Building Your Library In Phases

0:22 The podcast or role players and game masters that help level up your game. We are Your dungeon master is Jason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall. I am Jim Crocker. So today I'm going to answer the question, well, we're all going to answer the question that we get from new players a lot of just like there's just so many books out there. There's so many not only from Wizards of the Coast directly, but there's tons of third party Like we just covered a couple of our favorite third party books. Will continue doing that as well. But just like where do you start? And like you know, player has been playing for years have just like a library full of books, but like you don't have to get them all in one shot. There's thousands of dollars in there. So so today's episode is going to be how to build your library in phases? And this is something I kind of started mapping out for some brand new players that I've been meeting at the game store and brewery games that I've been running and a lot of them have never played before. And then they play a couple of games, some of them after even just their first game, they dive and head first. Some of them come back for a second one. They're like, Okay, I guess, yeah, I guess this is what I'm going to do now. And then it's always the same questions like where do I start? And then after you start, what's next? And then it's just a series of what's next, what's the next bus next? At to that, which is how I did it. So I'm going to try to just kind of spell it out for you guys, how to do it in phases and what books are important to get at what point in your career. And I'm going to address this for both players and dungeon Masters. So two different lists, but yeah, I was thinking that when you said, okay, we're folks players, but no, no, absolutely two different lists, but I kind of but I kind

1:53 of wrote them up at the same time. So this episode is for like, let's say, for example, like and this is really me with like with like high schoolers too, where like you know, you and your four friends are all getting into this at the same time. One of you has got to be the DM. So this is kind of for for that group that is now getting your all your first books at the same time. So what is what is each of you buy they're The sad news of the DMS is the players can also split their books. Yeah, so sorry for your wallet. Well, the players can split your books too. Oh yeah, I guess your group before I would say split everything. Yeah, way, and and rotate your DMS too. But that's but that's the repisode. So I got a couple phases here, so let's jump in. So are phase one. I'm titling this bar for entry. This is just enough for you to get started playing. It's a short list for players. You want a book called players Handbook. It's obvious because it is so you can you can go lower than that, or the basic rules, Basic rules, the starter set. I would say it would actually probably be like the best starting place for somebody that's that's not that hasn't done it before. Okay, so let me let me let me match this down a little bit. Yeah yeah, then that's what you you know what I'm saying. Sorry, So that's excellent for first time players who want to dabble, or if you if you got invited to a game and you're like, I've never played before, that's that's your that's your phase zero. Say that when I own my game store,

3:27 the basic set was the answer to the question of like, you know, guy in his like mid thirties walks in, yeah, says, you know, my eleven year old wants to play D and D. I played back when I was in high school, but I haven't touched it since then. Where do I even start? And I say, okay, you know, you can spend one hundred dollars on these books, or you can start with this twenty five dollars box set, play a little bit of it. If you love it, then you upgrade, which which is exactly where me and my son, my son got start. Yeah, so what we'll call that phase zero. Okay, that's enough. That's enough for you to know that you want to move or the or it's the game store game, or it's the brewery game. Yes, yea. So this is aimed at the people who already know that they already know that there's things they're going to do, and they want to start amassing a library that rivals their d MS. Okay, okay, okay, so allright, so phase zero out of the way.

4:30 Phase one is going to be the players. Hample oah. Like I say, it's it's obvious, because it is. It's it's it's everything you need. There's enough actual gameplay, and I know people kind of like want to feel like the players the basic pH B stuff is like boring races and classes and subclasses and stuff, but they're not. There's enough for you to to gain for your whole career just in that book. Yeah, if we're talking about like like the what's the word economics of that? Like, if you're buying a fifty dollars book, right, is that what the going rate is for a hardcover edition. So that's the that's the SRP, that's if you buy it in the store. But let's just say let's just say like that's what you're you know, and let's just say you're playing once a month.

5:18 You're going to get a couple of a few years out of that pH B. So per game, you know what does that cost breakdown to spend? Yeah, yeah, and over the course store you figure, in addition, will last ten years on average looking at their at their history, ten to twelve years. So you're talking about one hundred and twenty times divided by fifty, So you're twelve divided divided by five. You know, you'd be stupid not to play. Yeah, a couple of bucks maybe per game if you play only once a month, right, and you're the only one that uses it, Yeah, you're you're saving money with every session. Yeah, exactly. To the I'm always looking for value, to the to the high schools and middle high schoolers and middle schoolers who are, like, you know, getting their group into it for the first time. Y'all can share that.

