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Episode 216: Time to Fallout of Your Chair Baby
167 Plays10 months ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to the Goblin Lore Podcast! Today we are back with Universe Beyond and the world of Fallout! Follow along as Taya and Alex explain the lore and flavor to a clueless Hobbes!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Familiarity with Fallout
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. We are all here today, so I'm kind of spoiling a little bit, but it's very excited. And I'm also very, very excited for the topic that we're here for, even though only two thirds of our cast is at all familiar with the thing that we're going to be talking about.
00:00:52
Speaker
But it's still very exciting. So I'm Alex. Hold on, Twitter at mil underscore chronicler. For now, I'm almost broken the habit, but I still check in there occasionally. I just assumed that neither of you do. So I remember it exists about once a week, I open it up to check five notifications. And if I do, I look at them. If I don't, I close it, which feels really healthy.
00:01:17
Speaker
I don't know. Just this made me feel so much better. But then today we are going to talk about the fallout.
00:01:29
Speaker
The universe is beyond set. There have been a number of these. We did an episode on the Lord of the Rings one, which was a lot of fun. And I know Taya and Hobbes both did an episode on the Doctor Who, which is a property that means a lot to them that I have almost no familiarity with at all outside of random pop culture osmosis. And even that is fairly thin for that property for me.
Exploring Fallout's Evolution as a Game Series
00:01:55
Speaker
But so as part of that, we just wanted to do, you know, we always do our, our opening question. We, we, uh, I almost said try to hops. We endeavor to, how does that one work for you?
00:02:06
Speaker
Well, if we do it, we might fail. Well, some episodes we don't. Or we don't do it. So we do it or we don't do it. Yeah. Yes. We fail to do it. We sometimes fail. There we go. And so for this one, we felt a appropriate question would be to, what's your favorite Fallout game? So the Fallout, it's very, very quick for people who don't know, Fallout is a video game series. There have been a handful, well, more than a handful of them at this point now.
00:02:32
Speaker
I have not played the first two or anything before Bethesda got them. So they the first ones were sort of CRPGs or computer RPGs sort of in the ball isometric sort of the ball is good style. Classic. Yeah, classic isometric RPGs. And then Bethesda bottom and made them first or third person, depending on how you want to play it, like action RPG, basically.
00:03:00
Speaker
sci-fi apocalypse version of Elder Scrolls. They play just like the Elder Scrolls games in that very vague sense. I started with that, Fallout 3, played all the big ones from there. So for me, it really... I liked 3. I got to level 50 in 76 and had fun. Won't say I liked the game, but I definitely had fun while playing the game, at least some of it.
00:03:28
Speaker
especially because I was playing with some friends for parts of it. But I think it really comes down to 4 or New Vegas for me. I think New Vegas I like as a game better, but there are system things in 4 that I love enough. It really makes me vacillate back and forth. So I will say if I have to pick a favorite, I would put New Vegas at the first, but it's with a little bit of a struggle.
Teia's Experience and the Trans Community's Connection
00:03:57
Speaker
Taya, do you? I'll go next. I'm Taya. Taya transcends on Blue Sky. I did break the Twitter habit completely. I am done with anything Musk related. Thankfully, I do not.
00:04:15
Speaker
I try not to think of him as much as possible. Unfortunately, shit he does keeps showing up in my face anyways, because he unfortunately is the richest man in the world and has that much influence on everything we do. But anyways, uh, yeah, uh, my pronouns are she, her, they, them, and, uh, yeah, I played Fallout since the beginning. I had the original back in when they were 97 when it came out.
00:04:44
Speaker
remember playing them you know kind of going through murdering everybody you meet you know having fun I don't remember much of the story about others other than finding the the the Garden of Eden the Gek yes kit I don't remember too much else about that I don't remember too much else about the fight it with the other than fighting with the Enclave and the second one I've never replayed them
00:05:14
Speaker
But I definitely remember the stories from three and onwards way better. And New Vegas is definitely my favorite, which is also a trans stereotype. There's a lot of stereotypes about trans girls and New Vegas. It's funny. I have seen that. I 100% have seen that. And I know very little about Fallout, but I do that. That is part of what you know.
00:05:45
Speaker
So yeah, I've really enjoyed New Vegas.
Alex's Perspective and Game Mechanics Discussion
00:05:49
Speaker
I've played it a lot. I played the expansion. It has been at least eight years since I have played it. So it's getting to the point now where my memories are getting a little fuzzy on everything. But looking through the cards have definitely re-sparked some memories on everything.
00:06:09
Speaker
you know obviously four is the most you know has the most uh current memories associated with it and you know it's oh yeah you know i definitely remember all these things from four
00:06:23
Speaker
But New Vegas was the one where I definitely sunk the most hours into and kind of enjoyed playing that environment the most. And really, it also was the one where I was most, you know, well, I guess three was the one where I was most familiar with the environment because I lived in DC at the time. So I was like, oh, I know these areas. Yeah.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, I did once fly into Washington DC and see the Jefferson monument. And in my head, of course, I immediately oh, there's project purity. And then I had to like, correct. Well, no, there's a real thing that that actually is.
00:07:10
Speaker
Oh, is that me? Sorry, I was reminiscing on my favorite Fallout moment. I don't remember what number it was. It's the one where everybody says something like war is the same as all other things or something like that over and over again. It's war time.
00:07:33
Speaker
The thing that was told to be right before we started, because yeah, no, I know nothing other than I own one of the game of the year versions that I never started.
