breathtakingly unique but

they have to be somewhat unique in a sense of this is an interesting room

of the dungeon what would you put in that dungeon

okay three unique rooms in the dungeon okay for one room it's a little mix

of indiana jones in the last crusade slash what i'm planning for my d and

one shot coming to her in a couple o weeks but basically what c is

a treasure chest first well first off they enter into a large cavern it's domed

kind of like rocky as if it were hewn out of the rocks of this

dungeon and they enter and they see they see a big floor that seems almost

as if it's made of glass it's just

yeah

shimmering in the light that's coming from a single hole in the top of the

ceiling and which is shining down of course classic on a treasure chest

oh

and so the whole key of this room is that there are different kinds of

symbols or riddles i mean it could be either one i'm going to say riddles

because why not there's riddles on glass and they essentially have to step on the

right answer if they step on and there's going to be multiple possible answers they

step on the wrong things then they fall through right and they

hm

have chance for you know reflex save so that's one room

m

um second room i'm going to do a rope swing room because why not they

walk in there on a plan form and then much like luke and lea before

they knew they were siblings they will either hug each other or

okay

just like swing across um and you know it's

will

all

there

bad

be snapping alligators in the water underneath

for you yes um

oh

you want snapping alligaties

m

you get it okay justin

thank you

h h and then the third

ah

room is going to be you know what the third room is going to be

a little it's going to be a little storage room

m

that they walk into and they

my

don't think it's anything special but then they see some bagets in a barrel they

go over one of the hungry players goes over starts playing with them one of

the gates moves with a chunk sound and then and then

oh

it slides the barrel slides across and there's a ladder leading down and in there

there's a little let's say nome who's running in a little mid dungeon way point

shop for them that they of course have to buy but yes there you go

i love that that's awesome

yes but thank you for the warm up i'm feeling you know i'm feeling fired

up thinking about bad

m

gets and broken glass

yeah

and everything but listeners dungeons and dragons is evolving wizards of the coast has come

out with some major announcements in the last few weeks and today we're going to

talk about them but first we want to welcome to how to be a better

d m i'm your host tanner wayland and here with my cohort

m

justin lewis we're going to learn how to craft better stories for you and your

players so d n d so you're m sessions of d and d five soon

to be one d and d would just be the best they possibly can be

you ready justin

i am very ready i'm stoked

perfect first though i mean cooler jets justin

cool

cool

okay

so first off just some announced announcements i'm running one shot september seventeenth at two

p m mountain time i'm going to be sending out an email today so the

time you listen to this podcast you should you who

m

are playing you lucky few should be be sorry you should have a link for

that and then otherwise we're going to make sure that everybody else can watch it

on better dungeon master dot com for slash watch and you get to enjoy a

good game d and d um so then our next one shot is on october

twenty second now you're thinking wait tanner justin weren't you only going to do this

every quarter we were

m

until we got some help from from friends and we're still nailing down the time

of this one shot but we're pretty sure it's going to be october twenty second

and we'll send out later information later so an important bit of information is that