6:06 Yeah, you share it until until until everyone needs their own copy and put buy them as you need have. Billy's mom buy it because they're loaded. You know his birthday is coming up. Yeah, and that you know he gets a new bike like every year. They're loaded. Yeah. So that's for players. Just start with the Player's handbout. That is your phase one for dms, your phase one is also just the Player's Handbook. And I know you're going to think, don't you mean the Dungeon Master's Guide. No, I don't know. Yeah, you can scrape by with what you find on the internet until until you're you're you are ready to be the DM. Right, So I do also have the Dungeon Master's Guide in phase one because it just kind of makes sense to just get the corset. But if Billy's mom's buying it then yeah, yeah, for sure. But like y'all, you can all get away with just the Player's Handbook. And I think that's like one of the most well kept secrets in this game is that the Dungeon Master Guide isn't really necessary until the DM really wants to start focusing.

6:58 Because, as we know, if you need to know what your party's overland travels bet is going to be, it's gonna be found in the player's hand But it's gonna be found That means it's gonna be clearly, it's gonna be found only on this podcast. I don't know how you feel about this, Jason, but I mean my like lukewarm take, it's not exactly a hot take. Is that if you're like a new DM and you only can afford one book, get the Monster Manual before you get the damn Yeah, that isn't I don't think that's a hot take. That is a lukewarm take. Okay, that is that is the Lucas of worms. Yes he has a room temperature take. Yeah, that that's what I would say, But it's it's it's something I feel like it needs to be said out loud though.

7:39 Yeah, and then you're saying what everyone is thinking. You're what you are. Yeah, because you're you get way more value out of that monster. Man. Yeah, I am only calling that a lukewarm take and not a not a cold take because most monsters are googleable, that's true. So, like, you know, you can get away with that without buying it. But I think I only read. Maybe this is my problem. I think I've only used and read like maybe one or two chapters of that DMG. There's not a time. Having been a player in one of your games for years now, I believe that's a different podcast. We're not supposed to be committed certain sound effect. Yeah, all right, you go. Uh that's your Phase one. Players get the Player's Handbook. Dms also get the Player's Handbook, and maybe if you've got the extra scratch, maybe grab the DMG and you can you can round out the whole Core three set while you're at it. I'm calling the I'm calling the real Phase one just a PHP, and I want to call it a Phase one point five. You can get the whole core set in a box set if you canceled it cheaper. Yeah, a couple of times a year, at least once a year, maybe twice a year, and I think Amazon has obviously, like while we read, while we were just talking at the time of this recording, the the Player's Handbook is on sale by twenty six bucks yep. So like, just keep an eye on the sales the court, the Core set, the Core like, yeah, the box set that comes with the Dungeon Master screen.

8:58 I think a couple of years ago I picked that up for it was on sale and I got it for nothing, and I think I got the whole thing for like maybe fifty bucks. Yeah, yeah, the sale. There are sales that happened. The price thing here. They went as low as eighty bucks recently, So keep an eye out for it, and of course support your friendly local game store whenever possible. Phase two we're going to call this so if phase one with bar for entry, phase two we're going to call the Essentials. These are things that I think that every player and DM should have. And the box set Watzi the essential, not that box set. So for players, once you have the Player's Handbook, I want to just reach out from that a little bit. I would say add Tasha's Cauldron of Everything as being the next player's book. You may be thinking, you know, grab the whole corset. If you're just going to play and you're not going to DM for a while, there's really not much in those other books for you. And the next super player centric book is Tasha's. Tasha's came out with so much stuff that even Jim called it five point one edition.

10:00 Yeah, it was, it was, there was that much in there. It's got updates to existing classes and subclasses. Like so the Player's Handbook version of the Beastmaster Arranger is pretty awful. It's fun and it's playable, but it's not great. Tasha's Beastmaster Arranger it was awesome and I played that in one of our first campaigns shows and it was it was great. So there's enough different stuff there to warrant having both books, plus having new new subclasses, and I believe it actually has the official stuff for the Artificer in there. Uh so there's an entire new class. It's got some of the stuff that you would otherwise need to go kind of dip into other campaigns, like you know, Artificers out of Ebron and stuff like that. Warforge and Artificers were an Ebron, which is why I have the Ebron book, but yeah, that's in a later phase. DMS Phase two is to not only finish out the core three if you haven't already in phase one, and to pick up the supplemental trio. So if the core trio is your player's handbook, Dungeon Master, guyde and Monster Manual, the supplemental Trio is Tasha's Cultron of Everything, Xana Thar's Guide to Everything, and what used to be it was a Volos Guide to Monsters was the one before Monsters in the Multiverse, which completely replaced Volos, and there's definitely box sets of that. I got the a nice limited white edition which looks great on my shelf, which is how I owned some. I actually owned three copies of Tasha's. I bought it when it first came out and I wasn't like getting I wasn't like super into alternate covers at the time. Then I got the box set when Monster's

11:31 the Multiverse came out because that was the only way you can get it at the time, and I got the alternate version of that, and then my funding local game store actually got alternate art Tasha's for a decent price that I didn't mind spending. The issh of money on. So that's how good Tasha's is. I have three copies of it. So yeah, players, pick up your copies of Tasha's and DMS, finish out your core trio and add in your supplemental trio. Hello Adventurers, just stepping in here to remind you guys, and we're actively looking for submissions for our Hello DMS episode that gets recorded every month. Send us your burning D and D questions Helloadventurers podcast at gmail dot com, or send us a voicemail by visiting helloadventurers podcast dot com slash voice. Don't forget to begin your message with Hello DMS. You can't wait to get your questions to talk about them on the show. Send us your questions today. That's Helloadventurers podcast at gmail dot com or the voicemoing at helloadventurers podcast dot com slash voice. Now let's get back to the show.