00:07:48
Speaker
because I had picked it up with all intensive playing and I lost just my time for playing games. So I've always kind of heard of the fallout system, you know, kind of knew some of the stuff to do with like, which I'm hoping maybe to learn from you all like this whole bobblehead thing and that like the bobblehead character versus kind of.
00:08:05
Speaker
The rest of the game, like at first I always thought like the bobblehead was like the art for the game. Like I thought that was like the style. Like I thought that that character doing like the big thumbs up was like, was how the game worked. I had no clue until I looked, you know, more into it and kind of saw the, the, I think what I knew it more as was either the first sort of third person shooter kind of setups.
00:08:27
Speaker
So yeah, I know very little about it. This is probably the first universe beyond that I know or the, this is the universe beyond. I know the least about. Okay. So it'll be a fun conversation. I mean, these cards are super flavorful. Even if you know nothing about the universe, it's the same way really for me with the 40 K cards as I knew very little about 40 K. I was like, this is really cool.
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, this is one of those ones where we've talked about it was interesting for me to kind of see the cards coming out to see people talking about them without having that and just to see, okay, well, how do they work is just kind of magic cards, right? Like, how does these mechanics these new mechanics work? I know we're gonna talk about them because there's something like, I mean, the main one, the new one, the main new ones, I found completely, like flavorful from like, just from what I know, from a melt those kind of standpoint,
00:09:24
Speaker
radiation one. So it just that I could I could figure out what it did. And so it was really cool to be experiencing one of the universe beyond where I knew basically nothing about the world, like very, very little. And and for me, one of the interesting things I was thinking about on the way the way home about this, and it's, it's
00:09:43
Speaker
It's the first one for me. That's a game property being turned into a magic set. I'd say Warhammer is a game as well. That one I didn't know enough. But there's some cards that are centered around game mechanics. And the thing with Lord of the Rings is books and stories. So you're not going to have
00:10:02
Speaker
the mechanics of how the thing works, it's you read a book, you read a card, that's kind of the same thing. But it's interesting to see, obviously, world and character details. Books have world and character details. TV shows have world and character details, as does these game series. But
00:10:19
Speaker
This has game mechanics, too, which is, at least from a MEL standpoint, is really interesting for me to see how some of those game mechanics were ported over to a different game, a wildly different type of game. From a video game to a paper card game, it's super interesting. Yeah, it has been. And also looking at what they chose to bring in as reprints, too. Oh, yeah.
00:10:49
Speaker
And they fit in some really good reprints to this universe. Yeah. Absolutely. So do we want to just start somewhere? Yeah. I'm why don't we start with kind of our, why don't we start with our highlights? Okay. You know, very, do you have a good way to go off? Cause I have a weird one.
00:11:19
Speaker
You have a weird one. All right. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with them. What I want is a highlight from what I want to do as a mechanical point of view that I think is really cool. And that that's the master transcendent. And this one gets, you know, it gives out rad counters, which, you know, deal with milling stuff and.
00:11:47
Speaker
And then it has the ability to take things that have been milled and create them as creatures under your control.
Master Transcendent Card and Fallout Themes
00:11:54
Speaker
And I love reanimation. So this is a pure salt-eye value commander. You're milling things and you're reanimating. And the salt-eye deck, this is the backup commander in the salt-eye deck, which has to do with milling and rad counters. Surprise, surprise. The main commander, the Wise Mothmen, is a plus one, plus one counter deck.
00:12:18
Speaker
which okay you know that's basically simic counters add black for the milling i'm like yeah i'm over that but add black for the reanimate and then i'm like okay you've got my attention yep yeah i like this one a lot i mean it's also creepy as hell on this card i'm not gonna lie though it is kind of funny and this was one of those coming from a universe beyond types
00:12:42
Speaker
a piece that we now have two villains, I'm guessing. Yes, that are the master. Yes. So when I saw this one, I was like, wow, so I can make a master deck that what colors is the doctor who went in?
00:13:02
Speaker
Black. So it's perfect. It's a slightly different deck, but that's cool. But I just thought it was really funny. I was like, can I make a Master Master deck yet? Are we there? There's something that just now occurred to me, but I have my Teia Transcendent screen name, which came from Narset Transcendent, but now I have Master Transcendent.
00:13:27
Speaker
I'm not going to quite associate with this book as much as Narset. That's fair. I think we've established your lore to Narset a lot more than whatever this is. This is the one of the eight commanders that I don't actually know. Master is from the first Fallout?
00:13:46
Speaker
Was it the second? I think it's the second. The second one, okay. Yeah. Did I correctly identify that it is a villain? It is a villain, yes. Okay. Yes, absolutely. I was like, hey, you know, certain world mutants, you know, not all mutants are villains. I think I learned that from- Definitely a villain. From Professor X. Yeah, this one definitely a villain.
00:14:05
Speaker
in the trying to turn everyone into mutants camp if I were sure that that is where this one comes from and like I said my my memories of the first two Fallout games I mean this is back in this is back in college for me so it's it's long long time ago and
00:14:24
Speaker
I'm old now, I can't remember shit from like two weeks ago. I don't remember plots from video games when I was in college. That's fair, but it's funny you start there because for my weird thing, one of the things I was most interested in from the beginning was actually the rad counters themselves. The rad counters are awesome.
00:14:49
Speaker
Speaking of a game mechanic sort of thing translated into the game, I thought it was really, really cool how this works because this mechanic, it does something that hurts because you're milling, which on its own is advancing you towards running out of your deck. That is a resource. But it's also a thing you can build around to be really good.
