1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:15,920 Hello players who overthink their session zeros, and DMs who don't know what the fuck 2 00:00:15,920 --> 00:00:22,840 a session zero is- Welcome to our own session zero here at the table... that's your line! I'm 3 00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:28,480 okay with that I can say that I'm okay yeah you can say that's why I don't know why I really 4 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:33,520 hello players who overthink their session zeros and DMs who don't know what the fuck a session 5 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:39,640 zero is welcome to our own session zero here at the table I'm Robert Lopez forever overworked 6 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:44,440 DM and I'm Maddie Conway and much like my first session at a new table I do not like the way the 7 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:49,720 person next to me smells right now so what is table talk what even is this podcast about Maddi 8 00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:55,120 well I'm glad you asked welcome to table talk this is my personal pet project that I've been 9 00:00:55,120 --> 00:01:00,520 working on for some time now it's a fun little laid-back podcast about all things D&D and tabletop 10 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:05,480 game related hosted by your hopefully new favorite player in DM who are always trying to fuck each 11 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:09,760 other over across the table so before getting into the game we figured that you all might want to 12 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:15,040 know a little bit more about us who we are our experiences and what exactly makes us qualify to 13 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:19,200 speak into microphones in an empty room across from a couple of laptops about your favorite 14 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:24,640 pastime hobby Dungeons and Dragons so you know what our names are so we're gonna tell you guys a 15 00:01:24,640 --> 00:01:29,620 little bit about who we are kind of where our backgrounds are at so I started playing God 16 00:01:29,620 --> 00:01:34,200 Dungeons and Dragons my I want to say like junior senior year of high school we used to make fun of 17 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:40,080 it and say that shit was for nerds we all played like role-playing RPGs and shit like that on like 18 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:46,960 PlayStation Xbox PC and then eventually we like moved into kind of the real space and the real 19 00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:50,800 thing and we tried our first campaign and like the four or five of my friends from high school we 20 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:56,280 absolutely fell in love with it and just kind of kept playing as time has gone on I am like on 21 00:01:56,280 --> 00:02:04,960 again off again player in DM but most recently I've been like DM a lot and I met Madison specifically 22 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:09,600 as a player for the first time whenever we studied abroad together I had never been a DM and then we 23 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:14,640 were looking for a group all staying in the same place to like play Dungeons and Dragons 95% of 24 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:20,480 the people fucked off and didn't get involved in it in true D&D fashion in true D&D fashion with 25 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:25,800 scheduling it never goes right and having never been a DM I said sure I'll be a DM for a bunch of 26 00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:29,920 people that have never played the game before and then we wound up with like five or six people all 27 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:36,600 at this longest table and that's kind of where my like start as a DM happened wasn't a foreign 28 00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:41,720 country with people I've never played before or known in a role that I had no business taking on 29 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:46,240 but it worked out pretty well because we're here now we're talking we played that campaign for 30 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:53,120 well over a year yeah we played it for what two three semesters yeah played it for three 31 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:58,360 semesters back to back and then did some things like over breaks and stuff which was fun it was a 32 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:04,640 lot of fun I come from a very different background than Robert does when it comes to tabletop gaming 33 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:09,600 and D&D in general I come from a theater background so that didn't really give me a lot of time in 34 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:16,360 high school to have any other interests as I was like at the school until like 8 30 most nights I 35 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:23,040 think I tried to play D&D or like some type of like tabletop RPG in high school and it just in 36 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:28,760 true fashion fucked off and fell apart and no one was able to make it so I come from a really 37 00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:34,840 strong background in performing in improv I do a lot of like storytelling things I've done a lot 38 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:43,000 of collaborative online story content that makes it sound like I did something buried deep 39 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:50,200 yes I so there was so it was basically D&D without rolling the dice like making my own 40 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:56,360 original characters it's not anything that I'm like far removed from so I really only started 41 00:03:56,360 --> 00:04:07,320 playing D&D got like a year and a half ago yeah and that was with Robert when we made a little D&D 42 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:13,840 club and I ended up playing that character like my very first character ever which do I suggest 43 00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:19,640 everyone's first campaign goes on for two years probably also the only character in the entire 44 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:27,160 campaign as a player to not no correction not to not die but to not play a new character I second 45 00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:32,040 version of it I refused during the second branch I said I'm playing the same exact character and I 46 00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:38,240 did and I played that character for like well over a year and she did die she killed herself 47 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:42,800 specifically but she came back to life just we came back from multiple death saving throws 48 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:50,400 after being like lampooned by most I was ridiculously high-level enemies and then just like walked 49 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:55,040 back up and kept going yeah that's wild magic amount of times I tried to come out and at the 50 00:04:55,040 --> 00:05:00,160 table is unreal when I got to the point really before I was like I'm going out of my way you're 51 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:05,400 gonna die like I'm gonna get a team party kill it's gonna happen which is never fucking happened 52 00:05:05,400 --> 00:05:12,640 which was a full flip from when we were playing back when we were abroad and I decided that we 53 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:17,680 were taking too long to like do things as a party and I just decided that I was just gonna start 54 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:22,480 like touching things or grabbing things or like trying to do magical things don't be that person 55 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:27,280 don't that person table when everyone else is sitting there trying to think and formulate a 56 00:05:27,280 --> 00:05:31,040 plan like the wizards in his little fucking book looking at his notes trying to figure out what 57 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:35,920 utility spell to use to unlock the door and the barbarian is like sitting there with his thumb 58 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:40,560 up his ass and everyone else is like really trying to think and talk it out don't be the person to 59 00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:44,720 just walk out the door and press the fucking button or pull the lever I mean yeah sometimes it works 60 00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:50,080 right fully work yeah but sometimes it doesn't work and it gets everybody else in your party killed 61 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:55,920 that is true but uh yeah he at one point did have like a real-life conversation with me saying like 62 00:05:55,920 --> 00:06:01,920 you need to play smarter or you're going to die and I'm gonna kill you to send a message yeah I mean 63 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:07,920 we kind of talked about different players at this point like it is a DM the people that I've watched 64 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:13,920 outside of like a couple of my best friends like Bernaline Mulligan um uh is Matt Mercer yeah Matt 65 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:20,560 Mercer and like I like the more serious there are real-world consequences I mean real-world right 66 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:26,160 you live in a made-up fucking make-believe fantasy world but real-world consequences to your actions 67 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:29,920 and that's very hard to do with new players that don't know what they're doing because it's like I 68 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:34,400 would love for you to actually have a consequence to seeing something hilariously stupid to the 69 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:39,840 person that like has mappings of what like weapons of mass destruction but I can't because you don't 70 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:44,720 know what rolling for initiative is yet no like you've never touched a combat session and I would 71 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:49,200 love for you to face the consequences of your actions but you can't yeah I was coming in and 72 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:54,000 the way I kind of like got into like the Indian stuff is like I obviously I knew about it and 73 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:59,280 then everyone started like talking about it again when stranger things came out um but I got like 74 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:03,120 really into like dimension 20 I still haven't watched stranger things I refuse to I watched the 75 00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:08,320 first season and I did not watch anything since and I feel kind of bad about that