Hello players who exclusively play D&D for the roleplay.
And DMs who can conjure a monologue out of the dumbest shit possible.
Shout out to Brenda Lee Mulligan, king of the fucking monologues.
I'm Maddie. And I'm Robert.
And welcome back to Table Talk.
I'm super excited for today's episode.
I can't remember what we like, we had a name written down of like what it was going to be called.
I'm pretty sure it was like, Yes And. And then at the table.
What is Yes And?
And is a really big rule in improv.
This is all going to be kind of about like playing at the table and like the roleplay aspects of it.
Because at this point, you've learned how to do your character sheet.
And you've learned about the classes and the races.
If you haven't, you should go back and watch all of our previous episodes.
Shout out Table Talk.
It's a cool podcast.
Shout out the Episcode.
The Episcode.
Shout out to the Episcode that you're listening to right now in the podcast.
That you're also listening to right now.
Exactly.
We've got to advertise.
And watch a few of the other ones.
And at this point, you saw us go through combat.
Which was it.
You've heard it.
And you've heard how fun it was.
Maybe we'll do a video one day.
I need to stop saying we're going to do things on the podcast.
It is what it is.
But this is all going to be kind of about the in between.
Because you're not going to be fighting shit 24 seven.
Hopefully.
I don't know how your table works.
Maybe this is just like a thinly veiled combat session after combat session for your table.
Which is totally valid.
But a good chunk of the time, you're going to be like role playing.
And it's one of the most, at least for every woman I've talked to about getting into D&D.
That is the scariest part.
It is not all of the rules.
It is sitting at the table.
It's the role playing.
Playing a character.
It's always the role playing.
Speaking in a silly voice.
I mean, just talking like from the perspective of somebody who's never done theater before.
I mean, I've been in a couple of like musically kind of things just because I had the look
of the characters that our fucking choir director was looking for.
But I've never really had to sit down and do improv.
I mean, again, shout out to the other episodes of the podcast that you should go and listen
to.
Talking about our session zero.
Like I didn't start D&D until I was like a freshman of college.
Maybe sophomore year.
Like it wasn't that long ago.
God, I sound fucking old.
It wasn't that long ago.
Like when I first started playing it and zero experience in improv.
Like I can, I have a lot of practice doing public speaking and doing presentations.
And oftentimes.
Very different.
Yeah, they are very different.
And oftentimes when I'm giving like the table information, I go into presenter mode where
it's just like the same cadence that it all sounds good.
And it's like clear and enunciated, which is not always what you're looking for when you're
trying to come up with our first point of the bulletin year voices.
It's not something that I have a lot of practice with.
And it's something that I still struggle with at the table today.
So yeah, this is someone who has no formal or even slightly informal training in improv
and voices.
It is definitely the scariest part of getting into the hobby.
Yeah.
It's like I have to play make believe in front of a bunch of people who I want to like and
respect me.
And that is, it's one of those things where you instantly, it doesn't matter how old you
are, you go back to high school and it's the thing of like, if I put an effort and I try,
then I'm going to look stupid.
I'm going to look silly.
And I promise you 100%.
It was the, and honestly, it's the same thing for when you're in high school too.
If there's any, anyone in high school who listens to this.
It is genuinely, you look so much dumber if you don't put in effort.
Like truly that is what it boils down to is like 110%.
Especially when you have other people at the table that are putting in effort.
Like it's one thing if everybody at the table, this is like your first time, your first campaign,
or whatever.
And everyone's kind of sitting there like twiddling their thumbs and like looking at their character
sheet the whole time and like never making eye contact with another person at the table.
And it's like, yes, I'd like to do that.
Also, do you have this thing?
Yeah, we'll go here.
Yeah.
And like that's it.
And if everybody else at the table is in that same space, but when you have other people
at the table that are like committed to the bit of being the character, you look fucking
silly when you sit there and you don't have a voice, don't have an accent, you don't have
like a character shit.
Anything to differentiate your character from you.
You're just you.
Yeah.
Which for the first, again, first time players, you're always, always, always, always, I think
it is truly impossible if it is your first time playing D&D to not play you or a version
of you.
Oh yeah.
I've seen it happen every fucking time someone sits down at the table for the first time.
100%.
It's just because I mean, what else do you have to play off of?
And we've talked about that a little bit in like the like character building episodes
of like, it is OK for you to find that connection between yourself and your character, I think.
And this is coming from an acting perspective because my entire background is in theater
is that that makes think that's the only way you can play a character is by finding those
connects between you and them.
But like every character is just a version of you.
And there's also dozens of ways because like I in my brain, I'm like splitting this episode
into like two points, which is one actively being at the table and then another, which
is like getting into character.
And like, how do you find that character?
And one of the most.
So I guess we're going to start with like finding that character and like getting into
character and then talk about like the actual like at the table portion of like things that
you're going to do at the table to make things a little bit easier and a little bit more
fun.
But the first point that we kind of have written down and this is going to be like the first
thing that comes up to anyone when you're talking about like a character.
So you've already got your character written, have their personality, you know who they
are, what they look like, what they, well, that's kind of something we'll talk about.
But like generally, you're always going to know what your character looks like by the
time you're done with your character sheet.
Yes.
Because you're going to have to either talk with your DM or have intermodel log with yourself
and it's going to be or dialogue in our dialogue with yourself and it's like, okay, I think
they're six feet tall or six, two or six, one or five, three and they're going to have
long hair or really sharp horns.
Maybe one of them is cut off.
Like hopefully if you've done the character sheet process like the rest of us fucking
freaks do, you'll come out with a good mental image of what that character looks like.
And I think the more work you do in character creation, the easier it is to get into character
because you have more to pull from like that makes it easier on the flip side.
If you're like an actor or like someone who's like really into like role playing and that
is easy for you, it is also kind of fun to go in without any plan.
However, that is like definitely more intimidating because you don't have any like things to follow
and I think in those situations, that's when you really have people playing themselves
because like if you don't have a space to go into or an idea.
Yeah, you just kind of like play a version of yourself.
So it's difficult.
But the biggest one is, I would continue.
Super valid point about like the more time you spend on the character, the easier it
is to get into a voice or a headspace.
We debated whether or not we were going to talk about the people that play at our table
because we know and love them all dearly.
I love them all so much.
I'm going there.
Okay, I'm the DM.
I'll take that step.
I love all of my players and friends, best friends in the world deeply.
There is definitely a difference in the level of role play and the level of character headspace
and just like being present at the table invested in the events that are happening because of
the amount of work that they all have done this time around on their characters.
There's a huge difference.
Big difference.
Huge difference because it truly, if you are like connected and love a character or like
passionate or know the character that you're playing, it's going to be so much easier because
one of the hardest parts of like playing a character is staying true to that character
and not being yourself, especially because it is not like a formal acting setting.
You're not like, it's a little bit different if you're like in a full costume and you're
on a set because then you can like kind of feel the physical differences between you
as a person and that.
But when you're sitting down at like the table in your basement on Saturday mornings in your
pajamas, it's kind of hard to like separate yourself from like another situation.
That sucks to ask, man.
It's why evenings are better because no one's happy in the morning and if you are, nope,
I don't drive with you, man.
But staying true to the character is like the biggest thing when it comes to like role
playing at the table because there's going to be decisions and this is something that
every player is, and probably DM too, is going to have to face of making a decision that
goes against what you as a person would do in your core beliefs, but it's so something
that your character would do.
I think it's easier as a DM, I mean, having done both, I think it's easier as a DM to
not have to like constantly think about staying true to the character mostly because like,
I mean, you write the character as a player, yes, true, whatever.
But like how I portray the character is so much less like, it's so noncommittal in that
like if something does change, I can just like a world lord away or like, they were
stressed that day and you just didn't know that.
So now they have a different like tone of voice and demeanor, but like-
Characters accents that change all the time.
Yeah, but like players, you have to be a little more consistent or people are going to be
like, who are you?
Who are you?
Who are you playing?
And it's specifically with like, and I know I just joked about like accents, accents and
voices, which we'll get into in a little bit.
Those are more okay if they fluctuate, but your character's core beliefs, I'm going
to use some examples of like-
Who they are as a person.
So this character that I played, which in that conversation of like, every character's
a little bit like you, she was every like negative part of me.
She was very like, I'm an impulsive person, she was a very impulsive character.
I can be a little hard around the edges sometimes and a little bit selfish, but I never actively
act on those things.
She did.
Yep.
That was her like whole character.
Yeah, she was very selfish and very hard around the edges.
And at the table, and Robert would watch and laugh as I struggled because it's like, there's
so clearly a decision set up where I need to like, lie to the party or kill someone.
Or do something-
Or not go and revive them or not go and help them or pick them up because it's just not
what the character would do.
Basically something that like, or yeah, not helping another party member when they're
down because you have specific beef with that party member.
Taking a turn to attack an enemy versus picking them up or you know, doing something different.
And to see, Robert at least I think was the only one who saw and noticed and laughed because
I as Madison was struggling so much to not help and to not go out of my way to help or
heal someone or do this or do that or do the right thing.
But I'm playing a character who it would be completely the opposite of her character
and not in a little bit of a way where you could like play it off like in a way where
it would go against the core moral beliefs of this character if they did the good thing.
And to try to be like, I really don't want to do this, but I know that I have to because
that makes the most sense.
And like just truly think the character, even if it's a decision that you as a player don't
always want to make that being said, don't be like don't be a full asshole if you're
like playing, well, I'm an edgy character.