00:15:10
Speaker
And it's sort of in the average case scenario, you might play somebody's cards with red counters and just kind of ignore that effect and just, okay, I'll mill a few things, but the rest of it is good. And it's, it's funny because all three of those scenarios are pitch perfect to how radiation works in the fallout games that I've played. And you lose life. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true. You're billing and you're losing life. Yeah. It's not just mill. So you're, you're doing.
00:15:37
Speaker
That's the problem with mill by itself normally is you're not, you're milling only counts when you mill the last card. This one actually goes towards standard victory condition as well. Yeah, and there I'm talking kind of from a self
00:15:52
Speaker
point too, because looking at especially the wise Mopman where it's like you are getting a benefit as you're milling things because it kind of keys into this other thing. And so it's like, I just, I love how that mechanically fits because in the fallout games I played by and large, you're generally ignoring it. It hurts a little bit, but you'll,
00:16:13
Speaker
You're eating radiated food, but the health gain is important enough that you're just going to kind of ignore the radiation for now. Or there's times where you're built, there's actual builds you build around having high levels of radiation and then you get to do funky things. It's just, I love how that translated. Yeah. It was cool. And then similar to radiation, they also brought back energy, which is one of my all time favorite mechanics. I played so much energy during
00:16:43
Speaker
Kaladesh Standard. Aetherworks Marvel is one of my favorite cards of all time, so to see more energy cards come into play. And I like how most of them generate energy and consume it in this set, so you don't have to have one or the other. Most of them do both.
00:17:03
Speaker
It makes the mechanic play a little less parasite-y, if that makes sense. It plays on its own, even if you don't have a whole deck around it. You can splash one or two of these cards in a deck that doesn't care about energy normally. I like that. And it's a perfect mechanic because it fits, A, the science fiction setting, but even B, the energy token from this set is a
00:17:27
Speaker
is an energy core, a fusion core that are used in Fallout 4 and 76 to power your power armor. So it's like it is an actual mechanic in some of the games to pay attention to your energy amount. That's cool. So speaking of mechanics that came back, here's my weird one. I want to talk about the card Camp.
00:17:50
Speaker
because it is the second ever fortification in the game. I just saw that today. I saw that one over the weekend, actually. I was like, oh my god, we can fortify a land. And I had to scryfall as soon as I saw this crowd. I was looking at it this weekend because I'm like, this mechanic, it was in future sight, is the only other mechanic.
00:18:12
Speaker
Garrison. Darksteel Garrison. Darksteel Garrison. I asked. So it was one of the cards, and it was a Future Shifted card. So it's one of, Future Sight is one of my favorite sets, but it's also wildly complex and silly, and I'm glad.
00:18:27
Speaker
And this one's also hilarious because it's future sighted, but yet we went back to Mirrodin more than once. And they decided to not use that mechanic. They decided that was not what they wanted on Mirrodin, but I think it's funny that that's where it's quite housed.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So they bring it back here. I love it. And it's, I think it's a relatively straightforward mechanic, but I've been invested in the game for a long time. It's basically an artifact that works like an equipment, but for lands instead of for creatures. So you just fortify them to attach this to a land rather than equipping it to a creature. I just, I love the mechanic of it or that flavor, but I also love that this is like the first time we're ever seeing this after a future site.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah. I just had to read that card again when I saw it because I'm like, wait, did that say fortified? Yeah. And it creates a junk token, which I also really like. There are two new tokens. Well, there's a couple, but there's two new tokens that are more widespread in this set that I think are both really good.
00:19:43
Speaker
for this set and especially junk. I think junk is one that could easily come back in other magic sets. Well, junk they've used before. Well, they have used it. Well, let's see. There we go. I just totally missed that. Oh, I didn't know that either. I thought they had at least. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just remember seeing it previewed like eight months ago and thinking that it had been. Oh, God. Actually, I think that is what happened. Yeah, that's probably what happened is I remember seeing it previewed and then
00:20:09
Speaker
Cause that's a really cool mechanic. I love that. An impulse, like, what is that called? Is that like the impulse draw or the...
00:20:18
Speaker
exile the top card i think that's what they call it impulse draw because it's kind of a red thing yeah oh i'm just thinking scrap that's what i'm thinking oh scrap with upside yes yeah yeah okay scrap with upside okay i'll say yeah for here i just impulse draw on a token that's like your throw away or like this idea of it being a throw away thing is absolutely like basically that idea of almost the you know
00:20:44
Speaker
making something out of junk is really cool to me. I don't know if that's what happens with junk in a game that you build with it. You salvage junk and build stuff out of it. See, look at this. It's working. They managed. Yeah, they perfectly. I captured that. Yeah. Good job. It's me. No, it's not them, Alex. That was me. That was you. You were like, that's
00:21:06
Speaker
When I mentioned like there is mechanics in four that make me really, really love four. That was one of the things they added. Crafting in a larger, deeper, wider sense than the games had before, at least again, the ones I played. And so suddenly things like stuff that you would have ignored. So one of the things like the, like the Elder Scrolls games, you can pick up almost any object you want. You can just carry around literally aluminum.
00:21:31
Speaker
food trays like for, from a, like a cafeteria. Well, and that's like one of the first cards previewed was over incumbents and that was so perfect. Yeah. So perfect because that's a common thing you do in this game is you just carry too many things and now you can't fast travel and you're moving slower. But like I literally would go weekly in game to a packing plant to loot 150 of these trays because I could break them down for aluminum, which was used to build things.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah. So I love junk and settlement is the other token that I love because again, it's weird token things. That was really cool. It's an enchant land token that was really neat. Yeah. And it enchanted land has had one man of any color and it's, it fits kind of the settlement building that is a thing in four and to a degree 76 kind of from a different angle.
