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The Joy of GMing - with Special Guest Tommy Garber
93 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to the sister-series to Anywhere But Now— our Doctor Who Actual Play Podcast! Our special guest today is director & GM, Tommy Garber! Join us as we talk about directing for film, stage, and the tabletop! (Contains SPOILERS for the most recent ep, Rift Apart)
Eps will be released between mods or episodes with our ongoing, serialized show. We’ll cover some making-of and behind the scenes tidbits of our latest mod as well, so do stick around, with host Casey Jones!
Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment, and follow us on BluSky and Twitter for more updates. Send your questions & fan art to AnywhereButNowPodcast@gmail.com!
The show releases new episodes weekly of our main storyline or a special interview series, The Joy of GMing.
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Transcript
Introduction to Game Mastering
00:00:35
Speaker
Whether you're at a game table, in your comfiest chair reading a book, or listening at home, there's nothing like a great adventure story.
00:00:43
Speaker
but they don't happen by accident. Welcome to the joy of GMing, a special interview series on the craft of great gaming.
Guest Experts on Game Design
00:00:51
Speaker
There's just something magic about sitting down to a good table with great friends, isn't there? If you're a lifelong gamer or a newbie rolling up your first character sheet, if you're a DM or a GM or just can't get enough tabletop talk in your day, this is the show for you.
00:01:06
Speaker
Each episode will bring you amazing guest speakers to talk about writing games and running them, building fantastic worlds and compelling story arcs, and oh so useful tricks of the trade. Here's some amazing stories, get inspired for your next game, and join us for an hour and a half or so of lively conversation.
Host and Guest Introductions
00:01:25
Speaker
I'm Casey Jones, writer and voice actor. Over the last dozen years, I've written and produced screenplays, children's animation for TV and film, graphic novels, stage plays, murder mysteries, and audio adventures. I've also been writing and running tabletop games for over 10 years.
00:01:43
Speaker
Join me as we dive deep into creativity with fellow experts in making stuff up. This sister series to anywhere but now, our Doctor Who actual play podcast, will be released between mods or episodes with our ongoing serialized show. We'll cover some making of and behind the scenes tidbits of our latest mod as well, so do stick around. Our special guest today is Tommy Garber. A director and writer originally from San Diego, California, he's a lifelong D&D dungeon master.
00:02:12
Speaker
Tommy uses his varied background in stand-up comedy, martial arts, and filmmaking to weave story-focused campaigns with unique settings for each group he leads, whether it's D&D, Star Wars Edge of the Empire, or indie games like Wander Home, Colossal, and more. Tommy, welcome to the show. Hey, hello. Thank you for having me.
00:02:33
Speaker
You have the distinct honor of being the first director we've had in the guest chair, Tom, and congratulations.
Directing and Dungeon Mastering
00:02:39
Speaker
That is shocking to me. I feel like directors and DMs are one and the same. Every director I talk to is worth their salt as DM to a D&D game. There is definite overlap. You've directed award-winning shorts and even a music video for the Mighty Mighty Boss tones.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's a fun one. That is a fun one. I quite enjoyed it. How's it feel stepping from the director's chair into the dungeon master's? For me, it's always been just like flexing the same muscle. And so that was kind of what got me back into DMing was, you know, we were all doing the COVID lockdown and I had some friends who were similarly kind of dealing with the isolation of all of that and being stuck at home. And so I thought, you know, it's a good time to get back into it and not a whole lot of things to direct during that time. No.
00:03:24
Speaker
So it was a great time to hop back into the air and tell a story with a group and lead that flow. And all of that felt very in line with directing and DMing. And so really hopping back and forth between the two is natural. It's seamless almost. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I have not directed film, but I have directed for the stage. There is definitely overlap with the, okay, and this is the direction we're trying to go in now.
00:03:50
Speaker
and reminding you of your inspiration and your motivation. Yeah, I haven't directed theater, but I actually think that that experience is closer. I think that doing that is an even better transition into DMing. Oh, sure.
Character Backstories in World-Building
00:04:05
Speaker
You have that live in the moment kind of thing and the sort of tools that actors on stage play with are so, so similar to
00:04:13
Speaker
what really good players do same with the prep the kind of prep that a good actor does is very similar to what a good player does absolutely working with actors it's one thing to have an actor or a player who comes in and knows their stats back and forward and knows how to roll all their attacks and their
00:04:34
Speaker
their reactions. But yeah, sometimes it can be handy to have that little extra knowledge of the character that you may have built with the player, you know, establishing that background, that backstory that brings a little extra context.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, and actually, the same way that I would with an actor on a project, I sit in on my character creation processes with every player I have. Oh, yeah? So once they have a concept that they like oriented, if they don't yet, similar to a session zero, but individual, and it gives me a chance to also check in on things like phobias and things that you want to avoid beforehand. So you don't even have to have them bring it up on their own in a session zero. And then also setting up their character and their backstory in a way that lets me inform the world, which is a really fun way to
00:05:18
Speaker
to approach world building is kind of backwards, is from the characters that you have already. And a good actor will ask those same sort of questions of themselves. I talk a lot about that that video game Firewatch. You play as a guy who's out in the in the national parks kind of forest and he's in one of those watchtowers watching for fires. And then obviously there's sort of a drama fallout thing there. But at the beginning of the game, you're hiking out there and it's sort of
00:05:45
Speaker
It's railroaded. You're on a path and you know where you're going.
00:05:49
Speaker
But it's asking you questions about the past, about how you named your dog and all of these things.
Enhancing Player Investment
00:05:54
Speaker
And none of them affect the events that follow, but they immediately make you invested in the character you're playing. And that's such an effective tool. And so in the same way, when I'm DMing, I like to ask things that may or may not ever come up again. And a lot of good DMs do this. But what's your character's favorite food? What's a smell they associate with home? Who is your childhood best friend? And that gives you a lot to play with later if you ever
00:06:18
Speaker
you know, given the opportunity to bring up a food that makes them homesick when they're passing through a place or a childhood friend that you run into, those kinds of things are such good tools that come from, you know, character building sessions. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like I fully admit in my earliest days of GMing and trying to put a game together, like if I got details from a player
00:06:45
Speaker
then I would find ways to work that into the existing world. Thankfully, since then, character building can inform world building so that instead of trying to, you know, slide them into a shelf somewhere that's been pre-built,
00:07:02
Speaker
we can actually shape the world around them and make sure that they have experiences they can walk right up to that like you say remind them of their favorite foods from home yeah yeah exactly i think that kind of backwards play lets you have all of these flexible tools you're not locked in either if you if you find a way to better fit their character or to make their early choices exciting late game because sometimes you make those choices early on and you're like
00:07:29
Speaker
Man,
Humor and Fresh Perspectives in Gaming
00:07:30
Speaker
I don't know about that choice now. You know, it's been a couple months, and do I really want my hometown to be like this? And so it's good to keep it fresh, and you get to kind of mix those things up, but still stay true to those core decisions. Brian Gosling in Place Beyond the Pines. Again, another tangential story, but he chose his tattoos at the beginning of shooting that film, and then a few, I think, weeks into shooting, he was talking to the director like, I don't want these face tattoos anymore. And the guy's like, that sucks, man. That's how tattoos work.
00:07:55
Speaker
So you know, you're stuck with those tattoos for the rest of this movie. And that kind of decision-making is effective, but then also, you know, you're playing a game, you want everyone to have fun, so something is truly boring or truly isn't lining up anymore, but it hasn't affected the driving story of the game. There's nothing wrong with changing that in a way that works for everyone. Absolutely.
00:08:16
Speaker
In my current campaign, I have a player who his hometown is is owl in bird people based and their beasts of burden are all dinosaurs. So instead of horses or donkeys, they have dinosaurs around.
00:08:30
Speaker
And it's such a fun, campy bit that we're doing with that. The place is named after the island from Jurassic Park. I mean, we fully embrace the silliness of that. And we haven't gone there in game yet, but every now and then we get to hint at it. There are moments where you get excited about visual things that you could do with that and you want to change them, but sometimes you need to let them explore their own world in their mind and they run it through you before it becomes part of the world permanently.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Those preconceived expectations that get mixed up in the head with personal experience and personal memory. And then on the flip side of that, we're still talking about a game also, and people have preconceived ideas of how these games work and how game characters work.
00:09:11
Speaker
And so you do get those stereotypical overly dark backstories of characters whose parents are, the Disney movie parents are dead kind of thing and that sort of stereotype because that's what they think those stories have to be. That's one of the reasons I really love playing with people who have not played tabletop games before or specifically D&D before. Now that's changing a bit with all of the media centered around that.
00:09:35
Speaker
even if you haven't played you have an idea of what it's like in your head but people who truly don't preform that idea of what the game is they can be really fun to play with and I don't mind this sort of teaching learning process of that early on oh yeah also is a fun way to explore game mechanics and creativity people who don't understand how strict the rules can feel sometimes always have the most creative solutions to things it'd be wrong to call it beginners luck
00:09:59
Speaker
One of our players, Dora, is an absolute wonder. She makes all these delightfully chaotic decisions as her PC Calamity half, and neither she nor her character really know that much about the world of Doctor Who. And honestly, it has made the games even more enjoyable. Her experiences, both as a player and as a character, are that much fresher. Yeah.
00:10:28
Speaker
because there are things that someone who's well versed in the show might immediately pick up on or casually notice that go completely under the radar for her. And narratively, it gives you an excuse to reiterate or re explain or even delve into the specifics of how you want to approach a type of alien race or character in your story that someone might assume if they already know they've seen the show, they've seen some other source material, you know, they think, oh, I know what that is.
