Latest / Sessions Canceled / New Required Reading, The Fabula Ultima Bestiary Vol. 1: Ep. 179

Transcript

New Required Reading, The Fabula Ultima Bestiary Vol. 1: Ep. 179 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:17
  GM was caught watching some questionable early 2000s anime.
• 0:21
  So we're not we're not talking to them right now because they
• 0:25
  have to, they have to defend themselves at a court of law
• 0:28
  now. And we'll see how it goes next
• 0:33
  week. You know, we'll, we're going to
• 0:35
  give them a their proper defense and they'll have a judge, you
• 0:38
  know, a jury and everything, a jury of the peers and such.
• 0:40
  But you know, we'll see how it goes.
• 0:46
  He's fucking dead, Jim. I fucking killed him.
• 0:52
  You could, I can't. I can't.
• 0:54
  No, that was the conversation we just had.
• 0:57
  I fucking can't. I mean we're sub tweeting
• 1:02
  ourselves here so. Oh my God, Oh my.
• 1:11
  God and oh. My God, I'd like dear listener
• 1:13
  venturing candidate bro. You know, dear listener, if
• 1:18
  you're like, what do you mean by questionable early 2000s anime
• 1:21
  if you weren't watching anime at that time period?
• 1:24
  I don't know. You had to be there.
• 1:25
  It was a different title. You had to be there.
• 1:27
  You had to be there. It was a certain.
• 1:29
  Kind of vibe. You had to be there.
• 1:30
  You had to be there, terrified and looking over your shoulder
• 1:34
  into your bedroom room every two seconds because a few parents
• 1:37
  walked in. There's no universe where you
• 1:39
  were explaining the context. No, you were just grounded
• 1:42
  forever. There was no justifying.
• 1:46
  It no. It's like, it's like when the
• 1:49
  it's like when the Unks mentioned like the early 90s OVA
• 1:52
  stuff. And it's like you.
• 1:54
  Had to be that kind of, you know what I mean?
• 1:56
  It was like that era. Yeah.
• 1:59
  Which I, I think that I think it's fair to call qualify that
• 2:02
  shit as UNK material now. Right, I bro, I somebody was
• 2:05
  like, I was watching a video and they were like, yeah, Ninja
• 2:08
  scroll. Remember that?
• 2:09
  I was like, Oh my God, I do fucking watch.
• 2:11
  I remember. Still never watch ninja scroll I
• 2:13
  need. To watch that I watched that way
• 2:15
  younger than I absolutely should have been.
• 2:17
  I. Missed a lot of those early ova
• 2:19
  bangers. Yeah, they were good.
• 2:21
  You can watch Ninja scroll on Prime.
• 2:23
  Not that you should support Amazon right now.
• 2:25
  Oh, no, I know you could. Yeah, I know there's lots of
• 2:27
  places to watch it. Speaking of shit that's on
• 2:30
  prime, I'm really annoyed that Toski Fujimoto 17 through 26 is
• 2:34
  only on prime, unlike yes yes, I know I can yarhar that shit, but
• 2:40
  like it's still annoying. You know what I'm?
• 2:41
  Saying yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I, I'm not going
• 2:46
  to say I do anything dubiously legal, but you know, I think, I
• 2:54
  think HERODA would be proud of me with the way that I'm
• 2:57
  watching Primal right now. Anyway, God, I can't what?
• 3:09
  Hold on. I did just have the thought.
• 3:11
  Wait, at what point do we qualify as unka?
• 3:13
  Are we at that point? I.
• 3:14
  Don't. I am literally an uncle, So
• 3:16
  yeah, I think so. You are literally an uncle.
• 3:18
  That's true. I'm not.
• 3:19
  I don't have the capacity to be 1, so there's that.
• 3:25
  I mean, you, you can do the thing that a lot of that, like a
• 3:28
  lot of Hispanic and European families do or like doesn't
• 3:31
  you're a cousin, but you're 30 years older, so you are now
• 3:33
  uncle. That's probably going to happen
• 3:38
  soon ish. So yeah, that's that's fair.
• 3:43
  But anyway, this is neither here nor there.
• 3:48
  We're talking about tabletop games, not anime.
• 3:51
  Although, you know, there's crossover.
• 3:53
  I think there's crossover in the nerd branding between those two
• 3:55
  things. Stand by next week.
• 3:58
  I well, yeah, Exactly, exactly. Literally.
• 4:03
  I mean, I was literally, I don't know, but that wasn't on
• 4:05
  recording. Nevermind.
• 4:06
  I was going to say I was literally just talking about
• 4:08
  jujitsu Kaizen, but that was not on recording.
• 4:09
  But whatever. It's like, it's the point
• 4:11
  across. What the fuck's going on?
• 4:15
  What are we doing? Where are we?
• 4:16
  Who are you people? Actually, you know what,
• 4:20
  starting with weeb shit was a great option because we're about
• 4:23
  to talk about Fabula Ultima, which is ultimately kind of weeb
• 4:26
  shit. Like, you know, it's inspired by
• 4:31
  JRPGS that qualifies to most normies as weeb shit.
• 4:35
  So, you know, we're not that far away from the subject material
• 4:39
  to be honest. Yeah, to be clear, I say I say
• 4:42
  weeb shit affectionately here. Yeah.
• 4:45
  Not derogatorily. Well, it's it's a little bit of
• 4:50
  both. I mean it can be both.
• 4:53
  I don't mean it's the. It's the it's that meme where
• 4:55
  it's like one person, it's like one person that says weeb like
• 4:59
  under their their body. And then a person that says weeb
• 5:01
  walks up and smacks them in the face and goes fucking weeb.
• 5:04
  I. Mean there is also that, yes,
• 5:07
  Well, let's put it this way. When I refer to Fabula Ultima as
• 5:11
  weeb shit, I don't mean derogatorily.
• 5:14
  Put it that way. No, we can't.
• 5:18
  Well, that but also I just I think the brand of weeb that
• 5:21
  fabulous Ultima does is is cool shit.
• 5:23
  So, you know, but yes, we're talking about fabulous Ultima
• 5:28
  again, because game cool and because there's new content out
• 5:34
  for it and because I'm still running a campaign in it.
• 5:36
  So fucking yeah. And because fuck DND.
• 5:43
  Yeah. I feel like something weird
• 5:49
  happened to the news recently DD2, but now I'm forgetting what
• 5:52
  it. I feel like I remember hearing
• 5:53
  about something and it has now escaped me completely.
• 5:57
  Oh, see, I was, I was going to ask you if it was all the
• 5:59
  fucking, all of the rules inconsistencies and Stranger
• 6:03
  things, because that's super funny where they're like.
• 6:06
  What? There's like a So keep in mind,
• 6:09
  Stranger Things came out in the 80s.
• 6:10
  I think that the only thing that they were up to at that point
• 6:12
  was AD and D and there's a whole bit where where Mike is talking
• 6:16
  to Will. He's like you're a sorcerer and
• 6:18
  everyone being like sorcerer didn't come out until 3.5 Mike.
• 6:22
  How would you know that? I I do.
• 6:25
  Yes, I do. Yes.
• 6:27
  I have heard, Tom, some people talk about this stuff.
• 6:29
  That's why I kept making the joke.
• 6:30
  I mean, back in my day you were called the magic user and you
• 6:33
  had to be an elf. It's true.
• 6:36
  It's true. Well, no, no, no.
• 6:38
  A magic user was a was had to be a human.
• 6:41
  An elf was a separate class. Right, Right.
• 6:44
  Magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:45
  Which is even goofier. Back in my day, if you were a
• 6:48
  priest, you had to be a dwarf. You had to be no, no, no.
• 6:54
  Dwarf was also a class. Oh yeah, yeah, my bad.
• 6:58
  Cleric was human, Dwarf was the. I think you could be a dwarf
• 7:03
  cleric if you, I don't remember. Yeah, there was some weirdness
• 7:07
  there. Hey, but yes, elphed dwarf for
• 7:10
  classes because there was no rules for like species slash
• 7:14
  race. So but anyway, fabulous Ultima
• 7:20
  doesn't have any rules for species, only quirks.
• 7:26
  Yeah, well, and or just description Aladdin.
• 7:30
  'S going to hit me, but doesn't go.
• 7:32
  No. The quirks count, I know it.
• 7:34
  I could feel in my bones that he's going to hit me with that
• 7:36
  next week. They don't clown, they don't,
• 7:38
  they don't count because they're not a literal species mechanic.
• 7:40
  There are some of them that imply that your character is
• 7:42
  different, yeah, but they're not like a literal species mechanic.
• 7:47
  But that's not, that's not, that's not going.
• 7:48
  To text me about it. I can feel it in my bones.
• 7:50
  I mean, maybe they don't. He's wrong.
• 7:52
  They don't count, no. He's going to he's going to
• 7:57
  double text me because he's like you sub tweeting me bitch.
• 8:00
  That's fine. It's not a subtweet if you call
• 8:02
  their name out, that's just a tweet.
• 8:03
  Oh true, that's just a call out. That's just a regular call out
• 8:07
  before we get on to that though, as per our usual, if you'd be so
• 8:11
  inclined, hit follow or subscribe.
• 8:13
  Follow. God damn it.
• 8:15
  Why is the word subscribe so hard to say?
• 8:16
  Hit, follow or subscribe on your podcast platform of choice.
• 8:20
  And if you're feeling generous, we have a donation link in the
• 8:23
  description that goes to our editor.
• 8:28
  All right, so why are we bringing up Fabula again?
• 8:30
  Just 'cause we want to, maybe a little bit, but also because the
• 8:34
  best diary is out, sort of kind of technically it's not 100%
• 8:40
  out. I have access to it because I
• 8:42
  backed it on Kickstarter. I have the Kickstarter preview,
• 8:46
  which technically is still subject to change, but far as I
• 8:52
  am, as far as I'm aware, it is pretty much the done version.
• 9:00
  It's just there's gonna be some last minute, you know, like
• 9:07
  editorial, like, oh, misspell here, we need to adjust there.
• 9:10
  But like that kind of stuff. But the core of the book is done
• 9:15
  as far as I understand it. I'm pretty sure.
• 9:20
  Don't quote me on this one if I'm wrong on that for some
• 9:23
  reason, but me looking at the book, it certainly seems done.
• 9:29
  So yeah, but they are labeling it as a beta PDF technically.
• 9:35
  So just for the sake of it, if something changes drastically,
• 9:39
  if something changes, I don't think anything's going to change
• 9:41
  drastically, but if something changes and I look like a dirty
• 9:46
  liar, that's why, because technically I'm looking at a
• 9:49
  beta PDF. Any fucking way though, Yeah,
• 9:54
  the best series out. So just to explain what the best
• 10:00
  area even is, just in case anybody needs the context,
• 10:05
  Fabula came out. Fabula came out originally as a
• 10:10
  single book RPG. It was just the rule book and
• 10:14
  that was it. It didn't have any kind of DMG,
• 10:18
  monster manual supplement thing, none of that.
• 10:21
  It was just the game came out as is.
• 10:24
  Then as time went on they added the Atlas, what they refer to as
• 10:28
  the atlases to the game, which were the Atlas of Natural
• 10:33
  Fantasy, the Atlas of High Fantasy, and the Atlas of Techno
• 10:35
  Fantasy. That's not the order they came.
• 10:37
  I think it came. I think it was High Fantasy came
• 10:39
  out, then Techno, then natural if I remember correctly.
• 10:44
  And those were basically the game being those were basically
• 10:48
  supplements that explained different styles of play that
• 10:55
  you could do with Fabula as well as adding a couple of extra
• 10:58
  rules. Like each of the atlases has a
• 11:00
  couple extra classes. The atlases also have extra
• 11:05
  optional rules. Like the Atlas of Techno Fantasy
• 11:09
  has this entire sub mechanic about technospheres, which we
• 11:12
  did, which we talked about in in an episode.
• 11:15
  The Atlas of Natural Fantasy has rules for like crafting stuff.
• 11:20
  Those atlases were the books that came out after the main
• 11:25
  book and they did not have monsters in them like regular
• 11:31
  standard stat blocks. They all had five boss stat
• 11:35
  blocks that went from like level 10 to 60, I think.
• 11:41
  But those were, they were bosses, right?
• 11:46
  They weren't like random goons or, or, you know, soldiery guys
• 11:52
  or anything like that. They were explicitly bosses, so
• 12:00
  you were in terms of pre made stat blocks that you could slap
• 12:05
  into your game a la ADND Monster Manual.
• 12:08
  Fabula was kind of lacking because the base book has some
• 12:12
  of that, but the best series section of the base book is not
• 12:16
  that long. It's like, I want to say
• 12:21
  something like, what'd you say? That's when you saw my pages.
• 12:27
  Yeah, yeah. And it's it's like 10:00-ish
• 12:32
  monsters of each of the monster types.
• 12:36
  Oh, I was wrong. It's about 40 pages, but it's.
• 12:39
  Is there isn't that isn't that many hold on.
• 12:43
  It goes from like, well, counting from the beat the stat
• 12:46
  block specifically it goes from 3:24 to I'm scrolling, I'm
• 12:53
  scrolling, I'm scrolling 353. So that's like, Oh yeah, what's
• 12:58
  that like? That's like 30 ish something
• 12:59
  20O29 right? They do that math right?
• 13:02
  Whatever. So yeah, it's not super long and
• 13:05
  there's not that many stat books and in the stat blocks in the
• 13:09
  best theory. So in the best theory, sorry, I
• 13:13
  should clarify, there's not that many stat blocks in the best
• 13:15
  theory of the core rule book. So, or the reason?
• 13:23
  The reason for that being that the game gave you rules and
• 13:28
  quite quite thorough and useful rules for making your own
• 13:37
  monsters. Making your own enemies NPCS is
• 13:40
  how this game refers to them. They don't use the phrase like
• 13:42
  monsters, they just say NPCS. The problem is that making your
• 13:49
  own NPCS in Fabulous Ultima is actually kind of hard and pretty
• 13:54
  involved. And if you're not familiar, if
• 14:00
  you're sort of uncomfortable in the GMC or you're a little
• 14:06
  uncomfortable with the genre of video game that Fabulous pulling
• 14:10
  from, which is to say JRPGS, there was a lot of, there was
• 14:19
  some friction running the game for people where it just, it
• 14:23
  felt like a lot. It can be very fun, but it can
• 14:29
  also be difficult because you're expected to really tailor all of
• 14:35
  the stat blocks that you create for your game.
• 14:38
  You're expected to really tailor them to your players, both in
• 14:43
  terms of challenging them and also letting them, you know,
• 14:47
  basically looking at like what your players have and giving
• 14:50
  them easy victories, hard victories in between and like
• 14:53
  really building things that fit them as a group.
• 15:02
  Because the game got quite a bit more popular than the team
• 15:05
  expected It sort of and and they say this in the foreword of the
• 15:10
  new bestiary book, the game sort of expanded out between the
• 15:14
  beyond the original like audience.
• 15:17
  So there were a lot of people that were maybe not that
• 15:19
  familiar with, you know, Final Fantasy or fucking Star Ocean
• 15:24
  and Zeno Gears and Chrono, you know, not that familiar with its
• 15:27
  source material. Ergo, they were having an issue
• 15:31
  with running the game. Ergo, they decided to make the
• 15:34
  bestiary as a here you go. This will hopefully make your
• 15:38
  life a little bit easier. And even I'll I'll say up front
• 15:44
  here, even for me who I'm very familiar with JRPGS as a video
• 15:51
  game genre, I have played many of them.
• 15:54
  Two of my favorite series ever are Kingdom Hearts and Final
• 15:58
  Fantasy. So like I know exactly where
• 16:00
  this game is pulling from. And even for me I'm like damn
• 16:05
  bro making NPCS in this game is fucking hard.
• 16:12
  Like, I know it probably doesn't, you maybe don't notice
• 16:18
  it as much on the player side of the table, but it's been a
• 16:21
  fucking struggle running this game sometimes.
• 16:24
  I mean. I ain't even going to lie.
• 16:25
  I've definitely heard, you know, I've heard you.
• 16:31
  I've heard you be like, bro, what the fuck?
• 16:33
  Sometimes when we're when we're doing things just like it's, I
• 16:37
  was not prepared for y'all to pub stomp this thing and just
• 16:41
  kind of like, OK, like I can tell that there's definitely
• 16:44
  some frustration going on. Pub stomp this thing or I was
• 16:47
  not prepared for or in the IT can go the other way too.
• 16:51
  I wasn't prepared for you guys to have absolutely no answer to
• 16:54
  this problem. You know what I mean?
• 16:55
  Like I I missed because you're designing the monster and you
• 16:59
  give them a certain ability that you realize, oh, this
• 17:03
  accidentally nullifies everything they have and I
• 17:05
  didn't mean it to, but I didn't I wasn't thinking of it.
• 17:08
  You know what I mean? Like.
• 17:09
  Yeah, yeah. On a really basic level,
• 17:11
  obviously this one you, you probably wouldn't wouldn't
• 17:14
  happen very often. But if you think about it on a
• 17:16
  really basic level, if you have an entire group that has no
• 17:19
  ranged options and then you throw like a swarm of flying
• 17:23
  zombie bats at them and then the group's like, oh God, we have
• 17:28
  literally no way to hit them. We are so fucked.
