Mailbag!

WEBVTT

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Welcome to the podcast where we talked
about artig topics for role players and gms

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and everybody in between. Bye Jason
Portiso. I'm Joe McCall and I am

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Jim Crocker. So today's episode,
we're wrapping up the first month of bringing

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this show to you guys. So
what did we learned this month? I

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learned set Tearless episodes take a lot
longer to record than I originally thought,

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So that little lesson, but we're
gonna we're gonna fix that and tighten that

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up a little bit. I learned
we should stop in the middle of the

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day for lunch, is what I
learned from our our first recording set.

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Yeah, so uh yeah, we
were. We recorded six of those episodes

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back to back to back to back, including a two hour recording for It's

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Your List episode. So we were
learning, and after over one hundred episodes

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of our previous show, you think
we'd be better at it, But there's

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always time to learn, there's always
things to do. So we're kind of

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wrap up this month with something I've
been pretty excited about. We set up

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a voicemail box and encourage people to
call in and ask us their d and

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D questions, whether it's something about
rules or something of character, or just

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something about just like you know,
table dynamics and like really just anything.

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And you know, I always say
the phrase, we want to make the

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show that you want to hear,
and what better than for you to just

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literally call us and tell us what
you want. You can also participate in

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these episodes if you go head on
over to Hello Adventurers podcast dot com slash

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voice, leave us a voicemail,
and if it's something that sparks the conversation

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with us, we'll put them on
a show. So our first voicemail is

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coming from Christian. Christian, what
do you got for us? Hi?

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I was hoping to get some perspective
on my first time ever playing D and

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D back in college. So I
had a friend who said he had DMed

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a bunch of games and wanted to
get a campaign going. Most of the

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people my friend group had never played
D and D. Aside from maybe one

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or two people, we started a
campaign, started meeting on certain days we

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made our characters. He wasn't very
helpful with making our characters. The only

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two people in the group who had
played before mostly helped us as we went

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on the campaign. Every session we
started noticing it was getting It was very

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difficult. Even though you know,
he tried to make he said he would

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make it a beginner campaign, it
was very hard. He started killing people

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pretty regularly. He would kill people
just what we thought was often. We

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weren't sure. As we got later
in the campaign, people left because they

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were getting frustrated. Some people joined
because he would just get random people to

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join. We started noticing towards the
end that he was killing people that he

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sort of had problems with in real
life outside of the game. So it

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became clear he was just kind of
retaliating on us for things outside of the

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game and game and none of us
played again after that for a long time.

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So I was wondering what you guys
thought about DMS not really scaling for

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beginners, or people retaliating on people
for things outside of the game in the

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game. So thank you so Christian. The thing about d MS is you

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have to be nice to them.
Extraction shut up job. I would never

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extra. So let's start with the
fact that there are two separate questions there

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that have different answers yes and you
know, and one of them being how

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do you feel about GMS scaling,
and the other being about what we might

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call, you know, bleed or
something like like indie gamers might call that

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bleed, you know, like one
of your feelings in your real life carrying

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over into the game and stuff like
that. Maybe can address those separately,

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but you're letting you're out of game
knowledge of the players, effect, player

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characters, unequaltion. So so so
I mean, like like like jokingly,

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I mean, sure, it's all
or whatever, it's meta gaming all the

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way down. But I think when
people use meta gaming there, that's that's

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not what they're talking about. They're
not talking about the social the social stuff

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leading over into play. And but
that can be a serious thing because it's

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it's a social game. We're all
playing it in a group. And you

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know, my experience with D and
D is the vast majority of the games

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that I've played and run because I
used to own a game store or with

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not just with strangers, but explicitly
with people who I was trying to sell

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the game to, right sure,
so I had, you know, an

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obligation of professional obligation to make sure
that everybody had as good a time as

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possible. So I didn't have the
luxury to Yeah, yeah whatever, get

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you know, get revenge on somebody
because they you know, parked me in

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or something like that, you know, or stole my girlfriend or whatever it

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is that you know that people are
getting upset with each other about, Like

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I feel like that's that's a separate
that's like not a D and D question

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necessarily. You know, you answer
the question about, like, how do

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we deal with somebody who's being a
jerk at D and D because they're unhappy

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with me from something I did at
work or you know, or you know,

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or before, like the same way
you do, like if they're constantly

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fouling you on the basketball court because
they're mad at you, or they're you

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know, like hitting directly at you
in tennis or flipping the board when you're

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playing risk or something like that.
It's all that that's a you know,

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that's a social question that you solve
just by having a conversation about it.

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And you know, everybody being adults
and that's there's not really D and D

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rule stuff that we can help you
with there other than to just so many

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people at his table that often yeah, because it's a it's a place where

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you can bring them and you're guaranteed
to have power over them. Yeah,

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we could get into the psychology of
it, but it's definitely a powered thing.

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Yeah. Yeah, he gets to
live out his fantasy of this of

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being all powerful because as the GM, you know, you kind of are

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right all right, So you get
a real life fully power trip on there.

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So yeah, which was unfortunate.
And but I don't think that you

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know, he was asking for a
perspective on his first game too, right,

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Yes, so you think probably a
lot of people have have something like

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this and it's sad. So so
the the topics to cover here are The

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first thing is how do you deal
with a DM that does not scale for

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beginners? That is a very valid
question. Yeah, so Jim, and

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you know, you're the majority of
the games you're running are for beginners that

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you need to spend money. So
so that's that does come with, like

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you know, the circumstantial grain of
salt almost and not not even grain assault,

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but just like it's like, yeah, you are also incentivized to make

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sure they have the best time possible. And I have a leg up.

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A lot of my games are also
for beginners. I don't work for the

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store, but I work in the
store, and you know, me being

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nice to them incentive is them to
hire me again, So that kind of

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it's it's almost the same thing.
However, that aside, I love new

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players. We talked about this in
episode one where it's the same idea.

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Maybe maybe it's the same power trip. I don't know, but deriving the

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power from giving someone a good experience
rather than a bad experience. And so

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now like they're going to go have
this new hobby because I turn them onto

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it. Yeah, and you know, maybe I'm getting the same power trip

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that the bully is, but instead
running they're running home with new books.

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I think that difficulty level and scaling
for beginners or not, I think it

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comes down to balanced combat, if
that's what we're talking about, and making

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sure that like, you know,
you kind of hold people's hands, especially

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when they're new, so you know, as you're you we play in the

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same game on the GM and we
have people that of all different skill levels,

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I guess, or experience. Let's
experience. Yea rolling dice doesn't really

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take a lot of things, but
of experience, and some people need their

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hands out a little bit more than
others, and that's okay, and and

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so it's tough, right because it's
just like with anything else, and teaching

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somebody something, it doesn't matter if
it's D and D or teaching them how

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to read. Really it takes a
little bit of patience. It takes a

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little bit of patience, and it's
letting people mess up a little bit too,

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just hey like, yeah, that
did can go great, you know,

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and you know, and here's why
I think maybe, or here's a

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better way that you can do that
next time. And here's some tools that

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I think you could use to make
it easier on you, as a beginner

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or whatever to have that conversation out
to have the conversation after the game.

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And I think as a player,
it's important to do the same thing right

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because egos can be fragile, especially
if you have a GM that wants to

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like use things that happened at work
or like, you know, like you

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didn't invite me out for ice cream
the other night. I saw that you

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were there at DQ and I really
wanted a blizzard. I'm just getting the

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American sech goes. I try getting
your reservation, but like pulling that DM

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aside and saying like, hey man, that's not really cool first of all,

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what you're doing, but also like, this is really difficult for me.

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I haven't laid this before, and
just being upfront and direct about that,

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I think, yeah, it's probably
good idea. One of the things

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I'm going to push back a little
bit on is you said you have that

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conversation actually the game. I say, have that conversation before the game,

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especially if you're a veteran DM and
you've got new players, if you've played

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a lot of D and D,
especially if you play with the same people

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regularly, you're going to have a
sense of kind of what the social contract

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at that table is, right,
you know, and if everybody knows the

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way this game goes is you know, most of the time, our characters

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are pretty safe, but every few
sessions we have a big boss fight and

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then you know, my character might
actually get killed in that boss fight.

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But we also understand that, like, you know, different tables have different

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ways they handle that. You know. Some people are like, you know,

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your characters are fungible, they get
killed. Cool, I'll just roll

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up a new one. I've been
wanting to play a sorcerer all along.

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Anyways, some tables, it's like, you know, death of a character

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means you go on an epic quest
to get them back from the underworld or

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something like that, because people want
to keep playing that story of that individual

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character and the level of personal connection
you have. I completely forgot about the

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part that this is supposed to be
supposed to be if that are in DM

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org and you can do that however
you want, and you can even have

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different players at the table have different
approaches, because like I've had tables where,

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like, you know, three or
four people are like, no,

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I want to see my character's story
right through to the very end, and

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one player that's just like, yeah, you know whatever, I'll play this

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guy five six sessions and then I
want to try try to try drew it

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after that. And that's fine too, as long as everybody is on the

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same page and knows what's going on. And those new players are not necessarily

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going to know that because this it's
somewhere between a video game and a novel,

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right where you know, in a
video game, you get killed,

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you just go back to whatever your
saved point and you jump back in again.