12:35 Phase three is when we start getting fun. I'm calling this section get good, G I T g U D Get good for Dungeon Masters. We'll do DMS first this time. There are two of these books and others in the series, but these two in particular, and we have been championing Keith Amon on this show and on my non past episodes and Curmudgeons as well. Honestly, like, I can't believe how much he's done for our games. I ran into somebody at the grocery store the other day and I was just talking about Keith the mom Have you heard the good word? So you can go and find these blogs called the Monsters Know what They're Doing. But there's also print versions of it as well, So if you're building out a physical library, actually grab the books that the Monsters Know what They're doing and the follow up More Monsters Know what They're Doing. I've got both them sent my shelf over there, alongside his other books just for the d M. These give you like kind of like battle tactics and like how a monster would think, Like I had to look up the one on Albert's and you know they like how had I not read this, like I would probably have them be a little bit more intelligent and maybe target the caster or target something like that.

13:43 They're not that smart. They just go for the closest thing to them, and if something hits them, their attention gets diverted the way and then and then for smarter creatures too. They give you a lot of strategy that maybe you hadn't thought of, like, oh no, they guess they would, they would think of this difference. Yeah, they would see this. So for simpler stuff like Alberts and mimics, like you know, that's a little shorter article, but for like you know, Archay and he can go, he goes. Really that's that's pages. So what phase are we in there for DMS? This is phase three that get good. So if the first two phases are designed to get you the rules and get you enough to get going, this is where you start getting tactics and getting good at the game itself. So those would be my favorite ones to pick up next because these are monsters that you're already familiar with, and I can just fight a little bit better and make your encounters, if not better and like as far as difficulty level, because they'll be fighting, you know, intelligently, but even just more believable. Yeah, And that's one of the things I think sometimes people look at those books and may get the impression that it's like they're specifically geared towards making those encounters more deadly, Like there's some kind of like gotcha thing going on in there, not necessariarily and and and there can be some of that, but I don't think that's the main intent behind that at all.

14:56 It's it's to make them interesting, to give them some variety, to get the players thinking about different ways to approach stuff, and and to also kind of inject the idea that like, you know, well, I mean, the monsters do know what they're doing. They think about right now, think about what's going on and what their motivations are, and what their own motivations are, and that's exactly yeah. Yeah, So I think I think it helps the d M or GM conceptualize right and have it almost jump off the page, right is because because you know, running games, it can kind of Okay, here's an account, Okay, this is how many HP it has, is the damage it does. Here's the average damaging roll the dice, And you know, it kind of gets you can get boring, you know, and get it can get it become a slog. So at least this sparks that like, oh okay, wait a minute, there's a little bit more to this thing. This end. And the other thing that I love about it is that really you read through that and you start to even if it's not what he's talking about in any individual article or or kind of you know, really driving at but you also start to think of like different ways encounters could end, because one of the things he talks about is like, Okay, here's the thing that's going to make them run away, or here's the thing that's going to make them, you know, decide that maybe they want to negotiate with you instead of you know, getting into a knockdown, drag out fight. And that's one of the challenges in D and D kind of because of the the way that combat sort of tends to work

16:27 and what we're also like, this is one of the bad habits we learned from video games, right, is that every fight is you fight until all the bad guys are dead. And one of the things one of the real, you know, kind of services that these books perform is they give you different ways to think about how those fights can go, not just in a different not just tactically, but you know, resolution wise. And I think that's one of the things that's great, I think, really great about them. I think he looks at their intelligence and Okay, this this thing is intelligent enough to know when it gets to a certain level or something happens, it's going to run away, or it's going to try to bargain, depending on you know, what the nature of it is. It's really interesting.

17:11 So again, just giving it like a making you think more about the motivation of any given monsters. A fight against an owlberr should feel different than a fight against an arch mage. And you know, before I started like taking these arts to heart, every fight kind of felt like a fight against Jason Portiso because I would fight with the same tactics and just with the stat blocks. Yeah. Like recording this podcast, Yeah, sure, that's the monsters know what they're doing. I'm also going to include a book that we covered on our Third Party book Club, The Lazy Dungeon Master's Guide. Yeah. I think this is the right phase to get that. Definitely, by this point you should have a couple of games under your belt and you should be able to appreciate the time saving differences that that book introduced to you. Yeah.

