Mailbag II

0:21 Adventures. The podcast are role players and game masters to help level up your game. We're dungeon masters. I'm Jason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall, and I am Jim Crocker. And today we're going to do another one of these mail bags. I love, love love hearing these things. Just like we say fifteen times every episode, you can send us your voicemail at Hello Adventurous podcast dot com slash voice, and today we get to we get to listen to them and let's see if we can do a lot some advice. But he's going to be all null related voicemails. Since that episode has actually aired now and that joke makes sense, then yes, I hope they will be weird. We gonna be all Hyena Hya. What did I say? Hyena screeches, Hyena yells to us, children of you. Now, yes, it would be super weird if it was because we just recorded that episode ten minutes ago. Oh, come on, you gave up the ghost on that one. Take that fifth wall. That's another callback. That's another callback, lousy with walls. All right, let's let's dive right into our first voicemail.

1:19 This is coming from It's coming from Zach Hey guys, my question is do we think that not twenties should be honored during initiatives, not twenty un initiatives. I want you take twenty and you add your initiative bonus twenty short correct? Ye are That's that's really easy? So okay, so we understand what he's getting at. Ye give you Should you just go straight to the top of the order? No, I don't think so. Not if somebody else also rolls at twenty or even in nineteen and has a better bonus. Yeah, yeah, it's it's strictly it's not the same as right, it's not the same as combat. It's it's now as far as like honoring it.

2:05 If someone else rolls in that twenty or if you tie for initiative, you know, maybe we established in an episode or two ago that there is no real rules for tie breakers an initiative. Maybe that's your tie breaker. You go, hey, man, come on, I just I just rolled the NAT. Yeah, we're not going to give you a surprise round. We're not gonna give you anything like that. And like I say, with with a lot of things like the NAT twenty, the crit only happens on an attack role. In five E and I think in D and D in general, crits are all about attack roles. Man, that would have been a good thing to bring up in our rules thing too. We're bringing up now. We're bringing it up now. Yeah, if you want, if you want critical successes on other things, go play Pathfinder. Yeah. So I was gonna, I was gonna positive that question to you and Jim is what do you think about that twenty is on skill checks? Like do you I know rules is written, but what are your thoughts? So what happens here? So this is called my system for rolling a NAT twenty on a skill check is I take that twenty and I add it to their rating and the skill and that's their result. I love it. One of the things so one of the reasons why I avoid doing anything additional for twenty, you know, for NAT twenties, is that anytime you add crits to anything that's not combat, you devalue anything that people are taking that increases their bonus or gives them other spips along with that. Yeah, I like that. I

3:35 like that answer. So, like, you don't want a thing where like if you have a system where let's talk about initiative, if you decide well, if you roll a NAT twenty on initiative, you go first automatically. You know. The rogue who like spent two feets to always go first, even when they roll like a seven is sitting there like staring daggers at you. Because actual literal divers exactly five percent of the time, you're going to go before them even though your total initiative bonus is only plus four. Yeah, that's why you don't do that. Yeah, really, that's a good example why not to do it? There? If it's something like a perception check, and it's just like that, you walk in the room, it's like, okay, well do I find anything of particular interest in here?

4:19 I think of me something broad like that, and then they roll. Then at twenty I would be like, okay, yeah, you see this thing, this thing, this thing, and this looks a little little fun to you. I would kind of I would give them a little a little nuts maybe, But at the same time, I'm not gonna If you're putting a d C high enough, there's a reason that DC is high enough for you know what, whatever it is. So and and then it's going to take a d C twenty five sleight of hand to unlock, like just because you roll in that twenty, well, how's your slight of hand? Like, what's your bonus on that? Oh it's two. It's not enough like in those situations have to stay locked in those situations not so much. I'm talking about it for like DC ten stuff, and then they just shatter that number. Yeah, you know it sounds like you probably were going to to give them something like that anyway. I don't know. It's also I know, I know, I hypothetically, I know, I said like tens or eight and then you get a seven, and I'm like, yeah, the otherway.

