Hello players who can't do accents but refuse to let that stop them.
DMs that had to retcon an entire two and a half months of sessions.
Welcome back to Table Talk. I'm Maddie Conway.
And I'm Robert Lopez.
I was about to say what are we talking about today, but I feel the need to acknowledge that we have a weird energy in the studio.
It's definitely super high-pitched, super active.
But we finished our finals.
We did finish our finals.
Robert is officially done with college.
Done with college until I decide to go back for my master's.
But I'm done with undergrad for at least a long time.
Today we are going to be doing a draft style video where we talk about the don't touch the fucking buttons.
Which one is it?
No.
Just read the thing man. She's trying to hit the fucking like the do do do do do do do.
I turned it down.
It's draft time!
Oh my god.
It's funny.
Anyways.
Well you made it not funny.
We're doing a draft video where we're picking our favorite and our least favorite moments from the last two campaigns that we played.
We are picking two good and two bad from the first campaign and one good and one bad from the next.
From the campaign we're currently playing just because it hasn't been going on nearly as long.
So yeah.
We're just going to have fun with this one.
Try and keep it a little more low key and talk about some of the fucking train wrecks.
I saw some of the greatest moments from either side of the table.
Yeah.
So starting with positives.
Do you want to go first?
Yeah I can go first.
So my first positive for...
There's so many different ways to do this.
To do the first campaign was the creation introduction and usage of Nidhogg, the giant lizard.
Specifically if I have to pick a moment it's when you fucked up and killed yourself,
released concentration on a spell,
and then everybody at the table had the collective oh shit moment.
Yeah.
When they realized that the thing that was still at like half health and max power came back.
I'm going to jump in here.
My number one draft pick was also that moment where I killed myself as Magnolia.
That was my number one.
That was my number one positive.
It sounds really bad but it was just a really cool narrative moment.
And I think that's one of those things where it's like...
She almost got stuck in somebody else's head.
Oh my god that was so scary.
Yeah there was a dice roll.
She almost got stuck in the BBG's head.
Yeah that would have been...
And we would have been just fully sharing a body which would have been so interesting.
And honestly that would be a fun spin off like one shot just to see what happens.
Because I'm so curious.
But it was a really cool story moment.
And I think that's one of those things where like failures as a character can like also definitely come into play.
Because I really thought about putting...
I didn't know whether to put that as number one good or number one bad.
It's kind of a mixed bag truly.
But like that for me...
Oh my god.
Doing the math on that and like at the whole time you were like do I just kill myself?
Do I try and bring it back?
Do I kill myself?
What do I do?
Nidhogg's gone.
She's banished.
Which for the record...
Because we've explained it in other episodes.
This was a moment...
It's like a really really really big fight.
Like it's not the finale fight but it's like damn near close.
Yeah it was like the fight before the...
It was like the penultimate fight before the final fight.
It was like the mid-series finale.
That's not a thing.
Whatever.
I mean it is.
We'll just have one.
Yeah.
It's like that kind of situation.
And it was so the bad guy was there.
The bad guy had just gone down.
And I was trying to save the bad guy.
He was a character named Keyloy.
And we're fighting this fucking lizard Nidhogg.
And it is just kicking our ass like it's a massive dragon.
We are like just a little party.
And we were struggling.
And I cast Banishment on Nidhogg.
And somehow succeeded on that because I used Banishment all the time.
I was the winner.
Poorly.
And I had a wild magic surge.
It basically said I could come back.
I reincarnate if I die within the next so ever minutes.
And I had very low hit points.
And I was like running out of spell slots.
And my brain was like the best way to get these spell slots back.
Is if I'm just in a new body.
So we're gonna roll the risks.
We're gonna take it.
And so she kills herself in the middle of this giant fight.
Completely disregarding and not remembering that Banishment is a
concentration spell.
So there's this whole story moment.
She has like a moment where she connects with like the world serpent
who's like heart resides in her.
Yeah.
Like basically just like talking to God for a little bit.
And everyone on the like in the battlefield is like, did she just
kill herself?
Pardon me.
And then comes back and everyone's like, like there's just like a
energy settled across the table because like a big thing just
happened.
And then Robert gets to go.
So Ninhuck comes back and everyone went, what?
No.
How?
And concentration was bad, ma'am.
And it was like not even one that we could argue.
It was like, yeah, that's very clearly.
And then came back, played her turn, ate the BBG and fucking dip.
She eats him.
So the whole reason that she killed herself out the window, but God,
it was such a cool story moment.
Yep.
And it kicked off the entire second half of the campaign, which was
now trying to chase him down, trying to like, trying to find a way to
bring the fucking villain back while he's currently in the stomach
of a dragon, which resulted in killing another God.
Uh-huh.
Swindling another God out of it.
Like the God of Swindles.
You're not a God's we killed.
Well, just like the God of Swindleness.
Yeah.
God.
He got God.
God swindled.
I got him.
That shit was wild.
I beat him.
That shit was nutty, man.
Yeah, that whole thing was crazy.
I think for my side of it, it was just, I loved playing that character.
I'll have to look up the StapLock one of these days and then
shout them out on the podcast.
I literally just looked up Nithock from God of War, Ragnarok, and
Minor Spoilers for anybody that haven't played the game, but it's been on
Forever, Got Game of the Year and go fucking play it.
It's amazing.
I have a controller that is God of War Ragnarok style.
I also had Madison make me a dice box with their logo on the box.
So super sick fucking box.
Sick game.
I'm so proud of it.
We talked about it in a previous episode.
That's like, that game is where the inspiration, not Ragnarok, but the one
before it, just God of War, which is kind of like a hard, not a hard reboot,
but kind of like a soft reset of the whole series beforehand.
That's what kicked off my interest in doing that sort of Norse mythology,
multiverse kind of thing in the first place.
And Nithock, I was, I always knew I wanted to roll Nithock in because
the world serpent was the thing.
The Idrisil was the thing.
And I've explained this previously in a different video, but just to kind of
briefly explain it here, the way that the Idrisil works is it's basically
just this tree that sets out.
Also, if anybody has watched the new Loki season on Marvel, you kind of have
a big idea of what it is.
But it's basically just this tree that sits out in the middle of nothingness,
or sometimes in the middle of everything, depending on which version of it
you're looking at.
And it runs straight through each of the nine realms in traditional Norse mythology.
Basically, the only thing that is left after every time Ragnarok happens is this tree.
The first two people are always born from the tree, which then turns into God,
which then turns into the rest of the world on all the nine realms,
and then the cycle repeats and so on and so forth.
And it's basically just a giant fucking tree.
So I was like, cool, what if people could travel using the tree,
which is an idea that came directly from Ragnarok,
but then, again, if you know anything about Norse mythology,
what comes at the Idrisil is a creature called Nithock,
which is basically this giant reptilian serpent, kind of half dragon, half thing,
that half dragon, half thing, it's just a dragon.
It's a dragon without wings.
And it basically is only there to gnaw at the root.
Yeah, big lizard.
Its only purpose is to gnaw at the roots of the Idrisil to keep it from basically overgrowing.
It's basically like it's just there to prune the hedges,
to keep the Idrisil from sort of sprouting out where it's not meant to be.
So fast forward to the Axpil campaign itself.
Idrisil is basically thrown in the middle of nothing.
Its roots are crossing throughout the realms.
They're on every different realm you could possibly imagine throughout the multiverse.
And Nithock is still doing what Nithock does best,
which is trying to chew at the roots, keep it from spreading.
The issue is now there are too many roots in too many places.
So Nithock is spread thin.
There is a particularly large root in a city called Fairhaven.
The players, several of them are from there.
They go there.
There's a fight.
They attack the root on a mission from a queen.
And then surprise, surprise, pissed off lizard shows up and is like,
hey guys, not literally.
She didn't speak fucking any language.
I would have loved if she spoke.
She did speak primordial, but no one else spoke that in the party.
The one time language would have mattered.
She's like a fucking celestial man.
She's basically like a demigod,
more of a force than a god itself.
But she shows up fighting the party,
immediately goes for Kiloie, who's Loki.
At first it's like, cool, are we fighting her?
Are we fighting Loki?
Are we fighting the plants?
What are we doing?
What's the end goal?
My character immediately was like, we're fighting Kiloie.
He was fighting on our side.
He was helping us, but it was immediately like, no.
Because there was no way that they were going to be able to beat her,
or beat, yeah, beat Nidhogg.
Because I looked up the stat block and it was like a CR 2025 monster
with like crazy broken abilities and I was like, sick.
This is going to be a fun fight.
And then we had other crows.
So then Nidhogg and the plants and Kiloie.
And then like, it's like, cool, how do I help them?
Well, I'm going to send in the one guy that's like on the same level as Nidhogg,
if not a little bit lower, being Kiloie.
And so he's like, I'm going to fight with the heroes for once.
I mean, his whole goal was to try and kidnap Magnolia and kill Nidhogg.
It was like a two for one special.
But if he could only get one, he was going to take one.