• 17:30
  And then you as AGM go, oh fuck, I forgot about that.
• 17:33
  You know what I mean? Like, I mean we had a.
• 17:35
  Similar. We had a similar thing happen to
• 17:36
  us. I can't remember what we were
• 17:38
  fighting, but it was it was right around when we fought the
• 17:42
  giant bear. Oh no, it was it was when we
• 17:45
  fought the Serpent of sorrows and like you know, I have some
• 17:49
  shuriken, Fran has some shuriken and Gennaro didn't have the
• 17:56
  cannon prepped. So we were like, we really don't
• 18:00
  have an answer. Right, but that was OK in that
• 18:03
  case 'cause you didn't necessarily need to kill the
• 18:05
  flying enemies, right? So like for that one, I wasn't
• 18:08
  stressing it too much, you know what I mean?
• 18:10
  It wasn't like I shut down your options completely.
• 18:12
  You can still attack the boss cause the flying guys were like
• 18:14
  his minions, right, But it, it is that it is that idea, like
• 18:20
  that idea can can snowball into a bigger problem for sure.
• 18:27
  So all that being said, does you know what does this best theory
• 18:34
  do for you? Is it helpful?
• 18:37
  Like you know, is it, is it achieving the objective?
• 18:41
  And basically my my take on this best theory, I had a feeling
• 18:47
  this was going to be the case. I was pretty confident this
• 18:49
  would be true before this book came out.
• 18:52
  Having now looked at and used this book for a couple of
• 18:56
  sessions, this is now required reading material.
• 19:02
  Oh, really? If you.
• 19:03
  Yeah, I'm. I'm going to be real.
• 19:06
  And it it sucks a little bit because it means that the game
• 19:10
  has kind of gotten more expensive.
• 19:12
  But if you want to rerun Fabula, I think you're almost required
• 19:18
  to pick up the best year 8. Like I really, really, really
• 19:21
  heavily encourage it because it it it helps a lot of the pain
• 19:29
  points, but it also it just gives you just by virtue of all
• 19:35
  of the stat blocks that are in the book, it generates you ideas
• 19:39
  for all of the different kinds of potential abilities you can
• 19:42
  give enemies. Because the thing about the way
• 19:45
  of the mechanics of Fabula work is you can do a lot of weird
• 19:52
  shit with enemy abilities. If you just kind of think
• 19:56
  outside the baseline mechanics like you, you look at the just
• 20:01
  the standard mechanics that the players have access to and that
• 20:04
  the game functions, you're like, OK, but you could do so much
• 20:07
  more than that. But it that's not immediately
• 20:13
  apparent until you've analyzed. Basically looking through the
• 20:20
  best area you will see mechanics where you multiple times you
• 20:23
  will go. I would have never thought to do
• 20:25
  that. That's a great idea.
• 20:26
  This gave me an idea. I'm going to be real.
• 20:29
  That kind of shit. You don't have to go more than
• 20:32
  you know 10 pages into the actual best area stuff with the
• 20:37
  quick assembly. When you look at the hunter,
• 20:38
  which the game says is the most basic enemy you're going to run
• 20:41
  into, it's customization and and whole skill options are super
• 20:48
  fucking cool. Oh well, hold, hold, hold that
• 20:50
  thought, 'cause we'll get there, we'll get there.
• 20:52
  You're you're jumped at your spoilers.
• 20:54
  Damn. But yeah, we'll get there.
• 20:56
  But like what? Yeah, basically what I'm saying
• 20:57
  is the the stat blocks delivered to you if you don't use anything
• 21:02
  else in the book, if you don't use a single stat block from the
• 21:05
  book, you just look at the stat blocks in this book for ideas.
• 21:09
  It will help you a shit load because there's just you know
• 21:16
  what? Here, let me here, let me give
• 21:17
  you a perfect example. Hold on.
• 21:19
  I got to find the the SAP block I have in mind.
• 21:21
  Give me one SEC. OK.
• 21:23
  So Isaiah, if you go all the way down to under the wolves
• 21:25
  category. Yeah.
• 21:28
  And you look at the Garmer side note, I would have loved to have
• 21:33
  this stat block when we started the fucking campaign.
• 21:35
  Cause the stat block would have been.
• 21:36
  Perfect. I thought that exact it would
• 21:40
  have been good. My God, it's exactly Oh my God,
• 21:43
  it's so funny. I had I.
• 21:45
  Was like, I saw it. I was like, people would have
• 21:46
  used these for that fight. Yes, I absolutely it's exactly
• 21:50
  what I wanted anyway, neither here nor there.
• 21:53
  So but the thing that's the thing that's really interesting
• 21:56
  about this. So if you go down to its
• 21:58
  ability, so there's this, there's a level 10 elite
• 22:02
  monster, elite beast monster in the best area.
• 22:05
  It's a Garmer. It's like a big scary monster
• 22:07
  wolf thing. Level 10 is the beginning of the
• 22:10
  game, right? Players start at level 5.
• 22:13
  It has an ability called Stalk the Prey.
• 22:15
  When the Garmer performs the guard action, it begins hunting
• 22:19
  down a random enemy it can see. When the Garmer performs
• 22:22
  Bloodthirsty Fangs, which is one of its attacks while hunting
• 22:26
  down an enemy it is able to target, it must target that
• 22:29
  enemy. If it does, the attack deals 10
• 22:31
  extra damage and the hunting ends even if the attack missed.
• 22:35
  The hunting also ends as soon as the Garmer prefers the performs
• 22:38
  the guard action again, or is suffering from two or more
• 22:41
  status effects. Now that's not that complicated
• 22:45
  of an ability, right? Effectively, it means you
• 22:48
  perform the guard action, target a player, get extra damage when
• 22:51
  you hit them, right? That's effectively what that
• 22:53
  means, but the hunting down part of that ability is effectively a
• 23:00
  status effect that this monster puts on the players that is
• 23:05
  wholly unique to this monster. Right?
• 23:09
  Like hunting down is not a mechanic in the base game.
• 23:12
  Hunting down is a mechanic that only exists in this monster stat
• 23:16
  block, and that's one tiny example of a level 10 enemy.
• 23:20
  There are tons of monsters with this kind of ability where
• 23:23
  effectively the monster stat block creates a whole new
• 23:27
  mechanic just for that fight for that creature.
• 23:31
  And something where I think that's worth mentioning is one
• 23:34
  of the things I like most about stock the prey is it actively
• 23:38
  shows you that what you can do by using using a actions that
• 23:44
  you wouldn't normally think of, right?
• 23:48
  Like it's specifically stuff you use.
• 23:49
  Just basic attack. Yeah, like it says, when you
• 23:51
  prefer the guard action, that puts you in a mindset to where
• 23:54
  you can go, oh, I can use other action types to proc a.
• 23:58
  Special vote, other effects, yeah, yeah, right.
• 24:02
  And again, level 10 monster. So like not even that fancy
• 24:06
  'cause there are some other creatures such as Zernertra,
• 24:13
  Zerintra, the dragon goddess was Zurnitra.
• 24:16
  OK, I wasn't there. How to say.
• 24:17
  You look at those abilities and it's like, Jesus fucking Christ,
• 24:23
  there's so much shit in that step block.
• 24:25
  I love Bahama. I mean Zurnitra.
• 24:27
  She's so cool. Yeah.
• 24:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's basically an, it's a the
• 24:31
  dragon goddess. It's an homage to Bahama.
• 24:33
  It's a very obvious homage to Bahama.
• 24:36
  Another cool thing about the step block stuff.
• 24:38
  Each step block comes with a rotation, yeah.
• 24:42
  Yeah well, so we'll we'll get to that in a second, but that's
• 24:44
  another reason for me to say like this book is now mandatory
• 24:48
  reading. So Long story short, is the best
• 24:50
  theory worth it? Yes 110% yes.
• 24:54
  This book is like if you are jamming Fabula, this will be the
• 24:57
  most useful thing on the entire fucking planet.
• 25:00
  I I've I've already used it to shit load in all of like 3
• 25:04
  sessions. I'm already like this has saved
• 25:06
  my ass. So yes, all right, so As for the
• 25:11
  book, it's stealth. We'll skip the IT starts with a
• 25:17
  little before you start section. It talks about this.
• 25:26
  This book is is it is a best theory.
• 25:28
  It is a monster manual. It's also a little bit of ADMG
• 25:32
  type book too, because it does kind of guide you on not just
• 25:37
  not doesn't just give you the monsters.
• 25:39
  It also is like this is how you should use the monsters, right.
• 25:42
  This is how NPCS, this is how we expect NPCS to work in this
• 25:47
  game. So like the first bullet point
• 25:49
  it has is it says so it, it starts with a section called
• 25:53
  Game Masters principles, which is the idea of like, you know,
• 25:57
  how, how should you be thinking about using enemies in this
• 26:01
  game? And it starts with interesting
• 26:03
  and engaging. It's like your goal isn't to
• 26:06
  make each foe as strong and optimized as possible, but
• 26:09
  rather to showcase unique gameplay interactions.
• 26:12
  The NPC creation rules give you a lot of freedom.
• 26:15
  You could give an enemy a reaction skill, such as after
• 26:17
  this creature loses hit points, they deal 9 billion damage to
• 26:20
  every enemy they can see. And that would technically be
• 26:22
  allowed. This should illustrate that
• 26:25
  enemy design is not an arms race between you and the players.
• 26:28
  Such a race would be pointless as the the game master is
• 26:31
  granted unlimited resources. Instead, conflict scenes are a
• 26:34
  concert or perhaps a jam session in which the enemy design and
• 26:38
  the player's tactics and characters construction
• 26:43
  characters construction choices should sing together.
• 26:45
  Right? So it's like you don't just
• 26:50
  throw super optimized things like that's not the point.
• 26:54
  Then it mentions designed for your group, which is what I was
• 26:56
  saying before. When you're making an encounter,
• 27:00
  it needs to be for your players at your table, which means your
• 27:04
  encounters are not necessarily going to work at somebody else's
• 27:07
  table because you have to. You want to basically tailor
• 27:13
  make everything to some degree. I mean, you don't necessarily
• 27:16
  need to tailor make every little element, but you want to tailor
• 27:19
  make it to a point that it both works with the players and also
• 27:24
  challenges the players and also gels with the, the, the like the
• 27:28
  flow of your particular campaign.
• 27:29
  Because there's, there's so many, because the players have
• 27:33
  so many ways that they can build their characters, You as the GM
• 27:38
  have to be willing to build your NPCS in lots of different ways
• 27:42
  in order to fit all of the stuff they can potentially do or not
• 27:45
  do. There's the idea of node
• 27:49
  retrying, which basically it says in a video game you're kind
• 27:53
  of expected to lose when you fight a really hard boss, you're
• 27:56
  expected to lose, reload the game and try again with new
• 28:00
  knowledge. In Fabula or any other tabletop
• 28:03
  idea game, you can't really do the lose and retry thing, at
• 28:08
  least not baseline assumptions. You can't.
• 28:11
  So you need to make sure that players are able to learn about
• 28:14
  the opponent. It says no scripted defeats.
• 28:18
  This one I thought was really interesting and I'm half tempted
• 28:21
  to ignore it, but I also kind of get what they're getting at.
• 28:24
  Basically it's saying that you should never set up a conflict
• 28:27
  scene where the heroes are supposed to lose.
• 28:30
  It says if the enemy is currently unbeatable for
• 28:33
  narrative reasons, you should frame the conflict as an escape
• 28:37
  or a situation where the players need to survive for a specific
• 28:39
  number of rounds and make this information known.
• 28:44
  Even though scripted defeats are a thing in video games, you
• 28:49
  should reserve that element in Fabula as a way to to explain
• 28:56
  how the players lost the fight but weren't killed.
• 28:59
  Because in Fabula, when you go down, you don't die, you
• 29:02
  surrender. So if all the players surrender,
• 29:05
  that's your scripted defeat situation, right?
• 29:09
  So. I I get what they're saying.
• 29:10
  I the idea that the game is specifically saying don't make
• 29:16
  the scripted loss a fight, make it something else like a series
• 29:20
  of skill checks to determine what the degree of loss is.
• 29:24
  No, I, I I pretty much agree with that.
• 29:25
  It because ultimately if the players find out that they're
• 29:29
  supposed to lose, it's just going to feel shitty.
• 29:32
  So they're like, all right, so we just wasted 3 hours for
• 29:34
  nothing like. I both get it and I I get it and
• 29:37
  also kind of want to ignore it a little bit at the same time.
• 29:40
  I'm probably not going to, but there's a part of me that kind
• 29:42
  of wants to. And I, I get it, like on a
• 29:45
  player side you understand that that would feel like not great,
• 29:48
  but on AGM side you realize that there is some use to that kind
• 29:51
  of feeling. Yes, it it evokes a very
• 29:54
  specific vibe in the campaign. Yes, or or at the very least a
• 30:04
  very specific moment in the, the like narrative arc.
• 30:10
  And then we have the 90%, which is this one's kind of funny.
• 30:15
  If players make the right choices and figure out a good
• 30:17
  strategy, their odds of winning should be 90%, not 50%.
• 30:23
  So I was like oh OK they've already done what the game wants
• 30:27
  from them so they deserve it. Basically if like they figured
• 30:31
  out the Strat to win like then they've won.
• 30:34
  That's the point. In short, successful conflict
• 30:42
  design hinges on rewarding and punishing different strategies
• 30:46
  and character builds. Use the frant freedom Fram.
• 30:49
  What the fuck? Use the freedom granted by the
• 30:52
  NPC creation rules to set up situations where a less beloved
• 30:55
  ability is key to success and where an overused ability is
• 31:00
  initially negated but can shine later in the conflict.
• 31:04
  Basically like don't be in a situation where players can
• 31:08
  always go for the same answer all the time, and also don't be
• 31:12
  in a situation where the players never use a particular ability
• 31:15
  because the thing that the ability does just never comes
• 31:18
  up. Then it talks about some
• 31:24
  assumptions about the group. So basically the way they
• 31:29
  designed the the NPCS in this book is based on an average
• 31:38
  group of four player characters and they have a bulleted list
• 31:42
  and it basically says an average group of four players can do.
• 31:47
  And then it it's this big, I'm not going to read the whole
• 31:48
  list, but it's this big list of shit.
• 31:50
  Like it says 1 character can reliably restore hit points to
• 31:53
  three or more targets at once, and then there's another one
• 31:57
  that says like 1 character control the can control the flow
• 32:01
  of enemy damage through skills such as protect and provoke.
• 32:06
  Basically it's a bulleted list of like these are kind of the
• 32:09
  averages we assume when we design the monsters.
• 32:13
  Then it says, Needless to say, no group is going to match the
• 32:17
  average. Hence pre made enemy profiles
• 32:20
  usually need to be adapted to function correctly in a campaign
• 32:23
  and often act as a source of inspiration for the GM rather
• 32:26
  than something to use as is. Basically we designed it for
• 32:34
  averages, but we know that most groups are not going to be in
• 32:37
  that average. So you need to understand when
• 32:40
  you're looking at this book GM and when you're looking at a
• 32:43
  stat block, you probably will need to make some adjustments to
• 32:48
  it because it's there's a chance it doesn't fit your players
• 32:53
  perfectly or there's a chance that it like, you know, there's
• 32:58
  a chance that either your players completely stomp all
• 33:00
  over it or it completely stomps on your players or there's a
• 33:04
  mechanic that just doesn't work, yada, yada, yada.
• 33:06
  So you always have to be aware they designed for the average,
• 33:11
  but that doesn't mean everyone's going to hit the average.
• 33:13
  And again, because of how customizable, because of the
• 33:17
  customized customizability, custom what because of the
• 33:21
  potential to customize their BCS, you have like they could
• 33:29
  drift a lot from the average. This is also this book also
• 33:36
  assumed a group of four players. So like if you have two or three
• 33:41
  or if you have 5 or 6, you're gonna need to probably make
• 33:45
  adjustments there too. It it there's also immediately
• 33:49
  after it talks about the averages, it gives you some
• 33:52
  guidance on if your party is below average or above average.
• 33:57
  Here's how you can deal with it. It also says with the averages
• 34:01
  thing, if three or more of the above assumptions on the
• 34:07
  bulleted list are not met. So that bulleted list of like
• 34:12
  averages that they assume if your play, if your party of
• 34:16
  players doesn't hit like at least three of those, it's
• 34:20
  probably time to rethink how the characters have been built and
• 34:23
  improve the balance and distribution of roles within the
• 34:26
  group. That's another thing this book
• 34:29
  brings up and that Fabula as a game in general wants you to do.
• 34:35
  The idea of making the game work is not solely on the GM.
• 34:40
  It is expected of the players to also, when necessary, make
• 34:46
  adjustments. And if so, if the GM is like all
• 34:50
  right guys, you have literally no one who can heal.
• 34:54
  There is 0 healing in this party.
• 34:57
  Someone's going to have to make some character adjustments,
• 34:59
  otherwise it this is just not going to work.
• 35:01
  You know what I mean? Yeah, I I really appreciate the
• 35:03
  game that the game explicitly says the onus on on combat
• 35:07
  success is shared between GMN players.
• 35:10
  Yes, it's not like it's not AGM exclusive job, yeah, which is
• 35:14
  good that that. Something like D&D really feels
• 35:17
  like that's what the D the DMG is saying it it.
