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Talking Trash
17 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, Mark and Ben dive into the art of trash talking in tabletop RPGs—without crossing the line. They explore how to effectively use banter to create excitement, foster camaraderie, and raise the stakes during gameplay. Learn how trash talk can engage players between sessions and heighten drama during key moments in the game. Learn how to keep the fun light-hearted, respectful, and engaging, ensuring it boosts everyone’s experience. Tune in for tips on using trash talk to fuel your sessions and keep your players on their toes.
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Transcript
Banter and Humor in News Teams
00:00:00
Speaker
What's this? Well, well, well. Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team. Hello, Westmantooth. Hello, Evening News Team. Hey, nice clothes, gentlemen. I didn't know the Salvation Army was having a sale. Am I right? Am I right? Look at these guys. Hey.
00:00:27
Speaker
Where did you get those clothes? At the toilet store?
00:00:34
Speaker
What are you doing on our station's turf, Burgundy? You're about to get a serious beat down. I will smash your face into a car windshield and then take your mother Dorothy Mantooth out for a nice seafood dinner and never call her again! Dorothy Mantooth is a state!
00:01:23
Speaker
All
The Art of Trash Talking in Sports
00:01:24
Speaker
right, everybody, welcome back to the tabletop team up today where we got a fun topic today, Ben. I am looking forward to this one. Yeah, we're talking about trash. We're talking trash, too. Yeah, we are talking trash. We're talking about trash talking, folks. Mark, help us out. What's trash talking? Well, I got some Merriam-Webster's definition for you, bud. All right, let's have it. All right. It defines trash talk as disparaging, taunting, or boastful comments, especially between opponents trying to intimidate each other. What about podcast hosts?
00:01:57
Speaker
well Yeah, I mean, are we opponents? I don't know. I don't know. It's just taking it as red. All right, go on. So
NBA Legends and Their Trash Talk
00:02:04
Speaker
that's kind of what we think about trash talk. We think about in sports. I'm a, you know, you know me, 90s basketball fan. I loved and NBA basketball. I grew up just loving that 90s trash talk in the basketball. Guys like, we had Gary Payton on our team. That guy was just ah just a dumpster fire of trash talk.
00:02:25
Speaker
up and down the court. I mean, you guys got like Reggie Miller, Charles Barkley. Is this your trash talk hall of fame for the NBA? Oh my gosh. Oh, Gary Payton's got to be in there for sure. um These guys, I mean, they're legendary stories of their talk. One of my favorite, Larry Bird, Larry Legend.
00:02:44
Speaker
yep Going down to court, Christmas day game against the Pacers. ah He tells Chuck Pearson before the game that he had a Christmas present ready for him. oh no yeah So Pearson's on the bench. Bird hits a three-pointer, turns to Pearson. Ball hasn't even gone in yet. Swoosh. And he turns ready and goes, Merry effing Christmas.
00:03:09
Speaker
oh ah do You know that like that's just got to hurt. Yeah. Look friends, I've actually done this a couple of times since I saw we were going to do this topic. I went out to YouTube. You can find people talking about what a trash talker bird was. And I think there's some other examples too. So in sports, you know, they used to use this to kind of get in people's heads. Uh, you wanted to get an edge over your opponent and it would distract them from their game plan. It would kind of take them out of their game. They're rattled them.
00:03:37
Speaker
And you can kind of carry some of this over to RPGs. it it's Well, you can carry it over RPGs, but is it the best way? So we're gonna be talking about how to use Trash Talk and do it so responsibly. So, because we're because we're all about being responsible here.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Now, Mark, what's
Trash Talk in RPGs: A Fun Comparison
00:03:58
Speaker
fascinating about this parallel with the NBA is that, of course, we're kind of used to GMs, DMs and their players being in a somewhat adversarial relationship because, of course, you know, we're running all the bad guys, we're posing all these challenges and and things like that. Are we really in an adversarial relationship with our players, though? Not really, but the illusion is kind of fun, right? And we kind of play in with that idea.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think it certainly adds a little psychological component to the challenges that are presented in the game. If you're a player having your GM kind of make you feel it a little bit can be fun. But here's the thing though, even in like the NBA, Ben, I mean, they yes, they were opponents on the court, but some of these guys were friends and they still enjoyed talking trash to each other. Yeah. I think that's really great as a way to frame this to make sure you can stay friends after the game is over. You got to set some ground rules. So let's establish some essential rules so that you can be friends with your players and you'll have a great time.
