Mailbag III

WEBVTT

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He Hello adventures the podcast for role
players and game masters to help level up

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your game. We're dungeon Masters Jason
Portiso, I'm Joe McCall and Jim Crocker,

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and today we're going to dig into
the mail bag. And oh no,

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it's a mimic. They're all mimics. That's all mimics. No going

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to dig into us. Ah,
yes, uh, that's just a bag

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of devouring at that point. But
that's a whole other thing. We'll do

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a whole episode on the cruelest things
you could do to your players other than

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mimics. Yeah, everything is a
mimic. Every bag is devouring. But

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today we are we are fresh out
of voicemails, so this is the time

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for you guys to jump on the
voicemail. Hello Adventurers podcast dot com slash

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voice. We love we love hearing
you guys. Ask the questions. No

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dumb questions either. There are no
dumb questions unless you're Nick and you absolutely

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cannot look up moms. Yeah,
stop looking at monsters. Nick is one

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of our players. He sent us
four questions so far, and none of

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them were good. But now they
were all. They were all. We

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can say that because we're friends with
them. Yes, they were all answered

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already, let's put it that way. And they all come down to question,

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how do I write a good question
for your show? They all come

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down all these questions can be answered
with stop googling during the game, which

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I shouldn't have to answer on the
show anyway. But today's questions did come

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to us in an email from Caleb, who I believe gave us a voicemail

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on the first mail back episode and
he was very happy that we took his

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question. So Caleb, thanks for
listening, thanks for checking us out,

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and thanks for believing in us.
And he sent us just like he said,

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I'm going to email you too many
questions, and I said, I

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dare you? And then you email
me a bunch of questions and I'm like,

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this isn't this is? Do you
think this is too much? Come

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on to email him back and kind
of gave me quick answers on almost everything

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in here, but we've answered none
of them so far on the show.

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I answered. I answered him to
him because I knew it was going to

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be at least two months until any
of those episodes were released, and you

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know he deserved answers at the time. So, but there's a couple of

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questions in particular that I really wanted
to talk about on these episodes. So

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so all of today's questions are coming
from Caleb. The first question is do

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you use accents or special voices?
How many do you use? And which

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are your favorites. So the reason
I wanted to talk about this one is

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because there's a lot of different ways
to handle voice acting in your role play

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and my opinion, and I guys
want you to answer this as well,

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I say that there are three ways
to handle role play in character. Number

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one is fully in character. That's
with a voice, with you know,

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a little face if you want to
put a hat on, that's cool too.

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Yes, fully fully acting, which
not body, Yes, your body

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in the character. Yep. Yeah, well we'll call this embodied. And

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this is like, this is like
the level of this, there's like tier

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three. This is the highest level
of it, and not everyone's comfortable with

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it, and not everyone's good at
it, Like some actual actors aren't great

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at it. You don't have to
be good at it to have fun with

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it. You can absolutely have a
blast with it. In fact, even

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being a little bad at it,
it could be more fun. Karaoke.

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Yeah, do we go to karaoke
and someone's killing it? Get them out

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of here, all right? I
want to see accents. I want to

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see his drunk eye struggle struggling through. I will survive. But the reason

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that a lot of shows like all
critical Role is perfect example because these are

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all actual actors and actual voice actors, and everyone kind of thinks that that's

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that's the bar and that's the standard. And it's not that they are the

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outliers of being fully like exceptionally exceptional. They're very, very good at voices

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and not just like even normal voice
acting like doesn't go to the places that

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they go their accents and their craft
like they are artisans. I have a

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vocal for her. I have always
been absolutely fascinated by voice actors, even

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before a critical role. There's a
there's a documentary called I Know That Voice

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that features voice actors like like Billy
West and E. G. Daily,

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John DiMaggio name, I'm not sure
I know Tara Strong is a part of

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that. She was, I'm pretty
sure. J Just Harnell, there's there's

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there's a lot of just great voice
actors. But but anyway, so Eg

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Daly. Yeah, I'm pretty sure
is Tommy Pickles. Let me see,

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so, so eg deal is a
really Yeah, she was Tomles on rug

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Rats, She's Buttercup on the Powerpuff
Girls, Rudy Tabooty on Chalk Sowne.

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She I mean Babe Pig in the
City. She is prolific as a voice

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actor. She was also an actress
I think in the movie Valley Girl.

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Okay, gonna look it up.
I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna look it

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up really really quick. What's what's
funny about that? Is like almost every

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show you just mentioned Tara Stro another
voice actor was also on Tara Strong.

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Was Dill Pickles. Uh, and
she was you said she was Buttercup you

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daily, Yeah, then I know
Tara Strong was one of the powerpuff Girls.

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I can't think of which one.
I thought she was Bubbles. She

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was in Valley Girls. So and
she had a music career in the eighties.

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So really, really, you got
that much control over your voice,

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It's not it's not unheard of.
Yeah. So anyway, so that is

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gonna be like like your like your
top level full embodiment of full voice acting

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and really going for like the critical
role experience and like, you don't have

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to be good at it, but
I'd be comfortable with it, and not

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everyone is comfortable with it. So
the level just below that, I'm gonna

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say, is the your role playing. But in your own voice. You're

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you're you're still you're still reading the
lines, but you're not in costume,

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right, so this you know,
you're you're still Let's say that I'm the

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dress rehearsal. Sure, so let's
say I'm role playing a fairy artificer.

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Okay, if I was in full
voice, it may be something like this,

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a little fairy voice, but in
this level, it's just gonna be

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it's just gonna sound like me,
right, Okay, and I sound like

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this, I sound like a half
work. Then I do a fairy and

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like it's like, yeah, we
gotta go, we gotta go get the

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rainbows from the buttercup field. Like
it's just gonna be like some actually like

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that fairy voice the best, obviously, So if you're putting on voices,

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okay, honestly, so do I
and I think the fairy should sound like

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this, This might be the worst, simple and I thought, so pretend

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this was a bad example. No, But but role playing in your own

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voice is totally fine speaking in first
person and then and then the third level

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basically two versions of first person.
You kind of got your first person method

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and your first person you know,
like just like you say, your own

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voice first person method first person me
yes is kind of what's going on,

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and the third one is third person. You can absolutely just describe what your

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character is saying. So there's a
difference between like like, I think we

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know, guys, I think we
I think we need to go follow him,

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right kind of guys, can we
go first? Like, guys,

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should we go follow this dude?
I'm pretty sure he's the guy we need

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to go after, versus my character
really a louse to the fact that we

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should probably be following this right,
and and there's nothing wrong with a mixture

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of all those. They absolutely flip
between all three yeah, constantly, And

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like if someone else also flips between
the three, I have a hard time

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noticing when they're in full character.
Okay, I know it's when they're in

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full character, But switching from first
first person voice to third person voice totally

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totally, totally fine as long as
we keep the story moving and keep the

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story you know within the story that
that's that's great. In fact, this

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is actually really common when like,
okay, the the d M one one

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character. You know, let's say
the rogue goes ahead, does a little

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reconnaissance, notices this huge scene playing
out, and the DM goes, okay,

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you see to be at a big
bat is talking to who you thought

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was your was your ally, and
you know they have this whole big thing.

