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Is This Thing On...line? Running an Online Game (with special guest Nate from Tabletop Empire)
36 Plays19 days ago
Daryl and Nick take a look at ideas to help make the online gaming experience smoother, with an assist from Nate, the host of the Tabletop Empire YouTube channel.
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Transcript
Introduction to How We Roll Gaming
00:00:01
Speaker
with the coach D20 Radio, at your gamers roll.
00:00:17
Speaker
How We Roll Gaming is dedicated to spreading enjoyment of great role-playing games. We hope to bring you insights into games you may not have played, tips to be a better game master and player, and share stories of momentous events at our tables.
00:00:29
Speaker
Every game is a new story to tell. I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And here's Robert. And this is How We Roll.
Weekly Updates and Personal Highlights
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast. ah Nick, we've had a busy couple of weeks since we last recorded, haven't we? Needless to say.
00:00:55
Speaker
I mean, the the whole How We Roll crew, GMs and players, minus Robert, who was moving and is still getting settled into his new place today, went to go see Superman over the weekend.
00:01:07
Speaker
um that Then a handful of us recorded our sister podcast, Casual Nerdity, ah about it. And now here we are back a couple of days later in front of the mics to record how we roll.
00:01:18
Speaker
So I don't know about you. I haven't had much time for anything else. um I still need to dive into Daggerheart. and This week I did receive from my Kickstarter support, Beetle and Grimm's D&D 5e supplement, Faster Purple Worm, Everybody Dies Volume 1.
00:01:36
Speaker
nice that is billed as 15 adventures that you'll never survive. So I, I'm looking forward to, to digging into that.
00:01:48
Speaker
And to never letting me take, get a peek at. I'll let you get a peek at it. I'll, I'll bring it over next time I head over. But we agree that Robert can't ever look at it.
00:02:00
Speaker
No, no. Robert kills, kills people. Um, so kids we do have a In role-playing games. Yes, yes, yes.
00:02:11
Speaker
Only in role-playing games, not in real life. we we We haven't confirmed that yet, but my dad does role-playing games. Yes. So we will go ahead and get our business out of the way since we do have a guest this time around ah to sit in Robert's
Podcast Community and Celebrations
00:02:29
Speaker
spot.
00:02:29
Speaker
um So this episode, we're going to highlight our friends Steve and Steve over at Me and Steve Talk RPGs again. And like us, they cover a variety of RPG topics.
00:02:42
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Tips, tricks, some guests, all with a really casual vibe. Personally, i love their Game of the Week segment, usually spotlighting smaller or more obscure games.
00:02:54
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Their most recent episode raised 200 episodes. To mark the occasion, Steve and Steve just kick back and chat about the five-year journey they've been on and Check out me and Steve Talk RPGs through your favorite podcatcher of choice.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yes. So let's let's dive into our topic today, Nick.
The Rise of Online Gaming and Meet Nate
00:03:17
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Online games are becoming more and more prevalent, letting people from all over the world join in ah game together, ignoring borders and having a blast together, especially popular in most recent times.
00:03:31
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We've run some online games, mostly during the COVID times. And since then, we've had some hybrid games with some players in person and some online. But you know our experience is pretty limited.
00:03:45
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And since we're down a host, we're calling in a ringer. We've got Nate from the Tabletop Empire YouTube channel with us. And Nate is also the GM of the channel's actual play, Dark Underworld.
00:03:58
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Nate, thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Very welcome. yeah Now, ostensibly, we're going to be talking about running online games, and we're definitely starting off that way. But if the conversation rolls off the rails, so be it.
00:04:15
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But for starters, tell everybody a bit about Tabletop Empire and Dark Underworld. Yeah, so Tabletop Empire is ah the YouTube channel to go to for Star Wars, the role-playing game by Edge Studios, formerly Fantasy Flight Games.
00:04:32
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um We also sprinkle a little bit of Genesis content here and there, too. Our primary focus this year has been our first actual play, Dark Underworld. um We've premiered...
00:04:46
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17 episodes now so uh it's yeah it seems to be going well people seem to like it which makes us happy because we put a lot of work into it i i am digging it i admit i am crazy far behind i've been catching up on it uh while I work.
00:05:04
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ah Just today, I watched part four and I was having a blast listening to them pose as pirates in disguise.
00:05:14
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ah that That was a lot of fun. And I know that we we talked on, ah a conversation sprung up with us on your Discord server um about episode three, about what we We have since found that that the official name for them is what? ah Underworld Portals? Underworld Portals. Yeah, none of us knew the actual name of the the big hole that ships fly down on Coruscant.
00:05:44
Speaker
So and we um we just referred to it for the first like eight episodes as the hole. um And then one of our active Discord people commented on on the video ah and said that it's called Underworld Portals.
00:05:58
Speaker
And so we we were able to yeah refer to him as that instead of the whole. what What had me laughing about it is we ran into that same question in campaign that I ran that was set on Coruscant.
00:06:13
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And I mentioned this on the discord. We settled on Burroughs because it's, it's a nice little, little pun because it's kind of a homonym but because you burrow into the surface, but it also is like the burrows of Manhattan.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah. So like I think we are further down the burrows, the more sketchier it gets. Yes. Yeah. We, we we did. We, in that sense, and we, I did find the, the the term underworld portal and it mentioned it, but we kind of dug like the, but calllo call the they call it more like it's a colloquial term.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, we we just can stuck with Burrows because we're we're kind of goofy that way. If it was a ah private game like where that wasn't being broadcasted, we probably would have just stuck with The Hole because it's kind of funny. like Oh, The Hole sounds hilarious. Being being relatively family-friendly. It's like semi-family friendly. so like trying to get you know The Hole has some implications that are funny. It has their vo implications to one of my favorite games like Like obscure, like British comedy skits.
