Transcript
Speaker: with the coachman D20 Radio. at Your game is rolled.
Speaker: How will 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 us stories of momentous events at our tables.
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.
Speaker: Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast, everyone. I hope that you have had a great couple of weeks since our last episode. Nick, Robert, welcome. Nick, welcome back. The technology gods have not defeated you.
Speaker: ah We're silicoid couple. Yeah. Hopefully you haven't seen it yet. No, we're going strong. Glad to have you back, Nick.
Speaker: I'm glad to be back. And listen to the episode. Very much enjoyed it. Yes. Daryl and I had fun. of course, we missed you. We did. I wanted to be there. Yeah. Kind of had to make our own thing there.
Speaker: But what whats say we, since we missed you last time, we just dive right in this time. oh yeah. the Diving right in. Starting off, ah we've had actual plays on our minds lately.
Speaker: And if you're looking for a great actual play from the D20 radio network, check out Everon Renewed. Yes, they're currently in their third campaign.
Speaker: So there's a whole ongoing adventure waiting just for you. And if you ever wanted to spend more time in the world of Eberron, very great setting, this is a pretty great way to to do it. Long form storytelling, memorable characters, and a whole lot of things going sideways, which is always fun.
Speaker: And that sounds like a pretty good RPG podcast to us. So check out Eberron Renewed wherever you get your podcasts. All your favorite war crimes. No, I do the war crimes in Everon.
Speaker: I do the war crimes. You have no monopoly on war crimes in Everon. I have no monopoly on war crimes, period. Looks out window. It's 90% war It's just all the way down war crimes. Yes. War crimes all the way down.
Speaker: Yes. So what's up this week? What's up this episode? Hmm. Well, you're the one that usually introduces our topic. i am But I'm kind of sort of the topic this time.
Speaker: Yes. So, why don't you have a seat, Daryl? I'm already sitting sitting down. As we're going to take a look for the logs and ask you some questions in an anatomy of a campaign. Specifically, your campaign.
Speaker: My campaign? Yes. Ha ha ha. If you've been watching our episodes, we've been alluding to it, but it's finally here.
Speaker: Yes. We're going to be talking about The Walking Dead by Free League. And, of course, Daryl's campaign, Walking Dead, the Muerto Las Vegas. Yes. Oh, and we also forgot that's ah it's AMC is The Walking Dead.
Speaker: Yes, that's very important. AMC. yeah i mean it Don't kill us. It's even in the RPG logo. Like, great. ye Right there. Is it? Yeah. Yes. Yes. it Yes. We said it right. Don't trademark us. Specifically. Specifically. I mean, it it could be based on the comic, like Free League's Invincible RPG based on another Robert Kirkman property is based on the comic, not the Amazon series.
Speaker: Well, one has the has has the AMC, The Walking Dead, on the tin, and the other one's like they didn't want to buy the AMC license. I mean, the Amazon license. Oh yes, Muerto Las Vegas.
Speaker: So let's get into it. and Let's. Of course, we've alluded to the system, of course. It is Free League's The Walking Dead, which is... for More accurately, The Walking Dead Universe.
Speaker: Yes. It's the formal title. Yes. And mechanically, we'll start with the system. If you've been watching our show, we did an episode on aliens, anatomy, or...
Speaker: Focusing on the game, Walking Dead has the same mechanics. It's a D6 system. You have good dice and stress dice, just like an alien. Depending on how your characteristics and skills are determines how much regular dice you roll. And depending on if you have any stress or if you want to gain stress, you can also roll stress die.
Speaker: You only succeed on sixes. If you roll a one on the stress die, something bad may happen in this case. They call it a Mess up.
Speaker: A mess up. so only able Only instead of alien, it won't be like you roll a panic die and then you either scream one away, freeze, nothing like that. No, usually it's you either attract walkers, you make your situation worse, you could even friendly fire someone, just to name a few examples.
Speaker: it ah It recontextualizes the system into the setting. Yes. And it also makes the walkers more of a environmental hazard yeah environmental hazard, not an actual straight up enemy.
Speaker: Walkers do not have stats. the I refer to them as as a force of nature as opposed yeah to an adversary. Yes.
Speaker: And they have different levels. there's There's basically levels one through two where they're basically they're present, but they haven't noticed you yet so you can sneak around them. Three is when they notice you.
Speaker: Four is when they're coming at you. Five is when they're almost in reaching distance. And then six is when they're right in your face. And you're going to have to hope that you roll well or they're going to attack you. And basically that is the unique factor in that, as you said, instead of them being an individual antagonist enemy due to the nature of a zombie apocalypse like The Walking Dead,
Speaker: They are more of a force of nature that is going to affect not just encounter to encounter, but the entire zone of cop, of the accent of the players. Yes, which I always felt was a good idea because an alien, you can get away with it. Alien warriors and facehuggers and all that.
Speaker: They're beefy enough and scary enough that they can have their own stats. you you can cru are the normal one and You can run an entire alien game with just one alien.
Speaker: Yes. Can't do the same with with a walker. Because, of course, one walker, no problem. Three? Meh. Ten? You may have a problem. A horde? Yeah, you're you're in trouble.
Speaker: there's There's a problem. Which I feel works for the atmosphere, especially when you mess up, because then there's more walkers. And more walkers. Yes. And you gotta stop making noise, because you'll just make more walkers. But sometimes you're in an encounter with another human who also has stats, and they can mess up.
Speaker: And then they can contract more walkers. And it compounds upon each other. is' like Yes. And and like like Alien, your characters are very squishy.
Speaker: In fact, they basically have three health points, basically. Or states of health. You're steady, then you're battered, then you're bruised, then you're broken.
Speaker: If you're broken, ah then you take critical hit, which could immediately kill you, depending on how bad you roll the crit table. But you're basically out. yeah You're down. And in the case of, like, if you're in a walker swarm, well, um welcome to the counts.
Speaker: Yes. Welcome. him but So does that mean that you show up on Talking Dead with Chris Hardwick? Mm-hmm. Let's just say a certain player of ours has had three characters go on the couch.
Speaker: i might be I might be creating i might be carrying a groove in one of the chairs at this point. Yes. Yes. Chris is just saying, and back again, our favorite character player, Nick.
Speaker: Chris is is saying, Nick, you can't have my job. i see what you're doing. You can't have it. Well, clearly the writers don't like me, Chris. And yet they keep bringing you back.
Speaker: So you have steady employment.
Speaker: They're just being just being cheap on the hiring process. yeah But yes, but the one of the big things I like about Walking Dead versus Alien is that it gets you invested in the actual universe, especially in the location, because the game, the game will say, pick a location and even better, make an actual grid map of the location. of where your group will travel.
Speaker: And you're going to have NPCs and PCs. You can even roll for your initial NPC group. And then you got this group going around the map, discovering factions, trying to survive, scavenging, fighting, dealing with, of course, humans. We are the walking dead. ah Dealing with all that in the post-apocalyptic world. right It has a kind of pseudo like ah ah West Westlands and sort of like you explore the area like and again, it also helps it is rooted in our real early 2000s world.
Speaker: Yes. In fact, is set basically four years after in 2014. And Daryl, you decided not to put us in good old Georgia. You chose somewhere else.
Speaker: Did. I chose Las Vegas. And this is a good time to ask. um Well, we've asked this question before and you've answered that before. But for the good people at home, explain why to choose ah she was the Nevada?
Speaker: Yeah, why Las Vegas, Nevada? um Well, I ripped off the campaign idea from the owner of a local game store.
Speaker: With his permission. With his permission, yes. um I was in the store. I was buying some Delta Green books from him. And usually when I go in there, ah since he's a small store, doesn't do much...
Speaker: much traffic, especially on Friday nights when I normally go in, I usually end up stuck in there for an hour to an hour and a half just chit-chatting with him. And he was talking to... I haven't been there as much as you, but the few times I have been, like I was like, I'm just going to pop in and was like, well, I got to buy something because I've been here for an hour and a half.