00:05:01
Speaker
Gary Payton may not have had any rules, but we probably should. No, that's right. Good. That's right. Okay. So
Guidelines for Respectful Trash Talk
00:05:09
Speaker
number one, don't make it personal. We're not talking about each other's characteristics. Uh, the things that annoy us about our roommates. Uh, you know, people got a bad haircut. Leave Dorothy man tooth out of this Ben. That's right. Nobody's talking about your mom. So don't make it personal. This is really not intended to get a rise out of people. Yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
Number two, respect your players. This is meant to be fun, should foster camaraderie, not resentment. Really, it's not gonna be about anything that's happening outside the game. I feel like that could be a version of number two, but really, you can tell if somebody respects you, appreciates you by the kind of trash talk that they give you, right? Usually they'll be playing lightly. Yeah, what do they say about like roasts? They always say that you only roast the ones you love.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's a kind of a good example, right? Like when people do roasts, it's their friends they all invite. Yeah. OK, so thirdly, do not ever retaliate out of character. If somebody gets the best of you as a GM, accept it gracefully, take it on the chin. If they talk some trash and then roll a crit against your favorite big bad evil guy, then you know what? The dice decreed. They get their moment in the sun and let them have it.
00:06:24
Speaker
Number four, go easy on the noobs. If you've got an established group or somebody that maybe you don't know very well, let them ease into it. like like Give them time. don't ah Don't go full throttle. Don't turn up the temperature too fast. Choose your favorite metaphor here, but the idea is they need to kind of have time to read the room and understand where the boundaries are. Yeah, i mean we're calling them noobs. Is that ins insult enough right there? ah Yeah, that's a good place to start, and then you can get more elaborate as things go on.
00:06:55
Speaker
ah Number five, know your audience. And what was interesting, Mark and I were talking about how knowing your audience is both kind of on the low side and the high side. You might have an audience of people who are very sensitive or maybe there's one or two, but you just need one person who's not going to really enjoy this and it's not something you should then probably do much of. yeah But you can also have people, I think we have friends like this or we all know somebody who you know You throw something at them and it's like a five and they come back at you with a 10 and you're like, 10 was kind of outside the bounds of this group. We did not want this guy to be going. I know people would throw 11s and 12s. Yeah. So people that maybe are going to make it a little too real or maybe not respect some of these rules we talked about. So setting ground rules is super important. All right. You got
Engaging Players with Trash Talk
00:07:40
Speaker
it. You know the rules. It's time to talk some trash.
00:07:42
Speaker
Alright, you're good for nothing, useless ingrates. We're going to talk first about some out of game trash talk. Didn't we just get done saying we were going to talk trash out of game? Wait, did we say that? Well, we said don't make it personal and respect your players, so it wasn't about them as such. We're talking out of game here. We're going to be talking out of game trash talk, because there's two parts. We got some in-game trash talk, but we also have some out of game trash talk. Ben,
00:08:08
Speaker
I'm going to treat Shen like the brown belt he is in our next game session. I'm going to slap him so hard. He's going to be checking redf Redfin for listings in the Shadow Realm. How dare you, sir? Now, if I drop that in our Discord, our public group Discord, maybe three or four game days before our game session, how's that making you feel?
00:08:30
Speaker
Well, first of all, I'm going to start planning what I'm going to do to you. So, you know, with Shen in this game, how he's going to navigate that next encounter. So I'm going to get probably a little engaged. I'm also going to be thinking about some trash talk through back at you. Yeah. And, you know, what one thing about this, too, is like I wouldn't really call this intimidation. It's it's fun. It's light. um It's about engagement. I got maybe three, four days before our next game session. I got to get you guys kind of excited. We're we're engaging each other.
00:09:00
Speaker
Conversely, I could be talking trash to my GM. So Mark, I could be saying things like, hey, you know that boss? I think they're about to get demoted. Come on, man. I should do better than that. Come on, son.