00:07:26
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Oh, and there's just the whole. Yeah.
00:07:31
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Well, so fill me in a little bit, because obviously not everyone who is running a game online is going to be running a game for broadcast on YouTube.
Balancing Online and In-Person Gaming
00:07:44
Speaker
So there's some there's some different things that you're doing there to be broadcast ready. um understandably. But from what I understand too, from when we were talking at Gamer Nation Con, a decent amount of your gaming with your old gaming group, I know that you have a local group too, is also online.
00:08:06
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Yeah, so at the moment, um I GM Dark Underworld every week that's online. I play weekly with my local group online weekly, and then we play once a month in person.
00:08:19
Speaker
It's just it works better that way because we all have. multiple children or about to have multiple children. ah And so it's like, okay, we get to play when the kids go to bed kind of thing. And we all live kind of, you know, the farthest of us live, you know, 50 minutes away. So it's kind of hard to do that with the weekly. So we, we meet like once a month over the weekend in person for like four or five hours. um But I recently joined. um So Noah, who's in our actual play, he plays a Wookiee named Raggro.
00:08:46
Speaker
He's GMing a game of masks, a new generation, which is under the power by the apocalypse umbrella. ah once a month that I'm playing in online and then he also is going to be jamming a dagger heart campaign that we've done nice zero for well two we did two took two sessions to get through session zero but we've done session zero for and that one's also online so I've been playing a good job of online just because having small children means it's pretty much the only way I'm able to kind of consistently be able to play
00:09:20
Speaker
So let me let me tell you from firsthand experience, you're going to love when they start to get old enough to play themselves. Oh yeah, for sure. Because um our son didn't come with us to Gamer Nation Con because he he went the first year that we went, there wasn't really anything that he wanted to play.
00:09:40
Speaker
he went the second year that we went just to play Fallout. um And the rest of the time he's like, nah, it'd be a waste of It would be a waste of the money. i just There's nothing I really want to play. Like, oh, you're boring.
00:09:56
Speaker
But yeah um he was about 12, 13, somewhere in there, when I started playing in games at Knicks.
00:10:07
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And hu I brought him along one time because you we didn't want to leave him at home alone. my wife was off doing something. was like, you're coming with me to this game. And his plan was he was going to sit in the corner, play his 3DS.
00:10:24
Speaker
I remember you, again, I think that was, that was the first time I met you. That was the second or third time I was there. Second or third. But you did message me beforehand and said like, is it okay to bring your kid? And I was like, yeah, I'll set up a little corner for him.
00:10:41
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And so, He then slowly... As the game was going on, he kind of crept over more and more because he was getting interested in what was going on.
00:10:53
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And by the end of the session, he's like tossing ideas at us for dealing with situations and is just having a blast. So on our way out, Nick handed him a character sheet and is like, you know you're welcome to come back next time. Just bring a character.
00:11:10
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And he's become one of Nick's strongest players in the 10 years since. ah He's actually finishing up a campaign this weekend. would Be sure to remind him to tonight that, yes, we are finishing Whisper Base this Sunday.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yes, Nick, I'll remind him. But what would you say, Nate? I'm going to throw you right in the deep end here. What would you say is the most important aspect to think of when you're running an online game?
00:11:39
Speaker
Camera. Webcam. Like ah it's like hands down, 100% playing with a webcam on is the best jump in the experience from...
00:11:51
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Like if you take anything else take any of anything else away, it won't feel as drastic as taking away the webcam because a lot of tabletop role-playing is this collaborative experience with you and other players.
00:12:04
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And if you can't like read their facial, looks like the GM can't read their players' facial expressions. They don't know how engaged their players really are. um it's a lower It's a lot harder to realize how engaged their players are.
00:12:14
Speaker
um If the players don't have webcams and they can't, you know, see their other characters characters are reacting to like what they're actually saying. That did contribute to a, we're not going to go into the events, but that I did always suspect that that contributed to an event that happened during our COVID games where we had a couple disagreements that probably shouldn't have not been so strong.
00:12:43
Speaker
and i was suspected Yeah, because we we didn't we did not have a cam requirement. I will say that disagreements can still happen never with cameras. but theyve They've never been as strong strong and had these players in public before and never had disagreements like what happened in these, again, not naming names or naming even campaigns, but there were some moments that I have reflected on like the difference I think was the lack of lack of like be being face to face.
00:13:20
Speaker
yeahs um Yeah. Cause you can also read body language for like, if somebody wants to speak up or not too. ah Whereas it's really, really easy to,
00:13:32
Speaker
You know, for like one or two players to like kind of take over the spotlight because they don't realize that other players maybe want to hop in. So I've had the game. I've had that happen before where I was playing in a game. This is another one that um Noah was jamming actually where there wasn't a webcam.
00:13:45
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ah requirement and ah nobody else was using the webcam besides me and Noah. So we were kind of like, whatever, we just won't use our webcams, I guess. um But it was like two characters would just constantly talk and take over the spotlight and like one would pitch in, like chime in before the other one, like when they were like on the tail end of their sentence.
00:14:03
Speaker
And so it was like there was never like a space to jump in and actually participate. That is fair. And again, like, at least I'll give credence to the fact we were not equipped for that, nor we were planning for that to be long term. It was entirely condition based.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I feel like that that yeah probably similar experiences happened to other DMs because there was a big uptick in people running online games during a certain event that we can't talk about because because it might demonetize us.