Speaker: Yes, he's very approachable. He loves talking about his games, love loves talking about what's coming in and what he's played, give you suggestions. All around good businessman. And so he was talking about a Walking Dead game that he was working on that was set in Las Vegas on the Strip. And the group of survivors there had basically ah started...
Speaker: basically a adopting i don't know i don't remember how he put it uh because i've slightly drifted away from this um even though it was part of my original concept but they have basically adopted the themes of the hotels the architect they have taken up and yeah they've they they've built their society in each hotel around the theming of the hotel yeah basically they've chosen the the culture that was shown in the hotel.
Speaker: Yeah. So like, um you know, I don't remember if he had anybody at the Excalibur or not, but at the Excalibur, they would have adopted theming of medieval knights.
Speaker: Yes. And then place we've been to frequently, the Flamingo, which of course we got the mob territory. because yeah ah That was all me. yeah That was all me knowing Vegas's history.
Speaker: Yeah, that too, because The mob built Vegas. And you all continue on, like, the fact that you know Vegas probably more than any of us. Yeah, you have an inside source.
Speaker: Yes, I have an aunt and uncle who have lived there since I was seven. And on a couple of different occasions, including currently...
Speaker: my My dad has lived there um since the early 2000s. And so um you know i I know a bunch of you know Vegas history just from cultural osmosis. And we used to go vacation there once a year when I was a kid, since I had the aunt and uncle. And my grandmother moved out there for a while.
Speaker: So I had no, does any of your folks know about ah a specific area? Yeah, but he he can't acknowledge it or he would have to kill me.
Speaker: True, true. And then even went beyond that, because since we're in 2014, you didn't just choose how Vegas looks now. You actually went in to be like, OK, what was in Vegas in 2014?
Speaker: Well, 2010, because that's when yeah the outbreak started. i found a map of the Vegas Strip. from 2010. twenty ten And you know like you said, the the game encourages you to create a region map.
Speaker: So i just I used current Google Maps and got the greater Las Vegas area. And then i have as an inset to that map, I have the strip.
Speaker: but that is the strip with a with a legend on it that indicates the hotels that were there 2010. in twenty ten Yes, yes. Which was a very very useful. And again, a great piece of of world building for us as players. We we enjoyed seeing like it really, not just because it was a realistic location, but having that real life map Yes, because it helps, because we can be like, okay, we're here.
Speaker: We want to go over here, so we may have to go and again here or there. Here are the roads we can use. And assisting with that, if we ever wanted to, we could look up pictures of the, because there are pictures of that time period that we could see, yeah and then we'd think, okay, that's what that looked like.
Speaker: and Some of further of those locations have been have been regrettably demolished in the current era, but We still have historical records to see what they look like to help us contextualize. Okay, that's what that looked like.
Speaker: And the next thing that the next step that I took is, since my dad comes to visit every year at Christmas, the first Christmas after we had launched this, i already had the map.
Speaker: He was sitting here and I rolled out the map in front of him and we sat and talked for about an hour and he looked at the map he's like, oh, over here in this area, this kind of stuff You know, I want to be vague because I have all of the notes and not all of these areas are areas that you've been to. Yes, and we're players, so.
Speaker: Gotta be a little spoiler warning if you say anything. and But he's like, or over here, there there's this. If a little red dot pulls up in your head, we'll warn you, Daryl.
Speaker: If you talk about a specific area. and Well, that area's not on the map. It's a little bit north still. Yeah, it's the immediate Vegas place. Well, again, there's still ah so of the mafia.
Speaker: But the the other thing, too, and you've encountered a couple of instances of this when you've, when your characters have been out on the road, ah but he's, he told me, Oh, and down here in this area is where a, you know, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorist radio host lives and, you would broadcast from,
Speaker: And so just because I thought that was fun flavor, I've introduced that element in to the campaign. He's running basically pirate radio, but and he's had some good broadcasts.
Speaker: Yeah. And honestly, it's fitting, especially in around this time period. This is like before the 20 it's before the move into like,
Speaker: what we now know is YouTube and podcasts. They would still be like your, your conspiracy cranks on the radio. Yes. So, and they thought he would be, they would be the ones that survived the apocalypse. And just in, in random sessions, when I know that you're going to be on the road for a decent stretch, I'll prep one of his broadcasts. Lovely flavor. we appreciate them.
Speaker: one ah One of these days, I'm going to go super production on it and record it and put some static and all of that just go super production. Oh no, then then I'll be scared that he'll die.
Speaker: nah the conspiracy nuts never die in an apocalypse. I mean, you know i'm I'm not saying that there's always the possibility that you guys could go try to find him or anything, but that's entirely up to you.
Speaker: We do have some immediate problems at the moment. Yes. but Yeah, we've talked about where and and what inspired you, Daryl. So I'll first ask, before we started playing it, what kind of experience were you hoping to create with this? I just thought that it would be a a fun Walking Dead game to begin. Because we've had fun with Alien. We know that Alien captures the tone.
Speaker: of the alien movies and i ran the didn't run the starter box but i did run the um but sample scenario that's in the core rule book for all of you i remember that and and it worked pretty well you you guys all seem to be getting into it and i was like okay yeah Yeah, we're going to do a campaign here. And that's what I was talking.
Speaker: It helped with Jesse at the store. And it helped with the fact that, again, we were coming off of pretty early off of our early alien experiences. Yes.
Speaker: I forget what it was like. Yeah. Like a couple of weeks after our previous alien experience and you did that. So we like the concept. We love anything free league.
Speaker: Still not sponsored, though. Please, Free League. One day. Everyone's bugging my house. Please.
Speaker: And that's not hyperbole, viewers. But seriously, I really just thought, okay, you know we're we're going to have a fun Walking Dead game. that That was really the experience that I set out to create because I thought it was a fun premise and it's a fun system.
Speaker: and And then I happened. And then there's... Well, no, it wasn't so much you. It's it's all of you. Yeah, the concept...
Speaker: evolved over time from... Still fun, of course. Still fun. But we have become invested in these characters yeah and the people even in the story. In ways that are incredibly... Again, like, I do like the idea that the Alien is structured more like a horror movie, whereas like you're expected to lose people and get close to them.
Speaker: Walking Dead... Especially how AMC's The Walking Dead is this is's a narrative that's meant to be like played out of a multiple episodes.
Speaker: And it's included in the way they handle certain things. Yeah. Yes. In Alien, the goal was to survive.
Speaker: Or that was the premise of the cinematic. In Walking Dead, survival is definitely important. but you're also trying to live in a post-apocalyptic world.
Speaker: Right. Right. And, you know, you yeah, you you got to kind of sometimes hand wave the stuff, the same stuff that the TV show does. Like, where's all this gas coming from? Yeah. Where's all this, you know, all this actual functional gas coming from? ah would, I would like to know that. It's not silly nowadays. Yes.
Speaker: But, um, but it definitely go ahead right Go ahead. I saw it evolve over time. The big hint that it was going to evolve and it was going become my favorite campaign is when I, Betsy, and Dante just started riffing as NPCs during a scene. Honestly, I saw that too.
Speaker: got it. i saw that too it's like
Speaker: I know that you and Betsy riff off pretty well, but the three of you have like a dynamic. I was like, I was like, normally I like to interject because I don't like not being involved in conversations. But was like, no, no. I was like, I can watch this. I can watch this for like an hour. Yeah, it was also your character was in the scene because you were a prisoner and we three were were playing dick guards, just kind of yeah riffing and saying, how long do you think these people are going to survive? think this was also, we introduced a, and this is a good time to ask that question, like, how do you feel about us basically inhabiting new NPCs as it happened? that but That was a new thing at this point.