So yeah, I'm going to rob a party member in their sleep.
No, and we'll get into that more in like a table and don't being an asshole and staying
true to the character and so on and so forth.
I think we've we've got to a point it's been brought up in conversation that I feel comfortable
saying that you were difficult to play with.
Yes.
Because of the character, not so much you as the person, but like to the last point
that you made, if they're an asshole, if they're dark and edgy, if they're broody,
commit but like also commit to a level that's okay and comfortable with the rest of the
people at your table.
Yeah.
Like what one person at the table this semester, who I'm not going to name drop just because
they value their privacy, has gotten really comfortable with role playing this semester
in a way that they didn't last.
And I think a lot of that specifically with you is because your character is so much more
open and welcoming this time than they were last time.
Like I think he had a really hard time opening his character up in role playing because your
character had such a big personality that it was like if somebody else spoke, no fuck
you, fuck you, this is me time, shut up, go sit in the hole.
It was and it was.
Go run my errand.
It was also a thing of like towards the end of that campaign, I've locked myself into
this character personality, but I'm not the biggest fan of.
But.
Over time you definitely started to like it less.
Definitely, and I was trying to find a way to be like, OK, well, I can't just wake up
one morning and be a changed person.
So trying to find moments in the game where I can like.
Be a little bit less of a bitch.
And it was something where like looking back, do I love that character?
Yes.
Would I play her the same way if I played again?
No.
And that's something that you'll also learn because you will inevitably have an edgy character
and you're inevitably going to have moments where you like clash with people at the table
because me and this other player in it, I thought we just didn't play well together
at the table.
We've done several one shots and stuff and our characters are always like best fucking
friends.
They have a great time.
And it's like a lot of fun.
So I'm like.
You're going to have those moments and like it definitely even as someone who like is
coming from a very heavy theater background and like playing characters, I still struggled
to like learn the difference between playing a character in a vacuum versus playing a character
when your decisions and your character are actively affecting other.
When there are five other human beings also at the table playing with you.
Yes.
We've talked about like the whole main character syndrome thing.
Yeah.
Like everybody wants to be the main character in their own story.
I mean, it's just it's a true to life thing too, right?
Like you only are capable of having one perspective at any given time.
It's one of the lovely laws of physics and the shitty thing about being a person is
that you only ever have your experience like truly will only ever be in your head.
And as an actor is someone who's trained in acting, you have like an ability to try and
put yourself in somebody else's headspace.
But even then you're still not the other person.
Yeah.
And so I agree.
There's a difference.
I think a really big switch in the kind of role play when somebody goes from acting in
a vacuum.
I'm the main character in the story.
I'm actively trying to be the main character because that's what I want versus I'm the
main character and so are the other five people at the table.
And so my choices are not only going to further what I want as a character and as a person,
but they're also going to work to further what they want as a character and as a person.
And it's also a vacuum in like when you're in a play and you're playing a character,
you are playing it as if you are the main character because you are that person and
people live life as they are the central piece.
And so that is what helps you in like a play.
And also in a play, the story is written.
You know how you're going to affect the other characters and you know the outcome versus
translating that to the table was kind of like a big jump.
And don't get me wrong, being an actor definitely helped a lot.
But it's a huge jump from going of you need to change the way that you're thinking about
yourself and getting into the headspace of a character because you can't look at yourself
as like I'm the solo main character and I'm the like everything is all about me and the
way that it affects me as an individual, which is how you're taught to do it when you're
like doing onstage work to like this is a living breathing story that's ending is not
written and that you were an active part of and that it is a ensemble story and it is
not a solo adventure.
Well, now that we've hit the world's biggest tangent, voices.
Yes.
How is there a list?
Yeah, voices is kind of like the one thing where like there's definitely a hard line
because it's either you are a player or a DM who only uses voices.
None of your characters will sound like you or you only have your voice and you don't
do voices.
Yeah.
I think there can be a happy medium.
I agree.
And there's plenty of ways because doing like accents and voices and shit, that's intimidating.
They're hard to do.
And if you don't do them well, you feel fucking stupid.
Yeah.
Like I'm not going to like mince words or pretend.
No, like same for me.
Like when I try to do an accent or a voice and I just like don't nail it, I'm like, nope,
switching to something different.
Like, yeah, I'm not going to be able to pull it off this session.
I'm not going to be able to.
Huge thing for me is just fucking remembering what voices like the kind of voice I've gotten
to the point now on my notes.
Like I've evolved as a note taker as a DM over the last six months because it's just so much
shit.
Shout out note taking.
But something that helps me jumping fully into the voice discussion as a DM is literally
in your notes, whatever kind of notes you keep.
I don't care if it's fucking sticky notes.
If it's just a shitty notepad, if it's a book you spend $40 on, if it's like a digital
thing that's free, I don't care.
If you have something in your notes where you can make a list, which you should make
a list of the characters or in their character bio, put what kind of voice or what kind of
personality or their cadence, like their energy level, put something in there that notates
how you want to continue to represent them at the table every time.
Because like for me, I have like a jerseys action for the same five or six people and
what helps me remember that is that I'm like, okay, where in the city are these people from?
Yeah.
In their background, I have where they were raised, not necessarily where they were born,
but just kind of the area that they're from.
I don't have like their fucking personal address or anything.
I'm not that into world building, but I do have where they're from and then I, because
we're playing in a city setting, I kind of have assigned different accents to different
parts of the city and that's what helps me.
Yeah.
But I know sometimes- It's also so cool for world building in that perspective as a player's
perspective of being like, oh, that's super awesome that everyone from this part of the
city has the same accent.
Yeah, sounds the same.
It is really cool seeing everyone be like, wow, they all sound the same.
Are you just doing the same voice?
And I'm like, no, they're all from the same part of the fucking city.
Yeah, which was definitely an accidental thing, wasn't it?
Yeah, it kind of was, but it kind of wasn't.
It was a thing where I knew I had a couple of characters who I wanted to sound kind of
the same or have similar-ish accents.
And then it just kind of got to a point where I was like, why am I trying to come up with
six different accents for five people, six people that all live in the same, like 30
miles of each other?
Yeah.
Like there's no point.
Yeah.
And so it started off as an accidental thing and then it very much turned into a purposeful
thing because for one, you're for me that way.
Yeah.
And for two, I think it just, it's fun world building stuff.
I really enjoy it.
But the biggest thing is like, even if you're not doing an accent or a voice, which like,
I love doing accents and voices, but I'm also someone who spent a long time in middle school
and high school practicing voices and voice impressions and voice acting alone in my bedroom
where no one could hear me.
Accents aren't like my go-to thing.
I have a time and a place.
And you can definitely, if you want to like improve yourself at the table or like in that
feels in the way that you want to improve is like you feel like doing voices or something
is going to lead you there.
You can learning accents is not the most impossible thing in the world this day and age because
you don't have to learn them from a fucking book anymore.
Letting you all know Robert is leaving the room.
So it's just going to be me talking for a minute.
But you can go on YouTube and like look up how to do a certain accent.
That's genuinely how I learned how to do most of my accents.
And it's very funny because every time I pull one out at the table, everyone's like, whoa,
that's really good.
It's a very, very bad accent.
But no one at the table cares.
And at the table when you're trying to attempt an accent or something, this is a fantasy
world.
So you don't have to worry about it actually sounding accurate to that area.
Like I cannot roll my Rs for the life of me.
I like, and I've done like singing lessons and stuff where we've done like Italian and
like all of these other languages where you're supposed to roll your Rs.
I cannot roll my Rs.
I cannot speak Spanish.
Like it is, it is bad.
So if I'm doing any accent that involves any sort of like rolled R, I know that it's just
not going to happen.
But it doesn't matter in D&D because that accent and that like geography doesn't really exist.
But there's so many other ways that you can play with your voice other than just an accent.
And I think that the ways that you play with them outside of the accent says more about
the character and helps me personally get more into the character than an accent.
I've got this list and I found this and like literally I was like watching a guy on TikTok
and he was talking about different ways that you can like change your voice without using
an accent or something.
And they fall into like different categories.
So like some of the ways that you can play with your voice are obviously you can play
with kind of like pitch.
Does your character, if you're playing a younger character, they're going to be a little bit
higher pitched than someone who's going to be playing like a much older character.
If you're playing an older character, your voice is going to be deeper and it's going
to be settled in a little bit more.
That's not an accent or like me putting on a voice that is changing an aspect of the
voice and it makes it a lot easier.
You can play with it.
I'm back.
Hello.
I just crushed up a bunch of noodles and then put them in a bowl and shout out to poor people's
naps.
I was just going to straight up ignore that.
No, real quick, Danzen.
I used to shout out to being poor.
Get raw noodle packs from the dollar store and then crush them up while they're still
in the pack.
Open the package, take the seasoning packet out, sprinkle it in the pack, hold it shut,
and then shake it wildly so that it would like basically dust the crushed up noodles
and they get like a crunchy.
That's exactly what I did.
I've eaten raw pasta.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's a little odd.
I mean, that's basically what this is, but at least there's like flavoring on it.
No, there's no excuse for that.
So we're just going to move on.
Continue.
Yeah.
Pitch, not an accent.
Hey.
Pitch, not an accent.
I thought you called me a bitch.
No, I said pitch, twice.
Oh.
Pitch, not an accent.
Okay.
So yeah, pitch.
You can also play with volume, which is like, if you're playing it, don't play volume with
the like the loud part of it too much, but you can also think about how much like someone's
volume fluctuates.