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You know. Novel, if a
character's dead, they're dead forever.

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They're gone, they're out of the
story, and but in D and D

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you've got these kind of not just
narrative ways to do this, but you

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know, like whatever you can.
You can bring them to the cleric,

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can get them resurrected or something like
that. But you can also as a

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DM have a conversation with the players
about what it means to be defeated rather

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than just like always killed. I
think one of the big problems that D

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and D has is that there isn't
like a fail state that involves the characters

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being defeated without everybody getting tipek right
right. And so that's one of the

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things that I always tell new players
is you know, we're here to have

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fun, and I am not going
to tell you you can't play that character

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anymore until you decide you don't want
to play it anymore. That doesn't mean

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that you might not, you know, get into a fight with something that's

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too tough for you. They kick
all your asses and everybody goes to zero

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hit points and you wake up naked
in the giant's pantry or something like that

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and then have to figure your way
out of there. You can be defeated,

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but that'll mean something interesting for the
story. It doesn't mean well,

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that's it, everybody roll up new
characters. Sorry about that. You don't

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get to see how that story ends. Some people like that and that's cool,

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but I just think you got to
make sure you have a conversation about

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what all that means and you know, and how people get to keep playing

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if those characters get killed. Does
that mean you sit out the rest of

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the night and write up a new
character while you're doing that. Does it

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mean everybody just comes to the table
with an extra character ready to immediately throw

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down if their character people? Yeah? But I think right. I think

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I think to Jim's point that it's
the GM's job to set the expectations,

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say hey, because we very briefly
played Balderske, and I think I made

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it a point like, hey,
characters might die, like who knows,

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you know, like, just don't
necessarily get attached. And I think the

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other thing that I definitely do is
I try to check in with players every

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few sessions and just like hey,
like, has I know I've done it

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with you? Like, hey,
yeah, you're good with your character?

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Like you if there were times there
were times where I wasn't super thrilled at

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them, I like them a lot
more now. But now so you touched

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on what to do after the game. Jam was talking about what to do

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before the game. My first thought
was, I was how to do this

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in game or at least during the
game so we can tackle this them all

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three. So what I do,
especially with new players as a and I'm

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just going to say an existing DM, I'm not going to say experience and

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definitely not veteran, but as the
DM whose job it is to, you

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know, make sure you have a
fun day today, especially with brand new

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players, like just enough hand holding
to make sure that they understand what they

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can do while still giving them the
autonomy to do so. And I like

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the hey, did you know you
can do this method reminding them that inspiration

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exists or you know that they've got
a spell that they may have forgotten about,

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stuff like that. Yeah, okay, we're going to do a whole

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episode on that. So look Ford
put a pin in that sun. If

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players treated inspiration like they do dark
vision this world before the game starts,

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00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:24.159
especially with premaide characters, or if
we're doing like like a fast character dot

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com thing, I will go up
to their page and highlight or mark off

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or put little you know, arrows
and exclamations next to the important class features

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like reminding fighters that they have action
serves, reminding paladins that they have laid

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on hands, running rogues that they
have sneak attack sneak attack, and second

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story work and bonus action dish,
bonus action hide like like my player Rose

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does. And then in the middle
of the game, like if it's their

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turn in combat and they're kind of
floundering a little bit or taking a little

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longer, or like they look a
little frazzle, that kind of wait for

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them to give me the cues they
need, the help relevant and helping them

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before they need it. Hey,
I don't want them to rely on me

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because I just can't be bothered for
everybody every turn. And I want them

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to try and if they if they
hit a wall, be like, hey,

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remember you've got this thing, you
got this thing, remember that magic

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item you found. Here's a couple
of options that you maybe you thought of

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already. But and I tried not
to do the if I were you do

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something like this because I was just
taking a term with them, so I

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wouldn't do that. But actually a
full disclosure, Christian is a coworker of

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mine and he has played in Someone
Shots with me since he recorded this.

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He was one of the first people
to send them. I thought you were

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the yeah no no no, no, no, no no. But you

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know, at the time of recording
this, the show has not actually been

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public yet, not even the first
episode has come out yet. So you

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listening to this, this is all
done before release date, so you know

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this is this is the little peek
behind the curtain of how podcasts are made.

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Yet we rely on our friends to
send us some content, and Christians

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sent this in and since then he
has played in Someone Shots with me and

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did a fantastic job. And there
was at least one point in hindsight,

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I should have done actly what I
just said, and I didn't. For

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him, it's tough on the fly. You know, we all make this.

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He played a paladin and we kind
of all forgot that land Hands is

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a thing, and they had a
whole party that did not buy a single

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potion. Yeah, and you become
the healer in that situation. Yeah,

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I forgot that that existence. Yeah, so that's just as much on me

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for forgetting it was a thing.
But you know I did take it.

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I circled it beforehand and say,
hey, here's the things that make palade

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and a paladin, and you know, maybe maybe smite a few things here

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and there. This is also a
situation where if you've got like a mixed

248
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table with one or two more experienced
players and you know, some rookies as

249
00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:40.879
the DM, you can just straight
up assign somebody to be somebody's rules buddy.

250
00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:44.600
You know, hey, Jason,
you've played a whole bunch. We're

251
00:16:44.600 --> 00:16:47.399
going to put you together with this
person whose first game it is just look

252
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:49.360
over the shoulder. If they forget
something, you can go, you know,

253
00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:52.240
don't play their character for them,
but I'm going to, like,

254
00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:55.879
you know, put it on you, put the cognitive load on you.

255
00:16:56.240 --> 00:16:59.080
You can trust to do that exactly. Yeah, rather rather than, like

256
00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:03.079
you said, because the d you're
juggling a lot of stuff already. But

257
00:17:03.079 --> 00:17:06.640
but you do and you're no,
but you do it in a helpful way.

258
00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:10.839
But you know, in are games
you'd absolutely do and you you are,

259
00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.920
like, you have an encyclopedic knowledge
of some of the rules. So

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00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:18.000
even I'm like, oh wait,
how does that work again? And You're

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00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:21.039
like, oh, this is it's
like this joke thank you, and I

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00:17:21.079 --> 00:17:22.400
don't. It doesn't hurt my feelings, you know, it doesn't bother.

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00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:30.119
The last thing super helpful, it's
super helpful and right exactly, some of

264
00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:33.000
our players, you know, they
might struggle because again we have a mixed

265
00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:38.519
bag of of of players at our
table that they don't necessarily know how The

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00:17:38.519 --> 00:17:41.599
best way is that their character works
are what they have at their disposal.

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00:17:42.359 --> 00:17:45.279
You know. Some of theTimes like
hey, do you have the spell?

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00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:48.000
Oh, I do have that.
Yeah, just you know, just keep

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in mind that you have that.
Yeah, And it's I think it's super

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helpful to your to your point,
that's that's actually are everyone find your buddy.

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Yeah, it's your job to keep
rules. There's a lot to keep

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track of. And if you've never
played any game like this, right because

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the Dungeon and Dragon is a very
it's a different kind of a game right

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00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:11.799
in these tabletop armgs. If you're
used to playing video games or you're used

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00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:15.720
to playing board games, it's different. It's the novel and the video game

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all at once. And there's a
lot to keep track of. The Other

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00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:21.119
thing that I want to touch on
is something else Jim said is the social

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00:18:21.160 --> 00:18:23.599
contract and that we're like the guy's
just pulling people out of the woodwork to

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00:18:23.720 --> 00:18:27.240
come sit at the table, and
like there is there is a social contractor

280
00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:33.519
yeah yeah, But like anytime you
and you're going to bring somebody else to

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a group, you know, I
feel like a conversation has to hey man,

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00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:41.279
or hey I'm I'm I want to
invite this other person. Is everybody

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00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:45.559
cool with that? And they don't
have to necessarily be cool with it,

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00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:48.720
but like at least give people a
heads up, like, hey, I'm

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00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:51.839
going to invite it's a person I
know, right, It's not just some

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00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:56.680
stranger that I'm just gonna throw into
this group here. Like at the store

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00:18:56.079 --> 00:19:00.799
when when we ran, I mean
it was groups of strange and new players

288
00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:03.680
would come in and stuff like that. But we had a very explicit code

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of conduct that you know, we
used as the baseline that you had to

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in principle agree to before you sat
down at the table. That kind of

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00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:15.559
laid it out for everybody, talking
about the things we expect and the things

292
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that you're not going to do and
things like that, and everybody that ran

293
00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:22.240
games at the store was good about
enforcing it. But also because we had

294
00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:26.599
that code, of conduct that everyone
agreed to before they sat down. The

295
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:30.640
players at the table also helped enforce
it, you know, just simply by

296
00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:33.920
social pressure, because that was how
they were all behaving and acting by example.

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00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:37.799
And it was great because we had, you know, everything from like

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young kids on the autism spectrum up
to you know, like like long time

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00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:48.559
old neck weard grognards like myself,
all getting along because we all knew what

300
00:19:48.680 --> 00:19:53.839
those expectations were. And so when
a stranger sat down, they weren't I

301
00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:57.359
mean, they were a stranger in
the sense that you hadn't met them before,

302
00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:00.839
but everybody knew what the x expectations
were and the rules were the same

303
00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:04.480
for everybody, so it wasn't just
like Joe random coming to the table,

304
00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:10.359
right and at a store, it's
a different expectation than at my friend's house,

305
00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:12.319
right, yeah, oh yeah,
yeah. And that's that's all is.

