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Lich Please Podcast! Episode 15 - Gabe Greenspan!
87 Plays2 years ago
This week the boys are joined by the incredible Gabe Greenspan!
Alex Intros a brand new segment to test Iwans Knowledge against the guests!
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr .
Use our link! - https://zencastr.com/?via=lichplease
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Lich Please podcast. As always, I'm here with Alex. And today we have a very special guest. Gabe Greenspan is
How did Gabe start with D&D?
00:00:20
Speaker
going to be joining us. We're going to be just chatting D&D again as we always do every week. So yeah, we'll go straight into the very basic question. First of all, what was your introduction
Gabe's Pandemic Campaign Experience
00:00:31
Speaker
to D&D? First edition, how did you get into it?
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey, so, man, I hit D&D real late in the game, I think. I didn't start playing D&D basically until the pandemic happened.
00:00:47
Speaker
Um, wow. Yeah. I, my buddy, uh, George Pima Vera, who's the DM for, uh, the hero club podcast. If you've never heard of those guys, they're awesome. They do like, um, they basically do like D and D stories, but set in non fantasy settings. So like their first season was like a, like noir detective story in New York. It was really cool. And then they did like a wild west season. So they've been doing that kind of stuff. Very, very cool. Like non D and D D and D.
00:01:15
Speaker
And so he had brought me and my friend onto the podcast to do like, he's really cool about like, if there's an NPC that he's like, I don't need to voice every single character people, I can only have so many voices, right? So he was like, if there's an NPC that the party needs information from, I'll bring in friends, tell them the relevant information that the party will need, and let them improv beyond that.
00:01:38
Speaker
And I was like, well, that's awesome. So I like because I had done. Yeah, it was great. And I'd like done comedy stuff with the guys who were on the podcast. So we brought me and my writing partner on to be these two like gangster types who were like friends that they needed to meet in New York City with like a small piece of information. We knew nothing about the game. We had no stats. We were like commoner stats. It was like, just take this dice and roll it if you want.
00:02:06
Speaker
But we'd done that like two or three times, and that was my full involvement with D&D. And then the pandemic hit, and George, who's the DM for that podcast, was like, I want to get better with the 5E rule set, because he had come from like 4E was sort of his starting edition. So he was like, I want to get better with the 5E rule set. I'm going to run basically like a campaign world where anyone who wants it, he would chat to like 40 of us, I think.
00:02:33
Speaker
I was like, anyone who wants to, I'll help you roll up a
Transition to Dungeon Mastering
00:02:36
Speaker
character. I'll go over the rules with you. And then I'm going to run a game every weekday for like, as long as this thing goes. And at the end of the week, I'll put out like basically like a dossier of like, here's what happened in the world within this week of gameplay. So every storyline would like connect. It was madness.
00:02:59
Speaker
It was the most insane introduction to the game I've ever had. What a crazy way into it. Because we built a Discord server, and it was all of the characters who were playing, we would have side conversations within the Discord in character to be like, here's the information that I have from the quest that I've been doing, and here's the information that you have. And so it became this full world
00:03:26
Speaker
uh beyond just when we were playing in real time um and it made me fall in love with the game completely and i think like part of that was yes yeah first of all an amazing endeavor to begin with like an insane thing to attempt um but
00:03:43
Speaker
It was like because it was the pandemic and like my day jobs, like I'm an actor and a writer and all that when I'm not doing this stuff. And all that was gone. You know, it was like there was no socializing. There was no creativity. There was no community, so to speak. And so D&D like checked every one of those boxes for me.
00:04:04
Speaker
in this really beautiful way that made me just go, oh, this is going to be what I do for a while. Like, this is it. Right. And so that was my
Delving into D&D Mechanics
00:04:14
Speaker
end. And then because George was running five games a week and that was completely untenable, he started reaching out to people being like, does anyone want to DM like one of the days and just sort of like have your own basically like quest giver and side plots within this world?
00:04:33
Speaker
So I was like, hell yeah, why not? Let's try it. Read the full like DMG like went so deep into it and then started running a essentially like a battle royale side quest where I would like players would come in. I'd throw a huge monster at them and then they'd get a big loot reward. And that was how I started DMing. And then I like found a group who wanted to play a real campaign. I was DMing that for a little while.
00:04:59
Speaker
And then another group who wanted to play and so I've just since then I've sort of been Playing and creating and and going in and being in and out of being DM and player Sort of since 2020 How long when the start of you playing and then that you picking up the battle royale how how long
00:05:26
Speaker
I mean, I, I think it can't have been more than like two months. Like it was, it was such a quick, I jumped in so hard. Well, and like, and it, it shows in that like a lot of the content that I make now is like, I, I really liked the mechanics of the game. I think it's so fun to be like within this rule set, how far can I push what is possible? You know, like.
00:05:49
Speaker
How can I do not even the most damage but like the craziest stuff and still technically be playing the same game as everyone else at the table.
TikTok and Community Reactions
00:05:59
Speaker
And so I started like looking at that and what got me into that was I was playing for I was DMing for like.
00:06:07
Speaker
15 people, and everyone was a different class. So I was like, I need to know how every class in the game works. I need to know the cleric spell list, I need to know the fighters capabilities, I need to, you know, and so I was like, okay, great, I'll learn as like all of it to the best of my abilities so that when
00:06:27
Speaker
If, if in game, one of these still relatively new players is like, can I action search with spells? I'm like, I need to know whether or not I don't want to be like, give me 10 minutes. Let me like, let me get out my get books and see what happened. Uh, so I just like learned it. Um, and, and it became, uh, like a real joyful thing. Yeah.
00:06:50
Speaker
That is, yeah, wow. That was a great start to D&D, yeah. It truly was a like crazy, both feet in, leaping into the game. And so much fun. Just so much fun. Yeah. No, that, wow. Might be one of the most entertaining ones we've had of our people started D&D. I owe it to my buddy, George Primavera. Follow yourself, he's great.
00:07:17
Speaker
See, I thought you'd been playing D&D for a long time. Like, straight up based off your TikTok content. I was like, you know so much about monster stat blocks. I was like, you have to have been playing for a long time.
Game Segment: Guess the Monster
00:07:28
Speaker
Oh, man. No, I just, you know, have an inconsistent job and a lot of free time. And I go, all right, I guess this is what I'm doing today is learning about dragons.
00:07:40
Speaker
yeah oh wow um so uh i this this may be early but it seems as we have three segments and i feel like we're just talking about monster stat blocks um we will
00:07:54
Speaker
We went straight into the segment, first segment of the day. So for everyone listening, as you all know, we have two segments, but this is the third one we're putting in, which is Guess the Monster.
00:08:11
Speaker
To explain the rules, I'm going to read out some stats of a monster stat block. A few increments at a time. And Yuan and our guest today, Graeb, is going to try and guess what the monster is. And the first person to get the monster wins. And we will have a counter for Yuan versus guest over the series.
00:08:36
Speaker
I will say before we jump into this uh so like yes a lot of my stuff that I've done on TikTok is like pulling from monster saplings I've been doing it for like months now and I still am bad you know it's not like I've been like
00:08:52
Speaker
Oh, I've nailed it. It's like, you know, something will come up and I go, was that a good or was it garbage? I remember the first video of like that series that I had that sort of like hit was I had like just had my wife and I had our son in October. And this was like two months into being new parents and we were exhausted. And I like couldn't remember how to breathe very
00:09:21
Speaker
And I posted one where like a lich came up as the monster. And I straight up was like, I know they're a spellcaster. I can't for the life of me remember if they use charisma for their spellcasting stat or intelligence.