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It's helped up at the plane.
Road goes back. The rogue's not

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going to say, okay, guys, I saw the big bats talking to

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who we thought was our ally,
and he's not going to recap the whole

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thing, right, He's gonna be
like, okay, I tell them what

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I saw, right, that's what
you need. Yeah, So now we

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flipped from first person to third person, and this is it. It's already

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something you do. I'm also a
big advocate of explicitly using third person when

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as the d M you're describing two
n PC's talking to each other, because

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it's like, like you've got to
be very very good and keep seeing very

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very short if you're gonna do yeah
mel blank blah blah. Oh yeah,

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right, we've talked about mel blank
like that. That's just just say he

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says this to him, she says
that back to her, and then put

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the focus back on players as quick
as you can. I want I want

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punching Judy puppets. Yeah, okay, So like to act, there's no

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there's no need, there's no need
to do Wabbit season Duck season. You

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know Mel Blank style where it's the
same guy to two voices arguing with himself.

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You want you want to tell me
Mel Gibson is not Blank? Is

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like, is not the greatest of
all time? There's this there's alone scene

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possibly in that scene season Duck season
episode where Bugs dresses as Daffy and Daffy

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dresses as Bugs and they have a
conversation I believe with them r Fudd.

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But it's Daffy's voice in the style
of it's it's not Daffy's voice, it's

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it's Bugs Bunny doing an impersonation of
daf It's Mel Blank doing Bugs Bunny,

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right, and then also Mel Blank
doing Daffy doing It's that's it's spread.

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It's a mind blowing and like for
people who nerd out over voice actors like

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I do, that is like beyond
stier stuff. I so anything to add

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on like the ways that you can
voice act. Yeah. So I would

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also just add, so somebody that
likes to do this and likes to try

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to do voices and accents, and
I just I've always kind of just been

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a natural. I don't want to
say mimic maybe no, but it's somebody

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that's always picked up on like other
people's accents. My wife and I and

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she was first pregnant, we took
a trip up to the Berkshires and at

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that time I had changed my GPS
to have an Australian accent, and we

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went up for a weekend and over
that weekend we both perfected our Australian accent.

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I'm sure it was perfect no reason. I'm sure you sounded like a

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native speaker joke that weekend at the
end of that weekend maybe. And it

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was also the same time something had
come up with I'll teach you guys right

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now on the air how to say
razor blades in Australian. Say rise,

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rise up up lights, lights,
and now say it all together, how

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you say rise of blights? Okay, And so there's things like that.

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There's actually websites you can go where
you can see phonetically how to say things

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to get that accent at PA International
Phonetic Alphabet when I was getting my theater

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degree. Yeah, of course class
on it, and we would take monologues

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and break them down. Took the
actor in real life. But then the

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other part of it is too.
It doesn't have to be a voice.

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It doesn't have to be a brand
new accent. It can be your voice,

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just inflected slightly differently. So I
know, like I've used it in

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our game, and I don't know
that it'll necessarily translate here, but it's

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just like a how are you?
It's it's just like a little bit you

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put a little vocal frying it,
you lower it. I already know that's

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your partender. That's that's my bartender. Usually bartender is going to have like

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more of a new dog. Yeah, hey, well the bag, what

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do you want. There's a partender
that I've used over and over again.

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She's Gerdia, a dwarfing lady.
You met her, You met Gerga I

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won my one shots and she's like
half New York Boston like that gruff and

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half like Cockney like freshen you drink
governor type. Yeah, it's like,

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hey, we're here to meet this
guy. He hasn't been in yet,

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doll. And here's the other thing
too, you're it's a fantasy setting,

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like these accents don't have to even
be real, and if they're not good,

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if you're if your Irish accent,
that's like the joke that me and

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my wife always have is like I
do these or what is it from?

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I Love you man? Okak,
you know he's like, why does my

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Irish accent sound like he's from Jamaica
or something like, like it's so bad,

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and like there's nothing wrong with that. I would just say that you

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want to do things in good faith
and obviously don't you know, don't try

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to be mean or nasty towards a
group of people, and just be careful

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there, tread carefully any accents,
any any kind of what we might think

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of as a you know, like
like an ethnic accent or anything like that.

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You want to steer clear of that
when you start doing accents that have

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particular racist overtones or that you know, right, and also genders too,

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I wouldn't like, I wouldn't even
necessarily try to go because you know,

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most men are going to go,
oh hi as a what and that's just

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not necessarily accurate, and it's that's
what's it's a caricature at that point.

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And that's one of the things that
argues for most of the time, as

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much as you can talking in your
own voice, but changing the inflection,

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right, changing the pace, changing
how you know, like where the periods

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and commas come in your sentences,
how you're you know, like like whatever

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whatever, like colloquialisms or you know, vocal tics that you drop in there.

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That's I've always thought that that's a
much better way to convey different characters

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than to try and have to go, this guy's got to rush in accent,

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and so I got to remember all
of the times that I got to,

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you know, drug you know,
to pronounce this is this letter as

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a v instead or something. I'm
also a big fan of using things like

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catch phrases is kind of a catchy
word for but maybe like crutch phrases,

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little little little phrases that that's the
ticket, like that kind of a thing.

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Yeah, stuff like that. I'm
a big fan of, like little

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little bumbling voices, like like like
my museum curator having like constantly dappings for

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it is like oh my, oh, my am, I, oh,

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my man, my min and just
like just having that Yeah, who is

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that? It's like the white rabbit
in Alice in Wonderland. That's always like

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checking the time, like a whole
time, is it? Yeah? I

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have to I have to be moving
on here. So this the second part

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of Cilb's question here is is how
many voices do you use in which are

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your favorites? Uh? And it's
not so much like how many because Joeye

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00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:22.080
knows how to do one. It's
just the Scottish accent. Joe is a

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00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:28.039
pretty good Scottish accent. But my
trick to this and this is something that

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we did an episode on this back
in Karmage is very early on. But

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one of the best tricks I ever
heard came from Dan Castleinetta, who is

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the voice actor for Homer Simpson and
you know thousands of other voices like that.

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He said that he will develop a
voice by first doing a bad impression.

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And this is great. If you're
not that great impressions, you just

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00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:50.879
do it very easy. The you
just do a normal impression. I've gotten

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00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:54.120
a lot of my character voices by
just trying to do an impression, failing

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00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:58.279
and rolling with it. Yeah.
So the example of that Dan Castlenetta gave

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was he he started off with the
impression of Colombo, and then it turned

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into a bad impression of Columbo,
and then it turned into a purposely bad

224
00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:09.919
impression of Colombo. And that's how
we got most Sis lack on The Simpsons.

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Yeah, sure, yeah, I
could see that, Peter Faulk Yeah,

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and that's that's just how that that
one started. That. See.