00:10:57
Speaker
But that's not always interesting to listen to as a listener. Oh, everybody on the show knows what it is so that DM didn't spend time explaining it. And I haven't seen that part or or I missed that episode, you know.
Storytelling and Player Comprehension
00:11:08
Speaker
So it's a great a character who is a fish out of water is a great tool for introducing the world and making sure that everyone is on the same page about the world that you're exploring and playing in.
00:11:17
Speaker
Absolutely. But it's also a really good litmus test for how clear the storytelling is. Like, even if Calamity doesn't quite grasp the severity of a given situation, I can usually tell barometer-wise if
00:11:33
Speaker
Calamity is following along at least what everything what is going on versus oh crumbs it's the Daleks or oh crumbs it's the Cybermen or like as long as she is able to follow and to keep up and to Save the day more than once I have to say with solutions that have absolutely nothing to do with anything in the show proper is just so refreshing and
00:11:58
Speaker
It really is, yeah. And you have a good divide between player and character there too. If the player understands enough to what is going on, but their character is not supposed to, that's just a good player if they're playing that effectively. And then, you know, you get into the difference between that and a metagaming player who they maybe know more than their character should, and a really enjoyable player at your table will separate that knowledge really effectively.
00:12:23
Speaker
And that can feel just as fresh as long as they're, you know, being cognizant of that difference. My character doesn't know this thing, even though, yeah, I fought this kind of creature before. I generally know how it works. I love a good player who can avoid metagaming, you know, where they can keep what they know as the player separate from what the PC knows. You basically just set up an introduction for one of our players, Kate, who plays Maeve, a...
00:12:53
Speaker
reporter from the 1890s. Kate, the player, they know a fair amount about the world of Doctor Who, but Maeve, the character, is you know completely new to everything. They have mentioned once or twice that it's been, even if Maeve gets her pants scared off her, Kate's having a lovely time.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's always good to know with any scary horror bit you're doing, you know, there's a difference between fun horror and fun scary and the character is terrified and the player is not actually losing their mind or actually scared of you as the GM.
Managing Game Tension
00:13:31
Speaker
Well, I feel like there's an important distinction to make between terror and horror.
00:13:36
Speaker
Like hard bread and butter is terror, the anticipation of the scary thing as it gets closer. And try not to linger too long on horror, which is the aftershocks, the wake of the scary thing. I think that's interesting because in D&D, I think such a common
00:13:56
Speaker
concept is cosmic horror. We really buy into the long extended horror, the realization horror, the sort of world of horror that underlays war or monstrous creatures. Those sort of things take a little bit longer than a jump scare or not that all terror is a jump scare, but you're exploring that horror a little bit more, which is not really the genre that I love to do, but I find it to be a very effective tool in D&D.
Learning and Adapting as a New DM
00:14:26
Speaker
One of my favorite sessions to run with any group, by the way, this is my biggest general DM tip, is just to steal. As long as you're not doing a publicized podcast show like you are, so you shouldn't steal, but stealing is such a good way as a DM to learn, to see what other people do really effectively, and to just take those tools and make them your own.
00:14:48
Speaker
and one of my favorite sessions to run that at this point most people online have heard of is the false hydra. The false hydra for those who are listening and maybe don't know is a creature that sings a song and whenever it is singing the town that it is taking over essentially sort of living in the sewers or hidden somewhere they cannot remember it and they can't really perceive it.
00:15:07
Speaker
And then every person or thing that it eats is basically wiped from existence. So if your friend or party member was eaten by this thing, you would forget that they ever existed until you are out of its song, out of its grasp. And it can be a really fun way to mess with your players and make them sort of question the world they're in in a way that's less visually based than like, say, a mimic.
00:15:31
Speaker
a mimic tends to be, then they're asking every now and then, is this chest a mimic? Is this door a mimic? It's like, okay, well, I played that one out a little bit. This one is more about discussing the world and discussing how the players and the characters and the NPCs are perceiving the world. And a really fun tool to use with that one is to have a character that you act as if has been part of the party the whole time that was already eaten that they've already forgotten.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so you remember on this adventure how this character helped you so much? And they're like, no. And it's like, exactly. And then you got to get to Raphael. Yeah, exactly. You don't remember. And that's such a fun way to get them to sort of interact with this monster in a unique way. And then that sort of, I don't know that that really qualifies as cosmic horror, but it gets into that world of things that affect your memory that you can't really duplicate in a film because as soon as that thing is perceived by the audience, then they know the trick.
00:16:28
Speaker
And so so it allows you to do something very unique to the table. And that's why that one is so so fun. And there are a lot of very similar creatures and things that you can do with your tables.
Narrative Tone and Genre Flexibility
00:16:37
Speaker
And then there's the bad version of that where you I always hear like DM horror stories of like tricking people into killing kids. And they're like, just kidding. That thing you killed was a child. And you're like, why? Why would you do that? Why would you do that to your table? Why would you do that to anybody? So there's you know, there's a level of experience with knowing what kind of version to do with that.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, if something like that were going to happen at a table, I think I would personally introduce something in the same ballpark of tone within the first 10 minutes so that it does not come out of nowhere and it warns the players ahead of time. Yeah, and you want to scale up to it. Yeah, you want to make sure in your adventure as a whole that you're not doing, you know, the tabletop equivalent of Tangled.
00:17:24
Speaker
of exploring a world with excitement and color and just bright, happy adventure. And then all of a sudden you're in doom. Like, you don't want to do those without warning unless that was the basis of your campaign that everyone knew it was coming. You want to make sure that things are on scale and working in your world.
00:17:43
Speaker
I mean, even if we went from something like tangled into something as dark as, say, the Black Cauldron, like you would still want to brace your players for like, okay, we are taking a step into the darker woods here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's a fun transition to make as long as you're doing it in a way that's effective.
00:18:05
Speaker
One of the things I love about not only Doctor Who, but games like Dungeons and Dragons, which have produced worlds and campaign settings in outer space, in cyberpunk cities full of skyscrapers a mile tall, or gothic horror settings, you know, we've got Space Jammer, Eberron, Ravenloft, and all these other
00:18:29
Speaker
where you can have a different kind of genre experience using the same mechanics. And one of the things I love about Doctor Who is that I can take them on similar trips from mod to mod because depending on where they land, they might be walking into a slightly creepy mystery or a gallery full of terrors or an old west vignette.
00:18:57
Speaker
You know, which is closer to a simple adventure story. And the week after that, they trip right into cosmic horror. I love that. Yeah, that flexibility once you have the established mechanics is all on the GM, the DM to say, you know, how flexible can you be with that? I love to run a murder mystery in D&D and D&D does not have the tools for that.
00:19:18
Speaker
I think a lot of people who run D&D are like, D&D is the only system that, you know, it's the big one. I don't really feel that way. And there's nothing wrong with taking things that work from other systems and sort of mashing them together or running. I mean, honestly, we should all be running something other than D&D at this point. But it's such a good way to look at it. Genuinely, I run what is essentially a game of Clue.
00:19:37
Speaker
at least once with every group that I play with I love to do that I love to introduce a cast of characters who are new and then somebody dies while you're in the other room and then you start questioning people and every it is so fun whether they get it right or wrong and they accuse the wrong person it gives you such good fallout to work with it gives you such good cast of characters to add that they identify very quickly because you get to do such unique kind of campy and silly characters with a clue setting and
00:20:01
Speaker
And that's just, it's such a fun way to mix up the pacing of, especially D&D where it turns into, you know, combat, investigation, travel, combat, investigation, that kind of rotation. You really want to give it some life and that's such a good way to do it. And I think it's like you're talking about switching location is such a good way to do that too.
Historical and Creative Balance in Campaigns
00:20:20
Speaker
And you're talking about hopping from place to place with such different settings. And I was going to ask about this in general, because you're talking about timelines. And you, in particular, in your world, you have two timelines to work with. You have the Doctor Who timeline. And you know, timey-wimey, the timeline is not really the right way to describe that. But the things that happen in the show, that sort of canon.
00:20:43
Speaker
And then you also have the timeline of humanity, right? And you're not always going to Earth, you're not always going to past or present or future Earth. But when you do, you have that real timeline and then your characters, your players have an expectation of what happens in that time.
00:20:59
Speaker
And I wonder how much you stay true to history or how much you stay true to canon when you're doing something like that, because we talk a lot about prophecy. And one of my current players is a divination wizard, which is so fun to play with. And so setting up things that should happen and then also our, our
00:21:16
Speaker
campaign currently is really based in the history of the land. And so those two things, first of all, it's a lot to keep straight. But then also, you know, if you set up a prophecy, does that thing have to happen and messing with those expectations can be just as fun. So do you ever mess with I like I want to say history, but it would be the future of the moment, the expected history of, you know, the result of of a battle or of a historical event. Do you like do you twist that around ever in this or in other campaigns that you do? What an incredible question.
00:21:45
Speaker
The answer is kind of, of course. I've run tables for Doctor Who before, but I've never done a full 12-story series that I was putting out there and saying, okay, this is gonna be like a season of television. Strap in. One of the things I wanted to stick with from the very beginning was cause and effect.
00:22:06
Speaker
things the players do leave an impact and sometimes it's a big one. The nice thing about recording this now is that it will be available after they have run the first half at least of an upcoming western mod. Okay, I'm looking forward to that. I love that. It's called Another Man's Gold, as in the second half of the phrase one man's garbage is another man's gold.