I won't do it 76 00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:14,320 and fuck the people that are like yeah bro stranger things brought D&D back motherfucker 77 00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:18,960 these are hard to be neckbeards have been neckbeards have been playing this shit in their 78 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:24,320 mother's basement for years all stranger things did was give an excuse for people that like aren't 79 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:29,840 neckbeards to play the game without repercussions listen I'm not gonna like no I'm not I'm not 80 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:35,440 coming at you I'm just saying stranger things needs to back the fuck off I want to be successful 81 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:40,000 and also be like still be considered no one consider I'm an angry person and I like to 82 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:45,760 complain that's my image I'm well aware fuck stranger things okay I've never seen it I'm 83 00:07:45,760 --> 00:07:51,200 told it's amazing but just that particular aspect of it yeah I will say it did get a lot of the 84 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:54,880 credit for like bringing it back to the mainstream but I think that it's also I can't say it didn't 85 00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:58,960 it didn't do a little bit however it didn't like reinvent the fucking hobby like nothing 86 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:03,360 that's why V has changed except for when sorcerers was like hey we're gonna copyright everything 87 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:09,920 you've ever done I guess I'm saying it I mean they did it did they not or at least they tried to 88 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:14,880 they were like hey guys guess what we're gonna take all of your content because somebody in 89 00:08:14,880 --> 00:08:19,520 their basement made the game and then we bought the game from the person that made it so now you 90 00:08:19,520 --> 00:08:24,240 can't use the system so then everybody around the world was like cool we're gonna call it like 91 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:29,840 fucking penguin five and that's gonna be the new system I mean it's gonna be every single mechanic 92 00:08:30,560 --> 00:08:36,240 everything else is the same but the name is different um oh going back to the 93 00:08:37,680 --> 00:08:44,000 this is also a podcast hosted by two people with severe ADHD so know that going into this 94 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,360 I mean we have like things in front of us to remember the topics that we're supposed to hit 95 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:51,280 and things you want to talk about and most other episodes will be a little more structured than 96 00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:56,640 this but like this one in particular is going to be very chaotic because it's just shotgunning all 97 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,760 of you with information about who we are yeah what this is going to be what we're like what your 98 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:06,800 expectations should be of us as people I mean it should be very well this this is a good example 99 00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:11,760 it is there's going to be arguing there's going to be hard opinions that come out of nowhere um 100 00:09:12,480 --> 00:09:16,080 and it's gonna be really scary we talked about it so we were like so do we do we cut ties with 101 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:22,400 sorcerers we both agreed no but right now I've made the decision I think we should they sent the 102 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:30,640 fucking pinkertons to a man's house because he got sent the wrong box of cardboard I mean sorcerers 103 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:34,240 I'm not gonna diss the hobby I play on all the time I've sent hundreds of dollars into it I play 104 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:39,440 on all the time however thousands of dollars it's still sorcerers and they still sent the pinkertons 105 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:43,600 to a man's house that's how I learned the pinkertons we're still around oh yeah I think that's when 106 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:48,240 like 95 percent of people on tiktok learned that the pinkertons were real I was I thought they died 107 00:09:48,240 --> 00:09:52,000 it's a crazy concept I thought they were like a red dead redemption invention like that's 108 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:57,200 where they lived and died and then they were like no actually sorcerers hired them like who I think 109 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:01,280 it's funny or too much and they were just from like red demredition they're they only exist in a 110 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:06,960 video okay sorcerers decided that they needed something like truly hardcore and out of this world 111 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,160 to track time this man like they could have sent literally any body they could have sent like a 112 00:10:10,160 --> 00:10:14,880 cease and desist letter and been like email take your videos down or we're gonna sue you 113 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:22,960 no they sent like cartoon bodyguards that only protect the rich historically and currently 114 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:29,040 to his house and then we're like flabbergasted when everybody was like oh my god you're terrible 115 00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:33,040 people and they're like but we had to get our ship back and they said no more gaming license and 116 00:10:33,040 --> 00:10:39,200 then everyone said fuck you and now we have our penguin five and they were like well I guess you're 117 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:45,360 gonna call it penguin five we'll hand it back other systems if we're talking about like ways to 118 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:52,960 branch out of just kids on bikes kids on bikes kids on bikes is my favorite I tried to um stranger 119 00:10:52,960 --> 00:10:58,480 things before it was a real thing mother fuckers it is truly it's just it's kids on bikes original 120 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:03,040 system is basically stranger things it's like you're a kid in the 80s in a little town I really 121 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:08,880 like the system is super unique it's super fun and it's super simple so I suggest anyone who 122 00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:15,200 wants to get into like tabletop games and like dnd because dnd has an ungodly amount of rules that 123 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:19,680 you have to like know and you don't have to memorize them but like you yeah basically I mean I've 124 00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:23,360 been a dm for almost two years now which I mean isn't that long when you look at somebody like 125 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:29,760 Brennan or Matt yeah we've been doing it for centuries not but like for the first time in 126 00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:35,040 any of our experiences both as players and as a dm we had to figure out how to manually do a character 127 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:42,560 sheet and that was god awful yeah so learning so I always suggest kids on bikes it's super fun 128 00:11:42,560 --> 00:11:45,680 they've got a bunch of different ones there's kids on bikes there's kids on brooms which is using 129 00:11:45,680 --> 00:11:51,200 an app does not knock off beyond unless you have the $30 to spend out in a month absolutely not but 130 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:55,360 like using apps really it's easier I understand like the old heads are like oh my god you're pinning 131 00:11:55,360 --> 00:12:01,440 paper motherfucker I'm not going to have to add my proficiency bonus every time I level up to remember 132 00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:06,160 how I can talk to animals so yeah for our our new campaign that we're doing that we're starting 133 00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:16,720 we had our session zero for it uh Saturday at 8 a.m uh this motherfucker had to call me to wake me up 134 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:21,440 and we live in the same house yes we do um but I was not getting up that early uh and then I 135 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:25,920 did get up that early and we're doing it again this weekend yes we are we're back an hour though 136 00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:30,320 we're doing nine nine yeah we're doing nine uh shut out we're just having real like yeah that's 137 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:34,160 what this is going to be though like we have lives outside of this podcast shut up fifth edition 138 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:38,720 character sheet you can get it on literally any app store they're not we're not sponsored we're not 139 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:43,680 paid but like they should pay us it's free and then it's like 99 cents or five dollars or some 140 00:12:43,680 --> 00:12:49,120 shit like that to upgrade and you get like infinite characters it does everything that dnd beyond does 141 00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:55,520 for you but for free and it's formatted so much better and so much better they like they keep 142 00:12:55,520 --> 00:13:00,320 updating homebrew stuff that gets put out in like really popular manuals uh and books put out by 143 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:05,520 different people so like you have more than just dnd beyond yeah if you pay the 99 cents for the app 144 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:10,320 you're gonna get all of the content that is paywall which when I suggested that everybody at the table 145 00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:16,880 that I first I was 99 you gotta play it you gotta pay a dollar to get into the hobby and I was like 146 00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:23,040 motherfucker do you want a smooth experience because I want a smooth experience yeah learning how to 147 00:13:23,040 --> 00:13:26,960 do character sheets is already like a bitch and a half yeah so then you have like this nice little 148 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:31,520 tool that you'll have with you everywhere because your radiation and emitting phone that's burning 149 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:38,320 a hole in your leg is that's not an actual stand-by hold like podcasts that's not a stand-by hold it 150 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:42,400 sounds like a terrifying I don't think I mean phones there's a little bit of radiation right but like 151 00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:47,040 not enough to burn