Play Easily Now (PEN) Roleplaying Game Review - Score: 77 / 100
This review is part of my new TTRPGs page, where you can find awesome Games Like DnD that you may never have heard of before. If you're interested in finding a new game to play, check out that article!
Play Easily Now (PEN): Roleplaying Game is a new TTRPG by Josiah Mork, from Hoodwink Games. As of the time of this article, the Kickstarter is just about to launch (on October 3rd, 2024), so if you like the sound of this review, be sure to support the game.
PEN is effectively BaG (the Basic and Generic Roleplaying Game), but 2nd edition. The name's changed but the game’s core mechanics are very similar, with nice quality of life improvements and cool new features.
As with BaG, PEN focuses on providing players with the option for gaming in multiple genres (fantasy, scifi, modern, etc.), with rules that are easy-to-learn, well laid-out, and that perhaps above all, allows players to create and roleplay any character they can imagine. The game’s mechanics are also flexible and streamlined, creating very quick gameplay that's easy to learn.
My overall impression of the game is very favorable. I would purchase this game and play campaigns with it, which is really the key takeaway, and probably the most important question to answer for any review.
Review Intricacies
Because PEN is really BaG 2nd edition in many ways, and I’m writing this review not only for players new to Hoodwink Games, but also for those who have already played BaG 1st edition and want to know how the sequel plays, many of the sections that I've reviewed (below) compares and contrasts PEN to BaG.
Some scores for PEN are also even influenced by BaG (such as the “uniqueness” score), though I have tried to be as fair as possible in scoring, especially given the unique circumstances of reviewing this 2nd edition game.
For anyone reading this review, PEN actually has a slightly lower score in my book than BaG, but I would actually prefer playing PEN. I try to review games as if they were an art form, which takes into account many factors, for a wide audience of people. In this case, PEN has a slightly lower score than BaG particularly in the "Uniqueness" and "Art" categories. So, even though I've given PEN a better score in many other categories, the overall score is lower than BaG received.
Personally, I don't think an RPG's uniqueness or art are the be-all-end-alls for a game, which is why I'd still prefer playing this game over BaG - in a playability sense, PEN is better. So, just keep in mind that if it weren't for those two rather unimportant sections (so far as gameplay is concerned), PEN would have a much higher score.
How Unique is PEN: (6/10)
Starting off, PEN is just as unique of a game as BaG, which received an 8/10 in the “uniqueness” category. However, because PEN is the 2nd edition, and there aren’t a ton of new, unique materials or concepts that particularly distinguish it from BaG, I am actually scoring PEN lower in this category.
Maybe that reasoning doesn’t seem quite fair, but BaG was simply more unique when it came out than PEN is from its predecessor.
What I can definitely say is that PEN has provided some nice improvements over the unique features that were from BaG. But, as valuable as incremental growth is for games, it isn’t the same thing as providing a truly “unique” experience.
All of that being said, there still are some very interesting new rules and options for players in PEN.
Item and Magic Crafting
Two of the things I still think are most unique about PEN are its item and magic crafting sections. Hoodwink Games has really put some thought into how to build item and magic crafting system with flexibility into its multi-genre rulebooks.
I’ve always been a fan in games like World of Warcraft, crafting weapons and armor for my characters. Maybe not everyone is into that kind of thing, but for me – and I know there are more people like me out there – it’s fun to run around the game world, collecting rare and unique materials for use in my new gear.
Item Crafting
In a TTRPG, building item crafting like you see in WoW into a rulebook is (most likely) far too tedious for it to be practical. In PEN, however, the problem is solved with a very flexible suggested list of crafting materials, which may be combined together as the GM/ player see fit, and using a simple “Mechanics” roll for crafting success.
Magic Crafting
The magic crafting section is probably the only segment in the PEN rulebook that can be slightly intimidating, but it is possible to create basically any spell you could possibly imagine. You may create spells using a number of elements (earth, wind, fire, death, etc.), effects, school of casting, targets, range, duration, and more. Combined, these options allow players to craft spells that may do virtually anything.
In PEN, magic feels... well, like magic. It feels like magic from a book, the first time you read about it, back when you were a kid – when magic wasn’t just something like, “I click my hotkey to cast fireball, which does 127-spell damage.”
Instead, magic in PEN is unpredictable, exciting, open to infinite possibilities, and is truly a unique system that you won’t find in any other TTRPG out there, anywhere. It might feel a little complex at first, but nothing that any "true wizard" would ever let hold them back.
How Easy is it to Learn to Play BaG RPG: (10/10)
PEN is so easy to learn that I even factor this score as an added bonus into the “uniqueness” section above, as it’s one of the things that I love most about the game. You could almost say, in fact, that I give this section an 11/10.
Including the index, PEN is 93-pages long, so like BaG, you can read through the entire game manual in about an hour – that is, if you glance over the more technical pieces, and just read for general comprehension. This should be welcome news to any game master.
Furthermore, like BaG, the book is laid out in a series of “Modules,” that teach you how to play the game, in stages. More advanced concepts and options (like item crafting, magic, and even character creation) come after basic gameplay rules are provided.
Character Creation
What I like most about character creation in PEN is that players may actually select premade characters, based on 7-different archetypes. The reason I like these premade characters is that they're still generic enough for players to fit their own style into the game, and having characters that are 100% ready to go means that people who know nothing about PEN can pick up the rulebook and start adventuring in literally minutes.
One of the biggest hurdles (in my opinion) for roleplaying games is that it's usually a lot of work for (usually) the game master to learn the game, walk players through character creation, and then teach everyone how to play. With PEN, a large shortcut may be taken through that stage of character-building, saving great deals of time.
Later on, once players are familiar enough with the game to build their own characters, then custom character creation becomes available.
It's also worth noting that PEN is a classless RPG, and so features an incredible number of options for players once they do get to the point of creating their own custom character.
Gameplay
Nearly all of the game takes place through resolving 14-different kinds of skill checks. One thing I really like about PEN is that even combat scores are considered “skill checks,” so there’s really only one system for the game (with yes, a little variety when it comes to combat). This is opposed to games like DnD, where you have an attack roll bonus, then skill bonuses, then resist check bonuses, which all function pretty differently.
Basically, there are “Degrees of Success” in PEN, ranging from Critical Failure all the way up to Heroic Success. Players make skill checks using 3d6, and then consult the all-important table on Pg.7 of the rulebook to see what category their roll falls into. For combat, there’s also an opposing roll from your target before results become clear and damage is dealt, etc.
Characters start with 65-skill points into their 14-skills, meaning each probably averages around 4-5 at the start of the game. With a 3d6 + 4 (or 5), characters should succeed (in some manner) on virtually every roll.
The system has depth to it, with Degrees of Success, but the game is ultimately easy to learn. Whenever a player tries to "do" something, the answer from the game master is usually just to, “roll 3d6, add your skill, and consult the table on Pg.7.”
Chaining Skill Checks
Speaking of Degree of Success, each skill check often affects the next, depending on the "Degree of Success" reached: players have a kind of detriment to their next roll (on the low end of success, called a “Strive”), or bonus to their next roll (with Critical and Heroic Successes).
The game is less often about “whether or not your character succeeds at doing what you want them to,” and more often becomes about, “how does your choice of actions from before effect what’s to come?”
For example, if you Dodge an enemy’s attack, but you merely do so with a “Strive” (by narrowly “striving” to get out of the way), you position yourself badly, so that your next attack now has a lowered roll.
Or conversely, your character has a Heroic Success on their Notice roll, allowing them to not only see bandits sneaking up on the party, but giving them a (substantial) bonus to their next Magic roll, allowing them to blast the rogues from afar.
Presentation: (8/10)
Everything in PEN looks just as good as BaG, or better. The color choice is great, font is clear, tables look good, and I really appreciate the use of highlighted sections in the book that expand upon tough concepts with the use of quick examples.
There’s even a giant “Important” text over the game’s key table (for Degrees of Success) on Pg.7.
Overall, the rulebook looks great, reads easily, and leaves absolutely no complaints. The only reason I didn’t give PEN a higher score in this section is because I’m picky and feel that there’s a little “something” missing. Though the format’s really good, I feel that game books should be first and foremost, entertaining for its readers. And by "entertaining," I mean that they should even be entertaining beyond what's written inside: they need to "pull readers in," and make it "fun for them to learn the game," not just "easy to learn the game."
I think that maybe if the clean/ efficient use of space and technically perfect style of PEN met Josiah’s other game, Starset RPG: The Great Dimming somewhere in the middle, with its immaculate sense of style and grandeur, PEN would be a solid 10/10 in this category.
Lore: (3/10)
In my review of BaG, I mentioned how I was originally going to give the game a 3/10 for its lore, because like Savage Worlds, the game relies almost entirely upon the game master to create a fun world and storyline.
This is effectively the problem with multi-genre games. Because you must create rules that can fit any genre (fantasy, scifi, grimdark, modern, cyberpunk, etc.), you can’t really provide lore for game masters and players to use in each and every category, without supplemental books and materials.
It’s my understanding that PEN will have specific setting books available in the future, for various genres. However, as of the time of this writing – so far as I know – no such book exists. Thus, I have to leave my score where it stands. I’m happy to adjust it upwards though as such books do become available.
Combat in BaG RPG: (7/10)
PEN sought to fix some of the issues with combat from BaG RPG, and I’m very grateful for that.
I love that combat in PEN is fast-paced, simple, and allows players agency even when they’re attacked (you can choose to Block an attack, or Dodge). I also enjoy that combat simply uses skill checks, like everything else in the game. So, there isn’t this feeling that combat is it’s own mini-game, which is separate from the rest of the game.