00:22:29
Speaker
It takes place in what is supposed to be a ghost town. No signs of life. And when the TARDIS gets there, it is a bustling, going concern. It is a boomtown. And part of the mod is figuring out what's changed, why things are off course, solving the mystery, but also, inadvertently or not, also ensuring that it winds up a ghost town again, just like it was supposed to.
Engaging Story Arcs and Murder Mysteries
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of setting that expectation and then diverting it at the beginning in a way that presents questions that makes them wonder why this and do we have to fix it? And if we do, how do we go about doing that? That's that's a lot of fun to play with for sure.
00:23:15
Speaker
It absolutely is. And circling around to the subject of murder mysteries because whodunits and even reverse whodunits are near and dear to my heart. There was a mod that's undergoing renovations for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that my players are giving me so much to work with with their personal goals that I want to move things around and make room for what they really want to do so that I can circle back to what I really want to do, including a murder mystery.
00:23:45
Speaker
Writing a murder mystery for a game can be so fun because, just like you said, you've got your cast of memorable, distinct characters who are very different from each other, but part of it is also coming up with little profiles for each of those characters, each of those suspects, so that I know ahead of time how they're going to react if they are wrongfully accused.
00:24:08
Speaker
If they are rightly accused, who are their friends in the castle? Who are their enemies in the castle? Who are they going to lie about? Who are they going to try and misdirect you towards? It's one thing to give your characters a puzzle to figure out. It is another to present them with a puzzle that grinds the momentum to a halt.
00:24:30
Speaker
Absolutely, especially if you're doing something like a whodunit where that becomes your whole session. You know, you're sitting down for one time to play this and the whole time is this one task. You don't want it to feel slow. You don't want it to feel like I what I've already asked all the questions. What do I do now? You want to be able to keep that momentum going. One thing for the cast of characters. I mean, this obviously doesn't work for the audio medium, but for playing that at a table, I love to have an image of all the people who are involved up on the wall.
00:24:56
Speaker
I have great note-taking players, so it's always very fun to hear back what they interpreted from certain conversations, sometimes midway through a session. I'll allow them to reflect as a group, you know, they're talking to each other and talking about what they put together and I'll hear how they're putting clues together and go, actually, that's a lot more interesting than what I had planned. Let's do that. And you divert a little bit, you know. But I, you know, I do always know who the murderer was ahead of time and how they did it. And then you move around there.
00:25:21
Speaker
Like you're saying the consequences of that kind of thing, you're talking about a consequence built storyline, something that sort of snowballs as you go. Yes. And in a murder mystery, you get such a solid consequence, you either caught a murderer, which is a great triumph for your group
00:25:36
Speaker
Or you framed, essentially framed someone for murder and maybe got them arrested. They had, they have a grudge against you and also now the murderer gets away. And so that, that is such a fun tool to play with. And again, in my current session, we did run a murder mystery and they did accuse the wrong person.
00:25:53
Speaker
And so that person has a major grudge against them now. And that's just a fun person to have floating around in the world. I didn't even pay that off immediately. I waited four sessions for them to run into that character again. And that's such a fun way to expand the people that they're worried about running into, looking over their shoulders a little bit, and it can really, really pay off. Absolutely.
00:26:12
Speaker
Meanwhile, 30 miles behind you, rain falls on a jail cell. Revenge! Cries the fist, shaking through the bars. I love it. One way I keep things moving is to make sure that solving the whodunit is not the reason they showed up in the first place.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah. They show up to the location for a social event, whether it's a wedding or a coronation or a third thing. Yeah, absolutely. That's classic whodunit setup. That event is still unfolding with the consequences of the murder investigation and the murder itself causing several wrinkles.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah. And it gives you an opportunity to mix in other elements of your world as well. So when we did that, it was a religious ceremony. They were there to witness essentially the opening of a new temple. And during that ceremony, someone was killed or just after. And to play that out with the consequences of these differing religious, I mean, in D and D, especially you have these, this huge Pantheon.
00:27:15
Speaker
all these different people who do or do not follow this one temple's religion to then have them in the same room accused of murder, you get to explore that pantheon a little bit. You get to explore the way that the followers of that world interact with it.
00:27:28
Speaker
That's absolutely great. Although now I've got the portmanteau in my head, Doctor Whodunit. So we definitely have to have one. I mean, you have to. We have to. Yeah, you have to. Yeah, write that down. It's in a recording. TMTMTMTM. Get that in there. Doctor Whodunit. Yeah, we'll definitely, now that it's been said aloud, we absolutely need a proper Whodunit in this second season of Anywhere But
TV Season Structure in Campaigns
00:27:51
Speaker
Now.
00:27:51
Speaker
I love that you're you're already mapping those as seasons because that's how I think of my tables games even though we're not recording we're not publishing it's such an effective like structure for your your dm perspective once once this season wraps up is it the final season does everything wrap up or am I transitioning us to another another villain another adventure another thing and what's that hook and how do they snowball into each other how do they affect one another
00:28:17
Speaker
And I'm having a really great time with that now. This group and most groups, I don't actually have a big bad plan ahead of time. And so I let them find that as we go. There are so many relevant differences between an ongoing campaign
00:28:33
Speaker
and a season of sequential stories. Dimension 20 does an amazing job of taking a campaign that'll last anywhere from five to 10 to a dozen episodes. And each one of those episodes will have a clear beginning, middle, and an end, a nicely staged fight scene, and just wonderful RP from the entire table.
00:29:02
Speaker
good table chemistry, you cannot manufacture it. It has to be home brewed and it is just a joy to watch. But they're able, with style, to tell a campaign-length story and have it broken up into these chapters that feel like you're making real progress. Part of my job
00:29:22
Speaker
as a GM with designs on a season. I have experience as a screenwriter working on television shows and seasons of television shows and setting up those arcs. And of course I've devoured Doctor Who and plenty of other monster of the week series with their own larger ongoing arcs and the big bads. And I got to tell you, one of my
00:29:46
Speaker
Happiest discoveries with this table for anywhere but now is how much they are changing things from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. Because there isn't one distinct big bad which they will face every episode and deal with over the course of the season.
00:30:05
Speaker
There is a antagonist working behind the scenes and they will come up against that a couple of times across the shape of the season and it won't be told in chronological order because wibbly wobbly tiny wimey.
00:30:20
Speaker
But what our players have decided, what our players have chosen for their priorities, have reshaped the order of the episodes. We had a guest villain in part two of our first story. This guy named Tripshine, he was a rogue time agent. The Fixer, our Time Lord hero.
00:30:39
Speaker
was dedicated to, I'm going to go find him because it's dangerous that he's just out there. Fast forward a couple of episodes. We come across Tripshine again, but it's not the end of the season. It's still in the first half. But by meeting up with Tripshine again, resolving the antagonism there, and showing another side to the character, not only does that resolve it,
00:31:03
Speaker
but it frees up space for the rest of the season for the Fixer and his companions to discover more things or get distracted by another mystery that has absolutely nothing to do with them. And I am absolutely tickled with how our players have for themselves decided and latched on to things that they decided was important.
00:31:25
Speaker
You know, yeah, and if you ever want to bring that character back, you have the luxury of a nonlinear timeline. So if you want to bring it back as an antagonist again, it's just a version of him that still is an antagonist. It's at a different point in time when he was still bothered by them. He hasn't, you know, made made good with them yet. But yeah, I think I think a player driven timeline is always the best way to go, is that you give yourself the structure of the world, the mechanics of your
00:31:53
Speaker
your setting that set you up as a DM to have all the tools that you need and you can always add more detail to that as you go you can always construct more room for them to play essentially but don't I mean everyone talks about railroading and it's a little bit overused in what is and isn't railroading because gameplay is not railroading
00:32:11
Speaker
providing that the story that they're interacting with is not railroading. But if you have an exact ending in your head, you have an exact way that they have to solve a certain puzzle or solve a certain moment, that is. And so so giving them all the tools and then letting them play, they I mean, even even an inexperienced player will surprise you.
Creative Problem-Solving in Gameplay
00:32:28
Speaker
Yes, I've always been just shocked by how people figure things out or how they deal with a certain antagonist and an antagonist who is not always the active villain. And you're talking about
00:32:39
Speaker
villain of the week or monster of the week kind of moments with this overarching plot of this bigger character I think that's always a good structure for tabletop games as well monster of the week lets you shift focus and keep people on their toes and keep things feeling like they're moving and
00:32:56
Speaker
when you revisit this character it it allows you to to not not feel like you're dragging through it always spend every time dealing with this person and they keep getting away or they keep doing to keep being a problem and especially with the tools available to someone playing tv or a similar game like that it's it's almost impossible for someone to just run away yeah so
00:33:16
Speaker
You know, there are spells like Hold Person. There are things that kind of get in your way as a DM from they disappear in smoke again. You know, you can't do that every session. And so you do have to be very, very flexible with the way you're setting things up to have consequence. And that's a nice thing also about world building is that the consequence of that character's existence can still be present if they're not there, whether that's the monster they set up for you or a journal you found or a rumor you heard or something very small.
00:33:42
Speaker
There's always room to play with that. But again, just letting the players construct that space and letting the players follow what is most interesting to them will always work in your favor as a GM because if they're excited and they're interested in pursuing that thing, it will allow you to do so, so much more. Yes.
00:34:01
Speaker
Everything you build will feel more successful because they're excited to find that thing out. Well, it feels more successful if and when you are building a new story with your players. Absolutely. Some of these mods I have run for several years. I've been running games of Doctor Who, first and second edition for about 10 years off and on.