00:09:16
Speaker
Well, I did say this one thing in our Discord. You had a boss called The Widow, and we were in a battle. And I said, Mark, Next session, I'm going to reunite that widow with her husband. that was ah You know what? I'll tell you what I felt like when I read that. ah First I was laughing because it was a good burn. But man, I was excited for next session. Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
I was. I was getting in my mind. I was getting kind of psyched up. It got me motivated as a GM. You got the GM excited, which means I'm going to put a little bit more energy into that next session. You know what? this These are just tools that players can also use to get some engagement out of the GM. It's not always just about GMs trying to get engagement out of players. Sometimes sometimes players need to get your GM motivated. Yeah.
Impactful In-Game Trash Talk Examples
00:10:04
Speaker
But there's another side effect that this does. There might be some players in your group that have forgotten that we're going to be playing in a couple days.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, and you could do something boring, like be like, hey guys, we're playing in a couple days. Or you could do this. Yeah, or you could do this. So so now everybody's excited and they're they're laughing and they're having a good time. And they know they're going to be playing in three three or four days. So that's an example of some out of game trash talk that we you can engage in in between sessions every week. And it's a lot of fun.
00:10:33
Speaker
Let's talk about in-game trash talk. We've talked about out-of-game trash talk. When you're playing the game itself, let's talk about what kind of trash you're going to talk in that case. So as a GM, this is going to be an amazing way for you to heighten the drama, but you got to use it sparingly. You got to use it thoughtfully. You want to bring energy to the table, but you don't want to make a whole side trip into everybody talking back and forth about that.
00:10:57
Speaker
Let me give you an example Ben real quick ah of in-game trash talk and how we kind of utilize this. We'll go into a little bit more depth about like when's the right time to use it. But an example might be, I have your character, your your Shen. and The monk, yes. I got you on the ropes, man. I see you can only maybe take a few more hits, maybe two or three more hits. The stakes are getting higher. They're not, they haven't quite reached that the full height.
00:11:23
Speaker
But I lean across the table and I say, I've been thinking about redecorating this room with shins and and then I roll the dice. okay This does a few things, right? Number one, it's kind of it's grabbing the room's attention. If there's anybody not paying attention, they're certainly paying attention now, right? I feel like that's kind of like Babe Ruth calling that home run. We'll talk about that more in a sec, but it's definitely an attention-getter. It's an attention-getter, and everybody's leaning in now because they want to see, well, if I could back that up.
00:11:54
Speaker
um it in It now it's challenging you it's challenging the other players around the table Hey, you guys gotta step up for game. You know what I mean? Like I'm gonna I'm gonna have my way with you in here And when the outcome is in doubt like and somebody starts trash talking like that really does give you this vibe of like Oh, they've got confidence. They think they're gonna win if I were to say something like that Are you motivated just a little bit more?
00:12:20
Speaker
Well, of course, i'm I'm trying to figure out how I can put the lie to that calumny that you've just issued. Yeah. And I also might be sensing too, like maybe the battle is, maybe it's not going their way. Maybe it's not going the player's way. And I need to get them to kind of refocus, recenter. And by giving a little trash doc, I've now got them thinking about their next move and how they're going to like one up me. I need to get that out of them.
00:12:46
Speaker
There's some really interesting sleight of hand here that we're doing psychologically, right? Where we're essentially as a GM, you're managing people's attention with this spicy talk through the game. And that's a really interesting thing to think about. How do I keep my players engaged? We've talked about lots of ways to keep players engaged. And this is one of those tools in your toolbox. And there's another thing too. There were people when they would trash talk Michael Jordan back in the day.
00:13:10
Speaker
ah You took it personally. You took it very personally. and And people would say, what are you doing, dude? Do not talk to him. Do not open your mouth. Do not open your mouth on that guy. Because next thing you know, he's going to have 40 points in the second second half of the game. Yeah. Because somebody just said something stupid to him. So trash talk can motivate, but not everybody.
