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This podcast is produced by Student Media.

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Hello, players who lose real-life sleep over at NPC.

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There we go. And DMs who write an entire sourcebook for One Shot and then use a fourth of it.

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Share an experience now. More than once. I'm Maddie. I'm Robert.

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What are we talking about today, Robert? Oh, welcome to Table Talk.

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It is kind of a different session, so you can listen to this one if you want to, but it's much better with context.

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So the session and a half before this was a five-episode special where we did an actual play where I was a player and Madison was a DM and the kids on bike system.

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So today is kind of like a little feedback slash talkback session where we just kind of shoot the shit about the episode.

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Things we liked, things we didn't, things we felt went well, just kind of what the experience was like, because this is her first time.

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Well, second time DMing, first time doing it for one person and then sort of in front of an audience.

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I'll talk about the small group versus one person.

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One of the most jarring experiences and probably what I think was the hardest part about the whole thing.

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Sumbling through a story and like a plot and everything, that's bread and butter for me. That's what I do. That's what I love to do.

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I love to make up stories and shit, but when it's just one other person, the formatting of it is so odd because previously there were four or five of you.

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I think there were five of us. Five of you all. I could be like, cool, y'all talk to each other while I flip through my fucking like little notebook and document and like figure out what I want to do.

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There's no time for that when it's one other person and it's just like, I'm bad at math. I can't add numbers together.

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That's another thing where it's like, cool, there's other people to kind of like take the pressure off and you can also let players who you know are stronger kind of guide the direction of where you want things to go.

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Versus one other person is also an issue of two people with ADHD who love a bit and who once they start riffing do not stop.

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And that led to a thing that I had timed out in my head and planned on taking 30 minutes, taking the entire part one.

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That was supposed to be 30 minutes of time, like real life time to go over all of the stuff that happened in part one.

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And it took two hours because there's no one else to move things along.

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It's all on you.

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It is just two people in a vacuum and then all the people you've made up in your head.

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And it's different when like at the table, there's real life people who are getting antsy and we're like, oh, I want to do something.

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Oh, I want to do something. You could see the people who it's like, oh, we got to keep the shit moving because other people have to go.

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Like that does not exist when you're playing with one other person, which was very, very jarring.

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Yeah, it's definitely it's a different experience. I mean, I've only done it the one time when we did our previous actual play.

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And it's, I don't know, I had the benefit of working out of a book.

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So like I knew what points we had to hit next.

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But it was there were definitely times where we could have mingled a lot longer on certain things and we needed to I think the benefit to of starting in like one shot that is preset or preset.

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Or pre written or like a dungeon is that there's a very clear goal to work towards.

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Yeah, like we can shoot the shit and talk all day in a high school.

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Correct.

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Right where you're high school kids versus like you're in a very linear ask dungeon where there's a very clear goal or a quest that's been given to you by a teacher or by a quest giver or whoever.

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And it's like, cool, you have one mission and that is to get from point A to point B and then to get item A back to person A.

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Yeah.

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And that's one of the things looking back because I was going back and I was editing trailers that have absolutely flopped online and I spent how worse on these suckers.

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So I've been listening to this episode over and over for editing purposes, which is also very jarring experience to listening back to yourself doing any creative project.

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But I think that that's one of the things that went the smoothest and things were the most centered when there was a clear goal.

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Yeah.

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And that's how it's going to be, right?

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Yeah.

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Because it's the difference between being able to wander in an open world versus like having a story focused moment.

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I mean, that's, you know, just kind of where parties tend to struggle and DMs tend to struggle, at least ones that aren't very goal oriented in their storytelling.

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And this is going to be one of the stupid things because I'm going to take it back to acting.

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It had a very similar feeling for me looking back and reflecting on it.

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It's like sometimes when you're doing an act or you have me.

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Act or you have me.

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Sometimes when you're doing a scene and you're like, I don't know why the fuck this character is saying this.

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I don't know why I'm doing the things I'm doing.

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And then you take a step back and you do like the first thing they teach you in any acting class ever is like, what's your character's goal?

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You have to know their objective and their goal.

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And then you have to like have that influence everything you do.

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And then I at least do not do that most of the time.

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Yeah.

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You just forget and you're like, yeah, that's so obvious.

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And then the second you go through and you do it with that goal in mind, you're like, oh, this is so easy.

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Everything makes sense. Everything is clicking.

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And I think the same is really true in D&D.

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And I think that that's one of the things we've talked about a little bit at our table of our characters, our PCs at our table in our campaign, kind of feeling disconnected and like wander.

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It just, it felt like, why are we here?

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And I think that one of the things that also boils down to is like goal, which that's way off and like broader than this specific.

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Yeah.

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And certainly the goal setting is very important for characters, especially helping drive the story that your DM is telling forward.

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And then I think also being able to be aware of what those goals are as a DM are also really important because that can give you, like if I know that person is absolutely dying to, I don't know, steal a car, right?

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Then I can give you 76 different story points.

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But as long as every one of those story points gets you a half step closer to stealing that car, we're on track.

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We're on track to take that long, but we're still moving forward.

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Yeah.

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The issue in setting up the one shot is that there was nothing, there was, you have to play long enough to get to the hook.

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Exactly.

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And then how long do you sit on the hook before you start moving up?

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And it's just, you kind of have to find that out.

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Like from my experience, I think it's very much either you watch a lot of content and try and base your first couple of runs off of that or you go in cold.

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And it's just kind of a practice, feeling out your players, your table, who likes to move things forward, who likes to sit, meander.

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Like some people are at a table or very world exploring and like just kind of do normal everyday people shit.

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And then other people are like, cool, let's go do stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff.

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Yeah.

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And just cannot help going to the plot every session.

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And that's, you know, that's kind of helpful on my end, because it means that I don't, I don't stall, because I'm not giving the option to.

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It's difficult for me to stall with some of the players at my table, because they're like, cool, we're not going to sit around and do all the fun happy filler stuff.

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We have the things.

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We've got things to do.

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We're going to do the things.

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And that's where I think comparing our, like our table to like what we've played in the one shot.

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I'm a very slice of life, because that feels more comfortable to me, because that's where I like my strengths kind of lie in terms of storytelling and stuff as character driven situations,

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which is a lot easier for me than, you know, like a hooky adventure thing.

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And I also wanted it to be.

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Yeah, I think I tend to lean on the other side for sure.

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I like to find a hook or a goal or an idea or a premise for a session.

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I mean, even the flashpoint session we did, I mean, it was, it was fantastic.

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But the idea was, in my opinion, what made it so impactful was the premise that everybody was supposed to try and make it to the end of a single day.

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Yeah.

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That was the whole premise.

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Yeah.

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Like there's a solid chance that your character dies and that you all fail this mission terribly.

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Correct.

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But there's a goal.

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And then you only have four hours, like four and a half, six hours to work through to that goal versus like, cool, you're in high school.

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Yeah.

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You're in high school, you're with your friends and you're shooting the shit and then you eventually get to science class where you're given a hook, but then you have the entire rest of the day.

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Yeah.

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And then the bus ride.

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And then you have to find a secondary hook to start your adventure.

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It's just there's a lot more like free roam character stuff in there, which is fun until you have a schedule and then you're like, fuck.

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Correct.

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And it was one of those things where like, I didn't expect it to be as long as it was because I thought it was just going to be filler like, cool, like.

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And I made a post on Patreon where I basically put all of my notes and all of my behind the scenes, everything to an obsessive point because I like wrote a little like sourcebook and mechanics and all of these things for things that did not get touched because of my poor time management skills and also the fact that both of us have severe ADHD and time blindness.

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But kind of like going through that and being like, yeah, I just expected it to be kind of like Tony shows up to school.

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He asked her comes in late, you know, you meet the cool kids, blah, blah, blah, running it through kind of like that.

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And then it's also a thing of like, I realized as a GM, and this was something I also realized I need to be mean.

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I need to have a backbone because instead of any of the times I was like, I'm not going to cut you off if you were engaging actively with something.

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And that was, I think one of my problems with time management.

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And it was also a thing of in terms of like being able to find and set consequences is I.

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See, that's right.

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King of consequences. You take your time. You lose out on shit.

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Pick up the wrong object. You lose out on shit.

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That incentivizes people to move.

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I was so bad at this because I wrote like, like I made this stuff hard.

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Yeah.

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You would not know that listening to the session.

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Not at all. Tony succeeded at everything he did.

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Well, it was because and I am on the team, you know, as a GM or as a DM, you want your players to succeed and you should let your players succeed to an extent.

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But failure is a huge part of kids on bikes. And I like, I just, one, I felt mean.

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Which is a personal issue.

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I think it takes a while for certain people.

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The biggest one was also like when I'm going to use the claw machine as an example.

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I had written in my notes, this is a DC 15 flight check.

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You cannot use adversity tokens.

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You cannot use like anything to help you because claw machines are rigged and you shouldn't be able to win claw machines.

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What I did not expect for was for this character that I had gone into this being like, yeah, this is going to be an asshole plastic beauty, petty, like shallow.

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I knew all of these things about the character.

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I did not expect for him to be a really nice person to his friend.

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And that fucked me up because it was like in that moment of like, yeah, it's a claw machine.

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It's going to be impossible to win.

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And then you made the choice to be like, cool, I'm going to try and win something for someone else.

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And that was so nice and so, and I felt like

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I couldn't be like, no, fuck you actually.

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That's where you have to get, I think it's, as you say, it's a skill issue.

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I think that's where it comes from.

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I just need to get better.

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Experience where there's only so much information gathering you can do on an individual's character

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versus playing with them at the table and seeing how they actually characterize that person while you're playing with them.

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Like, I could have had, for reference, right, like our superhero campaign has been going on for a while

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and I am just like at the end of semester two, just now closing where I wanted to be a semester one

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because of how many character arcs our characters have already been through within, like in canon, like a month.

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Yeah.

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Everybody has changed so drastically within a month's time.

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I mean, that's cool to think about.

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However, comma, a part of it stems from, I had meetings with everybody, I said, okay, who's your character going to be?

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And then I got, like, asshole, where I got kind of a luke, really cool, like, into superhero stuff,

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where I got, like, a veteran hero who's still trying to make it to the top.

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I got very clear, solid character stuff.

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And then I was like, cool, I'm going to write a story where these people can come together in a group and then go forward.

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And then you get at the table and those people do not exist.

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Or they exist, but there are so many other layers to them that you didn't expect to be there,

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that you're having to micromanage every story point that doesn't interact or that does interact with a layer that you didn't account for.

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Yeah.

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I.e. Tony being nice to his only friend.

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That, and it threw me so off because I had written all of this to be, like, a very, like,

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because I went in with the information of, like, everything we talked about from the character beforehand was, like, yeah, it's like,

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oh, he's nice person, but, like, a bit down low.

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And see, here's the thing, though.

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I took advantage of the down low aspect because if you notice, most of the times he was nice in an over way

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was when nobody else was around, which is, you put me in an arcade with one person who I consider my only friend,

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I'm not gonna be an asshole.

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Correct.

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And that was the thing that I just, I did not account for that.

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And then I felt bad being, like, actually no, get fucked.

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Yeah, you can't win.

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Fuck you for trying to be nice.

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I did make props for two of the things that were also, you were not supposed to win,

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but I knew that I was gonna end up giving them away anyway because I like making props.

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Yeah, you like getting up the props.

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Fair enough.

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So I knew that that was gonna happen, but it was, that was one of the things that, like, I struggled with.

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And also, I should preface for this.

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This is not, we took the setting from the back of the book.

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I said, I took the setting from the back of the book and I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna use this.

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And then I gutted it and used the name.

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Yeah.

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And the fact that SkiBall exists in the name of one of the characters and that is it.

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And then I just made up everything else.

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And that was also very fun.

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And that, the making of the world was not the challenging part for me.

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It was, oh god, I knew this world because I, like,

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wrote it and made it and everything.

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And then I forgot to tell you what any of the stuff was.

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And that was also something that I was like, yeah.

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And you have to spend a lot of time info dumping.

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And that's kind of an issue that I've run into into our other campaign as well is that I gave everybody a very strong,

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grounded background into the world and then very quickly realized that despite the fact that I info dumped to everybody individually

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and then as a group, there's still so much that nobody knows.

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Yeah.

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Like there are still so many questions because, and this is the issue, sort of the further you flesh out the world

202
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:35,000
in the more experience you give your PCs before you play session zero with them,

203
00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:41,000
it becomes an incredibly difficult issue to navigate because now it's, I have like five players,

204
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:43,000
four players I think is average, right?