there's only one slot

yes

left for this one shot

actually

go ahead

so i don't know i'll say i don't know if i would say that just

because with the person who was going to your one shot if they moved to

the october one then they're going to take up the one the one lot the

oh

one

that's

slot for the one shot

that's right for the listener yeah

yeah

okay i'll go back and

so just start that over sorry

okay

i wrote this like like a week ago i guess

that's fine oh okay so as far as it goes

oh

once we once we send out the info for the october twenty second

oh

one shot don't worry we will be

m

having another one shot for the final quarter so get excited for that

m

as far as it goes if you want to

my

look at the web of waking dreams it's an original horror one shot created by

our friend of the show and guest host bone daddy rob from this dungeon is

occupied

oh

so in order to find out more about this go to better dungeon master dot

com forward slash one shot and sign up today anything else

yeah

worth mentioning

oh yes so big shout out to our listener his name is josh hermanstorfer he

actually gave us some awesome feedback i sent out a survey and he filled it

out and he gave us some great feedback and and we wanted to extend to

you the same opportunity too help create the show you can have a stake and

ownership in the show and help us in our commitment to give you ever better

content all you got to do is go to better dungeon master dot com feed

back and you can answer as many questions or as few questions of that survey

as you want and if you don't want to put your name don't put your

name it can be completely confidential but it's just a way for us to rely

get a bead for how you listen to the show why you started listening to

the show what you do like what you don't like what things you might change

and really just to wait for us to again figure out what is the best

possible way to view more

perfect love it so once again we really look forward to your feedback and in

the meantime let's just jump into our topic today so i actually pitched this it

to justin

yeah

because i was you know on youtube as one does and i saw the announcement

by wizard wizards of the coast i believe that's who's in charge of that um

and

hm

so they they basically announced not a new edition they made sure not to say

that even though

yeah

for all intents and purposes it is they basicall are launching well first off they're

launching a play test for essentially the next edition of d and d um which

they're kind of almost phrasing their marketing is essentially

yeah

one d n d to rule them all you

uh

know not not that phrase but essentially that they're like oh there's not going to

be additions there is just going to be one d and d

yeah

it comes with a few changes right like did you get a chance to kind

of

yeah

watch their little video that they came out with

i did indeed

oh

and one thing i will add is so a lot of this i believe actually

oh

is possible because wizards of the coast who created dungeons and dragons they bought dan

d beyond and they actually mentioned in the show in the show but in their

kind of youtube presentation announcing all of this that some of these particular initiatives are

only possible because of their merger with d and d beyond and to tanner's point

you know they said in in the video that five was built based on things

that players liked or didn't like about previous editions and they're trying to do that

with one d n d but the they're doing it in kind of i guess

they're following the format of major video games you know rather than fortnight getting a

new edition they just have patches come out and things change here and there and

a new seasons come and i think that's what one d and d is really

trying to mimic right

yeah yeah exactly and i think that's it's kind of i mean for better or

worse they're essentially my guests switching to a subscription

m

model you could almost say

yeah

um

yeah

not necessarily for the content because you know you can buy books and everything like

that

hm

but i mean just before we get into this like the nuts and bolts is

that wizards was coming out to announce it because similar to many other kind of

table top r p g systems when they're trying to release a new a new

edition and they have a play test and they kind of throw all of their

different ideas at the wall and see what and they say what sticks now the

only other

yeah

kind of recent one that i'm that i can think

yeah

of or compare to another kind of similar system pathfinder they did one for their

second you know edition of pathfinder and they did a play test and p had

all these different negative and positive thoughts on it and

m

and then they came out with the official like second edition right

oh

and something that people didn't realize as like oh the play test actually the feedback

was listened to you know a lot of the

m

things in the play test that people were if on it got changed and that's

one thing i want to point out here right now they've just released stuff for

the play test which i believe

hm

you can find info on is that on d n d beyond where you can

get

yeah

in

yeah it's just read on the home page it's

oh

like when you go to the home page there's kind of at least last time

i checked there's like four boxes at the top and end the one i think

third from the left is the one d and d beyond or one d and

d play test material

oh

or at least the first batch

yeah and so basically this is a great chance they're kind of giving it to

everyone to be like hey try it out give us your feedback and then hopefully

yeah

their goal is to release official one d and d um in twenty twenty four

so it's going to be a sec and i'm interested i'm interested to see how

it goes frankly

for sure and and actually that the first batch of play test material we're going

a dig into it and kind of talk about it on a separate episode so

i guess stay tuned for that but one thing i would iterate okay two things

i'll iterate is one it's going to be created on the foundation of five v

because five was popular there were lots of things good going there's going to be

changes and frankly this is the second thing if you as a player don't like

those changes then you can actually tell d and d

oh

tell wizard the coast they have a survey essentially attached to the play test materials

and you can say hey this i didn't like this and you know just like

tanner said with pathfinder to they're going to listen to it and hopefully change it