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00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:18.399
That's by the way, kids,
Colombo as a TV detective when we were

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00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:22.240
young, not even when we were
younger, when our parents I think were

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00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:28.120
when was that the eighties? Jim, can you explain Columbo? I can't

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00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:33.720
explain Columbo because Colombo touches on our
mystery episode. Yeah we did. Colombo

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00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:37.759
was a a how done it show? A one done it show. At

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00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:41.440
the beginning of every episode of Colombo, you saw exactly how the crime went

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00:15:41.480 --> 00:15:46.679
down, and the episode was like, how would Colombo get, you know,

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00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:50.919
the person that did it, either
to admit it or gather enough facts

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that you know, he could then
approve beyond a reasonable doubt that the person

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that he suspected. Sometimes from the
jump and you know, if you ever

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00:16:00.279 --> 00:16:03.399
hear if somebody ever is about to
leave a room, and then they stop

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00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:07.679
and turn back to you and say, oh, one more thing, that's

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00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:14.000
Columba. Yeah, that's we actually
learn something called So in my professional life,

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00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:17.759
I've sold cars, and one of
the things you learn up sure a

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00:16:17.799 --> 00:16:21.639
lot of cars salesmen learn is something
called the Columbo close. And that's what

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00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:23.200
you essentially do, is you get
up to go, and then you go,

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oh and one more thing. If
I can give you these numbers today,

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00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:30.720
you know, are you leaving in
my car kind of a thing,

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00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:34.320
and that's essentially your Columbus. But
but yeah, so Colombo was or Peter

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00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:38.000
fawk right, that's the was the
actor. Yeah, it was also the

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00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:45.639
grandpa that reads the story. Yeah, that's that was Columba. That was

248
00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:48.720
the guy that played Columba, Peter. So one of my favorite things to

249
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lean on is also like kind of
borrowing general like overarching character ideas from like

250
00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:57.399
cartoons and things like that, and
this is greater that. This is better

251
00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:02.360
for like smaller characters and car tunes. To play smaller characters in your game.

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If you're having like, you know, if you're somebody that's going to

253
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talk a lot, use something that's
closer to your voice. Sure, but

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I mentioned that that that bubbling museum
curator character. I use this voice a

255
00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:17.359
lot for a lot of MPCs that
that are supposed to be like, you

256
00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:21.640
know, they're kind of tragic,
but they're also like they're sympathetic figures.

257
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You want to help these request givers. You want to help them, but

258
00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:26.359
you don't want You want to like
them enough to help them, but not

259
00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:30.200
so much that you want to bring
them with you. I need them,

260
00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:32.759
I need you to leave them there, oh somebody. Yeah. And my

261
00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:37.880
favorite voice to use for that is
Kiff from Futurama, where he's just so

262
00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:44.079
hello, he's perfectly pathetic to where
like he can still like explain things,

263
00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:47.680
but he gets very exasperated very quickly. It's like, oh, it's it

264
00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:53.400
seems that there's been some I guess
you always call them disappearances going through the

265
00:17:53.480 --> 00:18:00.599
museum. How many how many people
have been gone? Oh? Maybe something

266
00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:11.039
like something five, five, maybe
eight. It's just like it's it's a

267
00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:14.759
fun character because he's so like he's
so exasperated, and you can really kind

268
00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:18.319
of take that stutter to like a
very fun place voice wise. But I

269
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:21.720
would just say just overall, like
how many do you use? What are

270
00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:25.319
your favorites? Like, maybe,
yeah, as many as you're comfortable we

271
00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:27.279
need can get away with. And
we all have our favorites. And you

272
00:18:27.319 --> 00:18:30.400
know, if you play with the
same people over and over again, they'll

273
00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:34.119
come to know your favorites. Like
obviously, Jason knows who my bartenders are

274
00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:40.119
when he hears them, and he
knows that my one Scottish accent, which

275
00:18:40.119 --> 00:18:44.119
I'm not even I can't do now
that it's been called out. The one

276
00:18:44.119 --> 00:18:48.680
of the original hosts on Curmudgins and
Dragons, Jack has this one character that

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00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:52.599
is always the shop keeping in all
of his games, and it is supposed

278
00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:56.559
to be the same character, and
it's the most annoying, like like a,

279
00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:03.759
I don't know what that is.
It's too much spit in its mouth

280
00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:07.319
and the whole he's supposed to be
annoying. Yeah, and he is,

281
00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:11.119
and he's great. I actually had
a teacher in high school, and I'm

282
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:15.559
not going to mention the name and
just just a case of Chris yeah or

283
00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:18.599
something like that. I think Chris
Chris and I had, But I had

284
00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:22.079
a teacher in high school with that, So that's I think of that shore

285
00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:26.480
every time I hear that voice.
Hey, hey, hello there. I'm

286
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:30.200
definitely pro anything that gets the players
to not want to spend too much time

287
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.960
in this y. Yes, I
think that's that's a great thing. Yeah,

288
00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:37.480
making your shopkeepers super annoying so I
don't spend a lot of time shopping.

289
00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:40.200
That's the thumbs up from me on
that. Sure. I just to

290
00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:41.200
put a button on this one.
I was going to repeat again, and

291
00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:45.240
just I'm going to quote the email
that I sent back to Caleb. Just

292
00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:48.759
steer clear of the Jeff Dunham effect
and ask yourself if you're overstepping the line

293
00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:52.880
of good taste when doing a foreign
accent. So have fun, but be

294
00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.240
respectful. Yeah. And also,
I mean, and I guess the kind

295
00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:00.279
of the little coda that I would
put on this too, is that you

296
00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:04.359
have tools besides just voice. If
you've got a character that is constantly like

297
00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:08.680
scratching at their scalp, if you've
got a character that is constantly, you

298
00:20:08.680 --> 00:20:12.240
know, twirling a dagger between their
fingers or something like that, you know,

299
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:15.559
or like working a coin like it's
a magic trick, you know,

300
00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:19.519
or always looking over their shoulder,
that's a thing that you can do as

301
00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:23.640
you're doing the voice. It doesn't
necessarily need to be just like a voice

302
00:20:23.799 --> 00:20:29.279
all the time to be an audio
game. It could it serves the same

303
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:32.440
purpose, and make sure that you've
got that in your tool your toolkit as

304
00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:34.599
well. There's even some dms that
will bring around a little a little like

305
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.440
tote of like stuff that you will
find in like a like a photo booth

306
00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:44.000
at a wedding. It's just like
a mustaches and you don't have to go

307
00:20:44.039 --> 00:20:47.599
all out, but it's the carrat
top approach. Even just like having like

308
00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:51.160
a little sword with the prop and
you mentioned like no it's throwing the pen

309
00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:53.039
and and things like that, you
can have something that you twirl so like

310
00:20:53.079 --> 00:20:56.200
it could be the voice, it
could be the it could be the the

311
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:00.319
hand gestures and a fake cigar.
So what what I'm saying is that there

312
00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:04.160
are verbal, somatic, and material
components to this. Yeah, sure,

313
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:07.680
take your combination. And the other
thing to keep in mind is that is

314
00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:12.319
that you've also had that same first
person third person approach where you can twirl

315
00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.480
a pen in your fingers to indicate
that they're doing a thing or work a

316
00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:19.400
little point or something, or you
can just say you know they ask him

317
00:21:19.400 --> 00:21:23.119
a question and he say and you
say, oh, that got his attention.

318
00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:26.839
He stops twirling the dagger for a
moment. Yeah, just stare at

319
00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:30.839
you. That's just good storytelling.
Then deliver what he's going to say.

320
00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:33.720
That's just good storytelling. But cool. I think voices are fun, and

321
00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:37.720
if you think they're fun, totally. If you don't think they're fun,

322
00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:44.599
you don't have to. Yeah,
Hello Adventurers, thank you so much for

323
00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:48.039
listening. If you enjoy the show, the absolute best thing you can do

324
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:52.279
to support us is to subscribe so
you'll be notified when new episodes are released.