00:22:29
Speaker
which some people aren't a big fan of that's fair, but I think the flavor of that is pretty cool to capture. And this is kind of a cool way to do that. You take all land and now it can produce more resources for you.
Sinister Vault Histories and Card Representation
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah. And kind of speaking of like over encumbered, I loved the whole cycle of trait cards like nerd rage and over encumbered and all of the, you know, that required mutation.
00:22:56
Speaker
There was one that I loved. I think the strong back. Yep. Strong back was another one of the same cycle. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, when I was looking at for the set, right? Seeing that there was a Naya one was I was looking at things that could be potentially good for any decks, right? Just a brief overview for mine. And this I was so bummed about because it doesn't work for Sir Gwen.
00:23:20
Speaker
Because there was all these weird auras that also cared about equipments, but they were in green. This is going to go in stang so fast. I mean, yes. There's so much eating well for if you're a stang player. There is so much good stuff for stang. You want to bring back Earl, the mist stalker. There's just so many cool things, but this card strong back blew my mind. I was like, what? Yeah, I just saw that one was preparing beforehand.
00:23:49
Speaker
And that, as soon as you start talking unencumbered, see, so yeah, there we go. I was like, wow. So you need to have a strong back so you can carry all your junk. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm getting it. Yeah. You kind of getting closer to a different coat than I was going to bring up at some point too.
00:24:11
Speaker
like i love nerd rage so much because it's it's an aura like it gives cards and like it was enchanted creature has no you have no maximum hand size and what it attacks if you have 10 or more cards in your hand you get a plus 10 plus 10 because it's
00:24:25
Speaker
It, that is a. Yeah. Is that the one that gets you a bonus when you have 10 intelligence, right? Yes. When you have 10 intelligence. So it's, it's like a high, you start as a high into build and then you can turn it into like a strong melee build, but you have to get all the way to the 10. So it's just like, it's, I love that. And then it gives you the two cards to help you get there, which also helps with the whole two for one or a sort of thing. Yeah.
00:24:57
Speaker
Yeah. The other cycle of cards that I got, I really enjoyed were the sagas with the various vault issues.
Cultural Influences and Capitalism Commentary
00:25:08
Speaker
And this is something you're probably not familiar with Hobbs since you didn't play, but each of the vaults near, they were all set up by Vault-Tac too.
00:25:17
Speaker
supposedly protect humanity from the war, but they all set them up as basically sadistic experiments. Okay, as I've always, okay, cool. Each one of them, each one of them was set up as some kind of, something was wrong with every one of the vaults, intentionally wrong. Yeah, or some sort of experiment set up for all of them. Most of them horribly, like just sadistic.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah, before we go too much further, too, because I need to know this now before it just modulate my rage level for this episode as we go on. Does anything happen to Dogmeat? Because if something does, I don't know if anything canonically happens. I say Dogmeat is in, I believe, every game. OK. Dogmeat is a lot, though, when you play because the AI is usually awful and it runs in the traps constantly.
00:26:13
Speaker
yes okay okay but it comes back canonically yeah it comes back yeah dog we decide okay storyline wise is what i care about here i mean absolutely quick load is your friend when your companion blows themselves up because they ran into a mine yes but yeah i i love do we want to talk about a couple other vaults yeah let's talk about some of the vaults
00:26:40
Speaker
So Vault 21, I'll start with Vault 21, House Gambit, because that is a reference to, so there's vaults all over, but this was from New Vegas, but there's a vault under New Vegas. And this is, and I found a couple of years ago, there was a video game YouTube channel I follow that did a ranking every Fallout vault that is within the canon. I think they even did some of them that were within the,
00:27:09
Speaker
notes for games that didn't get made but they're like everything we can find all the vaults that we can find within sort of official stuff whether it was made or not ranking them according to how much we'd like to live in them from the worst to the best and the best was like six or something it was very very few at the very top but um vault 21 is one of the few that wasn't horribly terrible it was just an experiment
00:27:33
Speaker
Every decision in the vault had to be made by a game of chance. That was the conceit for that one. And so it's in Vegas. That was kind of part of it. And then ultimately, the last thing that sort of shut the vault down was after the apocalypse, Mr. House, who's one of the commanders,
00:27:54
Speaker
approached the vault dwellers and just said, would you like to leave the vault and become part, help me like rebuild the city? And so they did a game of chance and he won the game. And so they, they left the vault and turn it into like a hotel tourist attraction. It might be more to that story, but like, that's what I, that's what I know of, of that. But that's why I like this one. Yeah. You know, kind of going back to the original game is like your,
00:28:24
Speaker
Your Garden of Eden Creation Kit, you were supposed to get one as part of your vault, so once it was clear, you could go out and start, you know, re-farming and stuff. But instead, they got a stockpile of other parts, and then another vault got an unlimited number of Garden of Eden Creation Kits.
00:28:43
Speaker
And they just like swapped stuff like that around and did, but then as the games got on, they got more sadistic and kind of more detailed and what they're like, that was a really early kind of. And see, but they got more like they purposely sabotaged the radiation scrubbers. So you ended up with mutations. I think that might've been vault 12, which is a card in here. Yeah. The, the mono black one. Yeah. I might be wrong on that, but.
