Welcome home.
It’s October 11th, and the episode title is “Live Cat Bonus”.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #304]
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Dark Wizard Games won the RPG Publisher Spotlight. I’m in touch with Mark. We’re getting the question train running, so I hope we’re on track to have an interview live before the end of the month.
In the meantime, Dark Wizard’s most recent game at DTRPG is Hidden Shrine of the Warlord Chief for 5e, but with a retro vibe.
I’m just back from Comic Con Scotland after an expected ticket turned up in my inbox. Very surprised to see an armoured personnel carrier on the street as I walked to the Royal Highland Centre, but not surprised not to see any comic books. However, it was a good vibe at the convention, with some smashing cosplay and loads of celebs. I’ve a video of the encounter and Con posted on TikTok and Instagram.
This week has been a tough one for the popular cartography tool Inkarnate.
They’ve recently increased prices and have plans to add a marketplace for third-party content. No one likes price hikes but in today’s economy they’re sometimes unavoidable, and I think a marketplace is a good idea.
However, Inkarnate was originally going to allow AI-generated content there as most other markets do, but the fans objected, Inkarnate listened and changed policy.
There’s a lot of financial media conversation right now as to whether the money in the AI ecosystem is a bubble. Big companies are paying each other tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in deals, but these investments are all circular, all going back and forth between the same people. I can see why some commentators are beginning to call it out.
What does this mean for AI and this week’s news? It means I think the jury is out as to whether we’ll be this heated about AI-generated content in marketplaces come October 2026. It could go either way.
A little less controversial is Lootrion. This webapp was designed by a teacher in Bosnia to reduce big in-character shopping sessions from gameplay time, as it can consume a lot of it. Essentially, the GM builds a setting, puts marketplaces into it and then stalls in to the marketplaces. Then, the busy GM puts items into those stalls. Once set up, the maintenance drops and players know that if they’re at a market in character, they can shop there between games, and the system tells them what they’ve found.
You get one setting for free but anything more requires an upgrade, and there’s holding art in the system, which, you guessed it, was created with AI and that’s put some people off. We’ll also have to see if Lootrion is an answer to a widespread problem.
Sticking with AI but also changing the topic dramatically – there’s a Ghost in the Machine TTRPG on the way.
I can’t afford it, but I’m stoked. I think the world is big enough to support a RPG, because it’s not all about the Major.
The company behind it is Mana Project Studio, and, yes, they already do Cowboy Bebop. They’ve got an in with the Japanese studios so let’s all guess which title they’ll get next.
If you’re poor like an indie news site then there’s good news because there is already a free Ghost in the Shell TTRPG quickstart to download. The question is whether you dare to download it and take a look, in case it cracks your willpower and you end up backing the Kickstarter.
As it happens, I did write about memory and memory systems in TTRPGs this week. My muse was a new RPG from Troctopus Press called Vestiges.
The core tenet of Vestiges is a memory map that players interpret together, making it collective but not open-ended, as the goal of Vestiges is to recreate an accurate memory, not make one up.
I was also lucky enough to get an early look at LunaBear’s The Deck of Holding.
I met Tom of LunaBear first at Tabletop Scotland 2024, which, like Comic Con Scotland, is out at the Royal Highland Centre. And, in a way, The Deck of Holding also has a memory connection.
The deck of cards is a series of monsters and NPCs with human art on them and a host of helpful stats and prompts. Pick one at random and you’ve an encounter, but you can be cleverer than that by grouping cards by environment or challenge rating.
The Deck of Holding is currently live on Kickstarter.
There is something interesting happening in the world of digital comics. Ex-Comixology vets created Neon Ichiban and have managed to sign loads of big publishers.
Now they’ve released Remarques for the system. A remarque is a unique digital alteration on a digital comic book – such as an author’s signature. And, if this sounds like NFTs, the founders previously had said they weren’t going to go there.
I think this could be a game-changer because it means digital comics can be collectable. I could have gone to Comic Con Scotland and got a digital comic signed on a tablet by someone there, and it would then be unique and different. However, I’ll have to check the Neon Ichiban fine print to make sure I always own the comic and it’s not a rental or something that can be recalled.
We also have a first in physical comic books. Well. Kinda. There’s the first ever Judge Dredd collectable coin, and it’s pure silver. You can now get a Judge Dredd badge, and gosh, Sideshow is selling them for just over £115. That’s much less expensive than a large model but it’s a darn bit more expensive than a signed comic book.
Now, just as we reach the outro, we finally get onto the ‘Live Cat Bonus’ that this podcast is named after. The phrase comes from Looney Lab’s latest Fluxx Game.
You can now play Cat Fluxx, solo or with a group. The thing about Fluxx games is that the rules change even as you play and with Cat Fluxx there’s a live cat bonus. If there’s a live cat in the room as you play the rules are different, more generous, than if there is no cat. This is a fantastic idea.
I can imagine other uses. What about a Ravenloft game that gets even harder to play if you try during October? Imagine a Cyberpunk RED game where it gets easier if all the players contribute appropriate music to a shared Spotify playlist playing during the scene.
As for that outro there are a few bundles and a competition to mention.
At the Bundle of Holding, there’s a deal on Acthung! Cthulhu and that’s a game that gets easier the more successful your PCs are at punching Nazis. There’s also a deal on The Far Roofs in which you’re a rat and the gods are angry at you. That’s not a great position to be in.
Bronwen wrote up this year’s Month of Darkness, in which loads of World of Darkness TTRPGs appear on Humble.
White Wolf has taken all this in-house, but this bundle is from Renegade, and so they clearly can still sell these games.
Lastly, and for about a week, we’ve a copy of the award-winning board game Mysterium to give away. You do have to be in the UK to win but to enter you just have to tell us how often you get to play board games.
Thanks for listening. Take care and ask yourself whether the cat wants to play.