00:14:36
Speaker
We're not
Challenges in Online RPGs
00:14:37
Speaker
monetized yet, Nick. We will be one day.
00:14:44
Speaker
like there's, there's a lot of aspects to playing a tabletop role-playing game, but really like the most other things apply to in-person games too.
00:14:55
Speaker
Um, I mean, obviously it it helps when you know the people you're playing with versus playing with complete strangers because that that brings its own set of difficulties. cold tea like i I don't think I could have run the games that I did or continued the games that were ongoing at that point online without having known these guys and being able to like know them because...
00:15:22
Speaker
Again, I predict and could see the same problems that you mentioned that, yeah, Sang's voice is maybe stronger or, again, it's in we were imperfect and but that's mainly because we never planned for that in the first place.
00:15:38
Speaker
So planning for that is probably a big portion of like whether you, how you want, if you know people that can help, but also, as you should mentioned, at least the players Players have having having face cams, if they're comfortable of that, is probably a strong factor to making it work.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, we do still have... Sorry, go ahead. go ahead. I mean, I'll even say that in... Even in like one or two of the games I'm playing in now, like there's one or two players that don't have webcams, so they're not able to use them.
00:16:17
Speaker
So it's not like it's it's absolutely required or anything. And if you actually know the people well enough, then it's not. That big of a deal, but I would say like it's definitely helpful when at least most of the people.
00:16:32
Speaker
are having that ah somewhat of a face-to-face interaction. um It's really easy for me, at least me personally, when my when there's no webcams, it's really easy for me to like get distracted by something and lose my train of thought and then be like, oh, wait, I haven't been paying attention in 15 minutes. What's going on? I'm completely lost.
00:16:50
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Whereas if I can like see the person I'm interacting with, like it's easy for me to engage and listen and be invested in in what they're saying a bit more. Yeah, I found online I don't engage as well, but again, we haven't we didn't have cams on, but i it's really easy for me to have that squirrel moment when I'm online.
00:17:14
Speaker
And we do still have one player. he was He was in our RPG Glory Stories episode, our last one, Brian. That's originally, yeah. who who still, he does still play online. He's in one or one campaign that we currently have going.
00:17:30
Speaker
He still plays online because he's a college student. He's going to a relatively local college, but we don't expect him to make the hour drive down to Nick's house to join the game.
00:17:44
Speaker
We would love for him to be in person, but um because we've played with him in person before, but we we do have now have a webcam that when Brian is on, ah we will plug the webcam in. He's on Discord.
00:18:00
Speaker
We've got the webcam that hits part of the group and the table so that we got anything visual and dice rules and stuff like that, he can see. If it's mostly visual, we'll pan the camera up.
00:18:16
Speaker
And if it's mostly like we need like battle map, we we put the table on there. We also have other players like ah take pictures. We also have some that has helped with players who are either not feeling in the best best way or just away from ability to be there.
00:18:34
Speaker
So we are able to keep them in the games. We usually do prefer them in person, but if they can't make it but are able to attend, quote unquote, we do allow them to attend online, such as like not feeling well or because I think your wife was injured one time and she needed to, she couldn't come physically.
00:18:58
Speaker
Right, because she could not get up the stairs at your house to the game room. Yes. But she was there able to attend and we used the camera and microphone that we have to ah yeah to accommodate.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yep. and And that's another thing as well, that it's ah it's a accommodation tool for those that are unable to, to attend physically or want to, but can't make it. it for those person So you don't have to cancel entirely.
00:19:30
Speaker
it is a way of keeping players involved, even if they can't make it. Right. And another big question for online games Which is, it's helpful if you do have webcams on.
00:19:47
Speaker
We all love the feel of those physical click-clack rocks. Yep. Physical dice versus digital dice. I think digital digital... Player preference, or...?
00:19:59
Speaker
um i mean, physical dice is always more fun. um If I'm playing online, I typically would just roll in whatever... we're playing in because that's just easier um though typically um for like non-dark underworld games we're recording people's dice rolls and rpg sessions uh it's we're like me and no are both kind of like yeah if you want to roll your dice in person at your desk feel free if you want to roll it online ah feel free. like We don't really play with the kinds of people that would be like, rolled 1, but i act I'm going to say I rolled a 20 or whatever.
00:20:35
Speaker
rolled 3 failure, but I'm going to say I rolled a success. just doesn't really happen. I'm getting nat twenty all day long!
00:20:44
Speaker
i don't know what it is. but During the time we were were doing the online games, we were mostly doing the Star Wars game and That came with its own unique challenge because it has a proprietary unique dice system.
00:21:02
Speaker
yeah so we have Yeah. but we had we had access to a very well made, integratable dice bot into Discord.
00:21:14
Speaker
and we We were actually, well. Nick ran games, I ran games, and we each had our own separate servers. On mine, I was Frankensteining a standalone Dicebot with RPG sessions.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah. ah And it it was a whole weird Frankenstein assembly that I had going. I had both running on my server, and i was like, use whichever bot you prefer, whichever commands you remember easier for the Dice.
00:21:47
Speaker
But um I preferred Sessions, Destiny, and Initiative tracking abilities over the other die spot.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah. and And this was five years ago, whatever it was. And I know that Sessions has gotten better since then. We just haven't had much call to use it.
00:22:11
Speaker
It's really funny. Yeah. and ah Go for it. I discovered RPG sessions in, I want to say early
Discovering and Partnering with RPG Platforms
00:22:23
Speaker
2023.