you know

yeah exactly this is you know frankly i've been watching a lot of videos you

know commentary on one d n d and their proposed changes es really some of

the rule changes

m

and people are concerned you know rightfully so for some of the stuff but

oh

you know i think that the wizards of the coast is right to you know

throw some of these you know

yah

throw out some of these ideas because some of them are

h

like oh

m

this could be bad but i don't

yeah

technically know no

right

we haven't had a chance to actually play with it and so now i would

say first off keep an open mind and then if you play with the new

play test material and your concern is realized then like hey that's what they're looking

for they're looking for your feedback they're looking for any kind of suggestions you have

um but yeah just kind of to move on and

m

talk about some of the specifics here uh you know they've well yeah they've like

they've added a new race they've

hm

changed they've made

oh

some significant differences to how races i belie they're calling them backgrounds now

right

m and like which i think is like smart you know because

hm

like if you get a little too nittygritty with each of the races and the

sub races you

hm

know it just gets a little weird and it's like hey let's just call them

ah

a background and

yep

you know the different kind of races or backgrounds have different feats associated and so

that's kind of different well fairly different and then there's a changes to some rules

like oh how crits work and also

m

like how

may

they categorize magic for the further purpose of for different you know classes and things

like that one of the big things though and justin you know if you have

any thoughts on this they're releasing

sure

a virtual tabletop like essentially engine for you to play games on

yeah to be honest when i so again they are that specifically was only possible

because of their pairing with din as well as also in addition to that they're

now going to be releasing digital physical bundles so you can get the physical books

and the digital books which

oh

is nice but all of this is possible because they s with dandy beyond specifically

for the virtual engine i honestly think that that is kind of a bid for

staking their claim for m tabletop role playing games in the medaverse i guess if

you can say that so um i honestly think this is them trying to say

hey when virtual reality becomes even more prolific and ubiquitous d n d is the

thing to do and you can play it just with none and your friends you

know and i don't know how i feel about that like ready player one was

an awesome movie but i'm also kind of scared of like society changing but

oh

only time will tell you know

yeah you know change is scary it's okay just

yeah

and it's okay

uh

you know honestly

uh

though i hear

ah

that for me it's a little bit more of you know initially i thought it

was awesome frankly

yeah

and i don't know if we want to go into this now basically the nuts

and bolts is that it's made with the unreal engine and so in their video

it actually looks incredible you know but

yeah

of course you know i have concede about if it will always look incredible i

don't know

yeah

but either

m

way it's it's it's like an upgraded version of role twenty you could almost say

specific

yeah

to dungeons and draft and um m and i think that that's that is probably

one of the biggest things because like yeah new rules everything like that that's big

them kind of making a bid for like you say that kind of virtual reality

slash just like a new major competitor against role twenty and these other online tabletop

hm

systems uh yeah that's it's a big news you know but so just for the

listeners we're planning on kind of talking about what they're doing and then later talking

about our thoughts on it just in general but but just in anything else that

you think we ought to cover before moving on

yeah so just kind of a heads up for for those of you who might

not be aware they just released kind of not necessarily well it was part of

this but it was

m

also like slightly before

m

they released spell gammer a whole kind of source book

yeah

bundle complete with monsters new race even some rules for not are

oh

space combat i guess you will if you will and for

oh

those of you who are n't aware spell

m

jammers uh kind of an old d and d setting which takes place in the

astral c like essentially think of the movie treasure planet and that is spell jammer

right that that's the kind of adventures that you're allowed to do it's d indian

space so that's available now i'm actually looking forward to get that for myself sooner

or later but also they are releasing new resources for another d and setting which

is the setting of dragon lance or the world of grin which i have a

fund place in my heart i actually started reading dragon lance novels before i ever

heard of the forgotten realms so you know like all of those stories are near

and dear to my heart but one cool thing about that is they're also releasing

a companion board game for the dragon lance world that you can play in india

but this board game is supposed to help you play out kind of grand war

scenarios which to be honest i always thought that war was kind of something that