306
00:20:14.359 --> 00:20:18.119
Let let's let's star wrapping this up
a little bit. So the the

307
00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:21.119
actual questions that Christian had for us
was what do you do about a DM

308
00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:23.599
that does not scale for new players? You're allowed to ask your DM to

309
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:26.599
give you the experience that you want
to give, So, like if the

310
00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:30.039
game if the game wraps up and
you didn't have a good time, be

311
00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:32.839
like, hey, listen, this
was difficult for me for these reasons.

312
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:36.359
Can we start doing more stuff like
this? And if they say anything other

313
00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:37.599
than emphatic, yes, you go
play at a different table. Yeah,

314
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:41.720
yeah, I would agree. No
one is forced to be there. This

315
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:45.000
game taste a lot of hours and
life is short. Yeah, and there's

316
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:47.319
the there's the old No D and
D better than bad D and D.

317
00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:51.079
Yeah, but but bad D and
D is not the only D and D

318
00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:53.799
that there is, so you know, like in exactly the same way,

319
00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:56.920
like if you go on a shitty
first date, that doesn't mean you're done

320
00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:02.160
with dating forever. It means,
you know, you'll learn from that and

321
00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:04.119
to do it differently, you look
for something different next time. And D

322
00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:07.920
and D is exactly the same.
I just that's the most frustrating thing is

323
00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:11.519
when I hear, yeah, we
had a couple of bad D and D

324
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:14.039
games, so I didn't play D
and D for five years, Like,

325
00:21:14.200 --> 00:21:18.119
no, no, you just had
a bad table. Find another table.

326
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:21.759
There's great tables. There's probably more
good tables than there are bad tables.

327
00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:25.079
So it was in the same jump
back into it. That's my advice.

328
00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:27.519
In the same metaphor, pad relationship
can take you for five years like that,

329
00:21:27.519 --> 00:21:32.119
that could absolutely happen. But but
yeah, just like and learning from

330
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:34.920
the bad ones will teach you about
what you do want And that's in the

331
00:21:34.920 --> 00:21:38.119
same metaphor too. Yeah, and
I don't be afraid to ask for it.

332
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:42.960
Yeah, I think that's the important
thing, right is communication is super

333
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:48.880
important in any relationship, and it's
metaphors. It's great, But that to

334
00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:51.599
my point is right is the communication
part, Like, don't just say like

335
00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:55.680
it's bad day and day, ask
for good D and D. The GM

336
00:21:55.759 --> 00:21:59.680
might not even know what they're doing, you know what I mean, and

337
00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:03.240
you may looking for something that that
the DM cannot provide. It's it's not

338
00:22:03.240 --> 00:22:07.200
a style of the idea and this
is God is the same metaphor. But

339
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:08.440
if someone came up to me and
said, hey, I want a gritty

340
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:11.599
realism campaign where I want to keep
track of all spell components, I want

341
00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:15.480
to worry about stuff like the environment
and and and rations and things like that,

342
00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:18.160
and I'm just going to be like, yeah, that ain't Me's So

343
00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:21.039
it was very nice. It was
very nice to meet you, and I

344
00:22:21.079 --> 00:22:23.240
hope your next day was better.
But you and I know some dms that

345
00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:26.440
are like, you know, the
classic, like you know, first Edition

346
00:22:26.960 --> 00:22:29.759
Grizzled Oldheads. If I said,
hey, I want something that's silly and

347
00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:33.440
off the wall with tons of magic
items and and a wise crack and squirrel

348
00:22:33.480 --> 00:22:36.160
as my sidekick, and he'll be
like, what game are you playing?

349
00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:37.599
Meanwhile, I can call out many
of my friends and get that game.

350
00:22:40.279 --> 00:22:41.519
And then the last thing is that
this is unual question, but just like,

351
00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:44.759
I'm sorry you had that as your
first experience, Christian. Yeah,

352
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:48.640
and knowing you personally, I hope
that the games you played with me played

353
00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:51.000
with me twice. Now at the
time of this recording, we got another

354
00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:52.720
one scheduled, and I hope they've
they've been going better, and I hope

355
00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:56.200
we keep learning, and I hope
this becomes a real, real happy for

356
00:22:56.240 --> 00:23:00.200
you. It sounds like a fantastic
opportunity for a follow up. Yeah,

357
00:23:00.440 --> 00:23:06.759
yeah, Christian, you'll be receiving
our bill. Hello Adventurers, Thank you

358
00:23:06.839 --> 00:23:10.440
so much for listening. If you
enjoy the show, the absolute best thing

359
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:12.880
you can do to support us is
to subscribe, so you'll be notified when

360
00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:17.559
new episodes are released. You can
also leave us a review five stars.

361
00:23:17.559 --> 00:23:21.079
Of course, that will help us
get seen by more D and D players,

362
00:23:21.119 --> 00:23:22.920
and more than anything else, just
tell your friends about us. If

363
00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:26.440
you like what we're doing here,
then there's a good chance that your DM

364
00:23:26.519 --> 00:23:29.240
or your players will enjoy it too. And you don't need to loop gold

365
00:23:29.240 --> 00:23:32.319
to do any of that. We
appreciate your listening. Now back to the

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00:23:32.359 --> 00:23:37.160
show. Awesome, So let's get
to another one of these. This is

367
00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:41.799
from Jordan, and again Jordan is
one of the players at Mine and jos

368
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:45.599
game, So this is let's see
what Jordan's got. I suppose this is

369
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:56.119
aquirt question. What had crossed my
mind was does AM have some forethought in

370
00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:03.440
whether they are guiding the players towards
circumstances they're wanting them to go down?

371
00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:11.160
And if players roll badly or don't
go down and create a German direction,

372
00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:18.200
how does it hand with that?
So this is a question of I'm interpreting

373
00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:21.759
this two different ways. Short term
and long term can have different results with

374
00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:23.640
this or is this a one shot
or is this a long term campaign?

375
00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:30.119
And then the question sounds like the
the railroading debate. It's like how much,

376
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:34.640
how much you DMS kind of prepare
for you versus player or autonomy,

377
00:24:36.519 --> 00:24:40.559
And that's that's how I'm interpreting the
question. One. I really liked this

378
00:24:40.680 --> 00:24:41.960
question. I thought this was an
awesome question. Yeah, I agree,

379
00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:45.079
And I thought of it more.
And that's funny because I think of it

380
00:24:45.119 --> 00:24:48.599
more in the long term of a
campaign and building a character and like how

381
00:24:48.680 --> 00:24:52.720
much forethought you have of like where
this character's arc is going, where's going,

382
00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:56.440
where's going, where it's going to
end up, and how you're going

383
00:24:56.519 --> 00:24:59.079
to get there and stuff. And
then also so now we can take this

384
00:24:59.119 --> 00:25:03.039
from the short character, long term
character, and also short term story,

385
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:07.000
long term story, and I have
four different answers either, there's quite a

386
00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:10.759
few answers. Yeah. Yeah.
So my first thought is, since I

387
00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:15.240
primarily run one shots for public games, my perspective on this is that story

388
00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:21.000
wise, there is kind of a
destination that I kind of need the story

389
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:25.400
to go, and like there's a
way to do it without railroading them,

390
00:25:25.559 --> 00:25:27.240
but also kind of only giving them
the one option to go towards that,

391
00:25:27.720 --> 00:25:32.079
And I understand the debate of how
fair that is to them, But we've

392
00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:33.960
only got three hours to get this
thing done, and your parents are going

393
00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:38.000
to come pick you up. So
like, as far as short term game

394
00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:44.000
story wise, I know where I
need things to eventually end up, and

395
00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.480
I have ways of kind of making
you get there one way or the other.

396
00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:51.839
Short term character wise, we kind
of like, you know, in

397
00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:53.559
a one shot where this character is
not going to exist in a few hours

398
00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:56.359
before the game starts, I ask
you, you know, what's your character's

399
00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:00.000
whole deal, what makes them tick, and try to weave that into the

400
00:26:00.039 --> 00:26:03.039
story as we go and kind of
make some of those things the motivator to

401
00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:07.319
move the plots forward. Like one
of my characters her whole things as she

402
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:11.559
grew up Ferreal and she wanted to
make a hundred friends, and so I

403
00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:17.960
used that to motivate her to go
towards the next thing. One was like

404
00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:19.240
he had to figure out what this
ORB thing was, and I'm like,

405
00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:22.440
Okay, well this person might know
about it, when really I just need

406
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:26.319
them to just go talk to this
person. So short term story wise,

407
00:26:26.359 --> 00:26:30.079
I can use your character motivations to
move you towards where I need things to

408
00:26:30.119 --> 00:26:34.039
go. By the end of today, long term, all that's out the

409
00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:37.440
window, and I think I think
Joe, you might have more to say

410
00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:41.160
on this, but for me,
long term, it's like where the players

411
00:26:41.160 --> 00:26:44.279
go is where they go, and
I've got ideas for like what things I

412
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:47.079
want to happen, but like,
if that's what they don't do, that's

413
00:26:47.119 --> 00:26:49.640
what they don't do. Sometimes you
got to scrap a prepsession for it,

414
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:53.079
yeah, or use it later.
So I hate the term rail roading.