00:13:30
Speaker
So
Building Camaraderie Through Trash Talk
00:13:31
Speaker
know your audience. The goal of trash talk within the game in sports is to gain that psychological advantage. In RPGs, it's about creating a psychological boost for the table. You're trying to fuel the excitement. You're trying to get that investment out of your players. And it's also kind of you you see more high fives and stuff. So you're building that bond around the table. Everybody's having a good time. So when players are responding with clever retorts or turn the tide in the game, they win.
00:14:01
Speaker
And as a GM, your goal isn't to win a verbal sparring match. That's not really what you're doing. That's an important note. You're trying to bring out the best in that player and those players. And if you succeed, you win. The players win. The table wins. And I got to say, there are fewer victories sweeter than the one where you shut up that full villain's mouth. You're right. It's a lot of fun. And that's where the high fives go around. You always see those at the table.
00:14:26
Speaker
Okay, some closing thoughts. yeah For you human version of participation trophies that you are. And you're trash-talking the audience. This is a dangerous game, man. We'll see if they trash
Celebrating Player Wins After Trash Talk
00:14:35
Speaker
-talk us back in the comments. That could be fun. We'll find out. That could be painful. What do we do, Ben? That'll be in public. What hath me, Rott? Okay, here's some final tips. First of all, celebrate the player's victories. If a player lands a killer blow after you talk trash, again, take them on the chin, let them bask in that glory,
00:14:55
Speaker
ah Make a big show of being humiliated about it even hundred percent. Yeah, enjoy it That's a good moment for you as a GM that you've been able to create that emotional high secondly choose your moments It's a funny thing about salt mark a little if it's good too much of it ruins Whatever you've put it on as a person from Minnesota been what they salt the hell out of all their food here yeah The point is, this is the seasoning, it's not the dish. So be thoughtful about that. Avoid trash talk during critical moments, too. right That's kind of a variation on this theme. If you're about to kill a player character and the dice are going to you know drop their last hit point, like don't start talking trash then. The player's emotions are already in a real moment, and you don't want to like make it worse for them if they're feeling it all a little traumatized.
00:15:45
Speaker
We had just talked earlier about how we're we're using trash talk to build up the the excitement and build up that like, you you know, build up the to the next level. Well, if they're already there. I mean, trust me, they're like one hit away from being taken out. You don't need to take it any further. It's already there.
00:16:04
Speaker
That's right. So keep in mind the goal of this thing. And then this is kind of the test is foster fun with this stuff, not friction, right? If people are not having fun, if there's friction, trash talk stops. You want to make sure your banter is building people up and engaging them more in the game, not creating tension and ah discord in your group.
00:16:25
Speaker
I'm just hoping to hear more of this at the table, to be honest. I love it. And I'm hoping that people take some of these tips and let us know. um i You know what's funny, though? I think they do tell those stories later, you know, yeah when they say, oh, yeah, I got that zinger in on the villain. Here's what I said. And then this is what I did. And then, you know, the players will tell those stories. So I think as the GM, you want to have your version of that, but as we said in so many other places, remember that you're there to serve the players' heroes' journeys, right? You don't necessarily want to overshadow the players, even with your villains. So try to give them the openings and engage them in ways that let them know that it's okay for them to talk trash, too. Awesome. Well, Ben, that was ah that was a lot of fun. Let's let's get into some tune-ups.
00:17:16
Speaker
All right. Chartim wrote in into us. He said, hey, how to handle it when a fellow player gets secretive with what they are doing.
Handling Secretive Players
00:17:25
Speaker
And you feel kind of cut out from the rest of the group. Now, this is the player to player interaction. So maybe he's being a little secretive, maybe side notes. What would your thoughts on this been?
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think there's interesting player to player dynamics, there's interesting player to GM dynamics. Obviously, with player to GM, that's something that, you know, players may have interesting things about their characters, they want to unfold over time, they want to work with the GM on that.
00:17:51
Speaker
And that's fine. I think there's a kind of a challenging situation that you can be in though. And i've i've I'm sure you've experienced this. I've experienced this where if you're coming into a group that's already well established and there's a lot of people there that know each other and they've got the shared vibe and they all kind of are on the same wavelength and you're maybe not there yet. If they don't basically take steps to include you, that's a good moment for you to maybe have a side chat with a GM and be like, hey, like, am I missing something here? Or do you guys have fun with me joining you?