was pretty difficult to do in dandy so i'm excited to see how this works

and i'm hopeful that the dragon lance resources don't read they already said they don't

require the board game but i'm hopeful that the resources

m

themselves for d and d will allow you to simulate grand conflicts like war easily

even without the board game and just having the board game makes it a little

bit more fun you know

absolutely and i'm glad that these things are coming out still because i don't know

sometimes when other companies

m

have moved down from one product you know essentially d d five

hm

in this case right on to one den i'm always worried that they kind

m

of abandon their old one and i still think that's coming to some extent but

yeah

it's nice to see that they're still releasing that right now like spell gammer i

think that's just classic right

yeah

you mentioned treasure planet i think everybody would be you know remiss if they didn't

play camp and set in a very treasure planet sk style and play that one

song that everybody knows from that movie

oh

you know um you know the one but

i do i

yeah

do

you do yeah you do

love it

but yeah honestly take a look at wizards of the coast are doing a lot

of cool things right now but first let's let's talk about opinions and everything but

first i believe you've got a continuation

yeah

to the warm up right

yes i do so for this dungeon

m

with these three very interesting rooms that you have just made up on the fly

what would you say is kind of the not the core but like the mystery

at its center so either what's the big boss or

yeah

what's the treasure that they're looking for like what's the purpose of this dungeon

okay purpose of the dungeon the purpose of the dungeon i'm gonna you know what

i'm going to say that the core of this dungeon is a disappointed child m

who

i know right wait until i figure out what that means no i'm just

yeah yeah

i'm thinking about him like okay swinging on ropes every child's fantasy uh

yeah

you know walking like where would you hide something from a child across a thing

of glass where they could easily fall you know and

yeah

what do kids like they like when people buy stuff for them and

m

so essentially they're going through this dungeon and they little by little realize the story

in the murals on it that this dungeon is created by a super powerful being

who um well actually a super powerful beings child who had been born and then

bereaved of their parents but the child was also like galactically powerful in like have

great arc powers and essentially molded you know there their desire for for love for

you know or care for gifts everything kind of molded into a dungeon and these

players stumble up on it and little by little you know they can either learn

what it's all about and try and show that child love by like by bringing

certain gifts that they found or they could just try and attack the child and

see how that goes and see if they and now

m

like basically take down this super powerful um like child childlike creature so yeah

yeah

that's that's what i have for now

an that was really good have you have you seen hiomazaki's spirited way

you know yeah of course of course

you know what you just described made me think of that giant baby person that's

yes

the son of the witch

exactly

um dan

ah

that's a freaking cool dungeon i hope you know

oh

flesh that out soon so was

yeah you know that's that's the next one you know that's a

yeah

dungeon of the cry baby coming coming

i

in

love

hot

it i love it so i think we're talking about our opinions on what wizards

of the coast is doing now right

yeah is there anything you want to start with because i mean i'm interested to

talk about the table to

ah

the virtual tabletop along

yeah

with some of the rule changes and things like that you

yeah

have anywhere you want to start

uh actually um let's start with the virtual tabletop i want to hear what you

think and then i'll give my two cents

okay virtual table top some people were saying so one guy came at it from

a video that i thought was very interesting you know i was

hm

like okay i see his point but i also disagree his main point was like

oh there are two reasons why this is bad one you know that they're going

to charge like a subscription entially to use this service

hm

right much like roll twenty they have an upgraded version that you can pay monthly

for right

hm

and they're an he's saying like hey they're doing all this stuff on unreal gen

that's not cheap you know so they're going

yep

to put in that time his second point was that like oh people become less

you know less imaginative you know they'll kind of do adventures that you are able

to do within the virtual reality versus kind of doing some theater of the mind

and some other stuff and i mean i partially agree with him you know yeah

hm

like for example in terms of the cost i do think that this is going

to be high quality um but as a person who you know growing up was

constantly trying to find work around for things with subscriptions you know i played