He almost got away with it too, motherfucker.
He almost had it, but then he didn't.
That was like story of his life.
He almost had it and then the party did something and he didn't.
But anyways, specifically one party member.
Nidhogg is fucking up everybody that steps to her.
She ends up going for Kiloie.
And at this point, Magnolia, who has a lot of really important story points,
is like deeply attached to this character and is like, I need him for Ancients.
He's got answers.
He knows how to solve the riddle.
He's got the keys to the puzzle.
He knows what the puzzle is to begin with.
So like we need to keep him alive long enough to ask him questions.
And then another party member is like, no.
And then there was another party member who was like, no, it's on the site.
This man has ruined my whole life, which he did.
He did.
And that's actually one of my other negative points on here is the sort of direct result of this particular fight.
But fucking Magnolia is like, cool.
How do I keep the fucking lizard from eating Kiloie and banishes the lizard?
And then that was such a cool moment.
That in itself probably could have been a moment because it was such a like everywhere at the table was like,
like no one, I didn't think it was going to work.
I said, I was like, this is not going to work.
Because she was so fun to play.
She had so many cool abilities.
She fits story wise.
It was like the element of nature coming in, like the primordialness of the whole thing,
like kind of nature versus man, that sort of deal.
And then she blips out and then there's a high story point.
Everything else that Madison explained.
She kills herself.
Ninhard comes back and I'm like, cool.
What's the one thing that rolls the wisdom saving throw?
I was like, what is she going to do?
Low Kiloie, she's in a fit of rage because Kiloie was whooping her ass with magical items.
Or are we going for the motherfucker that just banished me?
She rolled like a three.
That was such a scary roll to survive.
It was like, cool.
Because I mean, in that moment, it was like whoever she's going for is going to die.
Like if I'm focusing all of her multi attacks and legendary actions on one person, that person is dead.
But it was like, you know what, Kiloie is down, Madison will fucking eat him anyways.
He's been a pain in my ass since ever.
And so she goes for him and then blips out.
She goes for him, hops back in the tree and then disappears.
That was such a cool fight.
It was definitely like one looking back where it was so awesome because in the moment it felt like failure.
That entire fight felt like failure.
I mean, what made it feel like such a win for me is just talking about all of that background that went into it, like her being there.
Because it was the first time she'd ever made an appearance in the campaign and from day one, I planned on using her.
I just didn't know when I wanted to use her.
And then that was like the perfect opportunity to bring her into the fold.
Yeah, it was definitely a high point.
It was definitely a high point.
Yep, for sure, for sure.
What's your number two?
My number two on the positive one was probably the boss fight with Kiloa, the very end of the campaign, just again, sort of designing.
That was one of the most disheartening fights.
Designing a fun character, having a breakthrough on a fucking PC stat block was just so fulfilling and rewarding.
We have talked about this in previous episodes, a previous episode where we talked about how to build like good villains and how to do stat blocks and that kind of thing.
And Kiloa was, he was a god.
And his whole thing was that he was like the ultimate shapeshifter.
And I had like an impossible time trying to come up with hit points and AC and movement speed and sight.
And I finally got through all that and then I was like, well fuck, what spells do I give this guy?
He can do literally everything.
He does everything.
And see my thought at first was like, why don't I make him a chronomancer?
But we had already had a BBG chronomancer at the end of the first campaign, the first section of the campaign.
So I was like, well fuck, I can't do that.
And I don't write anything, we get to the fight and I'm like, okay, well I guess I'm just going to give him stuff on the fly.
And then I like stumbled upon this really cool idea right before we rolled for initiative.
And I was like, he is his whole thing is like masquerading as other people and turning into beings and like memorizing what other people do and then doing it better than they do it because he's a god.
So what if his whole fucking combat style is just repeating the moves that he sees other people do specifically the party, which he spent a long time watching.
So then I have this fucking PC who's got a really high AC and really high hit points and it's fun to role play because everybody hates him.
Whose whole thing is being able to use the party against themselves.
And that was like cherry on top, fuck you.
It was.
And it just felt so satisfying because once they put it together,
they were like, is he using our spells?
Yes.
Because somebody hit him with fucking disintegrates.
No, because me and another spellcaster in our party were slinging disintegrate.
I got two uses that disintegrate out of that fight man.
And normally that's like a one use thing.
Yeah, I remember the scariest moment of that fight for me personally and there were like a bunch of, it was very climactic.
It was a lot of like.
It was a really intense fight.
And it was like fucked up because it was like he's going to look at you while he kills your party.
Remember that you know that like he knows that you care a lot about and is going to like make a joke about it.
Like it was like deeply personal.
It was like this is like dirty fighting.
Definitely the most hateable villain I think I've ever made.
It was like I'm spitting on you and like biting you while I'm fighting.
It is like nasty dirty fighting.
And there was a moment where I had a wild magic surge and I'd cast like magical darkness around me and I was like, oh, motherfucker.
And then you're nodding because you know this moment.
And it was fucking terrifying as a player because he has all these teleportation spells because also my character uses a ton of teleportation.
They're all teleporting.
The two mages are like teleporting a shit ton across the table and I was like, cool man.
Well that's like her whole stick is that she's like tied to the end.
She can make these doors.
Like I had I didn't even take any like teleportation spells because I just had so many abilities that let me teleport as a character and just like as a person.
So I was like teleporting all the time.
So he I'm like stuck in the magical darkness and I can't see anything.
And then suddenly I Robert goes, okay, cool.
Roll a like a perception check and I did and I got pretty good on it.
Like I got like a 20 something and he was like, okay, you see a little sliver of light and you know the familiarity of the spell dimension door.
And that just meant cool.
So I know the motherfucker is right behind me and it was like at the end of his turn that he did that.
Yeah, no one else knows where he is.
And because it's like a big space and there were several places to hide and just like knowing and leaving in the end of a turn being like cool.
The bad guy who wants you specifically like fucked up.
Like there's a personal like personal vendetta with everyone in the party but like deeply personal.
It felt like it sometimes and it was sometimes very like boogeymanny in that last fight and I had so much fun with it.
That was that was such a scary moment of like the person who's trying to kill you is right behind you and you cannot see them and also no one else in your party can because it's magical darkness and none of you can see through it.
And it ended up coming in clutch because one other player could and like took like a random thing to like allow them to see through magical darkness and ended up boxing him in the magical darkness.
It was wild.
But that was such like a visceral like scary moment at the table.
That was one of the freakiest fuck that.
Yeah, fuck that so much.
And so I can move to my negatives then.
Do you want to do your positive?
I was about to say we should still have another positive or are we splitting?
You think it would split up into two.
Okay.
So that just changes my order a little bit.
One of my best ones was kind of like Magnolia's history and like figuring that out because it was something that Magnolia's character back story.
It's been a lot of time trying to figure out how to write that in the in like the most appropriate and satisfying way.
It was really good.
It was a character I kind of wrote her back story is kind of a throwaway way back when like going on.
It certainly came into play.
Yeah, and it was just like a throwaway backstory. It was like cool.
I'm like used fucking fantasy name generator came up with like a mom and dad name and a brother and was like wrote that down.
It was like I knew I wanted her to come from like a nobillish background but like doesn't use it.
So I was like a high noble family from like I didn't even have a city like Robert gave me the city because I was like you can choose like what I mean truly I just started Googling.
I was like fantasy settings and fair haven ever on came up and is like, yeah, okay, cool.
I high noble family from fair haven.
She doesn't really talk to him.
She didn't really fit in because she's like a wild magic sorcerer and they're like a high noble family.
So they probably wanted her to be like a mage and she was like like a little interested in being like a circus performer and like kind of living that life of like entertainment and stuff.
And so I like wrote back story.
I was like she ran away from home like hasn't been back in like a couple hundred years.
I wrote that I was like there's no reason for me to come up with a backstory.
I like wrote away family because I was like I don't really want to deal with like her having a family or a connection.
And I also like wrote down I was like she doesn't know where her powers come from and she doesn't have a lot of interest in learning where her powers came from and oh how that changed.
So the entire like first campaign or like the first like half of the campaign when we were playing back in Harlekson.
We don't really like it dig into that at all. And I wasn't expecting to.
And then towards the end we started to get kind of like little inklings because oh well you find out that her magic is like working really really well with the end.
And actually she's able to make doors to it which is crazy because you were just because she was just told hey that's not normal.
And then she's like huh that's odd. That's that's inconsequential.
It's fun.
And then she gets a magical item that allows her to teleport and she's like cool it's a pretty flower.
And then towards the end she starts to kind of get an inkling when they go and like in the heart of the serpent and she's like the flower starts like growing through her body and into the ground.
And it's like that not once but twice twice.
Yeah that was a exhaust.
Yeah that was a smarter not harder moment for me. You know there are easier ways to go about that. We certainly picked the more difficult one.
Yeah and specifically I said can I vibe check the area.
Which that is a that is a phrase slash check that has continued into this campaign as well.
