Episode: 2749
Title: HPR2749: Lostnbronx and Klaatu commentary from episode 2743
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2749/hpr2749.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 16:18:45

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This is HBR episode 2007-149 entitled Lost in Drunks and Klaatu commentary from episode 2007-143.
It is hosted by Klaatu and in about 15 minutes long and carrying a clean flag.
The summary is thoughts about RPG character building, modern RPG playstyle compared to the old school and more.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15. That's HBR15.
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I said I'd do an assessment of this process of the character creation process and if this might be a good time for me.
Way the game is designed these days, you may not, it's entirely possible, you'd never roll up another character unless you wanted to, unless you felt like it, you may never lose the character.
Especially if you have a game master that is actively trying to keep your characters alive.
And there's virtue there I think because some people, I mean if you played it like it was played in the old days, like the really old days, you might never reach level like 15.
You would never have the experience of playing a level 15 character. You'd just be playing like level 1s and 2s and 3.
I never did. The only time I ever played a high level character in those campaigns was when we, every now and then, we'd have a night where it'd be like,
yeah, I just bought this great module, but it's for high level characters, so we're all gonna roll up high level characters and run through this one.
But it was a one-shadow, it was a one-off. But my own characters, I don't think I ever had one that survives beyond level 8.
And that's different, you know, because I mean like people should get to level up their characters, there's, that's fun.
Understand, though, that was the style of Game Master and, and campaign that he ran.
But there were other people at the exact same time who were running very high level characters, because the Game Master ran a very different type of game.
I don't know if people today know, but there was a type of dungeon or a type of campaign called a Monty Hall campaign.
And Monty Hall campaigns were, it was like Monty Hall, you know, the name, like it was spelled Monty Hall, but it was like the hall was like a hall of, you know, like,
you know, you hold in all this treasure. Monty Hall was a game show host, but the idea was that it was a very easy campaign, and you got an awful lot of treasure for not a lot of danger.
Whereas I came from a killer campaign, where no matter what you did, everything was stacked against you.
And the Game Master honestly believed it was his job to try to kill you.
He wasn't doing it out of malice. He believed that's what his job was, was to try to kill you, and it was your job to not let him do it.
You know, I, I had incredible adventures in that game, but in the end, that type of playing discourages people far more than it encourages them.
And, you know, I had incredible laughs, incredible adventures, but we got angry a lot too.
I think the book really, really needs a page or two that is nothing but a blueprint of how to create the character.
Go here, go here, go here, go here. To me, it's, it's a screaming need.
To that, to that point, I, I'm going to mention, well, I'm going to mention that there is, if people want that,
there is a starter kit for Starfinder. It's a little bit like the D&D basic set, you know, like back in the day,
because it doesn't have the full rule set, but it does, it doesn't excellent job.
It like literally, it has a printout, it has a page with the character sheet on it and has numbers by each one,
and you go to the number with a paragraph that says in this box, fill in this number, blah, blah, blah, and it gives you
everything's reduced though. So you're, you're, you're playing a simplified version of the game.
It's like Starfinder basic. That said, it's super great because it does it. Hold your hand and steps you
through the process. I wish there was something like that in this book. I would honestly, I would leave out
the last 25% of the book where they're going over game mastering, setting, and the pathfinder legacy
classes and just put in, put in a basic, like a handholding section on building that first character.
But go ahead. Personally, no, I have a distaste for space opera games that are magic heavy.
I don't mind a little bit like Star Wars type of level of magic. I don't mind a little of it,
but this is set up in a way that you could have as much magic as the original pathfinder in your
Starfinder game. So you have all that tech and you have magic, you know, all that magic on top of
everything else. That's one of the reasons why I say they're trying to cater to everybody in this
particular game. I would have left all that out and made it a supplement. You know, I, it almost
feels like they were trying to beef up the book with extra material by showing people, oh, well,
you're used to your pathfinder game and you love your pathfinder characters. You know, you're,
I mean, I can see the mentality. I can see the mentality, a game master who's been running a pathfinder
game for a couple of years and, you know, their player, their players are very attached to their
characters. And the game master comes in and says, I got the new Starfinder book. I want to do
the spaceships and stuff. Let's do this. And the players are like, I don't want to leave my character
behind. I really love my character. I'm not leaving my character. You know, let's not do, you know,
they, to the point where they're like, I don't want to play it because I can't bring my character in.
And I guess these rules are designed to let you do that. How common would that scenario be?
I don't think it would be very common. That's just me. But I, I think there's a slight, yeah,
there is a question of whether Starfinder is a kin to spell jammer back in the old D&D days where
you could do D&D in space or whether it's akin to like traveler, which I've never actually played,
but, but people seem to like it and it seems to be pretty pure space opera. So yeah, I think there's
there is a, I think, a little bit of a split personality there. Trader to everybody. You want to,
you want a spell jammer game? And I played a lot of spell jammer. We had a, you know, our D&D
game kind of expanded into that. It had a lot of fun with it, but that wasn't space. I mean,
it wasn't anything like space. Yeah, it was not space. Yeah, and no, it was just hang out on
the deck of a ship. And there was, but you know, the funny thing is though, the funny thing is,
I bet if, if they did do what you said, which I think is actually a really good idea, make it,
like a mod, an add-ons, you know, book, like have magic in your starfinder game. Wouldn't people
then accuse them of just trying to extort more money out of their readers? I mean, you're,
you're kind of critiquing them for giving away too much, which is kind of a weird thing to do.