205
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:47,000
I have four players that all are supposed to know a lot about this world.

206
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:52,000
Like they've lived in it, they go to work in it, they are, it heroes in it, they're an adventuring party in it,

207
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:58,000
they have jobs, relationships, they have neighborhoods that they like, they have nicknames for groups of people,

208
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:01,000
there's an accent for every different major segment of the city.

209
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:07,000
There are parks and statues and buildings and corporations that anybody would be familiar with.

210
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:14,000
The issue is I don't have time to write all of that information on my own original world and then give that to players

211
00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:17,000
and then go, cool, I need you to memorize everything about this fictional universe.

212
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:18,000
Now let's play.

213
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:19,000
Yeah.

214
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:25,000
Because then it's like, cool, I have a source book for my character and I have no idea what the fucking you have it makes.

215
00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:26,000
Correct.

216
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:31,000
This part of it is like, I want to let my players explore and feel out the world for themselves and you know,

217
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:37,000
the other thing is I don't want to, like, I don't know, the idea of starting four people, five people,

218
00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:42,000
knowing nothing about anything ever at all is so fucking stupid and boring to me.

219
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:46,000
Like, I mean, I've gone on this rant before, there is no reason why you should be starting at level one,

220
00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:49,000
I stand on that, I don't even think you should do level three.

221
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,000
I think level five is base.

222
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:52,000
It's rough to be able to do that.

223
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:59,000
I think that's base, but a level five character insinuates or at least comes with the expectation that that person has some experience in the world that they're in.

224
00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:00,000
They've lived, they've been a person.

225
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:01,000
They've lived.

226
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:10,000
And how do you drop five people in one city, whether it is, fucking whatever the city we were in or the high school we're in, right?

227
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:11,000
How do you drop one?

228
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:12,000
Come on, you got another one.

229
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:16,000
I don't remember the name of the city, I remember Point Pleasant was the place that we went to.

230
00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:17,000
I don't remember the name of the city.

231
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:19,000
Point Pleasant was the name of the city, we went to Port Pleasant.

232
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:20,000
We went to Port Pleasant.

233
00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:22,000
Yeah, because we made a bit of the names because you could never remember.

234
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:23,000
What was the city we were in?

235
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:24,000
Point Pleasant.

236
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,000
We were in Point Pleasant, we went to Port Pleasant.

237
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:28,000
That's fucking annoying.

238
00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,000
You, you fucking get the name wrong.

239
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,000
Anyway, we'll make it a bit.

240
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:34,000
That's the issue, right?

241
00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:44,000
How much do you tell Robert about Tony, about Tony's experience in Port Pleasant or Point Pleasant without just telling him about the whole campaign?

242
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:45,000
Yeah, and it was one of those things where after-

243
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:48,000
If he is supposed to have been there for 16 years?

244
00:16:48,000 --> 00:17:03,000
Yeah, and it was one of the things we talked about after the first, because we recorded it in two halves, and as we were going home, you made the comment of like, that felt like an intro, like a session one for a campaign as opposed to a one-shot.

245
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:04,000
Yeah.

246
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:09,000
And I think that that would, this is all to say, I'm pretty decently happy with how it went.

247
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,000
I think, I think it went well.

248
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,000
I think we just, I say we.

249
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:21,000
I think the scope of the amount of content that could be covered very quickly got out of hand.

250
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:22,000
Correct.

251
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:27,000
Which part of it is me lingering on story points that I thought were fun and then not having somebody to tell me no.

252
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:35,000
And then the other part of it was somebody playing with somebody who likes exploring all the story-related things in the universe and then also not wanting to pump the brakes.

253
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:36,000
Yeah.

254
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:37,000
It's.

255
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:44,000
There's a downside to overriding and there's a downside to having too fleshed out of a world because it means that there's so many things that you want your players to explore.

256
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:52,000
Like, the thing that I'm running to now is that the inspiration for Sapphire City is like a combination of six or seven different sources.

257
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:57,000
It's infamous one through three, the video game series on PlayStation.

258
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:04,000
It is My Hero Academia, it's the anime, it is, oh my god, the Heroes Rise series, which is a choice of games book.

259
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:06,000
There's like fucking six of them.

260
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:11,000
I mean, it's just like source after source after source because there's so much media out there about superheroes.

261
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,000
And I was like, I want to pick a little bit from all of my favorites.

262
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:20,000
And then I ended up with a world where I was like, there are so many things in people in story points that I am dying to have you all touch.

263
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:29,000
But if I'm going to make this campaign end, like end at some point, and this is not a forever campaign, which I don't really want it to be.

264
00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:37,000
I'm cool with revisiting, but this besides the point, I have to pick one storyline or one really key point of inspiration and then follow that through.

265
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:38,000
Yeah.

266
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:42,000
And so now I'm like going through in my head as we play sessions and I'm like, cool, I can't do that source.

267
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:43,000
I can't do that source.

268
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:44,000
I can't do that source.

269
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:47,000
I have to pick this one and I have to pick these three story points.

270
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:48,000
Yeah.

271
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,000
And then I'm like, I only make sense within the context of the source that I'm basing it off of.

272
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:53,000
And it's not even with this particular one.

273
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,000
It wasn't even that I felt like I fleshed out the world too much.

274
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,000
It was literally just, I think.

275
00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:05,000
I didn't think that was a, I didn't know that could be a fucking problem until your players decided to be curious about the world they were in, which, you know, who would have thought that that was going to happen.

276
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,000
And then it's like, cool, I don't, you could do anything.

277
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:09,000
Yeah.

278
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:17,000
It's, it's always one of those things where it's like, it was the same thing I was running into with some of the NPCs that I like, just throw away names.

279
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
And I, like, I named every NPC, I had like a description for all of them.

280
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:23,000
And I'll immediately went out the window because it's like on the fly thing.

281
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:28,000
So it's like, I did all this writing and then I ignore the writing once I'm in the moment because I like to be like on my feet.

282
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:29,000
Yeah.

283
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:33,000
And like using Stacy and Jason as an example and you were like, what's their deal?

284
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:34,000
And I'm like, they don't have a deal.

285
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:35,000
What's up with them?

286
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:36,000
Robert?

287
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:37,000
What's going on?

288
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:38,000
There's no deal there because I did.

289
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,000
But it's like, it's the prettiest, most popular girl in school.

290
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,000
What's going to, what's going to net Tony the most exposure as a human being?

291
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:46,000
And it was getting with Stacy.

292
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:47,000
Correct.

293
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:50,000
And it was one of those things that like things you never account for.

294
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,000
I didn't account for any of that.

295
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:55,000
I didn't expect the whole beep.

296
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:56,000
It came out.

297
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:01,000
So much of the conflict was between fucking Aster, Tony, Stacy and Jason.

298
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:04,000
Like that was 99% of the content.

299
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:05,000
See, here's the thing though.

300
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:09,000
I thought that was very funny and I enjoyed it, but I went into this with like creature feature.

301
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:10,000
It was like the goal.

302
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:14,000
And then it ended up coming out being like a Wapat story.

303
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:15,000
Correct.

304
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:20,000
And then I wrote down like A03.

305
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,000
Talking about A03 on the podcast is insane.

306
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:28,000
I'm playing one of those shitty, I'm not going to say the name of that streaming service,

307
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:31,000
but it's one of, you know what I'm thinking about.

308
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,000
They do all the teen rom-coms and they're all series.

309
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:35,000
Oh yeah.

310
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:38,000
Or they're multiple movies and they're all called the same thing with a slightly different,

311
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:39,000
it's like those.

312
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:40,000
Yeah, it was.

313
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:42,000
It played out exactly like those.

314
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:46,000
He wrote down like a John Hughes, like 1980s vibe is like one of the touchstones.

315
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:51,000
And then I didn't expect it to be like fully fucking like 16 candles within the first like

316
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:55,000
20 minutes when you were like, okay, makeover because you cannot go out looking like that.

317
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:56,000
What do I do with that?

318
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:01,000
I wrote down that they were like, they were like break into, I was like, maybe they'll

319
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:05,000
break into an abandoned house or maybe they'll see like a little ghost or maybe they'll like

320
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:06,000
do like creature feature things.

321
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,000
And then the player made the choice.

322
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,000
You have proper made the choice of being like this, I cannot be seen with you.

323
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,000
First of all, and second of all, if you are ever getting laid, you got to fix this.

324
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:20,000
So here's where I as a DM, I think would have jumped in just kind of giving my two cents.

325
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:24,000
I think what I would have done is inserted a hook that my players could not have run around

326
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:27,000
either on the way to get the clothes or on the way back from the clothes.

327
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:30,000
Like time gets away from Tony and Astor as they're doing their makeover.

328
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:33,000
Tony spends too much time looking at himself, whatever, whatever.

329
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:34,000
You all now have to walk back.

330
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:36,000
It's like six, the sun is setting.

331
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,000
There's this house that you always pass.

332
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,000
Q and noise or a person or a dorsal.

333
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:45,000
I'm like, that is where I would have basically thrown something at myself or you and been

334
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,000
like, you can ignore this.

335
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,000
You cannot ignore this.

336
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,000
And if you ignore it, you're a moron.

337
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:54,000
See, I'm not going to say that because I was about to say something that I was about to

338
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:55,000
put people at last.

339
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,000
I feel like I did that really well in my first one shot that I ever did.

340
00:21:58,000 --> 00:21:59,000
Yeah.

341
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:00,000
And I was laughing.

342
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:01,000
That was baffling.

343
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:02,000
I was laughing.

344
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:04,000
Hooks at people.

345
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:09,000
It was like, I was throwing, it wasn't throwing pebbles.

346
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,000
It was like, you know, when you throw pebbles on somebody's window to get their attention,

347
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:13,000
I was throwing bricks.

348
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:14,000
Oh, 100%.

349
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:18,500
And I was doing my absolute best to pick the bricks up that were being left on the ground

350
00:22:18,500 --> 00:22:20,000
and then hit them again with it.

351
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:21,000
Correct.

352
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:22,000
They just weren't going for it.

353
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:23,000
It was nothing.

354
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,000
And it ended up being fine because I was just like, cool, we're skipping the hook.

355
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:30,000
I'm just going to tell you directly what is happening because we've gotten to that point.

356
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:31,000
Yeah.

357
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,000
Because we're on a time crunch.

358
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,000
And it was one of those things where also I didn't go into this with a specific like

359
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:41,000
creature in mind or a specific hook or mystery because I also wanted it because kids on bikes

360
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:45,000
is a very like collaborative thing as opposed to like D&D.

361
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,000
I wanted it to be whatever you chose to engage with.

362
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:52,000
That was my plan going in was, okay, I'm going to give this big open world.

363
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,000
I'm going to let anything happen.

364
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:58,000
And then whatever is like chosen to be engaged with or like whatever is the point of interest,

365
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,000
then I will build off that and then I will make that the thing.

366
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:06,000
I just did not expect the point of interest to be people, social politics.

367
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:07,000
Yeah.

368
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:10,000
Of a high school setting, which was still super fun.

369
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,000
And I think I would have done it again.

370
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,000
And just in a different setting.

371
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,000
I think that's where the downfall of the planning comes right.

372
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:22,000
I think that mindset works really well for a campaign or a session zero or a four to

373
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:23,000
five session one shot.

374
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:28,000
I think that mindset does not work very well for a predetermined, prewritten one shot,

375
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:35,000
which is where you have to kind of as a DM go, okay, are my goals too lofty is my setting too open.

376
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:40,000
Like I think if I were you, I probably would have sat down and gone, okay, here are three monsters.

377
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:42,000
These are the only three we're playing with.

378
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:49,000
I'm going to insert them as active or as much as humanly possible, assuming I'm giving my players a choice.

379
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,000
And I'm just going to keep throwing it at them until one sticks.

380
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,000
And then if it doesn't cool, I'm picking one.

381
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:55,000
Yeah.

382
00:23:55,000 --> 00:24:01,000
But you enjoy exploring the world as much as anyone else does, especially as a player.

383
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:08,000
And so I think there just, there were zero opportunities for that to happen because I was having a great time being

384
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:09,000
politicky.

385
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:10,000
Yeah.

386
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,000
And you was also a thing of you had clear decisions that you as a character wanted to make.

387
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:14,000
Oh yeah.