Speaker: ah Especially... It's become a thing that we've been working on, like, Throughout all the campaigns, but mostly here, and it's when it started and it's become like a... Yeah, and it feels like it works in this place. so It works in this because this is the campaign that, just by the nature of the story and the characters that you're all playing, this is the one where the PCs are naturally split up more frequently. But again, and with the story, again.
Speaker: And so that serves as a way for, like, in the instance that you're talking about, Nick, your character, and for the listeners at home, your character had been separated from the entire rest of the group and basically thrown in the strips version of prison yeah that had been set up.
Speaker: And you were basically in like a chain gang during this. Yeah. And so the options were, since we were on a scene focusing on you, to focus on you and let the other four players just sit there and twiddle their thumbs. Which would be... But they started jumping in as the NPCs. And i was like, this is good. This works. And it's keeping them engaged. And again, ironically, I was still doing my NPC stuff, but they were the ones...
Speaker: giving the flavor text. Yeah. Yes. Usually you'd be the one like, like giving like funny voices and doing things to like, for like three different guys, they were doing it on a natural riff. Well, I was just like, well, I don't have anything to add to this, but it's like, I'm still hearing them and I'm still acting up by character. Yeah. And it, it has forced, and I like that it has forced me to do this because it's forced me to evolve.
Speaker: a certain set of GM skills in that as the GM, as the story goes on, there are elements that come up that I may decide on for an NPC.
Speaker: But one of you may have been, like it happened in our quote unquote season finale. There's an NPC from the mob at the Flamingo that Robert had been playing. And just through natural storytelling, the idea came up that there was a mole.
Speaker: in the mob who was feeding information to the ruler of the larger strip and just because it it was a case of all of the other prime suspects for the mole were brand new npc so there there's no payoff to any of them being the mole there's no payoff to it so it's like okay This NPC that Robert's been playing for like four sessions now, the only way there's a payoff to having the mole is if he's the mole.
Speaker: And so I have to kind of steer... Thinking of this as part of the reason why this works so well is that you are treating it sort of like, well, the series. A TV series.
Speaker: So yes just it's a we're both audience of players. Yeah. And so i I have to kind of balance that out because I love what all of you bring to the NPCs.
Speaker: But I can't all as the GM, I can't always fill you in on here's what's going to happen with this NPC. Yes.
Speaker: Honestly, that's fair. If there's going to be some kind of twist, like I can't tell you that that mob guy is going to end up being the mole. Yes. But guess what? that you kind of Though they're not here, ah on our sister podcast, the as a casual nerdy, Lauren is one of our players, and they had a brilliant suggestion.
Speaker: And honestly, I would like to ask, like That was a big suggestion. We could discuss that later. and and there But they brought up a suggestion that really redefined their character and how they interact with the story.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, we can we can go over that later when we get to to the later parts of our of our anatomy structure, of our anatomy lesson. We'll actually start here We know in The Walking Dead, tones are, of course, surviving the apocalypse, fighting between what was morally right before the apocalypse and what you need to do to survive and protect your people. in The real enemy is man. Yeah, the deterioration of human civilization and trying to put it back together again.
Speaker: the difference between trying to live and simply surviving. We saw that a lot. How far is too far? Or when is it justified to be that monster?
Speaker: As well as cultivating and making greats better people in a new world. Yes. And then, of course, in Las Vegas, the big thing is, is it just to live under basically a dictatorship? That dictatorship is keeping you safe, fed, and keeping out the enemies.
Speaker: Are we just continuing the same power jockeying that was found in the real world? my character has been thinking about when do you decide to just cut it and leave? He's kind of thinking that during certain times.
Speaker: And honestly, I can't speak, but i think this is a good point to introduce your character. and I don't have one right now, but it's a good time to talk about your character Cause that will help inform the care, the audience about what this phase be the you.
Speaker: True. True. So how character creation works in the walking dead is you have what's called archetypes basically roles. classes Yeah. Your classes is in the better in a general sense, there's stuff like cop criminal, the nobody, the outcast, even the child.
Speaker: I went with the homemaker. Basically the person that's trying not to just make this a structure or an encampment, but actually a home.
Speaker: Or at least just trying to. If you're looking at the TV show, the the homemaker archetype is based on the character type of Carol.
Speaker: Yes, in that sense. And then How it works is is you choose a drive, like what is driving your character, who's your PC anchor, like who are you closest to with the players, and then also NPC anchor, who are you closest with with the non-player characters.
Speaker: What items did you have in the beginning? you can You can choose them or you can roll for them. I ried i rolled for them. I got, I think, a bow and arrow,
Speaker: ah met like painkillers and and a car. yeah You got the car. Yeah, I got the car. And so I made a homemaker.
Speaker: i put him as kind of like late 50s, early 60s. And his name is Hank Eichmann. I've kind of, and since he's homemaker, I made an idea that he was initially from Texas and he taught base.
Speaker: He was a coach for baseball at an elementary school. When the outbreak happened, he went to go be with his sister and brother-in-law, because they were the only family he had left, along with his niece, who we our nickname is JJ, played by the ever-so-great Betsy.
Speaker: Yep. We went to be in... Is he playing a precocious child? Never. Never. And of course, now with her dog, Carl!
Speaker: Carl! No, the the dog's name really is Coral. Mm-hmm. So, but, you know, we all we all do the meme. We all do the meme.
Speaker: Cool! So he went to be with his family in this gated community up in Utah, which was our initial base before events forced us to move out and seek out Vegas.
Speaker: So he was there, part of the community, being surrogate. I was going to say, Utah is where your characters were Texas. Seasons one through three of The Mothership Show.
Speaker: This spinoff didn't start till season four. Pretty much. yeah So we lived there, had some other flavorful characters, but an outbreak of plague or illness or some type of disease messed up the community, forced the dead end.
Speaker: We had to leave. We got, we can tell them the name, which you we we agreed on for for the our version of the The Walking Dead. Yes.
Speaker: And Hank, and now most of the other people now call the Walkers the Hollaheads. Yep, I tried like hell to get bandits to stick with you guys because that's what the Vegas community calls them.
Speaker: And you just kept telling me, stop trying to make fetch happen. It's like, nope, nope. They can have their name, we have our name. Hollaheads. I think it's actually started to grow because as we went on, like other characters were so hollow heads.
Speaker: It kind of started with Dante that made my character Hank stubborn because he played a doctor who kept trying to call it a medical name. I was like, no, they're hollow heads. Stop making it an acronym. They're just the hollow heads. I think it's Kesson on. It's not as contagious as the play. Yes, so we had to leave Utah.
Speaker: in the confusion and chaos, Hank's sister and brother-in-law were killed. So now he is the guardian and last blood relative of his niece, JJ. So he's taken on the role of homemaker and protector, guardian, not a father. We've established that Hank is not trying to be her new father. He's purely her uncle who was helping her.
Speaker: grow up and live in this situation where he wants to teach her to survive this, but also wants to give her chances to be a kid, even in such a horrible place.
Speaker: But also recognizing that she is capable in situations, and also, you can't stop her. Yes. She wants to do something, she's got to do something.
Speaker: Yes, all I can do is protect her the best I can, admonish her afterwards, make sure she's alive enough to do that. So his initial drive was to keep the group together. But when we hit Vegas, they pretty much split up between the hotels based on their skill sets.
Speaker: Hank said he could work and cook a mean gumbo. So he was put at but he was put a ballllley and then bellies yeah at at Bally's to become a cook.
Speaker: He didn't stay a cook because of circumstances, but he was there and he was like, OK, Got walls. I'm going to try to make a life. There's a school so JJ can go to school, make friends with kids, be in a semi-safe place to grow up.
Speaker: And initially, he just wanted to keep his head down. even told other PCs, stop trying to rock the boat. Maybe something is bad. Maybe it's not full-on great democracy. Everyone's nice, but at least it's safe and stable.