So I'm going to move the mic away a little bit because if you're a character who's going
to start talking and then you're going to get really excited and then you're going to start
talking louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and oh my God, I'm having this
revelation and like stuff like that is also a way that you can play with it.
So like how much does your character like fluctuate in the way that they speak with
in terms of volume?
Speed is another big one.
Is your character someone who's really, really who talks really fast?
Maybe they just have a lot of ideas in their head and they have to get them all out as
quickly as possible or maybe they're really smart and they're tired of slowing down for
all the fucking idiots around here.
So I'm just going to speak quickly and you can fucking follow along or are you a character
who's a bit more measured in your words and you think through exactly what you want to
say before you say it?
This whole episode is just Madison getting deflected the fact that she's a performance
major.
We don't go over this because we don't have any speech and dialogue classes here.
That's so fair.
But really quick.
This is something I really love doing.
I think it's just perspective about one of the aspects of a voice volume.
Like 100% don't go over the top because there's certainly a time and a place just like there
is in real life.
Like that's something to keep in mind when you're using volume.
Really try and ground yourself in the context and the situation and that'll give you a pretty
good indicator of when to use what kind of volume.
Right?
Like you know the whole thing.
I'm sure all of you, hopefully, you weren't raising a fucking bar and shout out to Dakota.
He wasn't raising a bar and sometimes his activities are bar in life.
This is crazy.
He walks out bare grippers 99% of the time.
Dude goes outside raining and then throws a bow staff around in our backyard like he's
like in fucking air bender.
I can't.
I've seen him do all of these things so I can't like disagree.
I mean sometimes it's like cool but other times it's like what are you going through
man?
I walked into the house or like walked up in the backyard and he's just out back whittling
a stick.
Yeah.
Making knives and shit.
And it's just like a Tuesday.
Anyways, falling in.
We love Dakota.
We do love Dakota.
He says that we make fun of him on the podcast a lot.
We don't.
We love him.
He's just got a lot of fun behaviors that's all.
Yeah.
I don't think you're like genuinely a freak.
It's just there are different things that not everybody does.
Anyways volume, indoor voice.
Right.
So like when you're inside, when you're in a building, when you're at a meeting, right?
Like you're going to like whisper to the person next to you or like try and you're
like hey man shut the fuck up.
Like you're not going to be like shut the fuck up dude.
Yeah.
Unless you're playing stupid right?
Like you're going to dump our barrier and then maybe you just don't have a sense of
context which is another way to use it.
like my favorite way to get volume involved is with the emotion of a character.
The angrier they are, the more upset they are, the happier they are, just turn the
volume up because that's generally what happens in real life. The more emotional
somebody gets, the less control they have over their their emotions. And then just
really thinking as a DM, I really like to do a lot of work on my villains because
those are some of my favorite characters to write and to play. It's because I can
be as dynamic and as complicated and as convoluted with them as I can. They don't
have to make sense in the same way that a normal person does. But like something
else to consider about volume then is when you're looking at villains
specifically or characters that are like that silent but strong type or again
thinking about context, everybody else in the room is shouting and getting mad at
each other and then the one person who's like cool comic collected is still
talking in like a normal voice until everybody starts talking on their level
and that's like a fun way to be like kind of commanding of the room and like
also like I don't care about what the fuck y'all are going on about. I'm gonna do
this. I'm gonna be at my level and y'all can keep yelling like buffoons and not
listening to the only smart person in the room. Or like the sort of like silent
but deadly type where it's when they get really really upset they get really
really really quiet or they stop talking or their voice like drops drastically
in volume or it's like I'm gonna try and be calm with you here for a second
before I reach across this desk and slap the fuck out of you, get it together
or you're out. Like that kind of stuff is what's fun.
It's also a thing that helps like say in the specific moment not just in character but in the moment of where if all of your
characters are sneaking in somewhere maybe you're not gonna be speaking in a
normal volume to the other person next to you at the table and everyone's gonna
be kind of whispering or when you're in combat and you're trying to talk to
someone you're gonna kind of like hey by the way and like yell across the table
which just kind of helps with like your headspace of saying in the specific
moment that you're in at the table.
Volume's a fun way to really ground yourself in the context of whatever moment you're in.
It helps remind me of like if we're in combat being loud having loud things
happen if we're not in combat not having loud things happen unless it's just fit
for the character so I don't know.
The volume is a huge thing for me.
I also think that can go with like speed and articulation because like you do have those characters that and you can play with that
of like changing their pace and speed because of like whatever in the moment
and like what their resting base is but also the variation of that.
When they get like new information and they're really excited oh my god they're
probably gonna be speaking a lot faster than they are in a normal circumstance
or if they're really emotional and this is kind of like an actor note.
If you want to sound and you want to impress people at the table and like
during an emotional beat and you want to show off how cool and emotional you can
be slow down your words and it just makes it sound like you're choked up and like
take a breath in between and it's just something where if you like you can do that.
I think fucking Lou from dimension 20 does that really well.
He does it incredibly.
That slowing down and like bringing emotion and like this slow-paced thing.
He does that a lot and then like he'll ramp up usually it's he'll start sad or
he'll start calm and then he'll start working his emotions up and then if he
doesn't change his cadence at all he just gets louder and louder and louder with
every word.
Oh there was an awesome one in Crown and not Crown of Candy, Ravningmore.
There were a lot of good ones in Crown of Candy too.
His character was very like I'm a barbarian who's a king and has to be very
formal and I don't communicate like this.
Yeah.
So it was kind of interesting to see like the difference in volume with him struggling
to find the right context for the right places.
Another one and this is the the list I'm looking off of Robert if you want to see.
Kind of there.
The next one I have written down is like articulation which is it or like addiction
which once again isn't really changing anything about the way that you speak in
your voice but being like if I am over enunciating everything that I say it
definitely says something about the type of person I am.
I don't sound like a pleasant person to be around because I'm like over enunciating
everything which I mean you can also play with this it's a little bit more difficult
to play with this on the other side of like letting your words kind of like
slur into each other maybe you know pronouncing everything as much but that
can also make you pretty hard to understand so I don't really suggest doing that a lot
at the table and then you can talk about like the engagement of your voice do you
sound excited to be somewhere or do you sound like you're bored out of your fucking mind
and you're very monotoned and you're not going to give yourself a lot of movement
oh my god I'm Wednesday Adams I just am so fucking thrilled to be here can't you
tell is something that you can play with and all of these are going to say so
much about your character which is why I think they're going to be more helpful
than accents and stuff I'm going to skip over constriction because that's like
more technical but also like the rhythm in the rhythmic variety of your voice
and you can see this a lot if you're playing the strong hero character you're
going to have a strong rhythm and a strong cadence to the way that you're
speaking verses say you're playing a calm man maybe your words are going to be a
little bit more slippery and smooth and you're going to glide a little bit maybe
you're gonna have a little bit of musicality with your voice and don't
you come over here to my back alley while I yeah for everything you're worse
yeah verses hello how can I help you today captain America so yeah I've said
yeah and that's gonna also like that's something really I love playing with the
musicality of a voice and trying to figure out like is your character someone
who like often goes up and talks a little bit more up and then comes back down
for people that aren't like super theater II like also like musicality is not a
term that it were it not for the the background that I have any experience
I've had the words wouldn't mean a hell of a lot the way I like to think of it is
like where do you put your emphasis that's that's a lot of what like
musicality and rhythm is like where do you where do you peak when you
conversations versus like where do you like really throw a lot of punch behind
when you say things versus like when you say things how hard are you being when
you crunch your syllables versus like where it kind of looking at how you
talk is like a rhythm as a cadence is a flow where your peaks where your valleys
and then figuring those out sometimes is kind of a more helpful way for me to
think about it as somebody who's not like super theater trained just thinking
about is it something you can do when you're talking in conversation especially
in the US like a very American thing to do a very English speaking thing to do
is to put an emphasis at the end of all of our sentences like the thing that
you're always going to have attention drawn towards is how we end our
sentences we slow down we either get quieter or we go up we don't end
monotone because it's not for us speaking English that's not how we like to
indicate that we're done talking but in other languages and other other
countries other cultures it's not necessarily that way so that's something
else you can kind of play with too how do you like to start your sentences how
do you like to end do all of your sentences start or sound like they've
started halfway through like your energy just like every time you talk it's just
like this and it never ends and this is the train of thought and oh my god
everything I'm saying is just like this and there's never begin or an end or an
up or down but it's all high energy all the way versus whatever the fuck the
opposite of that looks like yeah you're from fucking Elmo not Elmo what the
fuck Winnie the Pooh oh my god I used to be obsessed with Winnie the Pooh I
can make a compilation of you getting names wrong from this podcast and it
would be another one you could talk about is and this one's gonna be a
little bit more theatrical and this one's gonna be a little bit more annoying
nasality the nasal in your voice are you talking from like through your nose and
like pinching it in a like more technical sense I'm like pinching the
sound forward or like it's kind of like if you're doing a Valley Girl voice and
you're like yeah yeah it's a fun one to do but you can play with like being a
really nasally character like are you playing a little kid are you playing
somebody who's like very uppity and maybe they think they're better than
everyone else and then you can play with your nasality and like kind of your I
guess clarity or like engagement as well and you can totally sound like really
upbeat and high class and no I'm not gonna stop on the street and talk to you
and I don't think that's really like an accent that's just playing with like a
couple different parts of your voice so and then the opposite of nasality would
kind of be like a gravel I can't really add a ton of gravel to my voice because
I am a I'm a soprano one give me an example I don't do a lot of gravelly
voices but I think I got it and this would be like a gravelly voices like