Can I just fill out the vibes and situation like how's the room feeling you know.
It's a valid question.
You know sometimes you just got a vibe check.
And it's like figuring out the difference between an insight check and a perception check and an investigation check like knowing when to use them as.
So you vibe check.
And it's whichever one that you have the highest plus two.
So she ends up kind of like getting an inkling there that maybe she's directly connected to the serpent and then the second half of the campaign starts and oh boy do we end up digging into family history by force.
And I found out that it is like literally the like the in itself and like the entire like the villain and like part of his motivations is he was in love with like one of her ancestors and he's trying to find a way to bring her back and oh there's a
familial connection for you and also I'm going to burn down Fair Haven.
Which is where you're from and I'm also going to like route through your family's home like ancestral home looking for things and like killing your family specifically.
This might be fucked up to say but I think that was one of my favorite choices role playing is Kilo I like to make.
He was my mind I was like how do I kick off the second campaign and I was like well the primary BBG behind the whole one has basically made like zero appearances.
Yeah we didn't know any more characters behind the scenes never really revealed nobody ever made the appropriate checks it would have been really high to notice something was off.
And so I was like fuck it we'll start with a bang then and in my mind the way that I'm thinking about it I'm like cool he's made all of these preparations throughout campaign one he has watched he has learned he has taken notes.
He's finally got a target and he's a little fucking screwy up top but he's got a target and I'll be damn if he's not going to go for it because it's the most reaction he's had in centuries.
Yeah and it was it was it was a hell of a way to start a campaign literally like you just meet the other characters and then suddenly your home is being burned.
Your family is being killed deliberately in front of you and then a fucking scary ass figure grabs you and goes come home.
It says you're like full birth name that you that is not the name that you go by anymore and then disappears and you find out in that process also he's using the same magic as you and you've never seen anyone else use that magic.
And then you're like cool OK something's fucky here. And then you like it was such an interesting thing of like playing a character who originally had no desire to like learn about like where things were coming from and then to find out that it was like the thing that she was the most involved in.
How like deep and intrinsic it was it was really cool to have such a personal connection also to like the person that you're fighting.
Yeah it just it makes it so much so much more visceral when you're when you're role playing in a combat encounter just even in a campaign when you have like a personal attachment to the thing that you're actively fighting against.
Yeah. You know it was like it was like just a camp of goblins. Yeah. And it was like cool. This is someone who is like been involved in my family's history.
And number one dude truly Hater number one from the fucking beginning from the start like literally start and then you look back at like the creation of Magnolia.
Literally he was on deck man. Literally it was like she was created to spite him a little bit like no. Not even a little bit. She is like a just her existence is a fuck you to him and he's like I have beef with an infant.
Half of the motivation and of the decision to split his his like his heart from his body was to be like you're never going to get it. Yeah. You're never going to get I would rather off myself in this moment.
Number one because it's just the right thing to do but also number two. Fuck you dad. Yeah. Fuck you dad. And then how fun. I'm going to do when I go trashing your fucking ex lovers home.
Yeah. Now I'm going to put it in the last remaining person of like the one person that you were in love with. Yeah. And I think even though it didn't really appear this way in the story there was the only person he ever truly felt a connection to and the end was Magnolia
Magnolia and a weird fuck that way. Yeah. It was like this is the last vestige of the ancestors of the like the person that I love the most that kicked off this whole thing that's tortured me for thousands of years and now my only way through to my goal is to kill this bitch.
Yeah. And to basically stick her in a house. Yeah. You know. And it's like the engine and I just got to turn her into an engine. Yeah. And I just got to take the wheel and forget it ever happened.
I also look into the face of like someone who looks like the person that I was in love with and is like the direct descendant of and be like so sorry I got to bring your great grandma back by bitch.
You're going in a box. We're trying to figure out. Yeah. There's just this too many. We can make another one of you.
There was there was a few times where I considered making him like a like a father like the actual father like a more direct like lineage in. Yeah. I think in my mind there there was always some kind of a.
I don't know. There there was a thought that I had about halfway through where I really consider just because you know I'm right on story. I got the can of the world that he was the father of your grandmother who then of course then gets passed down to you because it was great grandmother
that he was in love with in the first place but I don't know. I tried around with it. I never really said it in stone. It could be it couldn't be. I never really dig that far. It was it was kept vague throughout the whole campaign because there were a couple of
jokes that we would say and we were like Y'all are related. Y'all are related. There were a lot of jokes made about like is that you're like fucking grandpa. Who is that. Is it like what's happening here.
I felt like I didn't really want to put it like a finger to I think it was fun not having it. I think it was like vague enough and interesting enough especially because you made some certain choices with saying who her family was that I'm not happy about.
I like to put this out here. I'm going to share this story. This honestly probably should go in my top worst moments. Okay. I might just end up making this one of my worst moments and skip ahead here.
What is it. Fucking one of your yes. Right. Let's save it because we do we do this down track. What's your next positive. That was my that was my positive. You don't have like another one.
I think I got one of your first one was the back story. No the first one was killing myself. Oh right. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. So I am allowed to segue into this.
Fucking stupid. So the way that we introduced Magnolia which honestly probably could have been in my top picks. It was like up there for top ones. I said I said I would love for my introduction to be because this character was like like she like slept around and she was like very like
very optimistic and just like going with the flow and she also and this was from the like D&D little backstory she did was like she thinks that like one of the options was like I think everyone is the one and I was like that's really fun to play with I'm going to play with that.
So she's like constantly dating and getting her heart broken. I was like I would love for this to start because the prompt was where would your character be on like a Sunday morning.
Like getting dumped in a tavern somewhere. And it was like character introduction. It was like the it was like that scene in legally blonde where they're like at a restaurant. The boyfriend shows up with flowers and it's like hey babe I got something to tell you.
You know this was never like serious right like I got a date like a serious like like person lawyer and you're like you come from like a really nice family that you don't like to talk about but you know at the same like at the end of the day you're like you're like a burlesque dancer basically like you're a stripper you're like a whore you're a jester you do like little like shows you do like
you do circus shit in the back alleys you do like circus shit in like seedy taverns for money and you flirt with a lot of men that's not really the vibe I'm going for and it's like a messy breakup she's like sobbing she like is throwing shit at him she ends up like getting drunk with the like
dwarven women in the tavern and they're like you can do better girl it was just a wild opening and so she decides that she's gonna like end up actually going to his house which is a flower shop and breaking in and burning it down and that's her intro and everyone else is was like you stumble upon a door and she was like committing arson which was also very fun
but I mean the code is was my shoes name brands was like use the name so many time I try not to browns was like stumbling into a fucking abandoned dwarven stronghold down in the middle of war now that was scary to yeah his is pretty intense just like like a very different way
there's a big tone shift everyone had a very very different intro but sorry continue
um so reveal who he was we find out who this is that was the boyfriend we know that he's the son of the the people of the queens kiss and then has definitely can I please let yes and then we fast forward almost two years
and you find out over the course of the campaign that Magnolia the both of her birth parents are not actually her birth parents surprise surprise bitch
so her mother was her mother does not claim her as a biological child because she gave birth to her and she was a stillborn and then magic brought her back to life and she was like that's not
she's like that's not my baby I'm gonna pretend it is for the public but that's not my kid and I don't claim you is like my biological daughter makes so much sense why she was such a total bitch
you made that decision the whole time though like when that a great explanation for that she never wanted you in the first place
well like everyone is like wow you hate your like what beef happened between you and your mother and I'm like her mother never fucking wanted her bro
because she was like an alien she was like that's not my kid that's why Magnolia was the way she was my kid died in the fucking table who are you
like you came out with scales that's not right yeah now you were looking like a whole reptilian bro yeah um so you find out that and then you find out even later
um that her mother was having an affair and that there's this flowers shop she kept going to all the time called the queen's case and you find out she's having an affair with the person there and then I'm like
we're reading the diary where it says this and I'm like but but my biological father's my biological father right and Robert's like yeah yeah and then we go to the flower shop and we find out that is not the case
and Robert lied mom was fucking and so that made the decision canonically mom was fucking that I mean mom was fucking Magnolia was fucking date like between the two of them most affair haven't
has been got um but like yeah then Robert made the canonical decision and I don't know if he knew this when he made that decision or not I don't know if he remembered but it means that Magnolia canonically fucked her half brother
and I I lie awake at night I lie awake at night thinking about that and only one person in the party knew and it was also in a very funny situation which was we were like a whole party was like fucked up and there's a little like
Grecian town and like two of the party members are casting like talk to plants on this plant growing in the palm of one of the party members and the plant is like getting sentience and is like terrified and then you got to like two of the edgy characters
Adeline Magnolia and they're like talking about relationships or something and I was like I've never been in a relationship and I'm like 30 that's kind of sad Magnolia goes hey I fucked my half brother it could be worse that he went what and that was the only time it was ever spoken of