00:29:14
Speaker
I think it is. Yeah. There's a reason, and this was a thing that I really enjoyed. If you go to the reprints, you're looking at the lands, a bunch of non-legendary lands have references to things, locations in the art. And the temple of deceit is the Vault-Tec industry headquarters.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah, that is really cool. Yeah, that is a really cool flavor. I like when they do the reprint, like, pull the reprints and are able to put them into the world. They do that with Dr. Who as well. Yeah, and the flavor text is perfect, too. It says Voltex Volts, rather than being a savior of humanity, were actually a series of unethical psychological experiments.
00:30:04
Speaker
Whoa, whoa, are they making the psychologist actually bad guys? Well, and, and these guys, it was more than psychological too. There were medical experiments. There was, there was a vault where the, there were scientists who were living kind of behind the walls that the vault dwellers didn't know about. And those scientists were supposed to continuously infect them with different diseases to test how they worked in living populations.
00:30:27
Speaker
And ultimately that didn't happen because one of the scientists is like, nope, this is messed up and like infected all the scientists, I think, and killed the scientists. But then the vault dwellers got to just live a normal life. And so ultimately that's one of those vaults where it's like, well, this is one of the best to live in because some person decided this was too messed up and broke the system because otherwise it would have been one of the worst. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's, the game is dark. It just, I mean, as a post-apocalyptic game, you get what you expect. Yes, but it's also as a flavor for it, which was really hard for me to understand at the outset. This isn't a post-apocalypse of our world. This is a post-apocalypse of an alternate history where
00:31:20
Speaker
Certain technological advances didn't happen after World War II. So like computer technology is way, way, way behind. It happened, like the bombs drop in 2077 and they're barely at early, early computers. Right. But also that there is a cultural stagnation in the US that causes like the culture to still be in like the music of the fifties and things. And there's also a lot of like critique of late stage capitalism. Yeah, it is very much.
00:31:52
Speaker
It is the whole game is kind of a critique of that. Really that starts in three and four hits it really hard.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah, three is where you go into the Nuka Cola plant and there's some multiple cards in here, including like the Nuka Cola vending machine is the one I'm actually really excited about. But you go into the Nuka Cola headquarters and if you read a lot of the audio, like the logs and the things in the computers, you learn that like part of their thing, they literally like their tagline was drink a Nuke. Like that is their thing. They shape their bottles like rockets because there are radioactive isotopes in this Cola.
00:32:31
Speaker
And the human experiments that they did to find a radioactive isotope that wouldn't kill their customers killed a lot of test subjects. Like that is the cost. I mean, look at the soul ring. Look at the flavor text on the soul ring. Yes. Yup. I mean, they discover new weapon isable isotopes, but a tasty beverage. Yeah.
00:32:56
Speaker
So yeah, another cycle I want to mention though, while we're here is the Talisman cycle. They, they did the, the magazines, which are one time, one time used objects, which increases stat. Those are so cool as Talismans. I love that. Yeah. I thought that was cool.
00:33:18
Speaker
I need to ask about one of my favorite, like just based on the art. So, uh, I was hoping to hear a little bit more. I mean, it just could be something that's just basically like, uh, not tied to anything other than this world, but the art for nuclear fallout is absolutely fantastic. So this is Jason. No, who did? Yeah. Wasn't this Jason Rainville? Yeah, it was Jason Rainville did this art and it is a take on.
00:33:49
Speaker
like the nuclear family and dinner from Norman Rockwell. Oh yeah, that is so good. When you were mentioning kind of Alex, that like stagnation with like 50s culture mixed in with kind of this like commentary on late state capitalism, that made me really think of this art and like what Jason did with making this art work kind of as, I mean, well, the flavor text alone is about,
00:34:17
Speaker
the end of the world occurring is predicted with too many humans and not enough space or resources to go around. I mean, it's really kind of interesting, like the details are trivial and pointless. And the reasons is always purely human ones. But this artwork here, because I mean, I've, I am taking it there are mutants and there are
00:34:35
Speaker
things that are happening, you know, you have this take on the classic Norman Rockwell painting. And people don't really think about it like that. That painting gets misused a lot. Well, a lot of Norman Rockwell does. Yes, they do. Because people don't really seem to get the social commentary underpinnings that Norman Rockwell had, which is hilarious to me. Like, dude, did some of the most like, like, like the art of the the girl walking with the
00:35:02
Speaker
Ruby, um, my mind's gonna go blank, but the girl, uh, during like school desegregation, right? Like he did some just wild, just, I mean, in terms of.
00:35:13
Speaker
subvertity norms in terms of his art, but that is one of them. That art is about the end of that kind of era and how people were clinging to it and these elements to then see it turn on its head with this nuclear fallout. Jason just crushed this. I had to because that was one of the only ones I had really paid a ton of attention to before today.
00:35:35
Speaker
That's just a good removal spell too. Yeah, it's really
Iconic Fallout Items and Thematic Card Mechanics
00:35:39
Speaker
cool. Like an X spell and also can give those, give players those rad counters. Yes. Well, and that, that's one that I actually wanted to talk about too. Cause Hey, it's a card I'm, I'm, I'm actually excited about. It's one I'm, I'm thinking about for my Zyra deck potentially.
00:35:56
Speaker
but also be the flavor text that you read there Hobbs. Uh, I looked at that and I'm like, man, that really fits sort of with a lot of the aesthetic. And so I was looking at something else. So the, the reference that you, you were making at the beginning, Hobbs, the war, war never changes, which is how every fallout game starts. Well, the flavor text and nuclear fallout is the rest of the opening monologue for fallout two. So like that is actually a quote from that game. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
00:36:27
Speaker
And then the rest of the other part of that quote, the first part, War Never Changes, is actually flavor text in the reprint of Casualties of War, which kind of is fitting the same, a similar aesthetic there. I like this card in general.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good card. Yeah, it's black, green, single target removal spell, sort of, in commander, because you can hit one or more artifact creature enchantment land planeswalker. It'd seem more play if it wasn't six mana. Yeah, six mana makes it hard, double green, double black.