325
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:55.440
You can also leave us a review
five stars. Of course, that

326
00:21:55.559 --> 00:21:57.759
will help us get seen by more
D and D players, and more than

327
00:21:57.799 --> 00:22:00.640
anything else, just tell your friends
about us. If you like what we're

328
00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:03.480
doing here, then there's a good
chance that your DM or your players will

329
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:06.960
enjoy it too. And you don't
need to loop gold to do any of

330
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:11.519
that. We appreciate your listening.
Now back to the show, So let's

331
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:15.599
take another one of Caleb's questions here. He had this under a section he

332
00:22:15.720 --> 00:22:19.440
called playing with new dms. So
it's when one of the players steps up

333
00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:22.799
and wants to take the reins of
dming for the first time. How can

334
00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:27.079
a forever DM in a PC position
help ensure the new DM's success. So

335
00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:30.920
he's asking, like, if you're
the if you're the forever DM and a

336
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:33.599
new player wants to step up,
what can you do to make sure that

337
00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:40.359
that you hand over the baton correctly? Him? Despice something that you've seen

338
00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:42.519
a lot. Yeah. One of
the things that you can do, and

339
00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:47.359
this is the thing I cannot recommend
strongly enough, is if you know that

340
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:51.839
one of your players wants to become
the DM, have them co DM with

341
00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:56.839
you for a few sessions. Have
them just kind of ride shotgun, you

342
00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.559
know, do it like the cops
do a ride along, right, you

343
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:02.799
know where you know the first time
you're out there, you go with a

344
00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:07.200
pair, a rookie with a veteran. Have them just kind of sit there

345
00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:10.440
and like what we used to do
in the store when we had a new

346
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:14.559
DM was someone that wanted to train
to do it. Literally, we would

347
00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:18.240
just have them sit there for a
session or two behind the screen and they

348
00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:21.079
would just watch the DM. Yeah. Shadow shadow is a great word for

349
00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:23.799
that, and shadow the DM just
like you're training for any other job right,

350
00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:30.400
have them shadow the new DM and
then you know, have conversations with

351
00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:34.200
them, and then when they step
up to do it the first time,

352
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:40.400
you have that veteran DM shadow them
for a couple of sessions and then they

353
00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:44.599
transition to be a player. But
once you transition to being a player,

354
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:48.200
you're a player, yes, And
the most helpful thing that you can do

355
00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:56.640
is we talked in a previous episode
about assigning a buddy of like a veteran

356
00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:00.559
player buddy to a rookie player,
is you can make it yourself one of

357
00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:03.279
those player buddies. If you've got
any kind of new players at the table,

358
00:24:03.799 --> 00:24:08.400
settle in, help the players with
questions that they may have, but

359
00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:15.319
let the DM do their thing unless
they explicitly ask you a question about something

360
00:24:15.359 --> 00:24:18.680
that's going on. You know,
you got to let them. This is

361
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:22.759
the hardest thing. You have to
let them make a few mistakes. And

362
00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:26.319
if they make mistakes, that's okay. If you want to write it down

363
00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:29.559
and talk about it, you know, and just mention it later in the

364
00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:32.400
game that they got to that they
got a rule wrong or something like that.

365
00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:34.400
But you got to keep your mouth
shut if they're gonna you know,

366
00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:38.079
like like if they if they make
the wrong ruling on something, if the

367
00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:41.400
other players at the table are just
going along with it and they don't care

368
00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:44.960
enough to like to jump in to
look it up or something like that,

369
00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:48.960
just let that go and then you
know, talk about it at the end

370
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.720
of the game and show them,
you know, full respect and the same

371
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:56.799
courtesy that you would expect for them
to show you. But but like if

372
00:24:56.839 --> 00:25:00.319
you're if you're jumping in every time
they make a mistake, that's gonna you

373
00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:04.400
know, we all know how that
works in training, right, Yeah,

374
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:10.920
Yeah, it gets makes people to
take chances and and to you know,

375
00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:14.839
because because it's a complicated game.
It's a deeply complex game. And I

376
00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:18.359
guarantee, no matter how long you've
been playing for, no matter how much

377
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:23.559
of veteran DM you are, there's
stuff you get wrong. And sure I

378
00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:27.960
think DM style and DM Style two
can play a part of like there's certain

379
00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:32.519
things that I'm going to be fast
and loose with that you know, Jason,

380
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:34.920
or you might not that you might
be real sticklers for that rule,

381
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.400
right, never that right, yeah, And and you know I've known that

382
00:25:38.519 --> 00:25:44.039
like people in law enforcement, like
some of them like like are sticklers for

383
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:47.559
tint on windows, you know,
and that's like a thing in New Jersey

384
00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:51.640
here where I'm from, tickets.
Yeah, and then other people aren't like

385
00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:52.920
They're like, no, I'm not
gonna because I have t I have tint

386
00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:56.519
on my car, So I'm not
going to give anybody else a problem for

387
00:25:56.599 --> 00:26:00.240
that. People find their style.
Yeah, exactly. And so so I

388
00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:03.000
think that, you know, for
my answer, you know, what can

389
00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:06.960
you do? I think that you
can continue to be helpful. I know,

390
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:11.119
Jason sometimes like if I'm if I'm
like and I get caught on like

391
00:26:11.799 --> 00:26:15.640
like grapple for instance, and I'm
like, I think or you know,

392
00:26:15.720 --> 00:26:17.880
you kind of see that, I'm
like going to look it up and you

393
00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:19.519
know it like, hey, I'm
pretty sure this is what it says,

394
00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:22.960
Like oh yeah, there, there
it goes. And I think maybe it

395
00:26:22.039 --> 00:26:26.519
starts with a conversation, good communication
before that of hey, listen, do

396
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:30.319
you mind if I you know,
if I see you're kind of forgetting something,

397
00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:33.599
or do you want me to chime
in? Or do you want me

398
00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:37.359
to keep my mouth shut? And
then I think respect their answer, you

399
00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:38.920
know, And we did have that
conversation, Yeah, we absolutely did.

400
00:26:40.079 --> 00:26:45.319
And I think that different people learn
differently, and so I'm very much like

401
00:26:45.559 --> 00:26:48.640
a jump right in and do it. And there's like I have to understand

402
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:55.319
certain aspects before I can really understand
anything. I have to understand how you

403
00:26:55.400 --> 00:26:59.400
know, the mechanics of everything of
like in Dungeon Dragons, I have to

404
00:26:59.480 --> 00:27:04.039
understand why it works before I can
really make a I guess a clear decision

405
00:27:04.119 --> 00:27:08.839
and learn and clearly or so this
there's kind of the I was going to

406
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:11.720
have this be a separate question,
but this kind of ties right into this.