18:00 Yeah, yeah, I know, you're a big I mean to me, you can also maybe get this this one in the second phase if you really are like, man, this is difficult, if you're really having maybe if you've been elected the forever d M by your friend group, and you're like, I don't know how to get my head around prep and and you're like designing a little bit more or running in a an environment, not running a just a module. I'd say that's really the point where where you're no longer running a set module or a set campaign. Sure that's been already written out and decided for you as a GM. If you're designing some of those encounters and stuff, Lazy DM guide is great, yeah, because maybe it's going to help streamline that. Maybe that's the first one in this phase, then it could be again, it depends on where you are in your quote unquote journey. Sure everybody kind of hits that different course. That's the Dungeon Masters for players. There is a keith I mo On book for us as well, the Guess Book Will Live to Tell the Tale, And the same way that he breaks down monster tactics, this one is geared towards the player classes and kind of like breaks them into categories. And it's not like, Okay, if you're Paladin and do this, if you're this, you do this. Because this is actually applicable to other game systems because it breaks those classes down into categories, so like you know stuff like like like tank front end of the DPS. You know, terms that you're a melee fighter,

19:32 yeah, familiar called rolls in fourth edition exactly. And if you're you know, any sort of like any really any kind of video gamer that involves fighting and multiplayers and stuff. These are all terms that you're used to here. So it's like a more it's like a more literary RPG bot dot net short rpg bo will take his step by step on That's what I mean. It kind of like optimize like Max yeah, right or mid Max's Yeah. I agree, they're not super interesting, but so but this kind of helps you optimize your your character more so it gives you, uh, it's it's your tactics, like okay, if you're if you are filling the role because like you know, let's let's say, let's see a cleric for example. I think cleric's a great example. Cleric can be a tank. Cleric can also be crowd control DPS palatte. It might be a better example. In our game, our cleric is our rogue. Yeah, because he thinks he's a boy. I mean, because there's a material difference between this is what you do to deal the maximum amount of damage every round and okay, we've read every spell so that you don't have to like and those are kind of two I mean maybe I like, I don't think, yeah, I love that.

20:52 Well, where else going with this was that, like, no, let's say Paladin for example, Like, Paladin can absolutely be a tank. They can, they can run full plate armor and everything. Powdin could also be like explosive damage. I know, huge DPS PLoud Ins maybe aren't the best of crowd control. So like you can have a Paladin be your frontline DPS or your tank, and then this book will kind of go into Okay, if you're taking the role of the tank or the damage sponge or whatever you want to call it, here is some things to keep in mind if you are taking this role, and then Palding can also be the explosive damage, so you're also okay, sometimes you're taking this role and if you are taking that role in this particular battle, here's some things to keep in mind.

21:33 Okay, And it's very generalized by role, not by specific class, So you decide where you are and in your party makeup. You know, if you have a cleric and a paladin. Also, the cleric or the barbarium might even be your damage sponge while your paladin is doing your explosive damage. So in this particular part you make up or is you know, principally interested in being like a backup healer or something and do that too. So yeah, so in one particular party, makeup and if it's worth only three person party, and then you got to you gotta fill multiple roles. You or in this seven person party that you play on on opposite weeks, you're playing a very different role. And yeah, it's so it's it breaks it down like that, and I think this is why it's it is specifically geared towards players, that that book is not necessarily for dms, but it is written with the same level of analysis that the monsters know what they're doing is written in Okay, So we were always champion Keith a mon's material, and I think both players and dms in this phase can benefit from that. Phase four. Now we're getting to some fun stuff when calling this branching out.

22:38 So now we've got for the players, we've got the player's hand, but we got Tasha's and we've got lift to tell the tail. Dms have all the core books plus lays and DMS guy plus monsters know what they're doing, and like this is enough to like not only just run your game. This is enough to run a good game yep, like and I mean like a particularly good game. So they had we go out from that. So for the players, I have campaign books with player mechanics, so things that have things for players. We mentioned Eberon before, so like you know, Waltashas has stuff for artificers in that book, does not have anything for the Warforged race. And I'm looking at the rest of my thing here, I think I forget where turtles come from. But like you know, not everything is printed in every book, So now we can kind of like add more classes and races and subclasses to your arsenal. Obviously, if you're getting a campaign book, only read the player mechanics parts unless your DM instructs you to read more. It's going to be my little disclaimer here. You might be buying more book than you might be using, which is why I have in such a late phase. Yeah. Yeah, I call those the sandbox books because there's like kind of stuff for everybody, and the outlines of you know, kind of the skeleton of what you need to but you know, and maybe a few specific encounters, but it's what you need to run a game in that world in that world. Yeah, and it's a great halfway point between,

24:08 like you say, you know, we're just gonna go curse Astrade, start at the front of the book and work our way to the back of the book, you know, And I've got an idea for a whole campaign, and I'm gonna do everything from scratch. Those sandbooks box are books. Those sandbox books are a great stepping stone between those two things. Yeah, And I've got that on both players and dms. And what's funny is that, like between the player and the DM, you'll you'll read the whole book, but each of you probably reading less than half. Yeah, the the players even less. So. One of the other things that I like about that is that if you get Tasha's and you read about artificers, there's no context for that. Yes, but if you get one of the Sandbox books, it's gonna say, here's how artificers fit into the world. And as a player, that ca you. Then you've got like some hooks for doing background things and you know, you know, I'm gonna put it because we know what you know, sharn Is and the morn Lands and stuff like that.