in the entire campaign man and I am nightmares about that and I hate that that happened when I originally did it and I didn't think you did quick I was just like how do I make the fucking flower shop important it's because the man that the fucking conceived you ran the shop and then I was like wait a minute
wait a minute how did we introduce this place in his family wait a second yeah what about the first set and then it all clicked she fucked family yeah I just really wasn't the intended outcome that was the outcome
yeah it does make the chart of Magnolia's father figures very interesting because she then now has a stepfather who turns out was one of her old party members sent back in time in a new life was the stepfather he wasn't the biological dad
probably his whole fucking thing was funny as shit man oh my god
so there's one father outie second father the owner of the queen's kiss cool that's her that's her ex's father
he's outie um then you have fucking keeloy who's like not tactically like related but like is a in a weird way in a weird way like feels a little bit related
um what's your next negative for time wow cutting me off I'm so sorry what's your next negative
individual targeting I'm so sorry I'm so sorry when I tell you I don't like it either because looking looking back at it I wish I would have given so many other people the beef that this man had with Magnolia this is why I say it felt
personal like it wasn't even personal though it was like but the easiest way to connect the dots was with the person in the fucking middle and so this results and why don't why don't you go over the list of
things that happened I mean she had a hit on her from birth so we'll start there she never wild beginning she was never really her own person her whole life was manipulated by a fucking multi-dimensional
slash multi-versal snake who really only cared about getting a snake taking out of his anus or sorry a tree taken out of his anus her like weird father says stepfather was also the same psychopath that murdered her mother in front of her and killed her brother and killed her father
and inadvertently yeah Jesus what else she yeah pretty much never in control of her own actions and the only thing that ever kept her alive was sheer dumb luck yeah she should have died many many times and that was always the intention was to kill Magnolia in some way but it just never fucking
happened yeah pretty much everybody she knew and loved either died when home and ever talk to her again or ended up being the villain the only time she ever had happy ending was when she was solitary confinement to the end of what she's never allowed to leave
I mean the list the list goes on it was this is why I say it felt personal
we're just listen it's like when you're doing a little connected dot stange there's always like that one fucking dot that you always have to come back to because it like it makes the shape for the next three shapes you kept being the fucking dot
I'm sorry for everybody else in no this is my fault I wrote myself into a hole you were the McGuffin you were 100% the fucking McGuffin to my campaign I know and I wanted to kill you off so many times but you were so in love with the character that I was like if I kill Magnolia I'm never going to hear the end of it
you wouldn't so I kept her alive I loved her at least I did my best to give you the opportunities to keep her alive you made a lot of really fucking dumb decisions that would have killed her but somehow she didn't die
listen I had the sport of the entire table I had people cast death ward on me every single day like awkward why it was personal truly the most I mean the one thing that made it the most personal was the fact that the BBG who I can I actually made like the most omnipotent
omnipotent slash powerful person in the campaign was constantly gunning for her and everybody in her family and any of her friends and all of her party members and it would have been so much simpler truly if she had just stepped like to the side and was like hey let's have a conversation about this
but we've talked about it and it's the way that he went about it that set the tone for the rest of their interactions and it was like one of those things were like it was fun don't get me wrong it was but at some point it was a point where I'm like bro pick on someone else
now in our current campaign she's like afraid to tell me things because she's worried that I'm gonna like use it to then bite her in the ass later and I'm like I'm not going for you man like it was just an unfortunate fucking like outcome of the circumstance
it was like every situation and like the amount of times I got kidnapped
not to bring in a bit of sociology in this but there are two different two different outcomes we're talking about systems and sociology one is latent and one is manifest a manifest function is what you want to happen a latent function is what happens regardless of what you want to happen
so for instance education you want somebody to be smart you put them in education what happens they make friends they get in relationships they have experiences Magnolius trauma was a fucking latent function of the whole campaign
because the manifest function was just to be a key to start the rest of it yeah it was just the first dot man
it was messy it was so messy to the point where like party members were like never intentional it was always like party members be like hey what did you do to this man that he is like yeah and she's like I don't know
that was the other thing to me that made it so shit for the characters the character never understood why like until the very end she never knew she never understood why this guy was like going for her life
and she was just like I was just chilling and then one day he killed my whole family and then he kidnapped me and said hey do you want to like work together and she was like you literally just killed my mom in front of me
literally her body is warm she's in the next room laying on the floor you tricked me into getting here if you would like bought me a drink at the bar and said hey you want to work together she would have said she was like yeah I would have said yes
and then you kidnapped me and you killed my whole family I didn't even like him but like the principal of it the principal of it did you just play a tick tock full volume no I didn't are you lying I didn't do anything are you lying anyways I'm going to go into my first negative yeah I was going to say
yeah my probably my biggest regret from that whole thing was letting you all get away with letting fair haven burn my little ashrics next to that was introducing to God characters and then and then having the character that was at the crux of both of their their introductions to the campaign
that's my second one actually my second most negative hello what's here interesting my second we don't need to lock the door most Jesus Christ my second most negative moment is actually kind of at the heart of that too so we'll start from the beginning
whatever players has a bit of a thing for dragons and always has had a thing for dragons the joke is that he would fuck a dragon if he could he gets very upset when we say he was going to say that I'm so sorry for like starting a funny thing but anyways he loves dragons he likes dragons
it is what it is some some men go through the phase and then some that never come out of it and he's the latter so anyways he wanted to play a dragon born character that was like cool I'll give you dragon born character I'll give you I'll give you the best dragon born character he was a
dragon born character who was obsessed with learning about dragons playing very true to life and so I introduced him to a dragon cult that worshiped him at all people because that suit dragon cult worships well with TMA comes behind because how am I going to
counter the fucking queen of dragons by introducing the king of dragons of course that's the only way that that makes sense so I'm giving him story point after story point after story point about figuring out about TMA he gets caressed and lightly touched and then marked by TMA and I'm pretty sure
popped the chode at the table and then you added the like the like and then also met a really cool fucking dragon born monk that saved his life by putting her fist through the back of a dragon's head like it was just dragon orgy in there you know what I'm saying
there was a dragon after dragon so he's having a great time eating that shit up we're going down the line of like he's investigating TMA's presence and then also like taking materials to the dragons and like his whole motivation is like finding out more about the dragons and then of course this dragon monk
lady works for Bahamut so it's like shit man that's two for one two most powerful dragons in existence that I get to learn more about them so the first my number one like face palm moment and also just regret of letting it happen from the DM's perspective was letting that character kill himself
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or will never get better like these fucking guys anyways we're back and investigate and spooky noises so I'm giving this much serious fuck giving this dragon character just dragon pc dragon player all these fun dragon plot lines and hooks and like TMA was definitely a little over the you know a little
little like out of my league a little a little over my head in terms of characters that I shouldn't have introduced definitely started with introducing him or her for the sake of plot so we go to Bahamut's crystal palace and home slices been marked by TMA now
if you know anything about the dnd history or lower I've talked to this little bit TMA in Bahamut fucking hate each other because they're on opposite into the spectrum TMA is chaotic evil for fuck knows what reason and Bahamut is
not like god forbid a woman do anything and Bahamut is like lawful good to a fault like you you fucking steal something off with your hands like it's it's bad he's a cop he's he's a cop whoa he's just a little he's just a little over the line he's a cop so anyways
I introduce these two characters we go to Bahamut's realm to like fix some things because we got I got put in time out because I did something I shouldn't yeah well I'm pretty sure what's her face cute though is like hey big boss wants to talk to y'all because y'all keep fucking things up
yeah if we if you like to go back to where you're from we can we can figure that out to y'all just need to stop terrorizing somebody was holding the rest of the party members hostage everybody else was like that sounds like a great idea to me it was like a
hostage again talking about the Lord they each other I wonder why team at what mark a dragonborn maybe it's I mean we keep tabs on him maybe to just like I don't know pick favorites some doodling some tattoos maybe she just likes to fucking I don't know
vandalize other people vandalizing people is crazy huh huh so we get to Bahamut's realm everyone's walking across the crystal bridge and then Q to basically puts her hands on dragonborn boys chest it is like hey I don't know if you know this fuck up but you got a fancy little mark on your neck
and now vibe with that mark that mark means that you need to go back from which you fucking came from or you can try and step to this bridge and I'm gonna put you in the dirt and he goes all right I'll take the second option
and the rest of the rest of y'all can go yeah she's like the rest y'all can go along in merry way and of course nobody in the party steps in because they're like this is our fucking fight we didn't do anything
okay the dragonborn boys said to go yeah everyone was like we were told we were not supposed to stay yeah well anyways everyone makes a decision before exactly I don't know why it stopped y'all in that moment everyone leaves him he's on the bridge he won't be once the monk
monk walks away with like two health man like fucking twin spells fireball and then just proceeds to melt her health down to like 10 I had him once he's down really cool flying climactic fight that happens between the two of them she's about to basically put her fist to the back of his skull and Bahamut's like hey man we got some use for him yeah