00:09:39
Speaker
And I mistakenly was like, I'll say their charisma is better. And I picked that and its intelligence because they're wizards. But the internet was like, go fuck yourself. Every single comment was like, you idiot, never played this game.
Spellcaster Classes and Versatility
00:09:59
Speaker
And I was like, hey, great, cool. Bring, bring on those comments. I think I remember that video. Let this honest mistake be something that propels this series. Um, it was very fun. So anyways, all that to say, I'm very bad at this and, uh, I expect you. I'm with you now and I'm like, I can get, you know, cobalt, goblin dragon. Yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker
Beyond that I'm like, you know, this is a this is quite a common monster. I'll tell you that it's it's it's common. It's used a lot. I think I could get this.
00:10:39
Speaker
Well, that is easy to say, I forget this. Is there like a buzzer that we like ding-ding? You know what? Yeah, buzzer sounds. We could do some buzzer sounds. Great. You're quite famous for your doorbell sound. Oh no, you don't mainly do it on the internet. You can do the doorbell sound and Gabe, feel free to make any sound you want. Perfect. Love it. Cool. So I will start with the strength decks and con.
00:11:06
Speaker
stats from the stat block and I will also give you the armor classes speed as well. So the AC is eight. The speed is 20 feet. I will go. I will go. I will go. I will go. Okay. Yeah. I'm pretty positive that that is a gelatinous cube. No, it is not. Cool.
00:11:32
Speaker
You won, you get next guess after strength, dex and con. So, strength is 13, dex is 6 and con is 16.
Creative Strategies in Gameplay
00:11:44
Speaker
I can see the clogs working and I can see them tickling his head. I'm a class of 8. I know, it's so low, right? Yeah, I'm trying to think of... It's gotta be an ooze. It's gotta be something that just like has no armor.
00:12:05
Speaker
You can pass up this guess and then we can go straight to the next stance. Yeah, I'll pass up because I need some more than that. Yeah. Cool. Intelligence, wisdom, and charisma, and I will give you senses as well. So intelligence is three, wisdom is six, and charisma is five. Jesus. For senses, dark vision is 60 feet, and passive perception is eight. But yeah, you could figure that out from wisdom.
00:12:35
Speaker
What was the strength dex and con again? 13 strength, six dex, and 16 con. God, the dex is so low. Oh my God, this is killing me. Oh, my class of eight, 20 feet of movement is the other thing, because that's slow. That's like a slow creature.
00:13:02
Speaker
Oh man, it's not a gelatinous cube. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, yeah, go on. Is it a mimic? No, it is not. All right. Ding, dong. Yes. Wow, a renown. I know. Genuinely, the Oscar's calling. Is it an ooze? It's not an ooze. It's not.
00:13:32
Speaker
I will give you, now, I will give you immunities, both damage and condition, languages, and I'll give you its actions. Okay, so you're giving this the creature type.
00:13:46
Speaker
uh no creature type and and as no CR rating yet none of the things where i'd be like i think i can zero it yeah the thing i would give you the creature type and CR ratings like first but i feel like it would give it away so quickly yeah so um immunities uh both damage and condition is poison and poisoned and the action is slam um it's a plus three to hit
00:14:12
Speaker
Obviously a five-foot reach as 1d6 plus one bludgeoning damage for this slam and Languages it understands languages it knew in life, but can't speak. Oh Ding dong yes
00:14:46
Speaker
strong for this, but is it a zombie? It is a zombie. Yeah, it's a zombie. Yeah, it's a zombie. That's why I refrained from telling you the most of the time. Of course, that's a low age at the end. It's low because it's shambly. Oh, man. I thought the language would give it straight away because it says it knew in life, but can't speak. It knew in life. Yeah, I think after I thought about it, it made sense. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:05
Speaker
I think this is too...
Epic 24-Hour D&D Session
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, that was definitely, um, I can see why all the ooze and like gymnastics Cuban stuff came through. Cause yeah, that is that like a slow speed in the low AC makes you go, this is something that like creeps a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I thought, um, if I put like intelligence and wisdom, charisma first, people would guess, uh, like, uh, animals or something like beasts. Oh yeah.
00:15:43
Speaker
This is hard. That was rough.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, if it was all that long ago. Yeah. You are losing currently. It's 1-0 to guess vs. Juan. 1-0. In the game, man. Nice. Strong start. Not for Juan, but for the guess side. Cool. Yeah. When it's a solo episode, I'll get one. Nice. So...
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, man. Right. Moving on from Joanne's terrible loss. I feel like we've got to ask, as someone who creates so many characters on TikTok, favorite class and favorite subclass? God, what an incredibly difficult to answer question. Oh, geez. I think my favorite class to play
00:16:43
Speaker
in like a one-shot or small campaign. My favorite class if I don't need to go around buying and collecting like spell scrolls is a wizard. Like if you can just give me all the spells that I need, I love wizards. The versatility of those classes are incredible. And like a scribes wizard or a bladesinger, so cool.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah. So so cool. I think I think if I was like going a campaign all the way up from like zero to like if I was just playing a full campaign through maybe a
00:17:24
Speaker
God, it's impossible. Right. I will say I generally prefer spell casters to marshals. I started out playing a ranger and I played a cleric and I like loved doing spell spell casting. I think maybe either a cleric or a bard to play all the way through would be my go tos.
Homebrew vs. Module Campaigns
00:17:50
Speaker
And oh, like a piece or a Twilight cleric and like an eloquence part is I'm playing an eloquence part in a campaign right now.
00:18:00
Speaker
And it's just nasty, the things that that character can do that no one else I've ever played is able to do. Like he doesn't need magic to go into any room. He can just, his like lowest persuasion check is like a 25 for levels six. You know, it's one of those insane classes that is just stupid fun to play.
00:18:23
Speaker
Though I will say, this is so much longer of an answer than this question of mariname. Is it perfect? My buddies have like a long, long, long many year campaign that I did a guest arc on. And I jumped in at level 15 and I played an illusionist wizard.
00:18:43
Speaker
school of illusion wizard and that they're like I think it's their 10th or 14th level feature which is like any illusion you make you can use in action and make some part of it real that was the coolest ability I've like ever played in the game
Paid vs. Free DMing
00:19:01
Speaker
Because I would I would upcast like a like a simple illusion spell so that I didn't need to concentrate on it and then just make stuff real. I like built a world out of illusion. And it was so dope, so much fun to play, but also requires like huge DM buy in any any illusion stuff is really got to be on board about that. But really, really, really fun.
00:19:28
Speaker
nice you might be the first person we've had on to say their favorite type of character spellcaster yeah really do people tend to leave marshall's on i think so yeah but marshall will be getting a lot of love but yeah listen i there's nothing wrong with just hitting like a truck you know like that is there's joy to that um yeah i i like for me it is every combat i i feel like i approach it doing what is
00:19:56
Speaker
What is the thing the DM does not expect me to do in this combat? And can I do that? Like, how do I use the environment or how do I use a spell to create something that that shouldn't be in this area or somewhere? And I just love that sort of like chess game element to combat that I think Marshalls get. But it's a lot harder to make that happen for them. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Because I love Marshalls. Yeah, classes like a lot.
