Because We Needed An Excuse To Be Lazy with Mike Shea - Boards & Swords #289
Remember last episode when we talked about the new Lazy Gamemaster Kickstarter campaign? Well, now you can hear it from the man himself! Mike Shea joins us to talk about the campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master), how Paizo is ending long term licensing deals, and CMON continues long term terrible decision making.
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News
Oh man, the jokes just write themselves on this story. Months after we made fun of CMON investing in a company making NFT games, the struggling board game company has pulled out of the deal. The details on why they abandoned the deal are not fully known, but we all really know. Anyone thinking NFTs are still 'relevant' has no clue at all what they are doing.
What if you could pay money for mini versions of board game boxes and put them on a mini IKEA Kallax shelf? Well now you can! Brotherwise Games is selling a starter set of "Shelfy", which are wooden tiny versions of popular board game boxes that you can display on a similarly scaled down shelf alongside several blind packs of other games for you to complete your "collection". I'm not sure that I fully get the appeal, but if you are at work and miss seeing your Kallax full of games that you haven't played, this is a good way to bring that feeling to work.
Paizo Ends Licensing Partnership With Archive Of Nethys (from Bell of Lost Souls)
Paizo ended (and then created a new deal) with popular third party site "Archive of Nethys", citing increasing legal costs as one of the many reasons they couldn't let the existing partnership stand. AoN is a site where lots of the official Pathfinder artwork and rules are posted, typically before they are even available to purchase. With the increased financial issues that have been reported out of Paizo, the penny pinching going on here makes me nervous as to the company's future.
RPG: Roll20 And Czepeku Team Up – Dynamic VTT Maps Have Never Been Easier (from Bell of Lost Souls)
Previously, if you used Roll20 and had map files from other sources, either pre-made or built yourself, the only way to bring in those files and keep all the walls/lightning/etc in place was to subscribe and use a custom import script that one user made. Now, Roll20 has partnered with the popular map site Czepeku to offer a built in UVTT importer, allowing these files to quickly get added to your Roll20 games. You still have to pay for Roll20 to utilize any lighting features on the map, but now there is way more available to users who aren't able to purchase a subscription.
It's a weird crossover, but what Magic the Gathering set isn't these days? We've gotten early looks at the four Commander decks that will be coming out later this year in the Star Trek set. There's a TNG/Voyager set, one for TOS, a Klingon one, and one for the Borg. Artifact decks are already scary enough as it is, so I can only imagine how terrifying a Borg-themed artifact deck will end up!
Ask A Dirtbag GM
Oops My Players Have Fire Immunity in a Magma Field. What do I do? (from reddit/r/DMAcademy)
You've managed to get a high level campaign, and now your players are able to find ways around the dangerous environments you've created? Sounds like you aren't being creative enough! Just because they don't take damage, doesn’t mean their clothes and armor are immune to fire!
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