Since skill checks are a 3d6 system, the “target” numbers are also easier to understand than they were in BaG RPG. Finally, I particularly enjoy how Degrees of Success work while in combat, and find the interactions they create very interesting, especially when it comes to counterattacking.
With all of that being said, and though I do think the game has improved combat from BaG (quite a bit), I still have a few issues with PEN’s combat system.
Counterattacking
When I first read that every time your character is attacked in combat, you get to counterattack, I really liked the idea. It sort of makes sense, after all: somebody tries to whack you, so you whack them back.
The idea also flows really well with Degrees of Success, as a very successful Block or Dodge translates into an instantly more powerful counterattack.
As a power gamer though, here’s the issue: the more times I get attacked, the higher my “DPS” will be. If I'm the “tank” for my group (not that PEN has archetypes like a "tank," specifically – but if I'm the guy who runs into a group of enemies, trying to protect my allies), I get as many attacks per turn as enemies who surround (and attack) me.
This means that even if I have a low hit chance – and, as a “tank,” a very high Block score, of course – because I'm getting attacked, and thus counterattacking, more often than anyone in my group... by default, I do the most damage.
So, when reading through the PEN combat system, my first thought was, “ok, I max out my skill in Resistance (my Block value), get the best armor possible, and put the rest of my stats into having the highest HP possible.” Basically, no other build even comes close to being as powerful as what I'm describing here, so far as combat is concerned.
I do think that most people would look at PEN and focus on all of the great customizable options for items, magic, and “Maneuvers” (below), but for those with power gamer tendencies like me, this just is what it is.
Maneuvers
In PEN, you can do more than attack and defend. You also have access to “Maneuvers,” which like many games, are the solution for physical-based characters to have their own kind of “magic-like” system.
To be honest, I don’t 100% understand Maneuvers, just from reading the rulebook. I think you can use as many Maneuvers as you want during your turn, and they each lower your hit chance – if you use multiple, or combine them with your attack, that is. Otherwise, they each have a unique effect such as distracting your target or lowering their hit chance, instead of simply dealing damage when you attack.
From playing around with Maneuvers, however, it didn’t feel like they were “powerful” enough, as compared to dealing damage. So, they quickly became a bit of an afterthought in our group.
It’s nice that Maneuvers are available, and in some clutch situations they did prove to be very useful, such as when we shoved a group of enemies off a ledge. But overall though, they felt underwhelming.
Mass Combat
I always enjoy when games provide options for mass combat. PEN does an admirable job of taking the vast amounts of info that could go into any war game and distilling it to its most basic elements. My gaming group didn’t get to try out mass combat in any great detail, but what we did play through was fun, satisfying, and added to the overall gaming session in a positive way.
BaG RPG Game “Flow”: (10/10)
PEN has everything going for it when it comes to game “Flow” that BaG did, plus more. Skill checks are easy and fast, perks and quirks make roleplaying more meaningful, while also contributing to skill checks, items and magic are interesting without being cumbersome, premade character archetypes allow gaming groups to immediately jump into play, and there are even premade adventure modules in the main rulebook.
PEN is still the best TTRPG for player creativity that I've seen, as you can do literally anything with your character that you’d ever want. And this is where the multi-genre style really pays off, because you can be a heroic knight, a space pirate, a mechanic in a steampunk universe, or really anything that you can imagine.
I also honestly cannot say enough how much I love opening a rulebook that’s under 100-pages in length. It’s just so easy to find any reference table that’s needed, and then immediately get back into your RPG campaign.
It felt like PEN gave my gaming group enough framework to play our gaming sessions, but then was otherwise “out of the way,” so that we could focus on having fun and immersing into our adventure. Literally perfect.
Artwork: (3/10)
As with nearly all up-and-coming/ independent TTRPGs, I feel that allowances must be made when it comes to having high-quality artwork. Artists are expensive, and art takes a tremendous amount of time to create.
That being said, Josiah’s done a very good job including some simple art in the PEN rulebook. The art that is present both looks good and helps convey the message that each section covers.
At the end of the day, this isn’t the most artistically beautiful TTRPG rulebook out there, and that lack of art does affect the overall aesthetic to some degree.
Ease of Purchase: (10/10)
PEN is extremely easy to purchase. You can find it on the Hoodwink website, and of course, the Kickstarter page.
Price & How Many Books Do You Need to Play: (10/10)
As of the time of this writing, PEN hasn’t yet “officially” launched on the Hoodwink website or Kickstarter page, so I’m not 100% sure on the price. However, if it’s anything like Hoodwink Games’ other products, it’ll be in the $15 range for PDF, and $25 for print.
Compare this to D&D, which is like, what, $60 per book nowadays (and you need three of them to play), and you can see why I love the price of this game.
Ease of Starting a Group & Availability of Supplemental Material: (10/10)
Another advantage to multi-genre games is that finding a group to play is extremely easy. You can connect with any tabletop gamer and ask if they want to get together for some kind of adventure – be it in an elven forest, on an asteroid (for your scifi gamer friends), or whatever else people are into.
PEN is not a famous game yet, but Hoodwink Games has now successfully launched and funded numerous Kickstarter projects, so it may well become so. Furthermore, you can help make it so.
Even if your friends haven’t yet heard of PEN, it's a game that people truly enjoy. I’m also pretty certain that more supplemental books are coming out soon, which should expand character-building options in a wide variety of ways, custom to each genre setting. Perfect for providing you with content to game with your friends, no matter what kind of game they're into.
Give PEN a try! You’ll be happy that you did.
Play Easily Now (PEN) Roleplaying Game is Produced By:
Josiah Mork/ Hoodwink Games
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Author - Jacob Tegtman
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Transcribed content from our recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RnO-Se1ols Transcription [00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to Eternity TTRPG. It's been a little bit since I've been on with you as, uh... But today we have back Mildred the Monk, who is a friend of the channel. Uh, we had a great conversation last time. I have reviewed Final Fantasy Legends Edition, and you guys really liked it. Those are some of our most viewed videos, and we just wanted to bring you back on today. Thanks for coming on. Excited to talk. Thank you for having me. I enjoy being had So we're gonna be talking a- about a couple different things today, but let's start with, I think, the thing that the most number of people will be interested in who follow your work, at least as of recently as well, but jobs and classes for Final Fantasy Legend Edition. Do you wanna give people, like, a quick intro for those who don't know about this edition? So Legend Edition I started about [00:01:00] five years ago as originally it was an idea that kind of up, that kind of showed up in my head and wouldn't leave. Um, that idea of, um, taking Legend System, which was a three, a D&D 3.5 hack, um, that was part of the Test of Spite Arena Challenge on Giant in the Playground years and years ago, taking its track system that I thought was very interesting and applying the job system to, that's in Final Fantasy to it. That was the, that was a two-part stream that I did, that I did five years ago. had to be two parts because midway through, um, Mother Nature intervened we said, "All right, we'll do part two when, when, when things clear up tomorrow." Oh gosh. And when we-- And after that, the idea wouldn't leave my head, and I started working on it and working on it, [00:02:00] uh, until Legend Edition formed, which very much is its own beast. Um, there's been a few people who've looked at the fact that I use six ability scores and a D20 as a, as a core mechanic and say, "Oh, this is a D&D derivative." Um, it isn't... It's only that if you look at the barest surface, but looking at the surface is also very, um, shallow. I mean, by... I mean, if you're gonna g- if you're gonna go that low, then, um S- than say the Black Hack is a, is no different than playing D&D even though one's a, one's an aim high, one's an aim low. a better example is, and I've brought this up in the past, that'd be like saying Fading Suns is no different from D&D because they both use a D20. Even though Fading Suns is what I, is what I like to call D20 blackjack because it's about aiming high but also [00:03:00] aiming low Like you're trying I think un- you're trying to get under a threshold, but you're trying to get as close to it as you can Gotcha. Sure. I mean, yeah. I mean, people call tissue paper Kleenex, right? Like, that's just kind of, it's like the shorthand so that people know what there's talking about. But when you dive into it, every TTRPG is different, and Mm-hmm. this is the best version of Final Fantasy TTRPGs that's out there. So for players who wanna play Final Fantasy, yeah that was to estab- that was to establish a, that was to address a pet peeve that I had. And I, Oh? this the last time we talked about, but I have covered multiple Final Fantasy TTRPG projects, it Mmhmm games in all but name like Fabula Ult- like Fabula or Aegis, or direct fan projects like The Returners series of projects and the things that spun from them. And a pet [00:04:00] peeve that I had was a lot of them entirely on the SNES era. Now, don't get it wrong, like four, five, and six. A little bit mixed on Mystic Quest, but that's another story. But I know there's whole generations for whom they have more of an attachment to the PS1 era or the PS2 era. There's a whole generation for who- for whom 13 was their entry point. They speak on that as fondly as you or I might speak on six. There's gonna be a whole generation for whom 14, 15, and 16 have been their entry points. And those people, "Just house rule it," didn't sit with me. So I wanted Legend Edition to be a agnostic affair that draws upon the recurring mythos of Final Fantasy. Um, the exact kind of thing that MJ Gallagher has written several books about. [00:05:00] if you don't know, MJ Gallagher has written books on the mythological ties to multiple Final Fantasy entries. done two on seven, one on 16, and he's currently writing one for Tactics. Oh, nice uh, one on Tactics is going into, is going into things that I think even a lot of