00:22:23
Speaker
My Roll20 premium subscription ran out at the end of the year. And I was like, don't want to pay $120 again. I'm going to look for a better VTT that's free or something like it. um And so I went online to see what the options were. And people were throwing at a bunch of stuff like Foundry,
00:22:42
Speaker
And a couple of people were saying RPG sessions. So i was like, you know, I'm going to try RPG sessions. It seems like it's one. It's it's completely free as opposed to all the other ones. so I'm going to give that on a shot. um And so I ran a one shot for some coworkers ah to try to like to figure out at the same time was figuring out RPG sessions.
00:22:57
Speaker
And actually really, really, really liked the product. um And so. i rg sessiones I might have to try that. so It's so good. And then I like about three or four weeks of using it with that group. The one shot turned into like a mini campaign.
00:23:13
Speaker
And I was actually like, you know, I really, really enjoy this website. I think I'm going to email, let's try to email them and see if they want to like sponsor videos or something. um But i was kind of like looking at my channels, like, you know, I still only have like, I have 2000 subscribers. I'm going to wait until I'm a little bit bigger. I think.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah. so i i I don't want to reach out and then get rejected because the channel's not big enough. So I'm going wait until I have 5,000 to 10,000 subscribers and you know then and then email them. Three weeks later... Did we mention our birth store yet?
00:23:43
Speaker
Three weeks later, they emailed me asking if they can sponsor some videos. So I was like... Yeah, sure. and So it was kind of our both of our first experience with doing video sponsorship stuff. But um so i I try to say as much as possible in the videos that they do sponsor. I'm like, yes, I'm i'm they sponsoring the video. But like at the same time, I actually just really love this website and I wanted to grow. And I think you guys will like it, too, kind of thing.
00:24:12
Speaker
So. Yeah, it's definitely the best to roll Star Wars, in my opinion, and Genesis. I need to dig back in to playing around with it because we've been tossing around doing an actual play for how we roll.
Launching an Actual Play Series
00:24:32
Speaker
We're still trying to decide on the system. And partly were we're leaning towards Star Wars because that's what we know the best, even though we we cover everything.
00:24:43
Speaker
Well, everything that we like. If there's a game we don't like, forget about it. There's also a lot of great like systems that we haven't played out that could be fun to explore in that.
00:24:55
Speaker
Right. But you know it's one of those. Well, for the first one, you know Star Wars is is what we know best. It's a bread and butter. It's our bread and butter.
00:25:08
Speaker
At the same time, we're like, okay, well, Nate's cool. And so we we we that's his face. so ah But yeah, I definitely need to to dig back into using it more because i just want to it watching the how much it's advanced...
00:25:30
Speaker
from watching Dark Underworld versus when I was just kind of bashing around with it during during the dark times. ah It's like, oh, wow, this gotten so much better. It was good to start with, and this is so much better now.
00:25:46
Speaker
And you know no, they they don't have to. We are not sponsored by them. This is an ah actual genuine reaction. So.
00:25:58
Speaker
um I actually do have, I put out a full video a month or two ago, ah like pretty much a full explanation for how to, how to set it up. So um if you do decide to give it a try, um you won't have to like fiddle around to learn it. If you don't want to, I can do a video that, get easy.
00:26:16
Speaker
That one is still sitting in, in my, in my to watch list.
00:26:22
Speaker
It's still sitting in my to watch list. You
00:26:27
Speaker
you know, as, As we've talked about just those two elements of it, those are, in hindsight, my brain is telling me, well, those are the two big elements for an online
Key Components for Successful RPG Sessions
00:26:40
Speaker
game. But yeah what else would you say someone would want to keep in mind if they're running an online game?
00:26:48
Speaker
um I would say spotlight awareness. ah And player communication are kind of the other two big things.
00:26:59
Speaker
So one is being self-aware of how much time you are spending your character spending in the main spotlight of the screen time. um And kind of realizing that, okay, you know, I've i've kind of been...
00:27:12
Speaker
in the spotlight now for like 20-30 minutes you know maybe it's okay if I don't respond to the next thing the GM throws out immediately and give it a minute let other people have a chance to speak up try something and if nobody else has any ideas then I can step back in and try to give an idea um But it's like just making sure you're giving enough room for everybody at the table to be able to step forward and say something because some people I'll use our actual play for example like Joe and Lacey who play Keenan and Shay they are very quick-witted like they come up with stuff off the top of their head whereas like me Jeff and Noah are all kind of people that you know it takes us a little bit of time to like figure out what we want to say or do um and so but I think they do a really good job of making sure they're not like just taking the whole
00:27:59
Speaker
the whole of the spotlight, but just being aware of that. Um, and then the other thing I said, player communication, uh, because guess what? Like disagreements do happen, um, in any game typically, like in some capacity and they could be major arguments or minor arguments, but ultimately, you know, it's a collaborated story and all the players kind of have to get on the same page with the story. So that way they can collaboratively tell the story.
00:28:23
Speaker
um, And so just making sure you're communicating ah clearly and concisely and politely and, um you know, sometimes, you know, dropping the ego and realize that, you know, words hard, but...
00:28:41
Speaker
I don't that's the idea across. um But like it even happens yeah for Dark Underworld. like There have been multiple times where we've had to pause. And and so, like for example, Ma and Shae's, the characters' butt heads a lot.
00:28:58
Speaker
So there had to be a lot of moments where I got a game where Joe has to say to Lacey or Lacey to Joe, we're like, hey, like our characters may be mad each other. i so love you. You're great. We're...
00:29:09
Speaker
you know, i care about you I'm not mad at you. This is just like in game. um or there's, there's other moments like, uh, where there's been episodes where the players have been like genuinely frustrated with each other over, over issues and stuff that we've had to talk about for, you know, 30 to 45 minutes. And, but it's still that like at the end of it, trying to find that solution that we can all agree on. So everybody can still have fun at the table.
