Good day! Did you notice that yesterday was so packed, I was in two places at once? We aired our marvelous Frosthaven game with the folks over at Penny Arcade yesterday morning, which I think was very entertaining. I created a custom Frosthaven scenario fittingly titled "Lost Arcade". It had a fun little arcade mechanic in it where characters could activate arcade games for different effects while fighting monsters, and the best news is that you can play it too! Here's a link to the PDF, and you can watch the video below.

After the game, Penny Arcade also went into a painting stream that featured a lot of the newer sculpts you probably haven't seen up close before.

But then while that was still going on, I also hopped over to Gaming Rules! to be interviewed by Paul Grogan about RPGs, miniatures, Euro games, favorite movies, Spacehaven, and the best ever year for board gaming. It was a lot of fun, and you should watch it!

And the day wasn't even over! After that, I got to play a Gloomhaven: Second Edition scenario with Ella Ampongan, who is one of my favorite people in this industry, and I was so happy to spend time with her, along with Drew and Dennis, on her Dice Tower stream.

And speaking of Drew and Dennis, we are going live at 8am PST (the reason this update is going out a bit early) to play some more Gloomhaven: Second Edition, because you can never have enough of that.

A roundup of BGG threads:
Here is a link of the Angry Face class preview written by Drew and Dennis.
Here is a link the discussion on puzzle #4 with the Mindthief.

                           

After posting the general overview on the RPG yesterday, I now wanted to take some time to further dive into specific mechanisms. On Monday, I talked about character creation, and today I thought it would be illuminating to discuss how the Gloom Master controls monsters in the RPG.

We can start with a look at the bestiary entry for everyone's favorite enemy: the ooze.

Now, obviously the graphic design, writing, and pretty much everything else is not final, but it should still give you a good idea of what you are working with.

The top half of the page is information that should look familiar: stat blocks for normal and elites at all levels and a list of potential actions (with initiatives) that are essentially analogous to the ooze ability card deck. This is so that if you own a copy of Gloomhaven, you can use the monster components from the box instead of the bestiary, if you find that more convenient (the bestiary will represent the stats of monsters in second edition, but no one is going to stop you from using first edition monsters - or Frosthaven monsters for that matter).

Note that levels for monsters are the same as they are in Gloomhaven. It is recommended that GMs run monsters at the appropriate campaign level (half the average character level), but GMs are free to run monsters at higher or lower level (and mix and match in the same combat), with rules on how to adjust point values. And yes, there are point values for monsters (in parentheses after "Normal" and "Elite"), along with general guidelines on how many points' worth of monsters would be challenging at different player counts.

All this is leading up to saying that the main difference between monsters in the board game and monsters in the RPG is that AI controls monsters in the board game, but the monsters are fully controlled by the GM in the RPG. The GM makes the decision of what action to perform each round and also all the details of how that action is performed. It is no longer about mindlessly going for the closest, fastest enemy. Monsters can now think, work together, and go after the biggest threats, so long as they have a reasonable tactics level.

Tactics level? Yeah, so this isn't about the GM just playing each monster as hard as they can to run the players into the ground. It is about setting up thematic encounters that are challenging and fun. Not every monster is going to act like an expert in military tactics, least of all the mindless ooze. Each monster will have a write-up about their tendencies in combat and some suggested actions for a number of situations.

And you may also notice there are some (not final) timing icons to the right of some actions, giving them cooldowns to reinforce to the GM that the monster shouldn't be using these over and over every round.

It is recommended that GMs just have each monster of a type all perform the same action in a round for easier bookkeeping, but if they're up for it, they could have different monsters act at different times with different actions. It is also, of course, recommended to stick to these action lists, but there's not really anything stopping GMs from creating their own action lists for monsters (or their own monsters for that matter) just to keep players on their toes.

And the other important thing to note about combat is that the GM can withhold whatever information they want (for instance, hit point values or initiative values). The characters no longer know what the monsters are doing in a round, which changes the dynamic of combat significantly.

And finally, you'll notice some more thematic text at the bottom of the bestiary, giving players some background and lore on the different monsters they will be facing. I hope all of this shed some light on how GMs use monsters in combat and how it compares to combat in Gloomhaven! Next time we delve into the RPG, I'll talk about more GM tools and some rules and tips for creating challenging, epic adventures.

                           

Lastly today, I wanted to spend a little time highlighting one of our partners, Forteller, and the audio narration products they are offering as part of their campaign. Here is Forteller talking about what they have on offer:

The Forteller team is excited to dive back into Gloomhaven and tackle the Second Edition! The current campaign offering can be found:

Why back now? 15 USD will be the deepest discount offered for backers during this celebration. Gloomhaven: Second Edition will include all 101 scenarios.  Based on the demand, the additional road and city cards may be added to complete the narration with an additional 3 to 4 hours (the road and city cards estimate) of audio content.

On behalf of Forteller, we are all grateful to the support from the community and giving us the ability to produce these amazing audio narrations and fuel our passion. We exist because of you, thank you!

                           

With that, we're going to call it a day. There's just the one early stream today, so I'm kind of looking forward to having a slower day to care of some more work from the backlog. And maybe take a nap? It's doubtful, but a man can dream. Either way, catch you tomorrow!