00:34:26
Speaker
In my less experienced days, in my more egotistical days, thinking, well, I'm a professional writer, I know what I'm doing, and having just the one clear cut, cookie cutter ending of, well, this is how you finish a game of Doctor Who. And it might be satisfying for them to figure it out,
00:34:44
Speaker
and get there, but if they come up with something else that should work and doesn't because a railroading GM didn't think of that or didn't plan for that, that can quickly take the bubbles out of the soda. It really can. I always try to think of that kind of moment in the moment as a DM as an opportunity to reward the players.
00:35:05
Speaker
And it's something that I do with roles as well. So you talk a lot about like rolling a 20 or rolling a one, you know, your your crits. And if you if you roll a one that there is a temptation to like do something that feels punishing. And I think that's the wrong way to look at it. I think it's an opportunity to reward a failure. Like as a player, it's still fun to watch your character fail in a way that is entertaining. And so if you can make both sides of that spectrum work, great.
00:35:30
Speaker
And so when you're talking about, you know, doing doing that kind of victory or failure ending, it doesn't have to be all bad to play out or all decided already. Like you're saying, if you already have your ending decided, insane failures or insane successes, you should be ready to reward that in a flexible way. I've fully stopped writing endings for my sessions, which is not always the best way to.
00:35:52
Speaker
go about it, but I don't have a monologue that I do. I don't have any sort of structured end to the thing. I know who did the murder, but I don't have the ending to how that moment is going to play out. I let it find itself during the session because every time I try to plan something like that, it ends in a different room or a different place or with different characters nearby. And it's just much better to give yourself all the tools and then allow your players to construct that ending and be very flexible and accepting of
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, my like you're saying that this perfect script that I wrote didn't pan out, you know, and and it turns into an improv exercise, which is also, you know, we're talking from the filmmaking perspective. Yeah. Yeah. It's what GMing is, is improving. And then from the filmmaking perspective, that's a great exercise as well as how much improv is acceptable.
00:36:42
Speaker
Your actor comes in and completely ignores your script. Okay, that's one thing. Does it still get the point across?
Improvisation and Player Interaction
00:36:48
Speaker
Does it still work? Does it still entertain or does it still provide the context necessary for the story to continue? Great. And then in D&D, it's like my characters have to function that way as the person that I'm playing during as an NPC.
00:37:01
Speaker
If they're throwing questions at you you didn't expect, you have to be ready to improv that and still fit the parameters of this sort of script you have in your head, conveying the important information. And then when they start asking you things that don't matter all, you can just have fun with it and just get as weird as you want. And that's a great time, too. It is a great time. We've talked about this before on the show, the idea of writing out an ending in case the good guys do nothing. Like, if you do nothing, we have a good idea of what's going to happen.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah. Playing with sci-fi tropes, building up expectations and setting the rhythm and the tempo of this is the kind of sci-fi story you're in. These are the stakes. These are the supporting characters that are either here to help or hurt you. If we can set up expectations and then go off script. Yeah. That's where the magic happens.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah, and even talking about those expectations, it's tempting to keep those to yourself. You wrote the ending for what would happen in this situation, and I know if you don't do anything, then this town burns or this villain takes over. But conveying that to your table can be just as important, saying if you do nothing, then this person will get framed. Or if you do nothing, this town will be in danger of XYZ thing happening.
00:38:22
Speaker
it gives them either motive to help or not help or the information that they need because they don't have that, all that background information that you've written down that you have internalized, they don't have that. And it's really important to be able to communicate that effectively. And there's nothing wrong with literally saying, if you do nothing, this is what happens. You can tell as a character, you look at this town, you see the bandits coming. If you do nothing, this town burns. And so setting that up for your players is just as important. Absolutely. I find rather than
00:38:52
Speaker
spoon-feeding the negative outcome. I find that implying it through action, through dialogue, and generally just through painting the picture. To use an example, there's a two-parter that we have run and recorded that'll be coming out in the near future or has come out already. Wibbly-wobbly!
00:39:10
Speaker
called Hard Time. And the TARDIS winds up on a wasteland. Time is broken. The planet does not spin. The planet does not move in orbit. It is frozen and locked where it is. And as a result, the planet is crumbling. That's just setting the table. From there, the companions are separated from the Time Lord and they're press ganged into hard labor in something called The Quicks, where months will go by in the span of five minutes over
00:39:39
Speaker
where they're nice and cozy on the ship that is you know half a football field away. Setting up these kind of nine catastrophic sci-fi conditions and then inviting the players to resist and to fight back and to push back and give as good as they get if not better immediately jostles the table in really interesting ways.
00:40:04
Speaker
The players remarked after the end of the two-parter that they were expecting the bad guy to get away. And there was an opportunity for him to do that. There were a couple of opportunities for him to do that. But the dice were against him.
00:40:20
Speaker
If you've ever been to an arcade and seen someone play with a pachinko machine, drop a ball at the top and it bounces off all these different pins on the way down and could end up in any one of a dozen different places by the time it's bounced to the bottom.
Genre Expectations and Narrative Twists
00:40:35
Speaker
Felix Fugit could have gotten away with his own time machine and been a thorn in the side of our heroes down the road in season two. That is not what happened.
00:40:46
Speaker
Felix Puget falls out of a time machine several hundred feet in the air and falls straight down.
00:40:54
Speaker
And I even threw in wibbly wobbly beguffins to make it more interesting. And so for the whole stretch of part two, there has been something called an Eizen barrier wall between the companions and the Time Lord stretching and distorting cause and effect even more than they're already going sideways. Someone, a full grown person walks out through the Eizen barrier wall and a four year old emerges on the far side.
00:41:21
Speaker
A person falls through the cloud and disintegrates while the blaster they had in their hands clatters to the ground as the blueprints for that blaster. Oh, that's hilarious. Time is being messed with. And then at the very climax, Felix falls. And because of the other things that have happened by now, the magic misty field, the Eisen barrier wall evaporates.
00:41:48
Speaker
a heartbeat before he reaches it. Oh, man. So he's just dead now. That's wild. Yeah. And then like you're saying, when you have a big villain like that and the roles are just against them, it's important as a DM to be honest with that when it is narratively satisfying. And sometimes, yeah, you fudge it when it wouldn't be fun. That happens. But in that kind of moment, there's nothing wrong with a villain, even if you had plans for them. There's nothing wrong with a villain.
00:42:14
Speaker
you bite in the dust, you know, whatever. Like, that's it. If that's the fun version of that in that moment, just play it out, let that happen and let that sort of natural flow. That's the wonder of these games is the difference between writing a script where it has to be the most narratively satisfying version of it. And instead, this is a very memorable session now that you've run with this character who could have been around longer, who could have been a real problem, who's just gone in a way that's
00:42:42
Speaker
you know, visual and memorable and fun, and that's such a good reversal of expectations as well. Exactly. And I feel like games that are attached to certain genre expectations lend themselves to really satisfying narrative surprises like that, you know? It's the difference between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back.
00:43:05
Speaker
Because when Empire first came out, people went in expecting another Star Wars. They were expecting a lightsaber duel and talk about the Force and some fights in space and everything. And they got those things, but it was still a completely new experience. But here's the thing. The players during afters talking about, man, I really expected Felix to get away.
00:43:27
Speaker
There was no disappointment in their voices. They were pleasantly surprised to have walked into this arena of genre expectations and to have them realistically subverted by their own actions.
00:43:42
Speaker
You know? Yeah, and you set a precedent of possibility there, right? Like, if you feel too railroady and they are rolling, your players are rolling for things, and they're like, yeah, either I succeed or I fail, that sets a binary that's less interesting for storytelling, right? And so once you get to a point where, yeah, I can succeed, I can fail, I can trip, I can do something that wasn't really what I intended, this character who is clearly, they have plot armor, they'll be fine, and then they fall to their deaths unexpectedly.
00:44:11
Speaker
That kind of thing is such a good moment to, I mean, to Game of Thrones it to throw it to that, you know, the idea of no characters are safe. The idea of there's real risk involved creates real investment from the player angle to say, oh, oh my God.
Introducing Stakes and Narratives Opportunities
00:44:26
Speaker
And so I had a table that was I don't want to say stagnating, but they were getting to the point where they felt invincible.
00:44:32
Speaker
And I had been doing milestone based leveling and we were leveling pretty often because they were new players and I wanted them to get to try things out. And we got to a certain point where it's like, I'm going to have to throw something really hard at them to really bring the risk of death here. And one of my players came to me and said, Hey, I want to fake my character's death.
00:44:49
Speaker
I was like, you could not have had the better timing. I mean, it was phenomenal. And so we did it was a fantasy world, but we did some time stuff with this eventually. But we basically had it look like he fell down into some spinning blades. So there's no body, you know, there's no there's no way for this guy to still be around. And then he played a different character for two sessions.
00:45:11
Speaker
And so the rest of the group was convinced he was dead. It was the first time they'd experienced and he we really did play out a whole battle before that. So there was real intentional. They just feel earned. Exactly. And one of the characters was desperately trying to get over there to revivify him and and save this moment. And so we had environmental things going on to stop her. And it felt very dramatic. And you know, you raise those stakes a little bit.
00:45:34
Speaker
And that one was, I don't want to call it's like the opposite of plot armor, like we knew he was going to die. But if they had succeeded, there were still real roles in there. And so if she had succeeded in enrolling over some things and bypassing those obstacles, she still would have been able to save him. And then we would have done something else later. And so to be flexible and truthful with those roles is the unique situation we have with this kind of medium. Right. You don't you don't get that with the script.