you're talking from your chest this is like I am Batman and it's like be
careful when you're doing that because like I'm I don't do it a lot because I
also don't know how to do it super correctly and I don't want to damage my
voice because I use it for my job but this is gonna be like where is she like
I'm an easy way to fake a gravel I don't even know how to describe doing it but
when you talk like this and you like hold your breath a little bit when you talk
I don't know how to describe how to do that it's how a lot of men like to talk
actually yeah it's like thank football coach like locker room type shit where
it's like like that you very much like you you tighten your stomach and then
you put it all on your fucking chest yeah it all comes out very quickly yeah and
then clarity is just once again about how clear your words are it's a little
bit different than articulation because articulation to me is a little bit more
in the the consonants and clarity is a little bit more in the vowels in the
those noises which if you've done any like Shakespeare training or like acting
or whatever you definitely know the like the whole thing of like the emotion
lives in the vowels and blah blah blah but sounds stupid to me well it's
because everyone's always going oh yeah something on this list I don't think we
mentioned is like finding phrases for characters or like a base of talking
that is my favorite thing the way that I like to let my players know that a
particular character is a douchebag or sounds like a douchebag is doing like
the frat boat the frat road talk man what's going on dude high five it's
want to go get a brusky with me there's or the hot dude look at her listen you
miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take I heard that from every day
like it's been said about once per one shot or campaign hundred percent of the
shots you don't take man and I mean that like to my core I have heard it like
one shot a campaign and it's so funny every time and it's such a dude bro
thing to say I'm gonna like start keeping a tracker because it's but like
finding phrases that get you into the character as well especially if you're
doing like a voice or something and like this is really gonna be stupid but
like the way that I I always have a key in phrase for a voice or an accent or a
character my one for Magnolia was what the fuck yeah because it was originally
she was she's a high elf and instead of doing a British accent because we started
playing in England I felt bad speaking in a British accent around a bunch of
British people so it translated into this kind of Australian accent so now
she was just randomly Australian no other character in the campaign sounded
like it was just her but like the way that I would key into that voice in that
character was saying what the fuck so like if you have like a phrase that gets
you into character that's mine for Daisy which is one where I'm not doing like an
accent or anything I'm just playing with like which is my current character I am
doing that thing where I'm kind of playing with like the technical parts of
my voice so I'm playing with pitch I'm playing with rhythmic variety and like
musicality and I'm playing with engagement so for Daisy whenever I'm
talking I'm just like oh my gosh hi hello how are you it's really it's a
little bit more high pitch a little bit more high energy she has so much
fucking energy oh my god she's a goddamn ball of energy it never stops it
never ends and I'm just kind of playing with like the engagement and the like the
the the excitement of it all which is something that like will definitely also
help you say in character and say true to your character because if you're not
talking like yourself then there's that but like that's just a fun little thing
voices we ready for improv yeah unless there's anything else you want to say
about voices not really good luck shit sucks rules for him brav yes and never
say no rule those are rules never say no I'm gonna I'm gonna kick off with that
one because yes and it's pretty simple and straightforward it's like you always
just go off of whatever the last person said or you always had a build on never
say no is a rule that needs to be more widely fucking practiced at tables
because the shit's gonna drive me crazy man and again I'm not gonna shout out
specific people on this one this one's more of a negative thing must stop
shooting shit down like immediately and that's what I mean and like
no never say no are kind of like the same rule which is there's rules of
improv and you can't follow all of the improv rules at the table because one of
the improv rules that I learned was like don't bring a gun and like that doesn't
translate to D&D setting you actively have guns or equivalent of guns yes and
is basically when someone gives you a prompt if I'm if we're like in an
fucking improv game and I'm like hey Robert are you ready to go to the zoo
and Robert just goes no what the fuck am I supposed to do with that as opposed
to like yeah I'm ready to go look at the monkeys what's your favorite animal we're
saying yeah oh my god I'm not feeling good I don't think we can go like there's
ways to redirect it but like when you just say a hard no there's nothing else
that can happen and also just gets really awkward for everybody at the table
when you just hit somebody with a no or I don't really think like I don't really
agree with that or I don't think I should do that or I don't think that's the
right decision or I think that's stupid expand never tell another
person they're trying to do is fucking stupid that is like role-playing and
playing at the table you are putting yourself out there so much and to just
look at another player and just say no is it there's no reason for you to do
that you can acknowledge something I find that that happens a lot when people
are trying to play characters that are very like like the too cool for school
like elf that is cooler than everybody or like is disinterested in people and
like to an extent that stick and be fun and trophy and whatever the fuck but then
also please remember that other people at the table are also trying to roleplay
with you and are not all dark and broody and like fuck you I'm better than all of
you and also I don't want to interact with you just say something shitty but
that isn't shutting someone down like instead of going like no I think that's
done being like okay so do you have a better idea yeah like I think I could
come up with something twice as better than that because then at least it can
be a fun bantery argument as opposed to like no that's just fucking stupid yeah
and then there's nowhere to go and it's awkward it is so well that is like that
have to have a table you have to have a conversation like player to player and
being like this is what I'm trying to do please stop shutting it down yeah then
in sometimes those people too as players they're like no no like I stand by what
I said no I just think that's stupid yeah and it's like okay like what do you
mmm what do you want me to do with that and then I wrote some notes on this
DM's perspective I will always attempt to redirect the best I can but like I
can't just tell somebody to do something straight up like I can't because then it
just makes me look like an asshole yeah if I'm like or if Madison's like hey
would you mind using this spell on me I think that makes a lot of sense or even
in character like Daisy asking fuck Oliver hey would you mind using this
spell on me and then Ben as Oliver goes no and it's like okay um well I really
think that it would be helpful because of this that and the other and you're
like trying to explain a decision in character which takes you out a minute
because when you hear a hard no that's gonna take people out of their character
and then it's just like no I think that's stupid okay why do you think that's
stupid we're in mid-combat you don't have time to fucking talk about that so
then it's just like okay I'm gonna stop interacting with you then because
what happens it leads to players not interacting with other players because
one player has very clearly showed or displayed or role played some serious
disinterest in whatever that other player has to say or wants to do yeah and
it's it's just not fun and obviously no there's like exceptions to these things
of like if you're playing in something and a player comes up to you and is like
I think that we need to kill another party member that's an instance where you
as a character can say no however you're not saying no in this and this is like
one of those things and maybe this is just because I've spent too much time on
like TikTok lately and I've had like several conversations with some of my
friends about like chronically online and the idea that like when you say
something that it has to apply to every single situation and there's no
area for you to like use your head or use like common sense and be like hmm
does this really apply to me obviously these rules do not apply to every single
person in every single situation use some critical thinking shout out to my
slight background of philosophy another fun tangent there's a really fun
philosophy out there it's basically I hope no one ever listens to this podcast
those are they're talking about because I forget specific names and titles but
say that it's basically like like moral absolutism in the idea that one guy
whose name I can't remember because I took this shit in my freshman year this
particular idea for his moral theory or how to determine when to be moral is to
ask yourself when doing any action when saying anything period if I did this
right now what I'd be okay with every other person on the planet doing it too
hey this shit sucks do you have something you want to send in to make it
better criticisms topics you'd like to see discussed or an advertisement you'd
like to run maybe you even want to sponsor an episode if so shoot us a
message at MC 4 6 0 at evansville.edu or DM us on Instagram at Crescent
magazine or we'll never get better like these fucking guys like if I and that
gets annoying as fuck because it leads to you like in this weird thing with
yourself where it's just like do I don't I but like also if I did that what's it
it doesn't work people don't use it it doesn't apply no a perfect example that
do you know the bean soup video on tiktok do you know what I'm talking about so
it was this girl and she made this bean soup which was basically like super high
and iron and it was for like oh yeah yeah and then there were a bunch of
comments being like well what if I don't like beans what if I'm allergic to beans
can I make this without the beans how do I make it without the beans and it's like
in fucking soup dude you don't like beans maybe don't eat bean soup guess what
all the ingredients in the soup were fucking beans how do I make beans how
do I make how do I make this exact kind of bean soup without the beans yeah so
obviously like use some critical thinking there when it comes to like
applying this to everything common sense isn't all that common but we encourage
you to go fucking find some but for the most part that rule applies of like and
there's different ways that you can redirect and learn how to redirect so
if it's a thing where you're like no I or I'm using an extreme example here I
come up to just using fucking sparrow and Eba because those are the two pre-made
characters that we had sparrow goes up to Eba and it's like I think that we need
to kill so-and-such who is our our party patron and Eba goes no why why the fuck
are you wanting to kill him because even asking no and asking why after at least
gives them a moment gives them a moment you know and it gives you a like a
conversation when you just say no directly and you don't explain and you
don't elaborate and you don't acknowledge what the other person is trying to do
or like offer another way of doing it there's nothing that can happen that's
basically just like that's part of my note about redirecting like I as a DM
will try my fucking best to give people like hooks and lines in places to
redirect and jump if a particular like line of questioning or train of
thought just isn't going well I will do my best as a DM to be like here's
something you can grab on to or okay cool we're done on to the next thing like
I'm not gonna let things stall and hang and be awkward but also as a player
please try and do my job a little bit for me in that like you should also be
attempting to help redirect your your fellow players in PCs at the table
when you can see that something isn't going well or isn't like is gonna keep
hitting a dead end which is something called conversation you should get good
at having it with your players and your party members because if you say no and