a hole in your leg I've lived I'm scared this is gonna go far right real fast 152 00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:52,400 when you're talking about okay let me come over it really then I think far right and far left either 153 00:13:52,400 --> 00:13:57,200 side of it they're lunatics they're crazy they're clowns they're puppets they're like they're 154 00:13:57,200 --> 00:14:02,640 legitimately like sesame street level characters of garbage except for the fact that they hold 155 00:14:02,640 --> 00:14:08,400 positions and offices that can like destroy lives yeah politics we won't talk about it that much but 156 00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:13,840 like wizards kind of falls in that but yeah kids on bikes 5e oh kids on bikes kids on bikes has one 157 00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:20,000 called kids on brooms which is a knockoff of that one turf's property I don't even know how kids on 158 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:29,120 brooms is it's it's kids on bikes version of the I don't want to know it's I mean yeah probably 159 00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:34,800 because she's not gonna right they have a page about like inclusive gaming and so JK Rowling's 160 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:40,480 not gonna pack that right no yeah see listen um you don't want it to be political and then you 161 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:48,400 talk about JK Rowling who literally muggles black people don't exist in her universe either like 162 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:56,880 and if you if you want to talk about like politics and D&D and JK Rowling I've I don't know why I'm 163 00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:04,480 plugging dimension 20 like they need to be plugged from yeah they're like a dream but more her dream 164 00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:09,920 less absolutely my knowledge that I'm never gonna reach that level but like if I did listen I'm 165 00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:13,920 trying to be a professional actor and if I could just switch that to professional D&D player I would 166 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:18,800 in a heartbeat I don't know I think I would too I'm like trying to get a job in like saving the world 167 00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:25,120 and if I can do it being a professional DM I'll be damn like you're here in it here folks you 168 00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:30,080 have to get this podcast successful so he can save the world and I get to play D&D for money 169 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:39,360 those are his dreams but uh there uh what's it uh misfits and magic is amazing um it's really 170 00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:43,600 really good it's a great introduction to the kids on bike system it's a super fun system um so that's 171 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:48,160 one of my personal favorites um in terms of like other games we play like just about every we've 172 00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:53,440 played just about every board game in general under the sun we yeah we I will I will emphasize 173 00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:57,280 every time we say this is somebody specifically somebody across the counter in a game shop they're 174 00:15:57,280 --> 00:16:02,560 like so you play katon we've never played katon so we can't say we've touched them all because 175 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:08,160 that's like the grandfather with all 78 fucking expansions that cost as much as my left nut yeah 176 00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:12,720 so no we haven't played all of them but we played a lot of them yes um which maybe we'll 177 00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:18,160 do a whole episode about um board games and stuff but I know that uh magic is also something that 178 00:16:18,160 --> 00:16:24,000 like we as a group kind of I don't play magic and I want that to be very clear I played magic very 179 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:30,160 briefly but I'm in my hot girl era and I do not play magic the gathering in my hot girl era we got 180 00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:36,560 good at it not that someone else can't I when we first started playing um and it was it was his 181 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:43,360 fiance that actually like told us about I don't know she got us into uh she regressed it every day 182 00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:47,040 because we've spent I think collectively we've probably spent thousands of dollars no I know 183 00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:52,400 we have we've spent thousands of dollars yeah it's bad um but yeah she taught us when we at the same 184 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:58,000 time that we decided to pick up dnd we also decided to pick up a holy like a whole another system that 185 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:03,680 has a mountain of rules yeah which is magic the gathering and it's just exploded when we were 186 00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:07,600 thousands of cards playing and we didn't really understand how to play I was like okay yeah I'll 187 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:13,280 play and I was winning all the time and it pissed Robert specifically off because I would get very 188 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:19,120 competitive and Madison also wins it almost every board game we play it's only when okay I was gonna 189 00:17:19,120 --> 00:17:23,120 say only when they're trivia based but that's not true because I always win at Lords of Waterdeep 190 00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:30,400 and it's my game that my fiance bought for me and then I lost the first game I played it's a dnd 191 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:36,640 it's Wizards of the Coast so I mean this is a fun game um but it's like a board game board game and 192 00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:43,200 I don't even know how to describe it it's like monopoly but it's more it's more incentivized for 193 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:49,280 you to stab people in the ass yeah and I it was the same buying property thing I mean there's no 194 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:54,560 hotels there's brothels but there's no hotels right so I think was it your birthday that we were 195 00:17:54,560 --> 00:18:01,520 playing it and I just I kept winning every single time and I felt so awful and I leaned over and I 196 00:18:01,520 --> 00:18:05,440 can't remember who I told but I was like I'm gonna throw this next game because I feel really bad 197 00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:10,080 about winning every game and that was the first one Robert won yeah okay I like took that shit to 198 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:16,640 the grave I have witnesses I have witnesses that would gladly if it's first of all if it's my fiance 199 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:22,800 absolutely not she takes sides in everything it was yeah I don't fucking trust her I mean I trust 200 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:28,720 her with my life but I don't trust her with that yeah we sabotage you regularly I'm aware listen 201 00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:33,440 we have this we've also had some games of monopoly they get fun story I'm highly successful at everything 202 00:18:33,440 --> 00:18:37,440 I've ever done in my entire life and it bothers the shit out of everybody in my house with the 203 00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:43,520 exception of one of my roommates um and so my fiance and Madison like to just pray on my downfall 204 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:48,400 all the time but it's always like I hope you stub your toe tomorrow or like step in a lego 205 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:56,480 and I'll be damn if I don't crunch my fucking toes on every staircase in table in chair in my house 206 00:18:56,480 --> 00:19:02,160 multiple times a day I think it's a truly if there's bad karma it comes in the way of removing 207 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:06,800 my toenails because I'll be damned if it doesn't happen all the time that's an awful thing here 208 00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:12,960 moving my toes monopoly is probably the messiest game that we play and I that's including D&D 209 00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:17,280 when Robert has gone on the record to say he is a personal vendetta where his only goal this session 210 00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:22,320 is to kill us oh yeah I mean I think listen as a dm I think you get to a point where like you've 211 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:28,800 designed you design this really in-depth super challenging like combat session or puzzle or 212 00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:33,040 literally literally anything well I mean there's that there's the example I think you're thinking 213 00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:38,880 of and then there's just generally when you make a really complex convoluted like mastermind who's 214 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:43,280 behind the screen type shit and then one of your players walks up and either rolls at e20 215 00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:48,560 or has a spell on their spell list that you didn't check beforehand and they're like oh that that's 216 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:53,920 what we needed to do the first action or like the second action and you're like sure fuck the two 217 00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:58,480 hours of my life I spent on planning this I don't need it I don't need the satisfaction to see this 218 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:01,520 happen at all and then you go into the next session and you're like all of you are gonna die 219 00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:07,680 because I can make that happen I am legally allowed to make that happen one of my personal 220 00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:13,280 favorites was the the the character that Robert truly wanted to kill her name was Magnolia that 221 00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:18,800 was when I died I got my satisfaction yeah but I killed myself so was it satisfaction I presented 222 00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:24,480 you with the opportunity to do so so yeah a little okay well there was a she was like in a room and 223 00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:28,480 it was this puzzle oh it was like the clockwork puzzle thing yeah it was supposed to be this really 224 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:32,560 complicated puzzle and it was supposed to be really cool and my character had been separated I was the 225 