388
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:17,000
But see, here's the thing though, I think if you had been like, as you guys are walking past this house,

389
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:22,000
Aster runs in, we've established via the one shot, I'm not leaving her by herself.

390
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:23,000
Yeah.

391
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:24,000
I would have gone in headfirst.

392
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:30,000
And that is where you as a DM who is also the player can say, I don't have to make the smart decision as Aster.

393
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,000
I have to make the hook decision as Aster.

394
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,000
And that was another thing after the first half that we talked about.

395
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,000
Which we hit at the very end where it's like, cool, she bolts.

396
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,000
I'm, I'll get that one.

397
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:40,000
Cool, best night of my life.

398
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:41,000
Bye.

399
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:42,000
She's gone.

400
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:49,000
And it was also one of those things where like, I did, I knew that I was playing Aster and then I was also DMing.

401
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:50,000
It was hard.

402
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:56,000
I was fully going into this and I GM brand, GM brand, GM brand and then we got to the session and after the first half,

403
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,000
you were like, yeah, what's Aster's deal?

404
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:59,000
And I was like, she doesn't have one.

405
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:00,000
I spent all this time writing.

406
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,000
I spent no time on character development for her.

407
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,000
Figuring out who Aster is.

408
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,000
And it was figuring out who she is in the moment.

409
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:13,000
And it led to some very fun discoveries, which is she's a low charisma character versus a very high charisma character.

410
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:18,000
And then realizing throughout this, oh, it's not because she's like awkward.

411
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,000
It's because she doesn't care.

412
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:24,000
And I think that that was like a very fun way to put that out and also cause-

413
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:29,000
It's like dragging a landmine through like a field of fucking spikes.

414
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:30,000
Yeah, it was-

415
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,000
I know how to step around them.

416
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,000
Giant landmine behind me on the other hand.

417
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:36,000
Fuck you, Stacy.

418
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,000
What's your problem at the fucking camp bonfire?

419
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,000
With everyone drinking.

420
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:42,000
Yeah.

421
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:43,000
Dog.

422
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:49,000
This kind of leads into another point of like that was something I didn't think about playing a character in this world.

423
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,000
I just thought about like GM again.

424
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,000
See, I think that again is kind of where that experience comes from.

425
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:54,000
I've done it.

426
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,000
Well, I mean, it's not a super common experience.

427
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:57,000
I think it is for some tables.

428
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:58,000
I think it isn't for others.

429
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:04,000
So like I play my villains so actively and so often that they're basically PCs.

430
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,000
They're just opposite you all.

431
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:11,000
So the experience of having to play multiple PCs, focus on one who is basically a player character,

432
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
and then also narrate your story is an experience that I as a DM am very comfortable with.

433
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:20,000
I think that helped a lot with the one shot I did where I had to play Iba at the same time.

434
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:25,000
I was like, cool, Iba's got a very clear character stick and it's be strong, big and bad,

435
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,000
and make fun of the little weak person and then beat the shit out of people.

436
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:29,000
I can do that.

437
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:30,000
I can do that passively.

438
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,000
I don't have to turn on any switches.

439
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:33,000
I don't have to write-

440
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,000
Well, you have to do it now at our superhero table.

441
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:40,000
Yeah, now I am even more of a full-time-a-player

442
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,000
on top of a DM.

443
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,000
Like I am fully doing both.

444
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:49,000
And it's, I'm not going to say it's not an enjoyable experience because this is a world that I absolutely am so in love with

445
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,000
despite all the trials and tribulations that it continues to go through.

446
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:57,000
But I told myself that I wanted to play it no matter what, and I'm basically getting that experience.

447
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:58,000
Yeah, you don't need to buy someone's-

448
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,000
I didn't even fucking ask for it.

449
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,000
But I got it.

450
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,000
Just so funny that we just talked about,

451
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,000
oh, there my phone goes shutting down.

452
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:07,000
Cool.

453
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,000
I knew it was going to happen.

454
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:09,000
Yeah, it's all right.

455
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,000
Which is one of the things we talked about, like, oh, like maybe we'll bring in a guest DM to like-

456
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:14,000
Yeah.

457
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:15,000
DM something in Sapphire City something.

458
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:16,000
I don't need that.

459
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,000
And you're like, nah, I'll just do both myself.

460
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:19,000
Correct.

461
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:25,000
But kind of speaking broader, and I'm fully modeling this like talk back also kind of after

462
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:31,000
adventuring party on dimension 20, what were some moments that you really enjoyed or like that jumped out?

463
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,000
I had that written down on my paper too.

464
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:34,000
Oh, that's so nice.

465
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:35,000
You were the DM.

466
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,000
What's one thing you enjoyed the most?

467
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:38,000
Don't put this on me first.

468
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:44,000
What's one aspect of, from the DMing perspective, what is one thing that you enjoyed the most about the experience?

469
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,000
I liked being-

470
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:47,000
This is going to sound stupid.

471
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:57,000
Because I'm insecure in like the whole adventure hook monsters, high thrill, basically the like thrill mystery intrigue.

472
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,000
Being able to do like social politics was very fun for me and I did not expect-

473
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,000
Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

474
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,000
Do that and that's something I understand.

475
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:06,000
So much fun doing that.

476
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,000
And that was a really like enjoyable thing and I didn't expect to be able to do that in a-

477
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,000
I mean our last several sessions at the table have been social politics.

478
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:14,000
Yeah.

479
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:20,000
Like to the max with very little combat backdrop, which is very different for our table, which I'm enjoying.

480
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:21,000
But yeah, I 100% agree.

481
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:26,000
It was really fun as a player to get to just fully engage in those and then not also have to control them.

482
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:33,000
Because like, and I'm sure you kind of figure this out through playing Astor, it's hard to make decisions as a player knowing what you know as a DM.

483
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:34,000
Yes.

484
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,000
It was like there were so many times where I was like-

485
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:45,000
I as jury know that if I punch this guy in the face, so many consequences, none of them positive are going to come from it.

486
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:49,000
But I also know that as this character, it makes- I have to commit.

487
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,000
Yeah.

488
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:51,000
I have to commit.

489
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,000
And there was a moment where it was you breaking into your parents liquor cabinet after not finding the key.

490
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:03,000
And I was like, cool, as Astor right now, I want to jump in and be like, hey, dipshit, put the fire poker down.

491
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,000
And maybe, just maybe we can try and pick the lock.

492
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,000
I can go to my house and look in my parents' liquor sash because they don't keep it locked up.

493
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,000
They can do all of these other things.

494
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,000
But you as a player, we'll make that decision.

495
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:20,000
And I was like, I'm technically not like a really a player here, so I don't want to have her step in and ruin the fun here.

496
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,000
So I'm going to let you break the glass.

497
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:29,000
And I think that's one of those things where if you had known that she was already kind of over it in a sort of blunt in that way,

498
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,000
that maybe you could have stepped in if you had known who she was going to get into it the first session.

499
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,000
You know, where it's like, hey, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

500
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:40,000
This relationship between us is very clear, you're pretty and stupid, and I'm smart, right?

501
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:41,000
So like, stop.

502
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:42,000
Yeah.

503
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:43,000
Stop.

504
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,000
And I think Tony very much went and went, well, what?

505
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,000
Like, what's the, what's the problem?

506
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:48,000
Yeah.

507
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:49,000
And then we would have gone through that whole thing.

508
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,000
And it's also a thing of playing with someone for the first time.

509
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:55,000
You're also figuring out the relationship and the dynamic between two characters in real time.

510
00:29:55,000 --> 00:30:04,000
And I think that's something that also like, in doing a one shot, that's going to be something that you run into of like, how do these characters interact with each other and what is the vibe, because you can write it on paper.

511
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,000
And then you get to it in real life.

512
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,000
And then it's completely different than what you anticipated.

513
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,000
Tell me about it.

514
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,000
Or you have to workshop the relationships between your PCs.

515
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:16,000
Yeah.

516
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:23,000
Like a, like a workshop, like a full, I guess kind of as part of our, or like the calling it a talk back session.

517
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:29,000
I recently just did a bunch of basically interviewing with my players in the last month or so.

518
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:36,000
Following our Flashpoint episode where we basically had to hard reset because I was not happy with the world and either it was anybody else.

519
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,000
Just the state that I had let it get in some actions that were made.

520
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,000
Go listen to the other episodes if you want to know more about that.

521
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,000
It was a clusterfuck.

522
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,000
It was a lot of fun on the end, but more trouble than it was worth.

523
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:54,000
I then basically found a survey, a very detailed survey and sent it to each of my players and then had like a one-on-one interview with them after the fact.

524
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,000
It was like, cool, let's talk about your results.

525
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,000
Some players, like Madison, I got pages.

526
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,000
Other players, I got about two, three sentences.

527
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Some other players, I got about four words.

528
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:11,000
But basically all of those interviews were, how do you feel about yourself as a character in this aspect of the campaign?

529
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,000
How does this, how does your character feel about this character?

530
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,000
What's one thing that they want to know?

531
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,000
What's one thing, like, what assumption they've made?

532
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,000
What's one opinion they have on, like, how they fight?

533
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:30,000
And that gave me, somehow it didn't give me clear enough of a picture because then we go into the next two sessions and I'm still like, cool, we had one great session and then it just got fucking bad.

534
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,000
So then I have to send a follow-up text that I'm like, cool, give me an arc.

535
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:41,000
I thought we set that in our one-on-ones when I was like, what's one thing, the question I think was literally like, what's one thing you want for your character in this campaign?

536
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,000
And everyone set a goal and I was like, cool, that's enough.

537
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:45,000
And then no one.

538
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:46,000
Then it wasn't.

539
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:47,000
Yeah.

540
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,000
So then I texted everybody individually and was like, hey, I need a really specific goal.

541
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,000
What is one thing that you, as a person, want for this character?

542
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:56,000
Like, this character wants a pair of headphones.

543
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,000
Their goal is to go to the store and get the fucking headphones, like that specific.

544
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,000
I need concrete things, like more than I want to be better than A.

545
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,000
Or I want to, I don't know, be this popular on social media.

546
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,000
Like, that's great, that's great, but that's so fucking general.

547
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:15,000
I can't give you story points for that, or at least it doesn't zero it in enough for me.

548
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:16,000
Yeah.

549
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:28,000
And that's just kind of one of those things where I think talking about, like, just understanding your player dynamics is so huge, whether it's a one-shot or it is a long-standing campaign.

550
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:33,000
And that's something that you have to figure out in like, through playing, which is tricky.

551
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:37,000
And it even changes from campaign to campaign, it's not even always the same across players.

552
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:38,000
Oh yeah.

553
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:45,000
And it was one of those things of like, we had talked about it, we'd done all the like, relationship dynamic questions and stuff beforehand.

554
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:53,000
And then it still surprised me in the moment of being like, yeah, I fully expected it to be like, cool, we do not speak or look at each other in school.

555
00:32:53,000 --> 00:33:00,000
And then it was Tony going out of his way to kind of stick his neck out and be like, a play-kater situation or something.

556
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,000
And then he'd throw me off and be like, okay, well, time to rewrite some of my notes.

557
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:13,000
And that, I think in that moment for me as a player, I was like, I don't want to just make it as stupid or as simple as Tony's is a mean guy who cares about himself deeply and kind of cares about Astor.

558
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:18,000
Therefore, the situation you expect to happen is Astor eats shit, Tony goes, haha, fucking loser.

559
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,000
And then after the fact goes, hey man, so sorry.

560
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,000
Yeah.

561
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:36,000
And then I realized that the further more advanced goal for Tony to set in that moment was how do I turn somebody who is undeniably, un-fucking-cool, and turn them into a likeable, cool, noticeable person.

562
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:46,000
Because if this person is going to be my friend, I don't have a choice, our fucking parents are friends, I rely on this person to pass my classes, we hang out together.

563
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:53,000
And how do I fix this person fundamentally so that I don't have to constantly cover for them every time I'm in a social situation?

564
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:57,000
And it's just saving them from sticking their own foot in their mouth every time.

565
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:05,000
It was a very fun dynamic to play out of just like going along with like, it was very 80s, it felt very John Hughes film.

566
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,000
It felt very like campy 80s teed movie.

567
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,000
But what was one thing that you really enjoyed?

568
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:17,000
I mean, getting to be a player from what I haven't been a player in a while, but that's just kind of a basic thing.

569
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:27,000
I think one thing that I really enjoyed was getting to focus on less of the mechanics side of things and more on just the like social politics.