25:11 That gives you a lot You've got a lot more to go on in terms of, you know, building a story behind that character. Then if you're just kind of dropping it into a world that your dungeon master is kind of making up as they go along. Yeah, and if you want to like them a game in that world, having characters that take parts from that world is just going to make them just seat that much better. There's the what's the Giants book called? Oh you're talking about? That's like fizz Bands, but for giants exactly. Big B Big Be's Yeah, Big B Glory, Big B Glory of Giants is a great example. And Fiz Bands was the other example I was thinking of that. There's a dragon book that they do, Yeah, yeah, That'ssband's Treasury of Dragons. Both of them have like very little as far as like encounters and modules built in. And I have it, Yeah, I forgot. It's all the way. It's right right, just right, just where I can't read it from here. That's the alternate cover. Yeah, they they set aside alternate covers for me at the game story. But there's like these those books in particular versus something like Strat or Ebon that has more like encounters and like a whole like a whole game that you can run through. Fizz Bands and Big b will be more like here's just like a bunch of stats and just like go have fun with it. Oh, they give you even more than that though. They talk about world building and role play dragons. I was including, I was including that its very very but also like then that's the DM stuff, and on the player stuff, there's also like new subclasses and new feats and like some really cool stuff. And I think one of the things they go over is

26:42 again in fizz Bands is like the best how to how to create a god dragon race dragon bard. There you go, just words are scared of those guys that are born as dragons? Yeah, the dragon births. So it gives you in from on playing dragon board too, Yeah, yep, yep, especially within that within that part of that world. But I think books like that would be the next good one to get the cauldron of everything like that as well. You know that's probably Jim, you probably know the most about the cauldron. No, no, then what is it? What's the what's the one that's the deck of many Things? The Book, the Book of Many Things, Book of many Things. Yeah, that's like your favorite book. Jim's opinion aside, that book is dope. Yeah, but there's not the same thing. That book includes many things and you can leave it out of your game gym. But there's like other really cool stuff in that.

27:37 But it's verbe heavy. Yeah it is, yes, yeah, it's it's a lot more like fistbands than it is like ebron. Yeah, there's a lot more like feats in that one. Uh oh yeah, no, no, it's there. There's dozens of ways to destroy your campaign. Sure, is that it? Right? Yeah? Yeah? And then the book itself. Thanks. So I'm going to say that books like that are going to be the next ones to get for both players and d ms. And you're reading different parts of the same book. And also this is the part where with DM discretion and approval of course, And that's what I'm just gonna for a lot of these. It's gonna from here on out is going to have that kind of asterisk next to it. So, and I have in my notes in all caps with DM approval third party player books where you can introduce new mechanics and new classes, new subclasses, new feats, and things like that. Obviously, your DM is gonna have to check it out first and make sure it's going to fit in their game and that it's not broken.

28:27 In my experience, if it has been printed by a reputable publisher like Cobyl Press, it's usually not broken and usually pretty good in the game. But you know your DM's world might not fit with stuff like that. So just reading off of my shelf right here, Deep Magic from Cobyl Press, Blumes one and two is all new subclasses, even non magical hold classes. There's new subclasses for just about everything. And there's some really cool stuff in here. In fact that once my Barbarian inevitably dies, we're gonna be talking to see if we can pull something from that job and other books like Oh, the Tone of Heroes and The Tome of Magic also from Cobyl Press, and then the Deep Magic books. So for players that would be the next step there. Of course, check it out with the DM, maybe pruise the book together before you spend some money on it, and then the dms.

29:14 In addition to the Sandbox type books. This would be the time to get more third party DM centric stuff, and these are usually a lot less game breaking because they're usually just more just more already balanced things you can just put into your game. You can get real wild wild in this category. You can. There's disguise the limit. So the examples that I have here and what I think are must have all of the tone of Beasts from Cobyl Press. This is basically just like expanded monster manuals, but with monsters that are just like, I'm not saying the monster manuals boring, just you know, we've kind of seen them by now, but the ton of Beasts, there's some just there are some just incredible monsters in there, just really well designed. Yeah, and they do that really cool thing. Well, they'll then a monster and every single monster has like three variants to us that I really love about that there's kind of different approaches that you can take to them.