try and end a conversation in the game are you gonna physically stand up and
walk out of the room no no you're still gonna be there at the table looking
across at the person who's flabbergasted because you just shut them down yeah
where do you go from there there's so many moments of like encouraging other
players to do things and we've talked about this before of like as a DMing
tool oftentimes you're gonna put like hooks for other players in other stories
or like in other people's conversations or things that they're interacting with
because that's just kind of like how a fucking mystery or an ensemble thing
works is where you're giving and maybe one player one at the table has
information on this specific thing and player two at the table has information
on this specific thing I'm gonna use an example from our last episode and like a
way of like that actively encourages conversation between players there was
my character had received this this comic book from like a stalker and in the
comic book there was a drawing of the person who who wrote the comic book and
across the table like in real life another player was interviewing this guy
and he was asking questions and he mentioned and the guy was like oh yeah
there was this one chick and like described what she was wearing and it
was the exact thing it was a description of the person from the comic book now my
character knows that and me Madison knows that and even though this was said
to the entire table it was also like a week ago and I'm not expecting everyone
because I'm an obsessive note-taker and it was something pertaining specifically
like or more specifically to my character than some other people's I knew
that instantly so like being able to also just didn't like that just wasn't
relevant information for them it was like cool so a chicken a costume showed up
yeah you know so finding a way for you also to like go and initiate a
conversation with that character and be like hey did and like trying to find a
way in character to be like by the way did he mention anything about like someone
in a costume about a person that I think I'm supposed to be paying attention to
but I can't say that because I wouldn't know that as a character to ask for can
you just tell me everything that the DM just told you verbally like now yeah
because that's another conversation of like it was staying in character and
staying true to your character and role-playing and then also avoiding
metagaming when you're in a situation like just really easy to do by the way
yeah and oftentimes what happens is that another player at the table will check
that person and go you weren't there yeah but sometimes that fucking irks me but
listen rule rule lawyers are good for if anything keeping people grounded and
on track and staying true to everything that's happening in the game sometimes
it's annoying I'm not gonna lie but other times it's like okay no that's so
fair I wouldn't know to ask them about this thing because I wasn't in the room
when that piece of information came their way yeah so as as in character as I'm
improving as I'm role-playing as this character I might ask a question that I
know as a player is gonna fuck the whole thing up but my character would a
hundred percent ask that yeah like if there was a specific question that I
wasn't supposed to ask a PC because it was gonna like set them off or let them
know that we knew something that we didn't want them to know but I wasn't
informed about that in my character's just like trying to get straight to the
problem I'm asking the question point blank no questions asked yeah and that's
when everyone at the tables like can I roll dexterity to like slap him I
distract can I like knock the guy out and that it makes for fun role-playing
moments but it's a meta game too much it's hard not to but there's an element
of metagaming that I think you have to do in moments like that when you are like
putting story information information other characters need in other people's
things and like sometimes it works out because like in this last instance my
character was like hey did he like mention anything about like somebody
being here and then that information was relate and I was like perfect and then
you can in character have that conversation and be like I think this is
connected and you can however out of character often what happens and this
doesn't bother me that much is going so did you tell me this yeah would you have
handed this thing to me before we showed up or would you have prepared that did
you do this or saying like what I know where this person is like you by all
means like from the deems perspective ask me or your other players if they
would have done something or thought to have done something because I'm not
going to be like absolutely not there's no way you could have done that get
fucked you don't know that yeah there are some instances where it's like what I
have do you think that I would have thought to have grabbed this specific
item and I'm like cool like roll a wisdom check or a wisdom saving throw to
like did you put that together before you left or did you put it together now
that we're midway through this encounter and you realize oh shit I forgot it yeah
like that's a wholly different thing than being like okay so do you tell me
everything that that I heard yeah and then they're like yeah no totally and
then that's when you can have that conversation where it's like putting the
buzzle pieces together you don't need to completely rehash the no 30 minutes of
conversation that I just gave every other player at the table that you I saw
they do the recently on dimension 20 it was specifically mintopolis and I
hadn't seen this done before was when basically you're like retelling a
character because a lot of times you'll have a character info dump to one
character and then the rest of the table can hear it but you also have to find a
way in character to relay that information to someone so in mintopolis
there was a moment where they would go okay cool download yep and that would
basically just be like it in character wave saying I'm not meta gaming but I'm
like giving you all of the information that I was told everything which is good
and also avoids you having to explain okay so then this person said this thing
but I think that was this thing and like blah blah blah blah you don't have to do
like the whole yeah I can sure a lot conversation at the table you can just
like you're all hopefully intelligent-ish people and you're more than capable of
putting it together it's like you don't always have to show your work on the
fucking paper sometimes mental math is okay as long as you can just indicate
that you got the right answer somehow yeah you know another thing when it comes
to like meta gaming and like sometimes you do have to step out of character to
stay in character when you're doing a thing where you desperately need a
specific piece of information from another character and when you ask them
in character about something they go oh nah I don't know what you're talking about
or something like that that's just so fucking annoying and it's happened at a
table quite a bit and I'm not gonna name names but it would happen quite a bit in
our last campaign and it got to a point where I would have to drop character be
like hey can you please tell me yeah it gets a little frustrating and sometimes
it makes sense for the character to not share that information but it doesn't
change the fact that it's just it's still fucking infuriating because it's like
yeah the only way that I can learn this piece of information is if you tell me
and because you're a slime ball fucking character with ulterior motives you're
not gonna tell me in this moment and I can't react in character like that means
anything because I don't know I have no reason and that's when meta gaming and
like player versus player stuff gets real fucking messy and I try to disallow
that where it's like can I do an insight check to see if I think he's lying and
I'm like contextually there is zero reason for you to think that one of
your trusted allies is lying to you yeah does it suck that they didn't give you
that piece of information a hundred percent am I just gonna allow you to
magically fucking perceive into the universe and like figure out that he's
lying when you've spent like the last three sessions being buddy buddy with him
no yeah sometimes part of that improv or that yes and or that never say no is
rolling with the shitty punches in just fighting another way to go about it yeah
because sometimes player goals contradict each other and that's sometimes
what I find the most fun at the table is a DM many of that stories yeah not so
much in this one as much in the last campaign but setting characters up and
players up with goals that will eventually intersect or contradict or run
parallel to one another and it's just gonna be a frustrating bumping of heads
mostly because it engages the problem-solving skills it makes them get
more into character because when you get stumped with a I'm not gonna tell you
that you got a hop right back into character and find like a good excuse
in that conversation or another train of thoughts I go on yeah it's like I'm not
gonna give you a free check to just know he's lying yeah find another way to do
it yeah yeah on to the next yes so this next part that I kind of wrote down is a
little this is like the perfect second it's a it's a good segue into like the
other thing which is so we've talked about like getting into character on your
own and then like saying in character at the table and stuff and this is kind of
like the melding of those two points before we get to the one that it's truly
just like at the table for everyone which is things that I like to do
personally or you can do on your own that will help you that are things that
can set you up for success in terms of like staying in character at the table
or things that you can do to kind of like be more connected and attached to your
character really quick before we do that there was just kind of a straight
thought I caught it so one thing it's deep one thing that we mentioned like
30 minutes ago was if if you're role-playing an asshole don't do it
too well and don't be afraid to back out of it if you can see that other people
at the table and are uncomfortable or don't like interacting with it one of
my other tips and tricks and pointers is a DM is if you are truly just unhappy
role-playing as the character that you have given yourself and that character
is too well established or you just don't feel like it would be true to
yourself or the character to just have like a random fucking switch up in
personality or goals what I like to do well I see there being a few different
options from the DM's perspective I would encourage that player to then say
hey like can we do a retcon can we just kill him off can there be like some
traumatic event can we give him like a bit of an arc that's gonna like switch
up personality one thing a DM will never do is say no to giving a character
trauma character man general rule building and then like I would just sit
down and be like yes let's talk about which options you like most how
important is that character the story at this point I might be a little less
willing to immediately hop on and go yeah let's kill him off cuz like maybe I
like the character maybe the character is important maybe that character has
several very valuable things on their person at this moment and killing them
in the next session for no reason at all would just be kind of fucking stupid
from the player's perspective what I've tried to do with a character that I'm
playing actively now and in one of my other campaigns I'm involved in I got a
little jaded at the table as a player and started it's just because the world
that we're in is very non good people friendly we're playing in water deep I've
talked about this shit whole place several times it's where fucking near
duels and like the holders and it's got them it's got them and it was like I was
trying to play Batman but like a really good version of Batman like a really
friendly public version it you understand why it doesn't fucking exist
yeah it's impractical yeah it's like if Batman walked out in a white suit like
never really brutalized anybody and was like friendly and trying to help every
motherfucker he saw so Superman Superman but in Gotham without the
ability to fucking fly being vulnerable or hit people hard like really hard like
so like a philanthropist mm-hmm like a buff philanthropist I took that approach
as a character in a fucking setting that I did not realize was going to be
Gotham where every time I like it's the whole every good deed goes like no no
no good deed goes unpunished yes what my fucking character and myself as a