570
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:38,000
Because I mean, I get to do that a lot as a DM, but I have to for fifth edition specifically, I have to consider a lot more than just, okay, this person doesn't like that person.

571
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:48,000
Like mechanically, what does that mean for the world, whether that is a reputation system or it is something on social media, or it is a gift package, or it is a political alliance.

572
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:57,000
There's so many things when you're playing in a more serious, not really uptight, but more consequence focused universe, which is pretty much everything fifth edition.

573
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:02,000
Because of the kinds of mechanics that are built into the game versus kids on bikes.

574
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:11,000
I can say whatever I want, do whatever I want, focus on however many fuck off story points I want, and there was basically zero consequence.

575
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,000
Because I control the world.

576
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:14,000
Yeah.

577
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,000
As opposed to, okay, you spoke to that person and you didn't address them by their title.

578
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,000
This person is incredibly high up there.

579
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,000
You're getting blacklisted from the one event you wanted to attend all year.

580
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,000
I would love to talk about Toadies Beef with Jason for a minute.

581
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,000
What about it, man? What about it?

582
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,000
It spawned so fast.

583
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:47,000
Well, Jason was the roadblock to Tony's initial largest goal outside of saving Aster from social doom, which was to climb the ladder by bagging Stacy.

584
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,000
Well, the hatred started even before that, and I know only because I've had to go back and listen, which is...

585
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:58,000
And it's mostly because of the fact that Jason, the way that you sort of roleplayed him was that every time he spoke, somebody laughed.

586
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,000
Yeah.

587
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,000
Any time somebody said something in class, he had an opinion, he was the loudest voice in the room.

588
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:03,000
Correct.

589
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:07,000
And for Tony, in my mind, I'm like, no, that's supposed to be me.

590
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:08,000
Okay.

591
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,000
You are stupid.

592
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:16,000
You are holding the position in somebody's life that I want, and everyone keeps looking at you and going, haha, you're so funny.

593
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,000
No, the fuck you're not.

594
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:21,000
So, you know what? We'll play this game, Jason.

595
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:22,000
Mm-hmm.

596
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:28,000
And we're just gonna keep subverting everything he tries to do, and he's stupid enough that if I play it right, he's not even gonna know.

597
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:34,000
And that was one of the things in the moment of, like, all of the NPCs, because it just hits on bike system, I wanted to use the trope,

598
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:38,000
because we also talked about, like, 80s movies, it was like a touchpoint reference, and I was like, I...

599
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:44,000
Listen, is it super ethical for Stacy to have been a big of a bitch as she is?

600
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:45,000
I don't know.

601
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,000
I mean, it's high school, man.

602
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:49,000
It's high school. I don't... they're not like people.

603
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:51,000
Not a lot of ethics floating around in high school.

604
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,000
But it's also a thing of, like, I wanted all these characters were tropes.

605
00:36:54,000 --> 00:37:00,000
Stacy was the mean girl, and Jason was the cool jock.

606
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:07,000
And it just quickly spawned into, like, oh, now we're interacting with these characters more than the surface level trope,

607
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:12,000
and I'm just committing to this surface level trope thing, and so it's just drawing that heightened,

608
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:18,000
because definitely, if I was playing this in anything other than a one-shot, you would have gotten your ass kicked several times.

609
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:19,000
100%.

610
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:25,000
And then you said to Jason, just with, like, just straight up looking at him and being like, it's hard to count to five.

611
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:29,000
Is it crazy thing to say to someone who's slice your size?

612
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:33,000
I wanted to find out just how stupid he was and how far I could push that line,

613
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:38,000
and I very quickly realized that you were going to commit to the bit that he didn't know a lot about anything.

614
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:43,000
So I'm like, cool, this is a character that I can fully just dog walk, and it's going to be all to my benefit,

615
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:47,000
because not only does it look like I'm best friends with one of the more popular people in school,

616
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,000
but I also get my own kicks in when I basically rob him from money.

617
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,000
I'm not going to spend on the thing that he asked me to spend it on.

618
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:54,000
Yeah.

619
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:55,000
You know?

620
00:37:55,000 --> 00:38:03,000
That was another thing we're like also me realizing and trying to figure out as a GM when to roll things,

621
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:07,000
because in hindsight, he definitely should have rolled for like,

622
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:11,000
you said you have to go buy diagnostic tools to go check my car.

623
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:17,000
And that's where I think fifth edition makes that a little bit easier to get a handle on,

624
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:23,000
because that's a system that is built for a lot of checks, and you have 17 different stats you can pull from to do that.

625
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,000
And I think part of it's also, I have no experience, and I think it was more than that.

626
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,000
Like you don't learn when and how to call checks.

627
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,000
I mean that's why even in the one shot, there were times where I was like,

628
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:37,000
hey, I feel like this is the moment where I would like to make this check.

629
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:38,000
I would like to roll these dice.

630
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:39,000
Can I?

631
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:40,000
Yeah.

632
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,000
And it was one of those things of like, one second, I keep coming off very negative about this.

633
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,000
So at some point, we got to pivot and talk about positives.

634
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:54,000
I just, I'm also a very overly like critical person of myself in the way I run things.

635
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:59,000
But that was something I definitely struggled with was like figuring out when and what to do things.

636
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,000
And again, I think that's just an experience thing.

637
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,000
Yeah, and it was also I was going into this shit cold.

638
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,000
Like there was no, I should have just picked a fucking like real.

639
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:11,000
Even thinking about like the Percy Jackson one shot, like you knew enough about the universe to go,

640
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:15,000
okay, if this person wants to hop this fence, I know exactly what stat that's going to be.

641
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:16,000
Yeah.

642
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,000
If I, if this person wants to talk to that person and convince them to do,

643
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:20,000
I don't know, go and grab that sword.

644
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:24,000
I know exactly what check that's going to be because I know the source material that well.

645
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:29,000
Versus this is a world I wrote two nights ago, and I'm still actively coming up with plot points.

646
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,000
And I'm not really sure what it's like, but we're going to find out when we sit down and play.

647
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:33,000
Yeah.

648
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,000
I don't fucking know what check to give that because I don't know what this person's like.

649
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:37,000
Correct.

650
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,000
This is my second time playing them.

651
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:43,000
It was also fun though, in that moment and in that way to flesh out things as I was going.

652
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:47,000
Because like it was a thing where initially I'm going to use Stacy as an example.

653
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,000
In my mind, I was like, okay, so cool.

654
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:53,000
She's definitely if she was a character, she would have a 20 in charm for sure.

655
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:58,000
And then she would probably have very little brains and then going through, I was like, no, brains might be her highest stat.

656
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:05,000
And see that that was one of my positives I was going to mention was that I absolutely loved to hate Stacy because I very quickly realized that there was more.

657
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,000
Going on than just done pretty blonde.

658
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:16,000
And it pissed me off so much that I was like, I constantly am having to navigate around this person because it's not as simple as cool.

659
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,000
Dick had ex boyfriend is on the other end of the island.

660
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:20,000
Yeah.

661
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,000
Let's go to lunch and hang out and hold hands.

662
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,000
No, no, that's not at all what it is.

663
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,000
We're playing games at lunch about who's looking at who.

664
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:28,000
Yeah.

665
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:29,000
Stop it.

666
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:34,000
It was one of those things of Stacy was such a fucking foil for Tony because it was the only she was the only other person in the room.

667
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,000
That was actively competing at Tony's level in terms of social politics.

668
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:41,000
And it was impossible to throw her off her game.

669
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,000
That is what it's like to be a teenage girl.

670
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:53,000
And that was a very easy touch point for me of like, as someone who has been a teenage girl, that shit is not it doesn't matter who the dumbest teenage girl that you know is so is it.

671
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,000
And it is okay.

672
00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:00,000
There's a joke in the house that I'm a man hater and I'm a Miss Andrews and maybe it's a little true.

673
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:06,000
But like you live with that many men and come out not hating men like it's not going to happen anyway.

674
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:07,000
That's besides the point.

675
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:12,000
The dumbest teenage girl you know is smarter than the average teenage guy.

676
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,000
And I will argue that point.

677
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:29,000
Just because of the fucking politics you have to navigate because you can't post fucking photo on Instagram without sending it to a group chat first and getting approval from four different people and knowing like just the amount of like as a teenage girl you have to know the social politics and you have to know how to navigate things.

678
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:33,000
And I could go I'm not going to go on a whole feminist.

679
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:46,000
Another reason why Tony was so funny for me to play is that like I've been raised by a single mother and hanging out with primarily like girls and in middle school and high school just because that was the group that I tend to gravitate towards.

680
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,000
I was always kind of on that same wavelength on the social politics.

681
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:54,000
So being able to hop in is Tony who does not look like he should know what that's like.

682
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:55,000
Yeah.

683
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,000
But then being able to go I as a person know exactly what that is.

684
00:41:58,000 --> 00:41:59,000
Yeah.

685
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,000
Fuck it Tony we're going on a ride.

686
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:01,000
Yeah.

687
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Like me and you we know everything there is to know about high school politics and we're playing it.

688
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:22,000
It was very fun to throughout this be like OK cool because you would think at looking at the lineup of Stacy Jason Tony and Aster that the like the competition and like the beef would boil down to like between Aster and Stacy and then Tony and Jason and it was not that.

689
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:31,000
And the way that these characters end up foiling each other is very clear of like OK you have two very blunt characters who don't really give a shit about like the social game as much as they do.

690
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,000
They're like no my skills are what put me there.

691
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,000
And that's Jason and Aster.

692
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:36,000
Yeah.

693
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:37,000
Jason is like I'm fucking strong.

694
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:38,000
Yeah.

695
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,000
You can't argue against that and Aster's I'm fucking smart and you can't like argue against.

696
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:51,000
I don't need to be like I don't have to have charm about me to make it clear that I'm the biggest dick in this locker room when it comes to my specific like skill set.

697
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:52,000
Yeah.

698
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,000
That's one thing that like I think it's on bikes.

699
00:42:54,000 --> 00:43:04,000
It's really well into right because yeah like describing like how much a role can succeed and like how much a role can fail and like setting a DC based on how of an expert this person is in the role.

700
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:08,000
I think it makes it very clear when you have a 20 and something like that's your bread and butter.

701
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:09,000
Oh yeah.

702
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:14,000
Will not be failing a 20 unless you just get a really high DC or your role of one.

703
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:19,000
And then you look at the fucking pair up between Stacy and Tony which is cool.

704
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,000
I'm going to play pretty and dumb and I'm so hyper aware.

705
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:33,000
Everything about my image is so curated and I know exactly what I'm doing and if people are not doing what I want them to fucking do it's going to drive me into Tony and Stacy are two sides of the same coin.

706
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:34,000
Yeah.

707
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:42,000
It was somebody who's very comfortable with being a piece of shit and somebody who's going to die on the hill of not being one but also I have a really big public image to curate.

708
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:43,000
Yeah.

709
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:47,000
Like there were so many lines that Stacy is a person who's willing to cross because she had the status to.

710
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,000
Yeah because she had status to where Tony's like in this middle ground where he's like cool.

711
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:56,000
I have to look like I'm friendly with everybody but I absolutely as a person do not agree with any of the decisions being made.

712
00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:02,000
95% of my roles are saving the people in my surroundings from humiliation by the one person I want to date.

713
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:03,000
Correct.

714
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,000
And it was fucked.

715
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,000
Do I do with that.

716
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:06,000
What do I do with that.

717
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:16,000
And it was it was so funny to watch and one of the things I really enjoyed about this was watching in real time the fucking goals devolve into this weird gray area where it's like I'm like.

718
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,000
I'm not sure anyone knew what the goal was.

719
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:29,000
I mean for me it was it was very clear it started with I'm going to go into this kind of on this like hybrid between pretty pretty plastic and popular kid and just try to climb the food chain.

720
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:30,000
Yeah.

721
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:35,000
Stacy and Jason immediately got dinged as the two most popular people in the room so I went cool Jason got to be friends with him.

722
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:41,000
Stacy got to do something with her whether it's holding hands dating kissing starting a room or I don't care.

723
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:48,000
And then of course we hop into Astor's lore and Astor goes yeah they're not a thing anymore but they used to be.

724
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:57,000
That's great because now I have to be friends with Jason and try and hook up with Stacy and then it's very clear that the two of them still have a thing.

725
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:59,000
Oh yeah it's on again off again.

726
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,000
So how is that couple that is always how do I manage that.

727
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,000
No they're like screen fights on the lawn.