• 35:21
  It feels like DM, it feels like DND wants to say that the onus
• 35:25
  is on both sides of the table, but doesn't say it.
• 35:29
  Well, it gives you no choice to reinforce it like.
• 35:32
  Yeah. Like it doesn't want to.
• 35:33
  It's like they kind of want to imply it but not say it
• 35:36
  explicitly. And so you end up in this
• 35:39
  situation where culturally, yeah, I think people assume it
• 35:42
  is all on the GM. But that is largely unfair
• 35:46
  because the GM is also a player of the game, right?
• 35:50
  Like they are partaking in the fun.
• 35:53
  Their side of the fun is different, but they're still
• 35:56
  partaking in it. So yeah, it should be a group
• 36:00
  thing. It is a cooperative thing,
• 36:03
  right? Like you wouldn't, it'd be like
• 36:06
  if you were playing a board game And well, maybe that's not a
• 36:11
  good example because people do that sometimes.
• 36:13
  What's a better? It'd be like if you were playing
• 36:16
  chess and the person you're playing against was like using
• 36:20
  different rules just 'cause they felt like it and you're like,
• 36:24
  wait a minute. The thing we agreed to do was a
• 36:27
  collaborative game of chess where we follow to say like, you
• 36:30
  can't. That's not like we agreed to do
• 36:32
  this, You know what I mean? Yeah, the players being like, I
• 36:35
  can't believe you beat me. Like, yeah, that's that's the
• 36:39
  point of the game. That's the point, yeah.
• 36:43
  And so yes, the the this book, this book and and fabulous at
• 36:48
  large is very explicit on that. Then it talks a bit about
• 36:54
  communication and what the GM should tell the play outside.
• 37:04
  I'll just read this whole paragraph.
• 37:06
  Outside of enemy profiles and rules, there's one aspect of a
• 37:09
  conflict that isn't that is essential to make the battle
• 37:11
  fair and balanced communication. Essentially, this means what
• 37:15
  information the GM decides to provide and how they do so.
• 37:19
  This makes a world of difference and can transform a simple
• 37:21
  conflict into a nightmare into a true nightmare, just as it can
• 37:26
  make a powerful and extremely punishing foe into an
• 37:28
  interesting, fair, and highly interactive challenge.
• 37:32
  The list below summarizes information the Game Master is
• 37:35
  always expected to clearly and explicit.
• 37:39
  Expected to provide clearly and explicitly without paraphrasing.
• 37:46
  The thing that I think is really interesting is a couple of
• 37:48
  these. I wouldn't have thought to do
• 37:52
  that. So you should always say if a
• 37:56
  creature's in crisis, OK, Yep. Which is when they hit half HP,
• 38:00
  that's fine. I've been doing that.
• 38:02
  When a creature suffers damage, you should reveal their affinity
• 38:06
  to the damage type. I've been doing that always say
• 38:12
  when a creature loses, recovers or spends hit points or mind
• 38:15
  points and how many. I did not expect the how many
• 38:20
  part. I have not been doing that.
• 38:24
  I always. Necessarily feel like that's
• 38:26
  necessary. Like on the player side, I don't
• 38:29
  know if I feel like that's necessary.
• 38:32
  Well, this is the GM. This is the GM specific.
• 38:35
  I know, but like, you know, I, I in theory, right?
• 38:38
  You're doing it for the player's benefit.
• 38:40
  But it's funny because I as a player, I'm like, I don't think
• 38:42
  I need to know that, but I don't know, like you don't care.
• 38:44
  You're saying, I see. Like it's, it's information
• 38:47
  that's good to know. But like, that's like, you know,
• 38:52
  in the same way that I don't want to know exactly how much
• 38:55
  health the bad guy has, You know what I'm saying?
• 38:58
  I like doing the like, OK, so we've done 200 points of damage.
• 39:01
  It's probably resistant to about 1/3 of that.
• 39:03
  So we got to figure out like, I like that.
• 39:04
  I like the the, the the mystery of like and now it's in crisis
• 39:08
  and everyone goes, Oh my God, thank God.
• 39:09
  You know what I mean? Like if I know that I've got 350
• 39:12
  hills it it takes the wonder away.
• 39:15
  Pointing out, well, this. Isn't.
• 39:17
  No no, only when it loses recovers or spends, not how much
• 39:21
  it has. Right, so this is saying if an
• 39:26
  enemy uses a regeneration ability and regains 20 HP, you
• 39:30
  tell the players he regained 20 HP.
• 39:32
  You don't say what his HP is at. Oh, my bad.
• 39:35
  OK, Yeah, yeah, no, then that's right.
• 39:37
  Yeah, that, that's better. It's it's the thing in Final
• 39:40
  Fantasy where the enemy uses a regeneration ability and the
• 39:43
  green number pops up right? That's what this is saying.
• 39:48
  Not what is their health at, but how many points do they regain,
• 39:54
  which I have I have not been doing.
• 39:58
  Then it also says always say which status effects a creature
• 40:01
  is currently suffering from. I've basically been doing that
• 40:06
  Always declare defense and magic defense scores when those scores
• 40:09
  are used to establish the difficulty level.
• 40:12
  Basically always tell the players the armor class they're
• 40:14
  trying to hit, which I also haven't been doing.
• 40:17
  I was like OK, declare the results of a role and what the
• 40:21
  creature's high role is. I have been doing that.
• 40:24
  I've been rolling in the open. Basically this game says always
• 40:27
  roll in the open. Always repeat information.
• 40:32
  This is just good habit in any game, I think.
• 40:34
  But I they're saying it explicitly.
• 40:36
  Always repeat any information the players have already
• 40:39
  obtained about a creature. If that information changes or
• 40:44
  is no longer applicable, the Game Master is expected at the
• 40:46
  very least to say which elements have changed and may opt to
• 40:50
  reveal how they changed. If they do not reveal that
• 40:53
  information, players are allowed to examine the creature's
• 40:55
  profile again, and then always communicate the effects of
• 41:03
  spells, attack spells, unique actions, and special rules as
• 41:06
  soon as they influence a player character in any way.
• 41:09
  So the example they give is if a boss has a power like a special
• 41:13
  ability where they become resentful of a target and lets
• 41:15
  them deal extra damage when the boss triggers that resentful or
• 41:20
  when the player triggers the resentful ability on the boss,
• 41:22
  you should explicitly tell the player that that happened.
• 41:27
  Another thing that I would not have necessarily thought to do
• 41:30
  myself, but I guess I will now. So which is good.
• 41:38
  I mean that that's a good one to know for sure.
• 41:45
  Then we have. So then it talks about, and
• 41:48
  Isaiah mentioned this before, the routine, the routines that
• 41:53
  the monsters have. So every stat block in this game
• 41:57
  has a tactic routine and which is to say like a rotation of
• 42:03
  what order they do their abilities in.
• 42:07
  So for example the death knight has a relatively simple routine
• 42:11
  where he does frightful swing, deaths, bitter embrace and then
• 42:14
  infernal flash slash. Then he restarts those 3
• 42:18
  abilities. Observe this routine.
• 42:21
  Players can assume they will have a moment of respite between
• 42:24
  Frightful Frightful Swing and Infernal Slash each round, since
• 42:29
  Death's Bitter Embrace doesn't deal damage or cause immediate
• 42:32
  negative effects. Basically what the game is
• 42:37
  saying with this whole bit is that they provide tactics for
• 42:43
  each of the monsters, each of the NPCS, and like what order
• 42:47
  they do things in. And the reason you do that is A,
• 42:51
  because it's kind of a reference to JRPGS and how they work, but
• 42:55
  B, also because it lets your players be able to plan more
• 43:00
  tact tactically. Tactically.
• 43:03
  Tactically, tactically is not A. Word no.
• 43:07
  Well, tactfully is with better tactly.
• 43:10
  Is different. I was you do something
• 43:12
  tactically. I was trying to say tactfully,
• 43:14
  Yeah, Yeah, tactically, tactically, tactically is the
• 43:18
  word I wanted there. Basically, they say the point is
• 43:20
  the players can plan more if they know, OK, the monster does
• 43:24
  this ability and then this ability and this ability.
• 43:26
  All right, So on turn 3, he's gonna do a big AOE ability,
• 43:29
  which means everybody needs to prepare.
• 43:31
  But on turn 1, he's just gonna like, you know, he's gonna heal
• 43:35
  himself, which means we can not. We cannot.
• 43:38
  We don't have to worry about incoming damage on turn 1.
• 43:41
  And it's the idea that that's part of the tactical element of
• 43:44
  this game, of that kind of planning around things.
• 43:48
  I have been trying to do this and sort of failing because I
• 43:53
  honestly just keep forgetting. But you know, that's just a I'm
• 44:00
  trying. I just keep forgetting.
• 44:02
  No, I mean, I think it's it's it's a difficult thing to engage
• 44:05
  because you have, you know, assuming the routines thing, you
• 44:09
  kind of have to not necessarily disregard what's in the best
• 44:13
  interest of the monster, but it just I mean, it's a little
• 44:18
  anathema to how you are. You think about playing the
• 44:21
  game, right. I as player don't think about it
• 44:24
  as well. I really need to heal, but my,
• 44:27
  my, you know, my rotation says that I should rotation.
• 44:30
  I I should fail cleave. But yeah, I, I think it's just
• 44:37
  a, it's a, it's like a, an artifact of the, the player
• 44:40
  basing side of things. And also like you don't also
• 44:46
  say. Like D and DA game, like D&D
• 44:50
  tells you always to do the most. I mean, they even said they
• 44:54
  designed the monster stat blocks.
• 44:56
  The the OR they they base the CR numbers of monsters under the
• 45:01
  assumption that the GM is always doing the most advantageous
• 45:05
  thing possible for the monster, right?
• 45:07
  Always going for the best option, right?
• 45:10
  Like that was how they balanced or that was how they calculate.
• 45:12
  That was part of how they calculated CR.
• 45:14
  So a game like that is like, yes, always do the most optimal
• 45:19
  option and then fabulous no, have a specific order of things.
• 45:24
  And part of the reason you want to have a specific order of
• 45:27
  things, which I forgot to say before, is if you have really
• 45:32
  powerful abilities but the players know OK, Like you're
• 45:38
  fighting a dragon and the players know OK, on turn 3, the
• 45:41
  dragon uses its breath weapon. You, as the GM, can make the
• 45:45
  breath weapon really dangerous and scary because the players
• 45:50
  always know it's on turn 3, so they have time to prepare for
• 45:53
  that. So it lets you swing a little
• 45:56
  harder because you're giving them that information.
• 45:58
  Essentially, as the game puts it, it's tough but fair because
• 46:03
  it's a really, it's a strong and dangerous thing, but they have
• 46:07
  the knowledge so they can respond.
• 46:12
  Which is actually, funny enough, something that I've talked about
• 46:15
  doing in D&D before anyway, like the idea of making an ability
• 46:19
  really strong, but as long as you give the players
• 46:22
  forewarning, then you have more wiggle room.
• 46:24
  I've like, yeah, so fabulous. Like, yes, that's how that
• 46:28
  should work. After the whole tactics bit, it
• 46:35
  talks about ranks and parts. This is this is in the base
• 46:40
  game. It's just the idea that enemies
• 46:43
  are either soldier elites or champions and what that what
• 46:48
  that kind of means for how you design them.
• 46:49
  And then the parts thing is just you can break up a big single
• 46:54
  monster into multiple parts. So for example, if you have a
• 46:59
  big golem thing, the golem could be broken up into 33 separate
• 47:04
  stat blocks where it's like golem body, golem legs, golem
• 47:08
  arms, and those three-step separate stat blocks.
• 47:12
  Mechanically, you're treating kind of like 3 enemies, but
• 47:16
  fictionally it's just one big enemy.
• 47:19
  The main reason, one of the main reasons you want to do that is
• 47:22
  because there's a lot of abilities in the game that
• 47:24
  specifically function around the idea of hitting multiple targets
• 47:28
  or having multiple targets. And so if you're constantly
• 47:31
  throwing singular enemies at your players, you are negating a
• 47:36
  bunch of abilities in the game that are for multiple enemies.
• 47:40
  For the the easy example being the multi attacks which allows
• 47:45
  you to hit multiple enemies with a singular attack roll.
• 47:48
  That is a useless power like the weapon masters.
• 47:51
  Bladestorm is a completely useless skill if the players
• 47:55
  never fight more than one big enemy.
• 47:57
  Keep single target attacking, yeah.
• 48:00
  Yeah, so the game is like, if you want to throw single enemies
• 48:04
  at them a lot, break them up into parts, then there's a
• 48:10
  little talk about elemental interactions and how those work.
• 48:13
  Basically, it's just there's like a Pokémon style, this these
• 48:19
  elements are strong against this, blah, blah, blah.
• 48:23
  Nothing crazy there. Well, it's interesting that they
• 48:28
  put they they have a Holy Trinity, right?
• 48:30
  They've got earth, lightning and wind, but fire and ice are not
• 48:34
  part of that. Like I, I don't, you know.
• 48:37
  Fire and Ice pose each other directly.
• 48:40
  Yeah, but like usually expect them to be part of like a
• 48:43
  quintessent, you know? Yeah, yeah, they broke it up
• 48:48
  kind of weird. Yeah, light and dark, you always
• 48:51
  it's you like it's own thing. Yeah, the Fire and Ice I.
• 48:54
  Guess yeah. Yeah, basically what Isaiah is
• 48:56
  saying is that Earth, lightning, wind are in their own little
• 48:59
  triangle, and then fire and ice are broken up as opposing, and
• 49:02
  then light and dark are also opposing.
• 49:06
  And then physical and poison don't belong to anything.
• 49:09
  They're kind of their own things.
• 49:12
  So it's a little, it's a little weirder than Pokémon, but it's
• 49:15
  kind of that idea. Then there's this section about
• 49:24
  pacing, what it phrases as pacing, dynamism, stability,
• 49:31
  basically don't basically, you always need to balance the idea
• 49:38
  of don't make a fight too Sammy by nothing ever changing.
• 49:44
  But there needs to be some degree of stability.
• 49:47
  Like the rules of the fight can't change every single turn
• 49:51
  because then it just becomes impossible for the players to
• 49:54
  learn the strategy of what they need to do to beat the thing.
• 49:59
  Right? So it's that that balancing act,
• 50:03
  the more stuff changes, the more interesting a fight can be.
• 50:07
  But if you change things too much, it just becomes
• 50:11
  aggravating and frustrating because the players can't
• 50:13
  actually learn anything about their opponent and then they
• 50:16
  can't actually employ any strategies.
• 50:22
  And then it goes and talking about the idea of pig
• 50:28
  piggybacking off of that idea of dynamism and stability, it goes
• 50:31
  into frequency and effect Frequency basically saying how
• 50:38
  you know you wanna. If an ability basically comes
• 50:43
  down to if an ability happens a lot, then it can't be too
• 50:48
  powerful or too overwhelming. If an ability happens less
• 50:51
  often, it can hit harder, right? It can have a bigger effect if
• 50:56
  it doesn't happen. So for example, if you have an
• 50:58
  effect that happens only when an enemy hits Crisis, which is when
• 51:02
  they hit half HP, that's only probably going to happen most
• 51:07
  likely once during a fight. It can happen a few more, it can
• 51:11
  happen more than once if they heal, but it's not going to
• 51:13
  happen that often. So you can make that a little
• 51:16
  more impactful. But if you have an ability
• 51:18
  that's like every time this enemy takes damage, that's going
• 51:21
  to happen a lot, you got to be a little more careful.
• 51:28
  And it's just, yeah, it's just that idea.
• 51:31
  It's an idea that I've talked about a lot in games where, you
• 51:34
  know, if an ability doesn't come up, this is a thing that this
• 51:39
  this comes up a lot with the Ranger in DND, right?
• 51:41
  We've talked about this a bunch. If the ability doesn't come up
• 51:45
  that often, then make it really, really powerful, right?
• 51:48
  The Rangers favored terrain back in the day didn't come up very
• 51:55
  often, but also it wasn't very good.
• 51:59
  So even when it didn't come up, it didn't really matter that
• 52:01
  much. Instead, OK, if it's not going
• 52:05
  to come up a lot, make it a big deal when it does come up, you
• 52:13
  know not to go down the the DND. What the fuck rabbit hole.
• 52:18
  But yeah, fabulous. In agreement with me on this
• 52:22
  one. Basically I don't know you have
• 52:30
  anything to add on that before I move.
• 52:32
  No, I mean I, I like I, I also I, I fought my urges to not do
• 52:36
  the shit on D&D train thing and then it just kind of goes to it
• 52:40
  reinforces that D&D refused to learn from its contemporaries
• 52:44
  when its contemporaries are constantly learning from it,
• 52:47
  mainly its shortcomings. So learning from it and then go
• 52:51
  and then moving beyond it, yeah. Yeah, and iterating on it to not
• 52:56
  perfection, but you know, yeah, to a high degrees of success at
• 53:02
  the very least. Yeah, also I'll another thing it
• 53:08
  mentions with the effect bit too is like the changing of the
• 53:13
  enemy state should not invalidate the player
• 53:16
  character's options completely. You know, like you what you want
• 53:21
  to do when the the situation changes is go from encouraging
• 53:26
  one particular angle of attack to encouraging a different one,
• 53:30
  right. So for example, oh, the monsters
• 53:33
  week to fire. OK, now for some reason the
• 53:36
  monster's weak to ice. So the player who is dealing all
• 53:38
  the fire damage is like, ah shit, OK, I can't hit them
• 53:40
  anymore. So now we have to switch up
• 53:42
  who's our person dealing damage, right?