Tactics fans have overlooked. Things like ear- things like early Gnosticism, the c- the, um, idea of medieval demonology, and a lo- and a lot of, um, a lot of mythos about Be- about the story of Beowulf and story of the Knights Templar Mm-hmm. As well as the church relationships between Eng- between England and France and, of course, the Hundred Years' War. Taktics is a great game. There's a lot packed into it There's a lot packed into it. A lot Yeah especially the more [00:06:00] Shakespearean parts, is directly Matsuno's doing. And I've had a bit of a theory that the Cid in that one, Cidolfus Orlando, meant to be a nod to, um, um, El Cid, AKA El Campeador, the pr- the Prince of Valencia, who is kind of a national hero in Spain Okay. Yeah, I'm not familiar Mm-hmm. Oh. He was somebody who f- who fought on the side both Christians and Muslims during hi- during his time. Oh. Interesting especially in Valencia, kinda has this, kinda has the same heroic figure status that you'd see of a l- a lot of other medieval legends Mm-hmm. Uh, know if that's actually the case, but when I look at the position of that character, um, I can see the parallels[00:07:00] Sure But I wa- but the idea was I wanted something that was just as viable if someone was doing the high f- the, um, fantasy approach like in, um, like in the ori- like in the original or in three, the steam- the steampunk approach like in six, uh, or the futuristic approach like in eight or 13. Sure There's gonna be some house ruling, but minimal house ruling. Um, I've always held the belief that house ruling should be a spice and not the main dish Yeah, I mean, it's nice for people to be able to play the games the way they want to play. I think that's one of the main pillars of TTRPG is giving people the ability to customize, but also enough here that they can take something and work with it as is. [00:08:00] Uh, 'cause I, I don't wanna customize everything. That's why you're buying the game, right? So should we dive in maybe for some examples? Like, you- there's... What, what was it? Is it 56 classes? Jobs, I should say? around com- combining these, combining the ones from the, um, core book and the Ultima expansion, Yeah about jobs and four classes. Four pluses, right? Okay I do have to... Now, a lot of times job and class are interchangeable. In Yeah, I like the way you did this. Go ahead. Yeah things, and this is somewhat of a nod to the, to the delineation of jobs from the old Returners project that started in the mid-'90s. But it comes, it comes down to there are only four classes, and your class is basically a chassis. This is [00:09:00] what determines how well you develop HP and MP, what stats you're gonna be using for physical and magical combat, and how many skills that you have trained. Um, there are four of them. There are four classes as mentioned. Each of them corresponds to one of the original four crystals. Um, corresponds to the earth crystal, which is basically the per- basically everything physical combat is under that. Um, expert is kind of the skill monkey and corresponds with the wind crystal. Mage is self-explanatory and corresponds with the fire crystal, and adept, which is often the in-betweener, corresponds with the water crystal. There are also there are also a dozen or so jobs that are independent. These are jobs that are not associated with any of the four classes because when you're building a character, you're picking three [00:10:00] tracks. one that has fast progression, one that has medium progression, one that has slow progression. Any of the jobs are available. The only rule is at least one of them has to be associated with your class, and each, um, each class has about 11 or so jobs that are associated with it It doesn't have to be the first pick, it just has to be one of them. Oh. For ex- for example, um, the jobs associated with warrior are berserker, dervish, dragoon, fencer, fighter, knight, monk, samurai, sentinel, sniper, and weapon master. Oh. So if you take warrior, you gotta have one of them And this also means that you can't build a character out of nothing but independent jobs Hmm. I see Oh. Independent jobs are, I guess that, I guess I put them in the same category [00:11:00] as, like, prestige classes because they do re- they do re- not in the sense of you need to a bunch of stuff in order to qualify for them like you did with prestige classes back in the day. knows I'm not doing that. I did, I didn't like how some of those prereqs worked. more that th- they, the kit that they have demands a slightly higher system mastery, like a slightly hi- a slightly higher understanding of the way the mechanics work. And within the book, I have a disclaimer say basically saying, "You can pick th- you can pick these as your first character if you want to, but we do not recommend it." I see. Sure Of course, if you do do it and then you complain that it's too hard, don't come crying to me about it because you were given fair warning I love how when we were playing, [00:12:00] um, there are so many options. Mm-hmm. I think the replayability factor is gigantic with this game, 'cause even I hadn't thought about it too until you just mentioned it, but like I could be a warrior and then have the same three classes, but then I could play a different, um... Or, I'm sorry, the same three jobs, right? So I, I could have like a warrior class and then three jobs, change my class to something else with those same three jobs, and my play experience could be s- substantially different just based on my hit points, mana difference, skill difference. Not even to mention... um, weapons Yeah, and, and limit break. So the way that you play even the same three combination of jobs could be completely different. And I mean, not to mention the fact that you already mentioned there are 60, six- like a big, 6- 60 of them, right? So [00:13:00] I mean, it, it's, it was cra- it was... One of the hardest things was choosing what I actually wanted to play. Yeah also love that because it's like if you don't like it, just, you know, next time you create a character just build something different. Like I consider this the better form of analysis paralysis. Like a lot of Yeah, sure is in a game, it's more of wanting to pick a dis- to make a pick that's going to screw you over two or three sessions down, Mm-hmm. uh, or having to pre-plan your idea multiple levels in advance, which just creates false choice, which is also not ideal. Yep it's there are so... Instead, there are so many really good options that you could do that Right. is a good problem to have. That's a great problem to have a lot of the jobs are gonna be very familiar to people who have seen the job system as it's been presented over the years. Mm-hmm.[00:14:00] there are a few that aren't n- there are a few that are from adjacent games like Bravely Default, and there were a few that aren't in any of the video games, but I wanted to fill certain niches or certain motifs that I felt didn't quite fit any of the existing jobs Yeah Oh. And some of them are, the name is there where, where that name has been in past games, but the way it's executed is different to give it its own identity. Oh An example that comes to mind is the Arcanist. Um, I think one of the, one of the, of, one of the cases where Arcanist showed up is in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. But ultimately it was just a black mage with a couple extra tricks, I Sure. Mm-hmm Then I looked [00:15:00] at the, um, Japanese version of the Arcanist job and it, and the translation for that is basically witch. Um, and I thought, "You know what? Let's build one around curses." So we Yeah, that's cool Um, and since you mentioned limit break, I will touch on that. Yeah conscious choice to not have limit break be some sort of uber attack Yeah I know that those w- I know that those kind of things are a staple Final Fantasy ever since VI. Um, VI technically first introduced it, VII obviously popularized it with a limit break gauge instead of it being a hidden mechanic. But at the end of the day, those are just jumped up versions of attacks, and for a tabletop system where you don't have the flashy effect to give a, Yeah signpost, that's not all that interesting[00:16:00] Not really. Yeah Especially since if I were to do it as a gauge, I would have to calculate out how the rate of gain for that gauge for any potential kind of attack. And to reference Batman Forever, it just raises too many questions Yeah, that's a dark hole of game design for sure. Mm-hmm. It's easy to miss something. You're dealing with a lot of interchanging pieces here with all the different jobs you can combine. I see the problem. Yeah So instead, I took inspiration from the game breaker rule that Fantasy Craft has. Fantasy Craft is one of the games I've listed as inspiration. It's one of... It is my favorite take on the 3.5, um, of the D20 system. I put it even above Pathfinder, that's how much I like Fantasy Craft in terms of sheer volume of flexibility. [00:17:00] But At a certain level, in- classes in Fantasy Craft have what is in turn, what is called by a lot of the homebrew community a game breaker, something that the class can already do just at a hi- just at a higher level. Sure Um, you sort of have something like this in video game form with the two-hour ability that was in Final Fantasy XI, which was this, um, improved version of what that job could already do. You just couldn't, you just could only do it once every two hours. Not once every two hours, it would've had a two-hour cool down. And the approach with this is you can activate a limit break when you're below half health. It lasts until the rest of the encounter, and is essentially an improved version of what that class already does. Uh And the catch is you have four limit breaks, three from your jobs and one from your class[00:18:00] Yeah Each of the... And when you activate one of them, you are locked off for the rest of the encounter from the other four, or from the other three, I should say So to use warriors as example, their limit break is action surge, which lets you make a weapon attack without using your action. You just can only do it once per round. Could you do this to do two attacks in the same round? Yes. You could also do other combinations if you want to as well Oh. You're just getting one weapon attack for free for the rest of the encounter, but some of the other stuff from your, from your job combinations you won't be able to do Uh, and I do wanna, I do want to touch on a moment for, um, the design philosophy we had when it came to feats Because one of the things that I tried my absolute best to avoid when introducing feats was feats that were just number go up[00:19:00] Sure The... There are a couple that are like that, but not in the same, but not exactly. A lot of times it was built on feats are little tricks that you can do to fur- to further personalize the character, and said tricks don't necessarily fit into any one existing Mm-hmm. And I f- I always felt that was the intent with feats when it was introduced in third edition D&D, of little tricks to personalize. somewhere along the l- line, the memo got lost or was put into forms I don't think it was designed for. You know, the whole feat chain problem or the feat tax problem as has been discussed plenty of spaces elsewhere. Um Yeah And to, and to that end, I don't really have