415
00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:59.960
I actually really buzzword, but it's
not a real thing. Yeah, because

416
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:04.559
again you've agreed, well, you've
agreed to play this game, and just

417
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:08.240
like any other game, like do
you call it railroading when like a mission

418
00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:12.160
comes up? And even in an
open quote unquote open world video game,

419
00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:15.599
like it's a mission, Like that's
how you get the campaign to continue.

420
00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:22.000
I will be And this might be
panantic even, but like video games by

421
00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:25.559
their very nature because they have to
be coded, every eventuality has to be

422
00:27:25.559 --> 00:27:27.799
programmed into that game. It's the
rails are built into the games, right,

423
00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:33.359
But so that's it's impossible to do
that as a human being preparing a

424
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:37.079
D and D game. It's also
what makes it really fun to be a

425
00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:44.240
DM or a GM for a tabletop
RPG is is the nature of that exact

426
00:27:44.279 --> 00:27:47.839
thing of like maybe I want you
to go down this alleyway and you don't,

427
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:52.279
or maybe there's a battle that I
want to have and and then you

428
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:55.759
talk your way out of it.
And so the answer to Jordan's question is

429
00:27:55.839 --> 00:28:02.160
yes, right, like, yes, do I want you to go a

430
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:06.880
certain way? And do I need
it to go a certain way to have

431
00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:11.559
the story continue? Yeah? Are
there ways to doing that that are less

432
00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:15.960
railroady quote unquote railroady than others?
Yeah? I think so. And the

433
00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:19.440
one thing that I've found is what
they call sandbox. It's a lot more

434
00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:26.079
prep but you essentially have like roads
that divert three or four different directions and

435
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:30.079
they all end up leading to the
same thing. So there's I mean,

436
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:33.200
that's a we could go in.
It's a huge episode to even go into

437
00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:37.720
that building a story essentially as a
sandboy, I already want to listen to

438
00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:40.720
that episode. We're gonna put that
on a list. But there's a there's

439
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:45.119
an article that I read on it. But essentially, so do I have

440
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:48.799
What I really wanted to answer is
do I have an idea of where this

441
00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:52.960
character's arc is going to take it? Yes? If I know you and

442
00:28:53.039 --> 00:28:56.319
I know your character, and we've
done the work to build that character in

443
00:28:56.359 --> 00:29:00.720
their backstory. To your point,
we are we're going to eve that into

444
00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:06.680
the story. It's going to help
point me as the GM, in the

445
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:08.519
direction that we're going to take the
story. We're going to bring people in

446
00:29:08.559 --> 00:29:12.839
from that backstory where events are going
to happen. That that helped push you

447
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:18.079
in that direction. But to Jordan's
question, right, it's not always going

448
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:19.839
to go that way. Sometimes the
dice are going to tell a different story,

449
00:29:21.480 --> 00:29:23.279
and sometimes the players are going to
help tell a different story. And

450
00:29:23.319 --> 00:29:27.880
that's where I think it's fun.
Being a GM is like I now have

451
00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:34.480
to figure out how I'm going to
move my pieces to intersect with the story

452
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:37.200
that my table is telling. Yeah, it didn't work out this way,

453
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:40.720
so how can we get there?
No, you don't want to You don't

454
00:29:40.720 --> 00:29:44.480
want to have a character whose goal
is to be the greatest warrior from this

455
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.039
country and then like the dice don't
work out. You're like, Okay,

456
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.119
well I guess he's a chef now, And I mean that's interesting though,

457
00:29:52.319 --> 00:29:56.640
Like that now now it's like now
it's really it's a lot, it's a

458
00:29:56.680 --> 00:30:00.880
lot more to realize that the violent
ways that he was taking are are all

459
00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:04.000
for nought, and he finds real
passionate. Maybe the greatest warrior was being

460
00:30:04.039 --> 00:30:08.400
a chef the whole time. Is
that maybe the battles or the sushi we

461
00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:11.640
made along the way, Yeah,
there you go, just accidentally made a

462
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:15.279
better character. Okay, bad metaphor, but good character. Right. Yeah,

463
00:30:15.480 --> 00:30:18.200
But that's that's what's really cool about
this game, is like we couldn't

464
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:22.079
even real road that joke, Joe. No, there is something to hear

465
00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:26.680
about having being be pre planned,
which is, you know, if every

466
00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:30.960
story beat is pre planned, that's
what railroading is, where you're forcing the

467
00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:33.920
characters to go down the one track
that you laid for that. I want

468
00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:37.319
to go check this out over here, it's it's closed. That's you can't.

469
00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:38.960
There's there's a fork in the road. Okay, we go left.

470
00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:42.559
Okay, so you go to the
right, and so that that's that joke's

471
00:30:42.599 --> 00:30:45.440
on you. That's the bad part. Left and right are built the same

472
00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:49.160
exactly. We call it the house
moving castle. There's a castle. Just

473
00:30:49.319 --> 00:30:52.160
use it all the time. Yeah, there's a there's a castle posistance to

474
00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:55.480
the east. Okay, I guess
we go west and I guess his castles

475
00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:59.319
in the west now castle, Yeah, with the blue flag. But the

476
00:31:00.119 --> 00:31:03.400
to answer the question is like how
much of it is pre planned? Some

477
00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:08.519
you may have bits of the story, maybe maybe beats, and maybe a

478
00:31:08.839 --> 00:31:15.440
general idea, like a fuzzy version
of the final outcome, But planning versus

479
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:21.519
reacting is a huge part of it. And there's also a very big distinction

480
00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:23.599
to be made in any given D
and D campaign, even in a one

481
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:30.400
shot, between the plot and the
mechanics, because you know, if people

482
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:36.000
are going into town and you've got
the town written up and you've got you

483
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:37.359
know, you've got the tavern,
and you've got the Thieves Guild, and

484
00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:41.480
you've got the you know whatever,
city Hall and the cathedral, they can

485
00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:45.680
go wherever they want and you're good
to go. But if like they're down

486
00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:48.000
in the middle of the Dungeons,
sitting outside the door to the you know,

487
00:31:48.039 --> 00:31:52.200
the temple to the Big Bad and
you spent the week prepping that and

488
00:31:52.319 --> 00:31:53.960
suddenly everyone decides, you know what, We're just going to blow off the

489
00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:00.759
temple and go do something else completely
shopping. Yeah, like that's your you

490
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:02.920
know, you're kind of within your
rights. As the DM say, look,

491
00:32:02.920 --> 00:32:06.160
guys, I prepared this, We
said last week, this was going

492
00:32:06.200 --> 00:32:09.079
to happen. You know, let's
let's let's do this thing, because you

493
00:32:09.160 --> 00:32:14.440
do need to do a certain amount
of because of the rules complexity of DD,

494
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:17.680
You've got to have stuff ready to
go, and so kind of making

495
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:22.599
that distinction between there are places where
you can go where you want in the

496
00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:27.000
story and there's other places where you
know you're kind of committed to that.

497
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:30.680
And like we said, you know, another episode we talked about the social

498
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:34.279
contract, and the social contract is
kind of the DM is going to do

499
00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:37.240
a certain amount of work and you
agree that you're gonna you know, you're

500
00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:40.640
gonna let that pay off for everybody. Yeah, as where I describe a

501
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:45.200
cut scene, Yeah, the analogy
I'd like to use is like the campaign

502
00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:52.480
shouldn't be a railroad, And like
I don't love that sandbox analogy because it

503
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:54.440
does kind of imply you can go
in any direction. I like to think

504
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:59.720
of it like a river. Right, Sometimes it's super wide. You can

505
00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:01.680
start up at the island, you
can you know, maybe go upstream a

506
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:05.440
little bit, stop on shore for
a little while, but it's all kind

507
00:33:05.480 --> 00:33:07.440
of going in the same direction,
and every now and then it's going to

508
00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:10.920
narrow to where you've only got one
choice. Sometimes you can go down little

509
00:33:10.960 --> 00:33:15.279
side tributaries and spend some time there, you know, or you can just

510
00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:17.599
go straight down it. But you
know, if you're all playing a campaign

511
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:22.119
and you've agreed that it's going to
go somewhere, because it's totally cool if

512
00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:23.519
you just go, yeah, we're
just going to play a bunch of modules

513
00:33:23.599 --> 00:33:27.359
right in a row, and they
don't necessarily have to have any connective tissue

514
00:33:27.480 --> 00:33:30.920
because we're just more interested, you
know, kind of having fun kicking doors

515
00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:34.039
and killing monsters. That that's a
totally fine way to run a game.