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:36,880 only person there and like she had a broken leg then of course I present her with all these really 226 00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:41,840 intelligent like inspector like you should roll an intelligence check and our connexat can investigate 227 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:45,600 and go into the second layer to the third layer to activate the fourth and and then of course the 228 00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:51,200 last option I presented is there's this giant like stone slab that's going at like mock speed and if 229 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:56,320 you if he gets like if you clip you're either losing a limb in your life and she goes yeah I'll try it 230 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:02,560 and then guess what happens I rolled a net 20 and I can't tell her no and I bypassed the entire 231 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:08,000 puzzle and just was just like walking in a hallway just slid under the fucking moxins don't okay that 232 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,640 didn't upset me that much because it came out of a book that um Dakota one of her roommates and also 233 00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:17,200 players at the table uh in our current campaign both of my campaigns actually I'm not damning both 234 00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:22,000 but I'm damning one I'm playing on the other he's playing on that one too uh he gave me like a like 235 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:27,040 a dungeon masters like trap and puzzle and dungeon whatever the fuck for my birthday and I literally 236 00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:31,360 just pulled it out because I was like back rooms bitch here's a puzzle from the back rooms and then 237 00:21:31,360 --> 00:21:35,360 she just slid underneath it so I wasn't as mad at that as I have been at some other things that was 238 00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:40,960 just like that's a terrible way I'll give you another one tomorrow like you know I mean other 239 00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:46,640 experiences with puzzles and players um god forbid if you give them anything that's related to a cipher 240 00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:53,920 or like a one plus x equals two oh my god it's gonna take them literally 45 minutes to figure out the 241 00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:58,720 world's simplest puzzle it's like here's five flowers they all have a different color now there's 242 00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:02,720 an object in the room that correlates with those colors or maybe maybe there's something like a 243 00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,440 cauldron in the center that's like you need to have one of each color in this pot and they're like 244 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:12,160 what were the flowers called again it was what fucking continent did they come from really it was 245 00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:18,480 four grown men it was four can I do a history check on the uh on the origin of the color yellow 246 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:23,040 and they were just straight they were fucking baffled but this was the puzzle they had while I was 247 00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:27,120 dealing with the clock shit that I just bounced through she got through that a lot quicker than 248 00:22:27,120 --> 00:22:33,600 it I mean they literally did a long rest in the middle of the puzzle to get their spell slots back 249 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:38,800 they're like well we're getting nowhere with this long rest yeah it that one was bad so yeah it took 250 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:42,720 them forever it was literally just like a little shitty cipher that came out of that same book and 251 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:48,080 the amount of times I had to repeat and like redraw like you wrote it down in a way that gave away 252 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:52,560 the answer and then I accidentally wrote the cipher down in a way that you could put it together 253 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:57,360 easier and I didn't even mean to do that and they were literally looking at it for like 30 254 00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:03,440 it was bad sometimes just be aware that sometimes you have to you don't have to dumb things down 255 00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:09,040 but you do need to like hook line and sinker because sometimes it doesn't always right sometimes the 256 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:13,760 ridges aren't always there sometimes it's just a fucking it's a smooth plateau up there and you 257 00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:19,840 got to you got to do a little bit of dickin yeah there was oh my god the so I'm like I'm the note 258 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:24,720 taker at our table which is I guess that's another thing about me like qualifies me talk I'm an obsessive 259 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:30,000 note taker my notes for each session that this is not every session every session will be like we 260 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:34,560 have a list of topics that we want to do and one of those things is like we've talked about one of 261 00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:39,360 the importance of note taking we've talked about doing like a small series with like table etiquette 262 00:23:39,360 --> 00:23:44,400 so like how to act as a player the first time you're at a table how to act as a dm don't be Batman 263 00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:48,720 don't be Batman but then also don't be Batman as a dm because then somebody makes it really stupid 264 00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:52,560 like I was watching a thing with with Bernadine Mulligan and he was talking about the first time 265 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,720 he like ever dm'd or one of the first time he ever dm'd and he wrote like the whole thing with like 266 00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:00,000 there was like doors or some shit and a princess and players and they were supposed to go through 267 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,600 with it and there was the hook and he planned like this whole world and adventure and quest 268 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,960 and then they just decided to like steal the fucking bride and leave and then he had nothing 269 00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:13,120 prepared um I that I've taken that to heart I prepare so little for my sessions outside of like 270 00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:18,320 location names and maybe NPC names um but yeah don't be Batman on either side of the screen 271 00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:22,000 because we don't like somebody that takes two years to plan a turn and then take away all the 272 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:26,000 fun from everyone else but we also don't like the person uh that doesn't let the players choose the 273 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:31,440 fucking story which is what the whole game is about yeah so we've got most other episodes will be 274 00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:35,600 structured this one is this one's just talking not I don't even remember what I was gonna say 275 00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:42,880 um we're gonna do like a class and race breakdown talking about like what our favorites are what's 276 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:49,280 most infuriating to a DM which just very quickly has a race if you play a war for it get fucked um 277 00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:54,320 didn't you suggest the last person at our table who played a war for it I'm pretty sure you were 278 00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:58,800 the one that took just it how to do combat yeah because I mean it just fit who we was looking for 279 00:24:59,360 --> 00:25:04,480 combat and magic how the fuck that works uh that's the one thing where I will shout out to like 280 00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:12,240 kids on bikes and kids on brooms is that the combat is so much simpler and it's so much it's so 281 00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:16,640 so much more cinematic and story driven there's there's no system for combat it is just real 282 00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:23,840 scores against each other yeah you just roll like a minor mechanic in the in the fucking dumpster fire 283 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:29,360 that is action economy and dnd is grapple where you roll two strength scores against each other 284 00:25:29,360 --> 00:25:33,840 and you see who wins and if somebody wins like the person attempting to grapple if they get like 285 00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:38,640 if their strength score is higher than congratulations you've been fucking grappled yeah that's the 286 00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:44,000 that's the entire combat system in kids on bikes and kids on brooms and I don't have a problem with 287 00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:49,280 that but that's yeah I started shout out to them for making a combat system that doesn't take 45 288 00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:54,880 fucking minutes to play out yeah and it's it's like my four players versus a litch merry christmas 289 00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:59,280 you've earned yourself a two hour combat session almost every combat station combat session that 290 00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:03,440 we've done at our table has been like oh it's not going to be that bad it's just going to be like a 291 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,360 short combat session we're going to get to like other things because we play long sessions like 292 00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:12,800 half the time we end up playing for like four to five hours like the dimension 24 matt where it's 293 00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:17,280 where you have like a long session of narrative and a long session of combat tends to work pretty 294 00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:22,080 well through to life you just kind of have to you really have to plan out just how long it's 295 00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:26,400 going to take people to get through a combat session in respect to narrative because with players 296 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,400 and kind of narrative you can let the players take it as long as far as you want them to 297 00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:35,360 or as they want to combat