407
00:27:12.359 --> 00:27:17.559
So a couple episodes ago we had
mentioned letting a player take care of

408
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:21.680
some of the clerical parts of dming. So one of the questions here is

409
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:25.319
what are some things that dms usually
do that players can take off of their

410
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:27.720
plate for them? And I called
it DM's a little helper. We can

411
00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:30.799
call the DM's right hand whatever you
want to call it, the co d

412
00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:34.119
M. It would be called CODM
because they're still a player. But what

413
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:40.359
is let's let's let's go a little
bit more into a list of things that

414
00:27:40.519 --> 00:27:45.480
a player could either volunteer to do
or a DM could try to offload onto

415
00:27:45.559 --> 00:27:48.480
a player. What is? What
is? What are some stuff that is

416
00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:51.920
fair to let them do. I
mean the first thing that people usually say

417
00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:56.440
is track initiative. Initiative, Yeah, say say who's going when? If

418
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:57.799
you you know, if you have
one of those little magnet boards, they're

419
00:27:57.799 --> 00:28:02.000
responsible for moving the people on the
magnet board. You know, whatever it

420
00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:04.920
is that that, however it is
that you keep track of initiative, having

421
00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:08.640
a player take over that task.
What other kind of stuff can we give

422
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:15.000
them? I think it's whatever the
DM is comfortable with. So it could

423
00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:17.839
be sometimes, you know, depending
on your game. Like I know,

424
00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:21.039
in our game, it's we play. If we have a majority of our

425
00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:25.519
players that want to and can make
our sessions, we play. So if

426
00:28:25.559 --> 00:28:30.799
that's the case, some tables might
have the DM might run a player character

427
00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:36.480
that night. Sometimes there's NPC,
an NPC, an NPC that needs to

428
00:28:36.519 --> 00:28:40.440
be run. DM should never run
a player character again, yeah, yeah,

429
00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:44.200
no, I agree, And so
that's something. But so there are

430
00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:51.400
certain published adventures or published campaigns like
Baldersgate that have PCs or excuse me,

431
00:28:51.640 --> 00:28:57.200
NPCs controlled by the d M.
Yeah, yeah, or yeah exactly.

432
00:28:57.359 --> 00:29:02.359
So sometimes it's like this is so
annoying because she's joining you. If you

433
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:04.559
only have four players, it's really
a dungeon built for five, and you

434
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:11.839
don't have the experience to change those
encounters. Then you need those those NPCs

435
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:15.079
run by the DM, for lack
of a better term, dmpcs. I

436
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:18.559
know we're going to get to that, but those d MPCs, I would

437
00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:23.160
have players run the cohorts in battle
and stuff if they were comfortable do that.

438
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:26.039
Sure. Yeah, I think early
on in some of our games that

439
00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:30.200
we played, like like over a
Pandemic we're playing over Zume, there was

440
00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:34.640
like a an NPC or two that
you had us control and combat. You

441
00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:40.240
can certainly do that essentially, anything
that doesn't involve I mean, you know

442
00:29:40.440 --> 00:29:44.799
with NPCs it can even be active
decision, but certainly anything the DM is

443
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.559
doing that doesn't involve an active decision
you can hand off to the players,

444
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:52.680
depending on your comfort level. You
can hand off tracking initiative. You can

445
00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:56.319
hand off keeping track of the hit
points of your monsters if that's what you

446
00:29:56.440 --> 00:29:59.839
want to do. Sure, if
you're comfortable with that, you can totally

447
00:29:59.880 --> 00:30:04.759
do that. Certainly, you can
hand off the responsibility for moving things around

448
00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:08.720
the map, right if you're playing
with a map in miniatures, Oh yeah,

449
00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:12.200
you know the thing where you've got
to stand up, reach out over

450
00:30:12.319 --> 00:30:17.880
the you know screen and go one, two, three, four and move

451
00:30:17.960 --> 00:30:19.480
the ogre. You can hand it
off to a player just you know,

452
00:30:19.880 --> 00:30:22.839
as a matter of routine that when
I do hand off. Yeah, absolutely,

453
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:26.640
so all of that stuff, you
know, and in some cases it

454
00:30:26.799 --> 00:30:33.359
may not even necessarily save a ton
of time, but it's you're not having

455
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:37.240
to switch modes right like like like
from I'm thinking about what the monster's going

456
00:30:37.319 --> 00:30:40.680
to do next to oh shit,
I have to do them, you know,

457
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:44.599
like the physical process of moving it. In some cases, what you're

458
00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:48.720
doing is buying yourself a couple of
extra seconds to think about things because the

459
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.119
players doing that insteady you, and
it gives you some some you know,

460
00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:56.880
some some planning time that otherwise would
have been that otherwise just would have been

461
00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.440
busy work time, like work.
Yeah. I was running a game at

462
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:03.079
a brewery about a month ago,
and the table that we usually used it

463
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.839
was just a little cramps this time, and so we brought up we brought

464
00:31:07.839 --> 00:31:11.000
it up with a different different game
though one less player, but everyone just

465
00:31:11.079 --> 00:31:14.480
kind of took up more space and
we were using it. We were using

466
00:31:14.519 --> 00:31:17.319
maps and so we kind of moved
everything over to like the lounge area,

467
00:31:17.440 --> 00:31:18.880
so like you know, two players
were on a couch and like the other

468
00:31:18.920 --> 00:31:22.200
two were going to like were on
my armchairs and like it was super cozy.

469
00:31:22.240 --> 00:31:25.480
It was awesome. But then when
the time for combat, I had

470
00:31:25.480 --> 00:31:29.079
to like get up and like it's
a it's a coffee table. So I

471
00:31:29.160 --> 00:31:32.920
had a meal next to the table
to move. I hate playing D and

472
00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:37.079
D and like a conversation pit.
Yeah, at a table. Man,

473
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:40.519
if it was if it was,
if it was fully feater than mine,

474
00:31:40.559 --> 00:31:45.160
it probably would have been great.
But I insisted on using the maps,

475
00:31:45.160 --> 00:31:47.799
and I had one of my logos
printed all the miniatures for me, so

476
00:31:47.839 --> 00:31:49.680
I'm like, I cannot use them. So it was like, yeah,

477
00:31:49.880 --> 00:31:52.799
that's kind of that's something that could
have either offloaded or maybe I could have

478
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:56.359
just handled better with the space.
But I'll be there again from time this

479
00:31:56.440 --> 00:32:00.400
recording. I'll be there again in
like a couple of days. So most

480
00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:05.480
ye, how that goes. So
one more and we almost start touching on

481
00:32:05.599 --> 00:32:08.599
this and I'm going to remind you
guys that we want this episode to be

482
00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:13.319
on the brief side, so we're
going to not go too far into this,

483
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:15.640
and I know Jim has a very
short answer, but I think we

484
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:19.039
well, this is I don't know
why you're going on about it. This

485
00:32:19.079 --> 00:32:22.680
is a super easy one to hire
women, and I think I think we

486
00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:28.160
have different different opinions on this.
The question is on the subject of dmpcs.

487
00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:30.440
Are they awful? Can a dm
ever do them well? And are

488
00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:35.920
there any major dus and don'ts?
Yes, no, and there's only one

489
00:32:36.119 --> 00:32:42.680
don't do it And anything that anything
that is not awful is not a DMPC.

490
00:32:43.079 --> 00:32:45.079
And that's where I all of the
ways that all of the ways that

491
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:52.200
people talk about dmpcs making dmpcs awful
are ways to make them into NPCs with

492
00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:59.880
slightly more agency and not actual dm
PCs. So so let's break down what

493
00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:06.240
d It's a Dungeon Master player character, which means that the Dungeon Master is

494
00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:12.599
playing another character at the table and
in that regard, right, that is

495
00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:17.519
the strict definition we're using. Are
they are awful? They are absolutely awful.

496
00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:22.359
You're you are a dmy one that
sounds exhausting. I just talked about

497
00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:27.599
how like I would hand off cohorts
because they're so annoying, Like it's such.

498
00:33:27.799 --> 00:33:30.720
It's just another thing that I have
to like on top of the monster

499
00:33:30.839 --> 00:33:35.359
or monsters and everything else and all
the rules and everything else. Oh,

500
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:38.079
I know, I have to now
also run a character. Yeah, it's

501
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:43.799
terrible when they talk to an NPC. You gotta have a conversation with yourself.