516
00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:37.759
I've heard of campaigns that are like, you know, these like twenty year

517
00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:39.440
long campaigns, like, yeah,
I still play with the same group twenty

518
00:33:39.519 --> 00:33:44.720
years. Like my character has a
family, and they're like kind of mundane,

519
00:33:45.240 --> 00:33:46.240
like to me, to me,
yeah, And I think that's great

520
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:50.200
if you're like, yeah, like
we own a business, Yeah, we

521
00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:53.000
run a business, and you know, last week we got audited by by

522
00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:58.720
the Fantasy and I'm like, yeah, it's awful, just like progress is

523
00:33:58.759 --> 00:34:00.839
to the point which just a lame
dad, But they know they really like

524
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:06.799
it's the Sims boulders Gate Edition R. And I was like, cool,

525
00:34:07.079 --> 00:34:09.360
Like, it's just it's not for
me. And that's where would I would

526
00:34:09.400 --> 00:34:14.360
have a conversation with fine. One
of the things I like to do,

527
00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:16.360
especially if it's a if you're playing
a one shot or like a short series

528
00:34:16.400 --> 00:34:22.360
of games, is you can give
people choices, but you ask an establishing

529
00:34:22.559 --> 00:34:27.199
question that kind of connects them all
together. Right. You know, you

530
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:34.119
can say something like build whatever kind
of character you want, but include why

531
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.039
are you in prison for a crime
you didn't commit? You know, and

532
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:40.480
start everybody all together kind of in
the same boat. And if you want

533
00:34:40.519 --> 00:34:44.280
to get more specific, you know, why are you in prison for a

534
00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:46.519
crime you didn't commit? And why
is a big, bad, evil guy

535
00:34:46.840 --> 00:34:52.559
responsible for that? And that gives
everybody reason to throw in together and you

536
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:57.800
know, have a motivation without telling
them specifically Okay, your dad is this

537
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:00.000
guy and this happened to them,
and but just just to answer these one

538
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:04.400
or two questions and but then within
that you can be as free as you

539
00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:07.800
want. That's a real nice way
to kind of find a balance between like

540
00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:09.280
you say, you know the railroad
and then just kind of let it like

541
00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:14.440
a lot up whatever store they want
to gat them the plot hook for one

542
00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:15.519
shot that I got invite to see
like a year ago. No really,

543
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:19.960
yeah, excellent, that's a great
way to start again. Yeah, I

544
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:23.159
do like the river analogy. I'm
going to treat this as the highway,

545
00:35:23.719 --> 00:35:28.760
where like your destiny is the interstate. So like you're driving prazy to Florida,

546
00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:30.039
and of course you want to end
up a Disney World. But there's

547
00:35:30.039 --> 00:35:34.079
all kinds of attractions along the way, right, and you know, sometimes

548
00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:36.960
you want to see the world's biggest
foil ball, and sometimes you really just

549
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:38.960
think the bathroom, and you know, there's little little pit stops of Starbucks

550
00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:42.760
and stuff. But like there's all
kinds of exits, and depending on how

551
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:45.559
much of a rush you're in to
get to your destination, you can do

552
00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:47.679
some cool side stuff. Yeah,
there's like a ratty like a big ratty

553
00:35:47.719 --> 00:35:51.760
fiberglass t rex. I'm going to
stop there for a little while. Of

554
00:35:51.760 --> 00:35:55.039
course that's going onely so yeah.
Yeah, the world's largest cup of coffee.

555
00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:59.119
I go for the good world's arts
cup of coffee. Jordan. I

556
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:00.840
hope that helps you out. Yeah, thanks for every Thanks for stening that

557
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:07.440
in all right. Our next question
comes in from Caleb. Hello, DMS,

558
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:12.239
I was wondering how you go about
teaching the game. Do you recommend

559
00:36:12.280 --> 00:36:15.320
YouTube videos or do you treat it
like a board game and do a tutorial

560
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:21.280
before you start? Or is it
best to learn why you play? So

561
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:22.599
we'll do like, not only an
episode in this or why I do a

562
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:29.519
series on how to teach, like
like really in depth, but for the

563
00:36:29.559 --> 00:36:32.639
sake of this episode. My quick
answer is I get new players at every

564
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:36.519
game that I run. If they've
never ever played before, I'm just gonna

565
00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:38.079
assume this is coming from nothing.
They just they saw the movie, they

566
00:36:38.079 --> 00:36:43.039
watched Stranger Things once they heard Balder's
Gate was a good game, and then

567
00:36:43.079 --> 00:36:46.199
I have to find them sounds on
my table. So I would first ask

568
00:36:46.239 --> 00:36:47.880
them, Okay, what do you
know? And if they say nothing,

569
00:36:49.159 --> 00:36:52.119
it's like, right cool, Here's
what we can do. Here is a

570
00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:54.039
twenty sided die. We're going to
roll this for almost everything until I'll tell

571
00:36:54.039 --> 00:36:58.239
you otherwise. Here's a character sheet
that I made up already. Do you

572
00:36:58.239 --> 00:36:59.840
want to play this kind of thing, this kind of thing, or this

573
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:01.320
kind of thing? And then we
find a character for them. Cool.

574
00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:05.679
Here's what these things mean. Here's
a couple of things that you can do.

575
00:37:05.679 --> 00:37:08.039
Don't worry too too much about any
of those things until I kind of

576
00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:12.039
like give you the hint that maybe
you need to worry about those kind of

577
00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:15.519
things. I tell them, you
tell me what you want to do,

578
00:37:15.639 --> 00:37:19.280
and I will interpret it into rules. If it doesn't work for your character,

579
00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:21.559
if it's totally impossible, I will
tell you, and I will tell

580
00:37:21.559 --> 00:37:23.320
you why. If it's only kind
of possible, we're going to roll to

581
00:37:23.320 --> 00:37:27.280
see if it happens. And if
it's super easy, it's just going to

582
00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:30.079
happen. A Dylan just kind of
you know, be part of the story,

583
00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:35.239
get in the headspace of the character, have fun. That's what we

584
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:37.519
do for day one. And then
if they come back and say, cool,

585
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:39.960
here's some mechanics to worry about.
Here's some things to keep track of,

586
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:43.559
and we kind of just add a
little bit every time, which kind

587
00:37:43.599 --> 00:37:46.000
of makes it a little bit less
of a like board game or video game

588
00:37:46.039 --> 00:37:50.639
experience and a little more of like
a skill that they're learning. I did

589
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:52.880
the same thing with my guitar students
for a year. I talk guitar for

590
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:55.840
nineteen years and here's you know to
play guitar before cool. Here's a couple

591
00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:59.239
of chords, here's how we use
them, and here's a song. And

592
00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:01.480
then as we go and over the
course of years and years, here's another

593
00:38:01.519 --> 00:38:04.880
skill you can learn. Here's another
way you can use it. Here's a

594
00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.280
more complicated song that you can play. Now that's the two minute version of

595
00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:12.960
how I teach the game. I
think if it's at all possible, get

596
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:19.519
your new players together and have everybody
sit down and build characters together, kind

597
00:38:19.519 --> 00:38:22.000
of with the books open, all
talking about it all, kind of building

598
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.760
your characters sort of at the same
time, going back and forth. You're

599
00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:30.039
going to be a fighter, That's
what this means, because then everybody.

600
00:38:30.199 --> 00:38:32.800
One of the problems that new players
can really have is you can kind of

601
00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:37.159
get siloed in doing your own thing
because you're like, I'm going to play

602
00:38:37.159 --> 00:38:39.119
a fighter. I only need to
worry about what fighters have going on.

603
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:45.360
And that's not the greatest way to
learn the game, because there's bits and

604
00:38:45.400 --> 00:38:47.760
pieces of what's going on in the
game sort of coded in all of the

605
00:38:47.800 --> 00:38:52.159
different character classes. And if you
have everybody sit down together, if you've

606
00:38:52.159 --> 00:38:54.960
got the luxury of doing that,
which you know, if you're doing a

607
00:38:54.960 --> 00:38:58.920
one shot at a store and you're
just whatever, handing out pregens or something,

608
00:38:59.119 --> 00:39:00.559
you don't necessarily have the luxury to
do that, but you know,

609
00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:04.679
if it's a new campaign. When
I ran at the store and we ran

610
00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:08.679
kind of like like ninety whatever ninety
day, like three month campaigns, little

611
00:39:08.719 --> 00:39:14.760
mini campaigns that would then they then
start over every three months so that new

612
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:19.559
players could have a hook, a
way to get in. It always started

613
00:39:19.559 --> 00:39:22.960
with a great, big, everybody
builds their characters altogether session because that was

614
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:29.079
a really really cool way. And
in another episode we talked about how dms

615
00:39:29.119 --> 00:39:34.400
can assign buddies to people. That's
a great way to like right from the

616
00:39:34.519 --> 00:39:37.559
jump. You know, Jason,
you've built a hundred characters. You know,

617
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:42.239
I'm going to put you together with
this person that hasn't built one before,

618
00:39:42.840 --> 00:39:44.400
you know, and they're going to
make the decisions, but you're going

619
00:39:44.480 --> 00:39:46.480
to look over their shoulder and answer
questions about what's going on. You know.

620
00:39:46.800 --> 00:39:51.719
It's good like team building exercise too. Yeah, yes, especially for

621
00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:54.840
like a longer campaign and if people
don't know it, because it's going to

622
00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:59.880
be a mixed group of friends I
don't know anybody friends, it's a stranger,

623
00:40:00.079 --> 00:40:04.280
So a strangers are not strangers is
great with them to not become strangers.