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, mark I think one of the first things about any group that makes it successful, we talk about what makes a a game like these kinds of RPGs successful. It's not the system. It's not how much character backstory you put up. It's not how good your maps and stuff were or how pretty your dice are. It's really player chemistry. This is fundamentally a social exercise.
00:18:40
Speaker
and how pretty your dice are. That could be part of it. No, but you're right, Ben. It's the players and it's that chemistry you want to have. But I will say this, like if he wrote us this, let's just assume that it is maybe something that's been going on for a little bit longer than because there's gonna be side chats between players and GMs. A good amount of that can happen in between sessions. You don't necessarily need to do a lot of it, but there will be sidebars. Sometimes it's it's warranted. There's a lot of times where GMs want to have that single character knowledge so that they can reveal it to the party in a way that makes sense to their character, through the lens of their character. Yeah, that's a nice point. Don't be overly sensitive to those secretive talks, though, because you might be involved with one of those at some point, too.
00:19:27
Speaker
Also mark think about all the times we've talked about as a GM what you're doing to manage players with sidebar conversations ah negotiating item situations trying to do things to harmonize the group and lots of stuff like that all of that it's all stuff that.
00:19:43
Speaker
You don't necessarily want to invite a whole lot of transparency around because it could be something that ah individual players uncomfortable with, or it could be something you're just trying to manage with some degree of decorum and protecting people's feelings. So, you know, I think it a lot depends on is this the players being clickish or is this the GM doing the GM's job of managing the group?
00:20:03
Speaker
And if
Managing Secrets in Gameplay
00:20:04
Speaker
the players are being clickish, then maybe talk to the GM and let him manage the group for you and then not worry about it after that. I will say I've i've seen situations, Ben, where a player might be secretive. Maybe it's part of their character. Maybe they're just they're playing a rogue and and maybe they're stealing from the party.
00:20:19
Speaker
which is Which is like another problem altogether, really. And that kind of secretive can kind of get on people ah where they're not revealing information that has been, the the GM has given yeah for whatever reason. So I've seen players abuse that secretiveness and that can be a problem. So keep your eyes open as a GM, recognize when a player might be using that to kind of get an edge over the other players. We're not looking at getting edges over people, right?
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, remember that because this is a social game, the behaviors you need to be looking for are the ones that are pro social and the ones that are anti social are the ones that you want to address early and often. Well, I think we kind of wrapped up that tune up. We got some stuff coming down the pipe, dog don't we? What do we got in the future here?
Upcoming Topics Preview
00:21:05
Speaker
We are going to talk about the pulp genre soon. I really want to pick your brain on that. I think it's really underrepresented in games too. Like there's a handful of games that do this, but I think we're going to find that some of our favorite stories, some of our very, very favorite stories have come out of that genre. I know what I'm looking forward to is ourre talking about working the odds, how to move the odds in favor. ah since dice You know, the dice is the third character. That's the third player in our game. ah We want to figure out how can we maneuver the odds to work in our benefits. So we got some good stuff. The ancient Romans once said that you can't control fate, but you can charm her, maybe. Wow. Don't ever do that again, Ben.
00:21:50
Speaker
I'll have to go find that, but that was that was for TuneUp, right? That is awesome. All right, you guys, we appreciate you listeners. And as much fun as we had talking trash with you, we we hope that you talk some trash back to us as well. Please ah talk trash to us in public, or if you'd like to talk trash to us at our Gmail address, tabletoptuneupatgmail.com. We'd love to hear that. We'd love to hear your TuneUp suggestions. send us questions or ideas about things that you'd like to see, some variations, some brainstorming around, and we'd love to hear about ideas for world building or player management or issues you're running into at the table. Enjoy this music track. it's i Honestly, this is one of the best ones. I love this one. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Enjoy it. Well, friends, until we meet again, talk some trash and keep those dice rolling.
00:23:59
Speaker
game from the spark to the do So if your game's feeling flat, lost and unfixed These two will rebuild it with the slickest tricks Call them up when your world's ready to fall They'll turn it to c great and it's the best game of
00:25:00
Speaker
que is now but go