502
00:33:44.039 --> 00:33:46.400
You got to somehow compartmentalize in your
head the fact that you know everything

503
00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:52.799
about the adventure while sincerely playing a
player character that is trying to overcome the

504
00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:57.279
adventure. It's not And you're taking
heroics away from the player characters from the

505
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:00.279
other players at the table. And
that's like, this is this is a

506
00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:07.280
time for your four or five friends
to shine, like yeah, to like

507
00:34:07.760 --> 00:34:13.119
be the hero of their story.
And you are to get to play everybody.

508
00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:19.000
It's not one of their characters being
so uh, you know, just

509
00:34:19.239 --> 00:34:22.800
just wanting to play, wanting to
also get in on that. It's just

510
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:28.760
kind of a little month. So
here's where here's where I'm gonna I want

511
00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:34.760
to be that guy. There's situations
where I have seen success and whether you

512
00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:37.639
want to call an NPC or a
d M p C an NPC taking on

513
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:42.199
a PC ish type of role,
let's this this is I want to I

514
00:34:42.280 --> 00:34:46.679
want to stay away from the argument
of semantics. Okay, So so except

515
00:34:46.719 --> 00:34:51.559
the argument of semantics is important here
because he's saying, you know, how

516
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.360
do we do this? Well,
how do we? How do we not?

517
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:57.840
So you know, the way you
do it is you don't play a

518
00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:00.239
d m PC, you do something
else. Yeah, So I'm saying that

519
00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:06.280
we'll use these for for the sake
of that and for brevity, that we're

520
00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:10.039
going to use the strict definition of
d m PC as Dungeon Master player character,

521
00:35:10.119 --> 00:35:15.079
which means that for an entire campaign, the Dungeon Master is also playing

522
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:23.159
a player character that level and levels
up and participates in scenes as an equal

523
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:29.000
to the other players all of that. So I have two examples of times

524
00:35:29.039 --> 00:35:31.320
when it was not awful. One
the campaign was kind of like I don't

525
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:35.559
want to say screwed from the start, but like we were starting at disadvantage.

526
00:35:35.559 --> 00:35:38.159
I'll use my own example first,
and I mentioned this almost every episode,

527
00:35:38.159 --> 00:35:44.119
but it's always just worth prefacing that
I run store level one shots and

528
00:35:44.280 --> 00:35:46.320
on this particular day, like they
wanted me like twice a week. At

529
00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:50.400
this point, it was like a
Wednesday night, no one was around the

530
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:55.159
one, but we had like four
preregistered and there was a couple that that

531
00:35:55.320 --> 00:35:59.480
canceled kind of on the same day. So from four down to down to

532
00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:01.199
two. Actually, you know,
it was do with I had three scheduled,

533
00:36:01.599 --> 00:36:05.599
a couple left, and I only
had one person. So I called

534
00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:07.920
up one of my friends in my
hill is off floating, and they're just

535
00:36:07.039 --> 00:36:10.960
another body in there. And so
now now I'm now I'm up to two

536
00:36:12.840 --> 00:36:15.039
and like, so there's only two
players there. They paid to be there,

537
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:19.719
and we're gonna around the game.
I'm not that good to be able

538
00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:23.679
to rebalance encounters for two PCs.
So we we actually instead of taking any

539
00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:27.800
of our premate characters or any of
the characters that I made, I'm like,

540
00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:30.519
okay, we're going all in on
this. I have these random character

541
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:34.440
dice we just rolled dice punched them
into Fast Character dot Com and all three

542
00:36:34.480 --> 00:36:37.039
of us played just whatever we rolled, and so I'm like, okay,

543
00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:40.280
I'm gonna have to take a DMPC
on this one, just to round out

544
00:36:40.440 --> 00:36:44.840
combat at least with the caveat that, like, you know, this character

545
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:50.960
will not be participating in any puzzles, not a DMP right, yeah,

546
00:36:51.199 --> 00:36:54.960
under under our strict definition, that
is not a dm yep. Absolutely,

547
00:36:55.480 --> 00:37:05.519
and in that regard it only had
agency in partially in combat. Yeah,

548
00:37:05.559 --> 00:37:12.480
he just can't solve the mystery because
you're well you already know because I play

549
00:37:12.559 --> 00:37:16.519
him as though he does not.
But you were practicing some form of emergent

550
00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:21.440
mystery style, in which case it
would matter you would come up with a

551
00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:23.199
solution together. Yeah, well this
wasn't a mystery. This is a zombie

552
00:37:23.239 --> 00:37:25.800
horde thing. But like you know, he just knew, Like you know,

553
00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:30.440
I am I going to purposely walk
into a room that I know a

554
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:32.519
zombie is in because I have to
play like I don't know, I just

555
00:37:32.599 --> 00:37:36.800
kind of let them make things the
main calls. Yeah, I think that

556
00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:40.159
to Jim's point, every time that
it works, it's not a d MPC,

557
00:37:40.719 --> 00:37:45.199
it's an NPC with additional agency.
And that's fine. And that's and

558
00:37:45.239 --> 00:37:50.519
that's where you get into cohort territory
that they're really just there to help balance

559
00:37:50.599 --> 00:37:57.119
combat. They're not going to take
an active part in progressing the story along.

560
00:37:57.400 --> 00:38:00.920
I mean, you can kind of
use them as a whatever. The

561
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:05.519
opposite of a red herring is of
somebody that's gonna like you can't find the

562
00:38:05.559 --> 00:38:07.320
answer. Oh, they have the
answer. It's just gonna help again for

563
00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:12.159
brevity's sake, I think. But
for the most part, they're really there

564
00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:15.360
to more or less balanced combat,
like, oh man, I needed five

565
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:19.239
people to fight this red dragon,
I only have four. I only have

566
00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:22.400
three. Well, the other sample
is going to bring up and like,

567
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:24.559
Allie, tell me if this is
a d n PC or not. And

568
00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:29.119
I know you guys haven't listened to
you know, summary or definitely not all

569
00:38:29.119 --> 00:38:32.039
of it, but campaign one.
From that, there's a character called Balnor

570
00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:37.599
that that joins the party from pretty
early on. He's not from the start,

571
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:40.280
this was he was done. There
was there was not intended to be

572
00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:44.760
a d m p S. But
pretty early on they they find a deck

573
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:46.840
of many things and they get the
I'm sorry, yeah, I know it's

574
00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:52.719
I'm already I'm already gym is already
out. But there was a modified deck

575
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:57.400
whatever, blah blah blah. They
get the the the is it the NIGHTCRD

576
00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:00.880
Squire card whatever it's called, and
you get a you get a level four

577
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:05.800
fighter of the same race. That's
wherever draws it. Yeah, it should

578
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:07.679
be played as a cohort. Yeah, and then that this ends up being

579
00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:12.159
played by by the DM and leveled
up along with them, and like he

580
00:39:12.239 --> 00:39:15.199
was only supposed to be a short
thing and they end up sticking around that

581
00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:17.320
being an important part of the story. Yeah, but he was. This

582
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:22.800
is a comedy show in a in
a in a D and D costume.