624
00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:06.119
Yeah, and if it's the friends
that sounds like that. I mean,

625
00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:08.320
this is good ice breaking or just
team right, just fun and then

626
00:40:08.360 --> 00:40:10.280
getting like, oh, like you're
going to do that. That's a good

627
00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:14.960
idea, And I wonder if there's
a way that I can kind of dovetail

628
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:17.320
my story into that or something.
Yeah, and you've got the added bonuses

629
00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:22.599
the DM that like you're hearing people
put their back stories together like as they're

630
00:40:22.639 --> 00:40:27.039
building it, and you can maybe
ask them a few leading questions, you

631
00:40:27.039 --> 00:40:29.840
know, like, oh, well, if there was a particular cult that

632
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:31.679
was active in the city, you
know, what would that look like?

633
00:40:31.719 --> 00:40:35.760
Do you think that you know anything
to do with your character? Kind of

634
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:38.599
thing like that, And so you
know, you can kind of start to

635
00:40:38.639 --> 00:40:43.239
get an idea, like if you
don't have a big overarching campaign idea,

636
00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:46.079
or even if you do, you
can start thinking about ways to weave them

637
00:40:46.119 --> 00:40:51.079
in where they're all at the table
and you can ask questions kind of all

638
00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:54.599
together as opposed to you know,
over the course of two weeks, you

639
00:40:54.639 --> 00:40:58.960
know, half a dozen people send
you separate emails that you got to read

640
00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:01.039
with what's going going on. It's
a lot more organic, and you kind

641
00:41:01.079 --> 00:41:06.719
of that we do it that way, and if you're a power hungry GM,

642
00:41:07.039 --> 00:41:09.400
you can control what kind of character
your players build and make sure that

643
00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:16.079
it's not something absurd. Yeah,
call back and yeah, now I'm looking

644
00:41:16.079 --> 00:41:20.679
at this mostly from a one shop
perspective, just that that's from most of

645
00:41:20.679 --> 00:41:25.639
my experiences. Having them build their
own characters is like a they came back

646
00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:30.440
because they had a good time the
first time, handing them a character to

647
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:35.679
just like here you go, let's
just play. You think this is a

648
00:41:35.679 --> 00:41:39.000
hobby, and I've had people come
for their first games. They think it's

649
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:42.000
going to be something that they were
interested. They want to try it out,

650
00:41:42.039 --> 00:41:45.159
and it's not for them, and
that's cool, but they still like

651
00:41:45.199 --> 00:41:47.159
the culture and they go play ball
to skate on PlayStation instead, and you're

652
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:52.360
happy to have them and just really
big Chris Pine fans. Sure, yeah,

653
00:41:52.440 --> 00:41:57.559
and why wouldn't you make hashtag guilty? So they did a good time,

654
00:41:57.559 --> 00:41:59.599
they come back and now they wanted
to learn more about it, and

655
00:41:59.719 --> 00:42:02.519
so like what I was saying about
giving them new skills to learn. Building

656
00:42:02.519 --> 00:42:06.760
your own character from scratch is absolutely
one of those skills that they can be

657
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:08.519
learning. Yeah, I think it
is important. And this is a kind

658
00:42:08.519 --> 00:42:10.480
of a I don't want to say
a lost art because then I sound a

659
00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:14.519
thousand years old, but I think
there is a lost art to building your

660
00:42:14.599 --> 00:42:17.480
character from scratch with nothing but books
and pencil and paper. It is.

661
00:42:17.519 --> 00:42:21.159
And that's going to lead to what
I was going to say, And I

662
00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:27.639
send them to D and D Beyond
yp I love that website and accompanying accompanying

663
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.920
app now not not so much for
character building, but as a as a

664
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:35.880
GM. But no D and D
Beyond because I can share things like the

665
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.840
player's handbook with them, of course, and they don't have to run out

666
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:42.400
and buy it if they're not sure
this is a hobby, because it's an

667
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:46.320
expensive hobby to get into. If
well, maybe challenge I'll challenge that.

668
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:49.679
But it doesn't have to be,
but it can be. And so what

669
00:42:49.719 --> 00:42:53.039
I want them to do is take
a look at the mechanics of how to

670
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:58.119
play the game right at its core, which I guess you can get for

671
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:02.239
free online really pretty you know,
like it gets the price of dice,

672
00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:07.840
right, yeah, the online so
but I want them to go there.

673
00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:13.119
And I'm gonna also because the way
that I kind of learned right because I

674
00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:16.320
had the ten thousand foot view of
it and then but I didn't understand the

675
00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:20.000
mechanics of like, well, how
does a turn work? And how does

676
00:43:20.719 --> 00:43:23.800
what's the GM or DM going to
say? And how is that? And

677
00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:28.920
so I listened to media. I
took in D and D or tabletop RPG

678
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:32.280
media and like, listen to Critical
Role and one of our players at our

679
00:43:32.320 --> 00:43:37.360
table listen to nad pod and I
found a whole new thing that he's into

680
00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:40.519
now. Yeah, most like most
of it helped him kind of understand and

681
00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:46.639
not I guess visualize like how the
game works. And I think that helped

682
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:51.599
a lot. Yeah. Now for
mechanics like combat, and I tell new

683
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:53.440
players all the time, like,
listen, there's the rules in this game

684
00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:57.760
are kind of fast and loose until
we get into combat when they actually matter.

685
00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:00.519
So outside of combat, you just
tell me which want to do and

686
00:44:00.519 --> 00:44:02.519
I'll tell you how it works.
That's kind of what everyone does. And

687
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:06.239
in combat, I'm going to take
care of most of the legwork for you.

688
00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:10.280
But I have a pre printed pdf
that that I've had for like at

689
00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:14.320
least a year now with all of
the things you can do. Yeah,

690
00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:17.119
here's all the things you can do. Here's attack, defend, disengage everything

691
00:44:17.519 --> 00:44:21.480
the best board games give you do
dip, dive and dodge, you know

692
00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:22.920
what I mean, like the best
board games, Like here's what you can

693
00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:27.639
do on a turn yep, So
I love that. I also spent about

694
00:44:27.639 --> 00:44:30.159
thirty dollars on a little lemonator and
I've got that in my bag ready to

695
00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:32.960
go to hand out. And if
they want to take dry erase markers and

696
00:44:34.239 --> 00:44:37.159
mark them up, cool and wipe
them later, so that they've got that

697
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:39.440
little cheat sheet ready to go.
They don't feel the social burden of asking

698
00:44:39.480 --> 00:44:43.800
one hundred questions. It's like,
hey, it's all here. So this

699
00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:45.719
is everything you can do. Here's
a couple of things you probably actually are

700
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:49.320
going to do, because no one
ever does this, this or this unless

701
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:52.599
you know here's what it does.
And if you find yourself needing to disengage,

702
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:55.159
you might need to disengage. So
to really just come down answering the

703
00:44:55.199 --> 00:44:59.599
question, handing them as much as
I can pre done, explaining what they

704
00:45:00.119 --> 00:45:02.559
cannon can't do or or where they
can try to do not as much where

705
00:45:02.559 --> 00:45:06.280
you can't do because like if if
they tell me they want to do something

706
00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:08.679
and it's just totally impossible, then
your character is just going to fail and

707
00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:13.400
that might have consequences, and that's
you know, we make that clearer from

708
00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:15.159
the front. Feeling can be fun, though, feeling can be great.

709
00:45:15.239 --> 00:45:19.559
Yeah, I like having to forget
if I said this another episode. I

710
00:45:19.679 --> 00:45:22.360
kind of like trying if I can, if the schedule's add up, if

711
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:24.039
I can get one of my more
experienced friends to come sitting in at one

712
00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:30.760
of these public games and be my
ringer but also be my anti ringer,

713
00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:34.199
where if the players are going to
screw up and somebody has to take the

714
00:45:34.239 --> 00:45:38.960
fall, I'll kill him with impunity. I will flat out kill him just

715
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:44.480
to pay. We can make an
example out of them. Well but I

716
00:45:44.519 --> 00:45:45.760
mean, I mean, and we
laugh about that. But the other thing

717
00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:51.280
is that like they can model what
that means in the game, Like you

718
00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:53.079
can kill their character and then go, oh that sucks. Oh man,

719
00:45:53.119 --> 00:45:57.039
okay, give me ten minutes.
I'll write up a new character and everyone

720
00:45:57.039 --> 00:46:01.000
else sees that it's no big deal, you know, Whereas like like,

721
00:46:01.039 --> 00:46:04.639
if you don't know and you've never
played the press like, you might feel

722
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:07.480
this tremendous pressure or something like that. But if you've got someone at the

723
00:46:07.519 --> 00:46:08.760
table who gets it and is just
like, yeah, no, no,

724
00:46:08.880 --> 00:46:13.440
it's no big deal. We just
keep playing, absolutely, that's that's super

725
00:46:13.480 --> 00:46:15.320
raceful to have. Yeah, that's
another thing that helps us separate D and

726
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:20.199
D from video games, where the
video game is you have a protect you

727
00:46:20.199 --> 00:46:23.159
don't. You don't have to start
your may Okay, so now you dies,

728
00:46:23.199 --> 00:46:30.039
We're going to continue as Luigi no
he sucks. Yes, So being

729
00:46:30.039 --> 00:46:32.079
able to have someone else is and
maybe your table won't have that option.