00:20:25
Speaker
but i like it a lot because i can think of more things i could do with my
American D&D Culture and Influences
00:20:29
Speaker
weapons i know there's more smells but like to my head yes like we just had a session like an hour and a half ago um as we talked about before and it was fun it was great we had an enemy
00:20:43
Speaker
Our paladin had an enemy and a choke hold, because we kidnapped him from some people, so it wouldn't make sound. And I had the option of, I was talking to the paladin, and I said, can we rip him? If I pull his legs, you pull his head. Can we rip his head off? That was one of my thoughts. And then when it came to my turn, I saw a bookshelf, and I was like, ooh, this bookshelf, can I climb up it, jump on the person with my shield, point your part down, and just cleave into them like a WWE wrestler.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. That's why I choose Marshall. Plus, I've already used spellcast. If every person played a Marshall like you just described, I would be way more on board for all Marshals all the time. Like that sounds so fun.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the reason I do it as well is the first time I played as a monk, I just got bored of constantly saying, I'm going to punch him and I'm going to punch him again. I want to do something else. I want to do something else. Let's make it fun. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I think even I don't think the reason I mostly allow stuff as a DM is because it is so boring for me to sit there and then be like, Oh, I want to hit him. Okay. How much damage? Okay. That much damage. Cool.
Handling Problematic DMs
00:21:58
Speaker
If they get to do more with it, then it's more engaging for everyone and you do myself I know as someone deal with as someone who like generally is such a rules stickler like I do being like I Maintain things like you can't do a leveled as spell action for a bonus act like if you cast a bonus action spell you have to do a cantrip Like I love all that stuff because I think it balances the game a little bit better. Yeah, I
00:22:22
Speaker
but I also go like rule of cool is number one like if you're gonna have someone do something that is so much beyond like I attack 17 does that hit eight damn like if you can do
00:22:36
Speaker
anything more than that I'm like yes do it a hundred percent do it I don't care what it does to the game yeah no I agree with that it's more fun um yeah definitely more fun it wasn't for me watching my bad guy just
00:22:52
Speaker
Just get decimated. I loved it. The whole party loved it. It was great. It was a great time. Everyone had a fun time. You pulled him out and he had a 20 AC, Tyr grappled him and then you kind of pulled his armour off and I was like...
00:23:07
Speaker
yeah give me a strength check you've got a nat 20 and i was like well yes yeah no no one was hitting him yeah no one was hitting him so i made the executive decision that his armor had to come off and i just wrecked it off i said well if you can't hit now you can hit him now so yeah it is great it adds to
D&D's Pandemic Growth and Community
00:23:28
Speaker
chaos as well the chaos in games yeah but
00:23:31
Speaker
I think I had a... I don't actually mention this at the time, but I had a mental thing of, this is the Goblin's Warlord. You have stripped him down, he's at six hit points, as he's running through their grove to try and get help.
00:23:44
Speaker
Do the goblin disco now, fuck this guy and kill him. And then someone else becomes like in charge. But you never got to that point because you wanted to take him down before he got there. Yeah, I do love that. That thing is a DM of like the contingencies that start running in your brain where it's like, okay, none of this went the way I thought this was going to go. What does that mean for the world? Like in the next 10 minutes, figure out how the world has changed.
00:24:11
Speaker
I love that feeling so much though. It puts me on edge and I hate it. It's such a fun feeling. Yeah, to be fair, even for that, the one shot idea ends.
00:24:20
Speaker
I mean, I spent like five days thinking of encounters. They skipped all of them. They dodged everything. Yeah. My friends, the first time she ever DM'd, she gave us like essentially like a haunted house. It was like a Halloween one shot in a haunted house. And we as idiots were like, let's open every door at the same time. And she lost her mind. She was like, how dare you do that?
00:24:49
Speaker
How dare you bring every element of this together at the exact same moment, you monsters. We're like, oh, whoops, sorry. Yeah, for mine, it was a heist for some world building for the part campaign I'm writing.
00:25:04
Speaker
and i had i had written i had got all the entrances with things that could fight them but they everyone split up and did all these amazing roles to just deceive everything and then they just got inside i was like okay and then i told them all about the different forked paths they went up like straight straight up to one
00:25:24
Speaker
without a combat encounter, then someone did a really good perception check to smell the wine cellar, which is next to where the heist was.
Closing Thoughts and Shoutouts
00:25:33
Speaker
They got to the wine cellar, saw the enemies that weren't hostile. They just walked past them. I thought the chaos in them would cause them to fight, skip past them, and then they went to the vault. There were traps waiting for them. They nearly forgot. Someone remembered. They saw the traps.
00:25:51
Speaker
Um, he broke through the door and had one fight and got the loot, blew up the whole island and just left. And I was like, okay. My DM in the last campaign that I played, um, had put like, it was like a key to a thing that we needed at the top of like a 100 foot tower. It was something crazy. I think it was a hundred foot tower.
00:26:24
Speaker
I was playing a monk, so I, in one turn, step of the wind, ran all the way off the side of the tower, grabbed the thing, slowly fell off the side, and that was the entire, all of it. That's everything. I used to get everything. If I was playing a monk, I would have done the exact same thing. It's so good. Yeah, I do love playing the monks.
00:26:43
Speaker
And it was like enemies on every level guards at the door
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah. It's the moment at the DM where you sit there and go, you're like, damn, I should have thought of that. And you're like, damn. Well.
00:27:06
Speaker
I had one when I was DMing, and I know this sort of bleeds into, like, horror stories, this isn't as bad as it got, but I had one where I was DMing where I had set up this encounter of, like, it was low-level play, but it was... They were in, like, marshes and in, like, bogs, and I just had, like, a bunch of alligators, and the whole thing was gonna be, like, giant crocodiles, they were gonna, like, grapple, pull them under the water, and it was gonna be all about, like, how do you avoid drowning, essentially?
00:27:33
Speaker
We got to that part, and it was like, well, one player is a water genasi who can breathe underwater. One player is a reborn warlock who doesn't need to breathe. It was just every single person was like, water is not a problem for me. I was like, OK, well, great. There goes that whole thing, I guess. This is a very easy combat now. Yeah.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. It seems as we're on the topic of great things that happen as a DM. Yeah. Favourite moment as a play out DM or both. Yeah.
00:28:08
Speaker
when I was early early days DMing before I sort of figured out what was gonna be my style and I was just like I'm learning spells right we had I had done one of those like
00:28:28
Speaker
super easy like battle royale style things that I'd set up. And one of our clerics, the party's cleric, was going to like heal spell, like the seventh level spell heal. One of their party members who was at zero. And I remember I had somebody counter spell it.
00:28:47
Speaker
and they lost their minds. They were like, how absolutely dare you? That is so evil. And I was like, I don't know. They have counters. Wouldn't they want to use counterspell on that? That's what they would do. They're bad guys. And they were like, yeah, but dude, Jesus Christ. That was a very, I'll say that was a big learning moment as a dude to be like, you can be mean, but not that mean. In those moments.
00:29:17
Speaker
I always roll an intelligence check to be like, how smart is this guy acting in this moment? To be like, how switched on is I to be like, okay, this needs to stop. That's super smart. That's super, super smart. And then I go, well, I rolled. Yeah, honestly, then it's up to the dice. And that's what it is. Yeah, that's that's great. Because when you leave it to the dice, whatever stuff happens.
00:29:39
Speaker
I think the the coolest this sort of it's both as a DM and a player so so we were doing the world of everyone's DMing and doing And because people had started players had started DMing We were all like trying to test out our chops and see what we could do and all that so me and three of my friends who were Playing in that game were like let's do
00:30:04
Speaker
Let's do a 24-hour one-shot session, essentially. Oh my god. And the conceit of it was every four hours or so, we would change who was DMing.