• 53:44
  That kind of idea, you don't want it to be a thing where it's
• 53:47
  like the monster just can't be hit now.
• 53:51
  Yeah, the the monster is the weak to light.
• 53:52
  Does anyone have that? No DM, you know, we don't have
• 53:54
  that. Oh, that's a shame.
• 53:55
  Yeah, right. You're right.
• 53:57
  Yeah, you don't. Yes, you want to avoid that.
• 53:58
  Again, building for your group. If you know none of your players
• 54:02
  can deal light in any way, don't do that.
• 54:07
  Or if you want to do it, you know, do it as a specific like,
• 54:12
  oh shit, this enemy is a problem.
• 54:14
  Like make it a moment, but don't make don't make it so that every
• 54:19
  single monster they come across is only weak to light damage.
• 54:23
  Right? Like that kind of idea too.
• 54:26
  Then there's a there's a troubleshooting page, which I
• 54:29
  think is really funny. It's basically, it's kind of
• 54:31
  like an FAQ page of oh, my players do this a lot.
• 54:36
  How can I deal with it? It's a bunch of responses to
• 54:38
  deal with different problems. I'm not going to go through it
• 54:40
  because it's kind of long, but it's a kind of funny,
• 54:43
  interesting troubleshooting page that gives you different ideas
• 54:46
  about how to handle, you know, stuff like my players are overly
• 54:50
  optimized or my players are the opposite.
• 54:54
  My players screwed themselves over and I didn't realize it.
• 54:58
  Or, you know, they can. Why can they flick, inflict so
• 55:02
  many goddamn status effects and shit like that.
• 55:07
  Then then we get to the real, the meat, and I guess not the
• 55:13
  meat and potatoes, but the real showcase of this book, in my
• 55:17
  opinion. Obviously the compendium with
• 55:21
  all of the stat blocks is a big deal and one of the big focuses
• 55:24
  of the book, obviously, right? It's a monster book.
• 55:27
  It's the best area. The quick assembly, however, I
• 55:32
  really feel like is it's cool and it really is like the most
• 55:37
  useful thing in the book. So essentially the core game had
• 55:44
  rules for designing your own NPCS.
• 55:48
  Designing NPCS, though, could be quite cumbersome in this game.
• 55:51
  And by quite cumbersome, I mean like a single stat block taking
• 55:54
  you over an hour, right? So the quick assembly is
• 56:02
  ultimately actually not that different from the way the from
• 56:10
  the original MPC design system. It just reorganizes things and
• 56:17
  makes it a little clearer, a little easier.
• 56:22
  And basically it gives you more lists of things to pick from,
• 56:26
  which is always easier than coming up with something
• 56:28
  yourself, right? Which the core book kind of
• 56:30
  expects you to come up with your shit yourself.
• 56:32
  It doesn't give you like a big list.
• 56:35
  So it gives you a list and it also just organizes the enemies,
• 56:41
  the NPCS that you're making in such a fashion that it just
• 56:46
  makes your life easier is the only way I could put it, because
• 56:49
  it it sort of does some of the thinking for you.
• 56:53
  They call it the quick assembly method.
• 56:56
  It's not that much faster. I'm going to be clear on this.
• 57:01
  They say on average, using the quick assembly, half the amount
• 57:05
  of time required to design MPCS. I will be honest, I think that's
• 57:10
  a little bit of cap. That's a little bit of cap I was
• 57:13
  about to say. So that was a fucking lie.
• 57:17
  It's, it's a little bit of cap. I wouldn't say half.
• 57:21
  It does cut. It does cut down on the time a
• 57:23
  little bit. But for me the value of the
• 57:26
  quick assembly is less about the speed and more about the doing
• 57:31
  some of the thinking for me. So I don't get as stressed out,
• 57:34
  you know what I mean? Yeah.
• 57:37
  Like it offloads some of the ideas by presenting them in a
• 57:41
  list and presenting them in a fashion that I can use as a
• 57:46
  starting point to then jump off of.
• 57:49
  So the way I would describe it personally, the quick assembly
• 57:57
  method is the normal method for designing.
• 58:02
  Like if I were to recreate the books, I would make the quick
• 58:05
  assembly the default way to design NPCS and then I would
• 58:10
  make the the way that's in the core book, the if you want to do
• 58:14
  a more advanced version of NPC design, here's that option.
• 58:19
  That's what I would say. Like I would rephrase it as like
• 58:23
  normal method and more like more complicated method.
• 58:27
  Yeah. Not even really more
• 58:28
  complicated, just a little more intricate, more in depth.
• 58:33
  More in depth, yeah, because the big thing about the old method
• 58:39
  of MPC design in in the core book is that it really, it
• 58:45
  doesn't hold your hand at all. It really expects you to
• 58:48
  basically expects you to have a bunch of cool ideas for what you
• 58:51
  want to do and then turn them into mechanics and like that's
• 58:55
  it, which obviously is not is not bad.
• 59:00
  It could just be hard sometimes, especially when you're, if
• 59:05
  you've played Fabio already, different story, but especially
• 59:09
  if you're new to the game as I was when I started running the
• 59:12
  game, it could be hard to be like, OK, what can I, what
• 59:15
  mechanically speaking, what can I do with this game?
• 59:19
  What I have learned from running this game for, I don't know, a
• 59:23
  while now at this point is a lot.
• 59:27
  Mechanically, you could do a lot, like more than you would
• 59:30
  think. A lot of the time it seems like
• 59:34
  you don't necessarily like sometimes it looks like you
• 59:37
  don't have that many options, but you do.
• 59:40
  They're just not immediately apparent.
• 59:42
  Does that make sense? Yeah, Yeah.
• 59:48
  So what is the So what? How does the quick assembly
• 59:51
  actually work? So basically, no.
• 59:57
  Basically the way it works is you pick a role for the NPC.
• 1:00:02
  So they're either going to be a brute, a hunter, a mage, A
• 1:00:05
  saboteur, a Sentinel, or a support.
• 1:00:10
  Once you have picked the role, you then have a list of role
• 1:00:15
  options and role skills and customizations within the SAT
• 1:00:22
  block and. Basically the book I I'm saying
• 1:00:28
  basically too much the book walks you through just like in
• 1:00:33
  the in the core book, the book walks you through a series of
• 1:00:35
  steps and with the quick assembly, it's a lot more of
• 1:00:40
  picking from a list type steps. So you you decide on the roll
• 1:00:48
  and then you decide on the MP CS level.
• 1:00:52
  In the quick assembly the level can only be multiples of 10,
• 1:00:56
  whereas in the core books it can be multiples of five.
• 1:01:00
  So it's slightly less granular. Which honestly, in Fabula
• 1:01:05
  arguably doesn't matter that much because an enemy within 10
• 1:01:09
  levels. Of the players.
• 1:01:13
  Not a ton, because the thing about the way the way enemies
• 1:01:19
  scale, the way players and enemies scale, only 10 level
• 1:01:26
  jumps really matter. The five level differences are
• 1:01:29
  not that influential. For example, MPCS get a bonus to
• 1:01:35
  their like to their accuracy every 10 levels, right?
• 1:01:43
  So the difference between 20 and 25 doesn't matter, but the
• 1:01:47
  difference from 20 to 30 does mean that the monster gets a
• 1:01:52
  higher accuracy bonus, which means they are going to hit more
• 1:01:55
  often and their damage goes up every 10 levels ish.
• 1:02:01
  There's some yeah, more or less so multiples of 10, which is
• 1:02:07
  might sound weird, but with the way this game works is fine.
• 1:02:13
  Obviously, once you've decided on the MP CS profile type, which
• 1:02:17
  is to say the the roles I was talking about you, you know, you
• 1:02:20
  give them their hit points and their attributes and their mind
• 1:02:22
  points and all that stuff. Those are all going to be in the
• 1:02:27
  stat block of the typing. So if you make an enemy a brute,
• 1:02:31
  all the brute enemies by default have a decks of 6 and inside of
• 1:02:36
  or sorry, a decks of eight and inside of 6 mite 10 willpower 8.
• 1:02:40
  And then they all start with 70 HP, 45 mind points.
• 1:02:44
  So when you select the role, that stuff is like set by
• 1:02:48
  default. You can always tweak this
• 1:02:50
  obviously, but that's the default if they're a champion
• 1:02:55
  level NPC, which is to say you know champion is a ranking type
• 1:03:00
  in this game. If they're a champion, you can
• 1:03:02
  give them boss skills. You also have the option for
• 1:03:05
  negative skills which is literally you give them a
• 1:03:09
  downgrade to give them another potential role or another
• 1:03:13
  potential boss skill. So you give them a downgrade for
• 1:03:15
  another upgrade. Then you want to decide on your
• 1:03:18
  species for your NPC which will add a couple of species based
• 1:03:23
  skills, skills and or customizations.
• 1:03:28
  Then obviously give them a name and a give them names and traits
• 1:03:32
  and then write down their tactics slash routine.
• 1:03:38
  In terms of the what each of those roles are 'cause I I
• 1:03:43
  mentioned them a name, but for the sake of description, they
• 1:03:46
  all they're pretty much what they sound like.
• 1:03:48
  Brute are your big guys with lots of health.
• 1:03:52
  They don't necessarily hit the hardest and they don't and they
• 1:03:55
  don't have high defense. They're just fucking thick boys.
• 1:04:01
  Hunters are your squishier type guys, but they generally hit
• 1:04:05
  real hard and will have a couple of different attack options.
• 1:04:11
  Mages are mages. They are the squishiest but will
• 1:04:18
  also have a bunch of different spell options.
• 1:04:21
  Hunters are your physical damage dealers.
• 1:04:23
  Mages are your magical damage dealers.
• 1:04:25
  Which is relevant in Fabula because you have things like
• 1:04:28
  magic defense and physical defense are two separate stats,
• 1:04:32
  so that is a relevant distinction.
• 1:04:37
  Saboteurs are your debuffers, basically.
• 1:04:41
  They're not. They don't hit the hardest,
• 1:04:43
  they're not the toughest, they don't even have anything that
• 1:04:47
  fancy necessarily, but they debuff the players so that their
• 1:04:50
  buddies can hurt the players more.
• 1:04:53
  So like if you have a saboteur with the hunter, the saboteur
• 1:04:56
  goes debuff the players, the hunter hits the player, the
• 1:04:59
  player takes more damage, that kind of shit.
• 1:05:03
  Sentinels are your big health guys, your tanks, your protector
• 1:05:08
  type roles. Sentinels are gonna be like your
• 1:05:12
  most common soldier rank enemies are generally going to be
• 1:05:16
  Sentinels because the idea is that the minions are protecting
• 1:05:20
  their boss, right? So the Sentinels are going to be
• 1:05:22
  the knight in armor with a big shield and a sword is a Sentinel
• 1:05:26
  who's protecting his squishy mage buddy.
• 1:05:29
  That's that's what the Sentinels are for.
• 1:05:32
  I was kind of curious about the Sentinel thing because I feel
• 1:05:34
  like Sentinel and Brute are filling similar niches.
• 1:05:43
  So Brute it specifically says that brutes are generally
• 1:05:48
  intended to be solo or smaller group enemies.
• 1:05:55
  So it says if you go to the Brute section, it says soldier
• 1:05:58
  brutes are not very common since soldiers are designed to be
• 1:06:01
  dispatched quickly, and for brutes it's the opposite.
• 1:06:06
  Nonetheless, they can be used to represent Hardy bruisers and
• 1:06:09
  bulky monsters, especially those that get stronger when in
• 1:06:11
  crisis. It says elite Brutes are
• 1:06:13
  frequent, providing a middle ground between a normal foe and
• 1:06:16
  a champion. They have enough hit points to
• 1:06:18
  withstand a few heavy blows, but don't qualify as bosses.
• 1:06:22
  This rank is perfect for strong monsters and imposing creatures,
• 1:06:25
  accompanying a patrol of hunters or saboteurs.
• 1:06:28
  And then like, champion brutes are like big Gamuka guy.
• 1:06:33
  If you look at the art in the Brute section, it's a big
• 1:06:35
  fucking dinosaur. There's a reason for that.
• 1:06:38
  It's T Rex, yeah. Right.
• 1:06:40
  Like, yeah, it's funny. Yeah.
• 1:06:41
  It's a big T Rex monster thing. It's an armed corner.
• 1:06:45
  Yes, it is. The mage is a mech.
• 1:06:48
  Yeah, the brute art, it kind of looks like, almost like a devil
• 1:06:50
  hoe or something like that. So the intention.
• 1:06:54
  Is that it was Devil Joe as well.
• 1:06:57
  Yeah, it it has that vibe for sure.
• 1:07:00
  The intention is basically that, yeah, the brutes are, they're
• 1:07:03
  not protectors, they're just big meat Shields.
• 1:07:06
  The sabot or the Sentinels have abilities like if you go down
• 1:07:10
  and look at some of the role skills that Sentinels have, they
• 1:07:12
  have abilities where they actively stop.
• 1:07:16
  Like they can literally stop you from hitting other targets.
• 1:07:20
  They can be like, no, no, you have to hit me.
• 1:07:22
  Or they can give abilities that can help other, you know, their
• 1:07:26
  allies resist things and stuff like that.
• 1:07:30
  Whereas Brute's abilities are like me, big me punch like me
• 1:07:34
  have health and me hit things. And like Brutes have an ability,
• 1:07:38
  for example, when they go down to 0 HP, they stop at 1:00 and
• 1:07:43
  then they have an ability where when they go down to zero, they
• 1:07:46
  attack. They attack whoever took them
• 1:07:49
  out right as they're going down. So like that kind of shit.
• 1:07:53
  You using the caveman talk? I unga, therefore I bunga.
• 1:07:57
  I bunga yeah and then the last roll type is support, which the
• 1:08:05
  saboteurs are your debuffer, the support is your buffer.
• 1:08:09
  The support helps out you know, helps out their buddies, gives
• 1:08:12
  them buffs, you know, increase dye and healing or help with
• 1:08:18
  vulnerabilities or shit like that.
• 1:08:24
  The you'll also see when in the quick assembly section, if an
• 1:08:30
  enemy is an elite or a champion, it says to do things like give
• 1:08:35
  them extra hit points, give them extra initiative points, give
• 1:08:37
  them an additional skill. If they're a champion, it says
• 1:08:41
  like multiply their hit points by X, double their mind points,
• 1:08:44
  give them a + X to their initiative, blah blah blah.
• 1:08:46
  Based on the X being what? How many soldiers the Champions
• 1:08:53
  are placing? Cause the way champions work is
• 1:08:55
  if something is champion 4 that means it's equivalent to 4
• 1:08:58
  soldier type enemies and then also a champion.
• 1:09:01
  You give a boss skill and then you'll see the level ranges
• 1:09:05
  going from 10 to 60. If they're level 10, give them
• 1:09:09
  this. If they're level 20, give them
• 1:09:10
  this. When they hit level 30, give
• 1:09:11
  them this. Buff or not buff, but upgrade, I
• 1:09:14
  suppose it, it might sound like I'm glossing over a bit or a
• 1:09:21
  little bit. The quick assembly is really,
• 1:09:23
  really good. It's just there's not much to
• 1:09:26
  talk. It's it's straightforward and
• 1:09:28
  gets the job done and but when you look at it, you're like, ah,
• 1:09:32
  OK, I get this, you know, like it.
• 1:09:35
  It's very easy to figure out very quickly.
• 1:09:40
  And as someone who's I've actually been using the quick
• 1:09:43
  ability for a while now because there was a playtest document
• 1:09:48
  that came out quite a bit before the bestiary that had the had a
• 1:09:52
  beta version of the quick assembly rules.
• 1:09:55
  And they are almost identical to the rules that are in this book.
• 1:09:58
  So I've been using this system for a while now, like and by a
• 1:10:03
  while. I'm talking 10 plus sessions,
• 1:10:07
  probably more than that and it works great.
• 1:10:11
  I'm sure especially. What?
• 1:10:14
  Well, I, I wanted to, to go into the like we, we talked about the
• 1:10:17
  customizations and the, the role skills, but I really want to go
• 1:10:20
  into those because they're like, again, when you're talking about
• 1:10:22
  the hunter, which is the most common enemy you're going to
• 1:10:25
  fight of basic enemies, they really are Sentinel.
• 1:10:30
  Yeah. They really allow you to
• 1:10:33
  completely change the game and and make it so that 2 hunter
• 1:10:37
  combats will never feel the exact same.
• 1:10:41
  An oppressive degree. It is worth noting though, they
• 1:10:46
  do give you plenty of good options.
• 1:10:47
  That's true, However you will see I I I forget where it says
• 1:10:53
  it, but somewhere in the quick assembly section it says the
• 1:10:58
  quick assembly rules are sort of intentionally limited.
• 1:11:03
  Like they didn't give you an insanely long list of options
• 1:11:07
  for skills and stuff. They gave you quite a bit to
• 1:11:10
  work with, but you will eventually run out.