00:37:06
Speaker
That art is so good, though. It's so good. And that has that quote, war, war never changes. And in the art, you see just the skeletal remains of a couple drinking a root beer float or a shake or something, possibly a malt shop. Yeah. So those two were in my notes. I love that you called that out, Hobbs.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah, no, I that was the one. I mean, once again, Jason Rainville art is absolutely fantastic. We still need to find schedules to get him on. And that was long ago, we were gonna because he yeah, his schedule was bad. ours was bad to do discuss Admiral Beckett brass, but I would be very happy since then, since that he's just crushed a number of pieces starting with storm the seed core.
00:38:00
Speaker
his art has just gone very hard lately. He's yeah. So. So yeah, I love it. Yeah. Another cycle I wanted to bring up was the bobbleheads. Yes. This was ingenious making them manner off. I need to know about bobbleheads something. So in game they are just they're just hidden collectibles. You get an achievement for finding all of them. There's one for each stat. Mm hmm.
00:38:31
Speaker
That's it. They don't do anything. You have a place in your house where you can display them. They don't do anything. They're just collectibles. They put them in and... Some of them give you step boosts. Some games. I think it differs from the other game. But they are definitely collectibles to go find. They're hidden very well. They're hide and seek items. Yep.
00:38:57
Speaker
Absolutely. And that's why I love that they have. How do they fit in? Lore-wise, the vault boy who is the character in all of these was part of the marketing arm of Vault-Tec.
00:39:15
Speaker
And so that's kind of from a lore standpoint, like the characters, some of them like to collect bobbleheads, some of them don't. Like the actual bobbleheads as items themselves don't fit in the lore a ton, other than people liking to collect things sometimes. But that character specifically, and also shows up in this special art, whether these other special cards, there's the cartoony looking ones from this set, that character is part of that marketing.
00:39:45
Speaker
for the company that built these vaults and sold them to consumers as people who were- Like the safe place to go during all of them. Yeah, as part of this whole world, there was a long Cold War that led up to a very hot war for very brief moments when the nuclear bomb set off. And so during that whole stretch of the Cold War, they were selling these vaults to people
00:40:12
Speaker
for multiple reasons, one for these parents. The hot war was going on for a while before the bombs fell. That's true. That's true. There was some actual conflict too.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, there was all the fighting over Alaska. Yeah, Alaska specifically. And there's some other things that you had, like the US annexed Canada at one point in order to maintain the pipeline with Alaska. Because there was, I noticed in the more recent ones, four backs away from it a little bit. I think 76 is backing away more. But in the early games, there was a whole thing in the history about the resource wars where fossil fuels were running out.
00:40:47
Speaker
Uranium was running out. That's part of why there are nuclear cars in this world. Cars, you just, you literally have a nuclear reactor in your car because fossil fuels just were so scarce. That all led to some conflicts over Alaska, led to conflicts over sort of the last sources of, of oil. So that, that's true. But like that character shows up in a lot of places.
00:41:14
Speaker
in the game, sometimes funny, sometimes ironic, sometimes funny on the surface, but also then you're like, it kind of makes you cringe a little bit because you're like, oh, that company is just not a good company. There's a lot of bad people running this thing.
00:41:31
Speaker
And you'll get, I think, I don't follow up three, like depending on, so they show up in the vaults a lot too. So like Vault-Tec would have vault training videos to teach you how to survive in the wasteland or how to survive in the vaults. And they would be more cartoonized with Vault-Boy kind of going about different tasks. So where does his name is? I like Vault-Boy.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that you have full boy. Okay, cool. I was like, I hope it is because I really like that. But I like these bobbleheads. They are mechanically relevant, right? Like collecting them does something for you. Isn't there an alt win con? The luck one has an alt win con. Yes. You have to roll dice and you get exactly X number of six. You have to roll six, seven times. Exactly seven times.
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. I like that. That's a really cool alt mechanic to me to like an alt link on. It's very, very unlikely because first you need to have all the bobbleheads and then you need to. They actually could have made that a little easier, I think, because you have to have all the bobbleheads first to even. Do that. Yeah. They probably could have just said if you roll all evens.
00:42:55
Speaker
You know, you'd. Yeah. But it's still, and it's, it's something you'd be doing because you're, you're making treasure tokens. Yeah. Something you just get lucky. You get a, you just win the game.
00:43:10
Speaker
Yeah, I really like these and the agility one goes into Kozlak for sure. It not only gives a creature haste, which I sometimes need Kozlak to have in that deck, but then it makes it unblockable except by creatures with haste, which I think is super mechanically interesting because it makes haste significant after the turn you play it. Yeah, I always liked that about the ginger
00:43:37
Speaker
Ginger Brew. Well, Ginger Brew was the second one. What was the first one? No, Ginger Brew is the first one. Ginger Brew is the second. Ginger Brew is the second. All right, think about like the gingers. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Ginger Brew is the second. Yeah, so Ginger Brew was the also one that can only be blocked by creatures with haste. Yeah, I didn't realize that. So that's cool that that mechanic was pre-existed too.
00:44:04
Speaker
So I w w so one I needed to ask about because it's one that I'm likely to pick up to play into Sir Gwen as I was looking through these things is I'm guessing this arm thing that I see people walking around, but it's called Pip boy. The Pip boy. Yeah. Okay. What does it do? Is it like, is it how you navigate your screens? Is it basically it's your UI. It's your, okay. Yep.