00:29:36
Speaker
Um, I think a lot of GMs and players, again, they can kind of get the ego in their head a bit. And so it's just kind of like, take a step down, you know, humble yourself, be flexible and realize that it's not the GM story. It's not this player is not the main character of the story.
00:29:58
Speaker
It's everybody's story and we're all having fun. So. And then that's that's just in general great advice. for not to yeah that and meanies It could be reinforced to every game.
00:30:10
Speaker
Right, in person or online. It's still worth repeating. and Honestly, that's something I feel like I have no problem repeating and every time it comes up. like it It's a collaborative story.
00:30:25
Speaker
telling, not a not a game of winners and losers. it is like You're working to create the best story, whether it's easy, hard, difficult or not. it's it's It's the story that you guys are all creating together.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, and those problems I've found, they've come up more in virtual sessions, like online games. um But that's not say like they do still happen in person. It's just it's less frequent because ah feel like in person it's easier for everybody to be on the same page.
00:30:57
Speaker
um Yeah, definitely. i mean no nick Nick alluded to it before. I'll throw myself under the bus. um you know that The communication is definitely key.
00:31:09
Speaker
That one campaign that It started in person. And you will appreciate this fresh torture that Nick was under.
00:31:20
Speaker
for session He put out the post on Meetup for this game. And for session zero, nine people showed up. Hmm. And...
00:31:33
Speaker
For a change, about half of those nine were brand new people to the game, to the group, you name it. yeah And so ah I had gone in, kind of it, I wanted to play i wanted to play Star-Lord, basically.
00:31:54
Speaker
yeah Without you know all of the the fancy powers, but you know the doofus rogue smuggler guy. I even cast Chris Pratt as the character, right? um But one of the brand new players wanted to be a smuggler pilot.
00:32:16
Speaker
was like, you got it. I'll go with, I want to say I went with Charmer um under smuggler and let her have pilot.
00:32:27
Speaker
She never showed up after session zero. so But we had we had already established that my character owned the ship, right? So I started you know putting a little more into piloting to take over that role. yeah after that first After the first full in-person session, though, the world shut down.
00:32:55
Speaker
And so we were online. And there was just not sufficient communication between me and another player who also had the thought, well, our dedicated pilot left, so I will start stepping up into that role.
00:33:13
Speaker
yeah And ah we we just didn't communicate effectively, and it ultimately led to... you know i I tried to handle it in character.
00:33:27
Speaker
rather than just sitting down and saying, you know, hey, I would like to do this. I tried to handle it in character by having things like, yeah when he would sit down to pilot the ship, I would say stuff like, hey, you're getting kind of comfortable in my cockpit here. Yeah.
00:33:46
Speaker
And it it ultimately led to us butting heads over over it in one session, and we had to call the session. Yeah. So ah i' I'll throw myself under the bus. I was just as responsible for not communicating properly as the other player was.
00:34:05
Speaker
And it probably would not have been as bad in person. And if we had carried over our in in-person communication process online. Yeah. Rather than just, you having my mic off and saying, why isn't he letting me fly my ship?
00:34:26
Speaker
yeah Should have just spoken up. Communication is key. Communication is key. And again, i've I've re-examined that event multiple times.
00:34:41
Speaker
Not to f throw any from anyone more under the bus. I totally haven't had nightmares about it. But it's like it's I didn't realize that the major problem was Yeah, we didn't expect it to run this long, so we didn't make long-term plans in order to make it sustainable.
00:35:01
Speaker
There was no like com thoughts of like player conflict or anything. It's just like, well, we're stuck at home and we want to keep doing this. Yeah.
00:35:12
Speaker
So, honestly, it was kind of the the ad hoc-ness of it was the fact that we didn't even put into consideration that they are problems there are things that normally we'd be able to resolve in person on the cool down, on the fall, ah during a pizza break or something like that, that you can't really resolve when you're sitting in rooms across from each other and muting mics when you're eating pizza.
00:35:43
Speaker
<unk> muting mics and walking out of the room to go to the bathroom or get another snack or when you're not able to like, and it's like, what i want to say to be like honest. Yeah.
00:35:54
Speaker
I think one thing also that helps there is to have like designated bathroom breaks. So if somebody has use the bathroom, it's like, hey guys, can we take a five or, or like, Hey, the GM says like, okay, Hey, we've been playing for two hours. Let's, let's take a break.
00:36:05
Speaker
Um, take, take five, take 10, go get, go get water, snacks, bathroom. And then we all like reconvene. um Yeah, and and I think a lot of that would be helped too with with a camera, for want of a better term, requirement.
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, you can see when people aren't paying attention or walk away from their computer or whatnot. so Yeah, and you during during during the dark times, who really wanted to put their camera on? Because everybody's sitting at home and in their grubbies, in their PJs, whatever.
00:36:44
Speaker
you know I totally get it. like like who who run Who would run a game in their pajamas?
00:36:53
Speaker
Nick on a day that ends in Y.
00:37:00
Speaker
yeah See, you saw Nick out in public at Gamer Nation Con, Nate. The full Nick GMing experience is you roll up to his house and he answers the door in a robe and you know lets you in.
00:37:16
Speaker
And we're not talking Wizard Grove. I have picture Nick. I think there lot of people I didn't actually get to meet on a name basis or face-to-face. There's a lot of people too. like There was something like 130 people. yeah. little this year.