Okay, you're right. They might be accused of that. So why not instead of having a book of,
you know, here's all the same old magic spells. How about a book that caters directly magic
in this type of environment? You know, so you have... Oh, it does. There is. There's all kinds of
techno-mancies. Oh, I know. I know. There are. And another thing, another thing that you wouldn't
you could do a complete cyberpunk game based on these rules. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Totally.
I'm sorry, but I just think that they're reaching too far. I really do. I mean, you can't... I'm
disagreeing with you on this point strongly. I really like the flexibility that they allow.
So I'm... Personally, yeah. In fact, I would have a space opera book. I would have a spell jammer,
quote, unquote, spell jammer book. I would have... And ways in that spell jammer book to adapt your
magic into your space opera game. I would have a cyberpunk book. I would have all of these things
with a chapter or two on how to integrate them into your other game systems. But I sure wouldn't
cram them all into the same book. It just seems... I don't know. It's honestly, it feels like they
didn't have enough material for one book or didn't feel like they did. And they didn't want to,
you know, they didn't want to just put out a small book and charge what, you know, 15, 20,
30, 40 dollars for a tiny book. So they stuck all these rules into this one book. It just feels
that way to me. You're very business-minded. You should start an RPG company. You think so? You think
so? I'd need a good partner. I don't know. I don't know if I could do it on my own.
Yes, yes, yes, no. You know, with that, we should plug that, you know, Clat 2 and I have started a
small endeavor, a gaming endeavor. Right now, you can see what we're doing on a blog call
at mixedsignals.ml, mixed signals, all one word, .ml. And that's a daily blog. We're updating it
every single day. We are having gaming material on there. Right now, we're focused on fantasy
role-playing games, not hybrid, space opera, you know, fantasy, space fantasy, quasi,
spell jammer stuff. Right now, we're just focused on high fantasy things like traps and cursed
items and things like that. Yeah, a little bit of an old school bent. I mean, not totally. It's
written for modern systems, but I feel like it feels old. No, not totally. And I mean, that's all
you're going to get with me right now. But yeah, yeah, I don't think that's a bad thing.
Um, I think that we're, I mean, at the moment, we're trying to keep things as adaptable as possible
for people's games. So if you're playing something like Pathfinder or even for that matter,
Starfinder, you know, they go to an alien world and they go into a temple and there you go. You
can just throw a trap, you know, these traps right in. It would not take much to just tweak and
throw these things in to somebody else's games. So, you know, uh, eventually do we want to
sell these things? Well, we want to put them out for people. And if they want to purchase them,
they can, or if they want them for free, they can get them for free as well. So, um, I don't know
how mercenary that is. Maybe we're not great business people after all. But I think you got the
idea listening to my complaints and I apologize for it. But that we look at stuff like this and we
say, you know, there are things that would change. Well, the mix signals is our way of doing that
and expressing, you know, expressing it and offering it to other people. That is what, uh,
that is what we're doing. So, I enjoyed this a great deal. I don't think I could repeat this on
my own. I really don't. I was very, very, uh, following, following behind everything you were doing
with this character, um, I would need, and this was true when the original D&D too, when I first started,
I didn't know what I was doing when I started. I had no idea. And our game master had to hold our hand
through it more than once, right? Um, and it wasn't until I actually played with the character,
and I got to, you know, I had to refer to these statistics that I came up with, um, the bonuses
and the this, the that, then it begins to sink in. So until you actually play with the character,
it's nearly impossible to understand, you know, this certainly something is complicated. We,
we left out a lot of stuff. We have there are a lot of things we didn't go over. And it, you know,
the, yeah, complicated process. So, um, I, I would look forward to either doing this again or even
running with Harry Peter Rollins and, uh, uh, uh, running him through some sort of campaign or
something like that, or just an adventure, just to see how these statistics actually work.
And by doing that, I'll, I'll understand it a whole, uh, a whole lot better. Yeah, I think that's
the key is that that building it and then playing it is, is the way to kind of, well, it's the way to
do it. I mean, that's how you become a role player. Like, that's, that's the thing that people are
missing. Like, you got to build a character and then you got to play the character. And I would
say to view the build process as a mini game, don't look at it as like, oh, I got to build a
character to get ready for this RPG. Look at it as part of the RPG is like the RPG before the RPG
starts. So it can be fun. Oh, absolutely. You just have to sort of like be willing to flip back and
forth a lot, obviously. Well, especially in this game system or one equally as complicated as,
as this game system is, that is so important. And it's important, you know, for the game master to
have their universe in place or a good idea of it anyway, in place. So that on the characters are
creating, there are when the players are creating their characters, they're creating characters that
fit really well into these universe. And they're learning about the game setting while they're
creating the character because why would you choose one profession over another in this particular
game system? Right. Your campaign, for instance, if you're running a a Star Wars like campaign,
you know, why, you know, some of the options that are available to you, you need to understand
what they are, why they're there and how that fits into the wider universe. If I want to be,
you know, this, the Jedi type characters are called salarians, I think it is. And they have certain
of powers and abilities. And if you want to understand, you know, you can look at and say,
oh, I have a laser sword. I want, I want to have, you know, this guy, but in order to understand what
he is and why you would choose him, the game master will tell you, you know, this is what he is,
and it's part of this order and this order is currently involved in a great war, you know.
And that's all that's, that's information. You suddenly you understand
setting, you understand what this character is, is about. You know, you find a place for your
character as you're creating it. Tonight is not a great example of that because we don't have a
full campaign to run them through, but, you know, if we, if we did, if we were next going to
jump into a full campaign, I would be asking questions like, okay, he's a pilot, but was he
military? Is he commercial? Is he part of some rebel alliance? Is he, you know, what is he?
What is it? And these, this is information I would get and it would inform my decision as,
as I'm creating the character.
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