m

guild wars online because world

m

of war craft had a monthly subscription i you know i tried to find

yep

like free content on line when i was creating um you know campaigns

yeah

essentially for d and d like free pictures and stuff i could put in instead

of buying the actual thing on role twenty or d and d beyond you know

like

hm

from that point of view i'm like yeah i think that's that's an certainly concern

you know about affordability there because it's certainly not going to be free nor do

i think it should be free but yeah i don't know what do you think

so as you were talking i was kind of thinking about like various pricing models

um everything that well d n d beyond has done so far ben there's a

freemium model so free and then you can pay to upgrade and that seems to

be kind of standard across the dandy market you know rolled twenty

m

for the most part so i could see that this virtual engine this virtual tabletop

game is kind of the premium model but then i also thought you know like

that's not going to be cheap that's going to be a subscription i thought

hm

about all those deums there who spend you know myself included spend time and money

uh creating or building tabletop mines you know and you can play the game for

free essentially but you get those mines to augment the game and i thought back

to the video that they showed in uh the wizard's presents video um and one

thing to note here is that they didn't say that this one d n d

is going to be ready next year they said it's going to be ready twenty

twenty four which means it's at least a year and a half away probably more

in my opinion i don't think it's going to come out january first twenty twenty

four which means

yeah

i think at they showed kind of to be honest is is but i think

that they showed a video of what it could look like not necessarily what it

does look like

yeah

and they've they've assembled you know so i could easily see them offering it for

free especially because either you're going to need some sort of virtual reality

m

equipment or you just have it on your computer but then you have to pay

to get certain mines that you can use in the virtual tabletop because the video

they shared wasn't you know with a character fighting

oh

these things it was you looking at a table top you know with minnie's and

everything

oh

and and much like we'd have it at a normal table and i think they

want to preserve that so i could see them go in either the subscription route

or you know you pay for different rain pieces many things like that much like

you would do in normal life and you know with the world of n f

t s that's not that's not impossible you know what i'm saying

yeah and i kind of expect that it's going to be like that right like

there's probably going to be

hm

some i mean it would be a bold move if they just make the entire

thing free but like basically

right

make it so that the content like or the

right

mines you know the

yeah

actual like pieces and everything are behind the pay wall you know that's

m

an option um

hm

in terms of the creativity aspect you know i i hear that that like you

know oh if this thing comes out like a meta verse or whatever then some

people might feel like oh we like it's not really d and d if this

isn't he thing and frankly i don't

hm

like i think that's a little bit you know

yeah

like fear mongering in terms of like oh people

imogene

get yeah comoginy where it's like hey things are if it gets so good then

people won't want to go back and i'm like i mean people will do what

they want to do

yeah

you know but

i agree

yeah

i think like you know we just had covid nineteen right a lot of people

went to playing dandy online and then the second they were allowed to or ever

they went back to playing with their friends and family because

hm

like as much as we do like the convenience of being able to talk over

riverside like we are we do like being in the same room we get a

lot more sights smells sounds feelings even of just being in the same room i

am curious because all of science fiction points to the fact that humanity will devolve

into more of a

m

you know luxury and uh what's the word like they do whatever is easiest

like

and so

indolent

i'm

is probably

exactly

the really fancy

yeah

word for it

yeah i am curious to see but know the doubter inside me says the tech

isn't there quite yet and i mean we all have to go to work or

we all have to exist in real life so i think do prefer those real

life experiences right now but there's only only time we'll tell you know

yeah and it's not like in a way i'm like oh it's cool that someone's

essentially taking role twenty and making it like the next step which is kind of

triple

hm

aging

m

the whole thing right by making it so you can look at the computer and

is like oh high definition minnies and everything right and you can build the

hm

dungeons because right now you kind of have to go to other places to find

tools that you can

right

do that with right hand i'm like it would be cool if they did it

all together and if they had some real money they do like that's the thing

that i kind of like here as much as

yeah

i personally don't love when certain things get monopolized um like like social media but