00:37:30
Speaker
yeah max is one fifty and they were a little under this year There were a lot of people. I'm sure I'd remember your face if I ah saw a picture. I don't think yeah we get to officially meet, unlike Daryl, who was kind enough to come and give us a ride from the airport.
00:37:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you did do that. Yes, I did. And... and and and midnight it was it was rather and It was rather entertaining because Nate flew into one terminal and Joe and Noah flew into another. Yeah, you told that. It's like, oh yeah, the they're just over at this gate. And I was like, yeah, but which terminal?
00:38:07
Speaker
We don't know. We've never been here before. Yeah. I was like, cause because it's it's not a matter of walking from one building to another. We're going to have to drive a quarter of a mile.
00:38:17
Speaker
I will say it's the most complicated airport I think I've ever been to. It's huge. Probably the biggest airport I've ever been to. it is Maybe Orlando's is big, but Orlando's isn't as complicated. and Orlando's isn't as complicated. well so I hate Orlando's airport and I hate DFW.
00:38:36
Speaker
so I hate them both equally for different reasons. ah my My work travel has taken me either connecting to or twice going to Orlando.
00:38:48
Speaker
So I will say like the Philly airport was it' a little dirty and dingy, but they had some really good food in the airport.
00:39:00
Speaker
I, I know I've been there twice and I cannot picture the airport.
00:39:09
Speaker
They, they all run together at one point, but if you ever have to go through Chicago, have been to Chicago actually. So, so there granted as huge as the airport is, there's only one location of it.
00:39:25
Speaker
Get yourself some Garrett's popcorn. If you're close enough to Garrett's. Yeah. ah Noah, who again, he's he's in our actual play. um He, ah so he's my best friend.
00:39:37
Speaker
And so he lived um in the Chicago area for a while before moving to where we were. um prior to me moving to Florida. ever So every year i would either fly to Chicago um or he would like drive down.
00:39:54
Speaker
we'd at least get like one one a week in person to hang out a year kind of thing. So I've been to the Chicago airport two or three times, I think. so So you guys did the the Sam Witwer and his old Star Wars group thing.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah. we We got off on a tangent about airports last week. Palm Springs Airport is beautiful. It's small, but it's the weather there is so good year-round that you're outdoors going from the concourse to ticketing and baggage claim.
00:40:30
Speaker
Yeah, think I've been there a couple times. yeah the The first time I went, I went for work, and I'm with a couple of coworkers. We come out of the gate, and we're going down an escalator to go to baggage claim. And I looked around, I was like, Cesar, we're outside.
00:40:48
Speaker
And i like I'm so easily impressed sometimes, but it's tough beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah.
00:41:00
Speaker
Anything else that you can think of while we are still ostensibly on topic before we just yeah let let you plug away in the last few minutes before your hard stop?
Maintaining Focus During Game Sessions
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, let's see. Staying on topic? you day heart stop not letting Not letting a joke turn into a 10-minute tangent in the middle of a game? That's that's a pretty that's a pretty big one, I think. um um It can really disrupt the flow of the playing when you like
00:41:32
Speaker
You hush, Nick. You know you love it when we go off on – Oh, I do. When we take something and go off like crazy. Let me clear. There's nothing wrong with making a joke or cutting up and laughing because we're all here to have fun. But when that joke turns into a major distraction – But wrapping it is like wrangling it back in. I do love it. And I do participate actively in that.
00:41:55
Speaker
but yeah I do also really like, okay, I need did that. Pull the player that were the GM that would take that would create the tangents that would go way off. And but the more i play tabletop RPGs and the more experience I have with them, the more they've actually become kind of a a table pet peeve.
00:42:13
Speaker
So I can understand that. but I don't think I can... i can ah again my My solution to it is probably probably is not the same solution that you would have.
00:42:27
Speaker
No, I don't think would be... Nick's solution is he is he refills his ah what he calls Vaderade.
00:42:39
Speaker
Gatorade and vodka. Nice.
00:42:43
Speaker
Nice. yeah yeah i think like i my solution is like okay it's been like two or three minutes okay guys let's like rein it back in and you know um i don't like necessarily like stop it from happening but it's again the communication thing like especially like section zero with expectations and stuff it's like you know is there anything like that people have pet peeves or issues with um and typically one things i'll say is like the ongoing the ongoing uh
00:43:13
Speaker
major distractions that like take away from more than like a couple of seconds. Cause it's really like, you know, for me, like I get really invested into the story and I want to see the story progress. And it's like, okay, we only get to play two hours a week.
00:43:26
Speaker
Like I don't want to waste the time on a 10 minute. animal i don't want to waste a, you know, 8% of our time and on one joke that's going on for a really long time. but you You don't want a bit to become a sketch, right? Yes. Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah. there There's a limit. and Nick, you hush. Nick, you hush. You like our sketches. I do.
00:43:51
Speaker
Honestly, a majority of the jokes that come up in my my ah my local game is um Star Wars Family Guy references. references a lot of A lot of them. keep with with us With us, it depends on what the game is. And I will give all of our group credit in that
00:44:18
Speaker
are we we all have the ability to flip the switch, and based on the tone of the campaign, we don't necessarily, know, will drop a joke here and there, maybe a little bit, but not go into the sketches like alien and walking dead.
00:44:37
Speaker
Forget it. Yeah. You know, no bits, no sketches because they're deadly serious. There's maybe a joke. yeah And again, I don't have problem with jokes. And it's usually... We're we're all here to have fun and And most of those are in character rather than out of character.