Speaker: Let's try to keep this so far as we have it. Unfortunately, there's a writer's room and we require drama. Yes. yeah most ah most of the drama is not coming out of the writer's room.
Speaker: Yes, and we will talk about that. About certain moments and surprises. We'll talk about that. Yeah, there we will. ends But yeah, he evolved into gotta project JJ, try to have a stable life to okay...
Speaker: circumstances are putting pushing us to more dangerous places he has other responsibilities now which we'll get into later and circumstances have brought it to where something big may or may not be coming and i need to decide whether i can tough this out or we're gonna have to change some things or do i just take my kids and people i care about and just get out before this whole thing comes tumbling down I can see a situation in season two, we split off into AMC's The Walking Dead, Free League Walking Dead, Hank's Journey.
Speaker: Yes, we've joked, because how I built him, he's good at empathy-related stats and also strength-related stats. So he can be the supportive older man mentor or just someone trying to be kind of a Dale figure, it'd be like, don't go so far. buty But he can also be a man who will knock your lights out and shove you over a wall or lift something up that's heavy.
Speaker: So we've made the joke that he's ah mix between da Dale, Carol, and Daryl at the same time. yeah and not not Not real Daryl.
Speaker: Yeah, not real Daryl. Daryl Dixon. I'm nowhere near as cool as as Norman Reedus' Daryl Dixon. yeah I do not have a crossbow, so that's not why we said it. but Let's just say there's been situations where it's like, oh, he said this, he's probably going to die.
Speaker: Still trudging on. With his basically every everyone on. In the early walking that this is like, oh, he says something. He's dead. It's like, nope. He's like, he's in Europe now.
Speaker: So. Yeah. So that's kind of how I prepped a main my character as his initial drive. But as the story evolved and things happened, it has changed over time. Like a character would change over time and in a story or a TV show like this. Yeah.
Speaker: Yep. And that's kind of how we approach our characters and how we'd recommend anyone who wants to play this approach their characters. Again, it's ah it's a good way of approaching it. And you encourage that with basically your structure of things. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker: And then before we go into our moments and the evolution, let's talk about what was important at the beginning. Your session zero, Daryl. Session Zero went pretty smoothly. I mean, it is... Hey, but we don't we'll get there.
Speaker: Cart before the horse, Nick. No, no, I'm just saying, we don't have to do anything wrong with that. But the the Session Zero, the the prep part of everything went pretty smoothly.
Speaker: I think everybody came into the room with pretty much an idea of... what kind of character they wanted to make. You all knew the premise. I had sold you all on the premise. I rolled out the map, um even though the characters hadn't gotten to Vegas yet.
Speaker: um And so character creation and set up, and everybody knew what we were getting into with it being Walking Dead. so everybody was good with kind of the content level. This is before we had started using um our new Session Zero agreement.
Speaker: but everybody was all on the same page. Awesome, awesome stuff. We had some great character ideas. I still remember when we walked in before everyone else arrived and Nick was like, I'm ready. I've made three characters.
Speaker: Yes, Nick made three characters. And hi I will take a a small aside, even though the player's not with the group anymore. There was one, we had a new player Always a pleasure. He had... think he might have come for one other game of something else before one or two games something else. I know he came for one session of Cyberpunk.
Speaker: Yeah. think he was the best observer in that. And ah came in. It was was kind of quiet, you know which stands to reason, because we all know one another.
Speaker: we we we always say that you know we have, for better for worse, whether we all like it or not, we have become family. And this yeah there's somebody new coming into that dynamic. So we're all bouncing off of one another. You're still on on the will. where We were all bouncing off of one another. And so he was kind of reserved, kind of quiet.
Speaker: And, you came up with a character. But after we left that evening, I got home and I got a DM from him on Discord. He's like, hey, I was kind of thinking this stuff as unspoken backstory for my character.
Speaker: And i was like, yes, I can work with this. Yes. Sadly, and he has not come back. But Daryl's not one of the ways good material.
Speaker: i will I am not one to waste good material. His character has shown back up as an NPC, and I am making full use of that backstory that he that he gave me.
Speaker: Yeah, you said that with me once. Yes. it was like so like Shortly after he left the game, like you said that with me, I remember the good bits. It's like, really good.
Speaker: Yeah. So that all went smoothly. that That all went like normal. I was not expecting otherwise. It was a new system, new-ish system. It's similar enough to Alien that character creation was easy enough for us. We were just having to figure out the the bits and pieces that were uniquely Walking Dead.
Speaker: The bits and bobs. Yeah. ah So then we did our traditional like um session zero prologue mini adventure that had you entering the Vegas area by way of Hoover Dam.
Speaker: Yeah, we were in our I was driving a Jeep. Dante character had this like bus slash ambulance vehicle that he made. and and we were just driving like, is is it coming close?
Speaker: Kind the whole, like, we're we're in that prologue trying to arrive to our destination. And turns out Hoover Dam is being controlled by some faction.
Speaker: And, well, this is Walking Dead, so conflict ensued. Yes. yeah And shoot our way out. up Yep. had I will introduce my my character.
Speaker: Introduce your character, Nick. Yes. Well, I was a former Army Ranger, retired, had a great deal of like experience and stuff of that, and I was going up... Nick.
Speaker: Nick. Oh, sorry, I got shot by a bullet. Oh, not just shot by a... Well, actually, no, you were shot by a bullet. You're the one that threw the grenade, right?
Speaker: No, he got shot by a shotgun. Yeah, but I remember he had a grenade and his character threw it. Because I remember a grenade. He threw the grenade in the elevator. Yes, that's what remember.
Speaker: But yeah, he got shot and immediately went down. so Oh yeah no, no! No, no, no kar were Don't Don't his character attempt to save me.
Speaker: and we And he messed up. He rolled a mess up. ah So yeah, Daryl was like, you take another... Also, he did not succeed. Yeah, that too.
Speaker: So Daryl said, okay, you mess up. He takes another wound, and ah he was already at the bottom, so goodbye. you Goodbye, first nicket first of Nick's characters. Yes, I killed the character in session zero, everyone.
Speaker: On my first... Technically, that was my first action, and I could have been saved. Again, I don't blame Dante's character all, because of that defined their character going forward. Oh, it did, because Dante's character had a flaw that...
Speaker: yellowo yeah are He had a savior complex, because before the outbreak happened, he thought he had killed one of his patients, and then in the prologue, he... killed one of his patients.
Speaker: But that, know, session zero went went pretty well. And seeing the way the characters were were riffing like that let me set things up yeah ah pretty pretty nicely.
Speaker: On paper, kill accidently a player accidentally dying like that could derail things. You rolled with the punts.
Speaker: And so did your player, player Dante, who added that to their their character trauma. and Yeah. yeah for throughou So, honestly, I do not see that it's all a flaw at all.
Speaker: Yeah, it also introduced us, the players, to, yeah, death is really easy in this world, but also helped reinforce... By accident, yes. Yeah, but it also helped us reinforce in our own characters that it's been four years. These characters have seen death before, so this wouldn't completely...
Speaker: throw them off in shock, they'd be sad, and even a little bit like, okay, we actually lost one of our combat-trained people, so that's a problem. Again, they they didn't suspect the best place was the fact that it was it was Dante that did tried to resuscitate me, and that I feel that without this moment, it wouldn't have inspired his arc that we'll get into, if you want to get into it in this moment.
Speaker: Yeah, we we can get into it in the next section. um And I will say, while I did, I felt bad because it was session zero. Oh, but I did not feel bad at all. I rolled horribly.
Speaker: But I also liked that It set the tone for the campaign. It did. it It set... And it was it was that whole... ill not even Not even Game of Thrones really did this. The the ah only show that I can think of that did this. Because Walking Dead didn't do this.
Speaker: No. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer did this.