person felt like because I was like I'm gonna go out on my way to help the next
30 people because I'm a paladin and I'm all about doing good and then it'd be
like well the orphanage that you saved last night burned down because you
pissed off the wrong people okay we're gonna tomorrow's gonna tomorrow's a new
day and it's like I just kept doing shit like that and doing shit like that in
the world just kept fucking no shade to the DM I get what he's what he's doing
and it's it's difficult you know we had very different ideas about who I was
gonna be versus what his world was gonna be like and that's not entirely on
either one of us yeah Jesus fucking Christ but it just it got to a point
where like I as a character was just like okay this world has no consequences
nothing I do matters we are we're going evil and I went from like a paladin who
was like punish the wicked like do no evil I won't kill enemies I'll use
revivify unlike a fucking a bandit to I'm murdering strangling pillaging
stealing you name it I'm doing it because at this point I feel like the
only way I can save this city is if I take it by the fucking neck and that's
the arc that my character has been on for the last several sessions it's been
me going you know what I can't do any goodness we're all without doing a lot
of bad so I'm just gonna do a lot of bad and hope that the end result is worth
it and I just fucking started to dislike my character because I just couldn't
find a way out of that goddamn hole yeah I just like he's evil everyone around
them things he's evil I would love to do some kind of like oh he's not evil now
but it's not gonna work so then something the DM did because he knew I
was I was going a little overboard with it like I literally I would walk up to
random people and be like you got any money for me no fuck you and then punch
him in the face and take the lunch money like it was it was bad so he blinded
me he had he had I'm a paladin I have a God so he and he made me have a one-on-one
conversation with that God and was like hey bro I don't appreciate you going
around in my name doing fucking sacrilegious shit so no eyeballs for you
you can get them back when you decide you want to be a good boy and then sent
me back blind no blind sight no nothing just fucking blind and that was my
punishment for the character character I was fuck around and find out 100% but
now what I'm doing as a player is like I finally found a fun way to play the
character again which is like doing the like repentant all like good good
deeps to the fucking max like I'm listen I'm throwing coins to homeless people I'm
backpacking fucking monks up the mountain like I'm doing it all and I'm
doing it blind it's so much funnier do imagine just a really angry blind man
yeah that's exactly what it is though because everyone's like he's I love him
he's funny as fuck is a DM he's also he loves to play all of his PCs like they've
never seen a blind person in their life and every time we have a new
interaction with a fucking group of NPCs he's like what's up with his eyes guys
like talking to the party and I'm like I'm right here dude and they're like can
I put something in that that looks weird and I'm like no that's my eye socket
they're like so how'd that happen and I'm like a God took them and they're like
what do you mean I got it I'm like like a literal fucking God took me to an
extra-dimensional plane and plucked them out I don't have another explanation for
that and then they're like confused what I'm jaded about the whole thing you know
I'm like good because I was forced to be good but it's it's a fun arc but anyways
very long tangent just to basically say sometimes you have to give yourself an
arc to get yourself out of that role-playing hole other times you just
gotta talk to the DM you like listen ask me fucking kill me I'm out next session
I got a backup character let's talk about it do whatever you got to do
session wise to write me the fuck out taking that explanation I'm just
imagining if I just went up it was like yeah kill Magnolia yep cool
backup character baby which the joke of that was also she tried to kill her so
many times yeah she was unkillable she always had some bullshit to like come
back to life well also we had party members who would daily cast death
ward on me because it was like that Robert was that open about how the whole
goal was decided she wanted to be the ultraman character I did not decide that
you gave me those power cosmic events gave me the power and then you proceeded
to not use them with any caution any secrecy any amount of like fucking
cooth like you just went out there fucking vage to the universe just like
hey guys I can do it I fucking want and I want to let you know that I can do it
and I'm sick as shit also I have a garbage personality and then she was
mad confused with everybody in the fucking multiverse was like no we know
who you are we don't know who the rest of you are but we definitely know who you
are and you're on a watch list and she's like me a watch list so don't take
that as I just kept trying to kill her because I wanted a fucking die it's
because she put a target on her back and then like danced in the middle of the
street shoot me shoot me shoot me shoot me you won't do it no balls well every
day every day I woke up with like it was fucking here are three spells that'll
keep you from dying if you go down yep and then it ended up being everyone at
the party just because of the nature of who they are as people were like yeah
we're gonna lay down our lives to keep her alive for no reason also like mad
essential to like progressing the story that it would have been hard to her
randomly if we accidentally end up in the wrong place again and we kill her
she's our ride can't kill the basically can't kill like the dedicated oh my
god what is it plot device no no no not that like a driver designated driver
a driver yeah designated yeah don't leave your DD behind or you're fucked back
on track back on track make a playlist on your own step make a playlist spotify
Apple music I'm a freak my ass YouTube music I'm part of me doesn't want to
explain her what you just said cuz I know what you're referencing but I don't
want to explain it understand what that is yeah but shout out to Matt Reese's
Batman I just mean the like the timing of it if I don't explain any further and
it's so fair make a list make a playlist I've got a playlist but I listen to you
kind of like or I don't really listen to it before we play because we play early
as fuck in the morning but it's something I listen to whenever I'm doing I do a
lot of like artwork and like like crafts and shit for the D&D table so I listen
to that while I'm doing that yeah shout out to Madison for also making two
separate playlists that really fit in the universe and in character once for
combat and once for like doing normal shit yeah I'm really I'll talk about
doing like tavern music bullshit now is like listen I'm playing regular people
music if y'all have suggestions let me know and then my character music is a
really big like thing for her a patrol playlist that I'm like sounds like
background music to me baby it's like a four hour long playlist and it is like
but it doesn't have to be like that it can be a list of songs that you think
fit the character or like it could be something that you think the character
is gonna listen to or it could be like just listen to that like help you really
get into the into the personality like remind you of the character mm-hmm or
just like puts you in a particular headspace like hyping your son it's
basically like fucking game day music yeah like it's pretty much it or
presentation and you put on like that go-to song that like puts you in the
fucking mood to go and do that thing make that but either for yourself or for
your character yeah like I've got a playlist for that character there's
dozens of playlists that I've made for her all of which are pretty long but I
also have my like playlist that is her as a character or like her character
vibes and only like 20 songs long but that's one of my favorite things to do
you can take notes in character does your so wild I've done it before I did it
for a little bit for Magnolia and I had a lot of fun doing it so much like
fucking method acting a little bit it's like what's your character keep a journal
or a diary and if your character does that definitely helps but like I loved
the concept of like having a notebook or like a scrapbook that was like from the
characters perspective I know I saw the time I'm moving it along and like because
that also helps you keep a double it like doubles because you can take notes
which is great those are always important but it also lets you know like
what is important to your character and how your character views things and like
what they are taking in which can be pretty fun so that's another fun little
thing oh the sun things in my ass I guess I'll explain that one of our players
at the table made their first like character playlist and they're playing
Batman and it's called some things in my ass because they're playing a riff off
of the Batman yeah the Nirvana song yeah which is also name I won't say because
of copyright stuff you they don't copyright titles oh what's the name of
the song you know something something in the way something in the way I think
yeah it was the the like theme song for Matt Reeves is Batman yeah Robert Pattinson
yeah I almost wanted to let you just say the name Pattinson I was gonna say
Pattinson with with sparkly boy yeah so it fits but going back to like that's
another thing of like his him as an example of like finding things to help
keep you in character because sometimes your personality contradicts the
character you're playing in his does fully he's one of the sweetest people
I've ever met he's playing Batman or like basically the
darker version of Batman like we have to like I'll cut off a fucking limb if it
means you tell me where the shit's at and it's like a thing we're at the table
he's just such a friendly person that he's giving away information that I'm
gonna fucking gut you like a dog yeah that was crazy yeah he got real into
that one yeah but it like moments of like yeah that he's like oh yeah that's
my brother yeah we're like you can't tell us that everyone's like what did you say
and like he immediately came in gave away his secret identity like fully
compromises identity so now identities don't matter it's like I'll pay everyone's
medical bills like just just fucking balls to the wall yeah friendly person
we have to be like dial it back yeah dial it back just like his his Batman
persona and his Bruce Wayne persona are basically the same fucking person the
only difference is like there's a costume on yeah sometimes yeah it's the same
person night and day though like it wouldn't have taken long for everybody
did to put two and two together not at all it was it was so funny
fill out character Buzzfeed quizzes yes this is something that I think is really
fun I've done this for characters I play it it's gonna sound really stupid you
know those like fucking Buzzfeed quizzes where it's like what type of cheese are
you or some bullshit like that or like if you want to get like more like legit
with it I know people who take the like the enneagram test or like the the
personality types and like it's wild all of those and take them as your
character and I think it does kind of help and it's also kind of fun and it's
just like a lighthearted fun thing that you can do that's something that you can
do is kind of like a before the session or before you play thing it's stupid and
silly but it's a fun little thing that I like to do another one is have a meta
notes sheet which are notes about your character how they act small details
about them this is kind of like a character Bible who talked about at the
beginning of the episode yeah so like I have a document where I write down the
information that like the character knows versus what I know as a person and
then also things about the character that I like what these characters flaws are
how for me I write down how the character talks and like the voice and
pitch thing I also write down kind of like notes and like John notes about the
way that they feel about other characters or if I have like an idea about
like what I want their arc to kind of look like if you are coming into this
and like want a certain arc and talk to your team about that if you do yeah but
like ideas for kind of like an arc and stuff like that I do that that's how I
like to take my notes as a DM actually is I like to have like a I do digital
note-taking now just because ADHD makes using a physical note but you're fucking
impossible because I can't work it out once I put it on the paper but what I