• 1:11:12
  And the intention is you are supposed to run out because that
• 1:11:16
  means you can start coming up with your own after you've
• 1:11:19
  exhausted the list. So it's kind of like you use it
• 1:11:23
  quick assembly method and then eventually you'll be like, all
• 1:11:26
  right now I can do it myself. Yeah, of course.
• 1:11:30
  I just like, well, so you know, first thought, the amount of
• 1:11:36
  fights I think you'd have to do with individual enemies for you
• 1:11:40
  to run out of those mix and matches is a lot like, yes, they
• 1:11:45
  are limited, but roll skill hunter assuming what?
• 1:11:48
  So what is a common enemy that we'd be facing at about level
• 1:11:52
  30? How many roll skills would they
• 1:11:54
  have and how many customizations would you give them for a
• 1:11:56
  soldier level enemy? Customization.
• 1:12:02
  They would probably have one, at least one of them there and then
• 1:12:09
  roll skills. They would end up with like one
• 1:12:14
  or two I think. So like the idea that you could
• 1:12:19
  have emergency camouflage mixed with something like strong
• 1:12:23
  attack and ambush. So emergency camouflage
• 1:12:25
  basically says when this NPC enters crisis for the first time
• 1:12:29
  during a scene, they become invisible to all enemies to the
• 1:12:31
  start of their next turn. And then you can give them
• 1:12:34
  something like strong attack which targets their magic
• 1:12:37
  defence as opposed to their defence, and then give them
• 1:12:39
  ambush during the OR. No, not ambush.
• 1:12:42
  Where is it? Was it Hunter's bait?
• 1:12:47
  Yeah. After an enemy attack hits or
• 1:12:49
  misses the NPC, choose one melee, ranged or offensive
• 1:12:54
  spell. If the result of the accuracy
• 1:12:55
  check or majesty is an even number, NPC performs a free
• 1:12:58
  normal attack against that enemy.
• 1:12:59
  So the idea being like you, they jump into hiding, you would try
• 1:13:04
  to hit them and miss and they come out of nowhere and do like
• 1:13:07
  a cool assassinate ability. But you could also give them
• 1:13:11
  opportunist and something like strong attack again, which would
• 1:13:15
  make them more of like a sword master, which is kind of cool.
• 1:13:18
  You know, you can use target lock to make them more of like a
• 1:13:20
  hunter who's who's using a bow. Like the amount of things you
• 1:13:23
  can do with just the hunter stat block alone fills so many niches
• 1:13:28
  that you also have 8910 stats in one.
• 1:13:34
  It is also worth pointing out too you can technically so rules
• 1:13:41
  is written. They don't tell you to do this,
• 1:13:43
  but as I just said before, they expect you to go beyond the
• 1:13:47
  limitations of the quick assembly.
• 1:13:48
  Eventually you could steal abilities from the other roles
• 1:13:55
  and slot them into a different one too.
• 1:13:57
  I was going to bring that up to you.
• 1:13:58
  You have no reason not to. Yeah, I can take this maze
• 1:14:02
  ability and slot it into this hunter now.
• 1:14:04
  Well, the one reason you might say don't do that is because if
• 1:14:08
  you're not comfortable with the game, you could accidentally
• 1:14:12
  make something really overpowered or really fucking
• 1:14:15
  useless, right by not understanding the mechanics.
• 1:14:19
  So you might not want to do that right away, but after you've
• 1:14:24
  gotten comfortable both with the quick assembly and with the game
• 1:14:28
  just running it in general, yeah, you could absolutely start
• 1:14:32
  stealing roll skills from the other roles.
• 1:14:38
  And then also if we build on, you know, on top of that, all of
• 1:14:45
  the, the NPC stat blocks in the compendium, if you look, all of
• 1:14:52
  those monsters have the role attached to them, right?
• 1:14:59
  So if you look at the Baylor, the Baylor, it says level 20
• 1:15:04
  elite hunter. So you can go and look at the
• 1:15:07
  Baylor stat block and say, OK, this is a hunter type enemy.
• 1:15:11
  Does it have any abilities I could steal from my own hunter
• 1:15:14
  type enemy, right? Because all of them are typed
• 1:15:19
  out that way. So you could also steal from the
• 1:15:22
  existing NPC stat blocks there. So between stealing from the
• 1:15:28
  other roles and stealing from the other stat blocks in the
• 1:15:31
  compendium, you definitely have a lot of options for how you
• 1:15:33
  could like mix and match and steal and adjust.
• 1:15:36
  What is the Baylor's reference in Final Fantasy?
• 1:15:43
  I, I think it might just be a oh, brain, the the flying
• 1:15:49
  eyeball things. Why can't I think of what
• 1:15:51
  they're called brain? The eyeball things.
• 1:15:56
  Yeah, the fucking the well, I can't.
• 1:15:59
  I'm blanking the Arimans the eyeballs with the wings.
• 1:16:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:09
  I, I, I think it's just supposed to be that.
• 1:16:11
  I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'll admit I'm not 100% positive, but I, I
• 1:16:16
  think it's just one of these funny guys, yeah.
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, I, yeah, yeah, I can see that.
• 1:16:20
  Right. I I think that's what it is.
• 1:16:21
  Yeah, 'cause there's, there are some of them that it's like this
• 1:16:24
  is obvious, like the Gargantuas, that's just the behemoth.
• 1:16:27
  Like straight up the the second one, the second variant, Humbaba
• 1:16:32
  is just straight up a behemoth. Yes yeah, yeah, also I you know,
• 1:16:38
  I'm I'm sure they took the name Humbaba from something, but Can
• 1:16:42
  you imagine the humor of like you must fight Humbaba and
• 1:16:46
  everyone's like this is going to be so great.
• 1:16:48
  What goofy ass monster has that name and it's a 50 foot tall
• 1:16:52
  beam it and you're like. OK, well, never mind.
• 1:16:58
  And then he speaks to you in perfect English and says I heard
• 1:17:00
  you talking shit like I wouldn't find out you.
• 1:17:05
  Got something to say. So yeah, basically the, the, the
• 1:17:12
  thing that's kind of funny about the quick assembly is in a way
• 1:17:17
  it seems like it would be limiting, but because of the way
• 1:17:23
  it's designed, it is both limiting, but also has a lot of
• 1:17:29
  untapped potential. It's kind of a, it's a it's a
• 1:17:35
  funny paradox there. Also worth noting that each of
• 1:17:41
  the roles in this section, it also mentions tactics, rewards
• 1:17:47
  and customizations. So the tactics is like the
• 1:17:52
  suggested rotation routines that this type of enemy should do.
• 1:17:56
  So just going with the brute because it's the first one, it's
• 1:17:59
  like, you know, brutes generally alternate between normal attacks
• 1:18:02
  and strong attacks. So they could have a kind of
• 1:18:04
  routine that's normal attack, strong attack, crush, restart,
• 1:18:08
  right? So they give you some suggested
• 1:18:09
  tactics. And then in terms of rewards,
• 1:18:12
  it's like Brutes can be a source of hard hitting weapons that can
• 1:18:16
  ignore resistances or grant unique effects while the user's
• 1:18:19
  in crisis, as well as items that increase the user's might or
• 1:18:22
  improve their hit point recovery.
• 1:18:24
  Defeating A brute could also reward the PCs with sturdy, long
• 1:18:27
  lasting materials. And then for customizations, it
• 1:18:29
  says Brute should never have good defense scores or boast
• 1:18:33
  accuracy or damage on par with hunters and mages.
• 1:18:36
  They already have the highest hit points, so it's good if the
• 1:18:39
  heroes can hit them reliably. Champy and Brute should have
• 1:18:42
  ways to recover from status effects from time to time,
• 1:18:45
  forcing the group to apply them again.
• 1:18:47
  So they'd also give you some suggestions on like you know,
• 1:18:53
  how to run them, what to do with them, all that fun too.
• 1:18:57
  Then there's the boss skills, which are pretty much what they
• 1:19:03
  sound like. They are additional skills that
• 1:19:04
  you give to boss type monsters, and they are broken up.
• 1:19:08
  I think there's forty of them and they are broken up into,
• 1:19:13
  which is way more than I was expecting by the way.
• 1:19:17
  They're broken up into like sections.
• 1:19:19
  They're broken up into types, I guess I should say.
• 1:19:21
  So the first one is battlefield skills, which is like ongoing
• 1:19:25
  effects or like auras on the battlefield that have a
• 1:19:28
  permanent effect. Then there's control skills,
• 1:19:31
  which is like denying or punishing heroes for certain
• 1:19:33
  actions. Then you have destructive
• 1:19:36
  skills, which are just big fucking damage.
• 1:19:41
  Then there is elemental skills, which are elementally based
• 1:19:46
  skills. That one's, you know,
• 1:19:49
  self-explanatory. Then after elemental skills you
• 1:19:53
  have objective skills, which are skills that grant the boss grant
• 1:19:58
  the boss an ability to gain a serious edge during conflicts
• 1:20:01
  that revolve around a clock. So basically abilities that you
• 1:20:06
  manipulate clocks. And then you have Summoner
• 1:20:10
  skills, which is basically bosses that keep bringing in
• 1:20:14
  goons and other little bitches. And then the last one is
• 1:20:18
  survival skills, which is skills that just make it so the boss is
• 1:20:22
  harder to kill, harder to hit, you know, more of a pain in the
• 1:20:26
  ass regeneration and camouflage and adaptive affinities,
• 1:20:30
  defensive stance, that kind of shit.
• 1:20:32
  And then you have after the boss skills, you have the negative
• 1:20:35
  skills, which are again, pretty much what they sound like,
• 1:20:39
  they're skills that are a negative.
• 1:20:41
  They give the monster a debuff of some kind.
• 1:20:45
  But in return you can get an additional role or boss skill
• 1:20:48
  that you can add on top of the stat block.
• 1:20:52
  Stuff like final detonation where when the enemy dies they
• 1:20:57
  blow up and hurt their friends, or final resort or final restore
• 1:21:03
  sorry. When this NPC is reduced to zero
• 1:21:05
  hit points or forced to leave, each of the enemies present on
• 1:21:08
  the scene recover a heavy amount of hit points or mind points.
• 1:21:11
  So like the enemy leaves and the players heel.
• 1:21:16
  There's one that like they inflict status debuffs on their
• 1:21:18
  friends, Some kind of bad thing happens in trade for another
• 1:21:24
  skill, and then the species skills after that are what I was
• 1:21:28
  talking about before where you pick the species of the
• 1:21:30
  particular NPC and that gives you some extra customization
• 1:21:34
  options based on the specific species.
• 1:21:41
  In terms of how this differs from the original design system,
• 1:21:47
  like I said it gives you a list and stuff, but also if I can
• 1:21:52
  find the what's there is a little section that says what's
• 1:21:55
  different exactly. NPCS are always level
• 1:21:58
  5102030405060. The NPCS always have at least
• 1:22:04
  one vulnerability, unless a specific gimmick or special rule
• 1:22:07
  changes. That vulnerability to physical
• 1:22:10
  damage grants a single additional skill, not 2.
• 1:22:13
  NPCS cannot use equipment, which is kind of a big thing because
• 1:22:19
  equipment, basically if you give NPCS equipment, you can
• 1:22:25
  potentially make them really overpowered and break the game
• 1:22:29
  pretty easily. So part of the quick assembly
• 1:22:33
  was taking that particular element out of things.
• 1:22:35
  So that's less of a problem. You know, basically the idea of
• 1:22:41
  giving, giving the boss monster a magic sword might make them a
• 1:22:45
  little too good. You know, fictionally they can
• 1:22:48
  have a magic sword. Mechanically you might not want
• 1:22:50
  to do that. That is after the quick
• 1:22:56
  assembly, then we get to the compendium.
• 1:23:01
  So obviously the compendium is a big ass list of pre made MPC
• 1:23:08
  step blocks. We are not going to go through
• 1:23:10
  the entire compendium. We would be here for four days.
• 1:23:14
  So because there's quite a lot in here, a couple things that
• 1:23:19
  are worth kind of noting about the the MPC stat blocks in the
• 1:23:25
  compendium. They are sorted alphabetically.
• 1:23:31
  Some of the monsters are just individuals and some of them are
• 1:23:36
  by families. So for example, the Minotaur is
• 1:23:41
  a singular stat block, but then if you go to Outlaws, Outlaws is
• 1:23:46
  like 3 human stat blocks. Like it's like 3 or 4 different
• 1:23:50
  human step blocks. So some of them are like based
• 1:23:53
  on a family of creatures and some of them are a singular
• 1:23:55
  creature. Other things we're noting none
• 1:24:01
  of the so the the MPCS in this book were built with the quick
• 1:24:09
  assembly method as a base and then they obviously they added
• 1:24:13
  on top of it, they created their own abilities, but they started
• 1:24:16
  with the quick assembly method as sort of the baseline, which
• 1:24:21
  means none of the monsters have equipment because again like I
• 1:24:25
  said, they they kind of took that out as an element.
• 1:24:28
  I, I think if they were to make a second edition of this game,
• 1:24:31
  they would just completely remove that and not even deal
• 1:24:34
  with it. So fictionally, certain enemies
• 1:24:40
  will have equipment, but the equipment will just be a skill
• 1:24:44
  that they use on their stat block.
• 1:24:46
  Like I think one of the outlaws has like a, is it the outlaw
• 1:24:50
  stat blocks? You know, maybe it's a different
• 1:24:52
  one. There's a character that has
• 1:24:53
  like an Electro gauntlet thingy. The Electro gauntlet thingy is
• 1:24:59
  not a piece of illiteral equipment on their like on their
• 1:25:05
  sheet, it's an ability. I don't know about the electric
• 1:25:08
  Auntlet, but I know that the my favorite of the outlaw is the
• 1:25:11
  Jada Ronan has like a named Sword Ximongi.
• 1:25:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:25:15
  That's yeah. So it has a name sword.
• 1:25:17
  The name sword is a skill. It's an attack that the that the
• 1:25:20
  NPC can use. It's not literally in a piece of
• 1:25:23
  equipment on their stat block. However, if the players beat
• 1:25:27
  them and want to take the sword, they can.
• 1:25:30
  You just have to. You as the GM will just have to
• 1:25:32
  potentially design that reward. They moved around where status
• 1:25:38
  effect immunities are on on the stat block sheets.
• 1:25:42
  No biggie. Some new keywords that are worth
• 1:25:45
  pointing out. Like I said, all of the NPCS in
• 1:25:49
  this book have the the roles. They all have the role keyword
• 1:25:54
  on them. So you know kind of what their
• 1:25:55
  role is. They also have something that's
• 1:25:59
  says part, so if a stat block says part, it means it's meant
• 1:26:04
  to be a part of a bigger main body.
• 1:26:08
  So for example, the first stat block in the list is the
• 1:26:11
  Adamantharion, which has his main body and his front and back
• 1:26:17
  legs I think. So the front and back legs are
• 1:26:21
  parts. Some creatures are marked as
• 1:26:24
  solo, which means the players are intended to fight it solo
• 1:26:27
  without anyone else helping. Some of the creatures are marked
• 1:26:31
  as unique, which is to say they are one-of-a-kind.
• 1:26:35
  They are. They are a named special boy.
• 1:26:38
  There is no there is no other like them.
• 1:26:41
  They are the unique guy or girl or thing or it or monster or
• 1:26:46
  whatever, and then some of them have villain, which just means
• 1:26:53
  they are intended to mechanically they get Ultima
• 1:26:56
  points and they're intended to be a villain to the players.
• 1:27:01
  Another really useful thing that they added in this book is the
• 1:27:04
  approaches. I don't know if you looked at
• 1:27:07
  these at all, but all of these stat blocks in the compendium
• 1:27:12
  have they have advantageous and disadvantageous like keywords on
• 1:27:21
  them. Basically there's an up and a
• 1:27:23
  down arrow on all of the stat blocks and it tells you what is
• 1:27:28
  good against the monster and what is bad against the monster.
• 1:27:31
  So if something is advantageous, like for example you're fighting
• 1:27:36
  an ice golem and it says fire damage and it's the
• 1:27:40
  advantageous, you know, meaning the arrow pointing up has fire
• 1:27:43
  damage next to it, that means fire damage good against this
• 1:27:46
  enemy. If it's disadvantageous, that
• 1:27:48
  means don't use this. So ice damage would be on that
• 1:27:50
  same ice golem. So basically what that means for
• 1:27:56
  you as the GM is you can look at any stat block really, really
• 1:28:00
  quickly and see, OK, what's good against this thing?
• 1:28:04
  What's bad against this thing? Do my players have the necessary
• 1:28:08
  tools to deal with the good or the bad that this creature has?
• 1:28:15
  You know, so if the creatures weak to like we said before, if
• 1:28:18
  the creatures weak weak to light damage and my players don't have
• 1:28:22
  any light damage, then you want to take a note of that.
• 1:28:27
  That doesn't necessarily mean you can't use it.
• 1:28:29
  You just want to be aware of that.
• 1:28:33
  And they will. It won't just be damaged
• 1:28:35
  typings. It'll also say like status
• 1:28:37
  effects that are good or bad versus the enemy, if something
• 1:28:41
  like MP loss is good or bad despell effects, spells with
• 1:28:49
  long duration spells, if those are good or bad against the
• 1:28:52
  enemy. It's just like a general
• 1:28:54
  guideline of this will work well and this will work poorly
• 1:28:59
  intended for you as the GM to look at it and go, OK, I have an
• 1:29:02
  idea of what this guy's deal is. And then there's some basic
• 1:29:07
  guidelines on each of the compendium stat blocks where the
• 1:29:14
  IT mentions environments that they'll be in.