Speaker: They had someone who was set up to be a main character, Willow and Xander's best friend, Jesse. Jesse, yeah. turn Who got turned into a vampire and killed in the pilot episode.
Speaker: Yeah. Up to the point that they wanted to to give viewers that twist. They wanted to include Eric Balfour in the opening credits for the pilot.
Speaker: But the industry standards and guidelines and contractual elements centered around a TV series opening credits prevented them from doing so.
Speaker: And here's my reason to also justify both indie in the storytelling difference, but also the similar framework of Free leak League games.
Speaker: If an alien just... stabbed someone through the heart within like 10 minutes, would you care? Yes, and it also had a side benefit of adding tension. You would want to build up the tension to the xenomorph doing a kill.
Speaker: Not just tension that you die, but there was also a subtler tinch tension because the other like person who was a soldier and had combat experience was an NPC who who was completely fanatically loyal to another NPC.
Speaker: yeah So the balance of violent power shifted to their side and the initial group. Because now the woman with the machine gun and even the grenades was not was neutral at best to our PCs. get different type of tension instead of like, oh, you see the xenomorph skittering above, getting ready to kill someone. But now...
Speaker: just A regular person died, but now the dynamic of the party has changed dramatically. But it it definitely had that delivery of nobody's safe.
Speaker: Yes. Which again, both bulbs both genres are the same. It's like, no one's safe, but they're different deliveries. Yeah. And then after Hoover Dam, we got near Las Vegas, but we actually decided...
Speaker: Initially, maybe we don't immediately go to this strip, because we don't know what's happening at the strip. We've just heard the strip has some type of civilization. So we first tried, let's go into one of the outer neighborhoods and see what happens there. Maybe scout the place out.
Speaker: And that's yeahp ah the fact that since you gave us a large map, we decided to explore it. Yes. And we did a little bit. We found...
Speaker: like some like housing block that we initially can't little initially set up at. We went out Yeah. We went out for a kind of scouting mission, found this gas station, Hank and JJ did kind of got trapped because of some walkers walking by, but it actually let us discover through like a random scavenge item, random roll.
Speaker: We found a Walker Gilly suits, basically. yeah And that's how Hank and JJ learned, which we haven't shared with everyone because some of these are new characters, that, oh, if you if you wear one of these Walker Gilly suits, the Walkers ignore you.
Speaker: Or at least like cover yourself in Walker guts. Yeah, if you cover yourself in Walker guts, and Hank tested this, he went out, and he'd be like, I hope this works, I hope this works, I hope this works. And...
Speaker: The walkers just walked by him. So he got to go back to the group and be like, hey, this is camouflage. I believe they also have the app appropriate, of like, you smell like like shit and guts. Yeah, and then Dante's doctor character was like, no, no scientifically, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Hank was like, I'll be right back.
Speaker: And he went to a walker and be like... Come get me. And the walker ignored him. and And it was totally blowing Dante's character's mind. He's like, that shouldn't work. But it does. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. I was just giving that walker a big hole. Yeah, i was just like, look at me. Look at me. I'm right in your face. Yeah.
Speaker: And then they got that's not that's not how science works. And then we got and then we ran into. A centurion scout of the Emperor Caesar of the strip.
Speaker: We killed him. The centurion, not not. Yeah, we killed the centurion and acquired his horse. And we were like, huh? You know, this might have actually made it worse for us.
Speaker: Then we see actual military helicopters flying overhead. can see like a laurel, Roman laurel Like a golden laurel leaf painted on the side.
Speaker: And we were like, oh, he has helicopters. And then that night, the group group kind of put it to a vote and we were like, let's go to the strip. Let's go to the strip and blend in.
Speaker: And we did and we got processed which basically we walked in to, I forget which hotel it was that they do the processing. Harrah's. Yeah. We went to Harrah's and they basically sat us down for an interview. They were like, okay, who'd you come with?
Speaker: What can you do? And that's, that made them decide where they put you because I could cook and I was semi fit. They put me in Bollies and then go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker: Yeah. They put me in Bollies, Yothi's, Dante's character Yothi was a doctor, so they put him in the one of the nicer hotels. And because Nick's second character mouthed off to them, they put him in prison.
Speaker: Yes. and And here is where i I very quickly abandoned the idea that every hotel's occupants adopt the theming of the hotel.
Speaker: oh really? but well i yeah i Originally, they were going to be themed, just like in the original idea that I swiped. But as... You mean from this from the and the classic video game Fallout New Vegas?
Speaker: Never played it. Yeah. Never played it. But I i was going... I was going to still originally you know keep the whole theming thing, but as I was going through this intake, I decided, no, that that's a little... that The society that I have developed here on the strip has not descended so much that they would literally adopt the theming.
Speaker: But each hotel has a particular purpose and type of resident. Yes. My hotel was kind of the blue collar people.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like the middle class. The valleys is like the middle class. The Bellagio is where the upper crust live because the Bellagio controls the water. Yes, and it's also where the hospital is, in a sense. Yes.
Speaker: So the upper crust is there. the Bellagio controls the water. The Bellagio still has the fountains going because that's their display of power. Yes. And then in a world where resources are limited and water is as valuable as gold, especially in the desert, you're running.
Speaker: We're running the fountains. And it's just as it's just as powerful as it was in its golden age. But now even more so.
Speaker: Yeah. And then Caesar's palace is literally caesar's palace it's the seat of government on the strip yeah the fortress into itself it is a strongly defensible area and it looks over the palazio yes and then the luxor was where the prison was yes the The Luxor was converted into a prison because, and none of you had been inside it. and I don't know how many of our listeners have been inside it, but... I've i've seen i i've i've seen the inside of it from my parents.
Speaker: They took photos of it. But i've yeah, it is a large facility. But the main building, the pyramid, is an actual hotel building and the pyramid has rooms in it. And there, it's not just like, like level, level, level with a solid floor going across. i The rooms line the outside and there's, you walk out of a room and there's the hallway and there's about a, you know, stomach high wall
Speaker: that you then look over and it goes down to the mezzanine of the building. So my thought process was, you know, great given that the population of the strip isn't huge, the Luxor has been turned into a prison.
Speaker: That main pyramid is the prison facility itself. The hotel rooms have been converted into the cells. And the, a prisoner ah you know gets out of line, they're just yanked out of the cell and tossed over the wall to fall to their death on the mezzanine.
Speaker: and it yeah It's again like very effective. Again, my parents had been there and they said, like as I was in a small cell. Yes, and so and of course, we had ah flamingo, which housed...
Speaker: the surviving mob, which is kind of the second power fighting Caesar for control st controlll and influence of the strip. And here' here's where my familiarity with Vegas history and lore comes in. The Flamingo was the original hotel built in Vegas, and the mob literally built the city.
Speaker: is It did. Yep. And... if If you look at the history of Las Vegas, it yeah like there's a great Tumblr post online that says like Las of Vegas it sounds like a D&D city. and it's like It is a glistening golden venue of sin and decadence in the middle of nowhere and controlled by... It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Speaker: Yes. it it sounds like It sounds like the most cartoonishly evil place created, and yes, it exists. And so um the mob naturally kind of consolidated there at the Flamingo, and a real, relatively recent mayor, mayor at the time that all of this happened, of Vegas, was is he was a mob lawyer. I mean, there's no two ways about it. If ands or buts.
Speaker: And so i have taken a fictionalized version of him who he wants to take control of Vegas back from the Emperor.
Speaker: So he's aligned with the mob out of the Flamingo. Yes, and then The main power, Caesar, as we learned, was a general that pulled his troops over here from the nearby Nullis Air Force Base. From Nullis Air Force Base.
Speaker: And basically brought his troops, set up shop, and became the de facto leader. Brought them in to keep the peace. He had every good intention. But the apocalypse kind of pushed him around the bend.