00:30:20
Speaker
we would like switch the DM mid session. So it was, we like built a world together that we were going to play the one shot in. We knew all of the specifics, who the main bad guys were, what their stuff was, the big grand plans of this world.
00:30:39
Speaker
And then we drew straws for who would go for a second, third, fourth, and built a conceit that characters could easily come and go out of. So it was like, we basically were doing X-Men, where it was like, we're at a school where everyone is learning their new powers and stuff like that. And so for this mission, these people are going. And for this mission, these people are going. So it was easy enough to explain why your character wasn't there when you were DMing it.
00:31:09
Speaker
But it was the craziest thing I've ever done. So we also did it that every time the DM switched, we leveled up. So we started at level three and ended at level seven, I think. And it wound up going, I think we did...
00:31:28
Speaker
20 hours total 18 to 20 hours total um but like started at 7 a.m and i think went to like 4 or 5 a.m the next day um and it was it was one of those things where i'm like if you want to try it try it it's insane it's the coolest thing you'll ever like the storytelling all narratively fit together despite it being told from four different perspectives
00:31:52
Speaker
There was things that people were paying off from other people's sessions, like in theirs. Because part of it was like between the switch, the next DM would have like 30 minutes to be like, okay, what happened in that session that I now need to work into mine? Like what's changed about the world?
00:32:13
Speaker
And I went third. And so I was like pulling stuff from things that happened in the first four hours and things that happened in the next four hours and like set up something for the last DM. If he wanted to use that, it was like as an option there. And it was just like, I mean, truly the most intense, ridiculous, awesome
00:32:36
Speaker
play experience I've ever had, both as a DM and as a player, that I go, hey, if you want to do something stupid, go ahead. What a fun thing to try. And if you never want to do that with your life, you'll be completely fine. It's not one of those things where I'm like, you've got to do it. But it was very, very, very fun. Wow.
00:32:59
Speaker
That sounds incredible. Yeah. It's worth trying. It was very fun. It was also, I picked an insane character. I was like, I wanted to do a three-class multi-class starting at level three. I was like, that's hilarious. Let's do that. And I wanted to have subclasses in all of them. And the only way to do that is Sorcerer, Warlock, and Cleric to get three subclasses at level one.
00:33:27
Speaker
uh so I was a I made this character that was like a a um accomplice to like worker for believer in sort of like affiliate of death um who was this like he had died death had been like you will pay off your debt to me I'll send you back you can work and pay off your debt
00:33:49
Speaker
And that'll be how you essentially ultimately get to die and find peace. So I was a death domain cleric, undead warlock shadow sorcerer, starting at level three. It was so much fun. Oh, just an insane, fun, silly romp of a time.
00:34:12
Speaker
That's insane. And it works well because obviously Source and Warlock's charisma. Perfect. Yeah. We just need wisdom for clerics. That's actually insane. Wow. And all I needed to pull from the cleric was like a couple healings, like a spare the dying or a healing word if people went down. And besides that, I was just a charisma caster and it was awesome. Awesome. So much fun. Yeah. That is really cool. That is really cool. We might have to do a 24 hour D&D session. We might have to do it.
00:34:44
Speaker
This might be a bit of a redundant question, but homebrew or module.
00:34:51
Speaker
I lean homebrew. When I started doing DMing, I based it on a module. I started doing a module that my players immediately were like, okay, I don't, none of this. The module started with, every time. The module started with a disruption in the town square where it's like these clearly thieves are going up against this town guard.
00:35:19
Speaker
And you are supposed to side with the town guard. And my players were like, absolutely not. Here's what we're doing. One of them doesn't want to fight. They're leaving the town square entirely. They don't want to get involved. One of them.
00:35:34
Speaker
picked a fight with one of the town guards immediately downed. One of them was like, hey, I want to be a rogue thiefy guy. Is there like a candy store that I can break into in this town? And I was like, nothing in the module says there's a candy store. But let's say yes. And he spent the entire session looting candy. And so I was like, this
00:35:55
Speaker
This can't be the whole, this can't be all I do. We need to go beyond this or I'm going to lose my mind. Um, so I like to, I like to steal stuff from modules. I like to do like, you know, like a candle keep mystery in the world of a homebrew or something like that. I think that's really cool. I think that's the best, but I think it's tough. I think it's tough to run like directly alongside a module.
00:36:21
Speaker
I think we said this last week and fully agree. People promote a module as a way for new DMs to get into D&D. Modules are hard to run. They're tough. I think so too. They're really tough. I really agree with that. You could change something session one and you've screwed something up.
00:36:38
Speaker
10 sessions down the road and you're like, ah, what do I do with a new DM? I don't know what I'm doing. Well, if you've written it all, you've got it in your head like, okay, scrap that, rewrite, done. Doesn't matter. Boom. The world is changing as I make it. Whatever, right? Like they don't know. Yeah, exactly. I think it's, it's, I know homebrew is like more daunting because it is whole cloth, like wholesale coming from your brain. But I do think that that gives you the freedom to be like, Hey, if mistakes happen, mistakes happen.
00:37:06
Speaker
Uh, and really there's no such thing as mistakes, right? It's like, it just becomes new rules or new things or new, whatever. Um, yeah. Full, fully agree with that assessment. Yeah. With that as well. If your, if your players will obviously help what you're doing, they'll be like, Oh, is there this here? And you can be like, yeah, you can go, there's a, is that, is there a stable here? Yeah, you can go to stable. Go. Have fun in the stables. Yeah. If you want to go to stable, you can add it in immediately.
00:37:34
Speaker
And that just makes it so much easier. Wild. Absolutely wild. Yeah, agreed. I think with homebrew as well, it's more enjoyable and satisfying creating your world. Because the module is done, and you paid for it, it's cool. But when you create your own world from scratch, all the lore, the gods,
00:37:54
Speaker
It's just like powers in the world and stuff. It's just so fun. You can do whatever you want with it. It's got crazy. I will say this of modules in terms of like new DMs starting out kind of a thing. Like I found a map, like a world map from a module that I was like, I honored so hard. And like that just became the world that I was like a Faerun map or something like that, where I was just like,
00:38:17
Speaker
great like we're on the moon sea and i'm never leaving this location like here are built-in towns that i don't need to come up with names for uh like here's how you get from one to the other and that was huge because that's as like for me creatively that's where i'm like
00:38:35
Speaker
Okay, you I can name piece NPCs, which I know is the thing that people are like, Oh, Jesus, but I can always come up with at least a basic name, towns and geography and landscaping and all of that. I'm like, I have it's another town and it has the things you need in it. And I'm like, bad at figuring out different towns.
00:38:57
Speaker
unless I have a map that can literally be like, this is a city, this is like a larger city. This is a little like a farm town. This is, you know, that kind of stuff being there already. Awesome. So on speaking of homebrew, we'll slide into our next segment of the common homebrew rules that people run that have become so common in those games, they've seen their base game.
00:39:24
Speaker
hidden death saves is something that we personally do. And I genuinely, I think it does heighten the game to a point where it utilizes declarative being like, okay, that person's down. I need to do something about it now because they might be one roll away from death. Yeah, I think that's an awesome role to have. We ran it for a little bit at one of the tables that I was doing. And the first time someone who was down rolled a save and went, okay,
00:39:53
Speaker
Everyone around the table was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, oh no. And I think that that is, I think that's really cool because there is that thing, right? Of being like, they have two successes, we're fine, right? Like as a person who plays a lot of healers and support, I learned early, like you only help when it's dire. Otherwise you're like, you're better off like hitting a guy, you know?