like facebook metavers whatever

yeah

you want to call it right i do appreciate when like a company with a

lot of money gets to essentially throw like that money at a problem and see

if it solves it you know

yeah

and i'm like yeah in terms of taking the virtual playing of d and d

to the next level you know we'll just have to see how how that works

i think that this is a big step forward that way and then hopefully other

hopefully they come up with some ideas that other creators can kind of rift off

of you know um

for sure

but other than that have you had any thoughts any other changes with d n

d with one d and

yeah um for

ah

one well and actually

yeah

kind of go in to your previous point one thing i do want

yeah

to note is that the d and d movie or the remake or the next

d n d movie whatever have you want to call it is coming out i

think next year which should hopefully be a nice shot in the arm for d

n d as a whole and hopefully flood some and for some of these projects

to make them so that even if the idea is terrible that the text doesn't

suck

yeah

you know but one thing that i'm still not like is the kind of changing

of the backgrounds races feats and all that so basically

m

my thought process with the races is you know it was kind of cool to

be able to choose to be a dragon born because you get these certain buffs

and flaws and crap like that but they've somewhat changed it so that way no

matter who you are your stat change based on how you want them to change

so it's not based on race and the only thing that you

oh

get from your race are specific racial features which i guess makes a lot more

sense um m you know but it kind of like the whole trope of dwarfs

being somewhat hardy and strong you can still choose that but now you're going to

see a lot more dwarfs that aren't that way and and to me it's like

how can you have interesting exceptions to the rule if there aren't rules any

yeah

more you know and maybe that's me being a karmudgen but i think we're going

to see a lot more exceptions to the rule which won't be as interesting because

you know there's there's not that trope of every dwarf is strong and hardy but

instead certain dwarfs are smart or fast or whatever you know m i just again

i worry that maybe the creativity won't be there because everyone will just be able

to do whatever they want which sounds like it's more creative but i don't know

one thing i

yeah

do like the go ahead

no go ahead

i was just going to say i was reading some of the play test material

and we'll go into that a little bit more in another episode but one thing

i do like is that there aren't really sub races anymore they call it legacies

and they've actually added more legacies to certain races um te flings for example and

the legacy also have not just physical effect on your character but also a mechanical

effect based on m like the legacy you received

oh

from your ancestors and things like that i do think that is a really cool

concept of you know you're a te fling but this one's an ebistalteefling so they

get various boons from their demon blood and this one's a infernal te fling and

they get various boons from their devil blood different and i think that does make

it a lot more dynamic

yeah i think that i think some of the things they're doing is the groundwork

for an interesting change in how you approach

m

you know creating a character because with

hm

their inclusion of you know hey

oh

we're going to instead of doing the whole mechanical changes we're

m

goin to do feats

hm

um there essentially being like hey let's not put each type of race in a

box and to that

right

point i'm like you know what i get that like

yeah

it's nice to be like hey if you want the tip or you know just

distribute your points accordingly you know

right

however if you want an ork who's a scholar and everybody's like oh you know

fie on you you know and he's out

yeah

an outcast then it's like oh at that point you can you know make them

know respect them in a different way but they

yeah

still have same feats uh and then like you said the lineages or legacies those

are just nice ways to

ah

um you know just to

m

differentiate them a little bit more like the old system but i think they've just

slimmed it down

yeah

and one thing i thought was interesting is that you know one thing i've

yes

noticed about d and d five they you know there's a lot of home brew

content or other content out for you know different kinds of races right or

hm

you know but but they have like in terms of the core races they keep

it pretty simple pretty tight i

yeah

would like to say

yeah

right and this time they're adding one race and it's just funny to me that

it took them this long to do it

yeah

you know and i'm like

yeah

and they added a race that i don't i mean i don't know it's like

it's a very interesting

hm

like so they added something called ard lings

yep

and in case anybody s wondering that's essentially you know t flings they're kind of

like demon spawn kind of delos uh ard lings are the opposite they're more i

angelic and same as how the teflings now have three uh three legacies or lineages