5:11 But the idea that if you want a house rule it so that if you roll an AT twenty on on something that's not a combat check, you get maybe a little something that is specific to your character. That's not a thing that like submarine somebody else or you know, that's not a thing that undoes somebody else's bonus, but you know, you get that NAT twenty on that's on that perception check. Maybe as the DM you decide you drop an extra spell component in there for the wizard because the wizard got that NAT twenty you know, just something like that that's like a little bit of a spiff. That can be a you know, on a case by case thing, but you don't ever want to do it in a way that, like I said, devalues the effort that you know, other characters that have explicitly spent resources to be good at that thing, you don't ever want that NAT You know that random die roll to out what they can do that they've spent, they've actually invested. Yeah, and that initive example of the rogue is actually a really good example of that give them inspiration maybe also why not, Hey, it doesn't get you anything additional, but you can yeah, you know, and and actually awarding inspiration on a NAT twenty is kind of a cool thing to do when, like you said, if you encounter that thing where even on a NAT twenty you don't make the check because you've got a low bonus or something like that, like that can because of the kind of aura that that twenty has around it that could feel a little lame sometimes to players.

6:40 So you know, maybe it's a role in your maybe it's a standard role in your campaign. If you roll a twenty and still fail the check, boom instant point of inspiration. That's a great way to use them. I also think if you if they roll a twenty and still fail the check, they should never rolled in the first place. You just tell me they can't do it. But that's another that's another issue. I will say that like in this this might be a controversial one, but I want to play Devil's Out okay before you get to that kind of So the reason that the reason that I would still have you do it is because like I don't want you to approach something and be like I'm probably not gonna be able to do it anyway and then not try right, And that it's to keep like a certain amount of consistency. It's not don't let them try, it's don't make them roll right. So if you're if you're if you're a guy with with with with no decks and no proficiency here in these tools, I could just pick a lot and he's like, Okay, I'm gonna pick the lock, and like, okay, cool. You try and it just doesn't It just doesn't click. Should I roll for It's like, no, it's just not gonna know this. You absolutely can say you need to actually be trained in this in order to make a check here. And I think the rules are explicit that you can do that on some of these checks. But you know, I got to say, I'm kind of with Joe on this one because different tables have different rules about like does the DM always tell you what the DC is? Do you you know, is it a situation like? And

8:11 the other time that that can happen is like, you know, unopposed role right where you know, you get a twenty. I got that twenty plus seven. That's twenty seven. Oh yeah, sorry, you know the critter's got a plus ten bonus and I rolled the nineteen. That's another time where you can do that, you know, where you roll a twenty and it wasn't even a bad role, but you still failed because it wasn't a post Yeah done that. No, that that absolutely makes sense. Yeah uh oh. What what I was going to say was this, and this might be I'll get your pitchforks for this one. I think the the critical success on a skill check and some like and some other things like especially in combat is some of the things that I prefer about Pathfinder. I think, oh, is that a Pathfinder thing? Critical success on on ability checks and it's some really cool like like like ways they think you can use your actions in combat, for I think is a reason to at least read the book and see see if it's a different game for you. But so, but that's specific to zact question. Yeah, you know, you just you just add your You just add your Yeah, they count, they count the twenties. You add your initiative bonus, just like any other role. And he compared to everyone else is you're probably going to go first too, but maybe not necessarily in zactly and there are good legitimate reasons not to add some kind of crit role to that. I was going to say, Zach, you are a rogue. So maybe take that feet that that Jim was talking about. Actually he didn't know what the alert feet was until he sent this over. No, I just don't. I just don't know. Hello Adventurers, thank you

9:46 so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, the absolute best thing you can do to support us is to subscribe so you'll be notified when new episodes are released. You can also leave us a review five stars. Of course, that will help us get seen by more D and D players, and more than anything else, just tell your friends about us. If you like what we're doing here, then there's a good chance that your DM or your players will enjoy it too, and you don't need the loop gold to do any of that. We appreciate your listening. Now back to the show. Our next question is from Alex what does a typical D and D end game look like? Once everyone's max level? So let's just get this out of the way. A lot of end games don't even go to max level.

