This week the hosts unwrap their new present – HSD 2.0! A long but shallow review of the new book, along with the True Meaning of Christmas and thoughts on combat as a three-act play. This time with show notes!

Episode #46 – 2.0 unwrapping party

♃ 0.00.51 — All the hosts are sick this week from Texas’s cedar plague. Excuse the hoarse voices and coughs.

♃ 0.02.15 — “Dubious Origin” is a new background…well, all the backgrounds are new…your character was created through some secret back-alley process, has no records, and at higher experience milestones has an out-of-family random reclaiming surgery and, ultimately, a completely new character sheet, your ultimate transformation/destiny. And once in your character’s story you can possibly become immune to some sort of environmental hazard. It’s a surprise! (HSDbeta2.0p136)

♃ 0.03.45 — Referencing a video recorded on the HSD Twitch channel on 12/21/18, but it doesn’t seem to have been archived on the HSD Youtube Channel. A little aside about Christmas and Unification Day, two holidays on the Terran calendar. Of course Hc Svnt Dracones is “continuity light,” a lot of what happens i the author’s world isn’t necessarily capital T True.

♃ 0.08.24 — At some point a podcast I was listening to suggested tackling just the beginning, middle, and ending of combat with dice rolls, so you get a sense of the shape the combat will take but not have to sit through hours of “play.” It’s a good sometimes-treat approach for non-consequential battles. We talk about this approach for ten minutes or so.

♃ 0.15.00 — Kickstarter backers got their preview book this week, and we have an “unwrapping” party, skimming the book for highlights and points of interest.

♃ 0.17.30 — Strong plus of the 2.0 rulebook, which substantially adds to its page count: this edition contains most of the material from Core Extended, particularly species information.

♃ 0.28.05 — a few weeks ago we mentioned Europa’s giant ice spikes, here’s the articleagain

♃ 0.28.44 — Since this is a new feature of the game and wasn’t always part of the 2.0 rules, I’ll call out our conversation about “Quirks” here.

♃ 0.31.55 — Combat hacking, another new element in HSD that was a later addition to 2.0. Combat-time cinematic hacking, very “cybermage” stuff.

♃ 0.48.18 – “Farout,” a recent solar system find 120 astronomical units out from the sun. Pink, small, frozen. That, and a nuclear powered Europa tunnelbot.

With thanks to Sirius Beat for our intro music, “Future Club,” and outro music, “Tronicles.” Our fun, modular header art is by Absyfield , (Thank you Ashley!) and Whines is our audio engineer.