on the other hand that's entirely up to you yeah you can decide if they 298 00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:40,320 spend two hours trying to kill one creature and it's 50 fucking goons or if it's like 45 minutes 299 00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:46,000 in a really fun story driven encounter i've done both mostly because the first one with the 50 goons 300 00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,160 and the one big guy i kept giving them big creatures and they were like no don't give us big creatures 301 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:55,120 give us goons wanted goons we will know i said okay we wanted to lower level goons and they were 302 00:26:55,120 --> 00:27:00,960 lower level they had a quarter of your hit points they were fun to kill yeah they died easy it was 303 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,000 like two swings and they were dead but i gave them a shit ton of them because they wanted a lot of 304 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,320 goons yeah i wanted to show them what the negative consequences of asking for goons i personally 305 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,920 enjoyed that combat encounter it was fun it was a lot more creative than some of the other ones 306 00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,680 that was also one of the ones where i rolled well and i have a love hate relationship with combat 307 00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:23,680 because i there's some sessions where i just i like it like mirf i cannot get a decent role for 308 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,040 the life of me and it's gotten to the point where like i'm getting like real life that made his 309 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:34,000 role more nat ones at my table than anybody i think combined yeah but there there were during a one 310 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:38,640 shot we did recently i built this character and i made the mistake of playing just like a full 311 00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:43,120 rogue with no other like multi-classic abilities which we'll talk about multi-classic episode 312 00:27:43,120 --> 00:27:49,360 only played magic users yeah i decided to step out because i'm i'm a sorcerer girly i love my 313 00:27:49,360 --> 00:27:55,200 sorcerers i love wild magic i love i love magic bullshit and i was like okay i'm gonna like try 314 00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:00,960 and play this like really cool like swashbuckling pirate and all that and i had it so if i was like 315 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:06,640 within five feet of you you were like i was leveling you yeah no she could do like serious 316 00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:11,440 damage to some really high health and like high ac creatures when she could get to them 317 00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:17,040 we were fighting this fucking crab and it wasn't even a planned combat encounter this was like one 318 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:22,880 of our party members was up near it and like turned to a bird colossal crab stats as he was 319 00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:27,840 making the decision on what to do with it and then it turned into this really long the combat 320 00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:34,880 encounter was so long and i kept getting like and the crab was running the whole time and normally 321 00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:40,320 i would just be like okay run away but he had one of our fucking people in his goddamn claw and we 322 00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:44,160 needed everyone for this particular thing because it was just like a little one shot and all the 323 00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:50,400 party had to be together because of a curse blah blah d&d bullshit and this crab starts like running 324 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:56,080 back and i'm like well fuck i can't do anything from a distance so i'm running up on this thing 325 00:28:56,080 --> 00:29:01,120 and it's getting to a point where it's like it has more movement speed than i do like i'm still 326 00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:07,600 not near it so i like straight up for like six or seven turns just kept running and i couldn't do 327 00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,440 anything else and it was getting to a point where the crab finally stopped moving but then 328 00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:16,080 something else happened and i couldn't attack it and like yeah i like was getting like a real life 329 00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:21,360 pissed and it was like to a point where robert noticed and was like are you good and i'm like 330 00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:27,360 i'm fine i'm just upset right now and so about half my combat encounters go that way where it's 331 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:32,880 either i'm incapacitated in some way whether that means my character gets knocked out pinned to a 332 00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:38,000 wall with a fucking javelin or some bullshit and it's it's kind of a topic that like we'll 333 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,760 eventually talk about because i mean we plan on doing a couple of different episodes about like 334 00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,960 what it's like to be a dm but it's like to be a player how to do character creation how to write 335 00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:49,520 a story but like i guess my piece on making fun combat encounters very quickly before it turns 336 00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:56,960 into a flip so please as a dm monitor your players reactions to the things that you're you're throwing 337 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:02,560 at them and also try to keep like try to keep in your mind that not everybody is going to be suited 338 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:07,200 for the same combat encounter and therefore might have a really shitty experience like i don't hold 339 00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:11,600 the crab thing against myself because the crab wasn't really my decision like yes i made it there 340 00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:16,080 but i also gave a lot of warnings that like maybe don't step on the fucking beach on the magical island 341 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,560 and of course somebody did i mean i gave him the option to do so but you know critical thinking 342 00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:26,160 skills um person who's also done something like that yeah same person who also just jumped into 343 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:31,280 a portal to hell thinking that was going to fix the problem and then it didn't but anyways as a 344 00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:35,680 as a dm like it plan your combat encounters or at least throw your combat encounters in a way 345 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:40,960 that everybody can do something uh because if you have a player full of barbarians and rogues that 346 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:47,440 have no way to run or like increase their movement speed don't give them a creature that can fly or 347 00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,600 has 50 feet of movement speed on a turn yeah because then they're just going to spend their 348 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:58,240 whole turn doing nothing and it's not fun i'll say it's also a thing of like at our table at least 349 00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:03,360 like from a player perspective we're coming from a lot of people who have different histories with 350 00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:08,000 like playing dnd um yeah some people are more experienced with it some people have more experience 351 00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:13,360 and others i'm one of the lesser i think at this point i'm the least experienced at the table yeah 352 00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:18,800 because i guess dakota's played before yeah like a little bit twice yeah and so even though i've 353 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:23,840 got the least amount of like actual play experience i'm still like very obsessive about dnd and i'd 354 00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,360 like been into it for a really long really long time i just couldn't find anyone to play with 355 00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,280 blah blah blah yeah i mean it's like the beat of the hobby is finding people to play with yeah so 356 00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,960 like i know a lot about it but i don't have a lot of that experience at the table and i also come 357 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:39,680 from a point where like what i love about dnd my favorite parts of dnd even though i do enjoy combat 358 00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:44,960 is the is the narrative is the storytelling is the the role playing is that having fun and creating 359 00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:50,080 a narratively compelling story um because like that's all what i do i mean i with my background 360 00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,840 in theater and my background and like creating my own original works and things like that that is my 361 00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:59,440 drive versus we have some other people at the table who like combat a little bit more than they do 362 00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:03,440 some other things so it's played video games and have more experience with like this kind of rim type 363 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,520 deal but like yes there's a story but it's the combat and the min maxing and like the multi 364 00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:12,000 glassing that's like really the appeal for them yeah and i it's a balance and it's a hard balance 365 00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,920 because not like not only are your players playing different characters but they're also just different 366 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:21,680 people very i like i'm the whole you gotta come out with a good hook so that way all your players 367 00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,440 naturally fall in love with each other net like players characters all your pc's naturally fall 368 00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,280 in love with each other i want to go on adventure across the stars and different lands and multiverse 369 00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:35,440 and be happy you know like friends and family that is easier than making players get along at the table 370 