10:28 We just did an episode on on the level twenty Capstones and what could happen with your you know, godlike Heroes of Legend. But a lot of really cool campaigns after years will end like level sixteen or so. And then the what does an end game look like? That depends on what your story arc was to begin with, and some don't have an endgame right. Some will finish the arc and keep going. I think way back, I don't know what episode I know exactly where're going? Like, yeah, I mentioned that, and I read about them all the time still in some of the Facebook someone they're like, yeah, we've been playing for sixty years, you know, they're all level twenty and like, and they're really mundane and they're fun for them. They don't like, they don't now playing my my original character's great great grandson. So that will happen. They'll like re level and maybe they'll bring magic items that were handed down not on like the One Ring or something like that, or or they're just like they own businesses and they go to work every day and they're like, I'm getting Star Valley. Yeah, actually that farm. I would actually really like we talked about our perfect game at some point. I want I want the Lethal Weapon D and D game where I'm I'll be able what's his name, Danny Glover's character, but I forget, like I'm getting too old for this stuffs, Yeah, Riggs.

11:50 Riggs was actually what's his name Gibson? Yeah, Mel Gibson. I was gonna say Braveheart, So it was Marton. So they're let's meet this like like a multiple choice things. So like, what are some ways that a camp that an end game can take the form of. So one is like it doesn't you you just become you know, lame or retired, you know, just kind of you just go into like a normal life and you can still just have you lame. That that was unfair of me to say, but but compared to being a warrior something and I got, I got overly excited. I'll hold mine comparatively from being a warrior of legend that you were, you know, five years ago in real lifetime and in game time was maybe six twenty one hundred years ago, you know, but if you're all ls, that could be hundreds of years and now you're a farmer, and like, you can still play that out within the rules. The rules were all there for it, and if that's how you want to spend your weekend, that's so I'm not gonna stop it. What were you gonna say, Jeff? I was just say, like, so I love Superman.

12:48 Superman does not level up like he's He just fights a different villain, and that villain has different motives and and different powers and different ways that it can try to defeat Superman. And so there's right, Superman's level twenty already. And I still read those comic books like they're still interesting to me. I don't still read those comics. I don't have time, but I would. But that's like, so you're you are a story story. The story is still interesting. The villains can be even more interesting now because you're I mean, you're a superhero. So now you're gonna have super villains, like they find something out in your backstory and there's still you know, races against the clock and everything else that you can do so or mysteries to solve. That's the that's dragon Ball Z now, like Goku has already gone beyond God level powers still around Goku last time I watched it, power level nine thousand and one. Yeah, that's your original Dragon Ball creator just past this past week said at the time of it's recording. But no, they just bring in like he's already the strongest one in the world and then now we just get things from other worlds to come in and challenge him again. Like what color is his hair at this point? Is it's like a different blue. It's like a different Oh, it's it went blue super saying god level. Yeah, that's a different podcast. This is something that we talked about on in Curmudgens and Dragons. One of the one of the last episode before we before we call that show quits, we had an interview with the owner of my friendly local game store. His name is Tony Bogan, So if you can go find his episode, I want to say it was like one hundred and