a extensive amount of [00:20:00] prerequisites when it comes to feats. of times it's ju- it's just on three feat chains. Usually those ones have some kind of Roman numeral attachment I think a lot of what we're kind of talking about too, back to sort of the d- overall design of things, is that for almost every game out there, there's like ... I don't know if it's just the advent of the internet or now that, you know, all of us who grew up playing games are now adults and we kind of get games more, but there ends up being like the meta builds, right? And so you talk about like D&D and Mm-hmm. there's like this huge problem of like you can't play a rogue anymore in D&D 5.5E 'cause it's just terrible compared to the damage output of so many other classes. Oh, And a lot of people- on rangers. Yeah. Right. Right. And then a lot of people play as if combat or damage per turn or whatever is like the key factor, and if you aren't pumping out damage, then you aren't having [00:21:00] fun, right? But I, I think it's interesting that you've taken this approach with feats where it's like it's about things that you can do for your character. It's about the, the role play and the character building more than just the optimization. But I also think that just the sheer s- way that you've made this game makes it really hard to create any kind of like meta build. Like, maybe if, you know, a hundred thousand people were playing this game every week, there would start to be some patterns emerge, but it seems to me as if you've gone to really great lengths to give every class its own personality, Mm-hmm. I think that y- people would have a very hard time finding anything that's gonna be like super busted basically. It's more about having the fun playing the character you wanna play instead of optimizing every little thing. Yeah. Now, there's a, there's a couple things I can say on that. One,[00:22:00] Sure I will be flat out honest, whether it be in tabletop games, in video games, in war games, in board games, in card games, any kind of game period, loathe meta Me too. Because Me too I am, and I s- I have done my fair share of t- of tournaments, whether it be in, um, card, whether it be in card games. I w- I, I'm not great at it , but I did dabble in tournament scenes in, um, fighting games growing up. Cool I certainly don't do it as, as much these days, but I... But something I did. the reason I hate meta so much is I'm, I grew, I grew up ar- I grew up around a lot of, a lot of freestyle artistry. You know, whether it be Hmm import, the, um, the whole import tuner craze of the early [00:23:00] 2000s, the go- or listening to, listening to early hip hop in the golden age of sampling, j- or just remix culture with, um, music. Or j- or just the idea of freestyling when it came to building, um, stuff with Lego as a little kid. That's awesome. Yeah that idea of expression of building the style that, that fits y- that fits you, not necessarily is the best numbers. And Yeah what really helped hammer this home for me was when I was spending a bit of time revisiting, um, various shooters. And especially re- especially, um, getting an understanding for what the intent of the perk system in, say, early Call of Duty was Mm-hmm Because if you look at the perk list in say Modern Warfare or Mo- or Modern Warfare [00:24:00] 2 or Black Ops or whatnot, it's not about raw numbers. It is about, it is about picking ones that best fit a certain play style that you're trying to go for. Yeah Uh, like for example, somebody who picks scavenger probably gonna be using a light machine gun, because scavenger lets you get more ammo on ammo pickups so that, so you have more bull- you have more bullet per bullet. And if you're using an LMG, you're gonna be eating through that ammo pretty fast Oh. It's not really, it's not really about the numbers per se. And I've s- a similar thing to an extent with some of the unlocks in games like Team Fortress 2, where not picking them for numbers or percentages, you're picking them for a certain style. Uh, like a common build when I would play Pyro in was [00:25:00] having things like the flare gun and the Axtinguisher. The flare gun is a secondary, lets you set people on fire at range. It's just on an arc so it is a little bit tricky to use. And the Axtinguisher auto- always does critical hits if you're hitting somebody while they're on fire. So you can see how they feed into each other. And there were certain combinations that we saw where we thought this could be a particular annoyance or this could be a particular pest in combat, but it was funny so we kept it. one of the early examples of that that we've brought up and that we've brought up plenty of times over the years is somebody doing Arcanist and Fencer. Because Arcanist is all about incubating a curse within themself and then transferring that curse as a debuff to the next person who hits them. Fencer is all about taunting an enemy to force th- to force them in a duel where both sides get bonuses to hitting each other and penalties to [00:26:00] hitting anybody else There's good synergies for sure Mm-hmm. when it comes to the... There's been no end of arguments about game balance. seen, I've seen it talked Sure f- back and forth. I've seen people talk about balancing issues with this game back and forth. A Yeah me to, a lot of the balance arguments puts me to sleep for the same reason the, um, math breakdowns of classes back when I would follow the brilliant GameZologist forums put me to sleep. Even if I did rip off the whole Godzilla thing as a this is what I don't want. But The, but the, To bo- to dial myself back a bit, um We take an, we take a policy called Brawl Minus when it comes to game balance. The attitude being if everyone's potentially broken on all sides of the fence, no one is. So for a bit of context, Brawl [00:27:00] Minus was a response mod, some say a meme mod, to a mod for Smash Brothers Brawl called Brawl Plus. The intent with Brawl Plus was to nerf a lot of the overpowered elements in Brawl. Um, Meta Knight, I'm looking right at you. know what you did. Brawl Minus took the opposite approach of instead of nerfing the overpowered stuff, just make everybody ridiculously overpowered That sounds like a lot of fun Like, like a fully charged warlock punch from Ganondorf in Bro- in Brawl Minus could be a one-hit, um, knockout. And as ridiculous as that is, still the signposting and still the tells that can be punished if someone knows what they're doing. So as, as overpowered as everything is, there is still an internal logic of if you got hit by something like that, you were ignoring the very obvious tells and that, and [00:28:00] you're getting punished for that. Mm-hmm. you know, in the s- in the same way that I remember when I would, when I would play a lot of Halo 2, and a lot of people hated the glitch, um, BXR. And I had defended it because I, because at the time I had said the timing window for it is very specific, and if you don't get it right, you are going to get punished you just left yourself wide open and you can't hit back Yeah. Things that are strong come with a downside or they're projected so it's defendable against it Mm-hmm. And there is the concept in game design called signposting, where this is where you have those very obvious tells about what you should stay away from or what you should be wary about 'cause something's gonna come. Uh, and when you have the, when you have th- when you have that particular signpost and then you [00:29:00] ignore it, then it becomes your own fault, and you gotta deal with the consequences of that. Uh, think of any video game RPG where you've seen where the, where the game is telling you the enemy's preparing for a large attack, then you don't shore up your defenses and you get wiped Oh, it's the, it's the same principle. And I never want... I, be- I remember being so annoyed when I would see certain game developers take combinations that the community had discovered on their own that were, that added to the fun factor of creatively overcoming obstacles and take that away from them. Uh Yeah, it's kind of a lame approach for sure It's not only a lame approach, but I feel like it sends the wrong message. To me, it sends the message of don't bother getting better at the game because we're just gonna take away your tools. Yeah. Don't be creative yeah, [00:30:00] a big example of this would be Mercy hopping exploit that was found early on in Overwatch, where people figured out that with the right timing using Mercy's movement mechanics, they could clear a lot of ground very quickly. About less than a week after that was discovered, it got patched out Sure. Yeah, I, I, uh, it's a tough thing as a game designer too, because I do also feel you have a vision Mm-hmm. how you want the game to be played, and there are just some things where you didn't imagine it being used in a certain way, and it wasn't intended. And if it does become the situation where it's like, now that we know this exists, Mm-hmm. who does wanna play for the optimal meta build now must do this. Yeah That can take away from the fun as well, but I, I think it depends on, like, your priorities as a game designer. Like, is it is it around the fun? Is it around the [00:31:00] creativity? Is it around your original vision? And y- I often find you have to balance all of those things actually, so th- there have been some times where I've taken away toys from other people as well. Um, but yeah Legend Edition, because it's built around being, being a sandbox, having whatever my specific vision is, is not as important. The only time that I've really modified something so that it ta- so to take away certain tools that I f- I felt were, um, stepping over the line is if, is if I felt it was undermining other things. Um, the, the, um, benchmark that I use for this sort of thing is I don't want a knock spell. Um, I was never a big fan of spells like knock or teleport Hmm or oth- other games. I wasn't a fan of knock because I f- because I [00:32:00] felt it completely undermined the presence of having a rogue in the party. Like, Yeah, sure. why have Right all the time rolling to pick a, to pick a lock when you, when the wizard can cast knock and the lock is no longer a problem? Have the wizard be a rogue, yeah And I didn't like spells like teleport 'cause that, 'cause I felt that r- that took away from the narrative control of the Sure GM. Um, especially if you can tel- especially if you can just teleport right to where the dungeon is instead of having to Sure. thing of fi- of trying to find out where it is. Yeah and in the same vein, I also wanted to avoid things like CODZilla. Uh, CODZilla is something that came out of the tier sys- the tier system of effectiveness that the Brilliant Gamesologist forums, um, devised, where somebody re- the COD is short for cleric or druid, and it was a reflection Okay that somebody who [00:33:00] knows what they're doing with either of those classes is an entire party by themself. Yeah and to that end, when it came to designing the jobs, something that I tried to avoid was the idea of a single job being multi-role. Um, Yeah. I was impressed by that really quick as well. You know, when I was reading through the first time, and I mean, every time I go into it, Mm-hmm. it is very crystal clear what each class does. Mm-hmm. it, it, it's so focused that if it was only one... You could only play one class at a time, it may feel a little narrow, but I actually love that because you're mixing. Mm-hmm. think you, you really lasered in on what each job does and what they're about Yeah. Like for, for example, um, I had, I had gotten a bit of pushback over the fact that with the paladin, unlike s- [00:34:00] unlike plenty of the games, I did not give the paladin access to white magic. Um, part of that was had to answer the question, well, what do, what do you do if you have a paladin and white mage as part of your job trio? now Sure. things that would overlap. You're both... Yeah two, I felt pal- I felt the identity of paladin more centered around covering allies and taking the hits for them rather than white magic. Plus, I've never been a fan of, um, of half casters Interesting. Yeah. 