00:40:22
Speaker
at least in the rules as D&D is currently, but like, I do think that that hidden death save just, it makes an important situation feel important instead of it just being like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we all know what's going on with Joe. Like, Joe's fine, you know? And I think that that's, I'm very pro. I'm very, very pro that. But I do think that it is,
00:40:50
Speaker
For me, it is a hidden save from the player, not a hidden save from the DM.
00:40:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah. I have played at tables where the DM rolled up behind the screen and I was like, Oh, I don't like that. No, I don't. I think that it's trial that for a few sessions. And then I didn't like it because I'm taking away their entire agency. And I was like, I hate this. This feels bad. Yeah. Yeah. You can just do it. Just whisper it to me. It's fine. Right. And like, I completely understand the motivation for of being like, nobody knows, but also like,
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, you want the players to have the agency and that feels less fun for me if they don't even know their own character's state. Yeah, definitely. It adds to dynamic as well, because now at least the person knows if they have to reroll a new character or not before they'll know before anyone else. And it's fine. They can do that. They can mentally get past it before the others have to.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, as a player, it is stressful. It is so stressful trying to keep a straight face when you've just rolled a natural one. No, I didn't. I couldn't. I rolled, I passed my first save and then I run a natural one and everyone saw me just go, hmm.
00:42:11
Speaker
I couldn't I couldn't hide that I've just rolled horrendously it was yeah I was just like I'm gonna die in a second guys please yeah I looked directly at the camera as well and kind of went mm-hmm in my grade it was try and play this really normal and then I saw the one and I was like fuck I was like fuck fuck fuck
00:42:34
Speaker
It was our first session with cameras as well. Yeah. Our very first session seeing everyone's faces and they just see my face lose all color. The figures as well, it was a big fight. They were fighting something, but I didn't know if they would kill it before I died. So I was like, okay, I could straight up lose my character here. Shit. And I wasn't wondering. A clay golem? I think it was a clay golem. Clay golem.
00:43:01
Speaker
Aclay got him. He absolutely crashed. I mean, it was insane as well. You were rolling really well for the hits. I had a 19 AC and I got battered in about two turns. I just got slumped. I was like, okay. Yeah. Same happened to our paladin with a 19 AC. But he managed to get back up and then go down again. So he had like the less risk of death. Right. You get to reset that death save.
00:43:30
Speaker
yeah i was just on the floor suffering yeah um no it's a very fun rule uh i would say also especially like higher level play um very very rarely will i as a dm
00:43:46
Speaker
like if i have a monster with multi attack will i be like down kill that is like so what a massive move to do right but i will go down hit for two death saving fails like and then leave them there on one left that i think is
00:44:04
Speaker
That gives me that same feeling at the table of going like, this is important. We need to get to this dude, which I think is always fun for players to have that feeling of like, oh, no.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah. I'll be doing that soon, Alex. Ah, nice. You're throwing that out there. You're not for anyone smart enough yet to figure that out. Yeah, I was going to say, it definitely depends, I think, on the character intellect as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do they know to do a double tap or not? Yeah, it's important. Yeah. So we have talked about this a few times before. I think we've forgotten recently. But paid DMing versus free DMing. Oh, yes.
00:44:47
Speaker
pros and cons for most lives, what are your thoughts on paid versus free? Man, listen, as a person who enjoys money, I enjoy money, you know? But then also, I think that there is a looseness that comes with it being like fun and free and like exchange of goods in that way. I think that like there's,
00:45:14
Speaker
It's tough as a creative to be like don't pay your creatives because there is so much work that the DM does behind the screen before they ever get to the table that like you're not even paying them necessarily for the game you're playing them for
00:45:30
Speaker
the accumulated time that you don't really see, right? So like in terms of give the people doing that their due, yes, I think paid DMing is like a good thing for giving back to the people who are doing the work.
00:45:49
Speaker
As a DM, I've done both, and I think that there is a freedom in the DM style to be like, hey, genuinely the cost of this is much lower. If things go wrong, whatever. I think both with streamed games and with paid games, there's some element of like, I need to keep this pretty hard on the rails because there's an experience that people are
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, like actively consuming in a more like, I want something out of this way, instead of just like, hey, we're all playing around a table. Yeah. You know, so it's like, it's a it's a tough line to walk run like, hey, I wish that it was the freedom of unpaid DMing for the proper I mean, nothing crazy or exorbitant, but like, for the proper amount of
00:46:44
Speaker
pay for a DM and also I'm talking about this in a very sort of like not a home game with your friends but if you're doing like a hey someone has sought you out as a DM and you are like being paid to go run a table somewhere you know yeah I think that that's like a worthy thing to be recompense for compensated compensated for
00:47:09
Speaker
And hopefully the people who are doing it honestly are good enough at what they do to make it feel like it is an unpaid experience, you know, like to have all of that sort of like joy and looseness and whatever that comes with that home game feel.
00:47:28
Speaker
yeah it's a very good answer yeah yeah no we uh yeah we we shared some of the thoughts i mean uh we the thing we don't like about paid DMing is when it's like online and someone new to Dungeons and Dragons has posted like anyone DMing and then someone goes oh yeah i'm DMing pay me like you know yeah we're not a fan of that but um no and i and i agree and i think that that's tough right because like if
00:47:56
Speaker
If it is a way that you're like trying to really make like, Hey, I have a skill in the same way that I have, like, you know, uh, it would be.
00:48:07
Speaker
It's close to, yeah, right. Or even like for me, I have buddies who are artists, like visual artists who like draw tokens for characters and stuff like that. And the assumption there is like, yeah, you pay for that. Like they are taking time and craft to make a thing and give you a product. And like, it's true of the DMs as well. It just is a little bit different because there is a joy in the act
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah. For the DM too. It's still the game for the DM, but it's the game they created. So like, yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. And I think that there is something to this community. Like what I've found of the D&D community in the time that I've been a part of it is like people are
00:48:57
Speaker
very generous with their time generally. More often than not, people will be like, hey, you're new to this? Yeah, I got you. Let's play a session easy. But I've also seen the other side of that where it's like, hey, my time is limited. And I also like, this is what I do professionally. I DM professionally. So then I do need to be
00:49:22
Speaker
compensated in the way that you would compensate anyone else. If someone was making, singing is like a great version of that, right? So I think like, if someone, here's my like final, if someone asks to be paid,
00:49:40
Speaker
don't question the reason. Sure. There's probably a reason that they either they feel a certain way about their service and that they should be compensated for what they're doing or they're taking the time to do a thing that they feel passionately about and think that they should be getting monetary value for that. And then decide on your own whether you think that
00:50:05
Speaker
the price is worth the product, right? Like if you find a DM who you love and you're playing games like you've never played before and you go, this is the coolest thing I've ever done. I'll shell out however many bucks a week to do this. Great. If you play one session with someone and you go, it's, that's the price that they're charging for this very kind of whatever game that I think I could do with my friends better.
00:50:30
Speaker
Just don't play with that. Don't play with them. And it's that easy. There's enough people doing it and trying these days that it's like, find what works for you. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. That's a very good answer. Yeah.