14:18 eleven something like that and really on one of his book really close to the end and a Capstone episode if you will, almost almost so in talking with him, he had a game that he played for a people he still plays with, Yeah, and he's been playing since like first edition day one. He was hauling out like maps of like the country that they were rulers for now and the massive castle that they all lived in that they had full blueprints for and all this kind of stuff. So oh yeah, and so kind of when they hit a certain level that like they they can't really you know, they can just take on anything from this world. That's when the first like spell Jammer stuff started coming out and then starts throwing in things from other worlds and aliens of spaceships and like, I know, you can fight it Harasque with your eyes closed, but like, here's a whole fleet of alien pas. So in their case, the endgame looks like, Okay, the DM is going to throw the more and more powerful monsters at us and we just get to taken on one of the time. And that that sounds a lot like you your Superman comparison or the Goku comparison. But there there's always something stronger to fight and sometimes in your docile, little little farming world, sometimes they find you, yeah, or make them the new gods in your next campaign. The the you know, your characters make up part of your Aeon antheon. There we go. That's the word of Yeah. One of the things that I'm going to encourage this listener to do is to actually go back and listen to if they haven't already, our Adventure Starter episode where we talked about, you know, different ways you can start a campaign, and

15:50 if you have those in mind, they also suggest ways that you can end that same campaign. So like, if you set up up a one of those campaigns where you're all in a guild that's giving you assignments, then that whole game art can be about you rising through the ranks of the guild and you know, the end game is you do whatever is needed, you go on whatever missions to become the heads of that guild, and that's when you retire from adventuring. Is now you are in charge of the guild, and then you can do that thing Joe that you talked about where you know, if you want to restart that campaign, then you know the people giving you missions are those previous player characters, right, Yeah, I love the I love the continuity in that too, like in doing that and to me, like that's a lot of fun. I would love to do that is then and then the next campaign that our group plays like that, there's they interact with themselves and in some degree. But then I just had an idea too.

16:52 The other the other way that you can end a campaign is what I want to call the Bob Newhart way. Yep, you wake up and it was all just a drop, You're just I would flip the table, yes, and then pick up the table and different world. You're in New York. No, don't do this, don't do that. Listen. You know you talked about the you know, one of the things that can bring the group together is that there's you know, each of them has the key to defeating some ultimate evil sometime in the future, and you know, and I mean that's that puts the end game right in there, you know, just drops it right in your lap, which is there's a big bad you're gonna eventually run into, you know, and and once you beat Fanos, then you know, that's the end of that chapter of that age of that world, and everybody's safe for a while and they'll all thank you for it, and that's the end of that game. And that's and that's how most of them do end, is like we have, yeah, with some kind of giant big bad. I don't love that as an ending, but but it is absolutely but it's kind of the easiest and most straightforward way to do.

17:53 Yeah, the false big Bad is a good one really. From from day one, you all know who you're, who you're going after. Then about halfway through the campaign you realize, oh, he's just part one of an bigger thing. Going back to the you're rising through the ranks of the guild. I have the epiphany of rising the ranks through the guild and then we're going to take the wanted approach, the graphic novel and the movie that, Yeah, the Mark Malar thing. Yeah, where it turns out then you realize, like you, guys, he gets wiped out or well not even above you. You realize that the whole thing has to get wiped out. Right, You realize that you are you are that b you've been You've been working for Evil Corp. This whole time. Yeah, and this isn't so much change back of voice are but more injury and Jolie's are where she gets to the top and she's like, oh, we've all been named a minute, we got to go, and she goes well one shot spoiler spoiler for a fifteen year old movie, Very Young James spoilers and no spoilers. That movie is awesome, but it's a pretty cool one. It's a lot of fun. So when I ran my the urban game that I've talked about quite a quite a bit where we had each of the characters from a different neighborhood.

19:03 The end game that I had in mind there and then all the players are interested in working their way towards was because we had this kind of civic structure and basically all of them had jobs you know that kind of like like in addition to being adventurers. You know. One of them was literally a customs inspector, right, which is kind of a cool job in a D and D world, right, you know, when we're like, you're making sure that that crate doesn't have a gelatinous cube in it or something like that, you know. And another one was like a librarian, like a low level librarian at the like crazy magical library that had all of the you know, like living books in it and all this kind of stuff and everything.