00:45:59
Speaker
I guess you could get it at an improv show, but it would be a wildly weird improv show if you went to like, you know, Second City and they were like, we're gonna play D&D now, fantasy improv. Oh man, now I do want to go watch that.
00:46:13
Speaker
I used to be in a long form improv team called Start Trekkin. We would make up hour long improvised episodes of the original series with uniforms and sound effects from the show and props from the toy store and would do a whole episode that kind of felt like a funnier version of a show of the original series with a new cast of characters. It was never, you know, Kurt Spock and Bones or anything like that.
00:46:42
Speaker
But having those genre expectations and those sci-fi tropes at our fingertips gave us a lot to play with. What I will say though is that a failure can and
00:46:56
Speaker
more of an impact be a more resonant experience for the player than just a simple victory. Yeah. And you're talking about genre expectations. Absolutely. You set up a sci-fi or even a fantasy adventure, and those end with the protagonist succeeding. And to flip that on its head, it's so fun and so effective. It reminds me always of, I don't know if you ever read this, but it was sort of a sci-fi series, Pendragon, DJ McHale.
00:47:25
Speaker
Tell us more about it. It was a Harry Potter contemporary, timeline-wise, not story-wise, about a young man. He's hopping dimensions, and it falls into similar territory as Doctor Who. You know, there's time going on. Some of the dimensions are also past Earth, whatever. But I don't remember a ton of that story, but I do remember that in the third or fourth book, they lose, and they lose bad.
00:47:49
Speaker
And that becomes, again, like we're talking about this Game of Thrones feeling of that no one is safe. Not only are your characters individually not safe, the world's safety is not guaranteed and your victory is not guaranteed. And I actually was just listening to one of your earlier episodes and you were talking a little bit about that expectation of protagonists succeeding and winning. And I think that I haven't run a campaign like this where it has ended with the villain winning.
00:48:13
Speaker
but to get to do that and then maybe that villain winning does not mean that your party is wiped out maybe it means that they just succeed in their goal and the world continues that sounds so interesting to me and there is a D a D&D module um i wish i could remember the name of it but it is essentially the
00:48:29
Speaker
the sort of standard world of D&D if all of the villains had succeeded. So there's Tiamat and Strahd and all of these things going on that normally have sort of an end point narratively, and instead those villains are ruling the world. And that's such a fun way to explore that world. Obviously that would be an insanely high level campaign for your characters to be able to affect any change, but it would still be so fun to explore.
00:48:54
Speaker
If you're in my current campaign, cover your ears or hang up here and I'll tell you what you can jump back in. But yeah, I am sort of setting up a similar situation where defeating this current big bad sets up the real next big bad because he is the thing that's sort of scaring them away. He's sort of a gatekeeper in a way. And so once he's gone, the real monsters are here. And so that that sort of allows your world to exponentially become more dangerous and also narratively
00:49:21
Speaker
It's a fun way to tie from one big bad to the next. And it makes you think, oh, should we have let him stick around? Was he the lesser of two evils? You know, you get this sort of thing going on with your characters to really explore the villains of your world. I would love to end on the villain winning. I feel like as a player, I wouldn't like that very much.
00:49:39
Speaker
but I would love to say and you know and that's it and they won and that's the end and some some stories are sad stories sorry gang like that's that would be such a fun if you could set it up effectively it would be such a fun story to to pan out can you imagine like the next campaign picking up 20 years later and all of their children have picked up the picked up the quest after 20 years of living under a fascist lich
00:50:06
Speaker
Yeah, one of your old characters comes back as a mentor character and you can have like a cameo kind of thing in there. I thought that would be so fun. The nice thing about running a game that has mods and like smaller stories to tell as part of a season versus a longer campaign. There are other ways to drop the ball and fail in your objective that don't just mean a villain has triumphed.
00:50:30
Speaker
Absolutely. In Hard Time and its second part, Rift Apart, they are there to try and rescue another Time Lord whose TARDIS has broken down and can't leave. That's the big goal that they have. And the fact that there is a tinpot despot sitting on a little volcano, lording it over everyone else there, is simply the problem they have to deal with before they can try and rescue the other Time Lord.
00:50:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost the B-plot. You're giving them a thing that they can explore if they want, or as much as it overlaps. And it informs the world, but really you're exploring this other storyline as it affects your major story. And I'm sure with something like Another Timelord, you have so many other questions that arise from
00:51:17
Speaker
their existence and the point of time that they're in and that you're in and why you're in the same place and that kind of stuff I think that there's a lot of fun stuff to do with that there really is and to go back to like expectations versus execution I was expecting the Dodger that was the time-lording question
00:51:34
Speaker
I was expecting the Dodger to have more of a presence during the episodes. And he wasn't quite a cameo, but he was very much on the periphery. He did not make it out alive. He fell out of time. He fell through a rift. That is a hard thing to come back from.
00:51:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a fun creative death, too, because what is, you know, the consequence of that is, oh, oh, no, we just lost someone that was so interesting or that we really cared about if you get them invested in that character. Or it's, oh, no, what have what have they become or where did they go? What became of them? And there's so many opportunities to play with that directly in this kind of medium. Absolutely. Like sci fi.
00:52:20
Speaker
there is baked in an extra layer of suspension of disbelief of, sure, that could happen. And also, you're talking about expectations with a pre-established setting. So you're doing Doctor Who, and I've run Edge of the Empire campaigns, which is Star Wars. People have such an idea of how that world works and what the rules are. And so when you have a mysterious hooded figure in your Star Wars world, there's a pretty quick assumption that that is a Jedi or a Sith.
00:52:50
Speaker
that is watching or nearby and so for that to be something else you get to subvert that expectation or to follow up with it it's rewarding because they go oh i knew that because i know the world or whatever the bit is you get to reward those expectations can be really effective at a table of people who think that they understand the setting or if they're new to it it's a great way to re-explain things like we were talking about i think at the very beginning of this episode yeah
00:53:13
Speaker
There's a shorthand, obviously, for a table that is just chock-a-block with experienced in-universe players. But there's also something very refreshing about coming at it from the logistical side of the table where they don't already know what the monster is, and instead have to deal with the leavings of the monster, the claw marks that it leaves behind,
00:53:41
Speaker
before you can figure out what it is, how to stop it, what the rules are of that particular creature. And someone new to that is fun. It's like watching a show with someone for the first time, a show or a movie that you love. Exactly. And you're bringing them into it and they get to experience it through their eyes for the first time. And then they get to the end, they go, I don't know. I don't think I'll watch that again. And you're like, OK, you're not invited over anymore.
00:54:05
Speaker
That's fine, people don't have to love everything that we bring them, but it is how we find the people who love what we bring. Especially now, I think that's a very modern
00:54:15
Speaker
take on, not just tabletop gaming, but sort of like the nerd kingdom, the geek culture, is that yeah, you can like one part of it, not the whole, or you can dip your toe in and experience it new. I grew up in San Diego, and I grew up going to Comic Con when it was still like the old guys in a basement. And that was not always the most welcoming space, which is actually one of the reasons it took me a while to be able to get into D&D. I felt like I didn't know enough. I didn't have the experience to get the experience, which now unfortunately is the job market, right? So I guess that's universal.
00:54:45
Speaker
But the idea of, like, you can just try something out and there are no wrong opinions about this piece of media, just that was not the case. There was a right and wrong way to look at, you know, Evangelion or whatever thing you're talking about. And now it's much more welcoming, which, especially with tabletop games, I mean, the tabletop community is, I think, on the more welcoming side. In the person-to-person world, I guess the online is a whole other beast. But finding an actual table and working with those kinds of people
00:55:12
Speaker
those people want more people to play and they want new people at their tables. And so that's so lovely. I mean, I like I don't I don't remember that being geek culture. And so now that it is, I am so happy that that's that's the way it is that you can say, hey, come watch this thing with me. And you can have an actual discussion about, you know, I liked it, but I didn't I didn't love
00:55:29
Speaker
XYZ part where I would have done this differently or whatever, and maybe that's the filmmaker side of like, ah, you know, they really missed an opportunity to tell this story. In itself that, oh, they missed an opportunity there. That is kind of 30% of inspiration.
00:55:44
Speaker
the itch to tell a story that you have not heard satisfyingly told oh yeah i love that especially when you're talking about a tabletop game in a universe that exists you go oh you know what would have been really cool is an episode like this i wish we'd gotten to do that or oh you know it'd be great is we got to watch a star wars movie with this kind of cast these kinds of characters i think that's such a fun way to to look at that
00:56:05
Speaker
But yeah, running a season of a game with this franchise does give me that wish fulfillment of I never saw an episode where a Time Lord who didn't have a thousand years of experience under his belt
00:56:19
Speaker
knew exactly what he was doing every room he walked into.
Doctor Who Campaigns and Character Influence
00:56:23
Speaker
And that itch for discovery is missing, I think, from some Doctor Who? Not all of it. There was a point in Matt Smith's era, which I was especially fond of, someone had gotten him angry. And the experience for him was novel. He's like, I don't know what I'm going to do next.
00:56:43
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. It was the first time the character, like this incarnation of the character, had actually hit a speed bump. The rest of the time it's all practiced speeches and don't ever try to play games with me. Don't ever, ever think that you could. And there's that level of hyper competence that's in place.
00:57:02
Speaker
And that's great. That works for a mysterious Time Lord who's been traveling the galaxy for eons because that's literally what they've been doing. But with someone like the Fixer, with other Time Lords in the doctoral program, they are new at this. They are inexperienced. It is a discovery for them.