like to do with my when my digital note-taking is a DM is kind of in the
similar style as I am writing my my plot hooks and as I'm writing my my lines
and like the connect the dots kind of stuff which is some of my favorite stuff
to do is a DM is I will say like this person like on this let's say like on
jury I will write a whole synopsis on like synopsis on journey jury as he is
or as he was up until the beginning of the campaign and then I'll write like
today and then under today will be like what he's done in the last couple of
days and then I'll name drop other characters in that note but I won't put
anything in that note that he wouldn't know or I will put like tab under and
then like doesn't know this but this happened and it's a really helpful way
of doing note-taking for sure it can be a little exhausting like I'm not gonna
like I'm playing catch up because I didn't start at the beginning of the
semester like on notes is yeah that's exhausting but what I highly suggest that
if you're gonna do it that way if you're gonna do it the way the Madison was
just talking about start it from the beginning and like keep up with it
because it will start to get a lot like it'll start turning into more stress
that it's fun but like here's an example on like under the little
relationships thing and I'm gonna use one for Parker who's her best friend
which is just kind of says Parker is her very best friend and her family in the
city the most important person in her life she would do anything to protect
him if she's put in the Batman situation and it's like him or the city she's
gonna choose him and so that's something for me to like kind of keep in mind
which that Robert as my DM should not hear that yeah I didn't know life don't
I didn't know that don't wow everyone at the table wants to turn this character
into until just that's so fun yeah I I was a media I was so picky about which
one I was choosing I was like which one does it not matter if I say in front of
Robert and I I didn't think about it because I thought that I made that clear
the campaign I like to keep the atmosphere at my table very competitive
even between players and DMs like we keep secrets from each other all the fucking
time they won't give me information it is antagonistic because they know that I
will take that and turn that shit into plot hooks and trauma real quick it's a
thing we're like it's like a fun combat encounter to me dude me as a player has
to be like okay cool I cannot let my DM actually know how my character feels
about other characters because it's gonna be fodder fucking looking dude I'm
sniping I'm like a hawk I'm already know everyone wants this character to
turn out to be like the big villain fucking nuggets of motivation that I can
just use man not all for negative things though mostly for not all for
negative things mostly for negative this campaign has been significantly more
lighthearted it is positive than the last fucking two I've done I agree yeah
yeah so back off man hey the comic book thing wasn't that that was a little
fucked up I'll give you know I thought it was dope as shit as a player she but
that was more fun than it was like trauma you know what I'm saying for
reference my character gets their powers from super heat from from comic books
huge comic book fan her whole goal in like way of knowing that she's made it
is finding a comic book she goes into the comic shop finds a cute little like
fan comic about her she's like oh my god I made it well then the next day one
gets delivered to where she is when she's with the rest of the party in an
envelope and it is doxing her like straight up it's at her it shows her
going throughout her day in her house at Parker's house it shows everyone's
secret identities because she knows all of their identities and she's like this
isn't fun anymore but like it was a plot hook yeah introduced a really really
interesting antagonist that everyone seems to be fairly invested in like
more about no it's scary as shit it's really fun but yeah meta note sheets are
great and then physical vibes this is kind of very this is very act or the
first part isn't actually the second one is actually oh wait no that's a
different note Pinterest boards artwork dice that remind you of your character
physical things that like remind you or keep you in that characters headspace
that'll help kind of like keep you in character for me I love making Pinterest
boards I recently and like this is okay there's a caveat with this I have a lot
of feelings about AI like a lot of very strong feelings about AI I stand like
the writer strike has ever been I also stand with the actor strike this is
gonna be a segment there'll be a whole episode about it I'm not gonna get into
it all now I promise you're looking at me like you don't believe me I was just
gonna say I have feelings about AI however personal use for personal use I
found an AI that generates basically like comic books which is great so I've
made like character arc for the big character art for every single yeah and
I've made like character art for everything so I can like I'm making
like little physical comic books for my character because that's something
that's like super in character I buy a set of dice for every character that
reminds me of them this is a silly little woman I was thinking about drink a
drink that you think that they drink like that's a that's a stupid little thing
but when we used to play on like Friday nights we would often be like drinking
as we're playing and like looking around the table it was like the vampire
character was drinking a glass of red wine and the Irish robot for some reason
was drinking like an Irish cider and I was drinking like either a gin cocktail
or some sort of like cider or like just truly any alcoholic beverage that was
left over which is also very in character for who I was playing like
little things like that think how do they sit do they talk with their hands if
they are articulate do you think that they slouch or like shrink or are they
like really tall and proud like you're playing a character that's like a six
foot Amazonian woman she's not gonna be sitting slouched over in her chair
she's probably gonna be sitting up straighter and so sitting helps it helps
it's just a small thing that you don't think about but the way that you hold
yourself at the table in number one it keeps you engaged number two if you're
actively thinking about the way that you're sitting as compared to the way
that your character would be sitting it keeps you in game focused on that
character the whole time yeah you know like it's just you don't have to be
fucking anal about it but it's just a fun thing to think about yeah it's really
fun to do and there's also moments where like this happened last session of like
physically embodying some moments at the table if there's a part where you're
if there's like a part where you're like shaking hands or like holding hands as
a group because you're about to go through a portal we've done that before
at the table and it's weird every time but like doing like little things like
that could be really fun and they're engaging for the whole table but there
was like a moment last session where I guess I mean you could talk about it you
did it yeah so talking about that antagonist connected with the comic
book she's very like mysterious very kind of like unhinged I'm not gonna give
too many details about it just because I'm sure Madison wants to know but the
problem the longest short of it is that she's she's got a couple of screws loose
and I'm not trying to play the Harley Quinn character just for anyone listening
that's not what I'm doing there's a specific character that I've taken
inspiration for from but our dark and broody Batman's been off the shadow
basically spots her she's like in a sniper's nest kind of deal and like
firing at the players from a building while like they're being attacked by
separate like combatants and he at the very beginning of the combat session
wild choice by the way does a fucking crazy high ridiculous perception check
and immediately spots her like on top of a building like 500 yeah like 500 feet
away which I mean characters not in combat can see up to two miles fucking
characters in combat yeah y'all got like 60 feet so he definitely pushed that to
the limit and then proceeded to spend the next like six turns just running at
this bitch like up the building using his shadows like Spider-Man up the fucking
building it was just like gunning for because she managed to down two members
of the party both of which are the youngest members in the group and he's
taken on this very like kind of dad Batman protective like touch my like
touch my kids who I don't like I'm gonna fucking kill you yeah kind of deal
sprints up there gets ambushed immediately and then they end up having
like a bit of a fight back and forth it ends very quickly because it wasn't
meant to be drawn out and then I was thinking in my head like what is she
thinking like I'm trying to get in the minds like the headspace of this
character and she's a very dark character she has interest in a lot of dark
things she thinks that like wicked things and dark things are more fun than
like fun and pretty and bright things and so this character who's like dressed
in all black is very dark is saying all these very like grim dark things to her
is there fighting you like a dog that just like die like the dog you are I
don't want to say it was nuts I don't want to say like turns are on but it
peaks her interest immensely because it's like cool here's somebody that I can
go like tit for tat with yeah like I'm fucked up this person's fucked up to
that's kind of cool man and he was in like this down state where he was
basically can coonie cocooning himself with his with the shadows and I was like
in my mind what I was picturing was as she has him down in this vulnerable
position she like lays down alongside him as he's in this vulnerable state and
like gets as close to his head as she can like in his ear and then like whisper
something to him and I couldn't decide if I wanted to do it physically if I
just wanted to do it from across the table but in the moment it felt right to
do it physically so I stood up I walked over to him I said I'm about to get in
your ear let him go through his moment of extreme discomfort it took a couple of
laughs but when I did it I thought it was a hell of a lot of fun he seemed to
like it and it was just yeah it was a it was a whole thing about being physical
getting up out of the chair and walking over to him getting in his ear not in
like an invasion of privacy way like I told him what I was doing before I was
gonna do it please you know and sent this key like if he had been like hey man
no way I'm good like I wouldn't have done it I would have just done it from
across the table but I know him very well I'm about to death so I got up and I
did it and I think in that moment he felt a lot more connected to what was
happening because he was uncomfortable in real life yeah in the game and I for a
moment got to be in like a much more physical headspace of this fucking
crazy lady who's saying crazy lady shit in his ear yeah cuz that's one of the
hard things of like staying in characters you're sitting at a table like
when you're acting you're like in the space in your body and if you can't do
that of standing up and running around on stage is there's like if you can't get
into the headspace there's always the physicality to fall back on at the
table like you're sitting in a chair for four or five hours you know these
people I follow on tiktok and I wish I knew their fucking at and I think you
follow them too but the DM in it he regularly like gets up and walks around
the guy that did curses drug yes yeah super say if you just look up like
curses around on tiktok you'll find him like it's up and walks around the table
and it's like creepy it's good like stocks them like in the room shits wild
man yeah so don't be afraid to get physical
uh dress for success stupid little title this is also kind of a silly one
but I like doing it I don't do it at our table I do it at another table that I
play at dress up as your character you should you know I'm okay I'm going to
last time she was like I'm not doing it well I play at a table full of like dudes
cis men like aggressively men they are like it it's not even talking a lot and
this is not like a call to action but I would absolutely love to have another
female player at the table because I love these guys with my whole heart I
want another girl with several of them so fucking bad amount of testosterone in
that room it's a bit much at times it's a little nausea I feel bad for medicine
but because of that and like because of like who they are as people I was like