730
00:46:32.119 --> 00:46:37.239
That's something you got to just explain
from the start. But we this is

731
00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:38.079
going to be on the list of
episodes to make. I want to make

732
00:46:38.119 --> 00:46:42.559
sure we do this right and that
it becomes a resource for other people to

733
00:46:42.679 --> 00:46:46.079
use for some time. But we'll
probably do like a multi part series on

734
00:46:46.159 --> 00:46:52.239
how to properly teach brand new players
in way more depth than we just so,

735
00:46:52.360 --> 00:46:54.159
Caleb, I hope that was helpful
if you're teaching new players. I

736
00:46:54.159 --> 00:46:58.280
hope you can use some of that
where if you are hoping to be taught

737
00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:01.280
better that's so, that's how I
would hel Yeah, but sounds like the

738
00:47:02.199 --> 00:47:06.920
TLD are there for the Like I
think he offered us like three options.

739
00:47:07.199 --> 00:47:10.360
All of those options are good.
Learning through play is absolutely the best one

740
00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:14.320
if you can only have to pick
one. Yes, Yeah, I like

741
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:16.199
that one. Yeah, And I
think that's that's pretty much with without actually

742
00:47:16.320 --> 00:47:19.199
using the phrase, I think that
is pretty much how I described it,

743
00:47:19.480 --> 00:47:22.320
which like, hey, here's what
we can do and let's go. Yeah,

744
00:47:22.400 --> 00:47:24.960
depending on how you learn. But
yeah, I like the idea of

745
00:47:25.119 --> 00:47:28.880
introducing new tools every time they come
back. Yeah, that's great. That's

746
00:47:28.880 --> 00:47:31.880
a good one. I would do
one more quick one here. This is

747
00:47:31.960 --> 00:47:35.760
coming from Ken, another one of
our players, Joe, and I just

748
00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:37.880
like that. I just like this
question as a little little palate cleanser at

749
00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:43.719
the end of the episode. Here, that's coming from Ken. Hey,

750
00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:46.480
Jason, Ken here, so just
want to note from your perspective, what

751
00:47:46.559 --> 00:47:52.199
would be the perfect d n D
campaign. So this question is just for

752
00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:55.239
me out of think he knew who
else is on the show, and there

753
00:47:55.280 --> 00:47:58.559
was a good chance you weren't slated
to be on the show at the time,

754
00:47:58.639 --> 00:48:01.960
Joe. But so what's your what's
your ideal campaign. We're bringing this

755
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:06.840
back to the dat's metaphor what's your
what's a perfect like? But for D

756
00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:13.079
and B it's one where the players
all get to do cool stuff and it's

757
00:48:13.159 --> 00:48:15.639
not too easy but not too difficult. I'm not sure. I mean,

758
00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:20.119
I like the campaign that we're doing
now. It's a lot of fun.

759
00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:23.079
As a GM, it gives me
a lot of opportunities to do a lot

760
00:48:23.079 --> 00:48:27.920
of different things. But yeah,
I just basically the campaign I'm looking for,

761
00:48:27.960 --> 00:48:30.599
my dream campaign is for everybody just
to have a great time at the

762
00:48:30.599 --> 00:48:35.920
table. That's a wonderful compound answer, Joe. But it's the truth.

763
00:48:36.239 --> 00:48:39.320
It's I know, it's like world
peace, you know, but it's the

764
00:48:39.400 --> 00:48:44.679
true person believe everybody. I don't
think that I have a perfect campaign in

765
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:46.599
mind. I just want to I
want to have fun and use a lot

766
00:48:46.599 --> 00:48:52.960
of different voices, which is three
different Scottish perfect or ideal is too high

767
00:48:53.079 --> 00:48:55.480
bar to set because then you really
need like I don't think so. I

768
00:48:55.480 --> 00:49:00.760
don't think so because I've already run
my ideal campaign. So what was that?

769
00:49:00.760 --> 00:49:06.760
That was? We started it out. If you've ever read Perdido Street

770
00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:09.480
Station by China Mayville, which is
a fantasy novel, kind of like a

771
00:49:09.679 --> 00:49:15.920
modern, weird fantasy novel that takes
place in this gigantic kind of country sized

772
00:49:16.119 --> 00:49:22.199
fantasy city that has all these different
neighborhoods and stuff like that, so you

773
00:49:22.199 --> 00:49:24.840
know, kind of city stated the
Invincible Overlord kind of thing. I ran

774
00:49:25.079 --> 00:49:30.559
an urban fantasy campaign. What I
said was, when you create your character,

775
00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:36.960
create the neighborhood that your character comes
from in the city. And then

776
00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:43.159
the campaign was all about like everybody
had something going on in their neighborhood,

777
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:47.559
but they all tied together to like
the politics of the whole city and stuff

778
00:49:47.599 --> 00:49:52.280
like this. And then within that
we kind of played some adventures where we

779
00:49:52.360 --> 00:49:55.239
sort of got everybody together and got
them involved in what was going on,

780
00:49:55.320 --> 00:49:59.559
and you know, got a close
knit group. And then one by one

781
00:49:59.679 --> 00:50:02.480
I said, okay, you tell
me what, like your perfect idea of

782
00:50:02.519 --> 00:50:06.559
an adventure is, Like, what
adventure do you want me to create for

783
00:50:06.639 --> 00:50:09.440
you that the group will go through
and then one by one will go through

784
00:50:09.480 --> 00:50:13.679
it for everybody. And the guy
playing the dwarven fighter was like, I

785
00:50:13.719 --> 00:50:17.199
want a Western I want a dwarve
in Western And so I wrote a dwarf

786
00:50:17.280 --> 00:50:22.679
in Western so the dire cattle stampede
through the streets of the city and stuff

787
00:50:22.719 --> 00:50:24.960
like, you know, through the
dwarven neighborhood. And another guy was a

788
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.599
police inspector. This was in fourth
edition, so he was playing on Marshall

789
00:50:30.039 --> 00:50:32.559
and he was like, I want
to do, you know, a noir

790
00:50:32.679 --> 00:50:37.000
style murder investigation, and so,
you know, I did a noir style

791
00:50:37.079 --> 00:50:40.440
murder for investigation for them, and
somebody else, you know, was like

792
00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:45.280
they were a wizard who was a
librarian, you know, was their job,

793
00:50:45.320 --> 00:50:47.719
and they're like, I want to
you know, I want a crazy

794
00:50:47.800 --> 00:50:52.760
magical library adventure. And we did
that, and so that kind of thing

795
00:50:52.800 --> 00:50:57.320
where like I talked before about establishing
questions, so I have that establishing question

796
00:50:57.519 --> 00:50:59.840
We all know it's going to take
place in the bounds of this city.

797
00:51:00.119 --> 00:51:02.119
And like you know, at the
beginning, we said like we're going to

798
00:51:02.199 --> 00:51:06.239
dive under the city. We might
climb up into the towers of the city,

799
00:51:06.679 --> 00:51:08.920
but it's never leaving the city,
like we're you know, however high

800
00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:13.039
level we go, we're always going
to find something to do in the city.

801
00:51:13.039 --> 00:51:15.079
It's not going to you know,
we're not going to go tripsing off

802
00:51:15.119 --> 00:51:17.960
to other planes of existence and all
this kind of stuff and it was amazing

803
00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:22.119
and we had a fantastic time,
and uh, you know, I would

804
00:51:22.119 --> 00:51:23.639
love to run a game like that
again. And if I ever, you

805
00:51:23.679 --> 00:51:25.800
know, had a group that was
like, we want to play for years,

806
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:28.719
and we all want to play together
and we want to do something cool,

807
00:51:29.079 --> 00:51:31.400
that's the that is what I would
set up because hmm, god,

808
00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:36.239
that game was fun to fun to
run, but it was also a ship

809
00:51:36.360 --> 00:51:38.840
ton of prep. So one of
the things about my I Feel game is

810
00:51:39.239 --> 00:51:43.840
I need at least ten hours a
week to work on it, which like

811
00:51:44.800 --> 00:51:46.280
as an adult with a life,
that is, you know, when I

812
00:51:46.320 --> 00:51:50.199
own the store, I could justify
it, right, and because that was

813
00:51:50.239 --> 00:51:52.880
when I did it, because these
people were actually playing, because these people

814
00:51:52.880 --> 00:51:57.639
were actually paying to play in the
store, So you know, I could

815
00:51:57.679 --> 00:52:00.760
call it, I could call it
labor. But it was super fun.

816
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:04.079
I would love to do something like
that again. That sounds like that sounds

817
00:52:04.079 --> 00:52:07.000
like the way to make like the
perfect game if you're if you're going for

818
00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:10.159
it, if perfection is your goal, then like having every player just show

819
00:52:10.239 --> 00:52:13.239
up to be like, hey,
I want these things please. It's like

820
00:52:13.239 --> 00:52:15.400
a Mongolian barbecue. It's like each
player's got the little plate and then you

821
00:52:15.519 --> 00:52:20.320
the DM got the little circle stove
and you with giant chopsticks and you're you're

822
00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:22.280
cooking up their Mongolian grill. But
it was also a really good crew.