19:44 And another one was you know, a priestess of the Deaf goddess who worked it basically worked in the morgue when the game started. But that game was about kind of jumping back and forth between their different storylines and as the game progressed, like they were getting more important in the city, becoming better known, and eventually, like the end game that we had in mind for that was they would all kind of rise to the head of their respective professions and be the leaders of the city. And the point at which they did what they needed to do to to you know, to get elected or appointed or whatever promote get that that final promotion, that was when the game would kind of end with them at the pinnacles of their profession and being these very important people in the city. That's like, that's the the cific version of leveling up m So it's all that to say that it is, it is not totally. I don't even assume that most campaigns just do end by just finishing the story that they set out or just fizzling out. A lot of times, a lot a lot of times people just then they kid schedule think of the schedule. Al was very careful to say an endgame, not how the game is. Most games end by people moving nowhere, you're having kids, or just you know, not not being free on Tuesdays anymore, but an actual end game, which means this story does come to some sort of conclusion.

21:07 You start with, we start with an overarching story, you finish that story, that's where we're going to end our campaign. You start a new story. Yeah, that's a very common one, like being able to continue that, whether by becoming a farmer or in the case of the I'm gonna bring them that pot again. Their first campaign took place in one world called Bohomia, and then they finished that a whole campaign, then they did some other ones. They did a campaign too, and then another side one, and then for the campaign three, they brought it back to Bohoomia two hundred years later. Right, and now they see they see the fallout of their actions. Yeah, but how do we end that first campaign? I think that there's all different kinds of ways, but it comes down to planning. Yeah, of course, And I know, and that can look different, and it's something that the DM and the player should be kind of like co conspirators on with Yeah. That's the thing that I want to mention is that this is not all on you as the d M. Absolutely, you know, take a whole session and say, look, we're seventeenth level, we're headed towards the end game here, what do you guys want to see?

22:07 What would be a satisfying end to this game? You know, and people are you know different people are going to want some different things, and you know, as long as you're you know, do that a couple levels in advance, don't wait until they're half the two level twenty and go oh shit, I got to figure out how to end this game then you know a while. Yeah, also through that again halfway through, yes, say hey, we've been doing this a while. It's like what, like, a are you guys still having fun? How's it going? This is this world still exciting to you? And like what is it? What does an ideal end look like to you the player? And then you know tell them yes. And I know in our game, I had our players come up with goals, but some of them were shorter term than others. So as they've completed it, just follow up like hey you did that part? Yeah, yeah, that was very short. Yeah, it was. It was super and straight for mine's kind of intangible. So there's there's a condes one, there's some weird ones. But uh yeah, so the to kind of put a little a little bow on the package here, Alex. So the most common way is probably just finishing the story you set out to finish, and then you wrap wrap that up and start the next story. You can continue that story into the next set of adventures, kind of like Superman or Goku, or you can just continue that story as it probably would in real life and you just become a farmer or some sort of some sort of leader that no one knows as a god level wizard until one day trouble comes a knocking, you know. But I hope that helps you out there, Alex.

23:36 And let's do one more. The last one is coming in from Josh Dogmatic. What do you got for us? What's up? Adventurers? First time listener, long time caller here. I was just wondering your thoughts on like four stops lessons by five year editions. Do you think, like maybe was the Coast is just trying to keep making money on their thing or are they really actually improving things over time. I know some people say, like, hey, we could just go back to third it was perfect. But is it was it? Could there be things so much better in the future than there are now? I don't know. Is it worth the amount of money they are asking per books to rebuild your library every ten years? I don't know. I love the system, I buy books. I love buying books.

24:33 I love paying people for their inventive craft. But was it the coast just rewriting rules to sell a new edition? I don't know. Tell me what you think. Baba Booe, the match Players dude is a He's a literal muppet. He's one of my favorite people in the world. But great points. Actually, forced obsolescence is maybe not the term I would use for it, because they're not going anywhere. Excuse me. People still play first edition or fourth edition, especially three point five in stores all the time.