30:07 There's also a Layer's book that goes along with which on the past three, so that would be bundle those together if you can. We mentioned the game Master's Guides on past episode this week, good times start getting those. You can really just get any of them at the time this recording, I see five on my shelf. I think I have them all. I think might be a villain's one that I don't have. Yeah, but that's the one I'm saying. I think it just came out, but they see to come out with one every year. So so you know, the Book of NPC is the Book of Astonishing Random Tables, the Book of Legendary Dragons that was a fun one. Random Encounters that's a good book too, and there's one four Traps and Puzzles as well. I would say. The minute that you so we could probably even go back some on those, particular those game Masters books. The minute you start designing your own encounters and stuff, the minute you might need how to write adventure modules that don't suck, you can probably start getting some just kind of where I have this face. Yeah, it's after the Lazy DM Guide, after monsters know what they're doing, and we haven't gotten two adventure mosinles that don't suck yet. Oh geez. I thought I thought we had already. I thought we had been in places where we're making our own we are, we're building with it now. And that's where I'm saying that I think these but even that I think can get segmented into levels and phases because don't need it all at once. No, So I think I think this is the time after you have your your lazy DM guide, But this is where you start branching into writing more of your own stuff, because we're still like, we're still looking for mechanics and stat blocks

31:37 at this point. It's at our next point that we can branch out from that, which we'll get to now phase five. This is my last phase here. I'm calling this beyond game books and for dms. That does include how to write a venture modules that don't suck that we just covered on the last episode. So now you're you're writing games. You've got more than enough stat blocks and mechanics. You have more than enough to pull from as far as things that are for the game specifically, and now you got to figure out how do I do this better? And how do I do this in a way that serves the story, and how do I do this in a way that feels like a fantasy game. So how to write a venture modules that don't suck I think would fit here because now we're all philosophical type of stuff and for players now we want to start branching out our characters. We have more than enough mechanics to pull from. Where do we get inspiration for our characters themselves and how they role play and how they interact with the world and with each other. So I have a third party book there, and actually, Joe, if you can grab that for me, it's one that has a ton of like posted stick on the top of it. This is the ultimate RPG character backstory guide. And there's a couple of these in the same series that really similar covers. This book I thought was going to be a little bit more like, you know, step by step how to write out your backstory, but this is just more like vibes type of book.

32:58 And I had a friend who borrowed it and she gave it back to me with that It is just covered in post and notes. That's wild, And I thought you did that. No, no, no, no. My my one of my players, Mary did this for me, and she just dove into this book and absolutely loved it. And I think this is one of the reasons why she loves playing as much as she does and comes up with just these wild character backstories. She's got this even color code for me by like stuff that's for d M and world building, Like there's a there's a an exercise in here on how to design a holiday or a festival, and like how how it would fit either into the world itself or into just your character's backstory. No, maybe just the one character, No, the only total in our group is celebrating on one day. And what would he be celebrating. What's what's the holiday? What's the festival the or the customs for it? Is this a happy or sad holiday? Is it? Is it? You know? Stuff like that. So there's there's just really cool just like player player centric, backstory vibe type of stuff in this book.

33:55 I would not get this before you have all your mechanics set up, but this is kind of how you just like get your characters that much more believable and lovable. And this is something that we've touched on before where like your five E type of player versus your one E type of player is going to be probably a little more attached to their character and we see a lot less character debts than we did forty years ago, and stuff like this, I can kind of make your character that much more attached. I think it's kind of cool. Then just some general inspirations stuff. This is for players and dms, the fantasy books. You should have a copy of Lord of the Rings. You should have a copy of the Hobby. You should have you know what, what's the whatever the hot fantasy series is right now? Hot? Take go ahead? You ready? Yep? Tried to read the Hobbit, could not do it? Yeah, two or three times? Rough, It's not for me. I'll watch the movies. Sure, So you can have a copy of the Lord of the Rings on a DVD. Do they still have DVDs? Are the kids still watching DVD's? They are? They're streaming it, okay, stream own it on whatever what other whatever streaming device you. Streaming is like buying a DVD, except when the rights get revoked, you lose what you bought, which is why they started buying DVDs again, buy the dvd. The other great thing about a Blu ray player is that you can reassemble your DVD library at like thrift stores, Goodwill and stuff like that, like for like two bucks of pops. Oh my Blu ray played DVDs? Yeah yeah, yeah, well okay, back to a corner.

35:25 Jim and Jim and j somewhere around your second skills job. But yeah, so any kind of like fantasy media that will inspire you to to emulate characters. And I'm not saying you have to go play again off of, but it's like no getting ideas for how Wizards worked in that world and using concepts from that in your game. It's funny. I keep so as I scroll through like Netflix and stuff, and I'm reading like, you know, synopsis SYNOPSI movies, I'm like, oh, this is this whoever wrote this place? Dungeons is Oh? Of course, like like, oh, whoever wrote this movie? This came from Dungeons and Dragon. There are so many things. I'm like, this is a campaign. Yeah, it's incredible.