'Cause they end up doing both things poorly in most games. Yes. Yeah. Oh Yeah, they're like half people basically. Yeah, the, the big pr- the big problem with, the big problem with it is doing that s- doing that sort of multi-role is gonna run into conflict when y- when class systems in general are about [00:35:00] specialization. Having a generalist in a b- in a game built around specializations has an inherent contradiction. feel like this is Sure why in D&D, um, the ranger has been cursed since the days of AD&D. Yeah, th- there's no identity there. I mean, I, there's no identity, and I, I think that's probably another big thing, right? Like, they, they don't know what they want ranger to be. You're just like a ranged fighter, but then you're not. But the things that you can do, anybody can do. It's not really that interesting. Yeah, I had... The funny thing is the one edition that I'm supposed to hate but I don't because the check bounced actually solved that issue Um, the fourth edition ranger, I don't have that problem with Oh yeah, I actually like fourth edition. Mm-hmm. It's kind of a bum that nobody else did I, I've, I've been a fan of fourth edition since it started out in 2008, and I have routinely taken the piss out of people [00:36:00] who go with that MMO argument, and I basically tell them, have no idea how MMOs actually work if that's your, um, main ar- if that's your main argument." Um, and Especially s-since, um When it comes to, when it comes to the po- when it comes to the power setup, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that, that so many of us had reference index cards And nowadays you can get whole spell decks for casters Sure But I r- but the Ranger in fourth was one of the premier, one of the premier examples of the striker. real problem that it had was one infamous daily power that got, um, errated out that led to the meme of Kenshiro Orcaslayer, because if you hit, you could keep hitting until you missed. Oh. Um It's like [00:37:00] Thunderfury weapon or whatever it's called in WoW. Mm-hmm. The first- Yeah Yeah, and Orcus was one of the big high-level monsters in the, in Wind theory. Manual. Got it somebody who had the l- had the luck of the dice gods on their side could ju- Yep. keep Just one shot it. Yeah. he runs out. So Yep the And becau- because of that I w- I wanted... Now, with a lot of games, they can have multi-role effects with their classes because you're only picking that one class for the most part. Here, the multi-roleness comes from the combination of your class and jobs, also Yeah the fact that there's plenty of characters throughout Final Fantasy that don't quite fit one particular job exclusively Also because jobs changed between iterations. So, I mean, your solution makes a world of sense Yeah, like the, the knight in the original [00:38:00] Final Yeah. Right ultimately a proto-paladin. Right. Yeah. When you mentioned cover, that was the first thing I thought of Yeah, I th- I think the, when people think of the paladin in the classic sense, the first version they're gonna think of is Cecil in IV. Um, and in that s- in, in that same vein, there were s- there were some casting lists that were easy to design for. The hardest one was Blue Magic because, um, Blue Magic goes literally all over the place in every iteration, and when I That's like the point of it, yeah. Yeah a specific thing was important Right Ah. And I will, I will note that, um, with the ones that I took liberties with, those ones still that rule of I need to answer what exa- what exactly its [00:39:00] big, for lack of a better term, gimmick is. Um, now some got r- some were under other names but got renamed because of things I wanted to avoid. Dynamo was Gunner originally, um, meant to be a bit of a nod to the g- to the Gunner dressphere in X-2. Um, Mm-hmm. that and I said I wanted a John Woo-like, um, job. But of the fact that the job system is divorced from required weapons, which was something I wanted to do from the word go, um, I felt that calling it Gunner or calling the sniper, it was originally Archer, would Hmm Yeah from that So I went with names that were a little bit broader in that sense. and the other reason One of the things I'm obviously the most proud of is the weapon system and the fact that it is divorced from your choice [00:40:00] of job. So you could play a bl- you could have Black Mage as part of your combo and use a long sword, um, and still make it work because in addition to that whole not m- not fitting thing, there's If I were to do a standard weapon list that you see in a lot of fantasy games, there are so many weapons within Final Fantasy that don't fit that Yeah. Yeah, there's so many, yeah. Um, whether it the pinwheel for Noah, yeah yeah, the weird pinwheel thing that Rinoa has, Yeah um the, over- the oversized, um, shurikens that Yuffie has, the fact that hair accessories are the weapon of choice for Red XIII. Um, the Plus the, plus, um, I'd, I would, I'd think of certain unorthodox weapons that I would always pick in [00:41:00] other fantasy games. like I was I think I was m- I think once I was, um, like I was playing a character in an Eberron campaign that involved the desert elves, which are an interesting beast in and of themselves. I said, "You know what? It would fit that, it would fit that my character uses a khopesh instead of a long sword." Um- And isn't anything in the rule set for a khopesh, obviously, so we had to make that up Yeah And I've also mentioned that no matter what, there's gonna be some that has some weapon that ha- that has the same cool factor as when people first saw the Buster Sword back in 1997. Mmhmm instead of telling them, "Just house rule it," which is like pushing them off the deep end and saying, "Swim, damn it." Uh, I w- I wanted to, I wanted to provide a framework where people could make those unorthodox weapons[00:42:00] That's awesome instead, instead of just being Sisyphus having to constantly make new and bigger weapon lists. Uh, and again, for example, I, I know that the... There's the, um, common motif of the monk uses unarmed weapons, except when it doesn't. But I remember in the past pitching, "Okay, instead of, instead of using unarm- instead of using just bare hands, um, why, why not use a... why not use something like, say, a rope dart or a, um, sansetsukon?" Uh, a sansetsukon is a three-section staff Hmm. Okay. Yeah And obviously a rope dart is, well, exactly what you think it is. And I have, I have plenty of players who are firearm enthusiasts, much like me, and I know that they would come up with some unorthodox suggestions, [00:43:00] and I'm like, "Go, go right ahead with it." Um, I know one It's awesome who, who was playing this giant character, he said, "I wanna lug, I wanna lug around a m- a slightly miniaturized version of a punt gun." I'm like, "I'll let you do it, but, but you're... But, um, you can only fire it every other round because it's a punt gun. Those things weren't meant to be carried." Like, for context, a punt gun was a type of ridiculously oversized shotgun for m- for commercial duck hunting that was supposed to be mounted on a small boat, a punt They eventually Yeah, players won't do that good at their job Players will do that. They'll try to do the things that they shouldn't be doing. And, We-- I was gonna say we, we have a little bit of time left. I don't mean to cut you off on that thought, but, uh, once you finish that thought, I would love to go through some more of the classes and like just the, the most broken or [00:44:00] insane or fun stuff that people have come up with so far Um, I will note that from a design perspective, I like giving players powerful but unsafe equipment. benchmark for that kind of thing is if you remember the Noisy Cricket from Men in Black, that, Oh yeah, that was... I love that. Yeah. Oh. You know, That's awesome a hell of a lot of damage, but every time you fire the thing, you get sent flying Mm-hmm. Yeah. Why not? oh, this As far as cl- as far as some of the individual class, some of the individual classes and jobs, as far as some of the ideas, um, I remember being really proud of the way, um, fighter turned out. So a lot of times the fighter has the selling point of, "Oh, you can equip any weapon." But most people are gonna pick one way they equip their character and stick to it Yeah And I, I built [00:45:00] the fighter based on Firion's appearance in the Dissidia games, he's carrying around 10 different types of weapons That's awesome using all, and using all of them in his combos. So like, all right, the fight- the fighter is the walking arsenal. The weapon master is the opposite end. Um- Ah There was also the f- there's also, um, I think there's, there's some jobs that I think got slept on, that get slept on by people. Um, one of them that especially comes to mind is the Spiritmaster. Um, Spiritmaster is a def- is a defensive favoring support, um, But their Spiritism ability is, for those, those of, those who have used it properly, um, have caused a lot of salt because it doesn't remove debuffs, it moves them. It moves buffs as well from any Nice to another participant[00:46:00] That's awesome So it's a really great way to screw over the, B-beg that just put a bunch of buffs on th- that just put a few buffs on themselves. You know, you can have the B-beg go, "I'm, I'm conflicting, I'm inflicting paralyze on one of your a- on one of your allies," and somebody who's got Spirit Master can say, no you don't, and congratulations, now you're paralyzed." Sure. Yeah, it's really incredible Mm-hmm. Uh, and the l- something I tried to av- I tried to avoid was giving h- was giving whole new s- there's plenty of, there's plenty of, um, charac- there's plenty of characters and builds that have some sort of sub mechanic, like some sort of resource or the like, which Mmhmm reason I avoided doing the whole limit gauge thing because that'd be one more thing to track. Uh, but I wanted [00:47:00] to avo- I wanted to avoid, um, a setup that might pigeonhole a particular build or a particular, um, job. Um, like for, for example, somebody wants to just slightly dip into magic, you have multiple ways to do it. You could do it through a spell casting enhantment- enhancement from a magic weapon. could do it by get- by getting scrolls and be- because of the way consumables work, you are gonna be able to use that spell for the rest of the in- for the rest of the in- of, um, that adventure until you hit downtime again. But you do have access to it. just... And that can pair very well with something like ma- with something like Magic Knight, which has more in common with the Magus class in Pathfinder than a lot Hmm the traditional ma- a lot of the traditional Magic Knight approaches. Uh, and [00:48:00] it wasn't long before, it wasn't long before that came up that the idea of a caster build out of Outlaw Star came to be. Um, there's... I've s- I have seen pe- I've seen people, um- Go com- go completely s- go completely support based using c- using a combination of general and, um, and squire. So that they, Yeah able to do a lot of attacks, but if they're patient, they're let, they're gonna let their, um, party do a lot of attacks, especially with things like blade work. Um really liked the looks of Squire. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, in fact. Squire was a hard one to write for because I bet it was couldn't use a lot of the t- I couldn't use the techniques as is for Squire in tactics because it's meant to be your starter. Um, and instead I built it around the idea that it is this, this ultimate [00:49:00] pocket pick. And think... I will note that th- that, um, a lot of the design with the classes and jobs starts to click if you look at them like you would look at positions on a team sport Yeah, I agree with that Because any team sport, whether it be hockey, whether it be, whether it be rugby, whether it be football or other football, you don't really have a jack-of-all-trades position You have several multi-role positions and usually a, a secondary role as a backup for when the play breaks down, and it will. But you don't have somebody who's supposed to be good at everything Oh. And that was, that was how, that was that was a design, uh, goal that I, that I had. Um, I think you hit that. and- Yeah, it, it's fun too. I'll just interject really quick because I think a lot of modern game design is [00:50:00] about being able to do everything, and every class starts to feel the exact same. Mm-hmm. Um, I've even, you know, played a lot of different games out there that are classless and messed around with them myself with my own design in the past, and I find that people tend to gravitate towards the same things. They're like, "I wanna be able to fly and have invisibility and invincibility." And I actually like it a lot more when you're like, "Look, this is what I do, and then everything else I suck at," because it gives specific spotlights for everybody in the party to be able to jump in and do their thing. You're not always good, and that's part of, I think, the fun Mm-hmm. Ah. And for, for me, I wa- I always saw the high skill floor when it came to people really being able to explore the [00:51:00] potential customizations with s- with job design, and also Yeah of that, that sameyness in some of the more freeform ones. And Yeah. Yeah. games, pe- the selling point that people give me is, "Oh, you can build just about anything." The problem is a Not really. And Yeah. one th- And, And, meta builds. to mind yeah. to go for it especially with, um, false choice as I call it, is Shadowrun agree with it. Yeah, yeah, the idea of false choice is a big one, and I think people who aren't game designers often overlook that. But there's a lot of things out there, it's like, "Oh, you have 1,000 choices," but really it's like, yeah, but do you... Like, do you really? No. It's usually only a few things that are, like, the best. And oftentimes too, if you take something, it's either actively bad or it's so much worse than something else that you actually can't choose it, so it's, it's not a real choice [00:52:00] And I think of, um, I think of Sha- I think of Shadowrun where it ends up having a class system while trying to pretend it doesn't Sure. Sure, sure. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, so I un- I understand exactly what you're saying. Mm-hmm. And on, on the other Yeah um, you know, some g- some designers try to build these traps for some reason. Um Yeah To tr- to try and encourage system mastery. But the pro- I've always ha- I've always had an issue when games have the, try to have this hard divide between the people just learning the system and the people who've been at it for years, with not an Yeah pathway from one to the other I agree And whenever I've talked about that, s- some have con- have equate- have equated that to wanting ha- wanting the handheld, [00:53:00] and that's not the case. it's more, it's more about establishing where, where the li- where the lines are. Um, Mm-hmm. and I feel like what I've tried to do with Legend Edition is those lines end up being created organically because instead, instead of looking at character creation of, in the sense of, "Oh, we, we need a bl- we need a black mage for the party, so who's g- who's gonna be that?" It's more about I have a character concept in mind, and I'm using the tool set to try and get as close to that concept as I can It's awesome Uh, and there's nothing wrong with the idea of, oh, you're building a c- you're building a character class first and then going around it. That's how early D&D works, in a sense. Sure it's not something I think is compatible with f- with, um, Final Fantasy as s- as the series progressed[00:54:00] Yeah Because there are plenty of characters, even in games that are explicitly class-leaning, like say, IX, where they end up fit- they end up fitting the niche of multiple jobs instead of just one. Uh, at, say, um, Amarant in Final Fantasy IX I was thinking of him as well He's basically a hybrid between monk and ninja. Or in Final Fantasy X, look at the territory of, um, say Tidus on the, um, lic- on, not on the license grid, in the, um, sphere grid. Mmhmm a lot of it leans into time mage and squire-like effects. Uh And you have that, you have that sort of asterisk where in a lot of class-based games you're picking this one thing and that's it. But a lot of Final Fantasy characters, [00:55:00] you can't really fit them into that one thing And that's not even getting into the idea that some people might wanna go off the beaten path Right? For sure So with wrapping up, I have a couple more things to cover. Um, one class, for example, that I really wanna play some point coming up for a very specific reason is the Oracle, and that reason is because I can self and-- self-damage myself to get myself to a limit break faster. Are there other classes that, that use self-damage for a bonus of some kind so that, you know, somebody wants to, like, limit break as often as possible? So Lim- because limit break is a bu- is a buff, um, and the f- and the fact that between, that you do full heal between encounters, um, trying to, trying to race to limit [00:56:00] break all the time isn't as beneficial as it may sound. Um, I just wanted to try it at least one time And any sort of... There are some ef- there are some effects that, aside from Oracle, that let you do that kind of, um, that kind of risk thing. Um, obviously one of the big examples is gonna be Dark Knight, who Okay when they're using Soul Eater, they can add a die of any size, aside from D20, their d- to their damage. However, whatever that additional die rolled, they ta- they take in direct HP reduction Yeah, I love it Oh In the s- in the same... There's a similar thing that works for, um, paladin when it comes to cover. Or not when it Right when it comes to paladin's oath. They can add that Oh, okay to their defenses, but the next t- but the next time they're targeted with an attack and that [00:57:00] attack is a miss, whatever that bonus they got from that die was, they take in, um, reduction Which I felt the theme of sacrifice that's a, that is key to the paladin identity I think so too. I also like that it's a foil, in a sense, for Dark Knight. There's a lot of threads in these classes that are really fun to pull at when you start getting into it. I can tell a lot of heart and passion has gone into making this. Mm-hmm. So I guess the next question with that, this is probably my last question, or it's like a little series of questions. But have you thought... Because Final Fantasy, like when we played, the story was great, and the adventure was super fun, and everything that you made I really loved. Also, though, Final Fantasy is like often thought of as a very combat-heavy series. Have you thought about [00:58:00] doing some kind of like PVP tournament where it's just like build your biggest, baddest team and fight against people online? And, you know, you've, you have, you have like a tournament series that's, you know, like you schedule once a week to you and your party fight somebody else. Or having that kind of thing, but then like for bosses, where it's like you and your friends build a team, you know, once a week you fight against some mega boss. You're not really intended to win, but, you know, it can be like a little bit of a competition thing for the community sort of thing. Just curious if you thought about these kind of things. I have given them some thought, and the idea of, of, um, PVP I, I would not advise because it really is built with the idea of the party has its own particular set of mechanics and the NPCs and their, Got it have their own particular set of mechanics opposite them. It's... I've, I [00:59:00] remember, I remember going through a bunch of, a bunch of games in the mid-2000s that ha- that did the whole PCs and NPCs are built the same way, and I, I don't wanna do that, um, Sure, sure becau- because it... I feel like it would fall back into that same n- into that sameness that we talked about earlier. Mm-hmm. Mmhmm on the other hand, the i- the idea of competitively going up, going up against a certain boss, um, that I'd be a, that'd be a little bit more willing to go with. Um, it would certainly, it would certainly fit alongside some of the um, style video games that we, that we've seen over the last few years, stuff like, um, stuff like Dead by Daylight or the Friday the 13th game, for example. Or even the battle mode, uh, multiplayer entry that was in Doom Eternal. [01:00:00] Uh This i- this idea of asynchronous play. And the approach that I'd probably do is not a, "Oh, this is a, this is a, um, this is a near impossible bo- because I don't wanna revisit the trauma that people have had to deal with with certain hidden bosses in RPGs, Sure. every Tri-Ace game I've ever played. Or the, um... Are you familiar with, are you familiar with the infamy that was Absolute Virtue in Final Fantasy XI? No. No, I'm not familiar on record as one of the mo- as one of the hardest raid bosses of all time. Uh, like, it, it's just a long, long slog. Got it. I mean, that's no fun either. Yeah of course when people figured out how to beat, how to do exploits to beat it, they're like, "All right, we're gonna make him even harder." Got it. I have a special level of [01:01:00] hatred towards, Ozma as a hidden boss, mostly because he cheats. that's not Yep that's not me exaggerating. There's parts in his AI where you can completely jump his, um, ATB gauge depending I see. which is Yeah, I'm not surprised. why I Yeah the same way AI in, um, some RTS campaigns cheat Sure In, mostly in the they have unlimited resources and you don't kind of way Yeah, that's a pretty big cheat Oh. But what I'd prob- what I'd probably end up d- what I'd probably end up doing is some sort of, some sort of raid boss like enc- like encounter where beat, where, um, it's not just be- it's not just about beating the opponent, but also beating