25:15 Our local game store is running a first edition campaign coming up very soon, which I kind of want to join. But any any like initial thoughts, you guys, I mean, like the answer is, you know, as with a lot of these questions, of course, they want to make money. Of course that's the goal of the company. Of course that's one of the reasons why they you know, come out with a new edition, although the every five years thing actually not so much. It's been nearly a decade that fifth edition is out. Fourth was out for nearly ten years before fifth got really so it's close ten years. It's rough closer to a decade, which is like in gamer terms, about a generation, right. So, absolutely yes, it is a cynical cash grab right down to the very roots of it. And also absolutely yes, everybody working on it, all of the creators, sincerely believe that what they are doing is improving the game, is delivering, is bringing the best version of D and D that they can bring. Like, as someone who actually knows some of these designers, they are, you know, every single one of them is utterly sincere in their desire to you know, deliver the best D and D that they can deliver, you know, within the constraints of no ethical consumption under capitalism. Right, So it's always going to be both, you know, neither and both all the time, all the way down. That's how it's going to go.

26:47 And I think the other thing to keep in mind, as someone who owned a game store, WATSI if you have been playing D and D for ten or twenty or thirty or forty years. You are not the principal audience for that new edition of D and D. The principal audience and the vast majority of the people who are going to buy that new version of D and D are people who have never played D and D and you are you know, like like like old school grognards like me who have played you know, all five editions going back to the original Blue Box are a tiny minority of the people that are now playing D and D. I think that's a wonderful thing. I think that's great. That's you know, there's nothing better for the hobby than hard. Yeah. Then the fact that it is no longer you know, the exclusive province of you know, straight white men from the you know, Midwestern and Northeast suburbs. I think that's fantastic. But it can feel, you know, like I've been on this ride for thirty years.

27:48 Why do I have to keep buying a new ticket? You know, to which I say, if every ten so, like, no kidding, the core of D and D is three books, right, and so you know, the last three D and D books I bought were fifty bucks a throw one hundred and fifty bucks if you buy them from a game store and not on Amazon. We could probably get them for less than one hundred if you don't wait for a ten years of entertainment, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of hours of entertainment for that one hundred and fifty dollars investment, Like name like a better ratio, a better return on investment for your entertainment dollar than that's first set of dice. There we go. So but yeah, Oberg beer would be the only better return on investment if you're of age and you can do it. But if that's the true is the cost, but the cost of entry might be a little bit higher than that.

28:47 But anyway, I'll time it with my bias as well. You can podcast for underd hundred dollars. Yeah, but so what I wanted to add to that is I agree with that, and it's not obsolete, right because and I actually just went and bought on drive through OURPGA about the PDFs of like Keep on the Borderlands of all like some of the original What to Ad and D or Edition one or whatever it is. So I bought those because I was like, I need it, like story ideas. So I wanted to borrow from some of those. Yeah, so I bought a bunch of those, and they're like four or five dollars for the PDFs. So one they're not obsolete. I'll still be able to take these stories and stuff in whatever the next edition is. I'll be able to repurpose them in that way.

29:33 And really all I'll need to do that is to your point, Jim, the three core books. Because here's the thing, Wizards of the Coast, because they are a business and want to continue to make money, doesn't recreate the addition to make money. They just release books. So if they were just concerned about making money, they would just do what they're already doing, which is releasing books or fifth edition on top of that fifth edition. And this might be to your point as well, is who is the new edition for fifth edition is the most widely played edition out of all editions of DMV in order of magnitude. Questions about it and the reason for that, I'm sure we can we can come up with all the litany of reasons that Stranger Things. Off the top of my head, so what is called all media?