728
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:09,000
They're always cheating on each other but also at the same time it's like it's in that very like high school way.

729
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:11,000
I knew several of those relationships.

730
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:12,000
100 percent.

731
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:18,000
We all I was in several of those relationships in high school but I think his goal in the beginning was be friends with both hook up with Stacy.

732
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:25,000
Then it was remove Jason as far as humanly possible while keeping him as a friend hook up with Stacy.

733
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:30,000
Then it became save Astor from Stacy remove Jason hook up with Stacy.

734
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:34,000
So it looked like he was going manic because he was because it was cool.

735
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:35,000
I have two goals.

736
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:36,000
They're clear.

737
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,000
I have two goals with two sub goals.

738
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:39,000
I can manage that.

739
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:44,000
Now each of those sub goals has another two sub goals because nobody is doing what I want them to do.

740
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,000
Now we're in full mania.

741
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:51,000
And then it's like at some point in his mind for me is Tony I was like cool he's at a breaking point.

742
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:58,000
Stacy will not get off this fuck Astor horse and I cannot deal with that because he's been the only decent person to him this whole day.

743
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:00,000
If I have to pick a side fuck it.

744
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:06,000
Astor is my ride to the top because you know what's what's more crazy than two popular people getting together.

745
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:12,000
It's the most unpopular unlikeable kid at the school suddenly in a relationship with one of the more popular kids.

746
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,000
And they dicked on the two most popular kids the whole trip.

747
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,000
It was it was such a fun.

748
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:21,000
It was such a roundabout way for Tony to reach his goal.

749
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:25,000
And it's not what I wanted for him but it's the only way he could see himself winning.

750
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:32,000
It was this is something where like me, Maddie the person really enjoyed the aspect of being the.

751
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:33,000
This is going to sound shitty.

752
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,000
I'm always playing manic characters.

753
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:37,000
Every character of mine has a little bit of manic energy.

754
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,000
You enjoyed being the manic character.

755
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:40,000
Yeah.

756
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:45,000
It was nice to not be that and for also to be like now you know what it's like to be a motherfucker.

757
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,000
100% of like it's the issue of like the people around me.

758
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,000
We all have the same goal guys and none of you are doing anything to achieve that goal.

759
00:46:53,000 --> 00:47:00,000
So I'm going fucking manic trying to get you all there and being able to be the other person who's like oh uh huh.

760
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:05,000
Even like helping write the story point specifically when we got on the bus.

761
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:09,000
I knew going on to the bus that there was going to be a sign seats in my mind.

762
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:16,000
I was like truly maybe Madison forgot maybe she's going to give up on that either way all day yesterday.

763
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,000
Tony's whole thing was cool.

764
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,000
I now know that Jason and Stacy have a little thing going on.

765
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:25,000
I got to separate them sit by them on the bus and stick Astor with Tony or not Tony with Jason.

766
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:27,000
Then I get on the bus.

767
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,000
Hey this shit sucks.

768
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,000
Do you have something you want to send in to make it better?

769
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:36,000
Criticisms topics you'd like to see discussed or an advertisement you'd like to run.

770
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:38,000
Maybe you even want to sponsor an episode.

771
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:51,000
If so shoot us a message at mc460 at evansville.edu or dms on instagram at crescent magazine or we'll never get better like these fucking guys.

772
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,000
Then Jason's bag fucks me.

773
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,000
Then Stacy's bag fucks me.

774
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,000
I'll be honest I expected you I did that.

775
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:09,000
Then Jason was aggressive as fuck and I didn't his ex-girlfriend who I have to impress while also not stepping all over Jason is sitting three feet away from me.

776
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,000
Now Astor's coming down the aisle.

777
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:16,000
What the fuck do I do with her because she doesn't know what's happening.

778
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,000
Cool I've now disengaged Stacy and Jason.

779
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:21,000
I've gotten Astor to sit next to Jason.

780
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:26,000
I'm sitting next to Stacy and then miss fucker self comes on the bus and goes actually fuck you Tony.

781
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:31,000
I signed seats and then it's a ride in silence the whole way there.

782
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,000
Yeah this is a full confession.

783
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:40,000
Robert helped me come up with like I like wrote an outline for what I like an idea for a story for this to follow.

784
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:44,000
And then I gave it to Robert and was like hey can you help me like workshop this a little bit.

785
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:53,000
So he had an idea of like a possible a possible outline and story beats that this could theoretically follow.

786
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,000
All the ones I didn't want it to hit the ones that got hit.

787
00:48:56,000 --> 00:49:00,000
And the one that he suggested he was like oh you should do a sign seating on the bus that'd be funny.

788
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,000
And I was like OK sure.

789
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:06,000
And then watching you putting all this work in and I was like this was here.

790
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:18,000
Yeah and I realized that about halfway through all those interactions I'm like I'm throwing myself on this spike and I'm pulling myself down it praying that I will not be ripped off of it for all of the hard work I've put in.

791
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:26,000
But I know I know what makes sense from a story beat standpoint is to go actually no all of that for not.

792
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:36,000
And one of the things is that's also so funny to me is like I'm also starting to realize from like the the GM side of you do things and you set things that look like a bigger obstacle than they are just for like I.

793
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:47,000
When I was like cool they're sitting on two different seats and they've got their bags there in my head that was just to establish that hey they are like they're choosing deliberately not to sit next to each other but near each other.

794
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:55,000
And they're not making themselves look in Stacey's mind she's like I can't make myself look open for him to sit next to you so this is all like flavor text for me and that's why they put their bags there.

795
00:49:55,000 --> 00:50:05,000
The bags were not there as a literal barrier of you cannot sit here I was expecting you to be like oh anybody sitting here and then for them then they would move their stuff and then you could sit there.

796
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:09,000
You took that in the moment as the bags are there.

797
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,000
It's the fucking wall.

798
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:12,000
It's nothing.

799
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:13,000
It's an obstacle.

800
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:14,000
These bags.

801
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:15,000
It's an obstacle.

802
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:26,000
It's an obstacle because in my mind it's very clear if you have your bag next to you is like oh I'm like no you can't sit next to me but like you know like whatever like it's a very easy to fix thing.

803
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:31,000
Yeah I'm brooding on the bus and this backpack here means you can't sit next to me.

804
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:35,000
Yes and then to see how that's interpreted from the players players.

805
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,000
I'm like cool that's an obstacle that means that's something I have to remove.

806
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:39,000
Yeah.

807
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:45,000
That is a mechanical barrier between me and my goal.

808
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:46,000
Yeah so I'm moving it.

809
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:47,000
I'm going through it.

810
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:48,000
I'm not asking about it.

811
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,000
I'm just going to pick it up and then drop it.

812
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:54,000
Well that's what I was expecting you to do and then you took a very convoluted path.

813
00:50:54,000 --> 00:51:00,000
But I enjoyed the mania and I enjoyed watching the twists and turns that everything.

814
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:16,000
I think the convoluted to it was part of Tony's M.O. because so much of it like so much of like high school politics is achieving very simple stupid shallow goals but doing it in the most convoluted way humanly possible.

815
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:17,000
Yeah.

816
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:18,000
Nobody is aware that that's what you're doing.

817
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:21,000
You have to look like you are putting zero effort into anything.

818
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:31,000
I'm just grabbing a pencil so that I can pick it up so that I can make eye contact with the person at the decks next to me and then make a joke and then sit down instead of just saying hey what's up.

819
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:32,000
Yeah.

820
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:33,000
Cool.

821
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:44,000
So in order to sit next to Stacy and Jason I need to be really nice and show Jason in front of Stacy that I like Jason and then I'm a nice guy.

822
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:48,000
So I'm going to pick his bag up and I'm going to put it up and I'm going to go hey I asked to look there's a seat right there.

823
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:50,000
Jason here's the talk buddy.

824
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:54,000
And then turn around and go hey Stacy now that Jason is giving you zero attention.

825
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,000
Oh can I pick that bag up for you.

826
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:57,000
Yeah.

827
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:00,000
To play the ultimate nice guy to just get a few extra fucking friend points in there.

828
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:03,000
And then he failed both times.

829
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:10,000
And he looked like an absolute dunce doing the one thing he wanted to do which is look competent and like friendly.

830
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:11,000
Yeah.

831
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,000
And then neither one of those things happened.

832
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:14,000
Yeah.

833
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:15,000
It was.

834
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:20,000
I said it was me necking Jason and Jesse Jason going I can't respond to this on the bus.

835
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:21,000
Whatever dude.

836
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:27,000
That was also Jason was probably the hardest character to play because I don't I don't pay attention to men.

837
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:36,000
I don't like knowing when to swing with Jason I think was looking at that was very interesting because like everything in my being is telling me Jason swings.

838
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:38,000
Jason cannot swing.

839
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:42,000
I think Jason coasts on he looks like he could swing right.

840
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,000
It canonically he's the sheriff's son.

841
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:49,000
That doesn't matter what trouble he gets into he's going to get out of it.

842
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:53,000
So it's this idea of like even if I did choose to swing I'm winning.

843
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,000
And he's a big physically intimidating guy.

844
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:57,000
He's like a football player.

845
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:58,000
Tony's not.

846
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:01,000
He's got a knife now though and try me bitch.

847
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:07,000
When you at the towards the end were like I kind of want to just pull a knife on Jason and be like what's up dog.

848
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:16,000
And then like in my mind when he didn't come back for a while I was like so that's going to be the hook we have to go find Jason and then he came back and he was like no he's just being a fucking sleazeball.

849
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:24,000
Yeah no but the second thought for that was cool Jason's going to wait until Tony gets picked and then he's going to jump me because he's been wanting to fight me the whole night.

850
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:30,000
I know I can't win this fight so I'm going to pull the fucking knife I was just giving out and be like hey dude I don't want any of this.

851
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,000
Neither do you go back to the campfire.

852
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:41,000
That was a moment where I from the team perspective was like please don't do that because that's those were not the vibes that I was trying to put out there.

853
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:47,000
Jason's goal in that game wasn't even about like Jason was so overly prepared in that moment Tony.

854
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:57,000
And it was one of those moments that I think is so real from a player's perspective versus a GM perspective which is I have so much this character's entire goal is my downfall and that's their focus.

855
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:58,000
And I'm like no.

856
00:53:58,000 --> 00:53:59,000
That was the teacher.

857
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:00,000
Let's be clear.

858
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:08,000
That was the science teacher who foiled every one of Tony's like highest roles consistently.

859
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:17,000
I would play a perfect fucking political game of chess and then the science teacher would come in and go actually fuck you.

860
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:20,000
Sign partners.

861
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:24,000
And it was a sign seating.

862
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:33,000
And it was one of those things of like this is a joke that there's a character who I always joke is like nightlights nemesis is because they've got very similar vibes.

863
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,000
And it's like no that character doesn't give a fuck about you.

864
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:41,000
It's the same energy because Cartwright is just doing her fucking curriculum and Jason's goal in that game.

865
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:42,000
Let's see.

866
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,000
Just to make out with girls.

867
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:47,000
You threw enough in there with Cartwright though that every time I was like looking around for something.

868
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:51,000
Cartwright making dead eye contact with me basically like licking her lips.

869
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:53,000
She's scary.

870
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,000
How am I not going to read into that though.

871
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:56,000
No correct.

872
00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:02,000
And it's one of the things that I think is like a fun line to toe of like yeah you can read into this because I like keeping things clear.

873
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:04,000
And then going off of like what the players are.

874
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:05,000
The players interest.

875
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:06,000
I totally get that.

876
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:07,000
Yeah.

877
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:08,000
Or some kind of the opposite.

878
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:13,000
I build in a lot of the background to things before players get to it just that way I don't have to like.

879
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:17,000
And then people don't touch it and I'm like oh that's just a story point you all are never going to see.

880
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:18,000
Well yeah now I'm like cool.

881
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:20,000
I'm choosing who the bad guys are.

882
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:32,000
And apparently Jason has to have a little bit higher brains because now Tony is taking everything Jason does is personal beef and Jason's just trying to fuck like he's just trying to go off in the woods with some girls.

883
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:34,000
And you're like he's plotting.

884
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:35,000
He's plotting.

885
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:41,000
He's he fucking knows he's trying to jump me and like I'm going to take that energy and be like cool.

886
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,000
Jason's going to jump you now.

887
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:45,000
Jason's been removed from the arch nemesis.

888
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:46,000
It is now.

889
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,000
And that's another really fun thing.