• 1:29:17
  It mentions allies that they might potentially have, which is
• 1:29:21
  to say other NPCS you might want to pair with this NPC and then
• 1:29:28
  their tactics, which like we mentioned before, is the
• 1:29:31
  routine, the rotation that they follow and how that works.
• 1:29:35
  And then rewards. I think a lot of GMs will really
• 1:29:39
  appreciate the rewards section because every, every stat block
• 1:29:48
  has a suggestion of these are good rewards that make sense for
• 1:29:52
  this kind of enemy. They're not specific.
• 1:29:56
  Like it's not necessarily, you know, it's not going to say this
• 1:30:00
  enemy should drop a flame tongue, but it'll say kinds of
• 1:30:04
  rewards. So for example, if we go back to
• 1:30:06
  our buddy the Baylor for rewards, it says they might drop
• 1:30:10
  an accessory that improves the user's magic defense or grants
• 1:30:14
  resistance to dark damage In unsettling.
• 1:30:17
  I like gemstone material, forbidden story bending
• 1:30:21
  revelations whispered by the Baylor as they fade out of
• 1:30:23
  existence. It it's basically just what
• 1:30:27
  might this enemy drop or have or you know, what might be useful
• 1:30:32
  from them both. It could be a mechanical item,
• 1:30:35
  but it can also be like a fictional thing.
• 1:30:36
  There's a lot of potential things that the rewards could
• 1:30:38
  be, but it's just really to give you an idea.
• 1:30:45
  But honestly, this is the kind of thing people have been asking
• 1:30:48
  for in DND for I don't know how long at this point.
• 1:30:51
  So glad to see it here. Yeah, crazy.
• 1:30:58
  Right. Like, glad somebody did it.
• 1:31:02
  Yeah, it's it really Dungeons and Dragons.
• 1:31:06
  It's just a wealth of great game design information, and not from
• 1:31:11
  the actual game design itself, but from people looking at me
• 1:31:13
  like what do the players want out of this game?
• 1:31:17
  Enemy enemy behaviors, rewards, and or other valuable
• 1:31:21
  information during a fight. Yeah.
• 1:31:25
  Well, if they're not going to do it, shit, we're going to do it.
• 1:31:28
  Honestly, the the tactics, the like routes, the routines thing
• 1:31:33
  for me in particular with this book was one of the most helpful
• 1:31:38
  parts of the entire book because it, it reframed a little bit.
• 1:31:43
  I I can't remember. I think the core book does
• 1:31:46
  mention doing something along the lines of that routine thing
• 1:31:51
  somewhere, but it it makes it a little more explicit in this
• 1:31:55
  bestiary and having it so that the tactics are listed above all
• 1:32:01
  of these NPC stat blocks really put it into perspective how I
• 1:32:05
  should both how I should run enemies in this game, but also
• 1:32:10
  how I should design them. Because sometimes I've I found
• 1:32:14
  myself running into a situation where I was designing the enemy
• 1:32:17
  in such a way that I was like, OK, I'm giving them all of these
• 1:32:20
  abilities, but why would he ever do ability X over ability Y?
• 1:32:24
  Like it just doesn't make any sense.
• 1:32:26
  But if if there's a rotation to the abilities, oh, OK, he does
• 1:32:30
  ability X, then he does ability Y.
• 1:32:33
  That makes a lot more sense. You know what I mean?
• 1:32:35
  And I wasn't, I wasn't in that mindset before.
• 1:32:41
  So now that I've seen that, I'm like, oh, OK, this gives me this
• 1:32:46
  gives me some new options. It it or not even I don't know,
• 1:32:53
  maybe not even new options, just a a new a new angle to think
• 1:32:57
  about it, I guess is probably a better way to put it.
• 1:33:01
  I I don't. Does that make sense?
• 1:33:03
  Am I babbling? I don't know where.
• 1:33:04
  Am I? No, no, I get you.
• 1:33:05
  Yeah, it makes. Sense OK 'cause that was that
• 1:33:11
  was actually a thing I ran into quite a few times, particularly
• 1:33:13
  when I was designing like a boss monster.
• 1:33:15
  I'd be like OK, the boss monster has like 6 different potential
• 1:33:21
  actions or things they can do, but it seems like only one or
• 1:33:26
  only two of them are really worth it most of the time.
• 1:33:30
  So how do I make it so that all of them are useful?
• 1:33:34
  It's like, oh OK, well if they're going through a specific
• 1:33:36
  rotation that automatically makes all of them, if not
• 1:33:39
  useful, at least at least they're going to do all of them,
• 1:33:43
  right? At least the players are going
• 1:33:44
  to see each of them. So yes.
• 1:33:50
  But yes, it is funny that I saw the rewards and the tactics
• 1:33:53
  thing and I was like, oh, this is the thing people have been
• 1:33:55
  asking D&D to do for a really long time now.
• 1:33:59
  Glad somebody did it. That's nice.
• 1:34:05
  Yeah. And, and all of the rewards too,
• 1:34:07
  in particular are interesting because they all have different
• 1:34:15
  like the reward descriptors are all a little bit different.
• 1:34:18
  Like if you go to the basilisk, for example, it says a weapon
• 1:34:21
  with a basilisk eye quality 1000 Zeni.
• 1:34:24
  When you hit one or more enemies with this weapon, those enemies
• 1:34:27
  become watched by this weapon. After one of the more enemies is
• 1:34:30
  watched by this weapon, recover from one or more status effects.
• 1:34:33
  Each of those enemies lose 10 hit points and stop being
• 1:34:35
  watched. So that one is explicitly, oh,
• 1:34:38
  this drops a very specific weapon because somebody probably
• 1:34:41
  just had an idea for what that basilisk should do when they did
• 1:34:43
  it. You know what I mean?
• 1:34:44
  But other ones will be like, drop this kind of a weapon or
• 1:34:49
  this style of armor or this kind of a, you know, some of them are
• 1:34:51
  a little more vague, some a little more specific.
• 1:34:53
  So they there's variation in them, which is fun too.
• 1:34:57
  Because it would also be, it's not it, it would be a little
• 1:35:01
  boring too if it was like, here's just a list of rare items
• 1:35:03
  that different stuff drops and that's it.
• 1:35:05
  Yeah. Yeah, you definitely don't want
• 1:35:07
  that. I mean, you could do it, it just
• 1:35:10
  it wouldn't be as interesting as what what this like it wouldn't
• 1:35:14
  be as interesting as the way this book did it.
• 1:35:16
  No, it would. It would.
• 1:35:17
  What I'm saying is it would waste all of the really
• 1:35:19
  interesting groundwork that the game has laid for you by just
• 1:35:25
  giving you a list of shit. You know what I mean?
• 1:35:26
  Like. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:35:31
  Then there's a brief little before all the compendium.
• 1:35:35
  Technically there's a brief little section on making
• 1:35:38
  adjustments, which is basically, you know, oh, the monster, your
• 1:35:43
  stat block you might, you might want to use might not be the
• 1:35:46
  right level or it you might want to take a champion enemy and
• 1:35:51
  turn it into a soldier enemy or something like that.
• 1:35:53
  Basically, I want to use this stat block, but I need to change
• 1:35:57
  it. And it's just a guidance on how
• 1:35:59
  to make those adjustments. You know, how to adjust their
• 1:36:03
  hit points and their mind points, what to do with their
• 1:36:05
  accuracy checks and their damage, what kind of skills to
• 1:36:08
  give them or not give them? What kind of features can you
• 1:36:12
  add or take away that don't that don't like drastically change
• 1:36:17
  the stat block? It also mentions some
• 1:36:20
  limitations, like it says where is it?
• 1:36:26
  So compared to levels, ranks are a bit more difficult to adjust.
• 1:36:31
  In particular, foes of a rank of Champion 3 or higher are usually
• 1:36:36
  designed from the ground up as a major boss, which makes them
• 1:36:39
  impossible to properly downgrade to a Soldier or an Elite.
• 1:36:43
  And the same could be said for the opposite.
• 1:36:44
  Turning a Soldier into a Champion 3, for instance, is
• 1:36:47
  less a matter of numbers and more about entirely reimagining
• 1:36:50
  their function within the conflict.
• 1:36:53
  So it even says you can't adjust a lot of these stop blocks.
• 1:36:55
  But there's also limitations. So if you try to push beyond
• 1:36:59
  those limitations, be aware you might have to do extra work or,
• 1:37:04
  you know, reconsider your plan, basically, which is good to
• 1:37:09
  acknowledge, You know, we have this system.
• 1:37:12
  This system works well, but it only, it only works well in a
• 1:37:15
  certain range band. You know, you can't, you can't
• 1:37:19
  break the entire thing and expect magic, which I think is
• 1:37:23
  a, a fair, like a fairway to put it a fairway to describe it.
• 1:37:31
  Do you have any? I don't know if you looked
• 1:37:33
  through any of the stat blocks, you know how they think you're
• 1:37:35
  like, this is crazy. I mean, look no farther than
• 1:37:39
  Babylonica. Totally not Alexander
• 1:37:45
  Babylonica. Oh yes, the giant fortress.
• 1:37:49
  Oh my God, it's so fucking cool dude.
• 1:37:55
  That one being a great example of singular enemy broken up into
• 1:37:58
  parts because that one is Energy core, Towering apparatus, and Oh
• 1:38:05
  no, that was just the 2. So yeah, that one's the energy
• 1:38:07
  core and the towering apparatus are like 2 separate pieces of
• 1:38:10
  the same enemy. Yeah, did you notice that the
• 1:38:13
  energy core is resistant to everything, Everything light and
• 1:38:17
  dark? In which case it's just fucking
• 1:38:19
  immune. Yes, I believe if there's a way
• 1:38:23
  to overcome that though. I maybe goes the energy core.
• 1:38:34
  Yeah, there's a way to like it's like a way to expose it or, or
• 1:38:39
  do. So I, I was looking at that one
• 1:38:41
  a little bit. I don't know if I don't think, I
• 1:38:43
  don't remember if I finished reading it or not.
• 1:38:45
  No, no. So yeah, you can't.
• 1:38:47
  You can't remove its resistances.
• 1:38:48
  Basically you have to fight the apparatus, which is resistant to
• 1:38:54
  most things. And the only way to do like real
• 1:38:57
  genuine damage to it is by attacking the core.
• 1:38:59
  And the car has the core has very little health compared to
• 1:39:01
  everything else this fight. So this is cool because this is
• 1:39:06
  one of the reasons why I picked this fight out is because this
• 1:39:10
  fight is grueling and it's it can feel like a slog because you
• 1:39:16
  know, the, the apparatus, the actual body of Babylonica has
• 1:39:20
  560 health and 280 mine point or no, what is that?
• 1:39:25
  That has a crisis of 280 and it's actual energy core has 110.
• 1:39:31
  It points and it's resistant. They're both resistant to
• 1:39:33
  physical. But this is one of those few
• 1:39:36
  times where I think this works really well because it's not
• 1:39:40
  like you're fighting. You can see birds flying around
• 1:39:45
  its head, and they are very small.
• 1:39:48
  This thing is probably like 100 meters tall.
• 1:39:51
  Yeah, it's gonna feel. There's a there's a massive full
• 1:39:54
  page art of it. Yeah, is what Isaiah is talking
• 1:39:56
  about. It's enormous.
• 1:39:58
  So yeah, I, I expect it to feel kind of like a slog, but when
• 1:40:02
  you kill. I'm thinking about this
• 1:40:03
  specifically because I was playing Borderlands 4 yesterday
• 1:40:06
  and I was fighting one of the the vault bosses.
• 1:40:09
  And it's a really, it was like I, I started fighting it about
• 1:40:13
  15 minutes before you went to bed and then another 10 minutes
• 1:40:16
  after that. So it was almost a 30 minute
• 1:40:17
  fight. And just because something has a
• 1:40:21
  lot of health doesn't necessarily mean.
• 1:40:24
  That it feels like you're not getting anywhere.
• 1:40:26
  You know what I mean? It's it's like when you fight
• 1:40:28
  something like the Adamantoys in actual Final Fantasy, where it's
• 1:40:31
  like every noticeable chunk that you removed from the health bar
• 1:40:34
  feels genuine. It feels like you're getting
• 1:40:36
  somewhere. And I feel like this boss, just
• 1:40:41
  through some of the things they can do, makes it really feel
• 1:40:43
  like that, which is kind of cool.
• 1:40:46
  I think also it it it the mechanics of Fabulous give you a
• 1:40:55
  lot of yeah, potential to have this felling the Colossus vibe
• 1:40:59
  work because again, because there's so many different crazy
• 1:41:07
  tactical, not even tactical, just like interesting ideas you
• 1:41:11
  can build into a stat block. Like in a way, the stat blocks
• 1:41:18
  like the NPCS that you make in Fabula are the core mechanic for
• 1:41:22
  the GM because rather than the game itself having a whole bunch
• 1:41:28
  of crazy mechanics, the the basic core mechanics of the game
• 1:41:32
  are pretty straightforward. Where things get interesting is
• 1:41:37
  in class player skills and how those can combine with each
• 1:41:41
  other. And then on the GM side, it's
• 1:41:44
  how the NPCS stat blocks can add or change mechanics and make
• 1:41:49
  their own unique mechanics within themselves.
• 1:41:52
  So you don't need to worry about designing bespoke mechanics for
• 1:41:57
  a bunch of different situations. Instead, you design basic
• 1:42:00
  mechanics and then when you want more complicated bespoke
• 1:42:04
  mechanics, you just make that part of the fight itself, right?
• 1:42:08
  Like that is the that's kind of the secret trick.
• 1:42:11
  Like you could design A mechanic where you climb up on the big
• 1:42:17
  colossal enemy and you have to like hit some kind of a weak
• 1:42:20
  point. Or you could just have a stat
• 1:42:22
  block that has all of those rules built into it and then you
• 1:42:25
  only use it for that particular fight so your game doesn't get
• 1:42:28
  over bloated with mechanics, right?
• 1:42:33
  Mm hmm. And that's just one example.
• 1:42:35
  I mean, there's a bazillion Jilly.
• 1:42:36
  Like again, one of the things that makes this best area really
• 1:42:40
  valuable is you can look at all these wacky mechanics that a lot
• 1:42:43
  of these monsters have and go, Oh, I wouldn't have never
• 1:42:45
  thought of that. Another good one is the Bugaboo,
• 1:42:49
  which is this little like Jack O Lantern Reaper guy.
• 1:42:53
  It's it's basically a reference to Atan Berry and he has an
• 1:42:57
  ability where he goes into a mode where he's stalking a
• 1:43:02
  player character and then he hits them with a specific
• 1:43:04
  attack. And if he hits them with that
• 1:43:06
  specific attack, well, stalking the player character, the player
• 1:43:10
  character drops to 1 HP. It's pretty gangster I so.
• 1:43:15
  Which is obvious reference to Todd.
• 1:43:16
  Berry. I love this little dude's
• 1:43:18
  ability. Names Smile.
• 1:43:20
  Carver, Vane Gordy. Scorching Whisplite, Gleeful,
• 1:43:24
  Sharpening. Yeah, open wide.
• 1:43:29
  And he's just a little guy. I love him so much.
• 1:43:32
  But he's also like a spirit of death.
• 1:43:34
  I. Almost want one of these little
• 1:43:37
  bastards to be an arcana just so I can have him.
• 1:43:40
  He's like a nightmare Incarnate, basically.
• 1:43:42
  So yeah. Me, me doing the fucking Aang
• 1:43:45
  from Avatar when he's spinning the marbles.
• 1:43:46
  Just like look at my little guy. This.
• 1:43:49
  Is my buddy. It's like a in in the it's like
• 1:43:53
  the amazing World of Gumball when they fucking piss Nais off
• 1:43:57
  and she starts karate chopping everything and they're just
• 1:44:00
  holding her by the scruff of her neck and she's just tearing shit
• 1:44:03
  up. She's just murdering dudes.
• 1:44:05
  Yeah, I just want that for the bugaboo.
• 1:44:07
  Just holding it out and watching it murder things like a little
• 1:44:09
  handheld blender. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:44:14
  So good. Actually on A to a point that
• 1:44:17
  you were talking about like using abilities to sort of
• 1:44:20
  manufacture mechanics. Look no farther than the fucking
• 1:44:23
  Udex. Have you seen that thing?
• 1:44:27
  I don't. Yeah, look at that.
• 1:44:29
  What? What's it under?
• 1:44:31
  It's just it's Udex under the Iktio Daimon.
• 1:44:37
  It's the sick like Valkyrie night chick that looks like What
• 1:44:43
  the hell, Gabranth. Why am I not seeing it?
• 1:44:46
  IUDEX. Oh, there it is.
• 1:44:49
  Found it. Yes.
• 1:44:50
  Yes, look at its other actions. Absolute law.
• 1:44:53
  I'll just read it. The Udex can use an action and
• 1:44:56
  spend 20 mine points to declare one of the following laws.
• 1:45:00
  Each law applies to every enemy the Udex can see, and its
• 1:45:03
  effects last until the end of the scene or until a different
• 1:45:06
  law is declared. First law Intelligenti Poca or
• 1:45:12
  bids recovering mine points and recovering from status effects.