Speaker: Power corrupts. corrupts absolutely. Yeah. Yep. So we were there in this strip now, and Hank was just trying to live, kind of like, don't acknowledge me. I'm just another person.
Speaker: character is trying to live. My character trying to live. My character is trying to live. um We'll get to second character in the favorite movies. No, no. We're not even going to make this cute Mike out appearance.
Speaker: But yes, and then but the big thing is which kind of Daryl I'm sure will acknowledge it all the campaign was Dante's character who yes was.
Speaker: was the part of the I'd say this was this was one of the big turning points in the campaign. Yes, is Dante's character initially Yothi cared a lot about Lawrence's character Tay. Yeah, and I don't see for him. Tate becomes very important. Yes.
Speaker: Yothi didn't entirely trust Caesar, so he tried to get in good with the Flamingo. Or try to have an in. Well, yeah. yeah yeah and and They're trying to fight on multiple sides to tag along. And they were like, hey, Tate, you're really good at stealth, right?
Speaker: We could use a guy like you. Well, and that there was a two-pronged thing. you know Dante's character was trying to get in good with the mob. Tay happened to be tagging along. And so they decided to hold on to Tay as leverage.
Speaker: Yes, which caused... Because Dante was like, no, no, no. you know i I can be valuable to you because um i can make a cure for this thing.
Speaker: Yes, that was that was the first surprise. I was like, You what? i was like, oh, okay. And you know he was totally BSing them. that think a mob And the mob was like, okay, you got you got a week.
Speaker: Yeah. so it's It's a classic Spider-Verse where he's like... You gotta wait, kid. So Dante's character was feverishly working and a big celebration was going on. Nick's second character is injured and is taken to the hospital the while being imprisoned is taken to the hospital and um Dante is treating her.
Speaker: my god, I'm pacing syrup. Dante's character his boss comes in is like what's this oh oh really it's a vaccine oh awesome uh we got this prisoner this prisoner ain't gonna make it try it on her and first not it was like is there any way i can get out of this and you're like not really I mean, you can try a deception. yeah But Yothi was okay, here we go.
Speaker: And not expecting any of this to happen, I was thinking on the fly. as all of And he said, okay, he's like, Nick, roll me an endurance. Yeah, I did.
Speaker: Because I'm like, oh, character number three is dead. number two and And here's what made it the turning point, because like I said, I'm just kind of improvising on my feet. But once Dante said that he was working on some sort of vaccine, i had already started.
Speaker: The wheels had already started turning. Oh, no. and And the vaccine didn't. nix character really per se but her she turned into this super strong really fast black goo bleeding you caricature of herself
Speaker: Yes, which is when... woman looked like a walker, but you everything pointed to her still being alive-ish. Yes, and then she bit the head doctor, and then it turned into a brief horror stent of basically Yothi's alone in the hospital with infected people to where Hank had to rush in from over here like because he he had a walkie-talkie, so he heard stuff going down, and he was like, God damn it. And he went and found all this happening.
Speaker: And that that really allowed me to then kind of set up a longish game for that element of the story.
Speaker: I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I wasn't sure how I was going to play it out. The way I played out the results of that stuff that first day was far different from what I finally settled on.
Speaker: But it wasn't different enough that there's a disconnect. Oh, but what do you do? it's That was great. was really great. Yes. And then in the chaos of that scene, we had the Yothi got bit on his leg bit.
Speaker: So I had a, i don't know where he got it but he had like a fire axe. So Hank cut off Yothi's leg, brought him to an infirmary room to patch him up. And then the two just started talking like they usually do.
Speaker: And even Hank, before all this happened, told Yothi after he told him what happened to Flamingo, I told him, don't rush this. Trust that Tay can get out of this or do something to make himself make the Flamingo look like he's valuable.
Speaker: don't Don't rush headlong into this if you don't know what's going to happen. And then in that scenario, after all this happened, Hank kind of just started thinking, okay, Yothi keeps doing this.
Speaker: I've got J.J., And in this moment, Hank said, i can't take any more chances with Yothi. Well, and Yothi had um you checked himself out and saw that he wasn't going to turn.
Speaker: He wasn't infected, but he was was a carrier. And he also wasn't wasn't afraid of giving it. Yes. So hank With that same axe, cut off Yoti's head and ended Dante's first character.
Speaker: And honestly, that was probably one of the most impactful points of the entire campaign. that's for me he like Especially how um you guys played it out.
Speaker: It was just like, he said, I used the axe. Dante didn't say anything. And he would just end it there. It's very classic. Cut the credits. But that was a pivotal moment, not just in that, but in Hank's relationship with JJ, because unbeknownst at the time Betsy was talking to you, that she overheard everything that happened.
Speaker: And at first, Hank just lied about it, basically omitted everything. It happened, blah, blah, blah, which initially Adam and Oz with JJ. But then he was drafted to go find food for the strip because there's this kind of like natural reserve place or foresty place in it in Las Vegas, Nevada that has a bunch of sheep.
Speaker: There's a whole lot to we can get into. We're talking about the anatomy of the campaign more than a recap. Yeah. yeah I was about to say, let's let's start. smearing Yeah, we are kind of trying to just say the entire story like writing a book. so yeah if We can do that in the time.
Speaker: Well, let's go into this. We've talked about surprises. i will But now, favorite moments. We'll start with you, Nick. What's been your favorite moment so far? My favorite moment has to be Lauren's recontextualization with with the mob boss. give Give our listeners some context, Nick.
Speaker: ah Lauren is our, better known as Tay, is quite literally our most unspoken character, quite literally, because they have a maximum stealth role.
Speaker: They're a ghost. You can't see them. But they have earned the respect of the mob. And they're also, a as of, yes, they've been roleplaying with us for a while, but they are as experienced most of us.
Speaker: I think if we can agree on that. So when they approached you, Daryl, to recontextualize and basically do a flashback scene, I found that fascinating. Yes, because anna in a scene, initially, Daryl, in a situation that came up, Daryl said the mob boss told Tay to take his crew and basically ice out this other faction and get what they wanted.
Speaker: Right. He didn't exactly care for that, so he asked Daryl to have this flashback to be like, offer them cooperation against the Strip, so that maybe down the line there can be a chance to do more with this group to kind of leverage the power back to the mob instead. i i think they played it very well. They played out of the entire scene. They worked within your your framework. They didn't do anything to change up your plans. And they even acknowledged that like it might happen, but here's some...
Speaker: conditions they were saying. Honestly, it was bold, inventive, and I loved it. And I think it's what makes this made the finale so much so impactful.
Speaker: Yeah, so much impactful and sudden. Any other moments? Oh, hi, cat. Yes, that's one of Daryl's cats. Yes, the door was not completely closed, so he came sneaking in.
Speaker: We all know that cats don't care about doors. They can squeeze under them. no that That's not quite how it works, but... Cats don't have bones. This is like... But i like yeah, the the way Lauren kind of you shifted all of that around, ah you know it it did require me to to do a little juggling of of what all was there, but we we met we met in the middle.
Speaker: Yeah. And... and o Because that this is a collaborative story. And I'm... Honestly, that impressed me a lot. Seeing both you and them work on that. again and that And I had no influence on it. they They asked me one question maybe like two weeks ago.
Speaker: Not to the extent that they were trying to do. But I'm proud to have have a younger... newest role-playing character two to make this a unique switch. Yep.
Speaker: And it worked. It worked really well for everyone. Everyone had a new new element to work on in that finale. It changed up the finale, and it gave us all a whole lot of new like perspective in things and I would say, too, that a villain that that stood out here...
Speaker: All of the NPCs have really been standing out. All of them. They've all been really standing out. But i I am kind of pleased with the way that, and we discussed this in our memorable villains episode, but the Emperor isn't a mustache twirling, you evil cackling, hu yes you horrible bad guy. He's a pragmatic leader in a post-apocalyptic society.