890
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:58,000
The only object between me and maximum popularity because she has enough pull with the right people that if I don't play at the perfect way I'm fucked when I get back to school.

891
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:11,000
And it's so funny because now that opens up so many and this is why I'm glad that like being able to keep things vague and open is because I now I mean I still obviously we have the second half of this one shot but then I'm like I have such a good idea for like a spin off.

892
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:23,000
Like another one after this with a perfect fucking hook and that wouldn't have been a thing if this was not the the the route and the dynamic that was chosen for these characters because it's like now cool.

893
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:37,000
You have now a sub like goal and like objective at all times which is now you have the fucking biggest loser in the world who doesn't give a fuck about social shit and doesn't quite like catch it all.

894
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:45,000
And now she's been placed in a position where she suddenly has to follow these rules and she doesn't know those rules.

895
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:50,000
And so there's that whole thing side going on on top of like all of this other like cool.

896
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:57,000
Now Stacy's going on a fucking Regina George arc.

897
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:00,000
Yeah she hit that shit real quick at the end.

898
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:01,000
How could she not.

899
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:07,000
Yeah when Tony and Stacy were basically face to face and Tony was like actually your garbage persons.

900
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:08,000
Nobody likes you.

901
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:15,000
Your boyfriend doesn't want to fuck you but I'm here and I'm getting all the intention Stacy what you're going to do about it.

902
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:21,000
And Stacy goes OK bet bet it's just it's beef and it's like cool.

903
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:23,000
These are two characters who cannot run she took a lap.

904
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:25,000
I took so much pride in that we were like cool.

905
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:26,000
Stacy takes a lap.

906
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:27,000
I was like yes.

907
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:32,000
Taking a lap is one of the is such a high school thing to me also because it's like take a lap.

908
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:33,000
I can't stay.

909
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:35,000
She can't fucking fight Tony.

910
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:37,000
I'm going to look if either of them swing on each other.

911
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:38,000
It's not going to.

912
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,000
She knows it's going to a look really bad.

913
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:47,000
B. I'm not trying to think for Tony but I'm sure that Tony has enough sense in him to know it's going to look.

914
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:49,000
He can't fucking swing on Stacy.

915
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,000
I'm playing that shit up to be like oh is she assaulted me.

916
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:53,000
I thought we were good friends.

917
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:54,000
She's she's crazy.

918
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:59,000
I don't know what so we just been hanging out all day and we had lunch together and now she's hitting me.

919
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:00,000
And so it's like cool.

920
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,000
Now I'm now she's that villain.

921
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:06,000
I need to walk things off because I can't fucking do this.

922
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:12,000
I'm going to scream or stab something and it's not setting to do so.

923
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:18,000
Another individual moment because I'm just I want to highlight like random little fun moments.

924
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:23,000
When we were in the arcade and you were like cool day drinking time.

925
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:27,000
That was another thing that I like threw me for a fucking loop of like cool.

926
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:28,000
OK.

927
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:29,000
Well here's here's here's the deal.

928
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:36,000
I knew Astor was going to have such an advantage on me and the majority of the games because that's her stick.

929
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:44,000
So I was like how do I throw that off to give me as a player and as a character a chance to win these games.

930
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:51,000
And it's by getting her a little drunk in the arcade in the middle of the because I know she doesn't drink like that.

931
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:54,000
And I know there are going to be some negative side effects for her.

932
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:56,000
So fuck it.

933
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:59,000
Shots in the photo booth.

934
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:02,000
That was an unhinged decision.

935
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:05,000
I just I don't think I've like laid off how unhinged that was.

936
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:06,000
Oh yeah.

937
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:11,000
Two slick 16 year olds taking shots in a photo booth of Jack Daniels.

938
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:12,000
Yeah.

939
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:13,000
Like cap falls.

940
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:14,000
Jeff Daniels.

941
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:17,000
Cap falls of Jeff Daniels in the photo booth in the back of the arcade.

942
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:18,000
Yeah.

943
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:19,000
Disgusting.

944
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:20,000
No chaser.

945
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:22,000
Great Jeff Daniels.

946
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:23,000
Disgusting.

947
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:24,000
Yeah.

948
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:25,000
It was that was rough.

949
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:29,000
Are there any other moments that like popped out to you as like things that were fun or.

950
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:32,000
I think I've pretty much hit the majority of my moments.

951
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:36,000
I think kind of shifting it to some more talk backy stuff.

952
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:46,000
If you could do anything about the one shot itself at least the first half of it right is presumably there's going to be a second half where we actually do the scary stuff.

953
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:47,000
Yeah.

954
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:59,000
What would you do different specifically in regards to like prepared materials would you under prepare would you write more specific stuff just kind of getting in the headspace of somebody who's doing it for the first or second time.

955
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:04,000
What's like a tip you would either give yourself or somebody else of like hey don't do this do that.

956
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:08,000
I don't think you have to write as much as I do.

957
01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:12,000
However at the same time if I were to do this again I would still write the same amount that I did.

958
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:18,000
I would stick to my guns and actually use what I wrote instead of just deviating entirely in the moment.

959
01:00:18,000 --> 01:00:19,000
Yeah.

960
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:36,000
And mostly when it came to like character things and like mechanics and like also kind of prep yourself if you're someone who's not good at telling people know if you're a people pleaser prep yourself ahead of time to be able to be a bitch.

961
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:41,000
And just set consequences and and being able to like be a little bit firmer with those.

962
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:43,000
Depending on what type of game you want to run.

963
01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:44,000
I'm great at that.

964
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,000
I'm also consequences.

965
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:47,000
People are you with me every session.

966
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:50,000
Oh my I'm not getting on a tangent.

967
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:54,000
I'll hop into a small tangent just in the.

968
01:00:54,000 --> 01:01:10,000
I'm very similar in one aspect and that is that when there are smaller plot hooks that players throw I can't help but jump straight on those motherfuckers point in case the fight between the recent or our most recent session we had like a PVP session between a character who is supporting

969
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:19,000
a character who is supposed to be a really great foil to another character who has zero interest in harming that person but that's why it makes sense for them to one be one ahead of training.

970
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:33,000
They start fighting I'm realizing very quickly he's losing this fight what is the only asshole that I can think of that is going to give him the advantage and that is that he's literally living with a second being that is going to do everything it physically can to win this fight.

971
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:34,000
Yeah.

972
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:35,000
Because it wants to eat you.

973
01:01:35,000 --> 01:01:36,000
Yeah.

974
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:43,000
And beyond oh I'm just playing to keep him alive now I'm playing so that he literally kills her and then gets to eat her.

975
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:44,000
Yeah.

976
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:54,000
So I'm like throwing shit out in the moment and that's part of me is like that was a really cool fight the other part of me is how the fuck do I reconcile what happened.

977
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:55,000
How do you do that.

978
01:01:55,000 --> 01:02:01,000
And that fight between what happens next Saturday where we then have to go cool.

979
01:02:01,000 --> 01:02:05,000
We're all friends now team training.

980
01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:08,000
You're looking at me for answers.

981
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:09,000
And it's not going to do.

982
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:20,000
I'm just like that's another issue where I struggle kind of as well as that when players express an interest or when there's a hook that I think is interesting I cannot help but go head over for it.

983
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:21,000
Yeah.

984
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:23,000
And that for a moment for me was like cool.

985
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:34,000
Gilhousen has been talking about I don't give a shit has been talking about it with names wanting to play like wanting to learn more about his little parasite buddy and what the powers can do.

986
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:41,000
And what the powers can be because there's been a huge power differential between nightlight and shadow and that is at nightlight is a very capable person with 76.

987
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:46,000
I play for reference and shadow who is the character that the other person plays.

988
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:58,000
You can kind of guess why they're sort of opposites is very unhappy with the fact or is this it's made very apparent for his 35 year old character that he is not nearly as talented as this 21 year old person.

989
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:09,000
How do we scale that difference in this moment and then it very quickly got much darker than I intended it to be because you didn't back down as a player and I was like the thing that's in him isn't backing down either.

990
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:10,000
Yeah.

991
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:11,000
Somebody has to step in.

992
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:15,000
Then I'm like cool my backup for this situation is Jerry.

993
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:25,000
And then I roll for Jerry and he gets a natural 20 on wisdom and in my mind he's it isn't I know this is going to get out of hand it's I know if she can beat him in this moment.

994
01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:35,000
She's going to walk away feeling significantly more confident because time and time again the thing that she fails to express his confidence in her ability so I let this go and she wins which she should.

995
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:41,000
Word we're great we're all better for it and then we get to have a little moment with big brother where we go hey man.

996
01:03:41,000 --> 01:03:44,000
We've learned right we've learned let's grow we've learned.

997
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:45,000
You got your ass.

998
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:54,000
The thing that zero that nobody could account for was none of like nobody including myself had expressed up to that point what the thing inside of him was capable of.

999
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:57,000
Because he hasn't been in any life and death situations until that moment.

1000
01:03:57,000 --> 01:03:58,000
Yeah.

1001
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:05,000
You know but it's like cool the second you pull out a stick of kryptonite in a room of Superman things suddenly get a lot more serious whether you intend to kill him with it or not.

1002
01:04:05,000 --> 01:04:06,000
Yeah.

1003
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:08,000
Why do you have kryptonite with the fuck is up with that dog.

1004
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:09,000
Yeah it's.

1005
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:20,000
I'm doing everything in my power to take you down at least for a little while but then you remove the fact you remove sort of the I don't kill people from Superman and then it's cool I'm putting my fist through your chest before you can raise the crystal.

1006
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:21,000
Injustice.

1007
01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:22,000
Yeah.

1008
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:23,000
Yeah basically right.

1009
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:24,000
You know.

1010
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:28,000
And that's those are moments to where I struggle where it's I underwrite.

1011
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:35,000
So when there's a fun little story point I'm like I got to touch it because I didn't write anything and this is a new thing for us to explore.

1012
01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:36,000
Nuke it.

1013
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:45,000
And then I realized the next session we have something else to tackle that is completely unrelated and is going to have to require me to scrub all this motherfucking conflict out of the way.

1014
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:49,000
So what I'm saying is find a balance between what myself and Madison do please.

1015
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:50,000
Please.

1016
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:52,000
Please don't be us.

1017
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:57,000
Have goals have story points but do not write so much into them that you don't know where else to go.

1018
01:04:57,000 --> 01:05:04,000
Yeah I think I would also talk to my player a little bit more to figure out what their play style is.

1019
01:05:04,000 --> 01:05:14,000
I mean I know yours pretty well I did not expect the amount that you were going to go with him on the fucking social stuff.

1020
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:22,000
And it was like I in my mind I'm like trying to tee up like little adventure hooks and you were like nah fuck those what's Stacy up to.

1021
01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:25,000
And I'm like OK.

1022
01:05:25,000 --> 01:05:29,000
And this is again this is where I was at the end when I got cool Stacy goes to the Mirror House.

1023
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:30,000
Yeah.

1024
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:32,000
And it was one of those things where I was like it was a Mirror House.

1025
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:33,000
Cool.

1026
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:39,000
I now have to figure out like how I'm going to get these people that I did not anticipate being anywhere near any sort of adventure hook or any creep crawlies.

1027
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:46,000
And be like how do I how do I make the most popular girl in school who is so careful about her image.

1028
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:52,000
How do I put her next to fucking moth man and make it not bad for everyone involved.

1029
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:57,000
And it's one of those things where like in hindsight I just I wish I had my like.

1030
01:05:57,000 --> 01:05:58,000
Is it.

1031
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:00,000
Should I say I wish I wasn't recorded because I feel like I would have.

1032
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:01,000
I get that.

1033
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:04,000
Yeah more willing to kind of like break mold and go cool.

1034
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:05,000
This is what we're doing.

1035
01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:06,000
Yeah.

1036
01:06:06,000 --> 01:06:07,000
Yeah 100%.

1037
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:15,000
And I think that again just we're coming from such a different approaches for me thinking like every time you're like cool this is what happened and we got totally off track.

1038
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:18,000
The first thing that comes to my mind is this is I would have brought us back to the pod hook.

1039
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:30,000
Whereas my issue is I have zero idea where we're trying to go except way off in the distance which means every little thing we hit is a story point that I very conveniently wrote.

1040
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:31,000
Yeah.

1041
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:36,000
And now we're stopping at every single fucking stop sign along the way.

1042
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:41,000
Well it's because it's also a thing of like learning when to time management.