• 1:45:15
  RO Bono patches forbids performing the attack action,
• 1:45:19
  performing free attacks, casting offensive spells and causing the
• 1:45:22
  udex and or its allies to suffer status effects.
• 1:45:25
  And then finally Ferba non Octa forbids performing the guard or
• 1:45:30
  skill actions. After an enemy violates a law,
• 1:45:33
  they become a transgressor until the end of their next turn, but
• 1:45:36
  only after the infringing action or effect has been fully
• 1:45:39
  resolved. And then underneath you get
• 1:45:41
  special rules Go uth des. After a transgressor succeeds on
• 1:45:46
  a check that would allow them to fill or erase two more sections
• 1:45:49
  of a clock, that transgressor must choose one option, fill or
• 1:45:52
  erase one fewer sections of said clock, or let the Udex fill or
• 1:45:56
  erase one section of a clock of the Udex's choice.
• 1:45:59
  Dura lex. Damage dealt to the Udex by non
• 1:46:02
  transgressors is aft and ergo onis.
• 1:46:06
  After one or more enemies becomes transgressors, the the
• 1:46:08
  Udex deals 10 light damage to them.
• 1:46:11
  Creatures that lose hit points this way also suffer shaking.
• 1:46:14
  So there is just a whole mini mechanic built into this fight
• 1:46:16
  that's super cool. And these guys are champion
• 1:46:21
  level enemies, so champion 3. So you're really probably only
• 1:46:25
  going to fight one of them. They are villain class enemies,
• 1:46:28
  but Can you imagine a like drone watcher throne defender fight
• 1:46:32
  where there's two of these jackasses?
• 1:46:35
  Yeah, and they're just overlapping the absolute laws on
• 1:46:38
  you And like, dude, that would be such a pain in the ass fight,
• 1:46:42
  but it would be so memorable. Like I would be furious in that
• 1:46:46
  fight but after we won or lost I'd be like, that was so fucking
• 1:46:50
  cool. Right.
• 1:46:52
  I mean, that's yeah, that's exactly that kind of that's
• 1:46:57
  yeah, that's the kind of vibe I'm talking about where you
• 1:46:59
  you're essentially creating these mini mechanics via the
• 1:47:03
  stat block. And the thing that also makes
• 1:47:06
  that fun is, you know, one again, like I said, you don't
• 1:47:08
  need to have a bazillion bespoke mechanics within the game
• 1:47:11
  itself. But also if you're only using
• 1:47:15
  them once or twice for a couple of specific enemies, they don't
• 1:47:19
  get stale or annoying, right? Like this kind of mechanic used
• 1:47:25
  over and over and over again would probably start to get
• 1:47:27
  annoying, but used on a particular fight for a
• 1:47:30
  particular boss, much more bearable, right?
• 1:47:33
  Like, that's a a big part of it. Yeah.
• 1:47:41
  I mean, we could do this all day.
• 1:47:42
  We could just jump around on RAM and stop stamp blocks and be
• 1:47:45
  like, look at this cool thing it does.
• 1:47:46
  So we'll have to, we'll have to control ourselves.
• 1:47:49
  But trust me, there's lots of cool shit you can look through
• 1:47:53
  and potentially use in this book.
• 1:47:55
  Yeah, there's, there's a lot of things.
• 1:47:57
  That I've been trying to do myself, yeah, so.
• 1:48:00
  I mean the the the diablosaur, like we were joking that the
• 1:48:04
  brute is the devil Joe, but this thing is like actually the Devil
• 1:48:08
  Joe. True.
• 1:48:09
  Yeah. The diablosaur, Yeah.
• 1:48:11
  They they is it the the gargantuus?
• 1:48:16
  Gargantuas is so sick. I love these I I love the
• 1:48:22
  behemoth. I hate the way that they look in
• 1:48:23
  Final Fantasy but like I love the idea of them just the
• 1:48:27
  biggest, angriest, most fuck off violent thing that's ever lived.
• 1:48:33
  It has a bunch of cool. Like this one's got a really
• 1:48:35
  cool one where it's it's tactics.
• 1:48:37
  It's rotation is really interesting because it shifts
• 1:48:40
  based on if it's health is even or odds, which I like a lot.
• 1:48:44
  Yeah, there's also enemies whose tactics shift based on even or
• 1:48:48
  odd turn. Oh, I didn't know that.
• 1:48:50
  That's cool too. Yeah, there's quite a few
• 1:48:52
  enemies that do that, yeah. I'm really sad that there's no
• 1:48:57
  art for Humbaba because it looks there is where.
• 1:49:00
  It's the very beginning of the book if you literally right
• 1:49:03
  after the table of contents. Yeah, oh fuck it, there it is.
• 1:49:10
  Oh dude that's so sick. It's fucking.
• 1:49:14
  Huge brother, big there are. Those are birds around.
• 1:49:19
  It's a head dog. Yes.
• 1:49:22
  Big man on campus. Yes.
• 1:49:25
  Big lead. Oh, it's got wings, dude.
• 1:49:29
  The thing What's worse than the behemoth?
• 1:49:31
  A behemoth with wings. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:49:39
  We'll fuck your entire shit up. Oh, actually, I know we're not
• 1:49:43
  going to do this too much. I like that they gave us so
• 1:49:47
  right like you. You are having us do the
• 1:49:48
  challenges against the arcana. In this they actually gave us
• 1:49:52
  stat blocks for Arcana if you wanted to fight them.
• 1:49:56
  Yes, yes, so there are yeah, I was going to bring I was going
• 1:49:59
  to bring these up. So there are 66 new Arcana that
• 1:50:02
  they added in this best theory and yes, each of them has a stat
• 1:50:06
  block. If you want to fight them, you
• 1:50:07
  don't have to, but you know if it's if you want to use it as an
• 1:50:11
  option. In my defence, I've been making
• 1:50:15
  them not just straight up fights on purpose.
• 1:50:18
  No, I know I'm not saying what you're doing is bad, but like
• 1:50:22
  it's cool that we have actual stat blocks from now in case.
• 1:50:25
  Goro was like, I'm tired of this challenge, bitch, fight me.
• 1:50:29
  Throw hands. Yes.
• 1:50:32
  So I was going to say the last little section of this book is
• 1:50:34
  basically there's a couple of new options.
• 1:50:37
  What what it calls new options. Some of it is there are some
• 1:50:44
  sample companions for you to use for the faithful companion
• 1:50:48
  ability that the Wayfarer gets. Which again, another great
• 1:50:51
  example of this game being able to to design mechanics within
• 1:50:57
  the stat block. Because if you look at the
• 1:50:58
  sample companion called the Gang, it's a companion that is
• 1:51:03
  technically three individual creatures and you swap which
• 1:51:08
  creature is currently active and that gives you a different
• 1:51:11
  effect for the Wayfarer based on the creature currently active.
• 1:51:14
  Kind of like Pokémon Trainer and Smash.
• 1:51:16
  So cool. Yeah, It's a Robin, a little
• 1:51:20
  black bear and a pangolin. And a pangolin.
• 1:51:22
  Yeah, by the way. Yeah.
• 1:51:26
  Called The Gang. We have a stat block for a
• 1:51:29
  motherfucking Chocobo, baby. We do.
• 1:51:32
  We do have a yes. There's a Chocobo companion in
• 1:51:35
  here. What's the, what's he called?
• 1:51:37
  Tau. Yeah.
• 1:51:40
  I I saw this and got immediately really hyped 'cause I was like,
• 1:51:43
  I'm happy that we have horses. I kind of wish they were
• 1:51:45
  Chocobo. We look at, we look at the blue,
• 1:51:47
  we look at the art and is blue chicken.
• 1:51:50
  Like can we? Can we?
• 1:51:52
  Can we do some divine fuckery and say that our horses are
• 1:51:55
  actually Chocobo? Discuss another time, but yes,
• 1:52:03
  we have, we have a little stat block for Little Chocobo.
• 1:52:06
  It's a companion. It's not a full on like enemy
• 1:52:08
  stat block, but yeah. Apparently they're called Pavis.
• 1:52:11
  That's like the actual name for the animal.
• 1:52:13
  Tao is just a special Pavis. No, Tao's his name.
• 1:52:17
  Yeah, I thought they were just called Tao.
• 1:52:20
  Oh, no, no, yeah, I don't know. Pavis is the bird, Tao is his
• 1:52:22
  name. Yes, a sacred Pavis named Tao.
• 1:52:29
  So yes, there's some sample companions and there's six new
• 1:52:32
  Arcana and there and then there is a couple of optional rules.
• 1:52:37
  Now, I'm not going to go through the arcana necessarily, but we
• 1:52:40
  have, I'll tell you what they are because they're all legally
• 1:52:43
  distinct something. We have Gorgon, who is legally
• 1:52:46
  distinct Female Titan. We have Harpy, who is legally
• 1:52:50
  distinct, male Garuda, Male Garuda.
• 1:52:54
  We have Phoenix, who is a Phoenix.
• 1:52:58
  No legal, no legal distinction required.
• 1:53:00
  We have Undine, who is legally distinct, Shiva, not gender bent
• 1:53:05
  on that one. And then we have Unicorn, who is
• 1:53:08
  legally distinct, Ixion and Nitra, who is legally distinct.
• 1:53:14
  Bahama also gender bent. Yes.
• 1:53:17
  Also, Genderbet still has the massive titties though.
• 1:53:20
  Sort of. Yeah.
• 1:53:21
  Look, say what you will, Final Fantasy 14 Bahamat.
• 1:53:25
  That's some big titties. Not exactly how I'd describe it,
• 1:53:28
  but sure. The thing that I think is
• 1:53:30
  interesting about these arcana and they even mentioned this,
• 1:53:37
  these arcana in this particular book are a little more intricate
• 1:53:43
  and a little more complicated than the arcana presented in the
• 1:53:47
  base game. So basically if you give it to
• 1:53:52
  your players, be kind of basically it says if your group
• 1:53:56
  agrees to it, Gorgon, Harpy, Phoenix, Undyne, Unicorn can be
• 1:53:59
  chosen as starting arcana. Well, so actually, no, that's a
• 1:54:05
  different. There's a different, but it says
• 1:54:07
  somewhere that like these Arcana are a little more complicated
• 1:54:10
  than the than the base book. So just, you know, be aware that
• 1:54:14
  they're probably gonna feel cooler.
• 1:54:16
  Yes, Also Zenitra probably not an acceptable starting Arcata.
• 1:54:22
  Dude, she's a little too. Strong one.
• 1:54:27
  Choose one creature. You can see that creature heals
• 1:54:29
  999 points. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:54:33
  And all status effects Nitroglysm.
• 1:54:37
  Or Nitroglysm. You deal with 30 damage to every
• 1:54:40
  enemy you can see. The type of this damage is light
• 1:54:43
  and if you are not in crisis, or Dark if you are in crisis.
• 1:54:46
  Damage dealt by this effect ignores resistances and
• 1:54:49
  immunities and absorptions of champion ranked enemies.
• 1:54:56
  You just look at them and go duet and they go immune.
• 1:54:59
  And then you laugh. You laugh really hard.
• 1:55:02
  No, no, no. The thing that I thought was
• 1:55:05
  interesting, though, in particular about these arcana,
• 1:55:07
  is if you look at their merge abilities.
• 1:55:10
  So 'cause Isaiah is playing an arcanist in our game and we're
• 1:55:15
  using the play test rules, and technically the beta play test
• 1:55:19
  rules had added an ability to arcanist where they have a thing
• 1:55:22
  called a pulse. So you have a merge, which is
• 1:55:25
  like what happens when you summon the creature and then you
• 1:55:28
  have your dismiss, which is what happens if you get rid of them
• 1:55:32
  in the base game. The merge would be like a buff
• 1:55:34
  when you summon them, and then the dismiss would be usually
• 1:55:37
  like a big attack or a big effect.
• 1:55:39
  The pulse that they added in the play test is sort of like a,
• 1:55:42
  well, you are merged. You can also do this extra
• 1:55:45
  thing. These new arcana, in the best
• 1:55:49
  theory, don't have a pulse, but if you read their merge
• 1:55:52
  abilities, the pulse is basically built into the merge.
• 1:55:57
  Did you notice that? I did I I thought that was
• 1:55:59
  interesting. I.
• 1:56:01
  I like that better. I think I.
• 1:56:04
  Don't. I don't because I like that the
• 1:56:10
  pulse was a clear merge ability you had.
• 1:56:14
  Like it being part of the merge is nice, but I liked the the
• 1:56:16
  separation that pulse gave you. I mean The thing is is that
• 1:56:20
  Pulse has some weird restrictions on it, so I feel
• 1:56:23
  like building it all into the merge gives you more wiggle room
• 1:56:27
  to like design something a little different.
• 1:56:30
  True, especially because like Pulse, Pulse rules is written.
• 1:56:33
  Pulse can only be used in conflicts.
• 1:56:36
  True. Very clear.
• 1:56:38
  So you can only fuse during conflicts as well, so.
• 1:56:43
  You can only merge during conflicts.
• 1:56:44
  I don't think that's true. Yeah, it says in a conflict
• 1:56:48
  scene you can merge, yeah. May bind A summon a cell leader
• 1:56:53
  in Calendar. May use an action to summon the
• 1:56:54
  power of one of your Arcana. If you take this skill, no.
• 1:57:00
  Oh, I was under the assumption that I could only be merged in
• 1:57:04
  conflict scenes. I would have been doing a lot
• 1:57:07
  more shit outside of conflict scenes how I known them.
• 1:57:10
  No, I don't Hold on. I'm gonna, I'm gonna.
• 1:57:12
  We're we're doing it live. We're double checking right now.
• 1:57:14
  All right. Bind and summon.
• 1:57:16
  You bind and arcana your soul and some of them later.
• 1:57:18
  The game master will tell you the details, Blah, blah, blah.
• 1:57:20
  You may use an action and spend 40 mind points to summon an
• 1:57:23
  arcana. You're bound the details of the
• 1:57:24
  process explained on the next page.
• 1:57:26
  If you take this skill at character creation, you begin
• 1:57:28
  play with an arcana already bound to you choose from the
• 1:57:30
  list, blah, blah, blah. Other than that, you obtain new
• 1:57:33
  arcana through explanation story.
• 1:57:35
  You summon our county again, it's merged.
• 1:57:37
  Those benefits last until it's dismissed.
• 1:57:38
  You cannot summon our arcana. Well already merge with one.
• 1:57:40
  You must first dismiss. Yeah.
• 1:57:44
  No, you can merge outside of a fight.
• 1:57:48
  Yeah. So you could, yeah, that's kind
• 1:57:52
  of what I'm saying. Like the merge gives you more
• 1:57:55
  wiggle room, which means design wise you can have more wiggle
• 1:57:58
  room in terms of what the arcana could potentially do with the
• 1:58:01
  merge, which is why I think that building it into the merge might
• 1:58:04
  be it Also just I feel like it's a little bit cleaner to just
• 1:58:07
  have merge dismiss like just from a a design logic
• 1:58:13
  standpoint. Like you have activate,
• 1:58:15
  deactivate, whereas Pulse is like this kind of in between
• 1:58:19
  thing which would be fine but feels a little weird.
• 1:58:23
  Like because this game doesn't have anything equivalent to a
• 1:58:26
  bonus action, Pulse feels slightly out of place a little
• 1:58:32
  bit to me, so I feel like just tying it into the merge cleans
• 1:58:39
  that up a little. I I get what you're saying I I
• 1:58:41
  see it as a start during finish like.
• 1:58:46
  Right, which I. Divide into three specific
• 1:58:48
  sections. I get but I don't know I I just
• 1:58:55
  don't. It just seems like I don't know.
• 1:58:57
  It just seems easier to just have on off and like on gives
• 1:59:00
  you options to activate during like.
• 1:59:02
  I don't know, I I like the idea that it's built into the merge
• 1:59:06
  there. I feel like that is interesting.
• 1:59:12
  Yeah, I mean, I, I don't like, I don't hate it.
• 1:59:14
  I do just for having pulse. I also like that they have more
• 1:59:18
  shit. That's true on they do have
• 1:59:21
  more. Shit like way more shit like in
• 1:59:23
  comparison to the Arcana in the base book.
• 1:59:26
  The arcana and the bass book are fucking lame by comparison.
• 1:59:29
  Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind maybe updating at least Princess
• 1:59:32
  to these new rules just to see. Well, you kind of already
• 1:59:36
  updated with the because you have the pulse version anyway.
• 1:59:41
  Yeah, but like, you know, not only do they have the pulse, but
• 1:59:44
  like, you know, like for example, Phoenix has cleansing
• 1:59:47
  warmth in for ember feather range like that, like they.
• 1:59:52
  Just had all that worked for me. I mean, I would, I don't think
• 1:59:55
  I'd do it 100%. And this is good because we
• 2:00:00
  could just turn like I was going to do the get the new arcana
• 2:00:04
  thing anyway. Heroic skill.
• 2:00:08
  Well, that's a whole other. We could like diegetically
• 2:00:10
  upgrade her her rule set, it'd be cool.
• 2:00:12
  I mean, sure. I also think both can exist
• 2:00:18
  right next to each other too. I don't think.