00:44:58
Speaker
And even then, like there's like they're meant to like break the tension in a scene, not because they break the tension at the table. And Delta Green has a lot of character-driven gallows humor.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah. I think the I think the closest thing we've had to a bit is my character in Delta Green is a a horror and science fiction writer.
00:45:27
Speaker
And Nick faced me with this guy that when we went into a bookstore looking for something, who ran the bookstore by stapling the price tags to the front covers of the books.
00:45:42
Speaker
And in character, i couldn't stand that. And Nick kept poking me with the stapled price stickers.
00:45:54
Speaker
That was fun, but it's also like, sorry, the things are weird in the bookstores. And that was the intention. It's real. And it also allowed me to pull on a real pet peeve.
00:46:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And personal out of character, I would hate a bookstore that did that. Oh, same here. Like, if was completely on board with... That's just pure evil.
00:46:21
Speaker
That's kind of why it was kind of fun. It was supposed to be only just a couple of books, but the more that I saw the pet peeve affect you, it's like, okay, that's adding to this real horror of the situation, of a realistic, like, nonsensical desecration to books.
00:46:39
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, okay, that's fun to play with. If it gives you any indication how much my character hated it, Nick, he tried to go back to buy the bookstore, but since it's Delta Green, the bookstore wasn't
Character Development and Storytelling
00:46:52
Speaker
there. Oh, I was there. i I made sure that the bookstore wasn't there, and that's why you were so perturbed.
00:47:00
Speaker
My character was so perturbed that he's opening a combination... It's set in the 90s, so Barnes & Noble with a Starbucks isn't a super big thing yet, but think that concept, but instead of a Starbucks, it's a high-end bar.
00:47:22
Speaker
And that's what he's he's going to open up in one of these next few sessions. ah Because the character...
00:47:33
Speaker
Straight up, the character is kind of a ripoff of Rick Castle, off of Castle, Nathan Fillion's character. So when Castle bought the old haunt, I'm combining the old haunt with a bookstore.
00:47:45
Speaker
He's also kind of Stephen King ah and other horror writers, but the idea is like, he's his he based, with the Castle background, i was like he based these stories off of stuff that he's researched and found.
00:48:01
Speaker
So he stumbled upon the unnatural world of Lovecraftian horrors. And so Delta Green recruited him. Because it's like, well, he knows too much, but now people that that helps with the cover up.
00:48:17
Speaker
ah I know you have to go because you have Dark Underworld. Yes. To record tonight. We're talking about players having disagreements. um So we normally record on Tuesday nights.
00:48:29
Speaker
And we got halfway through. um if you guys watch this podcast episode, you get a little behind the scenes. um Episode 19 is going to be split in half over two days, two nights worth of recording. Because we had a forty five yeah we had a two hour long discussion.
00:48:44
Speaker
ah About a player about a character is specifically a characters characters disagreement and trying to figure out like, okay, how do we before from here because we're kind of at like, oh, so it happens. This is the biggest was is probably by far the the the biggest kind of like disagreement where Things were kind of feel like feeling tense.
00:49:03
Speaker
And so I, you know, normally, ah you know, for the act two, you haven't really been able to see ah me calling for a break because Simon just kind of cuts it out and we continue on. um But I was like, okay, I'm going to take five for for bathroom and and drinks and and all that fun stuff. um But real quick, like, is everybody good?
00:49:20
Speaker
And then turn into two-hour long discussion. So we're finishing it tonight. So... um I think it's we've come to a really cool solution and I'm i'm excited for
Collaborative Processes and Content Sharing
00:49:28
Speaker
anybody that watches. If can't figure it out, I have a solution that you could use.
00:49:33
Speaker
It's called it Pistols at Dawn.
00:49:38
Speaker
Yeah, we figured when we we figured it out, so it'll it'll be good. um I'm actually really excited for how it's gonna ah going to turn out. So... Well, now I really need to get caught up. ah I know I mentioned it at the top of the show, but where can they find Dark Underworld, Nate?
00:49:56
Speaker
is Yeah, we are. um i'm I'm primarily on YouTube. So ah YouTube dot com slash at the tabletop empire. um That's kind of the main platform we did. We i do videos for like how to learn Star Wars, how to learn how to play Star Wars RPG as well as we have the actual play that's going on currently. um And we do weeklies unless we're on breaks for episodes.
00:50:20
Speaker
um If you like short form content, I recently started posting to like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube shorts. ah But yeah, that's where you can find us. And you can find me on... so and No.
00:50:33
Speaker
You find me specifically mainly on Twitter, but I don't really use personal social media very often at all. So... but we'll have a link We'll have a link to your two relevant soldiers underneath our and then if saw there's a week's episode.
00:50:51
Speaker
Nick stole what I was about to say. oh Well... we were We will let you go, Nate, and say hi to the crew for us. And we you thank you for for coming in and at being a ringer who has more experience than us with running an online game.
00:51:11
Speaker
Thank you very much. And don't forget about my advice. if If things don't go right with the group, Pistols of Dawn always works. and And we definitely have to have you back sometime and just generally chit-chat.
00:51:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. yeah Especially with Rob. We would love to pick your brain and maybe even have you for one of our brainstorming fun ideas for making RPG characters.
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, sounds like fun. Or might tap you to bring an RPG glory story sometime. Oh, that's true. If you guys the funniest, I came up with the funniest idea for a monster. It doesn't work in Star Wars, but if you have somewhat real animals, the funniest idea for a monster in an RPG game is giraffe, but it's a hydra.
00:52:01
Speaker
Oh! oh And it just whacks people with its neck. so Oh! said as you I like it. i have I have the two books from the Kickstarter years ago for Adventures in Oz.