1043
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:44,000
If you if you have a sheet take your meds for sure.

1044
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:45,000
Yeah.

1045
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:52,000
I think that's I think that's what my biggest issue was overall because I don't have a problem with the beats and things that we hit.

1046
01:06:52,000 --> 01:06:57,000
I don't even have a problem with the the plot hooks not being introduced until like later.

1047
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,000
And I don't even want to say plot hooks.

1048
01:06:59,000 --> 01:07:04,000
I want to say adventure hooks because I feel like enough of the plot was still very valid and relevant.

1049
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,000
I think it just didn't fit the setup.

1050
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:15,000
Like I think all the plot hooks in the kinds of adventure that we had was just very different than like the world that we had imagined we were going to be playing around in.

1051
01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:19,000
Like if we had just said cool this is a high school teenage drama.

1052
01:07:19,000 --> 01:07:20,000
Yeah.

1053
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:21,000
Starring we achieved that for sure.

1054
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:25,000
The occasional cryptid line thrown in there the little hook.

1055
01:07:25,000 --> 01:07:26,000
You know.

1056
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:32,000
Again this would have been a great first session where Tony and Astor get stuck in a world of make believe in fucking Gravity Falls.

1057
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:33,000
Yeah.

1058
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:36,000
And then they're full time trying to survive all the crazy shit that happens.

1059
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:37,000
Yeah.

1060
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:38,000
That's not what we're doing.

1061
01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:39,000
This is a one shot.

1062
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:40,000
We now have to introduce.

1063
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:44,000
I say we you know how to introduce a monster or a horror or a cryptid.

1064
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:57,000
And now we have to go through a whole bunch of bullshit shenanigans with them while also not ignoring the full basically four and a half hours worth of plot hooks that we've already established with characters that have zero interest in being around those things.

1065
01:07:57,000 --> 01:07:58,000
Yeah.

1066
01:07:58,000 --> 01:07:59,000
Or reason to be around those things.

1067
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:00,000
Yeah.

1068
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:06,000
And the next thing is truly bringing it down to type management of maybe I need to set little timers for myself or something.

1069
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:13,000
And you know when to say OK I love that you're doing this instead of actually going through what is going to happen in the scenario.

1070
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:16,000
I'm going to say you all had a nice lunch and we're going to move on to the next thing.

1071
01:08:16,000 --> 01:08:17,000
Yeah.

1072
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:27,000
And I try to do that as much as I can in our campaign to work like you in particular love to explore the conversations in the social dynamics between people whereas other people are very goal and task oriented.

1073
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:40,000
And so I have to find a really clear balance between how do I insert social interaction with somebody who's task oriented versus how do I cut somebody off in a social interaction and say and the rest of the night was great.

1074
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:41,000
Here's what happens.

1075
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:42,000
Do you do this.

1076
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:43,000
Do you not do this.

1077
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:48,000
And it sucks every time I have to cut you off because I too am just as interested in seeing those relationships play out.

1078
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:52,000
But I know in the back of my head I have three things that I have to accomplish.

1079
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:53,000
I'm done with one.

1080
01:08:53,000 --> 01:08:54,000
I'm barely through the second one.

1081
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:56,000
We have an hour and a half left.

1082
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:58,000
So sorry we cannot explore this conversation further.

1083
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:00,000
Do you go back to his place.

1084
01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:01,000
Yeah.

1085
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:02,000
Pretty much.

1086
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:03,000
You arrive in the morning together.

1087
01:09:03,000 --> 01:09:04,000
Yeah.

1088
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:05,000
Your name.

1089
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:06,000
Yeah.

1090
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:07,000
Cool.

1091
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:08,000
Team meeting.

1092
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:09,000
Yeah.

1093
01:09:09,000 --> 01:09:10,000
And that's it.

1094
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:11,000
Yeah.

1095
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:12,000
That's that's all the social politics that you get because you have other shit to do.

1096
01:09:12,000 --> 01:09:13,000
Yeah.

1097
01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:19,000
And it's also one of those things of balancing one person versus multiple people because when there is only other one other person to explore that a lot more.

1098
01:09:19,000 --> 01:09:22,000
You get to pick every get to explore every single plot point that person hits.

1099
01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:23,000
Yeah.

1100
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:24,000
It's just them.

1101
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:25,000
Yeah.

1102
01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:28,000
And it's like OK we we have to be conscious of like other people's time.

1103
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:36,000
And it's also a thing of like not everyone at the table wants to see that or is interested in that or cares about that or sometimes some people players get weird about that.

1104
01:09:36,000 --> 01:09:37,000
Yeah.

1105
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:40,000
Some people just aren't 100 percent comfortable sort of exploring those.

1106
01:09:40,000 --> 01:09:41,000
Yeah.

1107
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:50,000
Sort of more intimate social dynamics is which person who's in the story point which for clarification we are no one at our table is being put in situations where their characters are having to explore that.

1108
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:55,000
Some people get weird about seeing other players at our table doing something that is fully pre established.

1109
01:09:55,000 --> 01:10:00,000
Like we're like being intimate or exploring a romantic relationship or a sexual relationship.

1110
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:05,000
And I think that is also kind of a difficult aspect.

1111
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:12,000
And again I keep saying you have to have experience or you need to get experience like without having played with you all in a campaign before this.

1112
01:10:12,000 --> 01:10:16,000
I would have not known that I could have answered a jury the way that I did.

1113
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:17,000
Yeah.

1114
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:24,000
I would have known that I could do the things role play wise with you and your character that I have with jury.

1115
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:33,000
But I know based on playing with you that you're willing to go to those lines because that's interesting for you versus somebody else who's playing a more intimate hero and a younger hero.

1116
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:36,000
I gave him a very clear romantic interest.

1117
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:37,000
His character is very awkward.

1118
01:10:37,000 --> 01:10:38,000
He shied away.

1119
01:10:38,000 --> 01:10:39,000
He is a person who's a little bit more awkward.

1120
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:45,000
I understand that that's going to have to be a slow burn in the penultimate outcome of that is going to be holding hands and getting a phone number.

1121
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:46,000
Yeah.

1122
01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:47,000
Like that's what that's going to be.

1123
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:48,000
Yeah.

1124
01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:52,000
Because that's what that players comfortable role playing versus a damn near one night stand immediately.

1125
01:10:52,000 --> 01:10:53,000
Yeah.

1126
01:10:53,000 --> 01:11:01,000
And then versus another player who has zero interest in that and in fact is playing a character that I cannot think of giving a romantic interest to.

1127
01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:02,000
Yeah.

1128
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:05,000
How do I what.

1129
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:06,000
Yeah.

1130
01:11:06,000 --> 01:11:10,000
And then it's also a thing of sometimes you're playing at a table full of men who are like why are we doing it.

1131
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:12,000
Why are you doing this with your character.

1132
01:11:12,000 --> 01:11:14,000
Why isn't your character doing fighting things.

1133
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:15,000
Yeah.

1134
01:11:15,000 --> 01:11:18,000
It's like why is your character going to dinner.

1135
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:19,000
Fast forward.

1136
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:20,000
Yeah.

1137
01:11:20,000 --> 01:11:22,000
It's like no this is what I like in the game.

1138
01:11:22,000 --> 01:11:24,000
This is what is interesting to me.

1139
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:26,000
And that's where you have to.

1140
01:11:26,000 --> 01:11:28,000
And I think that's something that we started there.

1141
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:36,000
You started to pick up with Astor the more that we were going through was making Tony's story points related to Astor's in some way or tying the two together.

1142
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:40,000
Like I feel like because in the first session you weren't 100 percent sure who Astor was.

1143
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,000
It was a lot of just Tony focused things with Astor being present.

1144
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:44,000
Yeah.

1145
01:11:44,000 --> 01:11:50,000
And then the second one it was OK they're going to the odds and end shop where she has a pre established background.

1146
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:53,000
We're going to the arcade where she is great at everything that she's going to do there.

1147
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:58,000
We're going to the bonfire knowing that she's going to be very very obstinate and blunt personality.

1148
01:11:58,000 --> 01:11:59,000
Yeah.

1149
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:04,000
That makes it a little bit easier when you have certain people that aren't very interested in those different aspects.

1150
01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:13,000
It's like yeah I can talk about jury and night like going on a date and talking about date things and then sort of bullshit or whatever exploring their relationship.

1151
01:12:13,000 --> 01:12:22,000
But where I can begin to interest other people is when another player goes hey can I be in the vents because his characters are fucking he's shadow.

1152
01:12:22,000 --> 01:12:27,000
And I'm like you know what if it means that you're going to be engaged in this story moment 100 percent.

1153
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:35,000
And because he's here I'm going to have jury say some really private information and I'm going to have to shadow here all of it.

1154
01:12:35,000 --> 01:12:36,000
Yeah.

1155
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:38,000
And that is where I keep them engaged.

1156
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:41,000
Everybody showed up to the same dinner.

1157
01:12:41,000 --> 01:12:48,000
None of them should have been there because this place was arguably way too nice for anybody else to be there.

1158
01:12:48,000 --> 01:12:49,000
Yeah.

1159
01:12:49,000 --> 01:12:52,000
There was only one person who wasn't there because he's a fucking Android.

1160
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:53,000
Yeah.

1161
01:12:53,000 --> 01:12:54,000
That was.

1162
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:56,000
We have one person there who was who had dinner.

1163
01:12:56,000 --> 01:12:57,000
Explain the situation.

1164
01:12:57,000 --> 01:12:58,000
Oh my God.

1165
01:12:58,000 --> 01:12:59,000
Yeah.

1166
01:12:59,000 --> 01:13:00,000
I'll do it very quick.

1167
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:01,000
Tangent.

1168
01:13:01,000 --> 01:13:05,000
Again this is where it's like convenient plot points but also helping other people tying in story points together.

1169
01:13:05,000 --> 01:13:16,000
Jury who's from like upper basically I didn't say upper middle mostly upper class family has a lot of really wealthy connections in what's basically like downtown L.A.

1170
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:18,000
He goes cool.

1171
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:20,000
I want to take this girl on a date.

1172
01:13:20,000 --> 01:13:21,000
I want to wow or I want to impress her.

1173
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:26,000
I'm going to take this girl who's basically from Bucking Chicago to downtown L.A.

1174
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:27,000
Parts of Chicago.

1175
01:13:27,000 --> 01:13:32,000
Yeah specific parts of Chicago to downtown L.A. to the night to basically no boo.

1176
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,000
And that's going to be the thing that we do.

1177
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:36,000
I'm going to show up in a nice fancy costume.

1178
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:38,000
No interruptions humanly possible.

1179
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:39,000
Yeah.

1180
01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:47,000
They get there and then one player goes hey could I have tailed them and then hopped in the vents just to like keep an eye on them because I don't have anything else to do at this moment.

1181
01:13:47,000 --> 01:13:50,000
Character is the.

1182
01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:52,000
The shadow person who's yeah.

1183
01:13:52,000 --> 01:13:55,000
Jury's older brother who's also kind of like a more shadowy espionage character.

1184
01:13:55,000 --> 01:13:58,000
So I was like sure why not if you want to be engaged in this moment.

1185
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:00,000
I'm not going to tell you no give me a stealth check.

1186
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:01,000
But go for it.

1187
01:14:01,000 --> 01:14:02,000
I'm going to tell you that.

1188
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:03,000
So now he's there.

1189
01:14:03,000 --> 01:14:07,000
Then another player goes hey could I have been there too.

1190
01:14:07,000 --> 01:14:09,000
Just like you know to join.

1191
01:14:09,000 --> 01:14:16,000
And I said well you did have that dinner with that one character that we talked about and you have some connections in the city.

1192
01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:24,000
So we'll say between you and Jenny you managed to reserve a table a few weeks out and managed to get there at the same night that Jerry basically walked in and goes give me a table.

1193
01:14:24,000 --> 01:14:25,000
Yeah.

1194
01:14:25,000 --> 01:14:26,000
So now you're there.

1195
01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:32,000
And then the other player who's playing an android was like oh what if I was like the robot butler and then that he just wasn't very interested in that idea.

1196
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:33,000
It was more of a throwaway joke.

1197
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:38,000
So I'm like cool I only have to deal with two extra players being at a dinner that neither one of them were supposed to attend.

1198
01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:39,000
Yeah.

1199
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:48,000
And that turns into a full bathroom almost fist fight between Jerry and our random dinner guy who's also a member of the team.

1200
01:14:48,000 --> 01:14:50,000
They end up in the bathroom.