00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:41,440 yeah and you have to do that as a person not as a narrator in terms of like that was a little bit 371 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:47,040 of a challenge i mean it was a it was a table full of of edgy characters which is something that we'll 372 00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:52,000 get into a little bit more story which is not like that's to be expected like expect that if you're 373 00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,480 a player sitting at a table for the first time with other first time players expect that no one's 374 00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:01,680 gonna have family everyone's gonna have like a super fucked up name or backstory everyone's 375 00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,680 gonna have some like deep dark secret that they're gonna try and whip out on the party at a random 376 00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:10,160 time or a power they want to conceal from everybody yeah and it's just not gonna like those you can 377 00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:14,800 try those things but oftentimes it's not that's what we don't have that chemistry with people at the 378 00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:19,440 table and you don't know how to play and you like know how to play with each other not know 379 00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:26,000 not know how to play but i think like even our sessions zero are with the same group of people 380 00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:32,560 yeah we just have one for the first time person um all of the characters melded together in like 381 00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:38,560 a surprising way got along in crazy ways because our first camp with a hook that wasn't even intended 382 00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:44,560 yeah like fully accidental we went like full off track yeah and that kind of happened in our last 383 00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:50,640 one shot two where we were doing we were trying to solve a puzzle and we one of the characters 384 00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:59,280 rolled a nap one on intelligence and um Robert was like okay this character knows exactly what the 385 00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:05,840 the answer to this puzzle is it was so not right it ended up working out perfectly but it turned into 386 00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:13,440 probably the most chaotic i think one of the most fun role playing moments it was between players at 387 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,360 a table i've ever seen on my life it was some of the most fun it was this character was like trying 388 00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,840 to find what was something remembrance so they needed uh so there was like this uh this thing 389 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:26,480 that they had to find they had like an ingredient list for a potion to make um for this like island 390 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,720 of of gorgons and whatever whatever and one of the things that they had to find was like uh like a 391 00:34:30,720 --> 00:34:36,320 tear of remembrance or like a drop of of remembrance everything else on on the item list was like very 392 00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:41,120 normal fetch questy find a spider that can't be caught kill a dragon that can't be slain like 393 00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:46,000 stupid shit like a bit stupid shit like that um but this one was a little bit more like you had 394 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:50,400 to really think about it or just get like a solid raw investigation check in one of our 395 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:54,400 not so smart characters at the table decided he was going to step up and roll that check and got a 396 00:34:54,400 --> 00:35:00,480 natural one and so there was like a literally a specific place that they had to go and then do a 397 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:05,040 specific action but the nat one i was like cool so instead of telling him he needs to go to a 398 00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:10,160 lake and look into the water and sacrifice a memory you know what's shiny and reflective and you lose 399 00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:18,400 memories in fucking rum you know who has a lot of rum on the boat the captain so our entire party 400 00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:24,320 went the opposite direction which our entire party say one person who was like i'm gonna 401 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:29,680 think better of this and so he went to the correct place the rest of us went back to the boat and 402 00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:35,280 it turned into like it was sheer chaos because half of the party well actually everyone in the party 403 00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,200 except uh the character that i was playing was like okay we're gonna go search for the rum 404 00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,320 and they are like just turning the ship upside down and they can't find it and the crew keeps 405 00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:46,480 distracting them and then my character was like oh i got this i'll distract the captain and it 406 00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:51,920 turned into it was so uncomfortable but it was also some of like i think the hardest i've laughed 407 00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:57,120 at the table i would agree with that it was the funniest it was it was just it was chaos and it 408 00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:03,040 ended up in the end being um the character gets the rum takes it to the location and while he's 409 00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:07,760 like looking at the rum and like telling the story naked with vomit on him oh my god they were in 410 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:16,000 front of the whole dying it was it was a man died i died like i killed myself like four times during 411 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:21,040 the process because i was like i had like one hit point the entire time and i like regularly would 412 00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:25,120 like knock my head back and like try and kill myself so i would go down to zero and get brought back 413 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:29,600 so that it's like constitution saving throw strength check can you kill yourself in this moment 414 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:35,200 yeah it was it was chaos but it was a lot of fun and so his uh the character who had the idea for 415 00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:40,560 the rum takes it back and is telling the story to the other characters who are there and in doing 416 00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:45,920 so is tech yeah ends up like sacrificing that memory into the rum which was a very backwards 417 00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,240 way of doing it but you know we succeeded and i think that was a really cool moment and works 418 00:36:50,240 --> 00:36:54,320 props to you narratively of that was like a really fun dm moment to come full circle of like okay this 419 00:36:54,320 --> 00:37:01,840 is something clearly that like we have invested well over an hour into um and it was like a timed 420 00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,840 thing of like we only had so long to do this it was the same too like there was a whole we had 421 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:09,600 a like a time thing behind it we're like you only have so many hours like once the sun sets on the 422 00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:13,520 whatever day of the island and you know then it's just you're trapped here forever and then the 423 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,920 gorgons are gonna murder you and each of your sleep so there was also like a time aspect to it 424 00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:22,800 as well which you know that's you don't have to regulate that as a dm did i hate people that are 425 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:27,440 anal like that where it's like okay every time someone takes an action a minute passes like 426 00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:33,280 no just do what feels right like add the pressure as it needs to be added i'll say even the way we 427 00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:38,560 did our last uh combat encounter at we did a combat encounter in our session zero for um the current 428 00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:42,480 campaign that we're playing and it was it was a lot of fun it wasn't something where we were really 429 00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,280 measuring so much it was a lot more like kids on bikes kids on rooms type deal where it was just i 430 00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:52,400 was having them roll checks against each other and i didn't even really roll anything for the 431 00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:56,800 villains all that much um and like the goons in the combat it was more just feeling out what the 432 00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:01,360 players could do uh with some context we'll talk about it's our current campaign it's all about 433 00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,680 superheroes and so the idea at least my idea is a dm for that is what's the point of being a superhero 434 00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:12,480 if you can't do like super power level shit and if i'm gonna have to like if you have to roll a d20 435 00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:17,280 every time you want to use like a lightning ability that targets the whole room to hit one person 436 00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:23,680 like no that's so fucking stupid let like if if your characters are supposed to be a certain kind 437 00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:28,560 of character let them be those characters and it was also a thing of like the character that i was 438 00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:33,040 playing is like a relatively unexp... and we'll probably do an episode where we talk all about 439 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:38,240 our campaign that we're in currently um i'm you know breakdown of the first one for sure yeah uh 440 00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:44,720 it was a very like inexperienced hero and it was fun for me as a player and me as a character to 441 00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:49,520 realize like oh my gosh i can get away with so much at the table because we weren't like counting 442 00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:55,280 talking as like a part of your turn and