it'd be stupid if I'd like dressed as care like dressed up or something like
that I mentioned something off-handedly and they were all so offended they were
like what do you mean I want to dress up a character so bad try it man that's the
coolest thing ever so like nerds when they're shy men that don't want to
roleplay you kind of forget that they're also into that shit yeah so but like you
don't have to wear a full-blown costume but like maybe you wear their favorite
color or like if you're playing in a fantasy setting if you have like one of
those flowy white blouses you know like the one that men wear and like the like
I call them the slutty blouse Darcy wears or like any man yeah any man in a
fantasy setting who wears one of those he's a slut he is for the streets
whore um well like wearing something that's like a little bit like that I
wear like you're objectifying fantasy men right now Madison absolutely wow and
I'll do it again no that's fair I'm someone who owns a lot of like weird
costumey shit I've got like corsets and stuff if I'm playing a character that's
gonna wear a corset I'll wear a corset or if you're playing a character with
glasses maybe you've got like a pair of fake glasses or you wear real glasses
instead of wearing your contacts maybe you can wear glasses just little things
like that are kind of fun and they keep you in the physical body this is like an
actor from an acting perspective I'm someone who like I fully feel in the
character when I'm like in a costume or something like that like I was doing a
show where we were in period it was a period show and so we like rehearsed
every time in corsets and petticoats and that like really helped key you in
because it like affects the way that you sit in the way that you like exist
because you're wearing these clothes next is me yeah so weren't you in
perspective stuff so Jesus for anyone that is interested in DMing this is
gonna be more directed towards them this is kind of some general things that I
like to think of when I'm trying to get into certain NPCs so crazy lady is a
great example I know what her motivation is deeply like I have written that out I
know her character I'm basing her off of another character that I in like a piece
of fiction that I love with my heart and so I have a very strong sense of who she
is of what her character motivation is what her personality is like what's her
background what is her purpose in the story like it the one thing about being
a DM that's different than the players is that the players are in the story fully
all the time 110% as a DM you're kind of doing double work when you're role
playing an NPC it's not just here's the character motivation here's what they
sound like here's where they're from and then like to do to have fun
interacting the the sort of double mission yeah like the separate side to
that is their purpose they have a purpose in the story whether that purpose
is to progress whether that purpose is to antagonize whether that purpose is to
provoke some emotional response or to set up a hook later keeping in mind what
your every time your NPC is in a room or on stage or are just on focus not like
also keep in mind what they're there to do what are they supposed to accomplish
because the personality of a character when I'm writing them in concept might
not line up with what I ultimately want their purpose in the story to serve and
so I have to kind of switch it up or I have to divvy it up a little bit and so
that like really getting into an NPC as a DM because you have to role play
multiple different personalities multiple character motivations multiple
purposes all in the same session sometimes and it gets exhausting and the
way that I like to really differentiate that is again have very specific ideas
and details about those NPCs before you go into it it doesn't matter if they're
small if they're big think of very medial things think of very key things
that like if a player asked what is this person like you can tell them or you
will have a good idea of how to answer that question think of whose friend are
they like what neighborhood are they from it say they're trying to burn the
city down why what's the backstory for that are they just a fucking anarchist
is it like let's just like this shit up things are getting boring yeah okay if
their character motivation is let's light the shit up things are getting
boring what's happened in a childhood to spur them on that where they should have
psychopathed they have like a really boring childhood and they discovered
they had all these powers and it's like I'm gonna do whatever I want to I'm a
god cool that leads me into like they're hubris they're confident they're
boisterous they're like they're gonna be funny in moments they shouldn't be
they're gonna be arrogant and like I have a whole personality in a way that I
want to roleplay them just based on what their motivation is and what their goal
in the story is supposed to be so you can work at it from multiple different
angles is a DM and you kind of have to because they're not just players their
NPCs and they are ultimately there to serve a purpose that's my spiel nice
spiel also sometimes it just helps to do the opposite of what you would do in
real life I put that there is a little note truly if you get stumped in a role
playing moment think this is what I would say and then do whatever the fucking
like do do it over the opposite of that is yeah that's always a fun thing to do
also as a person in this moment be like it's over there well I'm playing a crazy
NPC and I just don't know what to go with it it's not there it's just lie it's
over that way completely wrong direction just lie just lie just that's the DM tag
line if you just got to get the fuck out of a situation just lie just make it up
because they don't know the difference in real life to um yeah let's speed run
the last yeah warm ups this is just something kind of like we don't in
character be Daisy I'm gonna ask these and they'll get to see what it's like
okay you can answer a question in characters a fun little table warm up
let's do it what's your best party trick um I can I can I can do a handstand and
drink water at the same time I don't know if that's physically possible five
things that make you happy um comic books my best friend Parker like a really
good iced coffee like when you can't tell that there's like several extra shots
of like espresso in it anytime that I get like more than three retweets on one
of my posts and oh when like someone like tweets about me
um trolley problem you got a switch you got one person on one set of tracks
you got five people on the other set of tracks the if you don't pull the switch
the train's gonna hit the five people if you do pull the switch it's only gonna
hit the one person what do you do I'm jumping in front of the train to stop
it before it hits anyone else so fucking valid describe yourself in three words
um I'm just here what did you want to be when you were a little kid superhero
well actually I mean like I didn't think that I would be be able to like be a
superhero because that's like a freak thing um so I wanted to be like I wanted
to work for a publishing company that like publishes comic books that's so
that's so cute tell us your character's favorite joke I wrote these not with the
intention of actually answering any of these now you're on I do not know um I
I cannot genuinely think of any joke best meal you've ever had what's the
equivalent of like a fast food place of this universe literally it's all the
same there was this McDonald's like I got a big mac one time when I was drunk at
like three in the morning and I shouldn't have been like drinking in like
superheroic at the same time but I definitely wasn't they gave me a discount
actually because I was in costumes so they were like oh you're like a superhero
and I was like yeah and so I ate it on top of the building describe your
characters personal hell um Jesus fuck yeah pretty much
okay well normally you have like time I didn't know I was gonna be put on the
fucking spot today and just told getting character do it speedrun the rest of
them yeah we're not gonna actually do the rest of this this shit would take
forever tell the party a story is your character maybe it's something from your
backstory or like a funny inconsequential thing that's happened to them but just
like just something that's happened it does a little bit of world building for
the other characters that also is just like fun for you to get into that space
play a card game in character this that sounds like a fucking fun one Kim's or
cards against humanity like two examples very from like an actual physical
card game of like go fish or old mate or like some shit like that yeah to like
cards against humanity or we've got this game like stir the pot we're like who's
most likely or you can even play games like never have I ever I think if you
have the time to play games like that that would be so much fucking fun to
play in character this last one is definitely on here because she's done
this yes it's eat a meal together if you were playing yeah so if you're playing
Friday night you're eating pizza you're doing whatever you guys got take out
which is this you know we've never done this but it could be fun like pretend
that your party stopping in for a bite at a tavern or is like rolling up to the
fast food place in costume yeah like oh my god like like the fucking Avengers
Swarma thing that happened in the first like like that 100% do that we need to
do the Avengers Swarma thing yeah like you guys like destroy like a fast food
or like I don't know the city gets like obliterated and y'all just like save the
day and sit down on like a fast food place and it's like cool I'm gonna go get
food we're gonna come back staying character yeah and then of course we did
last one on here expert mode make a meal thematic to your game and eat it
together we did when we did I for Christmas I bought the house because
everyone who lives in the house plays in this different I bought us except for
one I bought us the D&D cookbook and because I'm and we were all going on
fall break together and we were staying in a cabin and part of the reason that we
like one of the things that we looked at in the air B&B that we were gonna stay
in with how big the table was legitimately because we wanted like a
really nice table to play D&D at yeah a big legitimately a pretty large part of
the choosing select the choosing like it was election process holy fuck I can't
think today so I was like okay I want to do like a big D&D meal I want to do like
and it was like a more classic environment of D&D I mean it was a
tower it was the World Servants Inn which we've mentioned before so I was like
okay I want to be like kind of like D&D-ish food and so I ended up making
this like really it was a huge meal and it took several hours of prep I did a
like and this was also I was feeding like 12 people you know feeding a lot so I
did beef stew I did hand pies with like a beef and bacon filling I did pasta I
did like a bread appetizer with some dipping oils I did salad I did grilled
asparagus and I absolve and then mini pies for dessert so it was all a very
good food I like displayed it all and we all ate it while we were like playing
this like what was basically like the mid-season finale is what I call it in my
head like our campaign and we didn't end up like being we were gonna originally
like sit down in character and like eat the meal but we didn't end up doing that
but in an ideal world like if you want to be like really boozy with it make a
meal that like would fit like what your it's just kind of and we've talked about
trying to do one for the current campaign setting we're in I mean you
basically just it's just like fast food like that's so funny to me Walmart like
it's just like normal ass places that just are a little more high-tech like
we're not going the wall around it's not like fucking slopping a cup oh I
have a little I'm saying it's not like flavor gruel or anything yeah it's very
much just like just one morning you might like doordash McDonald's and it's
like cool you guys are taking a break inside of a restaurant or just stop it
on the way in full costume yeah like that's fun that's funny and it helps you
like getting character with your table it's like table bonding it's like team
building exercise and team building awesome we are finally at the end of all
of our notes thank you master for putting all that together I had no
working coming up with that list I like doing acting shit so thank you all for
tuning into another episode of table talk once again we have no clue what we'll be
talking about next time we never really do even when they say we do see you later
bye-bye