that they can account branch out into same for the ardlings it's like oh they

have these different three different types um and

yeah

there's actually like because previously there was a different kind of like essentially angelic race

m

in d and d and it's kind of funny that instead of going with that

one they just went with a new one called art lings i don't know

yeah yeah i thought the same thing to um i do like their description

oh

of ard links it makes

ah

me

m

think of kind of the egyptian gods how

yeah

you know the bodies of a human their heads are animalistic

m

uh and to me that

oh

that's very interesting it's different and it's unique um i do wonder though why they

didn't just say

oh

you know a mar are these and sometimes they

oh

have the heads of humans sometimes they have the heads of animals and

yeah

you know these are i don't know i don't know why

yeah

they went completely left field you know

now because asonmar already exists right

yeah

and they're

exactly

essentially that equivalent of a celestial thing and i'm like you know what good on

them for like at first i thought it was weird and i still think it's

a little weird that they didn't just canonize a simar in a more real

uh

way

uh yeah

but i'm like you know what good on them for being creative and like you

said the description very interesting where it's like oh they're part animal which frankly speaking

that's more in line with a lot of ancient religion like texts for how

yeah

they describe angels and things like that right even

right

in the bible there's like wings for days and eyes and everything else

uh

right uh

uh

and it's

m

like you know that's probably closer to what things would be angelically celestials speaking

yeah

so yeah we'll have to see i think the people were like oh that's weird

you came up with a whole new race instead of just you know sticking with

a simar but you know i think good on em for being creative

sure for sure i think the last thing that we can really riff on is

the crits so they are

yeah

changing how crit work crit now so so natural twenty automatic success natural one automatic

failure and there's some other rules on that so like let's see

yeah

no monster slash dem crit attacks and magic

yeah

attacks don't create but physical tacks do that right

yeah yeah so like people are up in arms about this and this is where

i really want to emphasize the play test part of this um

hm

for example because in the past technique i only like with a tax would like

a natural one or an actual twenty like do that you know where it's like

oh you fail regardless of your modifier

hm

and you know or you succeed regardless but skills that wasn't the case right you

weren't supposed to be able to nat to crit either bad for better or worse

on a skill

hm

check you just weren't supposed to be like hey still add your modifier and see

if it works but people

hm

were naturally

m

already kind of treating it the same as a tax here they're like oh my

goodness you got a natural twenty so what if you know this in order to

succeed you needed a twenty five you got a natural twenty like you know that's

good enough

hm

and

hm

to that point you know some people are mad about that me i'm like i

was the kind of person who especially if i be playing with someone who's new

to d and d i'd throw him a bone i'd be like oh my goodness

natural twine yeah you did it great awesome let's be creative you know but so

i don't have a problem there but i understand what people are saying like oh

my goodness the grits like

hm

you can't just naturally win on a skill check i don't know yeah

ah um one quick side i think auber's gonna hop in here real quick so

we might want to finish

and

up real quick

kay

um m one one thought i had on that is i wish that and maybe

i'll treat it this way in my personal games and kind of play tested that

way but in intriting crit and stuff i think i'm gonna start going that whatever

the d c is they have to beat that if they roll a one or

natural twenty uh that doesn't necessarily mean they succeed or fail but let's they roll

a natural twenty but the d c is twenty five and they get a twenty

four i'm goin to say you fail just barely but something amazing happens what amazing

thing happens that does not make succeed and

yeah

kind of steal steal that same type of idea from the fantasy flight star war's

genesis game where if you roll a triumph or despair you know something amazing or

something despicable happens that is somewhat related but it's also kind of out of the

blue i think i think that might be good way to do that if you're

really still not interested with the the natural twenty natural

yeah

one automatic success failure model but

yeah

like tanner said play test this you know

yeah exactly and so on that note there's plenty more we could talk about we're

not going to today we'll talk about it later but in the meantime get out

there get play testing i think you'll be happier with end product if you do

um and you know until then let's all roll initiative