Speaker: And he's harsh, and he may not be mentally stable, but he's He has the power to keep things together, but he isn't a megalomaniac.
Speaker: Yeah. He could be. He could he had easily slide into, like, decline and egotism. But right now, he is... He just has enough pride and power to demand respect.
Speaker: And i I think it worked worked out nicely because coming into things, I think both as players and the characters, you were all expecting you the big bad. Yeah.
Speaker: You were all expecting you were expecting the governor. You were expecting yeah and And honestly, honestly, like, and I'm currently not a player, but I fear like if we depose the emperor can the players can keep keep this place running.
Speaker: yeah are we literally laugh have Have the players been given a reason to depose the Emperor? I mean, Dante's current character, after his previous one died, has beef with with the Emperor. you really have free reason to depose him? Yeah, at best I have beef, but not enough to where I would try to overthrow a government. My character's more on line of, this gets too rough.
Speaker: Let's just leave. Again, there's multiple options to this. But it's like, the Emperor is bad, but in a world where everything is chaos... What would you give up for safety?
Speaker: Yeah. would you What would you give up for safety? What would you give up for... if If you feel your safety is worth, would you sacrifice that to remain safe? Or would you leave? Honestly, we're in a much more interesting like perspective starting out than we had before. And then... go ahead.
Speaker: ah go ahead go ahead i was go I'm to jump in with the biggest surprise that I really like, because it's going to shape what comes after, is that we went to Nellis Air Force Base, found a faction of people had survived there, people that didn't go with the Emperor to the Strip and had been gathering people.
Speaker: And initially Dante's character who wanted to prepare them for like a faction going to war against the Emperor. Hank wasn't okay with that. He says, okay, fine, you have your war, but don't involve me or the people on the Strip in it just so just for your bruised ego or beef you have with the guy. that Kind of let it off.
Speaker: But then it ended up happening that one of the soldiers we brought basically just did a bioweapon attack on the entire encampment. What did he have? He had black Icarus liquid that turned everyone into frothing with black ooze, fast, strong zombie things, which turned out to be this versions of of basically the 28 days, weeks, and years later rage virus. Yep.
Speaker: Yep. That, that was the big change that I, that I made from that initial, yeah initial moment when Dante injected. i I had been trying to think of a good way to do them. And while I was trying to brainstorm with that, ah saw 28 years later and 28 years later, the bone temple. And was like, that's it.
Speaker: Yes. So. Yeah. The bone, the bone temple is really good. If you haven't seen it, it's really good. Yeah. So. But for me, that wasn't the biggest surprise. The biggest surprise was, because of a bad roll, the leader of that faction turned and basically died, basically.
Speaker: And then the entire Air Force base pretty much destroyed itself. And there's an air raid siren that's still playing, which means the rest of the hollow heads are going to swarm this place and make it untenable for anybody.
Speaker: And now there's this just pretty much No man's zone that is Nellis Air Force Base. And that faction, if any of them survived, was basically non-functional.
Speaker: Yep. And we just got back out of there as we watched these rage zombies start running towards Vegas. And I'm just like, oh, great. We might be under siege.
Speaker: And I have to make a brand new character. Well, you brought in your brand new character. Yep. Mm-hmm. So let's say we we start diving behind the screen.
Speaker: Yes, let's.
Speaker: oh welcome Welcome to Talking Dead behind the screen. Yes, where you've kind of brought up before. Our biggest tools are, of course, the rulebook, your map, the walker slider that you have that tells us what level we're at as far as As well as just an understanding of the Walking Dead, mostly from the AMC series. Some of us have also bread in read the comics, but also it's based off general zombie lore, which is in popular culture. Yeah, but...
Speaker: This campaign of all of the ones that I run and co-run, you all have developed the characters so richly and are so involved in the storytelling process.
Speaker: This is, i've I've said it before on the show, this is the campaign that I do the least intensive prep for for a session. I have my story hook.
Speaker: I might have a beat or two that I want to hit, but I walk in saying, okay, I've got these couple of beats and the hook. Let's go. Let's see what they do. Yep.
Speaker: It's like we've talked about in previous episodes that shorts you sent out about the different types of GM. You're the one that's like, okay guys, I've got a list of plot points I want to go on. Let's hit, let's get to it.
Speaker: Yep. um And so, but it works really, really well. is I have found some kind of secret sauce in this campaign for us.
Speaker: Honestly, I feel it's the fact that the setting is so grounded and It's universal. And it's, yes, we all want to be someone like this in a place far, far away or already in a in a fantasy world.
Speaker: But we can all imagine ourselves at like, oh, well, shit hit the fan. The zombies are around and we have to just pull ourselves up together.
Speaker: Yeah, it's that gritty... that gritty realism of you understand this world, it's not foreign. Barring the hollow heads, everything else would be the same is if it were today if everything simply collapsed civilization-wise.
Speaker: And you're just normal people. And, yeah, it's like you want to protect the people you know. You're in the group together and you'll be wary of those you meet.
Speaker: And those in power. it's Guess what? That's every day. Yes. And I think what also worked is that we as you as a GM and we as players, we're all invested in the story so much that we can have that easy improvisation that builds the story forward.
Speaker: And your experience created a believable, very basically nearly street by street place by place, like, we are living in this world.
Speaker: Because again, it's a real world that we can look up and see. And another thing that I've started doing with it prep-wise, and Robert, we kind of touched on this last week and started talking about adopting it for more of our campaigns, is just, we started joking around in each session, and Part of that probably came from when when I post the sessions online for us all. I refer to them as episodes. and
Speaker: oh the the episode format is honestly helped. That would growl me and be like, yeah. Yeah. And so we hey kind of treat it as TV episodes. And I took the step back and I started saying, okay, well, let let me think of it too as a set of seasons.
Speaker: So I've got about 10 sessions that or episodes that I consider a season. And that helped me start to to build out to, okay, the season finale is going to be Nellis. yeah I started the meme as well. as like when i was like When a couple episodes in, I played it like previously on The Walking Dead.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. Yes, and then we talked about how, at least with us, since we only have yeah two, or maybe in Daryl's case, you might be adding a third one. two or three campaigns going on.
Speaker: Maybe instead of interchanging them every month, we focus on one, do a season of that, then put a hold on it, go to the next campaign, do a season, hold, season, season, season.
Speaker: which id get ah You talk about that too, Darrell. yeah find I find that very interesting. And so that's... It's not much different from other games that I that i prep, except that you make it eat you all make it easy enough that I don't have to... Anything more than I do would be over-prep.
Speaker: Yeah. And can help with some of the... yeah i get i've What I've noticed and do love about playing games, especially with a widely variety of players...
Speaker: In areas that I may have not seen, you guys can pick up some of the slack or give it a character or a voice or all right ah plot point that I didn't see that I can pivot on.
Speaker: It helps when this is also, admit, part of it's been a I admit, I've been having a bit of burnout for a bit. Usually it's you guys that help me get back into it.
Speaker: to it Seeing your, seeing your ideas and concepts. Well, we are glad that we have been able to help, Nick. That's what family does. Unless you're that family on that one weird episode of the X-Files.
Speaker: No, no, no, not that one. Isn't that still banned from TV? like Probably. Probably. So where where the campaign stands now, we just finished season one. That's part of why we we slotted this anatomy of a campaign in, because it was a good place to to evaluate and talk about the campaign, because we've mentioned it quite a few times on the show.
Speaker: yeah I think this is a good... if If they want to know more, we could we could do a whole like campaign discussion. But that's all we're here for. Yeah.
Speaker: And it's... i I think it has definitely... exceeded my expectations. i Like I said, I was expecting i was expecting yeah a a fun, action-packed Walking Dead in Las Vegas, and you we' we'd go through a handful of sessions, and we'd be like, okay, well, yeah we' we've had enough this, so we I would find us a stopping point, and then we would move on to something else.