there weren't things of like okay you had your action and 443 00:38:55,280 --> 00:39:00,240 your bonus action and your movement and you can't do anything else this was a very like flowy like 444 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:05,280 at one point my character was like running across the room to talk to multiple people and then 445 00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:10,880 still taking an action but it it didn't feel like it was like we're doing way too much and it was 446 00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:19,200 it was a fun thing of like even little attacks like you can see oh the bad guy like the the godfather 447 00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:24,480 type character that we're fighting that i hit with um a little like the godfather 448 00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:31,840 fucking character he's a shark by the way his name is the cod father shark he runs a criminal 449 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:36,160 underground that like smuggles shit in and out of the ports because you know he's a fucking fish 450 00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:43,200 it was i it's my favorite character in the campaign and yeah yeah we're probably gonna kill him um 451 00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:47,440 but like my character through what's basically the equivalent of like a baseball made of light 452 00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:54,160 adam and still having him go like hey what ow yeah and like getting to be like oh my god wait i did 453 00:39:54,160 --> 00:40:00,080 something it was i think it's a really cool way to do it so i'm very like in those kinds of cool 454 00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:04,080 say lucy goosey with your shit yeah because i think that's what keeps it fun and fresh and engaging 455 00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:08,160 and those kinds of like free play role play moments where you just kind of like let your 456 00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:14,560 characters kind of do what they want but in a way that fits best in their mind um it tends to 457 00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:19,520 like they figure out better ways to role play and they really figure out the character they want 458 00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:25,920 because if i tell you as a player we're gonna hop into our combat session um god forbid and we've 459 00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,200 had that happen so we have had that happen i'm gonna try avoid that happening this time but like 460 00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,440 let's say this is like our second session this is our first real taste of combat you're an experienced 461 00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:37,600 player however we're about to go into a 45 minute combat session have you ever played the game of 462 00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:42,800 d&d you understand that you have a fucking spell list as long as your arm an action economy as tall 463 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:48,560 as you are like it's insane and so it it pulls you out of the role play experience and it really 464 00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:52,880 forces you to be a player in a person who's trying to think about what to do with their turn 465 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:58,720 versus like what do you want to do as the character okay sick make a role you pass like yeah there's 466 00:40:58,720 --> 00:41:04,000 less thought on having to plan your shit out and be a player and more emphasis on your role playing 467 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,960 and getting to experience the emotions as the character yeah i think that it it becomes a lot 468 00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,080 more engaging in a different way and it's not saying that the other ways aren't fun because 469 00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:16,000 sometimes it is kind of fun to like go through meticulously plan each turn and look through 470 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:20,400 your spell list and be like oh i've got the perfect really really like detect poison and disease 471 00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:24,880 it's such a niche yeah until you watch like crown of candy or something yeah and then it's like 472 00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:31,040 colossal story moment for several of the characters or like heat metal heat metal is in my opinion 473 00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:36,400 not it's it's not good if you're playing in like a classic high fantasy setting but we had a character 474 00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:44,240 who had it in this session zero and ends up fucking like melting or like heating up a car with a 475 00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:49,760 character inside it to like try and melt the person and it was like a really cool badass thing 476 00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:54,320 so there's some things that also like you know it changes from thing to thing and it's it's very 477 00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:58,720 nice to have that satisfaction and pay off of like this very specific thing that i took three levels 478 00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:03,680 ago that i haven't gotten to use it's gonna be so helpful right now and that's great but i think 479 00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,880 that it's just one of those things like you got to kind of feel out in the moment and i think there's 480 00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:12,240 also room to grow in those moments are very much like you can't really plan for them like if i take 481 00:42:12,240 --> 00:42:18,560 plant growth because my character is a druid and i yeah speak with plants we'll talk all about the 482 00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:23,600 first campaign we did plants were a very central theme to it and not in the way that any of you 483 00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:27,520 were probably thinking or guessing however comma if you take plant growth is like a level three 484 00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:32,800 druid because i'm a druid and i talk to plants and i can make them grow like you're never going to 485 00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:37,360 find the moment or the combat encounter like oh i'm gonna fight a plant next session i'm gonna 486 00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:41,600 take this bell and do that that's not the shit that's fun the shit that's fun is like what madison 487 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,360 said you take a spell at level three it's a throw away it's thematic and then you end up in a combat 488 00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:51,040 encounter and you find like the perfect solution to the problem like i had one of those in the first 489 00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:55,840 time i played or my first campaign that i played with my buddies um i was playing a warlock which is 490 00:42:55,840 --> 00:43:01,600 fucking broken as a class but anyways i had like a spell and the whole thing was um it does psychic 491 00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:06,000 damage if somebody like moves out of the illusion that you've done like it already does a lot of 492 00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,520 damage but then it does more if they move out of it and there was a character that we had to stop it 493 00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:14,800 was actually like a pc um and they are like whole thing was that they were raging out and they like 494 00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,640 where they were stuck in this like suit of metal that was like controlling them like very berserk 495 00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:24,640 anime style uh and they were like trying to attack us and if this player had genuinely attacked us 496 00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,920 like there's nothing we could have done because the amount of perks and stacks that they had on at 497 00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:32,160 that time with that armor was absurd it was a fun role playing moment but i had just taken 498 00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,760 this spell it did a lot of damage i didn't expect to get a lot of use out of it and then we were like 499 00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:40,400 one turn away and he would have like basically one tab doll three of us and i was like what if i put 500 00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:45,840 him in a fucking mental cage and then part of it is that they're so terrified that they don't want 501 00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:49,840 to interact with the object so it's like really difficult for you to get them to take that extra 502 00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:56,320 damage but he was a stupid guy stuck in a stupid suit of metal so i was like player to dm tell me he 503 00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:00,400 has to interact with these objects like he's not going to be scared he's stuck in a fucking rage 504 00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:06,720 suit and dm was like yeah that makes total sense so then the other player did exactly what he would 505 00:44:06,720 --> 00:44:10,240 have done like in the role playing moment and tried to attack it and like fully knocked him 506 00:44:10,240 --> 00:44:14,800 unconscious with how much damage i rolled as a warlock and that like ended the encounter and 507 00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:19,440 it was such a cool moment for us but like i didn't plan for that i did i never expected that spell 508 00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:24,160 to be as useful as it was and yet like it's one of my favorite role playing moments at a table i 509 00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:29,200 think i have ever had because it was so out of fucking nowhere so i guess the borel of this is take 510 00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:33,840 one random bullshit yeah take a random spell you never think you're going to use and just 511 00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:38,880 wait for the perfect moment to use it and then be like surprise motherfuckers this is my moment 512 00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:45,920 we had a character who um attacks good and evil gonna kick your ass this time at our last campaign 513 00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:50,400 we had a character who did not do super well in combat they were they were a squishy character 514 00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:59,760 um they were a necromancer satyr um and we were fighting same campaign where like 515 00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,920 plants are very central theme but like none of us