36:14 The later Marvel movies, once they started getting bad, are D and D. If you stop thinking about bad Marvel movies and start thinking that as good D and D movies, they get a lot better. Yeah, really good. But I haven't watched it yet. But the new David Harbor hellboy, I was like, oh, I haven't seen it. I think this is a Dungeons and Dragon short. The last book I'm putting on this. This is both for both players and ds, and this might be my hot take. This is not even a game book. This is not a fantasy book. This is not having anything to do with the hobby in itself. This is the reason I put this on here is to kind of shape how we role play. And whether or not you use it for yourself in your everyday life is up to you. But having your characters interact with each other and with NPCs in a more believable way to have your social account go a little bit more, you know, go a little bit better. And this goes for both players and NPCs. But I have on here. It's this a classic book, and I hear this in a lot. I have read it myself. How to win friends and influence people. Oh yeah, this is like your your how to be social one on one type of book. Don't use the book to the point where you become manipulative, because this book absolutely cand of be taken to an extreme. And that's why I'm hesitant to even say that I've read it, because it's got a little bit of a got a bit of a history to it with the wrong kind of people. But the concepts are real, and even if you don't use it in your real life, that's up to you. But having your characters kind of know like how to you know, if you're trying to persuade somebody, like what are you perspueading them with? Like if the character you're talking to you hasn't want something and I know, and if you can ascertain what they want and get

37:47 this to where where you're now your persuasion encounter is now you know, something that could be grounded in real life and not just die rolls. I think this is a great way to have your characters in act with each other and NPCs just a little bit more interestingly, and to my mind, if we hear from any listeners on this, that's the thing I'm mostly interested in is what are the you know, books that were not explicitly here's how to be better at role playing, books that you found influenced how you played, how you designed stuff. Because I could certainly see, you know, like books on like maybe screenwriting or a play writing class or something like that being the kind of thing that you might, you know, realize this is going to really help with my role playing. And I'm super curious what for other people, like, what are those things that we never loved that as being valuable?

38:43 I love that as a category to put in Phase five, and I would just if someone has titles to give me, I would actually have one for d MS and I haven't read it yet. It's on my list to get sure. But it's Hamlet's Hit Points. We heard about that. That's a great book. Yeah, so I really really want to read this. So it takes Hamlet, right. Have you read this, Jim, So I'm very familiar with it. It's by Robin D. Laws who's a long time game designer who's written tons and tons of stuff like not. He was one of the authors of the fourth edition d DM Guide two, I want to say, I think, but he's done some writing for D and D stuff, mostly known for his he's the designer, kind of code designer of the Gumshoe system. But that book is great because, yeah, it's not just Hamlet, but he also uses I think it's Doctor No, the James Bond movie, and Casablanca as the three examples that he takes to describe how the story works. And you know, and like like like rising action, falling action, basically like yeah, yeah, that thing you said where like he's like, okay, if you're going to turn Hamlet into an RPG adventure.

39:51 Yeah, here's what you need to know, and here's how you break it down and onto that and it turns and the and it kind of looks at it from the other way too. It's like, how do we get our adventure to feel a little bit more like movies? Like? How do we tell those? How do we make it a little more dramatic? How do we tell those stories that feel a little more real in that way? Right? And it's like, okay, the the the most simplistic way right first and foremost is like every story has a beginning, a middle, right like, and then you get into your like, well, your third act, this is what's going to happen in your third a kind of thing. And again I have not I have not read this short. It is on my left. I think I bought it for my my now adult son for Christmas. Yes, how weird does that feel? He's like that we have to buy tickets for graduation? I'm like, no, thank you, not if I've read it and it's great, completely endorse that recommendation, yet, will throw Is that a phase five book? You think? That's a yeah, that's very much book that's getting into the nitty gritty of like, you know, Robin's professional career is as a dramaturgist, which is to say, someone who you know azes plays and breaks them down, and you know, like that, that's what his degree is in. You know, he's parlayed that into a career as a you know, an amazing long time well respected you know, not just someone who writes and designs games, but who you know, thinks a lot about them and how they work and stuff like that, and that that book is a real distillation of cool. You know,