00:57:22
Speaker
And that is some of the really good stuff I'm trying to find, especially with this team.
00:57:33
Speaker
Yeah, and when you're talking about the show versus a tabletop game, the show really leans on companions as that kind of thing. They are the ones who've not experienced the universe. They are the ones who are having their eyes open to this. And they're the ones who are in danger, essentially, because you do start to feel like the doctor. Well, the doctor is not going to die or lose or whatever. We know that he
00:57:54
Speaker
connects again with River in the future or whatever, like all these sort of ongoing beats that mean he will continue existing in some form. And so the companions are the ones that, not that they're your perspective character, but they add the risk, they add the exploration, and they add the wonder, I guess. And it's not always perfectly successful, but it leans you towards like, what if you had that kind of a Time Lord who is not the Doctor, or what was his youth like?
00:58:19
Speaker
I do think that like the companion characters are at least when you're looking at a tabletop world and you're looking at other systems, D&D and things like that, like companions line up more in my mind with what a player character is and the way that they experience the world. And that's I think like if I was trying to find a beat that I was trying to mimic from that in the storytelling aspect of these games, Amy and Rory, like their endings, I mean, they would be pretty tragic endings for your campaign characters, but
00:58:47
Speaker
the idea of the centurion ending for him that is such a good like character through point if you were to look at that as a dnd character you're really paying attention to what he values so if it's your player what your player values for their character what carries that emotion what would feel complete for them but maybe not the thing they were expecting because you have this big sci-fi adventure where you're running around and for him to end up
00:59:10
Speaker
sitting guard in Centurium's outfit for hundreds of years, is it defies your expectation. It's not the picture you would have drawn for him in his first appearance, but it does feel cohesive. And so to get to play those those sort of endings out, I think is a great way to sort of mimic your source material as well.
00:59:27
Speaker
Your players and your audience are looking for that structure that's familiar to them. And that's a great, a great way to mimic that is in the short term and the long term. We're talking about Monster of the Week and then also your big villain. Same idea. You know, you want, you want those endings to feel appropriate for your characters. And then in the long run, the big endings, you want them to feel like you really came together. All their, their whole story felt cohesive and clear. I do think part of a good companion is affecting the trajectory of their Time Lord.
00:59:57
Speaker
And unfortunately, I'm speaking mostly about the game and not the show, because the Doctor as a character, Regeneration's notwithstanding, are kind of static. But you're right that it doesn't always affect majorly, but it does, I think, give you the window, right, as an audience member to those emotional moments. So you're talking about this anger moment, right?
01:00:20
Speaker
And for him to get there, there has to be risk. And if he's traveling alone, that risk is is mitigated. There are episodes where he travels alone and he attaches to the people who he's visiting that that sort of work. But it is always the ones he's emotionally invested in that hit the heaviest. And so it less than like I see what you're saying about them change. Like you want that you want that character evolution and that they are the avenue for perspective for that doctor or the time Lord that you're talking about to change and to evolve.
01:00:47
Speaker
But in the show, they don't always function as that. They function as the emotional window for us. But if you're playing at a table and you're playing with companions or players or whatever your angle is, them being avenues of evolution for each other, that your players and the characters they're playing, even outside of a doctor who scenario a table of any of these games, you want your players to be invested enough that they themselves are, I mean, maybe change for the better by playing this game, but that their characters at least are influencing each other.
01:01:17
Speaker
you know, you want that kind of this sort of evolution of character to not just come from your world, to not just come from the story that I wrote down, but to come from the player's direct influence and a really low key version of that in my current campaign. Again, a divination wizard, wonderful player. Actually, this whole table is fantastic. One of my players is playing this divination wizard. She's an old lady tortle, pulls tarot cards and does readings.
01:01:40
Speaker
And she actually brings a deck of tarot cards to the sessions and she'll throughout things making decisions and whatever pull cards and and make an interpretation of what she thinks about a person or what she decides to do. And sometimes she'll share them with the group and sometimes she won't. The ones that she has shared with the group are so freakishly spot on.
01:02:01
Speaker
Every single time, whether it's a thing that I've shared with the group or not, sometimes she'll like call out a character who's secretly evil or whatever with these cards. And it's shocking how accurate they've been. And because of that, because we have recognized multiple times now at the table that these are really accurate and surprisingly so, it has changed the way the other characters think about the game because they ask more.
01:02:23
Speaker
do you pull a card on this or oh what do the cards say they think more about prophecy and fate and can you influence those things and so it also just gives you opportunity to mess with that but that sort of even at a gameplay perspective of these characters have changed the way they approach situations because of one character one player really effectively using their tools
01:02:43
Speaker
And then that as a DM, I mean, I couldn't have asked for a better storytelling tool. This the perspective of divination in that and prophecy is as a storyteller, that tool is so fun. It's so different and so unique to this setting to get to play with that and so heavily influenced by your players that so often she will pull a card in a session
01:03:04
Speaker
or a God will speak to one of the other characters and you get to throw a wrench in the works that the two prophecies don't line up. And so to give them the tools to influence each other in their decisions, well, I saw this in the future, but my God wants this, you know, those sorts of that sort of push and pull of fate and of character is such a great way to get them to push each other. And then also, you know, you want emotional beats to influence each other. You want your your players to feel affected emotionally. And it doesn't have to be. I think sometimes when you say that, people are like, yeah, make them cry.
01:03:33
Speaker
And it's like, well, yeah, OK, if that's the point, you don't always have to make your players cry. Sometimes affecting emotionally can be positive that they feel they feel connected to each other and the world and that there's a character in the world that they love now and that they feel invested in. And that doesn't mean you have to use that as a tool to kill them and make them feel like the bad guys, the ultimate evil. Sure, you can know that they don't have to.
01:03:56
Speaker
And so getting an emotional response and getting them to really hold that world and those characters in their heart in a way that affects them as players is like, it's the ultimate goal, right? It's that they walk right from the table. Not just, oh yeah, I remember one time this happened. It's like, wow, when that happened, I remember the feeling. I remember walking away from that like,
01:04:13
Speaker
What are we going to do? And that is such a dramatic emotional response that I just you don't get. I mean, there are video games that give great emotional pull. I obviously talking a lot about the last of us right now that no sort of single player investment that you line up with characters who are not yourself to experience the story and you're physically
01:04:33
Speaker
influencing it but it still tells a story that whether or not you make choices that pre-exists and you're not that there aren't really multiplayer versions of that you know when you're playing fortnight you're not they're not telling a story together other than did we win or did we die I guess it's like the very basic version of battle royale or hunger games but but there's less drama to that I guess you could put some music over it and make a little hype real
01:04:55
Speaker
don't give away our secrets yeah but but i'm you know you to get them invested in that that story is so unique to the medium and that they are equal parts to creating that emotion and that emotional influence and pull and continuity i don't i can't think of another medium that you get that in i mean even in filmmaking and and screenwriting like you're talking about you know
01:05:17
Speaker
Even if you're at a table and you have a bunch of people who are writing together, you still know what that end product is, that
Unpredictability in D&D Storytelling
01:05:22
Speaker
end product. And then it goes through actors and directors. And that's another layer of filters. And the thing that was in your head changes and changes. But at the end, there is a product. And you can't pre-write that product in D&D. That thing that you get at the end, that story that you all told together is unpredictable. And you could not even begin to say, I'm going to sit down and write my campaign, start to finish, and I will nail it. Here's writing a book.
01:05:46
Speaker
Which, you know, I'm sure people do write books that way. If you roll dice to write your book, awesome. I have to try that sometime. I think that would be fun. One of the best writing tips I ever got for writing a scene, your average narrative scene can end one of four ways. The protagonist gets what they want. The protagonist gets what they want, but with a problem involved. The protagonist fails to get what they want, and the protagonist fails to get what they want, and things are even worse.
01:06:15
Speaker
9 out of 10 times the fourth choice is the most interesting. No, the hero failed, and things are worse now. How are they gonna get out of it now? I feel like we've been seeing a lot of where that scene is not even about the protagonist anymore, especially in television media.
01:06:31
Speaker
you get an ensemble piece that then becomes about a group and you have your protagonist, whether or not they get what they want or what their situation is, you sort of change perspective a little bit and to get to hop around and make sure that everyone's time is, everyone has their protagonist moment to answer one of those four ways is such a fun way to look at it too because you have, you know, multiple characters at your table and even in Doctor Who in the show, the Doctor is the main character but the companions still need their
01:06:56
Speaker
narrative answers their narrative moments to feel whole but yeah i think i think like looking at a character that way in their in their moment what do they get is such a good angle or do they not get what they want and when you're looking at your characters at the table even in the moment to to think okay well
01:07:12
Speaker
I want to reward them, but they rolled middle. So reward with some success or reward with a consequence is such a good tool. I think those four endings are kind of the 1 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20 ranges on your die when you're rolling that. Yeah. With crits, then you do something special, I guess, if you like to. I am not eager to kill characters, PC or otherwise, but that does not mean I am afraid to hurt them.
01:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally understand that. I think that like the only consequence being death is it's hyperbole, right? Like you'd see that in RPG horror stories and posts like that where my DM killed my character off with no reason, with no chance for me to roll against it or whatever.
01:07:59
Speaker
And honestly, in that scenario, death is the best reward because you can say, all right, I'm done. My character's dead. I'm out. I'm walking away. But but but when you have other consequences, you know, injury or or beyond that emotional impact, those are just as solid of consequences. Death is not the only way to punish your your player's characters.