thought we were going to be fighting them so 516 00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:08,880 we none of us took any likes because i've never it's like uh the plants were important but not 517 00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,400 like you never interact with them you couldn't really speak to them they weren't part of combat 518 00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:17,680 and then suddenly they were and we're fighting these plant people and he pulls blight out of his 519 00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:23,040 ass and it's just doing like 80 something damage blight for those that have never touched the game 520 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:27,360 it basically says you sap the moisture out of anything living and then it does a lot of damage 521 00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,880 specifically with plants it does like double the amount of damage because i don't know if you know 522 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:35,440 this plants are mostly made out of water yeah so then you give the fucking druid who's got a 523 00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:41,200 ridiculous amount of spell slots and nothing else to use the spell slots on like the fucking blight 524 00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:46,000 against a bunch of plants and suddenly he's like a one-man army against this whole unique in combat 525 00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:53,680 and it was insane and robin was real life upset a little bit um because like yes i want you to 526 00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:58,080 succeed at the players but i want you to do it my way not your way do it my way do it the hard way 527 00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:04,400 be creative that's one of the fun things at our table is that even between the two of us we are 528 00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:09,920 two very very stubborn motherfuckers and like to do things our way and that creates some really fun 529 00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:16,880 tension in game um which has just been at the table yeah we don't fight i mean we do fight in 530 00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:22,720 real life but that's about other things yeah um and it creates a really fun contrast so it is fun 531 00:46:22,720 --> 00:46:28,320 to like genuinely kind of prey on people's downfall sometimes within within reason or like both the 532 00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:32,480 bear like yeah oh there were things i would do specifically because i'm like i know this is gonna 533 00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:37,360 like you won't piss you off so like i my character at the time had a power where i could just 534 00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:43,760 fucking leave like i could just teleport no spell slot no nothing or on crack yeah and it was a power 535 00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:48,560 that he gave me um part of her character stack and then it suddenly became like the focal point of 536 00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:53,040 the entire campaign yeah it was a thing of like like take the back rooms and then multiply that 537 00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:59,040 concept times infinity and then give a player the ability to navigate that shit perfectly with no 538 00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:04,720 spell like not a spell slot just a roll the dice just i don't know i'm gonna vibe check and i'm gonna 539 00:47:04,720 --> 00:47:09,280 leave yeah i'm gonna feel this i'm gonna feel this out and then suddenly i'm just gonna solve all 540 00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:14,240 the fucking problems the party has yeah that that did cause sometimes i use that because i was like 541 00:47:14,240 --> 00:47:18,160 i know this is like purposely gonna piss you off and then other times i was like okay all right 542 00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:24,240 yeah and it's the the one thing that i don't like is sometimes the relationship between player and 543 00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:30,240 dm is so combative that it's not fun because it's like okay you're making this world where not a 544 00:47:30,240 --> 00:47:37,440 single one of us is having fun like we're being bullied like it's just it's not it's not fun and 545 00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:41,440 it's it's difficult as a player to approach a dm or your dm who's taking the time out of their 546 00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:44,400 schedule to write this story for you and your friends and be like hey i really don't like what 547 00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:48,240 you're doing because it's it feels like you're shitting on everything they've done and to an 548 00:47:48,240 --> 00:47:53,520 extent it is but also learn how to take critical fucking feedback like you're an adult hopefully 549 00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:59,520 and you have critical thinking skills and take a moment to go maybe i don't want to make a world 550 00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:04,240 where everybody in it hates my players for no goddamn reason you know yeah like just don't do 551 00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:10,320 that it's at the end of the day dnd and like most tabletop games um that i'm aware of at least are 552 00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,960 a collaborative thing it is a have a positive relationship with your dm as a player and vice 553 00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:19,760 versa it makes it a lot more fun so when i do get upset at madison i can give her a fun challenging 554 00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:27,280 story point and not ruin the whole campaign you know um and i think that's something that we kind of 555 00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:33,520 have at least are attempting to show in our podcast of you know um the thing i think makes this a 556 00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:38,400 i want to say there's a million dnd podcasts out there there's a million the actual plays and 557 00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,880 everything see a lot of them are the actual plays and i think the where we're trying to be different 558 00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:48,800 right um is it's it's all conversation like maybe we'll show you guys a little bit of what it's like 559 00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:52,800 for us to play at a table or something but like it's it's all conversation it's all tips and tricks 560 00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:57,760 it's how to get into this like impenetrable fucking hobby that takes years to learn and it's so 561 00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:02,560 intimidating and the the goal of this is to make it more digestible and more approachable and feel 562 00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:07,200 like you can get your foot in the door and i think another one of the perks of this is it's 563 00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:12,240 coming from the perspective of two different hosts one person who is a player and one person who dms 564 00:49:12,240 --> 00:49:17,520 more um and showcasing that collaborative thing and like you can have these conversations with 565 00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:22,400 your dm outside of the table and like have these collaborative conversations and i think that's 566 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:26,960 at least one of the things that i really want to do is show like the both sides of the coin and that 567 00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,480 one isn't more mystical than the other and you can't blame the other for all of the problems that 568 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:35,360 you feel like you're having at the table and you can just like work together man shout out to the 569 00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:39,680 title episode behind the screen across the table right like that's the whole concept yeah we wanted 570 00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,520 you to be able to see what's going on behind the screen and understand how to be the man behind 571 00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:47,920 the curtain but then also how to like engage as a player and how to have fun with the content you're 572 00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:54,720 given and just how to like it into the hobby yeah so awesome i think we're probably over the time 573 00:49:54,720 --> 00:49:59,280 that we thought we were gonna be this was supposed to be 30 minutes yeah 30 to 45 and we're looking 574 00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:05,760 at 50 right now on the counter so anyways thanks for tuning in for our session zero here at table 575 00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:10,560 talk we will hopefully have a lot more content coming for you guys very very soon we have a 576 00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:14,800 long list of episodes episode titles shout out to chat gpt we'll talk about ai in a future episode 577 00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:21,440 um what a way to end it with a yeah yeah hot topic there dm hook baby we're gonna talk about ai but 578 00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:27,360 anyways i hope you guys have a wonderful day night evening uh roll a couple of nat 20s throw the 579 00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:34,560 nat ones at your dm i am personally pro getting a giant like d20 to throw at your dm whenever 580 00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:40,000 something a soft one a plushie not a real resin one real resin one with sharp edges and everything 581 00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:44,800 yeah i don't condone physical violence we'll talk about dice in a later day but fuck resin dice bro 582 00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:50,640 those things will cut you like no or cut robert hit stop before he was supposed to so we didn't 583 00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:56,800 get to record an outro so now we have to go back in and fix that um thank you for tuning into table 584 00:50:56,800 --> 00:51:03,200 talk we really appreciate your support um and up next thursday i believe we should have our next 585 00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:08,560 episode coming out what episode is that gonna be robert all about dnd and that includes character 586 00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:14,320 creation behind the screen is the dm how to make a world how to not be an asshole at the table my 587 00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:19,680 personal favorite topic thank you all so much again for tuning in and thank you for your support i'm 588 00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:43,600 mattie and i'm robert see you next week