30:17 Yeah, what's Stranger Things? Critical role? The movie and walters Gate right. But the popularity of podcasts yep, the popularity of board games and tabletop games references Target. We can thank Target honestly a lot for buy one, get one, and I put a starter pack. I knew a guy who's a little older than me that was getting shipped out with the military, who is going to be gone from his family for you know, six six to eight months, and he had a going away party. I put a starter pack in his as a gift and gave that to him when he was going away, because I was like, man, what are you going to do just sitting around a base for hours, for days and days. You don't have anybody you know? D and is negative Lary and that's what that's what made me think of that. I was like, man, yeah, a lot of people start playing in the military. I'm going to give this guy a starter set. Yeah, so he can you know, just run of games combined with the general accessibility and how and how easy to learn five E is compared to other editions and are the reasons why the internet and the internet you know that we can Yeah, I don't need I don't need to know three or four people that want to play. I could just go on to what to LFG and read it. I think it is LG or something you can connect with people that don't necessarily like my son who's eighteen, has connected with people on the opposite coast and other countries and he plays I'm Just Dragons with them online and it's great and so so yeah, I don't think so. So back to the question the new editions, I think it is

31:52 cynical cash grab of all time. Yeah, sure, yeah, and well so the other part is I've I've heard lots of people have been playing for years say this is actually my favorite edition, and so it does. I think it is getting better. I'm excited to see and not excited at the same time to see what's in. What's it called D and D Next or the official name has not been released at the time of this recording, whatever sixth edition is or five and a half. Well, okay, that's That's what I want to bring up, is that in this particular case, the the the forced ops lessons argument is a little bit less holding because they've come forward and at least confirmed that this is not so much a sixth edition, it's not even a five point five, right, this is a continuation and a re evaluation of fifth edition, which they've done already. A couple of times they've been like, hey, we looked at this, and they've tweaked some things, and especially when Tashas came out, there was a lot of things some people call Tasha's five point five, which is almost five point two five at best. Yeah, but one point two zero, not to put too fine a point on it, but like forced ops lescence would be if like, after exactly six months your books self destructed. U that doesn't like ideas don't have you know, obsolescence built into them unless you decide that you want to do something, something new and something Yeah, that's why the OGL is so important, right. I don't want to take his phrase too literally, but but you think it was just lack of a better term, exactly,

33:27 and that we're a flair for the dramatic knowing him oh somatic, it's it is. It is okay to not want to play whatever the new edition is, to not buy it and to keep playing whatever previous version of it is. There's just a leg as the new version of Oh absolutely, But just to finish my point, the new version is not a new version they have. They've been pretty clear that this is a continuation and just like a small slight revamp of fifth edition Fifth Edition and stuff will still work on the new rules, and the new rules will work backwards with existing fifth edition books. So this might be this might be the best torch pass to the new version that we've seen in the past five and it seems to be on a nice ten year cycle as fifth edition came out in the middle of twenty fourteen, it is currently first quarter of the twenty twenty four so yeah, and then they have a subscription based model now, like they're not making money the same way like publishers just on the whole don't make money the same way that they used to. So that's I'm sure a big part of it as well.

34:32 Every D and D book sold in the last decade is a rounding error compared to the amount of money they made on that movie, right, sure, right, and that Mattel probably brings in anyway, and it's still ye like and Balder's Kate three for that. Oh yeah, there you go. So you know, like D and D exists as an intellectual property engine so that they can do stuff that makes they're real money, and now they're branching out. They're doing if you're on D and D Beyond, they're doing some really interesting things. Like it started with Magic right, but it's gone way further than that now even with Critical Lord of the Rings tie in. So you've got the newest one Erathus. No. I don't know, No, is that? Is that a magic thing? I don't know? I just thought, I I don't know enough about it. I listen. I have a long history Magic player, but I stopped playing in twenty that's fair so so, but even with Critical Role. So so, the creators of Critical Role went and they released before they released a book with WATSI, which was Explorer's Guide to Wild wild Man, which is the setting that my game set.