41:22 all those years of experience. I'm going to buy that today. Actually, I'm going to leave a link to the drivether Repuge on the I Shual. I'm go to leave links to all these books in the in the show notes. But at the time of this recording, if you buy the soft cover on the driveth Repug for him, it's hit points. You can get the PDF for free. Yeah. Cool. Any other Is there anything that you guys really hoping that I would have somewhere on this list? Maybe not in any necessary There's one thing that there's one thing that I want to drop in that's a little bit of a kind of a little bit of a side thing, but that I think is really interesting and fun, which is there's a book called Improv for Gamers, the author of which is guthor is named ca in twelves and it's published by Evil Hat Games, where the Pope the folks who do the Fate system as well as some game games like Apocalypse World and Monster of the Week and things like that, And that is a book full of short exercises adapted from like improv classes that you can do that might take like just five minutes to like warm up for a game and kind of get everybody in the spirit of getting into character or you know, like I love this. Yeah, Like if you know you're going to do a humorous adventure today, you can do a quick little exercise that kind of gets everybody in that mindset and it's you know, it's a little bit of it. You kind of got to have people that are that are gained for it, right, that are willing to do that kind of thing, because some of them may involve getting up from the table, some of them may involve being a little silly, But if you have that kind of group, it can be they're great like bonding exercises and kind of getting into the spirit of being in

42:57 the game and applicable across the board for everything from D and D to more you know, kind of like some of the hippie story games that I like to play, you know, but but but really really neat book with a lot of cool stuff in there, but definitely very much a like probably not the kind of thing you're necessarily gonna do if you're at you know, like sitting down to a table at a at a group hub or something like that. But if it's a group well, my first thought was to bring this to those games. Yeah, okay, maybe maybe then you get those first times and just kind of exactly because they walk in and they're so nervous. Yeah, and if I can, like, you know, have my vetter, especially if I have like some of my Ringer players there, and like I can have them like just like set the bar and like you know, kind of bringing all the way around the table to the new nervous guy and like be like, listen, this is how silly we're going to be today.

43:47 And you're like, you don't have to you don't have to do it, but like, you know, just know that this is that this is what is acceptable for us. And if you want to get a little silly with us. We'd love to come along. Yeah, this is this is awesome. I'm I should look at this the whole time that you're talking about. I'm buying this one today as well. And I think there's like a second edition of it recently came out and stuff like this. That great, great book. Can't recommend it. That was great? Yeah, anything else somebody missed? Oh we nailed it. Okay, cool? Yeah, I think so let's recap this whole thing like our list. Yeah, yeah, so recap the whole thing for players. Your Phase one is the Player's Handbook. Phase two is to add Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Phase three is to add keith a Mon's Live to Tell the Tale. Phase four is to get any applicable campaign books or sandbox books as Jim calls them, with player mechanics, and any potential third party player books with DM approval. And Phase five the open RPG backstory Guide, some sort of fantasy media like Lord of the Rings and how to Win friends and influence people. And we've also added improv for gamers for dungeon masters or game masters that you're going to want to start with. Also, the Player's Handbook. In phase two you can round out the core trio and the supplemental trio. Phase three you can get the monsters know what They're doing and the Lazy DMS Guide. Phase four is third party books with stats and mechanics, any kind of sandbox book, cobol pressed, Home of Beasts, any of the game Masters guys books, any kind of like random or not a random and any kind of book that has like stats and random tables, things like that, and finish off your collection with how

45:21 to write in venture modules that don't suck. You also want to keep some fantasy media around. Also keep a copy of Head to Wind friends and influence people, and I'll also get the improv for gamers for DMS. And if so, for those of you who keep asking me, how do I build my library? How do I get started on this? I think step by step that'll kind of get you caught up to where I'm at, because I think, I think, I think everything that I own is somewhere in those categories. And I have a couple more things that I didn't that I didn't list that are I know some things are specific to one shots and that some things are for other games that I know, you don't have to go get the Pathfinder Core book to go play D and D. But I've had a lot of older editions stuff that I like to collect, and there's a lot of very specific things that have on my shelf. But like if you pick up, you know this, this should be well over the course of like at least a year or two or five, like I've been collecting about four years now. It depends on where circumstances, your pace, where you're at, you know, or if you just like having things on until you get there. If you're just like having things on a shelf, you know, you and and you're blessed with with with with some extra expendable income, you know, then you can you can comply faster. But like you know, get to miss in phases as you need them or as you want them.

46:31 I'm not gonna say you spend your money, but I think I think we've packed a lot of value into this one today. So we're gonna we're gonna wrap this up. So let's wrap this thing up here, and and you listening, if you have any books that we may have missed, or any books that you love, or anything that you you know, you think might be bought early. I want to hear your opinions on this. What books do you have that you think are essential to a library and at what point did you pick it up? So you can send that all over to full Adventures podcast at gmail dot com or just tell us yourself helloadventures dot com slash voice. So I think that'll that'll actually wrap it up, So Jim, Joe, thanks so much, thank you and thank you for listening. This has been Hello Adventurers. We are your host, Jason Portiso, Jim Crocker and Joe McCall producer, editor, an engineer Jason Portiso, music by an experior artwork, actors and Roderick. You can reach out to us with any feedback suggestions by emailing Helloadventures podcast at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is a JTP audio production. Goodbye Adventures