01:08:20
Speaker
Not at all. Like in a recent game, the Fixer and Tripp, this is thrift apart, they are trying to make their way across an open quarry field during an earthquake. And because of the rolls that they wind up rolling, Tripp sprains his ankle and the Fixer breaks his ankle. And it was so funny because my spouse and I love watching Star Trek, Strange New Worlds,
01:08:47
Speaker
And there's been some narrative overlap that made me do a double take where a character was shot in the leg with a phaser and were basically laid out. On a show, that kind of injury would be like, leave me, go on by yourself. And in a game, it's we have to keep going. We have to press on together. And the difference, the fact that the fixer can no longer easily or at all move
01:09:13
Speaker
on his own power makes his contributions that much more desperate because now he's an advisor, now he's telling Drip where to go. He has to adapt to his narrowed options and that is so much more interesting than giving him a clear rosy garden
Character Development through Challenges
01:09:29
Speaker
path.
01:09:29
Speaker
It really is. I did think for a moment, because we were just talking about death, that when you said two characters broke their ankles, you were going to say, so we put them down. And I got really nervous about what was going to happen in your story. There was something about the broken angles. I was like, that's horses, right? All right, they're done. That's horses. No, that's not good storytelling. Centaurs across the planet just shivered with fear. Yeah, don't do that in your campaign. If somebody breaks their ankle, don't. I mean, let your players do what they're going to do, but make it make sense.
01:09:56
Speaker
Uh, yeah, yeah, no, I, I absolutely, I think consequence has to go beyond death, right? Because if the only fear is death, then, then all you're really setting up is the reward for heroic sacrifice. And that's great in some moments, but that's just the only trump card your players have is, okay, well, if it gets bad enough, I'll throw myself into the fire and save some people and die. And then I'll play a new character. But you know, if you, if you set up more consequences and that again, coming all the way back to the beginning of what we were talking about, the, the players set up.
01:10:24
Speaker
Knowing what counts as consequence for your players and their specific characters, they're invested in something else. One of my players in this current campaign is.
01:10:32
Speaker
He's playing a fantastic character that's essentially Nacho Libre, which is such a fun take. And it comes up every now and then that, you know, there are these orphans back home that he takes care of, as Nacho does. And to wave that consequence in front of his face that the current big bad is a mind flayer. And if this thing overtakes the world, those orphans are endangered is so easy, right? It's such an easy, quick pull. And it's not, you'll die.
01:11:02
Speaker
It's, well, remember the thing that you're fighting for, the thing that you care the most about? That is the immediate consequence. And to sort of dangle that in front of them is such a good consequence. And then you surprise them with the quick consequences like you're talking about, a broken ankle, an injury that's non-lethal that changes the way that you approach a puzzle or a moment is such a good way to keep your players on your toes. Plus, it also rewards them down the road because now they know what they can survive.
01:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. Adversity, I find, makes for stronger PCs down the road. And I'm not just talking about accruing experience points or distinctions for your character sheet. I'm talking about an experience a character has that they can draw on later on is like, no, we're going to get through this. We've been through worse.
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And talking about experience points, that's one of the reasons that I run Milestone is that negative experiences, you know, fighting, killing something, it doesn't have to be the entirety of what makes your character grow. Right. And so I love to mix in a session of fun, of a festival, of a party, of something that is you expect, oh, at the end of this, a monster will show up. Nope.
01:12:16
Speaker
This is just fun. We're going to do minigames for six hours, you know, and and you really sit down and play out a fun, happy memory for those characters. And in those moments, you get to reward creative uses of their tools, of spells that they have, of skill checks, of different items that they've acquired, you know, and moments like you're talking about, things that they remember, other people and stories that they remember from the world.
01:12:38
Speaker
rewarding the use of those things in a non-combat, non-dread inducing situation. It's a great way for their character to grow. I grow from the good things in my life. I think a character should too. And so by doing that, you say, okay, well milestone, at the end of that session, oh, we didn't kill any rats. Well, that's okay. You still get some experience. You're still level up. I never do numbered experience anymore for exactly that reason. I think it's like,
01:13:03
Speaker
Brennan Lee Mulligan was talking about that where he said, if you had a society based on wizards who who become more powerful by killing things, they would just have like a room for bludgeoning rats and they would just go in there all day and kill rats. I got to go recharge my scepter. I'm going to go kill 28 and a half rats. I'll be back. Yeah, I got to get a higher level so I can use the next spell or whatever. So you just hear them going in there here squealing or whatever. Like, yeah, like that's not rewarding as a story. So why why play your your levels like that? Why might have your character structure on that? So
01:13:32
Speaker
So instead to reward good and bad and reward creative thinking in that way, I think that's, I mean, that's definitely the way to go. Absolutely. So Tommy, what can you tell us about the test table?
Tommy Garber’s New Project
01:13:43
Speaker
How is getting that ready going for you? Oh, I love that. That is such a fun project idea. And I think, I don't know, we didn't really talk about when this will come out, but I actually think it will have done one or two by the time that this airs. Nice. So the idea came from creating content, because I was talking about stealing. And I use a lot of online tools when I run my personal tables.
01:14:02
Speaker
If you're doing something online and you're publishing stuff, you have to pay the people to make that stuff. That's what I'm saying. You gotta be paying people. But if you're doing something for fun on the side and you can pay for stuff, great. If you're using tools that pre-exist and stories that pre-exist, great. Like we're talking about one-shots, sort of things that you can slot into your adventure as one-off moments of a story that fits in very flexible ways of a murder mystery, of a whodunit that slots into any world. I wanted to make those and I thought every time I've read one of these, I have so many questions about the process.
01:14:32
Speaker
What made you include this character? What made you, you know, centered around this villain or God? And so I thought it'd be really fun to use Twitch like that. And so what we're doing is the first, so like, let's say it's, I think it will be on Wednesdays, but schedules are in the air right now. The first session is just me and the audience and we're building an adventure together.
01:14:51
Speaker
So sometimes I'll use polls, this thing or this thing, you know, really simple. And I'm talking through what I'm doing on there so that you can sort of see what the thought process is, why I'm including certain things. Then the following week, I run that with a different group of people. I have some people who are Twitch streamers and some who just love the games, who are really interested, who were really excited to have on. And so we'll play through that adventure.
01:15:14
Speaker
Again, on stream. Nice. And then the following session, I will bring that adventure back and we'll make some edits because every time I run a session, that's a new adventure. I'm like, wow, I really needed this tool and I didn't prepare that or wow. This one thing I put in there really did not work.
01:15:29
Speaker
That's what I run into the most is, oh, I had a monster and I put them up against a group of people and man, it did not have enough health. Or the way it did damage was too widespread or it didn't really fit this room that you put them in. And so to get to adjust those and say, you know, if you run this, here's what you do. And then we make all of those tools available. So the adventure is set into a one sheet and formatted for public use. And so it's just downloadable and available for anybody who wants to throw that into their adventure.
01:15:54
Speaker
that is really really cool that is really really cool yeah thank you i think i think it'll be fun to hopefully fun to watch but it'll definitely be fun to make see here's how i know you're gonna be fine because you enjoy the making of it like i've i've been in creative business of one kind or another for
01:16:16
Speaker
close to 20 years in various fields. And the people that just want to get it done, they just want to get it done so they can have something they can show. Like, it's great to have a work ethic, but the people that genuinely enjoy the crafting, the time they spend putting it together in the freaking first place
01:16:36
Speaker
Those are the creatives I really enjoy talking with. Those are the ones I really feel have that extra pepper in their step. Yeah. Even if things go pear-shaped, even if things go completely sideways, it can be a learning experience and it can be, okay, well, I know what not to do next time. I am a big fan of the mistake it till you make it approach. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think there's a great, you know, if you enjoy the process of making it,
01:17:03
Speaker
I spent the last year developing a TV show and then we have a writer's strike. So, you know, there's, there's a bit of a stall going on here and a sag strike coming on and very pro union here. So good. Get, get your money. Uh, but get paid.
01:17:15
Speaker
But it puts a little stall in the sales process for sure. But I am also one of those people who has a huge notebook of ideas and films that I've developed and written the script out. And I don't always have the push to finish that. And so this last year has been getting those things off the ground. And so this next year is, all right, let's actually make some of this stuff. So you have to have a balance of doing those two things together. But I do think there's even if you never make it, or not that you never make it, but you don't make it right when you think you're going to, whether it's content or film or
01:17:45
Speaker
even just a D and D campaign, you write this idea down. Taika Waititi was talking in an interview about how he writes a whole idea out and he puts it away and he comes back to it like a year later. And then he doesn't reread it. He writes it from memory and the parts that stick with him are, are the important parts are the parts that are working. And then the parts that fade out, those don't work. Those don't stick. And I, I had been unintentionally doing that same thing for years where I write a script and then, uh, you know, I'm not going to be able to make this right now. I'll come back to it later.
01:18:13
Speaker
And even with D&D stuff, I think that that works so well to say, Oh, you know, this monster would be so fun. I'd love to do something with a with Tiamat. Oh, I would love to use Tiamat, the five headed dragon God. What a fun time that would be. And then, oh, well, my campaign is not going to get there or my campaign. Your campaign falls apart because of scheduling. You know, that happens to everybody.
01:18:32
Speaker
save that later for later and keep that idea in your head. And you're going to come up with stuff just by letting it simmer on the back. You know, you'll, you'll come back to it and go, Oh, you know, it would have been even better. And if you'd done it in the first place, you wouldn't have gotten to add that little element in there.