00:44:33
Speaker
your health computer, it's your own, it's your little personal computer, but remember the computers were like 80s CRT level computers. So because there's like these because it has things, right? Like that was my guess on what it must be because the the abilities are really cool.
00:44:53
Speaker
So whenever you attack, you get to sort your inventory, pick a perk. And that was the one I didn't really know what that aligned with versus the then check map, which these abilities are all great, by the way.
00:45:06
Speaker
draw a card, cycle a card, or well, cycle three, draw a card, discard a card, loot, put a plus one plus one counter and then untap two target lands. Great abilities for a one mana equip for two. But I didn't know what pick a perk meant at all. Pick a perk would be picking one of those special abilities like strong back or something like that.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah, because it's cool. It's also how you level up your character, sorting your inventory check in your map, but it's got all those sort of functions. Your one in Fallout 3 is super high tech because it also has a radio receiver. Yeah, so you get to listen to the radio all the time. Yeah. And that's how you find a lot of quests. You tune in to various radio signals in the wasteland and
00:45:54
Speaker
As you're walking around it, I'll just have a little pop up and say, this radio signal is...
Card Cycles, Reprints, and Fallout Themes
00:45:59
Speaker
You can turn this on now if you want. One of the random flavor hits that I just love, I don't know if I'll even play the card, but the Bottle Cap Blast.
00:46:14
Speaker
I love because it having improvise is just so perfect because that's one of the like early easy explosives you can make in the game are bottle cap explosives that you have to like rinky-dink together with duct tape literally in some games.
00:46:34
Speaker
Hobbs, here's what I wanna ask you to see if you can figure out just based on the flavor of the card. Okay. Oh, White Glove Gourmand. Okay, what color is this? It's White Black. White Black, okay. Oh, that looks like a nice friendly, a human noble. I love the nobles. When White Glove Gourmand enters the battlefield, create two, one, white, one, one, two, it's another human noble. Oh God!
00:47:00
Speaker
Why are there cannibals? For the love of God? What are they doing? Noble cannibal, yeah. They're noble? Yeah, yeah, see, look, okay, now Wizards is gonna get some from me. Because let's talk about this. Goblin king, not a noble. The cannibal is a noble.
00:47:23
Speaker
That's why I brought this one up because I know how much you love him. Oh, gosh. Now I've already tweeted this out. That's what's going on right here. You're part of one of the three families on this trip. Yep. Yeah.
00:47:43
Speaker
I'm glad you thought to bring that one up to Hobbs, because it's just like, okay, that's kind of neat. I wouldn't have thought to get that good reaction. Something random that isn't like a big reaction, but gets a, oh, that's really cool for me. A cycle of new cards. They did the enemy color. I want to call these bad filters, but the signet lands. That's a great way to put them.
00:48:10
Speaker
from Odyssey is the first place they showed up. So like when I was in high school, so quite a while ago, we got the ally color, Signet lands, and it's taken us this long for them to put the enemy color once somewhere. And I just, I love these cards. So it's just, they're pay a colorless, tap them, add two mana of a specific color. So Desolate Meyer makes black white.
00:48:38
Speaker
They're, I love them for fixing. Obviously they're not as good as like the, the filters with the hybrid colors from the lower one, shadow more block, because these don't tap for mana on their own. So if they're your only land, you have no mana, you need to pay the one to tap them to get to out. And they're also less flexible because you don't get hybrid. But I still think it's pretty cool that, uh, that these showed up and also the names are.
00:49:08
Speaker
generic enough these could show up in a lot of sets yeah they could oh i just saw the art on austere command that is really cool yes i had another bottle heads are melting i i will say too the the signet land was kind of interesting to see a cycle that far removed be completed right yeah i knew it would be someday it was one of those things that just they would complete for commander
00:49:36
Speaker
I knew it would, I didn't know when it would happen. But it is funny to hear them called Signet lands as kind of a post hoc name. Yeah, it's a good thing it's worn out when they were first land. Right. They actually predate, they first ones predate Signet. That's a good point.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, I really want to pick up a copy of the Pure Steel Paladin from this set. It is the cleanest, just like, here is a person in Power Armor. Such a good reprint, too. What a perfect use of a reprint slot. Yes, because the Brotherhood of Steel literally used Knight as a title in the games, too. So it's so perfect.
00:50:27
Speaker
Yeah, one I want to just mention, and it's because I really think this is a, so this is just such a Rakdos card and it's so fun. Is it the Nipton Lottery? Yes. Choose a creature at random, you gain control of that creature until end of turn, untap it, it gains haste until end of turn, then destroy all other creatures. It's a mutiny effect with a board wipe attached to it. I mean, how does, how much do you get more fun than this?
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah. And it is surprisingly, like shockingly good, like mechanics to fit the flavor of what it's actually referencing. Yeah. And then the flavor of Texas, Oliver Swanwick won the only lottery that matters, a chance to live another day. Yes. That was when a, well, a faction that is actually represented in the commander series, Caesar's Legion, took a town,
00:51:24
Speaker
They did a lottery to see who got to live at Oliver's Sonic, who was the person who got to live. And he also is, we're kind of going through these. I've been curious to find out, is there any that are just like things that were missing for either of you? Cause I know that's always the hard part with these universe beyond sets, right? Like it's just like what they're able to do versus, you know, I mean, we didn't get anything from Nuka land.