00:50:49
Speaker
also like on the topic of questions we haven't asked in a while uh we asked once about uh american culture for dnd compared to english culture i remember that yeah because um there i think there's a quite a big uh a big difference so what is like what is it like to actually play dnd in america like openly make content for it and talk to people about it it's a great
00:51:15
Speaker
question. And it's tough because I don't have the other side of the perspective. Like, it would be easier to answer if I knew what the what the UK culture is, right? Yeah, I guess Pax Unplugged is a good example, like stuff like that, conventions kind of thing, don't really have the draw of the sort of the D&D community, I guess, in a, in a very, like, we're getting the, I think, critical role of them towards, towards here.
00:51:44
Speaker
I should mention 20 are doing one here soon. Cool. And they're the only two big podcasts that I can think of, like the, oh, an ad pod, an ad pod, I've done one as well.
00:51:54
Speaker
That I can think of that have been in the UK also this side Yeah, I'm in the UK mostly as well is for like conventions and stuff. I think there are there are small Conventions and whatever but a lot of the time it will be There'll be a D&D section of conventions for like like Comic-Con like right conventions or Yeah, it's kind of just related Yeah, I think in in that regard then like I
00:52:23
Speaker
the UK, the US is more like gluttonous with their consumption as we are in so many things. Like I think that I think that there is a
00:52:35
Speaker
It is very easy to oversaturate the market in terms of US consumption. If you're Googling a D&D podcast, you'll throw a stone and find a million. Especially in the US, I think.
00:52:55
Speaker
There it's really the stuff that sort of rises above does so because it is so quality. It is people like really making stuff at their highest level and or are so entertaining or charming as people. Either the product is so good or the people are so good. Right. I think that like
00:53:16
Speaker
that is sort of true, at least in my experience of it, that is true of D&D throughout the US is like the people who you, the names that you know in the community are the people who are either so charismatic and kind and like good people that they have naturally sort of like charisma to their way up to the position that they're in.
00:53:44
Speaker
or they are making a product that is undeniable. It is something that is coming to the zeitgeist because you go, well, that's great. If I know D&D, that's great. If I don't know D&D, it's still a consumable thing. And I think that that has been like,
00:54:08
Speaker
Because I am less in the world of conventions and cosplay and all that. I super appreciate it for what it is. It's just never really been my world. I think coming into D&D during the pandemic when none of that was happening, I didn't naturally find my way into that world.
00:54:27
Speaker
So I can't speak to what that kind of an experience is as much. What I can say is that I've done a handful of projects with different people and different whatevers. And for the most part, there is a true aspect of love of the game. People are...
00:54:54
Speaker
doing what they're doing because they love doing it. And I think that that so far, in my experience, has been pretty like resounding, you know, like that seems to be pretty all encompassing for the experience I've had so far. But that being said, there is, I mean, there's so much, it's so saturated, the market is so saturated. Very much is. Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So I mean, and it's so funny, you know, like something and especially with like Baldur's Gate 3 coming out now and sort of like tying in like this video game market with the D&D and like the marriage of all that stuff. Like I know there's a YouTube content creators who have been like, well, I can mix Baldur's Gate 3 into what I'm doing. No problem. Like that is such an easy crossover to like find bigger audiences. Yeah.
00:55:50
Speaker
We've had a conversation about it and been like, could we do this and just throw it out there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had a lot of people because I do those like character builds on my TikTok stuff and I had a lot of people in Baldur's Gate hit being like, do them for Baldur's Gate 3. Like just do the exact same thing. Yeah.
00:56:09
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, there's a very compelling reason to do, like plenty of reason to do so. For me, it was like, I'm just such a, I was like, I hadn't played it yet and didn't want to be giving bad advice. Like I was like, I don't know. I can't tell you shit. I don't want to be putting out content that's like, here's how you play a thief and not knowing what the hell I was talking about. Um, so that was why I avoided it mostly, but
00:56:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's I would be really intrigued to like sort of experience the the zeitgeist or whatever from in a different in UK in England or wherever. I mean, I feel like that has to be
00:56:54
Speaker
England has to be the second highest market. If US is the number one, how far down that chain do we go before it's like, who's playing D&D in Finland? Where do we go? Our fourth episode was a Finnish typical creator. You're kidding me, that I pulled that out of nowhere.
00:57:16
Speaker
Seriously, our second guest ever. Yeah, a finished tiktok career. Good for them. Straight up. That's awesome. Yeah, but to sort of speak on your question before, so I've recently gone, I'm doing my postgraduate degree now, got back to university, went to, so I joined in January, so halfway between sort of academic year. So I was in
00:57:42
Speaker
one part one academic year, I'm doing the second part, the second academic year now. But went to role play society in the first zone. There was like, there were two games going on, there was sort of a rolling rotor. And there was maybe 20 people. Yeah, so I was expecting the sort of the same return running back this year, walked into a room with one of the person who didn't know the way, a new student, I'll show you, we're going here, opened the door, looked around and went,
00:58:11
Speaker
there's 30 people in this room, none of whom I recognize. Am I in the wrong place? I was like, no, no, no, that's, that's the committee who are like running society sat down, 200 people showed up and everyone was like, Oh my God. Like, where are all these people coming from? Like, how's it happened? But yet it like exploded in like one year. And Baldur's Gate was a huge thing of being like,
00:58:37
Speaker
Yeah, I do think there has been a burst like just in the popularity of like role playing it like TTRPG in general recently. Yeah, I think part of that is like the success of Critical Role and the Critical Role TV show stuff like all of their animated series and all that and like
00:58:55
Speaker
I think that's part of it. But I just I think that a lot of people did what I did, which was like they needed something to pass the time. And like it not that it hit at the right time, because it's obviously D&D has been around for like 40 years, but like that it found an audience again and has had this really nice wave that it's just written for the last couple of years.
00:59:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, the work when I started was also it was a year and a half ago. So it's just off COVID. I mean, I started I already knew about D&D. I was gonna I was gonna play at some point in my life. It just happened to be after COVID. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, when I started, I didn't actually find a game in the UK at all.
00:59:44
Speaker
For a little bit. I mean I joined the online groups But I think for like a month and it's still like that in the Facebook group chat for D&D UK's people don't tend to post Games they run they tend to post
01:00:01
Speaker
searching for games um so i was like okay uh i i could make a post uh and then i found some someone made a post i was like cool let's join them uh and it was american game um which really confused me when i joined for the first time and everyone's american i was like you posted in the uk group chat but okay i was like okay cool i'll still play i mean i've got nothing better to do
01:00:29
Speaker
But it was it was very small for a while. I mean, I know people still haven't even heard of it until I started playing. So, yeah, but I'm happy it's blown up because it's very enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah. 100 percent.
01:00:44
Speaker
It's very fun. I talk about this all the time with my wife who does not care about any TDRPG at all. She has a full life outside of this and whatever. But it's really funny because there's the pillars of the D&D TDRPG world, like the Matt Mercer's and the Brennan Lee Mulligan's and stuff.
01:01:06
Speaker
In this community, they're like the cream of the crop, right? Like the coolest dudes in the world. You take like one single step backwards and people are like, who?
01:01:23
Speaker
One step to go like oh, I've never heard of this person in my life. They run a what? Okay cool, man like cool but to I think that that's kind of the beauty of Small communities like that. Yeah is being able to sort of have these like hey It doesn't matter if I like I can walk down the street and be invisible But if you go to the right place and you just like have your people there. It's like hell Yeah, we're speaking the same language. We know what we're talking about like very cool. It's a very cool thing
01:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing with Matt Mercer as well is he could be like have you watched anything animated like? That guy you like you know who that guy is yeah, he's like massive
01:02:08
Speaker
You see your favorite TV show? Yeah. That's Matt Mercer. He animated. He voice acted in that. Yeah. He is also, I was on a web series with Matt Mercer recently. Oh, wow. Yeah. Through completely different channels, not D&D at all. Friends of mine who I do comedy stuff with in LA had also worked with Matt in the past. And they wound up casting us in the same web series called Headless. It's all on YouTube. He's great in it. It's so much fun.