823
00:52:22.320 --> 00:52:25.280
I mean, you know, like
like the kind of like, well,

824
00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:30.719
first, I want to have the
perfect table of people whose play styles all

825
00:52:30.760 --> 00:52:36.039
compliment each other and get along great, and they all love the way I

826
00:52:36.199 --> 00:52:37.559
DM. So there's like, you
know, there's a lot of stuff you

827
00:52:37.559 --> 00:52:43.599
gotta comesarily always have control of.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's really what

828
00:52:43.639 --> 00:52:45.079
I want, right, It's just
everybody to be at the same table.

829
00:52:45.119 --> 00:52:50.880
I'm just like I want like three
friends just in general. Start there.

830
00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:58.000
That got dark real fast. No
no, no, if I was bringing

831
00:52:58.119 --> 00:53:01.280
up like my ideal campaign and like
if and I feel like this might be

832
00:53:01.559 --> 00:53:04.960
my interpretation of the spirit of the
questions, like what do I look for

833
00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:07.760
in a game? And like some
this this is kind of what I said

834
00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:09.920
earlier. I figured if it was
this episode or or the or the previous

835
00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:16.239
one, but where finding a a
DM that matches your play style? I

836
00:53:16.320 --> 00:53:20.719
might have even been earlier in this
episode we recorded for a while now but

837
00:53:20.920 --> 00:53:24.880
where like, I don't see games
like I know, the gritty realism,

838
00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.079
keeping track of everything, dying in
the elements. I don't think that sounds

839
00:53:29.119 --> 00:53:30.800
like fun. I like a little
bit of Looney Tunes in my game.

840
00:53:30.840 --> 00:53:34.719
I like, I like, I
like silly characters, but memorable ones.

841
00:53:35.199 --> 00:53:37.679
I want to fall in love with
the with this, with the silly wise

842
00:53:37.719 --> 00:53:42.400
crack and sidekick, and then cry
when he gets taken from me. So

843
00:53:42.639 --> 00:53:45.840
I I like, I like sillier
games, and I like I like when

844
00:53:45.880 --> 00:53:47.960
we, you know, get together. I prefer in person the online.

845
00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.599
I accept the bullet it has to
be, and so like it. This

846
00:53:51.679 --> 00:53:54.280
is very much a social thing for
me, and getting people with at least

847
00:53:54.280 --> 00:53:58.000
one thing in common that you know, if this hobby is all we have

848
00:53:58.039 --> 00:54:00.800
in common, we have one thing
in common, and filling a table with

849
00:54:00.840 --> 00:54:04.679
those kind of people and and just
having like just like a fun kind of

850
00:54:04.760 --> 00:54:09.559
lighthearted storytelling thing. So so to
me, I'm not super into the grittier,

851
00:54:10.239 --> 00:54:14.079
more crunch crunchier games. I like
some numbers in my game. I

852
00:54:14.960 --> 00:54:16.519
like, you can do you can
you can have a crunch of your class

853
00:54:16.760 --> 00:54:21.280
in a sillier game. That really, what's one of the great things about

854
00:54:21.320 --> 00:54:22.639
about classes. You know, if
you want to spend all your time,

855
00:54:23.119 --> 00:54:25.840
you know, drilling down to research
obscure spells, you can do that.

856
00:54:25.880 --> 00:54:30.719
If what you want to do is
just kick indoors and stab things and take

857
00:54:30.760 --> 00:54:32.280
their gold, you can do that
too, And those can coexist. That's

858
00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:37.440
one of the firs. I'm playing
a kicking door and swing a next character

859
00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:40.920
right now when I really want to
be doing something, I think that,

860
00:54:43.039 --> 00:54:45.760
so I'm going to a bridge or
a bridge. I'm going to edit my

861
00:54:45.800 --> 00:54:52.679
answer. I'm not I'm going to
a bridge, Yes i am. I'm

862
00:54:52.679 --> 00:54:57.280
going to you're and bridging it and
unabridging. So yeah, I'm bridging it.

863
00:54:57.440 --> 00:55:01.119
So I would say that my perfect
campaign, and yeah it would.

864
00:55:01.159 --> 00:55:05.119
It would have a little bit of
both those elements though, But I do

865
00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:08.199
like kind of a serious for me, like my favorite kind of story to

866
00:55:08.280 --> 00:55:13.800
read or to experience, and I
would want to play out It would be

867
00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:21.280
like a political mystery power struggle type
of Game of Thrones, ask you know

868
00:55:21.320 --> 00:55:23.320
what I mean, Like a political
of political injury. There you go.

869
00:55:23.639 --> 00:55:29.239
So it's like part mystery, but
there's saboteurs involved and stuffing. I love

870
00:55:29.320 --> 00:55:31.880
that. I think that's so interesting
to me and a lot of fun to

871
00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:38.039
play. But like your Joe Abercrombie
kind of thing, something like yeah yeah,

872
00:55:38.159 --> 00:55:43.440
and but with a good amount of
like being stupid an evil kiss,

873
00:55:44.039 --> 00:55:47.000
you know, And that's like there's
got to be a good amount of levity

874
00:55:47.360 --> 00:55:51.679
because I don't know, for me, like real serious things. It's just

875
00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:55.599
why bother life is really serious.
I don't have fun, so not Joe

876
00:55:55.639 --> 00:55:59.920
Abercrombie. Yeah yeah, not exactly. Books are great, but they're pretty

877
00:56:00.440 --> 00:56:04.239
so yeah yeah, so Ken,
thanks for the more lighthearted message. We

878
00:56:04.360 --> 00:56:06.920
got to kind of muse about what
kind of games we really want to play.

879
00:56:06.920 --> 00:56:09.239
And this is something that you asking
yourself getting into a game. It's

880
00:56:09.280 --> 00:56:13.320
like, what is my ideal campaign? And then this is the conversation you

881
00:56:13.360 --> 00:56:15.360
and your DM half And that's pretty
much what you just described, Jim.

882
00:56:15.400 --> 00:56:21.519
It's like everybody has their own even
very specific I'm going to be taking around

883
00:56:21.519 --> 00:56:24.360
the phrase Dwarf Western for lots of
times. Oh my god, it was

884
00:56:24.400 --> 00:56:30.800
so much fun. It was awesome. But having an idea of what the

885
00:56:30.840 --> 00:56:32.079
game you want to play that you're
going to be spending the next you know,

886
00:56:32.119 --> 00:56:36.920
several months or years on is not
a it's not a wild to ask,

887
00:56:37.079 --> 00:56:39.039
And that's a conversation you and your
DM should be having. And you

888
00:56:39.320 --> 00:56:43.519
never know. Sometimes your DM well
means ideas. Yeah, oh my god,

889
00:56:43.599 --> 00:56:46.440
let me tell you Dwarf Western dwarf
and Western is I never would have

890
00:56:46.480 --> 00:56:49.679
thought of that in a million years, Joe, I swear to God,

891
00:56:49.679 --> 00:56:54.880
if we sit down the moment,
yeah we found that the dwarf Western.

892
00:56:54.920 --> 00:57:01.000
Now, yeah, a tumbleweed to
the beard goes by. But yeah,

893
00:57:01.199 --> 00:57:04.880
this is this is things you should
be asking yourself as getting into a new

894
00:57:04.920 --> 00:57:07.679
game, and if nothing else,
to make sure you and your DM are

895
00:57:07.679 --> 00:57:09.920
on the same page and that you're
going to be delivering equal experiences to each

896
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:15.760
other. All comes down to communications. Absolutely. Yeah. So you can

897
00:57:15.800 --> 00:57:20.039
participate in these types of episodes by
going to Hello Adventurers podcast dot com,

898
00:57:20.039 --> 00:57:23.280
slash voice, or hen you send
us an email if you would prefer to

899
00:57:23.320 --> 00:57:27.719
do it that way. This Hello
Adventurers podcast at gmail dot com. We

900
00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:30.079
don't to hear from you even just
even just fro feedback episode ideas, but

901
00:57:30.320 --> 00:57:34.519
little stuff like this for for these
episodes, these are a lot of fun.

902
00:57:34.559 --> 00:57:36.679
I feel like we know you guys
better now we get to connect on

903
00:57:36.719 --> 00:57:38.840
this, so I keep sending in
those questions. Yeah, send us,

904
00:57:38.840 --> 00:57:42.519
send us all you got, So
we're gonna wrap it up here for the

905
00:57:42.599 --> 00:57:44.599
day. I think that's enough for
for one. We've got a couple more

906
00:57:44.639 --> 00:57:46.039
of these. We'll get to them. We're gonna do these every month,

907
00:57:46.199 --> 00:57:50.599
so keep sending them in and the
links are all in the show notes if

908
00:57:50.719 --> 00:57:53.000
if you didn't write them down fast
enough. But I think let's let's wrap

909
00:57:53.039 --> 00:57:57.000
it up here. So I'm jas
Bortiso. That sids Joe McCall. This

910
00:57:57.039 --> 00:58:04.400
is Jim Crocker, and this has
been Hello Adventures Podcast stats l