00:51:51
Speaker
Oh, that's a good point. That was so is that like a, like, it's Disneyland. Okay. Yes. Yes. And it is, I think for me, the most fun piece of DLC. It was the best deal. Yeah.
00:52:13
Speaker
There was at least one character that I had seen is kind of being a shock that was missed. I'm trying to remember who that was. Because I know that was more of some Fallout fans I had seen talking about missing. Missing somebody so Joshua Graham.
00:52:35
Speaker
So I don't know who that was, but I saw it to be able to talk about it. This is character that's probably lost to time and memory for me. Okay. So that's a, that's what I was one because like, I don't, like we, we, we went through this when we, when we met with Gavin, right? Like there is, there is a limit to things you can include and times that means what is going to be missed. The one that, the one that comes to mind immediately for me is just Nuka land is nothing in here representing that.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah, I was initially surprised. I think they can convince me I was a little bit wrong with how they...
00:53:12
Speaker
did the, like the, how they built the decks, like who, what they're called and kind of who are the people. I was shocked there wasn't one for the Brotherhood of Steel because that's the iconic power armor. Like that is the iconic image of Fallout for people, I was like, both who know the property and don't, whatever. It's basically the face image of Fallout as the power armor. That's okay. Yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah, and but they did represent them pretty well within the cards. Okay. They just didn't get it. They didn't get their own faction. Yeah, they didn't. And that would have been neat. Like I honestly was surprised they went with Caesar more because I
00:53:56
Speaker
more because I honestly I'm surprised that there is as much new Vegas representation as there is I think it's because they know that can be there's a large community that loves it but also it's the only modern fallout game that wasn't developed by Bethesda it was made by a different company obsidian a company which is made up of a lot of the people who made the original fallout games it's a weird
00:54:21
Speaker
It's a weird thing, but I figured they would be more prominent with their own property, their own part of it. But to their credit, there's a lot of that. You have the master as one of the main commanders from the early, early games.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah. There's a lot of 76 representation. I was kind of, I was, I really enjoyed seeing this one in here and this is one that goes back to three, but there's a card megatons fake. Yes. And this is a decision you get to make in the game Hobbs where there is a live nuclear bomb in the middle of this town. And at one point you get to decide whether disarm it or detonate. Okay. Yes. And that is exactly the choice you get on the card.
00:55:05
Speaker
And there is a person who will pay you to detonate it. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. So, in this case though, you get the treasure for not, for disarming it. So. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember you getting much for disarming it. You just get to do the right thing and not kill everybody in the town. Did they give you that? I was like, you get to. Yeah. Did they give you the house for that? You get the house. Yeah. You get a house in the town if you disarm it.
00:55:36
Speaker
A very nice, you get a shack. I was like, is that an incentive in this game? So I don't know. Like it's getting out from the sound like good. I mean, it depends on how much you like the town. It was, it was okay, I guess. And it's, it's one of, depending on how you build your character, you have to have a decent amount of science for it. I think like certain skills, but it's one of the earliest like homes you can get. And in Bethesda games, in particular, both the Elder Scrolls and
00:56:04
Speaker
the fallouts, we're talking about over encumbered, it's really nice to have a place you own because then you can dump all your junk into a box and keep it where you can access it without being encumbered the whole time.
Conclusion and Future Episodes Tease
00:56:18
Speaker
So depending on where you're at in a game actually getting the house is a good trade-off. I suppose you do get a broom in the ten penny tower if you detonate it but
00:56:28
Speaker
that is kind of in the late game area. It's harder to get to early on. Yeah, but I do love this card. You either destroy an artifact and get four treasure tokens or you do eight damage to every creature and every player gets four rad counters. It's great. You either detonate a nuke or you destroy an artifact. Yeah, that's a good one.
00:56:54
Speaker
I thought I had one quick one. I do like, this is a card I like, and in context, in isolation it's great, in context it feels like a little tiny bit of a flavor mist, but that's Radstorm. It doesn't actually give anybody rads.
00:57:11
Speaker
No, it doesn't. But outside of knowing the mechanics of the set, Radstorm is just a flavor in isolation. Works pretty well. Just the storm and the proliferate mechanic just being on it. And again, from a Maelthos thing, I'm always a sucker for a spell that just has like two keywords and that's the whole rules text. Yeah. So clean. Yeah. Okay.
00:57:40
Speaker
Any other highlights that we did not hit, we managed to go a long time on this, which is awesome. Yeah, I mean, I could definitely find more, but... Yeah, like, Elphodethclaw having monstrous makes me so happy. Yeah. That's another one. I know the people talking about the Korpjaks Menace really works here. It's just like a reprint with the style of it. I think they did one of the hallmarks on it.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because it's a fungus. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could just go through the art on all the reprints and say why this reprint is cool. Yeah. That is absolutely a thing. Yeah. Fire Shrieker being an actual flamethrower though. You know, well done. Yep. Yep. Those are fun when you can get those going. I like Junkette. That's just a fun name for a
00:58:35
Speaker
equipment. Yeah. And it's it's one that you literally it is a weapon that you just load with whatever items you want. Yep. And I like that. Yeah, you sacrifice another and you get to double a creature's power and toughness like this is another one I get like, I'm hitting now on the ones that kind of popped up while I was searching because that once again is potential for equipment heavy deck. So yeah, there's a lot of equipment in this.
00:59:02
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, I think we, we've, you know, we could keep talking, but you know, we're just, yeah, we'd be, we'd be going for a while. Two weeks in a row. Yeah. Just have to point that out. It's awesome. Yep. And we're going to be having some guests, hopefully getting scheduled soon. So yeah, we hope to hear from everybody shortly.