1201
01:14:50,000 --> 01:14:53,000
They had a previous confrontation guy walking into Jerry's house.

1202
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:56,000
Jerry was like get out pull the gun on him and then he left.

1203
01:14:56,000 --> 01:15:03,000
He Jerry immediately picks up on the fact that this is the same guy when he says hey how are you and then goes to leave and Jerry goes wait a minute wait a minute.

1204
01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:09,000
I told you to leave me the fuck alone and now you're in the bathroom at the place that I'm having dinner with the person who I'm actively like going on dates with.

1205
01:15:09,000 --> 01:15:18,000
Naji picks him up puts him against the wall then another characters there who is the son of the second most powerful hero in the city.

1206
01:15:18,000 --> 01:15:25,000
Because again that's the thing that he can do right he can go wherever he wants to because that's what he does and they're having dinner as civilians.

1207
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:27,000
So no one knows that that's who this is.

1208
01:15:27,000 --> 01:15:32,000
So then this person goes to the bathroom and he's like dad the door's locked.

1209
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:34,000
Please don't do anything crazy.

1210
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:41,000
And he goes I got this and then goes to the door and basically bangs on it and is like open up and I roll for insight on both of their behalf.

1211
01:15:41,000 --> 01:15:43,000
So they both immediately pick up.

1212
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:46,000
This is the second most powerful hero in the city.

1213
01:15:46,000 --> 01:15:49,000
And he is currently banging at the door telling us to open it.

1214
01:15:49,000 --> 01:15:50,000
I'm against the wall.

1215
01:15:50,000 --> 01:15:52,000
He's holding me up by my collar.

1216
01:15:52,000 --> 01:16:00,000
Shadows in the vents above watching ready to fucking slow the second most powerful hero in the city in public.

1217
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:01,000
Yeah.

1218
01:16:01,000 --> 01:16:10,000
So then they he teleports out of his grasp immediately opens the door he's like so sorry walks out but jury is still in full costume and Jerry knows that he knows who he is.

1219
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:14,000
And they have a very tense conversation and then Jerry walks back to the table with his head down and goes cool relieving.

1220
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:16,000
Yeah it was.

1221
01:16:16,000 --> 01:16:23,000
It was supposed to be a one on one dinner where I did a little bit of info dump to sort of reveal some information about the world and Jerry.

1222
01:16:23,000 --> 01:16:26,000
They very quickly turn into like a four car pile up on the highway.

1223
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:27,000
Yeah.

1224
01:16:27,000 --> 01:16:30,000
Where everybody is stepping knee deep into shit.

1225
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:31,000
It was.

1226
01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:35,000
Again everybody at the table was engaged except for one person and that was a hell of a lot of fun.

1227
01:16:35,000 --> 01:16:36,000
Yeah.

1228
01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:42,000
It's one of those things of like seeing how many like how many eggs you can fit in one basket almost of like how many.

1229
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:45,000
Yeah how many story points can I shove into one dinner.

1230
01:16:45,000 --> 01:16:51,000
There was supposed to turns out for supposed to be like a fucking one off like oh wouldn't this be funny.

1231
01:16:51,000 --> 01:16:55,000
It was supposed to be like a hey we didn't get to talk about this before the end of last session.

1232
01:16:55,000 --> 01:17:02,000
So here's 15 minutes with your dinner with Jerry and then it was actually no here's a story point for every individual person on the team except for her.

1233
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:03,000
Except for her.

1234
01:17:03,000 --> 01:17:05,000
Except for her.

1235
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:07,000
It was on the date.

1236
01:17:07,000 --> 01:17:08,000
Yep.

1237
01:17:08,000 --> 01:17:10,000
Funny how things happen like that.

1238
01:17:10,000 --> 01:17:11,000
Yeah.

1239
01:17:11,000 --> 01:17:14,000
What were we talking about.

1240
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:26,000
Can I like how difficult it is to start out when you have multiple people to manage multiple story lines but also how that makes it a little bit easier because you don't have to hit every single bump like you do in a one on one.

1241
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:34,000
And it's it's also fun when we're talking about and this is another example because this is more of like a comparison between our current table and like the one shot at this point.

1242
01:17:34,000 --> 01:17:35,000
Yeah.

1243
01:17:35,000 --> 01:17:51,000
One of the things I really like being able to do in the one shot is play out individual character foils and like dynamics and relationships a lot easier than you can at a table with other people because a that's part like a conversation that Robert and I often have of like that's

1244
01:17:51,000 --> 01:18:00,000
something that we like to explore with different characters and then that versus like a lot of other it's harder to manage at our table.

1245
01:18:00,000 --> 01:18:05,000
And when you have so many people and that's not always their focus.

1246
01:18:05,000 --> 01:18:11,000
It was really cool to see how Tony and Astor also ended up being like complete opposites of each other like going into this we knew that they were like very different.

1247
01:18:11,000 --> 01:18:20,000
But to see in specific ways of like cool someone who's playing social chess versus someone who then knocks that chess board over and goes what's up dog.

1248
01:18:20,000 --> 01:18:22,000
It's a very fun dynamic to play.

1249
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:27,000
And then that also everybody was like that except for fucking Stacy.

1250
01:18:27,000 --> 01:18:28,000
Correct.

1251
01:18:28,000 --> 01:18:31,000
Because you're dealing with two people who don't need to play.

1252
01:18:31,000 --> 01:18:32,000
Yeah.

1253
01:18:32,000 --> 01:18:37,000
But that was another really I'm stuck playing the game.

1254
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:52,000
So I think they're going to end it with this kind of a super simple scale right if you had to like rate your two DM experiences so far between your first one and your second one on like a scale out of 10 one being I wanted to kill myself.

1255
01:18:52,000 --> 01:18:54,000
I'll never do it ever again.

1256
01:18:54,000 --> 01:18:59,000
Versus like I am absolutely in love with the ending I love this universe I'll do it 100 times over.

1257
01:18:59,000 --> 01:19:07,000
My first one I'd probably put it like a six point five.

1258
01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:08,000
It was fun.

1259
01:19:08,000 --> 01:19:09,000
Point five.

1260
01:19:09,000 --> 01:19:10,000
It was fun.

1261
01:19:10,000 --> 01:19:11,000
I really enjoyed it.

1262
01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:12,000
I liked it a lot.

1263
01:19:12,000 --> 01:19:16,000
I don't see myself DMing for a long time in that world.

1264
01:19:16,000 --> 01:19:19,000
I think that's just kind of like a little thing.

1265
01:19:19,000 --> 01:19:20,000
Hard world to touch.

1266
01:19:20,000 --> 01:19:21,000
Yeah.

1267
01:19:21,000 --> 01:19:23,000
Incredibly hard world to touch.

1268
01:19:23,000 --> 01:19:29,000
And it's just I don't know if I'm comfortable with that as much this one on a personal scale.

1269
01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:39,000
I really enjoyed it and I had fun on a scale of something in terms of this is going to sound a little shitty but making content that other people enjoy and that isn't just for the two people playing right.

1270
01:19:39,000 --> 01:19:46,000
I think I would rank it a little like I probably like a six for other people's enjoyment for personal enjoyment.

1271
01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:51,000
I think that it would be like an eight in terms of like I think I could definitely have a lot of room to grow.

1272
01:19:51,000 --> 01:19:58,000
But it's a setting that I really like and I had a lot of fun doing it once I kind of got my my feet on the ground if that makes sense.

1273
01:19:58,000 --> 01:19:59,000
100%

1274
01:19:59,000 --> 01:20:02,000
Now I would like to hear from your perspective where you would rank those.

1275
01:20:02,000 --> 01:20:18,000
Yeah I think as a player for the first one Percy Jackson one shot I would probably give it like a like a five or a six only because there was a lot of work on my end trying to

1276
01:20:18,000 --> 01:20:25,000
Corral people in the correct direction. Corral people in the correct direction and I know that's something that you've helped me with a lot too.

1277
01:20:25,000 --> 01:20:37,000
I was just hoping that they would not need corraling but there's always at least one person at the table I feel like that it helps you corral the regardless of what story point you're on or somebody that's driving it.

1278
01:20:37,000 --> 01:20:43,000
And I kind of had to do that for the majority of it just because there were two into the spectrum.

1279
01:20:43,000 --> 01:20:49,000
We had one person or one group of people that was like I know this world inside and out.

1280
01:20:49,000 --> 01:20:56,000
I'm going to fuck off in Gallivan and do everything in this world that I can possibly do and focus on zero of the story points.

1281
01:20:56,000 --> 01:21:00,000
And then we had other people that were like cool so when am I going to figure out who's a child I am.

1282
01:21:00,000 --> 01:21:03,000
Yeah immediately just out the gate.

1283
01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:04,000
Yeah.

1284
01:21:04,000 --> 01:21:05,000
Yeah.

1285
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:07,000
They were like no I don't care about anything else.

1286
01:21:07,000 --> 01:21:17,000
I'm trying to be the person that kind of like stabilizes that just because I think helping you as a DM stay on your feet while also trying to enjoy the experience as a player somewhere between a five and a six.

1287
01:21:17,000 --> 01:21:18,000
Yeah.

1288
01:21:18,000 --> 01:21:27,000
I think I would like to play it again with the other players having a more clear goal and an idea of who they are as a person but I mean other than that I really enjoyed it.

1289
01:21:27,000 --> 01:21:37,000
And then I think for this last one probably like a seven if not an eight just because I didn't have to do any of the footwork on that there was zero workload placed on my shoulders.

1290
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:40,000
You got to fucking kick your feet up do literally whatever the fuck you wanted.

1291
01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:41,000
Uh huh.

1292
01:21:41,000 --> 01:21:44,000
I got to just be a PC and nothing else.

1293
01:21:44,000 --> 01:21:45,000
Yeah.

1294
01:21:45,000 --> 01:21:47,000
And I think just the world itself is fun.

1295
01:21:47,000 --> 01:21:51,000
I think being able to play social politics which is something that I as a person am good at.

1296
01:21:51,000 --> 01:21:58,000
And then being able to translate that into a 16 year old boy who cares only about a handful of things one of them being the prettiest person in the room.

1297
01:21:58,000 --> 01:21:59,000
Cool.

1298
01:21:59,000 --> 01:22:05,000
I can play that game all day long and I'm going to go out of my way manically to die on that hill and that shit was fun.

1299
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:06,000
Yeah.

1300
01:22:06,000 --> 01:22:08,000
So probably like a seven or eight.

1301
01:22:08,000 --> 01:22:09,000
I'll take that.

1302
01:22:09,000 --> 01:22:15,000
I hope that you all enjoyed listening to it if you have listened to it if you haven't listened to it you should totally listen to it.

1303
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:16,000
I would love that.

1304
01:22:16,000 --> 01:22:20,000
I was about to say no worries if not like no it is fully like.

1305
01:22:20,000 --> 01:22:21,000
That's okay if you don't listen to it.

1306
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:22,000
Fuck me I guess.

1307
01:22:22,000 --> 01:22:23,000
Listen to it.

1308
01:22:23,000 --> 01:22:28,000
This is once again being like the people pleaser of like I can't let these people.

1309
01:22:28,000 --> 01:22:29,000
It's okay.

1310
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:30,000
Man that's it.

1311
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:32,000
I mean I would appreciate if you listen to it.

1312
01:22:32,000 --> 01:22:33,000
You are the.

1313
01:22:33,000 --> 01:22:34,000
You don't have to.

1314
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:36,000
Polar opposite of you are.

1315
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:38,000
Listen to the episodes.

1316
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:39,000
It is homework.

1317
01:22:39,000 --> 01:22:42,000
It's assigned mandated.

1318
01:22:42,000 --> 01:22:43,000
Assigned reading.

1319
01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:44,000
For a podcast.

1320
01:22:44,000 --> 01:22:45,000
You might be listening to.

1321
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:49,000
A lot of different unkind words that I'm not going to say on the podcast.

1322
01:22:49,000 --> 01:22:50,000
Thank you.

1323
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:53,000
You don't listen to the other episodes.

1324
01:22:53,000 --> 01:22:55,000
I don't want to end it on that note.

1325
01:22:55,000 --> 01:22:57,000
Thank you all for tuning in to another episode of Table Talk.

1326
01:22:57,000 --> 01:22:59,000
We will see you next Thursday.

1327
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:00,000
Bye bye.

1328
01:23:00,000 --> 01:23:19,000
Bye bye.