the opponent, surviving, and d- doing certain additional challenges Yeah[01:02:00] There's, I like there lot. Um, Yeah obvious- so think, think less of a raid boss in WoW and think more of, um, say a mission in Monster Hunter Yep, I'm tracking Oh. And 'cause I f- 'cause I f- I feel like doing a, doing a PVP thing is something that doesn't... It, it's certainly there in PVP. It has been in FF XI and XIV. But I feel like getting the coliseum part of the identity, you know, the coliseum mini-game that's been in multiple games, uh, the way to go about that would be to would be, would be to do something beyond just PVP, whether it be escalating monster types or, um, something that I just came up on the fly, a wager [01:03:00] system like you see in some ARPGs, where you can intentionally nerf yourself to potentially get better loot Yeah, yeah. It just comes to mind, I, and I think maybe you're totally right about this too, I mean, PVP can kinda be a feel bad thing sometimes as well. Mm-hmm. Whereas if you are even loosely competing against somebody, or maybe not even competing, but just, you know, competing against yourself to try and do X, Y, Z thing, fighting, like, a boss. I personally like competition a little bit, so maybe that could be fun. But, um, yeah, I hope you try something like that, 'cause I would, I would be in for it. I could get, I could get three other guys together, to be and we would, you yeah. see me build a s- build a separate, um, say c- say card game or s- or skirmish war Sure lean in- to lean into that instead Sure, sure Um, 'cause I feel like that would be- that would better f- fit that since [01:04:00] obviously I, even in those ca- even in, um, something like that, I still don't wanna have to deal with meta. I, Sure if you, I want, I would want to, um, I would wanna have it le- less akin to the flag or team deathmatch, and more akin to, like, big team battle in H- in Halo, for example. Sure a way, a way to experiment with the sa- with the sandb- with given sandbox, but not necessarily building it arou- around one, around one particular meta. Yeah. as I get it as- a bit of an aside, there wa- there was a incident at a, um, Yu-Gi-Oh tournament years ago where somebody in with a random ass deck and completely embarrassed everybody, and it was his first tournament. Because Oh, that's awesome. for, they were all planning for this very, very specific meta at that [01:05:00] tournament, and he wasn't playing that, so they ha- so they were basically coming in completely blind and had , and had no I love that no strategy at first to prepare for, and only got one as they adapted ov- over the, over subsequent rounds. Mm-hmm Um, it's ... Imagine, imagine a football coach spending hours watching film, only to realize he's watching film for the wrong team he's playing against Yeah, totally Oh. And I've I think that kind of thing's hilarious. I love that. yeah, I've always appreciated, um, I've always appreciated people pulling dumb stuff in games I agree. Yeah, I think it's part of the creativity and the fun and that, that's what we're talking about, right? Like, that's-- it's a role-playing game, so you can role play a character you want, not to optimize. But, Yeah um, yeah, I th- I guess we should probably wrap up here, Mm-hmm.[01:06:00] but I feel like we'll have more conversations coming up in the future. Is there anything else you want to wrap up with? Um, Or final things you wanna say, I, I should say? I will note that while it is gonna be a slow process, I am in the early stages of writing world books for Legend Edition. Cool. Um, Good to know been working on a, in a, um, not necessarily a default campaign setting, but a potential campaign setting, um, that I've codenamed Project Gaia. Um, which is do- is doing th- is doing a bit of, um, of steam pu- of steampunk with magic. It was my answer to the question of the magic versus technology motif that's often in steampunk and other speculative fiction. The answer I give is and technology are two sides of the same whole and feed into each other So, Well, that's great. mm-hmm Yeah, I'm [01:07:00] looking forward to that Oh yeah And, Well, thank you so much for coming on today then, Mildreth. It's always a pleasure. Oh, yeah I hope everybody, if you haven't tried out Legends Edition yet, you really need to. Um, I'll make sure to include a link. It is a free download for anybody who's been listening in and, you know, doesn't know anything about the project yet. Uh, it's a great game. I think you should take a look, find what class and jobs you wanna try, and, uh, yeah, let us know what you're having the most fun with with your group Mm-hmm. Oh otherwise, we will catch everybody later then Stay frosty Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's funny you said w- um, 45 minutes. We ended up going an hour and seven. Uh
Transcribed content from our recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnvXjloeTQY Transcription [00:00:00] we are back with the Eternity TTRPG YouTube channel, and this time around, I wanted to c- pick up where we left off with our races of Eternity. Um, so we've already covered our Eteri/Empyrean humans, and then we did our Jadori and our Treant. This time, we're gonna cover the Croar and the Ezark. So I'm gonna start off with the Croar. The Kror isn't necessarily a, like, race on its own. It's actually created from other races with the help of a formula, the Kror formula. So a Kror can be a human or an Etarian, Empyrean, Jadori, Treant, so on and so forth, right? Because these beings are drinking this Kror formula, and what this Kror formula [00:01:00] does is it instills these beings with chaos, and from that chaos, they become, like, monstrous beasts. So with Kror, you will see humans with horns or with multiple eyes or in one of our images, we have a Kror that has, um, a mouth on its gut and teeth and extra tongues and all these different things to make it look really monstrous. The way that Core Formula came about is that when a star fell, it created these different chaos wastes, and the chaos waste infected, um, these different streams, and from these streams, these animals, of course, drank and started taking on these monstrous appearances. [00:02:00] So different beings in eternity decided that if these animals could drink this and turn into that, what would happen to humans? It was like a science experiment gone wrong, in a sense. And, you know, for some beings it went right because they wanted to take on these monstrous, um, features and be able to better, you know, combat their foes. Um, some kroor are very proud of this, and some kroor are very ashamed. So you'll see in some images where they're trying to cut off their horns, or they just no longer wanted to be monstrous, but there is no reversal. When you're looking at playing a Korred and trying to match it up to a class, they do best with fighter classes. So that's gonna be your judge, your thief, your assassin. Um, they have a high hit chance and low faith, [00:03:00] right? They are not good at casting spells, so I really don't recommend that they go into those races Real quick to interrupt. Eternity TTRPG is releasing a card game battler which emulates combat from the D&D tabletop role-playing genre. Sparks of Eternity: Emanation is fast-paced, easy to learn, and features six classes from your favorite TTRPGs. Each class deck comes with its own set of unique abilities which everyone plays at the same time, so there's never any downtime at your table. Each turn, everyone's characters levels up, giving players access to even more options. If you're interested in taking a look, we have our pre-sales page live now, packed with details. No payment info needed. Just let us know if you want an email when the product becomes available. Now, back to your video let's switch gears a bit and go into the Yzarc. So the Yzarc [00:04:00] has a bit of what I would say a complicated beginning that reminds me of Greek mythology in a sense, where you have all of these gods kind of vying for power. So to start off, the Aes Ark was created by the World Gods. The World Gods decided that they would create an angelic spirit and a demonic spirit. And then from these spirits, they decided to combine them and the Aes Ark was created, the first Aes Arks. Now, the reason the Aes Arks were created was to show the beginnings of the world, the first races, the humans, how to live, how to survive. And with that, right, with teaching all of these beings how to live, they're gonna start out in ways of squabble and very [00:05:00] run-down places. While these first Aes Arks that were just created by the gods know everything, they're gonna live in wealth and have these amazing things for them because they already know, and they're trying to teach these humans who have to, you know, learn. So it's not very good. So because these humans were upset that they were living in shambles while the Aes Arks were living in riches, a war started. Because the World gods saw that there was conflict between the humans and the Ezarks, the humans of course did what they could to end the Ezarks, but the World gods ultimately decided that it wasn't good for the Ezarks to be around anymore. So they destroyed them. They left all these other races be, and then the second Aezerk ended up coming around. The second Ezarks happened because the eternal gods [00:06:00] decided to go at war with each other, and from this war, the angelic and demonic spirits that we originally talked about were pushed out of where this eternal god was keeping them. And these pushed out spirits, the angelic and demonic spirits, became the second Ezark, and they took on a mortal form and now walk among all the other races of eternity. So these Ezarks, they typically... Now they take on a mortal form. However, You know they're an aezerk because they have bony wings as well as a tail. This depicts their demonic and angelic spirits within them. So now that is the second Ezarks, and that is where they are in the world, is that they're here, they take on the mortal form, and now that they take on the mortal form, they do take on different classes and roles in the Eternity world. Now, with Ezarks [00:07:00] being created from the gods, right, they don't take on the idea of they're best as a fighter or a mixed class or a caster. Because they are close to the gods, They take on a well-rounded form similar to that of the human. In fact, they have higher hit chance than humans because with being created by gods, they should be able to take care of everything, and because of that, they also have lower defenses. So if you're looking for a well-rounded race other than humans, it's gonna be your Ezark, and your Ezark can play just about any class effectively. With that in mind, I think Ezarks are really good for your mixed classes more than anything, which is gonna be your classes that do casting magic along with melee fighter sort of stuff So that's gonna cover our races for this go around. We do have [00:08:00] two more races left that we're gonna cover before we jump into our classes. The upcoming races are gonna be your Stoneborn and your Esper, my personal favorites for myself to play, not just as a getting started. So join us next time we do that, and we'll catch y'all next time. Make sure that you like, comment, subscribe, ask your questions, let us know how we're doing, and we'll see ya. Bye.