we're here we're about reform we've we've inflicted some justice hopefully we've beat some sense into him dragging back will remove the mark and be on our merry way well this motherfucker's unconscious so of course TMA pops in and goes hey listen right now you're being dragged across this crystal bridge face down ass up
holes in you getting humiliated chances are you're gonna die because I know my brother my brothers come back he'll kill anybody that looks at anybody the wrong way because that's just the kind of person he is
now what if I told you that I got a I got a one for one two for one special for you I will let you come back to life scoffery no consequences absolutely zero price to be paid and and I'll send you back to Bahamut's realm I'll send you right the fuck back where you came from
and of course he's unconscious so he doesn't know that anybody on the outside has made the decision to let him live I'll let you out into the secret the plan was to make him fucking another key with that and to give him like super sick powers
he pissed that all the way he said you know what I'm totally unaware what's happening out there I don't like the fact that I was just fucking killed on this bridge so I'm actually gonna take that deal TMA TMA goes yes you will
so he comes back and then out of him spawns basically a fucking portal to hell where she's being held basically captive hostage fucking boogeyman monster whatever you want to call she's been put on a short lease by a devil
and her whole fucking ploy was to get to Crystal Palace and then proceed to wreck shit with the aid of devils and dragons so that she would finally have a one up in the war because she always loses she always she's always weaker but with with the added power here there was a real chance that she could win that fight and she took that chance she chose petty over everything else and he lets her through so then he's like damn I feel kind of bad now how do I fix this and I'm like give me a community
and I'm gonna check you mean inside check him some feels and the most information that I could give him based on his checks was it feels like it spawned from you it feels like you're the cause now that did not mean that there was a link any kind of a link any kind of a physical metaphysical magical link that just means that that was me saying hey this is a consequence to your action
and he took that as a literal connection and goes so does that mean if I were to jump through this portal that it would close and I said well give me a check check wasn't good I said really it's a it's a coin toss and he goes well there's really nothing else I can do here in this situation so you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna jump through
he jumps through turns around portal does not close turns around again and then proceeds to get gang banged by like six dragons that are all just waiting waiting for a motherfucker to come through and then proceeds to get torn apart by the thing he by the thing he loves the most his death was so heartbreaking it was so sad because he was like a really fun character and it's like it's not that he is a player made poor decisions he just was working off the information he had and thought he was making the best decision to help the people he cared about the most
and it just fucking backfired you know and if I'm being honest there was nothing he could have done in that moment to close it
like I was not going to allow him to close it it was a decision that he made it was a deal he made there was nothing he could do it was not within his power to do it
consequence of actions I'm big on that my campaigns so that's that's probably where it started that's also my second on the fucking worst things that I feel like have happened in the campaign the second one technically the first one is then a direct result of this
tm at goes brazy and crystal she's killing every mother fucking dragon she can she's fucking up a helmet every which way they get locked in a war party members are like breaking into the white space they're like cool skedaddle mother fuckers were out dude
yeah that was a moment where it a like a very separate part of the realm mangale is like I can't make doors anymore and the other party members we go yeah you try try try try try try try try try try help you and Robert goes how are you going to help her in this moment and they go
and they were basically like power friendship yeah they were done as like I don't know we put a hand on her shoulder and tell her that she can do it and then she did and they were like yeah let's leave so and I the reason why I have that on my list of theirs are really
feel like I should have just told him not to do it and I finally arrived at that point in the campaign we're currently playing in where I'm just telling people please don't make this decision I like your characters too much to watch you walk into fucking stupid consequences
yeah but there that that was a time I was early in my DM in career and I was just really kind of hard lining and so and I let him kill himself
so fast forward bro like the fucking midseason finale like we talked about with knit hog that fight fair havens under siege
devils are basically let loose in the streets kelo has made his ploy he's open a portal to hell he's like Tia Matt I got you I'll give you what you want as long as you help me out I'll free you from the devils he's basically playing the devils and Tia Matt against one another
and is using them both to invade fair haven to look for Magnolia and the rest of Magnolia's family that the narrow finds so fast forward a little bit more things are bad
Queen of fair haven is like hey y'all if you can go close that giant ass route that's sitting in the middle of my city that seems to be bringing bad vibes here I'll give you whatever you want
and they were like you know what side quest sounds fun we'll go fuck with that so then that kicks off the fight with that hog and the plants and kelo a what ends up happening is that fucking Bahamud and Tia Matt end up showing up for a 1v1 in the skies of fair haven
and are like hey man this is the fucking time it all the battles are happening it was partially me also wanting to resolve it so the way that I play the fight is that people can throw up spells take actions to give Bahamud bonuses and advantage on roles plus is that kind of thing and basically just roll and fucking roll the 20s against each other
three strikes you're out for Bahamud three strikes you're out for Tia Matt well you can guess how that fight fucking went I'm telling you I've never seen roles like this I threw up the amount of fourth and fifth level spell which is crazy
the amount of people that threw up high level spells to like make that fight go well because I mean it's basically like whoever won that fight that was going to decide that like the future of the fucking city let it like in the planet too
and he just kept rolling that once for us so fucking dice and I'm going to tell you about this dice for a second I'm going to hijack I don't think I had those dice at that time yes you did
oh maybe I did yes the fuck you did that's when my beef with them started these dice have never rolled well for an ally and I mean this to my fucking court they have never rolled well for an ally only villains only bad guys and I'm telling you it is something
no put the bike up to your your mouth when you're fucking cacklin because he knows I'm right he knows I swear to God he put a fucking curse on them I don't know what which he had to pay but I am telling you this man has never rolled above like a six for an ally with this fucking dice
enemies not 20s 18s 19s 15 minimum 15 minimum it's bullshit continue so anyways but I'm it loses that fight like a bitch it was like two to three it wouldn't like by a landslide or anything
TMS wins keloy gets sucked up in a knit hog knit hog dips the fucking the BBG has gotten away the route is definitely not getting close because they have to go through knit hogs lizard ass
the party is out of spell slots out of health except for Magnolia who's just like fucking shell shocked and trauma fucked but full health and then TMS wins the fight she comes she she goes down to one head loses every other head
and so now it is TMS flying towards the roots and I'm like y'all have a decision to make you can either stand and fight TMS who I rolled had 200 health
which honestly was doable with how fucking broken your party was minus the fact that you all were all kind of pretty low except for you I think you alone could have could have won that fight if TMS did not want to have you
but then you said I didn't know my spell information yeah then also the spell slot thing
my spell slots I could take any motherfucker down so then I was like you have a decision to make party as a group of heroes not so heroes now
you can stay in fair haven and you can try and one V1 team at who's at like a sixth of her health and power or you can fucking skedaddle
two people in this party mind you have a deep personal connection to this city one of them is the prince of fair haven the other one her whole fucking family's from fair haven
it was me
uh-huh and then the third one was from like fair haven back when it was fucking primal
yeah
there were three people in this five party group that had a deep connection to the city they looked at TMS they looked at that portal and they said not our fight
and then proceeded to walk the fuck out the first person that made that decision was the prince of fair haven
no he was the last one I thought he was the first
no he was the last because he told us to go
oh no that's right
he told us to go immediately but it was a really cool moment at the end where we were like his whole thing was like he was supposed to protect fair haven
and there was a really cool moment at the end where everyone else had gone through the door and it was um my character turned to him was like hey
I know this is your deal
mm-hmm
I know this is the ship you want to go down on
if you want to come with us that option is there I'm not going to hold you hostage
mm-hmm
I'll take you home at any time if there's still a home to go to
um but like we'd love to have you and then he uh like makes the decision to go through and then we like we were so proud of this like outside of the table we were like oh my god he's like he's like he's going to rip off his royal insignia and like throw it on Magnolia and go through the door
and it was like so dramatic um but yeah it was I mean it didn't feel good walking away
yeah no I think that was probably the hardest style I've ever seen at the table
I mean what it from our perspective what could we have done
yeah I mean nothing positive came out of that fight at all
no
it was a loss on literally every side
and it was still one of my favorite fights
mm-hmm I mean our top favorite moments
and my top negative moment came out of the same fight
yeah it was it was such a cool passion
yeah it was super super well you know really well designed
uh
super well planned
I did a little planning
I'm in a mood today where I'm not giving him credit so
yeah I think that was probably my two my two negatives letting dragon dragon guy die the way that he died and then letting fair haven go out the way that it did
it was like a bitch
yeah
yeah truly truly like both just didn't didn't need to go out that way
yeah it was sad
so now we switch to the superhero campaign
superhero campaign um which normally should be like a very lighthearted switch but
I can kick off with my positive
yeah go for it
um I think my positive and ours might overlap I hope they don't but I think my my favorite moment from the campaign
am I my top draft pick at least
uh it's probably just the intro session
yeah just the intro session
everyone's intros were super super good and we got a really good strong feel for the vibes of everybody from like
session one we did have to go over and do another one just because it was uh the first one I just wasn't happy with my performance as a DM
we did like a session zero
we did like a session zero and I think it was really helpful too though because
it helped us set the tone for like what it was gonna be
and no one really knew how to use the system including me so it was just a time for us to figure everything out