583
00:39:22.599 --> 00:39:25.719
He ended up being a pretty major
part of the of the stories. And

584
00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:31.000
it's a show that you know,
it has ratings and ratings, but like

585
00:39:31.159 --> 00:39:36.039
they have advertisers that that's a that's
a corner case that I don't think is

586
00:39:36.079 --> 00:39:39.320
necessarily applicable to people, just kind
of you know, the typical table that

587
00:39:39.400 --> 00:39:45.000
we're going to. I will say
where I've seen success again being more like

588
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:52.079
MBC. So Critical Role has I
think it was campaign to right, Yeah,

589
00:39:52.079 --> 00:39:54.480
I don't know how many campaigns are, but not actually a D and

590
00:39:54.559 --> 00:39:58.840
D game Critical Role. Critical Role
is a television show that uses D and

591
00:39:58.920 --> 00:40:05.320
D to come on but their scripts
essentially yeah, and any of these popular

592
00:40:05.400 --> 00:40:09.159
shows. And there they even say
I think man Merser says like, yeah,

593
00:40:09.159 --> 00:40:12.320
it's a little bit of D and
D. It's like based on D

594
00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:15.239
and D five, but there's a
lot of homebrew to it. And yeah,

595
00:40:15.280 --> 00:40:21.000
it's just the reason to you ounce
on. But well, yeah,

596
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:23.519
they they have ended up using some
of those rules, but I think they

597
00:40:23.599 --> 00:40:28.880
still use home Brewer rules. But
whatever. So the whole point in saying

598
00:40:28.920 --> 00:40:32.559
that is there was a character that
was from Jorhas, which is like the

599
00:40:32.920 --> 00:40:38.239
monster Nation that they you utilize in
a couple of fights, and I think

600
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:44.719
that essentially what what happens is they
don't make any major decisions anytime, even

601
00:40:44.880 --> 00:40:46.360
if the player characters are like,
hey, what do you think we should

602
00:40:46.360 --> 00:40:49.679
do? The I don't know,
I honestly don't know. I don't have

603
00:40:49.719 --> 00:40:54.199
an opinion, and they just kind
of kick it back and and there and

604
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.119
there you have it. Right,
is is that it's really just a cohort

605
00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:00.719
or an NPC with additional agency,
and that the way to do it is

606
00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:05.719
to do it that way, is
to always kick back to the players that

607
00:41:06.119 --> 00:41:09.039
they can't have a dog in the
fight. Because once you cross into the

608
00:41:09.199 --> 00:41:13.960
territory of d m PC, of
you are a DM, but you also

609
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:17.400
have a player character. You are
taking away from your players. You're like

610
00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:22.440
you're taking even if the players want
it, you're taking some of the fun

611
00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:24.760
out of the game. So to
do it well, you don't do it,

612
00:41:25.639 --> 00:41:32.920
you do something else. Yeah,
all right, So uh okay,

613
00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:37.400
so the definition that I had in
my head this seems like something that you

614
00:41:37.480 --> 00:41:43.840
guys even okay with. It's just
weird because it's not right. And that's

615
00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:46.320
and that was basically before before we
went on air, we were going through

616
00:41:46.360 --> 00:41:50.320
these questions and we were like,
oh, what what should we choose?

617
00:41:50.360 --> 00:41:52.719
And that was something that we talked
about and and that was my first thought

618
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:55.800
was, well, it's this,
and then I realized Jim's right, they're

619
00:41:55.840 --> 00:42:00.679
not DMP d MPC. We have
to Again. We could argu the semantics

620
00:42:00.719 --> 00:42:04.440
of it all day, but just
for for brevity's sake, and for this

621
00:42:04.639 --> 00:42:08.280
argument, we'll just say it is
a d M playing that is also playing

622
00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:14.280
a PC and it cannot it cannot
work. It just just cannot work.

623
00:42:14.760 --> 00:42:17.760
Not well, okay. So so
the answer to the question here is ask

624
00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:22.360
yourself what you're actually doing right and
does it fall into the character does it

625
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:28.800
fall into the category of n PC
with additional agency slash cohort what they call

626
00:42:28.840 --> 00:42:32.480
it cohort or does it now they
Some older versions of the rpg R stories

627
00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:38.039
we used to look for were around
bad examples of of dmpcs or what Jim

628
00:42:38.039 --> 00:42:42.599
would call normal examples of d m
p C and like this is when like

629
00:42:43.079 --> 00:42:47.440
it's examples of where the DM is
like no, he's the main character star

630
00:42:47.519 --> 00:42:52.239
of the show. And like I
just saw that as bad examples. But

631
00:42:52.320 --> 00:42:55.480
if that's that's what it is,
but so so, But even Jim right

632
00:42:55.559 --> 00:43:00.079
and says, well that's a corner
case, like are there examples of of

633
00:43:00.199 --> 00:43:06.000
where it could work, yes,
but like there's so few and far between,

634
00:43:06.519 --> 00:43:09.000
just don't even do it, like
and more than likely, if you

635
00:43:09.119 --> 00:43:13.480
are doing it and doing it successfully, it's probably not one. It's probably

636
00:43:13.559 --> 00:43:16.039
one where you're still just giving the
agency back to the players and you're not

637
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:24.719
allowing that quote unquote d MPC to
make any real decisions other than or am

638
00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:30.400
I going to use a long stor
the two things there. Okay, so

639
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:35.199
let's let's let's let's forget to turn
the NPC for a second, because now

640
00:43:35.280 --> 00:43:37.639
it's getting back into a into a
semantics thing. So like, are we

641
00:43:37.800 --> 00:43:43.199
okay with NPCs with improved agency?
Okay? Yeah? I mean, and

642
00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:49.639
the way you do it well is
that you offload as much of the decision

643
00:43:49.719 --> 00:43:54.559
making onto the players, Yes,
as you can manage given the situation at

644
00:43:54.599 --> 00:43:59.679
the table. Cool. And if
that means they make all the decisions for

645
00:44:00.199 --> 00:44:06.039
for that character in combat, if
it means that, you know, they're

646
00:44:06.239 --> 00:44:09.760
actually if it means that, that
kind of becomes like a troop play character

647
00:44:10.440 --> 00:44:15.840
where you know, if the fighter
goes you know, if the fighter wants

648
00:44:15.880 --> 00:44:20.800
to go to the tavern to get
some information but the wizard isn't interested in

649
00:44:20.920 --> 00:44:23.920
doing that because he's studying his spellbook. You go, Okay, so for

650
00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:30.480
this particular scene, Joe, we're
going to hand you that character as much

651
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:32.199
of that as you can do.
That's what you want to do is hand

652
00:44:32.280 --> 00:44:37.159
off the hand that off to the
players, and that's how you'll get successful.

653
00:44:37.239 --> 00:44:39.800
Yeah. The best example that I
can that I know of that that

654
00:44:40.280 --> 00:44:45.079
in a way that works is the
cohort example of and a game that you

655
00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:52.079
played with me was Raya Mantlemore in
a Descent into and yeah, and that's

656
00:44:52.599 --> 00:44:54.800
example. Yeah, and essentially and
that was even and I'll say this,

657
00:44:55.440 --> 00:45:00.679
the best your best bet is to
just learn how to balance and without it,

658
00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:04.360
because that's really what you were doing. And because here's why, it's

659
00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:07.400
a lot as a DM to keep
track of right when you're keeping track of

660
00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:10.239
everything else. And it's a lot
for the players. I don't know if

661
00:45:10.280 --> 00:45:13.199
you remember, I don't know,
and it might have been you, but

662
00:45:13.280 --> 00:45:14.760
I gave it. I was like, hey, can you just run this,

663
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:16.639
Like it's as far as combat,
as far as decisions, I don't

664
00:45:16.639 --> 00:45:20.480
think you can speak up or somebody
did and they're like, hey, this

665
00:45:20.599 --> 00:45:22.800
is a lot, like you can't. I don't want to play two players,

666
00:45:22.039 --> 00:45:23.800
don't. I don't want to play
two characters. I just want to

667
00:45:23.800 --> 00:45:28.039
play my character. And I was
like, that's fair, that's absolutely fair.