Transcribed content from our recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmN4njpT3BQ Transcription [00:00:00] Hey, adventurers. We're back, and we are with the creator of Eternity and the page that we started, right? Um, this is my husband, Jacob, and I got dragged onto this- Thankfully, yeah. I got dragged onto this adventure about five years ago- Mm ... when we met, and just been with it ever since, but obviously he's been with it a lot longer. So where did Eternity start? Well, first off, thank you for helping with the channel so much. As we've been growing, it's been really nice actually to be able to focus more on the gaming stuff- Mm ... and have you handle a lot of this, so. Mm-hmm. I'm glad I can. Yeah. So you're asking how did it start? Yes. Where did Eternity start? Yes, like way, way back. Where did it start? Um, I've been making games since I was probably six years old as just a way to fill time and spend, you know- Mm-hmm ... fun afternoons with friends growing up. [00:01:00] Uh, so I think the first version of creating some kind of tabletop role play game, I was probably 12. Goodness. Yeah. So 20-ish years. Yeah. Yeah, like 25 years. Yeah. Yeah. So it was really just everybody gets a notebook and some, you know, pens and different colors to highlight or whatever- ... draw on, stuff like that. Nothing was really formalized. Anything I did have was just printed off my parents' computer. And, uh, mostly we used Legos, so. Oh, for, like, the terrain and stuff? Yeah, the terrain and your characters, and if your character got a new sword, you'd actually switch out their, what they were wielding, you know. That's fun. Um, it was really fun, and we'd build castles, and it was less about having a TTRPG system that was mathematically right or that made sense from a storytelling perspective. It was just playing with friends. And whatever you want your [00:02:00] character to wear, they wear, and then you update your stats based on what you thought was cool to add to your Lego character, so. That's awesome. It was really fun. Yeah. Yeah. So 25 years, 30 years of making games, right? And now we're at the point of not just Eternity but Sparks of Eternity. So where did the idea of the Sparks of Eternity come from when you had, like, Eternity going from 25, 30 years ago? So what does the Sparks mean? Yeah. S- Sparks of Eternity was really actually your idea- ... at Gen Con last year. And basically- You went with it. Yeah. Well, it was a- You at least went with it ... it's a great-- You have great ideas. Mm. And basically what happened is we were, as visitors to the convention, walking around the aisles, looking at all the great games- Mm ... seeing everything from board games to card games to tabletop role-playing games. It became apparent to us that it wasn't the [00:03:00] easiest for the tabletop role-play game vendors to show off their products. Mm-hmm. Uh, we'll talk about that a little bit more later, I'm sure. But- Yeah ... basically everybody else can game demo, but it's not very easy to game demo in about 15 minutes for a tabletop RPG. Yeah, because you need, like, a character, right? Usually you wanna show people through, like, a series of encounters or do a quick adventure or something. Yeah. And that can take 45 minutes. You're talking about having a whole event with ticketing and stuff like that to- Yeah ... run at a convention. And so we wanted a way to be able to show off our game very quickly and get people into the world of Eternity, see if they like the races, the classes, the unique ideas that we have, uh, without needing more than five minutes, because, you know, you just don't have a lot of time at conventions like that. And I also think it's important if we're gonna share the game with a lot of people, and the really, I think, great [00:04:00] ideas that we've come up with, um, not just at conventions, but if you're gonna share it with your friends or your family or- Mm ... you know, you wanna be able to show them something in just a couple minutes that either catches their attention or at least they know that it's not for them right away. Mm-hmm. So you went to Gen Con, you had this happen, and then we had that car ride back, right? Yeah. And we were brainstorming how can we make a TTRPG accessible at this con. Mm-hmm. And that's where Emanation was created, right? Mm-hmm. What, what is Emanation? Yeah. So we're still probably figuring out the right way to say this, but Sparks of Eternity: Emanation is one of the games in the Eternity world, and it's supposed to be the introductory game. So it's a card game battler, is the name that we've come up with at this time. And really what it takes is six of the game's classes, [00:05:00] puts them into a card game that each class has its own deck of about 15 cards. Mm-hmm. And those are just all the unique abilities for that class. So what you can do is pick a class, um, pull out some dice, pull out some trackers for hit points, that kind of thing, and you just start playing. So I might attack, you might defend. Mm-hmm. And then after that round, which could literally take that fa- that fast, it might be a couple seconds- Mm-hmm ... our characters level up, and so we take the next card off our deck And then we have one more option to play that turn. So now I have maybe a more specific berserker ability, whereas you have a cryomancer ability. Mm-hmm. And every round your characters level up until you've picked up your whole deck. And, uh, you just kinda battle each other until there's one left standing or the, the rounds run out. 'Cause we want [00:06:00] it- Yeah ... to be a fast game, so it's not necessarily about, you know, defeating your opponents. Maybe at the end you just have more hit points left than they do. Yeah. But the whole game can be played a- anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, depending on how well you know the characters. Mm. Yeah. I think you and I are easily have our five-minute games now- Mm-hmm ... because we've been play testing so much. Yeah, we've tested a lot. But I know when we had both of our mothers try this game, and they're- Right in their 50s and 60s, and they were able to pick up the game, and we went through two or three different rounds of games in a matter of 30, 40 minutes. Mm-hmm. So it wasn't just us as young people and the creators being able to play this game, it was our elderly family- Yeah ... could pick it up. So it was just showing like- Mm-hmm hey, you can do this when you're young, you can do it when you're old. And, and it was a family game. It was nice. Mm-hmm. Um, you touched on it for a second, but what are the six classes in the, in like game that's being printed right [00:07:00] now? Well, I thought I'd touch really quick too on, on your point there as well. That was the whole point is we wanted to be able to play with anybody. Mm-hmm. So my family- Yeah ... my parents have actually never played the tabletop role play game that we're- Same with mine ... generating, and they never would- Yeah ... because it's a tabletop role play game. My mom's not gonna play D&D. Yeah. She's just not. But she was interested and able to play this card game. Mm-hmm. And she picked it up in a, just a couple minutes. And, you know, she didn't make the best choices every round. She didn't optimize, but she had fun, and that was the whole goal. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I think mission accomplished. Um- Yeah. But the six classes, so I, I mentioned one, and then I've actually mentioned an expansion class. So berserker is one of the base game classes. There's assassin Druid, Judge, Oracle, and Summoner What's your favorite out of those six? I was gonna say really quick, Cryomancer, which I mentioned, is an expansion class. And that's the only one we're gonna talk about because we wanna keep those a secret for a little bit. So we have a lot more coming. Yes. So [00:08:00] the, the plan with this is it is a base game, very easy entry point, not a whole lot of options. But if you like the game, there's a lot more that we have planned and, and it's already done, so. Uh, my favorite out of those first six? Mm-hmm. So I would say that a few of those are kind of fantasy staples: Assassin, Berserker, Druid. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then a few you've probably heard of a couple times, Summoner, Oracle. I think one of the ones out of this base game that's most unique to Eternity is the Judge. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I guess for that reason I'll g- I'll say Judge is my favorite at this moment. It changes. Yeah. So out of those six, I, because we played it so much, I would say the Druid is the most fun to play because I can have like damage plus an additional turn during the round. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's very fun to be able to hit someone multiple times and Yeah, the, the game i- is very simple to learn and pick up and play- Mm-hmm ... but they have very distinct [00:09:00] play styles. I think we've- Mm-hmm ... we've hit a good balance point of- There is some complexity if you wanna dive into it, but also at a face value, all the cards are very simple to read and- Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we have spent countless nights over the last year at this point- Yeah, it's been a full year. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe it. I know. Um, but we've been play testing all of these cards, right? And making sure the wording matters 'cause like- Mm-hmm ... I mean, you've been in this for 30 years, as we've just pointed out, making all these adjustments, and I come in and play and I've only been in this for five years, had no tabletop role playing, D&D, any of that beforehand. Mm-hmm. So I can help you with the wording for someone that's- Yeah ... you know, not used to it. And that's really helpful actually. Sometimes for me, having played so many of these games, it's easy for me to look at something and say, "This makes sense." Mm-hmm. But then having you read it or our parents read it- Yeah and they go, "I don't understand this," that's actually the best feedback. Mm-hmm. So. Yeah. [00:10:00] So to wrap things up a little bit, this game, Emanation, is... It's on a boat from China right now. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It, it's finished. It's gonna be... It's coming to the US. It's finished. Mm-hmm. It's in production. We have the box showcasing it, the videos anyway, right? And we've been waiting for this since December, I think, is how quickly we got it to production. Um, kind of. The- Roughly. The, the whole production thing is its whole own story. This was our first time having a game professionally produced. Yeah. And so we had a lot to learn about file types- ... and even silly things like sizing and, uh... Yeah, there was a lot of back and forth with the manufacturer. But it is all done and it is on the way. Yeah. So. So with it being on the way, we've created a pre-order page. Now, this page is not accepting payment at this time. It is just collecting- That's right ... your email, right? Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] And once we get it in and we're happy with it, we're gonna send out an email to you saying, "Hey, it's ready now. If you wanna buy it, you can." So this one is just a notification pre-order, right? Mm-hmm. So. Yep, that's right. So, uh, we'll share the link to that page, but it's ettrpg.com/game, and all it does on that whole page is tell you everything you might wanna know. So maybe you're a big TTRPG fan, and you're looking for ways to get more of your friends involved, your family, show off sort of what the genre's about You can play Eternity Emanation and then get somebody to play D&D with you off that. If they like Emanation, they're likely to enjoy D&D, and that was kind of the point. We don't just wanna get people into our world of games. We wanna have an easy access point to tabletop role play games in general. Mm-hmm. So yeah, go take a look at it. Uh, learn more about the game. See if you [00:12:00] like the idea of the classes. Uh, we even have an About section for Shauna and myself- ... uh, John, who does the marketing. All of the art is human-made. It's beautiful. It's am- you know, we're really- It looks incredible ... happy with everything that's come together. Yeah. A lot of really amazing people, a lot of amazing skillsets involved to make this happen. Uh, but yeah, you're right that, uh, if you want to get notified about when we have the product in hand, we are not accepting any payment info, any payment commitments at all until we actually have the products at our house ready to ship to you. So everything- Yeah ... at this point is just, you know, if you wanna know when that's up, then, um, just, yeah, drop us a line there. Absolutely. Um, and just to wrap it up, if you have any further questions about the game, the world of Eternity, or even just our different takes on tabletop role playing and D&D related things, please drop it below, um, because we're always here, always watching. [00:13:00] And we, we enjoy this kind of stuff, so. Yeah. For me, I'm, I'm sort of obsessed with it really. Um- Oh, you are obsessed with it. Yeah. So like- Like I... Go ahead ... the la- the last thing I was gonna say is that we do have the tabletop role play game version coming out as well. Mm-hmm. And that will expand a lot, and you'll actually be able to use the card game Battler Emanation as the combat system within that full tabletop role play game. So you'll have options. You'll be able to do kind of the, uh, the battle grid style that you've seen from D&D and probably have always loved. But, uh, I always think that some combat is, is worth that, and then some combat maybe is a, a l- you just want to fight some- Something quick ... goblins really quick. Yeah. Yeah. And so you just pull out the card game, and that can be a much faster system for your, your group. Mm-hmm. So when we have that available, we will be sharing that as well. But we're excited that this is the, uh, first step for this whole Sparks of Eternity world- ... we've been planning for [00:14:00] a very long time. Yeah. It's just so exciting, and it's amazing seeing it come together. I mean, this is your life's work. Yeah, yeah. And I get to be along for the ride with it, and it's just so fun, you know? Well, at this point, you're doing more than just being along for the ride. I- At this point, you're, you're in it. You're making the videos. You're- That's- Yeah ... it's not my creative mind at work here. But anyway- I don't know about that ... as always- Like, subscribe, comment, let us know what y'all think, and we will catch you next time. Thanks for watching. Bye.