Creative Pursuits and Learning
01:18:45
Speaker
So I think, I think giving things the time is, is good. And if you enjoy making it, none of that time is wasted time. Not at all. Not at all.
01:18:52
Speaker
Yes, time spent on creative pursuits is time well spent so long as it doesn't get in the way of living or making a living or doing the things that we need to do to be functioning members of society.
01:19:05
Speaker
Don't steal people's stuff. You know, AI has its place, but go learn how to draw. It's okay to be bad. I think that's also good DM advice and GM advice of any kind is, you know, it's okay to be bad. Don't wait until you think you're going to be great at it to do it. Just sit around a table with your friends, do it, be bad at it. I don't, I don't do voices.
01:19:24
Speaker
But I don't do character voices unless I have something really dumb and zany because I can't really nail accents. And that can be a slippery slope to offensive. So I don't even try anymore. So the only character voices I do are like screaming little cobalt and stuff, you know, gotcha. But, you know, you don't have to have every element perfect. Find the things that you're good at and, you know, push that part and make that the make that your comfort zone, make that the thing that keeps you safe and keeps your game rolling. And then the rest of it, learn as you go and steal.
01:19:53
Speaker
Steal, steal, steal, steal, steal, because everything that's out there, there's so many tools that will help you and you can use them as a crutch until you are excited enough and you feel you've gained enough of those tools on your own to do it yourself and then try it out. And then if you fail, do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again. Every disappointment, every unexpected outcome on a creative pursuit can teach us something.
01:20:18
Speaker
It can teach us how we react to something upsetting. It can teach us how to try something differently. It can show us how important something is to us. I started out as an actor and I was certain, I was a hundred percent certain that that was going to be my future. And then I learned that voice acting.
01:20:38
Speaker
could be more my speed and more my, in my wheelhouse and writing became more and more and more of a part of my life. And like, I, you, there was a time in my life where I was doing something like six different community theater shows in a year. And I did not stop to catch my breath from the end of one show to the start of rehearsals for the next.
01:21:06
Speaker
because I was young and I had the energy and I was lonely and I didn't think there were other ways to be productively spending my time and did some truly wonderful theater.
01:21:20
Speaker
I don't miss it. I don't miss being on stage. Like if I don't write for two days, I'm going to go stir crazy. If I don't get into a booth and spend some time putting one of these stories together, like I feel like I'm letting myself down in some way.
01:21:37
Speaker
I think that's so interesting that you sort of followed the natural flow to new things where I did that in reverse. I went to school for directing. And the reason I did that was because I went to Chapman, great school, where the directing program touches all parts of production. And so I got to learn about editing and sound design to a degree that I wouldn't have if I had specialized in something else. And so I was like, I'm not going to be a director. There are three people in the world who get to be directors, and I'm not James Cameron.
01:22:06
Speaker
Like, you know, I don't have money. I don't have connections in the industry. That's just not going to be my place. And so I did that. So I'd have all the tools and having all those tools is what got me my first jobs in production. And I started working in entertainment marketing and doing commercials and doing post-production stuff. And now I'm coming around to doing directing again.
01:22:27
Speaker
And actually that being the viable career path for me, which is like wild that I was like, no, I'm never going to get to do that. Uh, nobody cares what I have to say or what stories I want to tell. And now it's like, actually, yeah, people do care. And, and there are people who I work with who are fantastic and collaborative and, and they, those teams work. And so to get to do that again is just so fun. Um, and, and you get some wild, oh yeah, thank you. I mean, it's still on the path, right? Like I'm not, nobody's going to see a movie for me in the theaters this year, but.
01:22:55
Speaker
But maybe in two years, maybe we're on the path. So if anybody wants to throw a million dollars at me and fund a movie, hit me up. But that's the hardest part. And I'm not a fundraiser. So that's a skill that I need to learn. And there's tons of stuff online that I can steal, steal, steal. I'm not talking about stealing actual money. I'm talking about stealing the methods to get money. I'm not going to rob a bank.
01:23:16
Speaker
FBI. Yeah, copying the methods. Copying the methods. It's not like they don't have them anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I am going to take them from they can't use them anymore. They're mine now. This is kickstarters only for me. Everybody else get off there. No, but yeah, that idea is kickstarters. Yeah, that's it. And it's just four of my movies on the front page and they're all different and they're all for 250 million dollars and half. That's for me.
01:23:42
Speaker
No, but the idea of getting to come back to that and all of those experiences, just like we're talking about with all those failures, all the experiences along the way, your acting experience, even though you might not be doing acting on stage anymore. That is an incredibly valuable tool for voice acting, for performance, and for tabletop games, for GMing. And to get to use all of those is so great. The practice of figuring out how to get into a character's head
01:24:07
Speaker
taught me how to get into a character I had created on the page and see things from their perspective and understand why they're making their choices and what is coming out of their mouths and in writing wise I think like having acted it's such a valuable experience to know the limitations of hearing a conversation in your head to know when you say okay this has to I gotta take this to a table read
01:24:29
Speaker
Or I need to sit down with a buddy of mine and read this conversation back and forth because you, you know, you turn into sounding board. Exactly. And if you read it to yourself so many times, you're like, yeah, this makes sense. And then you hear someone else reading. You're like, Oh my God, that is nothing that, or that's, that's what I sound like when I talk to myself in the shower or like, I was, I was using the voice. I talked to my dog with like, you're like that. No one talks like this.
01:24:52
Speaker
And it's a job interview scene or whatever. And you're like, I'm good at my job. Nobody talks like that. Like, how did I end up here? And that's just from like cyclical writing and having that experience on stage and improv. You know, the limitations of sitting in a room to the point where you can do that to the point where it's effective and then also step away from it and use other tools that you've learned along the way to perfect your script to make the scene work or to set up your scenario for your table in a way that allows your players to enjoy those improv tools and those conversations more.
01:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, my experience as a screenwriter, where the job is to not write a novel, but to write a blueprint, you're just giving the bones of what is needed to paint the picture, establish the tone, set the characters, and then go.
01:25:39
Speaker
I love that, that phrase of as a, that you're setting up a blueprint. I haven't heard that. And I, I love that. And I love that for a table too, because one of the things that as, as a DM that I struggle with and that I make really intentional efforts to subvert is, um, or to stop myself from doing, it's not subversion, but you know,
01:25:56
Speaker
but to stop myself from doing is I will talk and talk and talk and talk if you let me and one of the most powerful tools at the table is silence is to set up a moment and then let your players handle it let your players talk it out that's the game is that they are the ones playing the game and it can be really tempting to
01:26:13
Speaker
not only monologue in character, but to monologue out of character, to establish so much going on. And then you realize you're talking back and forth as an NPC, you know, to yourself as another NPC for 20 minutes. You're like, oh my God, my table just listened to my mad ramblings, where instead you want them to be engaging in those conversations and to even remove yourself. I mean, my favorite moments at a table are two players talking, having a conversation amongst themselves. Yeah, that I'm not involved in anymore.
01:26:38
Speaker
that is fully plot driven, that is fully invested. I mean, that is out of this world when you see that happen. And it's like an improv moment where they're really in the moment as their characters and as a director to see somebody really feel their character and feel that motivation and understand the tools and the world that they have and use all of those. That's where the magic happens.
01:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, you're like, OK, let's go make a movie. And they're like, I'm an accountant. I don't want to do that. That's such a great moment to say, well, you you just did something amazing. And in that same way, I like post game talk just because I talked myself into this to to congratulate moments like that.
01:27:16
Speaker
to come back to your table on every episode. Yeah. Yeah. To come back on discord for your own private tables and say, Hey, before we scheduled next week, I want to say that thing you did is so cool. One of my players has been doing our recaps on his own volition. And it's an amazing thing because it's almost in character perspective because sometimes he misses things. Sometimes he gets things I didn't really mean to put out there, but those work so well. And it's such that it's that extra mile, you know, that really you're embracing the world.
01:27:43
Speaker
Like the overlap of filmmaking and tabletop games is so heavy that we get into, I mean, a director screenwriter conversation between the two of us is like, there's so much to explore and to talk about that overlaps and isn't just, hey, have you seen this movie that feels like this? And isn't just, hey, have you ever done this in a D&D game? I think there's so much really interesting overlap. I love talking about this. And I love pulling film people into D&D that have not done it before.
01:28:11
Speaker
That's so fun to get to, you know, embrace that world with them and shock them at what that's like and wow, yeah, okay, I see how this overlaps and also I, you know, this isn't for me is a totally fine answer but then they check that off and they get to tell their friends they play D&D over the weekend and then they go see the D&D movie and they have a little bit more, you know, of an attachment to it, I guess. I hear that.
01:28:39
Speaker
Tommy, thank you so much for coming on our show today. It has been a genuine pleasure talking with you. Thank you. Yeah, you too. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you for being here today. It's been a real treat. Definitely. Thank you. And finally, to our listeners, another big thank you for sharing your precious time with us. If you feel it's been well spent, please share the joy of GMing with your friends who are looking to enjoy themselves.
01:29:06
Speaker
You can email your questions for future episodes at anywherebutnowpodcastatgmail.com. And if you'd like me to run a game of Dr. Who for you, reach out on startplaying.games. Links to everything for me and for Tommy in the doobly-doo. If you like what you hear, leave a review. Rate the show and follow us on Twitter at anywherebutnow with an underscore at the end and wherever you get your podcasts. From all of us, I'm Casey Jones. Thanks so much and have a great day.