668
00:45:28.079 --> 00:45:30.400
I'm sorry, Like, and I
took that back. And there's some

669
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:32.719
cool shortcuts that you can use there
that I have done on occasion, like

670
00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:37.840
in the store when I just needed
to kind of like have a shortcut to

671
00:45:37.920 --> 00:45:42.559
that where like we wanted to have
somebody who had an impact and have the

672
00:45:42.639 --> 00:45:46.159
players have some decisions about how they
made an impact without handing them whole character.

673
00:45:47.039 --> 00:45:52.519
And what you can do there is
you can say okay, basically once

674
00:45:52.599 --> 00:46:00.440
per combat turn that NPC can make
essentially what amounts to the assist where you

675
00:46:00.519 --> 00:46:04.760
get advantage or somethinghere where they give
advantage and at the beginning of the turn,

676
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:07.920
you guys can have a conversation and
go, okay, it's really important

677
00:46:07.960 --> 00:46:10.559
that the wizard's spell goes off,
so he's going to strack the monster that

678
00:46:10.599 --> 00:46:15.880
they cast the spell on so that
he gets advantage on his you know whatever,

679
00:46:16.119 --> 00:46:21.239
like a range touch attack, right, and and and just that's a

680
00:46:21.800 --> 00:46:25.159
that's a kind of a halfway between
the DM doing it all themselves, but

681
00:46:25.239 --> 00:46:29.440
the player is having to control a
whole character, you know, and you

682
00:46:29.519 --> 00:46:31.920
know, maybe you give him a
x number of uses of cure light wounds

683
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:36.239
and they can you know, toss
that around or something like that. Because

684
00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:40.880
the last is the classic example is
the party that like has no healer,

685
00:46:42.400 --> 00:46:45.719
right, and so you give them
the NPC healer and you know, you

686
00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:50.519
just say, okay, you know, once per turn they can throw a

687
00:46:50.599 --> 00:46:53.199
da to healing out and we're going
to assume that they're staying out of the

688
00:46:53.239 --> 00:46:58.679
way of monsters might and that's why
they don't get to hit anything. There's

689
00:46:58.719 --> 00:47:00.480
my answer. My answer to that
is, oh, you go to the

690
00:47:00.599 --> 00:47:06.039
shop and the potions are one get
one, yeah, because you obviously are

691
00:47:06.079 --> 00:47:09.159
going to do that more, right, I do, uh, And I've

692
00:47:09.280 --> 00:47:13.039
had in a lot of games.
We called it the Prismatic six pack.

693
00:47:13.400 --> 00:47:15.880
It's a six pack of otions in
every color for the price of three.

694
00:47:16.400 --> 00:47:20.360
There you go, or four or
whatever whatever it is, whatever I need

695
00:47:20.480 --> 00:47:24.199
to do right to get them to
buy it. And one group didn't is

696
00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:29.679
in my my quote unquote the MPC
game the opposite problem where they both ended

697
00:47:29.719 --> 00:47:32.320
up on casters and I had to
roll up a barbarian real quick just to

698
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:37.039
keep them alive. Yeah, but
like definitely, like I would hate to

699
00:47:37.320 --> 00:47:43.639
be running somebody as a DM and
like you're fighting let's say it doesn't even

700
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:46.920
have to be the big bed but
like a boss level whatever, and like

701
00:47:47.159 --> 00:47:52.280
it just the way it just comes
around is that like they have one hit

702
00:47:52.360 --> 00:47:55.400
point and you're and now there's you
can handwave that and everything else. But

703
00:47:55.480 --> 00:47:59.960
again, I think that the people
that tend to use quote unquote d MPs

704
00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:02.159
are going to be newer d ms. And I know for me, like

705
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:07.079
I just didn't know that there was
other options. It was like it was

706
00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:08.320
given to me as this cohort and
I was like, Okay, I'm running

707
00:48:08.440 --> 00:48:10.920
this. I was like this is
awful, and I just had to learn

708
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:15.639
that way. I would hate.
I would hate for it to come around

709
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:20.679
and like the monster has one or
two or five whatever HP, and it's

710
00:48:20.760 --> 00:48:30.800
like the cool. As a player, I'm going to be pretty annoyed about

711
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:34.159
that. Let's let's put a button
on this so to answer your question,

712
00:48:34.519 --> 00:48:37.840
rules as written or question as written
q A q A W d m p

713
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:44.079
cs are bad. But I think
your answer your question as intended is as

714
00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:47.360
you know, ask yourself, are
you doing more of what I thought the

715
00:48:47.519 --> 00:48:53.079
m PCs were or what or Jim
correctly explained MPC you're playing? Are you

716
00:48:53.159 --> 00:48:57.880
talking about d m p cs.
Are you talking about MPCs with more agencies

717
00:48:58.639 --> 00:49:02.679
or more agency or or cohorts?
Yeah, in which case go for if

718
00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:05.800
you need to, if you can
get away without it, maybe, don't

719
00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:08.199
you know? Or or and I
mean, and I think that third thing

720
00:49:08.239 --> 00:49:12.960
that we talked about, or are
there shortcuts that you can come up with

721
00:49:13.599 --> 00:49:16.719
that kind of narratively say there's a
character there, but we've abstracted that to

722
00:49:16.840 --> 00:49:21.480
a simple mechanic that you could hand
off to the players to use every turn

723
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:25.920
to indicate the presence of that of
that character. Cool, let's let's wrap

724
00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:30.199
this thing up so you can send
us your questions to Hello Adventurers Podcast at

725
00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:35.320
gmail dot com, or you can
ask us your questions yourself Helloadventurers Podcast dot

726
00:49:35.440 --> 00:49:38.280
com slash voice. Well love to
love to answer your questions. Yeah,

727
00:49:38.360 --> 00:49:42.480
Otherwise, Calebs asked us a lot
more that we could always get to so

728
00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:45.000
but I want to I want to
diversify this a bit. Yeah, if

729
00:49:45.159 --> 00:49:46.760
we're going to fly through these and
we did not know, we didn't,

730
00:49:47.199 --> 00:49:52.639
great job guys, Now we we
got to raced off from that though.

731
00:49:52.960 --> 00:49:55.199
So yeah, please please please send
us your questions and send us your your

732
00:49:55.320 --> 00:50:02.320
most egregious d MPC bills or your
best accent. But yeah, I get

733
00:50:02.320 --> 00:50:06.239
a Hello Adventures Podcast dot com slash
voice. You can always tell us tell

734
00:50:06.280 --> 00:50:07.519
us yourself. But that's going to
wrap it up. So thank you so

735
00:50:07.639 --> 00:50:12.039
much for listening to Hello Adventurers.
We are your host Jason Portiso, Jim

736
00:50:12.119 --> 00:50:15.119
Crocker and Joe McCall producer, editor
Engineer Jason Portiso. Music by a Nick

737
00:50:15.159 --> 00:50:19.360
Spurrier, artwork by Christin Roderick.
You can reach out to us with any

738
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:23.480
feedback or suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers
Podcast at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures

739
00:50:23.599 --> 00:50:28.039
is a JCP Audio production. Goodbye
s