01:02:37
Speaker
Um, and I like met him on set. He is like so obnoxiously the kindest person in the world. Like it's one of those things where it's like, you don't also have to be this nice. Like you got it man. Like you're good. Uh, he such a, such a genuinely sweet open hearted person. And like, this was a cast and crew of people being like, Hey, I love your stuff. Like I played you.
01:03:03
Speaker
And with every single person, he was like, hey, that's awesome. Like, I love that you're part of the community. That's great. And then was so funny as well. Like, it was a comedy series and he was fucking hilarious. And I'm like, you can't have all of these things. Like, yeah, I really like kind person, which which is awesome. Really awesome. That's incredible.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah. So now let's go from talking about how nice Matt Mirth was to a horror story. Yes. Yeah, there we go. So this one actually relates to kind of paid DMing, believe it or not. At least from the title. The title is problematic DM forces player to pay hundreds of euros to play slash not to get assaulted. Yeah.
01:03:59
Speaker
Oh wow, I know. So I believe this is from the player's perspective, because if the DM is writing himself, I'd be very surprised. Hundreds of years. Yeah, so yeah, let's stop. So for a little context, me and four of my friends started playing D&D. For three of us, it was our first time and the DM claimed to have played for three years beforehand.
01:04:25
Speaker
We started off, uh, started off running normal, uh, LMOP and things were going fine. It was an elf wizard cleric. There was a half elf paladin, a half old barbarian who later became a teething warlock, uh, as his second character. And one other problematic player that was kicked for other reasons who I can't remember the details for as a second player. Cause in my brain, I was like, what, what spell happened to that guy in the middle of that campaign? Second character. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:55
Speaker
Looking back on it, the first red flag was when the first thing our DM said to us was, I take bribes. Interesting. Honestly, if I heard that, even if I was a first time player, I would have left. Yeah, that is wow.
01:05:13
Speaker
Due to it all being our first time ever playing D&D role-playing or even making characters, they were all a bit bland so nothing was brought up for a while. The campaign went smoothly and transitioned into a home-brewed rise of Tiamat as she'd already been defeated in this universe.
01:05:29
Speaker
The first problem arose when the half orc barbarian was in a fight and failed his death saves. In any other campaign this would mean he would make a new character and move on. However the player was very connected to his character as it was his first one. This led to him begging the DM for a second chance to which the DM responded saying he would pay 10 euros to bring his character back.
01:05:51
Speaker
Ooh, the player, thinking it would be a one-time thing and not being great with money, said yes and paid for it. After this, more offers were made for gold or loot to him. Other players were offered it too, but they were not offered as often as to the half-orc. Wow, okay. After the DM realized that the half-orc was going to continue to pay for second chances, which he called mercies, so that's what we're going to call it now,
01:06:21
Speaker
I noticed he started getting targeted in combat and getting robbed off loot and gold. This ended up creating a big power gap between me and the paladin compared to the half-orc. Our DM kept raising both the prices and the loot offer values for half-orc until he offered two items for $200 each. To sweeten the deal, DM made half-orc think he was getting a much better deal than he did. Soon after the half-orc brought about $500 worth of loot and mercies,
01:06:50
Speaker
which ever so generous DM only made and paid $400 for. The half-orc was killed for the hundredth time, but this time there were no remains and suddenly you could only buy mercies if there were remains. Wow! There were many other incidents of DM pulling homebrewed rules out of his very riot anal cavities, but I don't remember enough examples for this post.
01:07:13
Speaker
I thought this was the end of the bribery and DM became the better person and put a stop to this, but I was very wrong. Due to the player's now intensified connection to his half-orc character from the amount of money he spent on him, DM convinced him to pay 400 euros for all of his loot to transfer to his next character.
01:07:30
Speaker
I thought, I should note, the way I'm wording this is very mild. DM basically killed half-orc every session and it got to the point where he forced him to pay and when half said he wouldn't, he was threatened with being kicked. After a while of this happening, half-orc decided, with the encouragement from me and Paladin, to quit and stop playing the DM the financial debt that had built up to 700 euros at this point. When he said this to DM, he was threatened to be jumped.
01:07:57
Speaker
in real life? Wow! By a completely real drug dealer that owes the DM a favour. We found out he wasn't real after a while but at the time it was a serious threat. This DM had many more problems but this post is getting too long so I'm going to link another post with stuff in the comments. Wow!
01:08:16
Speaker
Wow. That is horrific. That might be the worst one we've had to date. That's absolutely the worst one we've had. Wow. There's obviously like no two sides to this argument, right? Like there's, there's no redeeming qualities anywhere in the story of the DM side. Like what a awful person. Turning D&D into microtransactions is just horrific. Yeah.
01:08:46
Speaker
Let's like put aside for a second the fact that that was pure extortion to the degree of like mob.
01:08:57
Speaker
If you're a DM and the player at your table's character dies and they go, please, I'm so connected to this character. I have so much that I want to do with them. You find a way in the game to bring them back. You make it a quest. You do a thing. There's a way that, right? Like if you don't want to be like, if death is death for you and you don't want to just be like, Hey, roll again, which like maybe do that. But if you want it to be.
01:09:24
Speaker
a real stakes thing, like talk to the player and be like, listen, I want to get your character back, too. Let's let's get the rest of the party involved. Let's make it a thing for this game. It'll be exciting, right? The idea of being like, hey, dude, pay me 50 bucks and he's back in action is so fucking insane. Yeah. Oh, wow. And that being that first experience as well is just
01:09:52
Speaker
That's so upsetting. Yeah, that is absolutely a thing of if your player is going, hey, it's my first time I really don't want this to happen. It's like
01:10:03
Speaker
Okay, it's got to be a conversation. Yes, yes. You can't be polite now. Right. Equally bad, not equally bad because this guy charged him $700. But equally bad would be a player being like, please, please, I love this character and a DM being like, nope, peace. Like, sorry, bro. Like, also not a great DM. Find the way to make people have fun at the table. It's a game.
01:10:30
Speaker
Definitely. But to switch the side, not to the DM side, because I'd be insane to be on his side. To the other players, I feel like after, it took them 700 euros worth of money before they told the other player to leave. Now,
01:10:49
Speaker
I could get it's their first time but surely after like 50 euros I would have told him to leave even even after the first 10 euros to pay for the character I would have told him to leave I get it's their first time but it is a job of players to if you have a crappy dm to a leave and b tell the other players to get out because seven they waited 700 euros worth that's an insane amount of money
01:11:19
Speaker
Because ridiculous. At the beginning, they said myself and three friends, right? Yeah. Yeah. But it was it was four and three of us was our first time. So someone had played before. And they also the DM wasn't their friend. Okay, that makes no sense. I didn't know if the DM was a friend from before. The DM was a friend. And three of them were new players. And one of them
01:11:46
Speaker
was experienced. So I'm going to stick it on the experienced player there. They've played before. They must know it's not a normal thing to pay off a DM.