Speaker: but ah Oh, no. This is one of my favorites to run. Yes, and I've said it plenty of times. This is my favorite campaign that we've been doing. And even when we finish, even though I'm playing in it, I feel like a fan waiting for the next episode of his TV show to see what happens.
Speaker: And honestly, I'm still thinking, like, I'm not sure if I have the right character. When you want to restart it, I don't want you to... to to be beholden to me, I want to make a good character to come back into. Okay, all right. So if you run, you can run it here, is obviously, but i and I could be NPCs that you need, but I i need a good character to come back into.
Speaker: e there's There's not much advice I would give someone running a similar campaign. ah Because it i I have been exceedingly lucky with this campaign.
Speaker: It's freeform. It's honestly a pure campaign. You came in it with no expectations. ah You came with players that were relatively new, but did know you, but they didn't play to expectations. so It kind of was like a perfect storm. Yeah, everything just kind of came together. so that There was a lot of luck in there that everything just clicked into place.
Speaker: um So be be lucky is my advice there. The the best advice is like be open to your players. and like Yeah.
Speaker: We're all friends. We're all family. We're all... Yeah, just be that is a good piece of advice. Be open to your players, because what all of you have done with your characters has shaped the campaign as much or more as anything that I have sat down and plotted out.
Speaker: and you had You had a so yeah solid structure, and weve build you had the ideas, But we filled in the character parts.
Speaker: it's It's like a mold. It's just where... I don't want to have it remediated. has what What I am most excited about going forward, though, is I've come up with kind of a little high-concept idea that you all have seemed to to agree to and and join in on that... In between each season, we're going to do a one-shot that flashes back to somebody's history.
Speaker: Our little backstories. Backstory episodes. And the first one that we're going to do, it's going to be our... It'll be the day after Halloween, but it's our Halloween episode.
Speaker: Oh! is we We are flashing back to... Dante's original character, his doctor who died, yohi and and his his internship in an ER r when the outbreak began.
Speaker: Oh! In a certain, you know, pitt Yeah, I got him to agree to slightly alter his character's backstory. yeah his e r His ER r um shift in in internship and residency was in a certain hospital in Pittsburgh.
Speaker: He couldn't resist. He couldn't resist. Oh, it's been. It would been. mean, i mean think think about all the parallels, too, because Robbie is still a younger doctor. He's not the head of the yeah ah ER. His mentor, who died during COVID, is the head of the ER. r Oh.
Speaker: But his mentor's not necessarily going to die of COVID. No. Oh.
Speaker: And you know Dana's there, but she's not the charge nurse. But most of the other characters aren't there yet because they're way too you it's way too early. yeah it' like If everyone's watching, everyone's going to cry.
Speaker: We're going to have some fun with that. Yes. so Daryl, as a GM, yeah what advice would you give to someone who's thinking of running a campaign similar or in the same universe?
Speaker: Well, and and that's what I was just saying, that i i it's hard to give advice because i got lucky here. But like Nick and I were saying, pay attention to the characters.
Speaker: Pay attention to the players and what they're doing. Because that has... They are your campaign. it's You can make a story. You can make a campaign. But if you... But the players, the characters, how they interact with your story, that's... Yeah.
Speaker: you you are all You are all more responsible ah for, as as responsible if not more responsible for all of the major story beats that I have been able to turn into sessions.
Speaker: you could you could You could ride... Dante's the one who decided that I am trying to make a vaccine. And that is... That made me have just you think of what... Because, of course, you don't just put something like that into The Walking Dead and not have it go horribly wrong.
Speaker: And you went outside and you're like, told them, was like, yeah you want to do that. And they said, like, do that. I'm going to do that. yeah like And that's going to have...
Speaker: lasting consequences. Yep, because you know no spoilers. you now i'm sure yeah i nice of it I'm sure this is no spoiler that now that that first ampule has been released, there's more to come.
Speaker: yep it Because honestly, we haven't journeyed through a lot of Vegas. Nope. You've mostly stuck to the strip.
Speaker: And... no there Outside the strip have been idle. no There are things to come. But, uh... I think... and Anything else that either of you would like me to... To discuss briefly? Because we've gone a little longer than usual this time. Because but we love this campaign. Yeah, we love this campaign. This was...
Speaker: But I feel like we don't want to go into too much. Exactly. Because we can talk about it much later. And again, we haven't even got into season two yet.
Speaker: Yeah, and we know can't say everything good that happened because then we don't have any glory stories for later. That's it. Wake, wake. I already have. I don't know when they're going to happen yet. I've got a couple of major story beats in mind for season two already.
Speaker: ah Keep us waiting. Keep us waiting. Keep us waiting because we want it. I'm not going to tell you what they are. I will say, Darrow, keep us waiting. Since we're going into season two, we should make a betting pool on how many characters Nick is going to get killed in. We should. We we should open it up to the whole party.
Speaker: Yeah, he's... He started strong with three in season one, but I think he can push a good five if he tries hard enough.
Speaker: You're blind i that I try to die. And and in in season three, one per episode. Oh, yes. He can be the... Not the same universe, but he can be our red shirt.
Speaker: I... wait Wait a second. Wait a second. Oh no, he's a gold shirt in Star Trek. Yes. But the gold shirts took the place of the red shirts in Next Generation Era and that's when they when it's set.
Speaker: Aren't the gold like rage officers? I just realized. You're bullying me. We are bullying you. We are But you can jump in. me How many do you think you're going to get through?
Speaker: Yeah. I'm hoping to get through the whole season. I'm going to bet. I'll bet heavily I'll get through the full the next season. Someone's ambitious.
Speaker: Remind me at at the day after Halloween session to officially start this betting pool, Robert. I will.
Speaker: It's also especially funny because the character he's chosen to play now is a drunk ex-doctor the Center for Disease Control who doesn't even know what the heck's going on.
Speaker: Well, he did just say earlier in the episode that that that might not be who he ends up playing. True. He would die very quickly. Yep. ah Bullying Nick. It feels so good. I missed bullying Nick last week. Yes.
Speaker: ah like something Love you guys, too. We love you, too, Nick. We wouldn't bully you if we did. and Obviously. We would just ignore you. And then we would take your lunch money.
Speaker: As if I have lunch money. Well, I remember watching you having a steak for breakfast once, so. Yeah. We would take your breakfast money. Because you have more breakfast money than lunch money. Breakfast is the most important. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Speaker: And with that, I will say, head over to HowWeRollGaming.com, your central hub for everything How We Roll Gaming. You'll find details in our current campaigns, like Walking Dead Muerto Las Vegas, our full podcast archive, plus quick links to our merch store, and all our social channels so you can stay connected wherever you hang out online.
Speaker: And for the month of October, that very same merch store features a limited time collection of the How We Roll Gaming Halloween t-shirts. So if you want one, don't wait until November because they will go away.
Speaker: Yes. And if you're looking to support the show directly, our best way is still through Patreon, patreon.com slash how we roll gaming. Got our memberships tiers starting at just $2 a month with perks ranging from special recognition in our Discord community to on-air credits and exclusive discounts in said merch store.
Speaker: And while you're supporting us, you can also help the show at no extra cost by using our DriveThruRPG affiliate link and picking up your next tabletop goodies. And finally, if we are want to hear your GOT questions,
Speaker: You want us to tag up topics you love us to see on the show and legendary RPG glory stories of your own desire.
Speaker: Drop us a line at podcast at how we roll gaming dot com. We read everything and your message might just end up in the show. And breakfast is the most powerful meal of time.
Speaker: Yep, we're going to steal your breakfast money. So until next time, until next time, keep your ammo dry, your head on a swivel. And remember, in Vegas, the house always wins one way or the other.
Speaker: I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And I'm Robert. And this is how we roll.
Speaker: This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2026, 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.