00:52:17
Speaker
And that would fit right in in Adventures in Oz. That really I'm going to write that on a note card and put it in one of the Adventures in Oz books. ah In general, that sounds like fun because...
00:52:30
Speaker
If you've ever seen a giraffe fight, it is both the most harrowing and silliest thing you've ever seen. They're just whacking their necks at each other. It's harrowing because it's like, oh, that's going to hurt really bad. But also it's like, yeah, that's all they have to use to fight.
00:52:51
Speaker
We will let you go because we know that your players are waiting for you. So thanks for coming, Nate. And we will see you next time. See you next time. Yeah. Bye. nate Nate's an awesome guy. I knew ah knew when I was talking to him and and Joe and Noah on the way back from the airport that these are our people.
00:53:12
Speaker
I agree. like yeah very Really cool. cool and ah i only I did remember I've subscribed to them and watched a couple episodes. but I could definitely catch up with what they're doing on honor um their life. Dark Underworld.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. And here's another way that I knew that they were our people, Nick. We're in the car on the way to the hotel from the airport for Gamer Nation Con.
00:53:44
Speaker
And Nate and Joe and Noah are in the car. And, uh, Noah said, so I was making my way and Nate goes, downtown, walking fast, faces past, homebound.
00:53:59
Speaker
was like, now that is our joke. That's ours. but we we we've We've run that joke into the ground. Yes. So wait we all had a very good laugh about that. So I was like, yeah, we we we are vibing here.
00:54:18
Speaker
We are vibing. But he had some very good thoughts. um yeah like We mentioned our I would not say that they were a failure. The the ah the the ah the Dark Time games, as I called them.
00:54:39
Speaker
but i made They weren't failures. They weren't failures. We were just, you we were thrust into a situation and making the best with the tools that we had without really sitting down and observing the tools that we had and figuring out the best way to utilize them.
00:54:58
Speaker
and Exactly. Like, lessons have been learned from there, and we've taken some of those lessons and made it more accessible to people who can't make it to the regular sessions.
00:55:09
Speaker
But if it was good to hear from a perspective. If we had to, like we probably would have learned and probably gained certain skills, like he like he mentioned, if we were still forced into that situation. so Right. If we were playing regular online games, I think we would have a lot more structure to how we were running them online.
00:55:33
Speaker
And it it like I was kind of saying, it it doesn't hurt that... in addition to running regular games online, he's also had to figure out how to effectively run a game online for broadcast.
00:55:51
Speaker
That's true. And so and they were, as we are toying with in the future, potentially. Yep. But, ah in general, like I have thoughts on that. We'll talk offline.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah. But, uh, mainly, uh, Running online is something that's becoming much more popular and and that's more accessible for people. People with lots of different softwares, different virtual tabletops and concepts.
00:56:22
Speaker
it's It hasn't replaced traditional tabletop in-person gameplay, but it has definitely become a way for people to at least meet if they're not quite comfortable.
00:56:37
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, more and more people are playing online because they can. it's It can be hard, especially depending on where you might be, to find a local group, period, let alone one that can meet regularly.
00:56:56
Speaker
We are exceedingly lucky in that the majority of our group is able to meet every week. And I'll even admit, like one of my earliest groups I ever ran long term was a online group and when things were less stable. Like we had to use a virtual tabletop and a with a dice roller and a separate voice chat. And we had and to play at different time with people in different time zones because we the just the the interest infrastructure wasn't there for us to like meet up with people.
00:57:36
Speaker
locally, even on the same continent. Like, one was in Europe and one was in England. England is in Europe. I meant, like, continental Europe.
00:57:50
Speaker
I just have to give you a hard time, Nick, because i since it's only the two of us, who else is going to tease you as we head into the end of the episode?
00:58:01
Speaker
Ah, we gotta keep the bit going. Yep. I mean, we we've established the bit. The bit's got to keep going. But yet like Nate was saying, definitely for Genesis or Star Wars RPG games, take a look at RPG sessions.
00:58:20
Speaker
We're not sponsored by them. Nate may We're not. But they are an incredible tool that is designed specifically for that narrative dice system that um Star Wars and Genesis has.
00:58:35
Speaker
both use. ah So definitely take a look at them. um Like I said, I have some, I have some thoughts. We'll talk offline here before too awful long.
00:58:48
Speaker
um But I think that's kind of taking us into the closing of the show. ah Yeah.
Promotion and Support for How We Roll Gaming
00:58:58
Speaker
so check out our website.
00:59:01
Speaker
Oh, that's you. That's me, but you know check out our website at howwerollgaming.com and there you'll find information about our current campaigns, podcast archive, and links to our merch store and all of our social media, ah Facebook, Blue Sky, Threads, you name it.
00:59:23
Speaker
We are probably there in some form or capacity. You can also directly support the show through Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash howwerollgaming and you'll see our different members of tiers starting at just $2 a month with special recognition on our Discord server and higher tiers giving you on-air credit and discounts on our merch store.
00:59:47
Speaker
Finally, if you have any questions you'd like us to answer, topics you'd like us to cover, or even submit to your own RPG Glory story, shoot us an email at podcast.com. at howwerollgaming.com.
01:00:00
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of another episode. We thank you for joining us, and we want to thank Nate once again for joining us from Tabletop Empire. Check them out. Check out Dark Underworld, their actual play.
01:00:13
Speaker
um And we hope to see you back next time. Until then, I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And this is How We Roll.
01:00:25
Speaker
This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2025, How We Roll Gaming, LLC. All games and associated intellectual properties are copyrighted their respective owners, and How We Roll Gaming makes no claim of ownership by discussing them here.