yeah
but I mean we pretty much followed the same story point for point um there were a couple differences just as I didn't want it to be like
cookie cutter you know what to expect but
everyone had a really great introduction everyone had a reason to come together um it was super super quick come together too which was nice to see kind of shared mutual interest in being heroes
um yeah I don't know there weren't a whole lot of things to say about it truly it was just I love the way it shook out
so my top was also the intro uh specifically uh because I'm a player so I'm very centric to myself where Roberts are gonna be more centric to the table
yeah
um my favorite was uh my character's introduction her name is Nightlight
um so it starts with um her talking to her best friend and her everything um this guy named Parker who's very anti-heroes um like he
fuck the soups
yeah he's against heroes as a constant
fuck the soups
and Daisy is like a huge hero fanatic and so that already kind of set the tone for this really fun dynamic between the two of them which is
yeah they're best friends and yeah they have like a very deep relationship with each other but also they have one of their like core moral beliefs conflict with each other
and it creates these really cool conversations and these really cool debates of like does it do good or does it do bad so then it switches from that she goes to like a back alley and like rolls a nat one on like changing her clothes
and like hits her head on the fucking wall um but then changes into her little superhero costume and is like yeah I'm gonna go like um patrols and be a superhero and she ends up meeting this guy Jerry who genuinely is one of my favorite like NPCs and characters to interact with in the campaign
just because of how fun it is
I have a great time roleplaying with him
um and he's this like fucking smarmy like daddy's money
yeah
I'm a hero for the glitz and glamour in the press
and I
I'm good at what I do and I look good doing it
yeah like just fucking
smarmy is truly like the best word I can like
a little grease ball
little grease ball
like a little asshole
um and nightlight is just she's she sounds like nightlight she's a fucking ray of sunshine she's just so fucking excited to be there and she believes that there's so much good in everyone and why would anyone ever do anything for a negative reason
like no one would lie on the internet that's like mean
yep
like a little bit naive
no one's gonna be a hero for the wrong reasons
yeah so she's like on a rooftop and he rolls up and she's like oh my god like I'm a huge fan of your comics and he's like yeah yeah
do you want to like do a collab
I need some like good press and you seem like a decent like you know local hire so we can do like a little contract together and she's like oh my god a team up oh my god my first like superhero friend and she's like so hyped
um and then they end up
he's like cracking beer smoking cigarettes
yeah if there was a one point where he was like yeah cool like and he's like flying her she's like are you smell like alcohol are you supposed to like
drink
he was like is flying and drinking illegal in this world
drink and fly kids
and it was like it was just very fun and like interacting with that character response they end up like breaking into a warehouse
and it was like her being like okay here's my time to shine and like show my powers and he's like is that a fucking comic book
yeah
and he she's like yeah
and then he's the one that fucks it all up and freaks out because somebody says his like government last name
somebody fucking brought in the car that he tried to pawn off earlier that day and it just all goes downhill so quickly and he's like cool we're no longer here covertly we are here overtly
and she's like what are we doing and he's like swinging already and she's like oh I'm called a fucking animal powered bouncer like a fish
yeah and it was just every interaction between them was so funny um just because I think it's very fun to like um oppose to like very contrasting characters and it was also so much fun getting to like play as a character who was doing what they want to do
like for a living like this is their dream and it was just really really fun to play and then um I didn't really get to like meet or talk super much with like the other players that early on just because like our PCs didn't really interact with each other much
um but it was just it was there was just a fun like collaborative energy it was like we're all here we're all fighting the same fight for different reasons and we don't know each other yet but like it was just fun
I think my introduction of godfathers probably up there too godfathers one of my favorite fucking villains I think I've ever done
he's so ridiculous
he really is the first picture I ever used of him was basically just like an NFT of a fucking gold shark with a cigar in his mouth
and then it was an NFT and we were like god damn it yeah no thanks um but that was that was such a fun fucking gangster shark man yeah it was it was just such a fun energy and I think that like all of the character interactions were really fun and I think it was partly because I was very like I was having a great time playing a positive character
because my goalie it was very like I mean for sure felt like super superhero we intro like yeah you know everybody stumbles into the same warehouse accidentally and is fighting the same guys and is like hey we all have shared mutual interests let's like hang out and get a coffee
yeah and there's like a link between all of them that they don't fully know yet because like they all met the same NPC but they don't know it
and it was it was just very fun it was very like classic it was very camp um it was just very light hearted and it also been a while since we did anything light hearted
and god forbid you try to do for anything fucking light hearted and campaign is speaking of which yeah going straight into fucking negatives this one happened super recently and we were debating about whether or not we wanted to talk about it but this this negative for me oh my god I kind of have to
we both kind of have the same positive and negative they're just different parts of the same particular characters actions so I have never felt physically sick at a table except for when a couple of characters have almost died in the first campaign which even then it was never really sick it was just kind of sad
the consequences slash actions slash consequences of the actions made genuinely made me feel sick like I like to pride myself on being a pretty good DM all things considered just in terms of being able to like
I'm not gonna say slime and slide my way through random obstacles that might happen at the table and like kind of kind of you know improv our way to success and victory and having a good time one thing I pride myself on because I don't really like the plan
well somebody decided that this semester was a semester to fucking chest that test test out the limit on that one so I'm not going to talk about how it starts because that's that's more Madison's thing
so that's the way it ends
I go first
yeah you can go first
just because mine kind of ties in but it mines a specific thing so there's a moment where a character in our party in our superhero group is working under cover like as his day job for this company called DRT which are is called the DV response team people with
superpowers are called deviants in this world DRT is basically like they're like the militia force that are called into handle specifically like deviant related things so like superhero people they get their own special like
I'm like the FBI but for deviance and only deviance
yeah it's like the bomb squad for deviance so kind of an antagonist everyone who's a deviant but he works for them and he has a superhero identity and the party knows that he works for DRT because identities have gone to the fucking wind at this point for everyone in the party except for my character
whose identity was very very very important to her and well preserved and well preserved like I was the only character at the table who at this point still had a secret identity because everyone else had already either like said theirs or like had theirs revealed for one reason or another
but I've been like very very careful to maintain mine like make sure not to show the party any documents that would have personal information on them because she really really cares about Parker and also not only Parker safety but if Parker finds out that she's a superhero that's going to cause
some tension in their relationship
and she is like oh there's no cell service down in our little hideout I'm going to go above and like get some cell service so I can call him and make sure that he's okay and this other character goes okay I'll go with you because I can like run really fast and I'll just take you there quicker and she's like great
and while they're up there he gets text from his boss saying like you haven't been to work in three days what's up man I'm about to fire you and he's like no I'm undercover I found someone who's like linked with the the target of the mission that that we're trying to hunt down as DRT and he goes okay send
proof and he's up there with nightlight is the only other person so he goes hey do a superhero pose for me real quick and she does because this is her friend and also she has a weakness for like superhero poses and like being a superhero so he takes picture of her
and he sends it to DRT and says this is her she's directly not by the way just to like a guy in DRT sends it to the boss to the head the head of DRT like fucking Jagger Hoover like top of the fucking food chain basically like the fact
though president if like the mayor goes in my a yeah this is the girl we're looking for she's directly linked to like all of these issues that have happened and my character has no idea of this like massive betrayal in DRT because every leg deviant has to be registered
in like some effect with the government DRT is able to pull those records and is very quickly able to find her personal identity and then I wasn't there for the next session but apparently he went into work and double down on it and was like yeah she also works with this group called the
spy circle who were like the big criminals like that is the like if the justice league was evil that's them well it's like we have a justice league which is the millennial group and then we have the fucking doom squad which is our legal
villains but the fuck whichever one you like to talk about more which is the spy circle yeah and says yeah she works for them like she works with them she's a part of it and she's just a little 21 year old like and he's like cool at this point by the way the boss that
that we're referring to he's wigged out he is on high alert his prize possession the thing that could bring down his entire career in like the whole department of DRT is out in the city loose fucking being a superhero and in doing a pretty good job of being low key about it
and this particular character just so happen to like wind up in a really good situation where he can play both sides of the fence from the perfect spot and fumble the bag and then proceeds to tell crazy man who's like fucking Charlie they
be like she's the one behind it all like fucking he's wigged out his ties off his shirts and mass he's got cork board whiteboard he doing the whole thing
her security or social security number her home is over the desk and is like hey bro how like how deep in this issue because she's the only link we got to this and he goes she's the full link she's the she's the person we gotta get she's public
and we number one she's the bad guy and I rolled a fucking inside check I did inside versus deception and guy was so fucking not so that he was like yeah yeah this is the big break we need and then proceeds to basically send the FBI after one person
in the city that's like way smaller than most countries yeah it's a city like it's not the big like it and I'd be like this is just a little 21 year old girl who's like saves kittens out of trees also completely unaware of what is happening