• 2:00:19
  Like I think you could have some that have a pulse and some that
• 2:00:22
  don't too. I think that could work fine.
• 2:00:24
  True. I don't think they would do that
• 2:00:26
  necessarily, but I think you could listen.
• 2:00:31
  I already got to come up with all these fucking ideas for MPCS
• 2:00:34
  and shit or condom or a whole other problem.
• 2:00:36
  Because I'm always worried about making the arcana like 2 OP feel
• 2:00:40
  like it's really easy to make them like too good you know?
• 2:00:43
  I I don't know, I feel like you should just send it.
• 2:00:46
  Yeah, but I can't give you all the fun toys and nobody else.
• 2:00:50
  Sir Gennaro has a fucking robot gun that deals 20 damage around
• 2:00:56
  FO 399. Yeah, and like, I know what I
• 2:01:00
  did. I'm not going to pretend him any
• 2:01:03
  better. I'm just saying he's got that.
• 2:01:05
  That thing's about to do a crazy amount of damage.
• 2:01:08
  It's 10 levels for him. It's hard to have like cool
• 2:01:12
  summons and then also make everyone else feel like they
• 2:01:14
  have cool thing to do, you know what I'm saying?
• 2:01:16
  Yeah, I mean, look, Summoner is always, in my opinion, Summoner
• 2:01:20
  is always the coolest class than any Final Fantasy game.
• 2:01:23
  I did this on purpose. I'm just, I'm just saying I, you
• 2:01:27
  know, that is part of my worry of like making the Arcana too
• 2:01:30
  good and then everyone else feeling like his toy's cooler
• 2:01:35
  than mine, you know, it's like. Also, it's, I don't know, I, I
• 2:01:38
  don't, I think no matter how cool my shit is, I, I don't, I
• 2:01:40
  don't think there's any beating the Senate in terms of pure
• 2:01:43
  utility. Like those flowers are fucking
• 2:01:47
  nuts. I mean, sure, that's that's a
• 2:01:50
  that's it's own thing for sure. Anyway, yes, the new Arcana and
• 2:01:56
  this book are very cool. Like the new companions are very
• 2:01:59
  cool in terms of the variant options.
• 2:02:03
  Nothing crazy, basically just a couple of suggestions.
• 2:02:06
  They mentioned category based affinities, which I actually do
• 2:02:09
  like this rule. I'm not gonna implement it now
• 2:02:13
  'cause we're so deep into the campaign that I feel like.
• 2:02:17
  Oh dude, that's valid. That's so valid.
• 2:02:19
  Like I don't wanna upend things, but I do like it.
• 2:02:21
  Basically the idea is instead of cause base base, you know, base
• 2:02:26
  rules the game functions off of physical damage is just physical
• 2:02:31
  damage and that's it. There's no distinction.
• 2:02:34
  Category based affinities is is just an enemy can have
• 2:02:38
  resistance to the different types of weapons cause all of
• 2:02:41
  the there are each of the weapons goes into a category
• 2:02:44
  arcane bow, brawling dagger, firearm, flail, heavy spear,
• 2:02:48
  sword and throne. So you could say this enemy is
• 2:02:50
  like resistant to bow and brawling weapons.
• 2:02:55
  You know, Brom brawling category weapons and then, you know, not
• 2:02:59
  resistant to, you know, sword and flails and shit.
• 2:03:02
  Like I do like the granularity that that could potentially add,
• 2:03:07
  but that would also require that you guys as players have
• 2:03:12
  different weapons ready to go, which this far into the campaign
• 2:03:16
  is like would feel a little weird, right?
• 2:03:20
  And also you said the unfortunate situation where
• 2:03:23
  we're using custom weapons, which kind of makes this
• 2:03:26
  difficult. Right.
• 2:03:28
  Well, you'd have to get new weapons or side weapons.
• 2:03:31
  And yeah, you could do it with custom weapons too.
• 2:03:34
  You could like I, I don't. Know that there's like.
• 2:03:37
  Ways to do it again, I don't. Think there's a way to do
• 2:03:41
  establishing earlier on? Well, no, because what you would
• 2:03:46
  just you would just make it so that players can bot.
• 2:03:48
  Can you would just make it so the players are like, OK, I'm
• 2:03:51
  going to go buy a sword and then you just make a custom weapon
• 2:03:54
  sword. You know what I mean?
• 2:03:56
  Like and then just say that you buy that from this blacksmith
• 2:04:00
  guy or whatever, you know, like you can just do something like
• 2:04:02
  that. Like it's still doable with
• 2:04:03
  custom weapons. There's no reason it's not.
• 2:04:08
  I could foresee some weirdness. From designing more custom
• 2:04:13
  weapons, that's all you'd be doing.
• 2:04:15
  You should be making more custom weapons for yourself.
• 2:04:18
  Right. But like that, you'd have to.
• 2:04:20
  You'd get into a thing where players would just have a
• 2:04:22
  bajillion custom weapons all the time, which kind of defeats
• 2:04:26
  either of the custom weapon being like a unique thing that's
• 2:04:29
  special to them. Well, either you have a bunch of
• 2:04:32
  custom weapons or you have a bunch of regular weapons like
• 2:04:35
  this is going to necessitate that either way to a certain
• 2:04:39
  amount to a certain. Amount I mean.
• 2:04:42
  It literally, it literally says this rule is great for groups
• 2:04:45
  that like collecting many different weapons, but it can
• 2:04:48
  frustrate players with specific aesthetics in mind for their
• 2:04:51
  heroes, such as a just such as a dedicated spear warrior or
• 2:04:55
  gunslinger. Only use it if everyone's
• 2:04:57
  enthusiastic about the idea. So like.
• 2:05:00
  Yeah, it's, it's sort of recognizing what I'm saying if
• 2:05:01
  you have. Is recognizing what you're
• 2:05:03
  saying I'm saying I don't. My point is that I don't think
• 2:05:06
  custom weapons specifically make it any more difficult than using
• 2:05:10
  than not using custom weapons. Like I don't think that
• 2:05:12
  particular factor matters. I think it's the same amount of
• 2:05:18
  complexity with basic weapons or custom weapons.
• 2:05:25
  Like that particular element doesn't add that much.
• 2:05:28
  I acknowledge that it could be annoying in general if you're
• 2:05:32
  not on board. And then there's some mention of
• 2:05:38
  the variant on the Breach rule. Basically just because Breach
• 2:05:42
  base is working off weapons if you're using enemies that don't
• 2:05:47
  have weapons, because none of the enemies in this book have
• 2:05:49
  weapons, it's just a variant on that ability.
• 2:05:53
  And then there's this pressure stagger optional rule mechanic,
• 2:05:58
  which basically is the stagger system for Final Fantasy 16,
• 2:06:02
  funny enough, where I think Final Fantasy 12 maybe also has
• 2:06:09
  a stagger system. There's a couple of, or 13 might
• 2:06:11
  be 13. Actually, there's a couple of
• 2:06:12
  Final Fantasy games that have like a stagger thing.
• 2:06:16
  Basically, you have a clock, you have a stagger clock or a, a,
• 2:06:22
  yeah, you have a stagger clock for the enemy.
• 2:06:24
  You hit them with either a certain type of weapon or a
• 2:06:27
  vulnerability. It increases their clock.
• 2:06:30
  Once you fill their clock, they go into a stagger state, they
• 2:06:33
  lose their turn and they become vulnerable to a whole bunch of
• 2:06:35
  damage types. That's the basic idea of that
• 2:06:39
  system. And then obviously by adding
• 2:06:43
  that mechanic, you can also potentially design NPC mechanics
• 2:06:48
  around the stagger system. So for example, it says a boss
• 2:06:53
  whose pressure clock fills by two sections whenever their one
• 2:06:56
  of their soldier minions is defeated.
• 2:06:59
  A boss whose vulnerabilities and pressure points change upon
• 2:07:02
  entering crisis for the first time.
• 2:07:04
  A boss whose pressure clock fills by 1 section at the start
• 2:07:07
  of each of their turns, as long as they're suffering from 2
• 2:07:09
  specific status effects. So like, you know, it's another
• 2:07:12
  Ave. for like tactical potential.
• 2:07:16
  Again, interesting idea, not something I want to implement
• 2:07:20
  this late into a campaign because again, that can be
• 2:07:24
  awkward just trying to like throw in a whole new thing.
• 2:07:30
  I also feel like this stagger pressure mechanic would kind of
• 2:07:36
  throw off the balance because you have the ability to make an
• 2:07:41
  enemy skip their turn, which is kind of crazy.
• 2:07:45
  So I feel like if I were to throw this in there, I'd have to
• 2:07:48
  also account for it in terms of balance design.
• 2:07:52
  And then I'd be relearning this problem all over again.
• 2:07:55
  And I'd be doing it at quite a high level because we're dealing
• 2:07:58
  with like level 30 enemies at this point.
• 2:08:01
  So like, we're not doing all that.
• 2:08:03
  Yeah. I mean, I would say there's no,
• 2:08:05
  there's no point. Not right now.
• 2:08:07
  It's a It's an interesting idea, although I do feel like it's a
• 2:08:12
  little weird that it's one sided in that you can only stagger
• 2:08:16
  enemy like the the players can stagger NPCS but it doesn't go
• 2:08:20
  the other way. So I feel like this is just a a
• 2:08:24
  huge player buff. I wouldn't say it's like it's
• 2:08:31
  it's exclusively a buff because of the fact that you have to
• 2:08:35
  fight to get it. Like once you have it, then
• 2:08:38
  yeah, it's go time and you're just doing crazy damage.
• 2:08:42
  But but it's another option. So like, yes, it is another
• 2:08:49
  option, but I think about it this way, right?
• 2:08:50
  Like you're sacrificing consistent vulnerability for big
• 2:08:57
  cinematic like bully beat downs. So I think it probably comes out
• 2:09:01
  to be about taking the. Oh, because they don't take the
• 2:09:04
  double damage until they're staggered.
• 2:09:06
  You mean? Yeah, I'd say that's true.
• 2:09:09
  It probably equates to the same thing.
• 2:09:10
  It just will feel more cinematic when you actually nail it, yeah.
• 2:09:16
  I suppose that's true. Yeah, I don't know.
• 2:09:22
  That's pretty much. And then that's basically the
• 2:09:24
  end of the best area. The last couple of pages,
• 2:09:26
  there's a profile list which just lists all of the enemies.
• 2:09:32
  It lists them in level order and then it has their roles, their
• 2:09:35
  rank, their species and what page they are on, which is great
• 2:09:39
  to just go through and be like, oh, I'm looking for a level 20
• 2:09:41
  enemy and just Scroll down, look at all the level 20 guys in the
• 2:09:43
  list. Fantastic.
• 2:09:47
  And then after the profile list, there is a couple of pages of
• 2:09:51
  sample formations, which are basically a couple of group
• 2:09:55
  different enemy group combinations that you could
• 2:09:58
  potentially throw at your players to be like, oh, look,
• 2:10:01
  here's a, you know, they're they're pre, they're pre built
• 2:10:04
  in counters, which is fun. I don't know that.
• 2:10:12
  I mean, I, I didn't look that closely at them to see kind of
• 2:10:15
  how they're designed or if they, you know, how well they work or
• 2:10:19
  whatever, but I see no reason to assume they wouldn't.
• 2:10:22
  Agreed. And yeah, and then that's the
• 2:10:27
  end of the book. Like I said, this, this is once
• 2:10:35
  again, basically once again, Fabio Ultima.
• 2:10:38
  Just don't miss it. Just don't miss like.
• 2:10:40
  It really just don't miss, yeah? Every book gives you something
• 2:10:44
  good to something, something juicy to use, something to chew
• 2:10:46
  on. So you know this one though
• 2:10:52
  personally for me this is the best splat book of them all.
• 2:10:57
  Like this is the best supplement book for sure because it has the
• 2:11:02
  most usefulness and I think will help you to generate the most
• 2:11:07
  ideas. Like I I think because the
• 2:11:14
  because designing encounters and MPCS is basically the hardest
• 2:11:19
  part of this game. This book will help you the
• 2:11:23
  most, you know what I mean? For sure, yeah.
• 2:11:26
  Like it's just. I would say this is like in the
• 2:11:32
  this is priceless for AGM like. Yeah, the value per dollar is
• 2:11:36
  crazy. Like I said, this book is a must
• 2:11:39
  have in my opinion. Like if you're going to run this
• 2:11:43
  game without it, I like at this point, it's funny because I was
• 2:11:47
  running without it before, but now that I'm like now that I see
• 2:11:50
  it, I'm like, how? How did I ever exist without
• 2:11:52
  you? You know what I mean?
• 2:11:55
  Like how could I? I was just about to say, it's
• 2:11:57
  one of those things where in two years you're gonna be like, how
• 2:12:00
  do people do it without this? Yeah, yeah, it's it's literally
• 2:12:05
  that. So yeah, I have nothing else to
• 2:12:11
  like, I have nothing else to say.
• 2:12:12
  I can't, can't glaze the best area enough.
• 2:12:14
  I mean, I have little nitpicks here and there, but they're so
• 2:12:19
  little that they're like kind of irrelevant, you know what I
• 2:12:22
  mean? Like I wanted a few more.
• 2:12:25
  I wanted some more role skills for each of the individual
• 2:12:28
  roles, maybe some more customizations.
• 2:12:31
  I would have liked a page of like a spell list page of all of
• 2:12:36
  the spells that the players have or something like that.
• 2:12:41
  But that's not the end of the world.
• 2:12:44
  I forgot there was, there's a oh, there's a couple of monster,
• 2:12:48
  there's a couple of monster stat blocks.
• 2:12:50
  I wanted that. I'm like, I'm sad that doesn't
• 2:12:53
  exist. Like there's no lich.
• 2:12:55
  A little disappointed there's no lich, not going to lie.
• 2:12:59
  There's what it is. It's the it's not explicitly A
• 2:13:04
  lich, but the fucking where is it the not the Necro dragon, but
• 2:13:16
  the, I don't know, Ixio Daimone. It's like it's a little more
• 2:13:23
  Cthulhu coded, but it's basically a lich.
• 2:13:28
  Yeah, he's he's kind of Yeah, he's a little too.
• 2:13:31
  Cthulhu coded for me. Fair, fair enough.
• 2:13:34
  But he he's in that direction, I suppose you're not totally
• 2:13:37
  wrong. Do the any of the pandemoniums
• 2:13:40
  have like lich coded abilities? That's a good point.
• 2:13:44
  I I didn't look at those, those fucking.
• 2:13:47
  Samaya looks so cool. Samuel's crazy.
• 2:13:50
  Yeah. For for context, there's like 7
• 2:13:54
  deadly sins, Pandemonium 7 yeah 7 deadly sins.
• 2:13:57
  But like cranked to the Max as like crazy over the top JRPG
• 2:14:02
  mega boss demon things. They they look sick.
• 2:14:06
  Would you also kind of chuckle when they add the baromets
• 2:14:09
  because of fucking dungeon machine you were like.
• 2:14:13
  I did think it was funny. I don't think that's why it's
• 2:14:14
  there. No, no, it's almost certainly
• 2:14:16
  not. But I looked at it and went or I
• 2:14:18
  would probably eat that. The funny.
• 2:14:21
  Thing is, it looks like a weird setup, but.
• 2:14:24
  The funny thing is, it looks like a weird vegetable monster.
• 2:14:26
  Yeah. Which I know, I don't know, I
• 2:14:30
  don't know what's up with the barrel, but but yes, I did think
• 2:14:32
  about the dungeon Mushy episode for sure.
• 2:14:36
  All right, you have any further glazing you'd like to do?
• 2:14:39
  And there's a bunch of monsters I could bring up that I really
• 2:14:42
  like and think are super cool, like the Gallow branch, the
• 2:14:48
  Dynagar, which is basically just the the corals, the crazy, like
• 2:14:53
  leopard cheetahs or like leopard tiger things in Final Fantasy.
• 2:14:58
  Agantes, the actual other Alexander.
• 2:15:05
  Yeah. They're just, they're so sick.
• 2:15:07
  The mellow court. I love the mellow court so much.
• 2:15:10
  Oh, the slimes. Yeah, yeah, they're adorable.
• 2:15:13
  I love them. They also just have straight up
• 2:15:16
  mechs. Like the mechs are are wild.
• 2:15:18
  They're nuts. They're our.
• 2:15:19
  Mechs. The war machines, the turrets,
• 2:15:25
  and there are. Very they're final, very Final
• 2:15:27
  Fantasy 7 coded mechs. Yeah.
• 2:15:30
  And what are the other ones called there?
• 2:15:31
  There's like actual like Armored Cores in here.
• 2:15:36
  Yeah. Oh God, It it's fine.
• 2:15:42
  There's a lot, yeah. There's a lot of shit in.
• 2:15:44
  This book. All righty.
• 2:15:48
  Well, that has been us. If you are so inclined, you can
• 2:15:53
  follow us on social media or not do whatever you want.
• 2:15:56
  I'm not sure Mom, but I will tell you, you should buy this
• 2:15:59
  book. Buy book now, he's good.
• 2:16:07
  They're just going to say you're going to get anything out there.
• 2:16:09
  Look good bring back the the the Sam classic look good.
• 2:16:14
  Good. Monster cool.
• 2:16:16
  Monster cool? Yeah, probably monster.
• 2:16:18
  Cool. Monster cool.