01:11:57
Speaker
to get things. Yeah. I mean, I think even if you hadn't played before, like it's equivalent of like having a standing game night of anything, right? If you like, but Monopoly, right? And you're like, Hey, give me this property and I'll give you in real life 20 bucks. That's like, what already crossed the line. Yeah. Like it can't be that important. And I understand the stakes. Like there is something to like, you love your characters that you build. You really do want like you invest in them.
01:12:27
Speaker
uh but not financially my gang like you gotta you gotta be a line there the only financial investment into my character is that hero forge model so i can employ the tailspire and that that is worth it wow
01:12:46
Speaker
What I think really is the beauty of D&D, you literally just need a sheet of paper. Everyone's got their phones nowadays. You can find dice rolling apps online. You don't need to buy dice if you really don't want to. You just need a pen and paper and that is it. And that's the best. That's what's great about it. Genuinely, yeah.
01:13:01
Speaker
But, you know, you need dice. Everyone needs dice. Yeah, exactly. My brother started playing recently and he was like rolling everything on D&D Beyond. And I was like, dude, I'm buying you a pair of, like, I'm just going to get you at least one set of dice so that you know the feeling of the click, clack, click, clack. Yeah. How many dice do you now own?
01:13:24
Speaker
I haven't gone off the deep end on dice, and I'm happy to say that, but I do have a new set of dice for every character I play. A hundred percent. Every character gets their own set of dice. So, I mean, I gotta have 12 to 15 sets at this point. I mean, like, at least 12 to 15. Yeah, I mean.
01:13:45
Speaker
I've got two sets but I preemptively bought a set for being a DM. I had my DM set of dice. I read a session on Friday and we were with a new player on Friday and they had bought a hollow metal dice and they were rolling it and another player went,
01:14:06
Speaker
And if they had one role, it was like, I'm buying holo metal dice at the table, bought a holo metal dice while we were playing the liquid in it. The allure of that was so strong. It was incredible though. It was so good.
01:14:22
Speaker
damn yeah wow i mean i'm just trying to recover from the horror story i hope that player let's talk i hope after that they sort financial advisors um yeah yeah and they mentioned paying off a debt though right i think yeah they didn't have upfront paid the 700 and were like paying it off in instalment it was a dnd yeah it was a dnd yeah wow that's really bad that's
01:14:50
Speaker
without doubt our worst horror story yeah no doubt on my mind and i clicked the link they said they had in the comments um it is another horror story i saved uh we won't do it now because it's a long one but the title is dm tries to balance game with homophobia so like instantly this dm must be the worst person ever there's no way
01:15:13
Speaker
that's the title of the other story. This is horrendous. Like it's absolutely horrendous. I don't particularly want to read that one. Yeah. It feels like, like, why, why give it any merit at all? You know, like, yeah, why even post it? Yeah, it's yeah. And just going through the comments of this post here, not the homophobe one, the one we read.
01:15:38
Speaker
It sounds like it just gets worse, the more that the original poster explains it. They were apparently banned from looking anything about D&D up on the internet. How does one ban that from happening? He's not going to be in your house cutting off your internet. Like I would instantly go home. If a DM told me that, I would go home and search up D&D straight away.
01:16:07
Speaker
Like, clearly there's a reason. Yeah. I'm stretching my mind to try and find them like maybe metagaming, but like you do that at the table and then I don't care what you do in your own time. Yeah. Maybe.
01:16:19
Speaker
And I'm like, why? Yeah. Yeah. It feels inex usable on the, on the, yeah, it really does. Yeah. Um, wow. A lot of the comments are just tell the police. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's extortion. It just, it just is like straight up. It's, you know, mild stakes, but extortion, extortion. And he, I mean, he threatened assault, like he straight up said. Yeah.
01:16:44
Speaker
I've been alive, but he threatened it. So yeah, it's still a crime. Yeah, it's still a crime. Yeah. Wow guys absolutely insane
01:16:57
Speaker
So we're just talking about how nice the community is as well. Yeah, let me change my previous comment about paying your DMs. Yeah, don't let them extort you. I didn't think that I had to make that into the answer, but man.
01:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if a DM is asking for like, more than, like, like triple digits and more, A, obviously don't do it. B, if you consider it, seek financial advice is my, because, yeah, that's insane. Wow.
01:17:34
Speaker
The one contingency I placed on that is I saw an ad a few months ago for D&D in a castle and it looked insane. It's really crazy. I'm tempted. If you're paying to rent a castle to do D&D, I understand that fully. That's for the experience of going to the castle. That's a fully experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Wow. Oh, God.
01:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, that is, wow. So, yeah, I think that's...
01:18:07
Speaker
I think that's everything. Very much for coming on. My pleasure. Fuck that dude. But other than that, it's been lovely. That guy sucks, but you guys are great. Yeah. Oh, this is a great episode. Thank you for coming on. Last question. Is there any other content creators, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, whatever, that you'd like to shout out on the podcast?
01:18:33
Speaker
Oh, man. I mean, I already I've had a couple of them that I've already sort of mentioned, but hero club, George Primavera and hero club and all the guys who do that are just top notch. They tell really cool stories and do it in a way that is like if you've never listened to D&D or like don't know D&D content at all, I think you can still enjoy it, which is great. And then if you know D&D, you get that extra little bump of like, I know what an insight check is.
01:19:03
Speaker
So those guys are awesome and making some really cool stuff. They also do a Twitch stream every week on Tuesday nights. Also under hero underscore club on Twitch. You can check those guys out. I was on their Twitch channel for, we did like a two year campaign in one of their worlds that they had.
01:19:26
Speaker
built for one of the podcast seasons. They turned it into a campaign which was very fun. It was like a Redwall style. All people are animals, but it was like a high seas pirates campaign. Very fun, very cool. I was a chameleon circle of stars druid and it was some of the most fun I've ever had. Just a blast and a half. Those guys are great.
01:19:55
Speaker
There's a handful of people who don't need me to shout them out because they're already so talented in doing their thing, but I've had really lovely personal interactions with Ginny Dee is a buddy of mine who is fantastic. Follow her content if you don't already. I'm trying to think who else doesn't need me to advertise them.
01:20:19
Speaker
You know, it's all these people who are just like at the top of the game. Gabe Hicks, if you don't follow Gabe Hicks and the stuff that he does, he is like a game designer, as well as an incredible DM and player and the stuff that he, and also makes some great thirst traps on TikTok. What's up, Gabe? And it's a buddy of mine who I deeply adore.
01:20:43
Speaker
sort of along those lines Christina Ariel is another good friend of mine who is a wonderful across nerd space creator Star Wars and D&D and all just like a big proponent of being
01:21:00
Speaker
awesome and nerdy and great. Definitely check out all of those people. If you haven't yet, there are amazing humans and creators and hell yeah. Nice. Absolutely. Cool. Yeah. So I'll listen as well. Check out Gabe if you haven't watched him on TikTok yet. Oh yeah, and my shit, but whatever. Listen, if you like dumb, if you like D&D mechanical stuff and or learning more about monsters, yeah, check out what I do. Yeah.
01:21:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, we're on all the platforms.
Podcast Availability and Next Episode Preview
01:21:33
Speaker
You can list them. Yes, Spotify, Amazon, Google. There's another one. Apple. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah. Everywhere you can get a podcast, it's probably there somewhere if you just Google it.
01:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, thank you very much for watching. We will be back next week with another guest. Yes. And then after that, I'll be mean eyes for one final episode, one final episode, one more episode. Last episode of the year is coming all the way down the home stretch as we wrap up. Thank you for letting me be your second to last guest ever. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much for watching and we'll see you next week.
01:22:19
Speaker
See everyone later.