completely unaware completely unprepared like literally has no way of knowing this no way of knowing this so she's sleeping at her fucking house she gets in a knock on a door which was a fucking like basically I'm assuming a I've got to get this character out of this situation real quick from
Robert and the like the captain of the police knock on her door personally and be like hey girl let me in and she goes I need to see a warrant I don't trust the cops and she goes nightlight open the fucking door and I as a player go yes
and she comes in and she's like cool you are DRT is like number one most wanted they are hunting you down they are on their way to your apartment you need to get the fuck out of town you need to scrap your identity you need to go underground
Daisy cannot exist nightlight cannot exist right now like you got to fucking hide and I get to go cool and it was just kind of a hard moment as a player to have that much agency kind of taken from you when it's a character that you in this is like
in the back story that we've been working up to tune like she was finally hitting her like spider-man stride where it's like yeah she was finally starting to do good heroes and we're on a case and we just got a thing and we got problems to solve and investigations to put together and I got friends now and then it's like no
breaks yeah it was solid concrete wall it was just like it was kind of just and it wasn't like it like it was something I would have loved to have explored
just not at that moment because it was like she had just started establishing who she was like on a bigger level than just being like local to the like and I don't mean neighborhood like city neighborhood
not even the block like literally her apartment building she was like known there and then to be like suddenly to lose all of that and be like cool well now all of my downtime is going to be half just is having to be spent instead of doing things like talking to my friends or training to get better
powers or trying out new things has to be spent trying to clear my name and like find receipts and find ways to prove my innocence so I can leave our little underground bunker where we where I live now because I can't go home
it just kind of sucked to have that happen in that moment now so the kind of going into my moment then and I think I don't really want to focus on the moment so much as I want to focus on why I feel like this is been my biggest mistake
of this campaign I gave I gave a lot of people a lot of power and some people were just more ready for it than others truly I think what it was is that I had never been a DM for this particular player before I had been a player with that other like with that person at a
campaign we've been playing in the same campaign for a while a very long time I have also been a player for that particular person who has then DMed the campaign after the one that we played in as players together so I feel like I had a pretty good handle on how he was going to be as a person and as a player
and everyone kind of had a varying role of like real world influence in responsibility and that was my favorite part about this campaign going into it because I was really trying to go for a world that felt alive and active in her and interactive and like moving with or without the players
and I was like I wanted to really reinforce just how significant a role heroes can have on their environment and people with that kind of power both good and bad yeah and we just so happen to stumble into the second one
and so I gave I gave one particular player like she mentioned a position with the FBI and they were pretty high up there were like second third and command like they were a hop skipping a jump away from like executive director and their best friend as far as they were aware was like that guy was the guy at the top was
a lot of people were like I was there a good over
I love the keep using J. Edgar Hoover pretty sure was not the guy that was the fucking head of the FBI for a long time and like in or like started all the she's Google that for me so I know whether I need to cut that
and he might have been fucking president and I'm just stupid and I'm pretty sure he was a president
and I'm not really really really nutty stuff anyways I'm not here to go down that rabbit hole and I'm going down it while you talk yeah he war crimes but anyway I was about to say something about our government never mind so anyways Edgar Hoover's
like basically deep undercover and I gave a player basically like a hop skip and a jump away from having the keys to a new
and I had worked on said metaphorical new and was the only person that had the ability to turn it on or off yeah like he was the only thing stopping this guy from having the new that we all knew he was gonna use based on his erratic behavior you know
and I did not step in as a DM properly I did not pump the brakes when I should have for the most hands to decisions I've ever seen what I have noticed about this particular player is that when you can when you give them conflict
and like most players who will either back down from it or will try to find a way around it rather than through it this particular player likes to tackle it head first and put it in their mouth and yeah yeah pretty much and not just even in like a way or like yeah we're gonna start
and come over time I mean like fucking foot in mouth is why does as far as that shit will go like cannonball into like a fucking glass house like it's truly the point like the metaphor that I am thinking of right now is like let's just say that there's a glass house
house is very expensive very fragile very well connected house there's one object you need in the middle and it's gonna be a little difficult to get it but you can see through the walls because I've given you a glass house and you have a lot of power you can see through the walls you understand how this works
you have superpowers by the way powers and your solution to getting that fucking ball in the middle of the house is not to go through doors is not to close them behind you gently it is not to tiptoe it is not to ask other people for help it is not to cut a hole in the glass the little glass cutter like you're in a spy movie it is to
literally put on shoulder pads in a fucking helmet football style and laid man seat to truck your ass through the front door all the way to that god damn ball and I'll be fuck if anything's gonna get in your way it doesn't matter what decision has to be made whose career you gotta ruin whose life you gotta take a shit on who's fucking gun you gotta give a blow job to it does it matter
there are no consequences all of which those things happened in the campaign this man gave a gun a blow job in the like second session we met him had someone pull a gun on him and he put it in his mouth he also had someone pepper spray him and he he took the pepper spray
and pressed the button to make it do it again I thought we forgot about that moment I'm bringing that back because that was crazy chaotic of chaotic characters so not knowing that that was gonna be how the player decided to tackle the issues I gave them the the fucking power to essentially alter the entire campaign and boy the boy howdy did it go down pretty quick
he just kept giving him big big plot points and big story points and instead of like being a hero and like China play him low key he just proceeded to take a fucking sledgehammer like and just went at it just went at it just bulldozed all the way through that bitch
so speaking of doxing uh-huh oh that also happened in the campaign something up I'm a fucking I was talking about the second boxing oh so that so the event in particular that I'm leading all this catastrophe up to is that this character
this is post leaking of nightlight everyone at the table basically like physically cringed when that happened by the way it was not just Madison being like what the fuck it was everybody at the table going what fuck what did you just do and then when he
doubled down on it everybody was like what are you doing and I wasn't even there for that by the way I got a phone call to update me on the session and rubber goes oh by the way uh he doubled down he doubled down he said you're like the bad guy
yeah so so then I I'm two hours away in another city mining my business anybody that's familiar with Marvel comics and specifically X men will know that there's a very famous villain uh... called the the the sentinels the centuries
whatever the fuck uh... their whole things that they are designed specifically to kill people with the xg they can answer the later versions of them they can adapt in basically reform themselves to be anything any tool any weapon any any resistance any invulnerability to kill the mutant that is in the vicinity
I essentially introduced this concept really early on and made him the co creator of said sentinel he was the only one that had the ability to turn it on his boss could not figure out how to turn it on because he kept can I actually sabotaging it so that he could eventually find a way to dismantle them all and keep him from turning them on
yeah so then we're like the penultimate conversation between big boss and character and big boss goes hey man I don't really like what's been going on you know you keep saying it's this girl we can't figure anything out we're not making any progress with the
it looks like she's just a college it looks like she's just a person I need you to die like either do something for me here and now in this moment give me something to trust you again to get you back into my good graces or your fired your life is ruined you will never work if anywhere anywhere of any substance ever again
and you know what he does he goes okay I'll give you some I'm gonna go turn on I'm gonna turn on the murder bots I'm gonna go turn on the walking nukes mind you we know what they're capable of because one of the characters in the campaign is playing a fucked up version of one of those
bots like a prototype and is like running through mother fuckers like it is nothing because that is the character that he has been designed to play so we're very aware of what this of what these these things can do so I'm like cool maybe he's gonna go in and try and like
when they get turned on the short circuit and then he can like run and then find the kidnap family members that are also being held in the same fucking facility you know he does he goes on a 23 he goes I turn him on I said do you like sabotage them or like try to make it like turn it on and then like fake it and he goes no I just turn him on
I said he fucking kidding me I wish y'all could see Robert fucking face right now as he's reacting to this he goes no no I turn him on I said okay so we've turned on we've given the man the crazy man with the fucking whiteboard in the red string Charlie day the nukes we've given him the keys to the nukes and then and then he goes by the way man I run
I really appreciate the favor you've just done for me I know you're a superhero and I've known for the last like week because we have been watching your ass and she went in my a because you're like one of our top executives why didn't you think you would be doing that
yeah and he goes at the table should you know his reaction is what and I go yeah no like we've known but I like you so much as a person in character person in character person that I'm gonna give you one chance put down the cape come work for me put down the whole superhero business and we will turn this city into the best like city we possibly can
we will usher in a new era of peace you'll be at the front of it the creator of the murder bots life is great and you know what he says standing next to one of the murder bots just turned in I shit you not less than 10 feet away he goes
now I'm a fight and then proceeds to get to peace he goes down three times in two rounds of combat which if anybody knows the rules the game you go down three times you permit die I was like I can't kill him that feels wrong so I get my chance he escapes to the front gets down to
you know your lesson with the dragon they learn my lesson you gotta make a man trying to make amends and he's still cannot cannot even with giving him the ability to escape death not once not twice but three times seem to get out of this guy