35:42 And it doesn't matter. They had really they had self published and started a publishing company and made their own book that worked with or setting, that worked with fitth edition, and they released that on their own, had nothing to do with Watzi. But now, at least for online, now D and D Beyond is you can down the you can buy that through D and D Beyond to get it digitally, and now you can get maps. They're they're come up, come, they have come out with their own virtual tabletop BTT. Yes, right, yeah, that's that's the new It's one of the reasons that they've put those subscriptions. That's where they're going to make all their money. It's it's they're going to get you on subscriptions because and this just happened to me, and this is one of the reasons I hate these subscriptions. I wanted the physical things, right, But as we were, I was sharing the Core books online. I have my own copies of the actual physical copies of Core books, but online I was sharing them with my son. But during the whole ogl the box the EXSS, he deleted his or he canceled his his I forget what whatever tier that was membership. So I don't have access to those anymore. So now I have to either buy them again through D and D Beyond or pull out my physical editions whenever I want to use them, which is what I've been doing, right, But yeah, I mean the subscription based model. My whole point is you've got to pay I don't know what it is, ten dollars a month or whatever

37:12 it is to have access to those plugs, rightual to share them. Yeah, not to have access, but to share them with other people. So it kind kind of bring us back, to bring us back on the track a little bit here. So well, that leads into his question about, like, you know, is it just a cash grab, which, of course anything a large corporation does is going to be a cash grab of some sort. Is this a cash grab that benefits the players? And I think it might be. Well, it depends on who you are and how you feel about that. It depends on your answer to the question do I like the new edition? If you're a Pathfinder player that's still playing Pathfinder and hates fifth edition, which I've met a handful of those, then I mean worth noting that Pathfinder came out with a second edition Pathfinder as well. Okay, yeah, you know, you know, Pizo is not particularly It's like Pizo isn't shameless as well, Right, But there's path Fine or two, and then there's there's a newer version of path Final two that just keep out recently.

38:07 Those are the books that I got. Yeah, I couldn't even find for during the mass exodus of of the of D and D players. I couldn't even find. I would just play a sad book if they're not doing anything to it, but they're just slapping it on and they're making it so they're just changing things to make it so your other version doesn't work and just to charge you know what I mean. Like you can kind of see that. But I think, as far as I know, like they have tidied up a lot of what was wrong with previous editions in fifth edition, like things with combat, things with like even just balance, a lot of balance issues, and that they made it so off the top of my head, I know they improved some rogue abilities. They they kind of nerved guidance a little bit, which I think needs to be rained in a little Yeah, there's a lot of just just balance tweaks and giving class features where certain classes are lacking. You're talking about fifth edition in I'm just going to call it the indie next Okay. No, I'm saying, coming coming from all of the previous editions a fifth edition that they fixed the low lottels change, like, but that's what I'm saying is the core of the game changed. But from my understanding of it was that they changed the core of the game, but they made it more approachable, They made it easier for anybody to kind of pick up and play, but also that they fixed some previous issues with the game, like combat, Like I think somebody said, like of combat, really you could get kind of slogged in combat, like it was like overly they simplified it. I guess yeah, yeah, and like for a

39:43 lot of people, that made it better, and it's making it more approachable, and it's making it so more people can get into the hobby. And so the idea of being that like new editions should be improving the game, right, not just slapping a new name on it, just charging fifty bucks. And if you if it's not for you, keep playing for the edition. Everyone else will. I hope that. I hope that helps you out automatic. But that's gonna wrap it up for today. That's all we have time for, So keep sending in your questions, please, please please. You can send your voicemails over to Hello Adventurers Podcast dot com slash voice, or you can want just email us your questions, which we've had some players do. You can send those over to Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail dot com. We're gonna do these episodes every single month and we'll tackle the things that you want us to tackle. I think that's gonna wrap it up, so thanks so much for listening to Hello Adventurers. We are your host, Jason PORTISO chute broker and Joe McCall, producer, editor and engineer Jason Portiso.

40:37 Music by an experier, Art right by Kristin Broaderick. You can reach out to us with any feedbackboard suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers podcast at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is a JTP audio production good Boy