damn facility and escape the murder bot so that I have to bring in Superman to come in and say his little scrawny as because basically in 10 minutes before this conversation he looks Superman done his face and when I know who Lewis Lane is
you have fun with that piece of information after Superman told him he was the worst hero he'd ever seen he goes tell Lewis Lane I said hi Lewis Lewis Lewis Lane Lewis Lane Lewis Lane
so the Superman comes and saves him only because he mentions Lewis Lane's name Superman comes and goes to fight the bot basically almost dies which everyone is like mouth agape how the fuck did that happen it's called I designed a bot whose premise was killing
Superman didn't actually mean to almost kill Superman it was a possibility it was a possibility man and everyone was like holy shit what the fuck is happening meanwhile guys not speaking a word he's not telling anybody what he's done
because he gets bitch slapped by fucking Captain America because Captain America is like I know what you've done you fuck this all like I know that that character this character's name is rebellion is like a cross between Captain America and
and I know he's supposed to be a bad guy but in that moment I was fully on his side like everything he said in that like interaction was correct and then knock off Scarlet Witch is like you know what cherry on top no more powers for you and then proceeds to turn off his powers using magic
you know I get this point you're thinking damn I've really punished this guy we should let him go and I do let him go you know what I let him go I see you know you can make your own decisions now I've taken away your powers your best friend doesn't like you Superman told you you're basically fucking the Joker but worse somehow bad at the
Joker's job and you can get fucked and then had to save your scrawny ass in front of the whole city after you turned on the nuke
and then the next session you're like okay here's how to get your powers back next session like yours or beat him how to get your powers back on here's how we reckon we make amends we make amends with the character whose identity you've doxxed we clear her name or you can go talk to knock off Scarlet Witch who's definitely not going to do you any favors
you know what he does you know this guy does he proceeds to go on live television broadcasting to the whole city because of he has our friendly neighborhood murder bot player hijack into every fucking screen we're playing a cyberpunk city by the way I'm sure you can guess how many fucking screens are in the city
so he goes on live television he says alright guys so well I'm responsible for the whole nightlight thing you can scratch that off that's all on me I'm a scumbag and then I'm like okay cool do you say anything else he goes yeah no I info dump the whole thing I said
what do you mean the whole thing
he was the whole thing like everything that's happening the last like I don't know week and I said okay so I start going through the list of things that he's that he's like info dumping I said okay so do you name drop J. Edgar Hoover is as the guy behind the nuke who's already unhinged and has a nuke and he goes no I don't I don't name drop him I go okay what about the fact that
the fucking DRT is kidnapped a family do you mention that because that's a big thing to accuse the FBI of he goes yeah no I mentioned that I don't mention the names of the kidnapped people because that fucking matters
but I let the world know the city know that the fucking standing military is kidnapping innocent civilians and also making robots to kill every person with deviant powers so the last thing I ask okay so do you info dump anything about the murder bots and he goes
yeah I go okay so what is yeah include he goes everything I said about the fact you made him he goes oh no no no not that I said okay but just about like the fact that the RT has to mean they're turned on he goes yeah
I said okay so then DRT hijacks the fucking live stream and is like hey guys this is unequivocally false so you know what his reaction is shut down the live stream double down he goes not DRT is lying to you coming lying from some base in the middle of fuck no where DRT is out to get you
so then everything breaks fucking loose the city loses it DRT shuts off the power rolls out murder bots is basically out looking for the whole superhero team mind you because what do you think they've been doing guess what level guess what level we are folks
five and seven five we just watched a fucking basically a level 25 character one V1 in almost lose to one of these things there were eight eight in the fucking bank that are loose that are loose and so at this point is the MMI cool I don't know what to do
there was a moment where we still had like two almost three hours left in our playtime and Robert just goes I I think we have to end here today I at this point and feeling physically ill because also at this point I said what are we doing guys are we going full send into this fuck shit are we playing full fuck shit
and everyone goes yeah we're playing full fuck shit so I say cool I go on Twitter and I leak photos of Superman and the mayor and the J Edgar Hoover and some other super here and being buddy buddy and looting yeah having a having a little dinner with Manila envelopes
table and just points to finger at every person in power and then involves Superman in that conversation yeah and so I just I was like cool I guess she tweets that out and and
then her identity online gets erased because of course the FBI is like I don't fuck with that you can't you can't put the finger at us which then it goes trending on Twitter and then everybody picks it up and gets reposted
but all of her social media accounts are just fucking deleted which deleted which a huge chunk of her personality is her social media presence sounds really vain and stupid but like there's a reason for it so to wrap this up to wrap up my worst moment as a DM I think ever this just tops period letting all this happen
and truly I'm not throwing shade at the player at this point I know I'm putting a lot of this on their actions but at any point in time I could have jumped in as a DM and been like please I want you to understand that the that the consequence to this action is a lot bigger than you think it's going to be
and I didn't because I did up to that point I was very like hardline consequences dear actions you know you're a free agent in a free world and if something shitty happens like somebody launching nukes that's on you dude
and that leads to our uh... spider art art art third spider man movie with Tom Holland where we doctor strange that shit away
yes and then I get to the end of the session and I'm like alright everybody can you can everybody give me an insight check to see exactly what it is you you guys should be doing is level five
we're so lucky
I'm like nightlight you go and find Superman and beg that bitch to come back into this fight and do something
Superman's in a coma by the way guys
Superman is hit has hit her doomsday arc in this universe and is now beaten within an inch of her life in his in comatose state recovering the way that we left off with her in that fight was no one knows if she's going to recover from this
from that fucking ass beating she got in public
she goes off and finds finds her and then I'm like okay thing one and thing two which is the robot and then the thing that made the robot and also the person that gave the nukes to Jagger Hoover
and also the robot has a nuke
oh yeah the robot can I believe this is not a joke hydrogen bomb their base is built on a hydrogen bomb and that's just a thing
so I'm like you guys your best action is going to be to go to DRT and turn the power on good luck with that at this point I was not thinking in like what is feasible I'm thinking in what is the best use of these these characters right now
go to DRT which is the most heavily defended in most fucking absolutely aware on edge group of people in the whole city right now who just been outed on live television as being terrorists
you guys should go and fix that
so then to the kid with wind powers I'm like you should go talk to your dad your dad's like actually really really up there in terms of people that can do something about the situation you should go make sure that he's on your side before the FBI tells him that you're the terrorists
so he goes off to do that and then I tell shadow boy I'm like hey all the hospitals the things that you care about a lot they've all lost power which means I see you people they're fucking dead
they're just dead period and so you should go there and try and help them because that's what it means to be a real hero save the people caught in the crossfire
we get about a quarter into our roles for this and at this point I'm like cool
what if we just didn't at this point I'm defeated I don't know what to tell the players to do two of the two people that had to go in basically infiltrate DRT which is on high alert at this point maximum security
I shit you know one of the players looks me he goes there's no way we can do this is there and I said not really
so they're like spy movie how do we get in underground I'm like good luck
I said you know I'll come back to you guys you sit there and talk and at this point they're like not there's no speaking because they both know there's no fucking way they're getting in there
not even close there's one idea that I came up with my head but I was like you know what they don't deserve and I'm not giving it to them
because one of them is the person that brought upon themselves
yeah I'm over there talking to Superman I get a gun hold on me
Superman's girlfriend pops up and goes you listen you say a word fucking bulletin back your head dude
and she goes why are you here and honestly I don't know why I just straight up was like she goes inside check the inside check brought me here
I didn't know why I was there like legit I didn't understand it was just I was a player was so frazzled by everything that had happened
I just I could not come up with anything I could not pick up on anything and I had so much prepared for that session and session before or even session after
I was like I gotta get you guys back on track to be like young justice fucking Teen Titans level like that's the way we're going down
I just gave you your deadshot enemy like y'all are on the road to like having a regular hero come up and somebody said no
it's just absolutely delete the entire session
I made cute little Christmas minis for everyone like they were so cute I made little Christmas comic book covers for everyone
it was like them decorating a Christmas tree together and like having hot chocolate and I was like Merry Christmas everyone
this is our little Christmas session it's gonna be so cute and adorable because that's how I was gonna end it was gonna end with Christmas
no I ended with the with the fucking nuclear holocaust
yeah and then it was like cool are we memory wiping everyone everyone cool and then it was like cool the one the player who did it was like I want to remember
he was like I think I deserve to remember as punishment this is my punishment I said no you are not remembering your actions that is unfair to everybody else at this table who is going to forget everything that happened
the only person your penance at this point is that you still don't have your powers back
yeah my character has like a weird vibe about it and I'm like we can table that for later
so now I have to go through and make a list of all the things that happened and didn't happen and then basically info dump the first half hour of our next session in fucking January about all the things that they did that didn't do
yeah anyways that's my biggest failure as a DM ever thank you all for listening to this stuff so we're gonna go ahead and cut it here
thank you all for tuning in to the episode of table talk hopefully we will have another one out for you guys over the Christmas and winter break while we are enjoying
Florida we are going to Florida we're going to Disney anyway sorry calm down king of capitalism that's like capitalism's little fucking play toy man
I recognize but goodbye