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We're Not in Kansas Anymore - When Players Don't Know the Setting or Lore
26 Plays3 days ago
Most RPGs, licensed or original, have rich settings & lore. What happens when players don't know that information though? Daryl, Robert, & Casual Nerdity: Clone Watch co-host Lauren talk about ways to handle newcomers to settings.
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Transcript
Introduction to How We Roll Gaming Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
D20 Radio. Your game is rolled.
00:00:17
Speaker
How We Roll Gaming is dedicated to spreading enjoyment of great role-playing games. We hope to bring you insights into games you may not have played, tips to be a better game master and player, and share stories of momentous events at our tables.
00:00:29
Speaker
Every game is a new story to tell. I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And here's Robert. And this is How We Roll.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast. Hope everyone is doing awesome out there.
Personal Life Updates
00:00:50
Speaker
How are you doing, Robert? Oh, I'm doing very fine. The workday is over. Now we have a weekend to look forward to.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yes, yes, I i am doing in c incredibly well now because we have been without AC all week. Yeah, I heard about that.
00:01:11
Speaker
your landlord was like, can you tough it out till spring? yeah Can you tough it out till spring? Because I'm going to replace the whole HVAC then. um No, it's 90 degrees inside our house.
00:01:23
Speaker
So now would be good. Like, does he actually live in Texas? Yes. That's even worse. we we We have gone to drop off a rent check at his house before.
00:01:35
Speaker
That's even worse now. Yeah, he's like 15, 20 minutes from here.
00:01:46
Speaker
But anyway. Anyway. That's all taken care of. That is all resolved.
Future Content and Scheduling
00:01:51
Speaker
And Alien Earth is over. we will save real you know deep thoughts on that for another episode or two because we we have an episode themed all around adding new media content.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yep. And it's going to fun. And... and Attentive listeners may have noticed that we are short a Nick today.
00:02:19
Speaker
When Nick said that he wasn't going to be able to make the recording, he said that ah if we had to come up with an excuse for why he wasn't here, that we should make it really cool and epic.
00:02:32
Speaker
So, dear listeners, I am here to deliver to you the tragic news that Nick was rushed to the ICU earlier today following a battle with a squirrel.
00:02:51
Speaker
We hope he makes it, but meanwhile, the squirrel that now owns his house will be hosting our games this weekend. It's very tenacious beast.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yes. At least Nick was able to live through it. Yes. Now, Nick's not in the ICU for any reason. It's just, what's the bane of RPG's existence?
00:03:15
Speaker
Scheduling. Yes, and just we could not make schedules align for this episode to record. But hey, what you gonna do? What you gonna do?
00:03:27
Speaker
Make do with what you have. Yep.
Excitement for Invincible RPG Kickstarter
00:03:30
Speaker
So gaming-wise, you and I were talking about it before we hit record, Robert. who who's Who's a mark for Free League?
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm a mark for Free League. And I guess I am now officially a bigger mark for Free League than Nick is. Because their Kickstarter for the Invincible RPG, based on the Robert Kirkman comic, from looking at all of the little partnership branding things and all of the language in the account...
00:04:04
Speaker
It is the comic, not the Amazon cartoon.
00:04:09
Speaker
ah That launched this week. And yeah, i I pledged within like 30 minutes of it launching. And it was already funded when I pledged.
00:04:20
Speaker
I have no doubt that's true, knowing Free League. So I'm looking forward to it. um Anticipated delivery is July. Can it be July now?
00:04:32
Speaker
Well, it was July ah month ago. ah Two months ago, actually. so if I had time powers, maybe. yeah But I don't want this past July. I want next July because then I'll have the Invincible RPG in my hands.
00:04:50
Speaker
Oh, well, I'll have to make do with Free League's Alien Evolved Edition shipping next month. Well, there is Christmas in July. how about July and Christmas?
00:05:02
Speaker
OK, sure. Does that mean Free League's going to ship Invincible and in December? i'm not the I'm not their department. You got to take that up with them.
Housekeeping and Podcast Recommendations
00:05:12
Speaker
but But before we dive in, because we do have a guest waiting for us, let's let's go ahead and get housekeeping out of the way. Housekeeping? We clean them? Housekeeping.
00:05:24
Speaker
we we said We should get like a sound drop for that. we We wanted to let you know about another great show on the D20 Radio Network.
00:05:35
Speaker
And this time around, we are again mentioning the Story Told podcast, which it's going through some changes right now as Logan steps into the role of sole permanent host. um His co-hosts... you Again, the the devil of RPGs scheduling.
00:05:57
Speaker
they Something had to give in priorities, and it was the podcast. So ah Logan is stepping into the role of permanent host.
00:06:08
Speaker
And for the rest of this year to round it out, he's having rotating guest hosts come in. And in this latest episode, as of this recording, ah he's joined by Dave Smith and Nick Pancook as they take a look at miniatures in RPGs and everything that that entails.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yep. So just give the Story Told podcast listen wherever you get your podcast or through the handy link to their site in the show notes. Yep. Now, on to our episode.
Influence of Licensed IPs on RPGs
00:06:41
Speaker
so A lot of games that we play, I think you would agree with this, Robert, are based on licensed IPs.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yes, very much so. Very much. And we're fans of these series. And so that... has kind of you know That's one of the things that we like about these games.
00:07:03
Speaker
yeah We get to dive into these fictional worlds that we love. But that's really not limited to licensed IPs either. Because most RPGs have some really rich and immersive worlds.
00:07:19
Speaker
And some of that some of them have even built up their own unique body of lore. I mean, you just 800-pound gorilla, D&D. D&D has multiple branches of lore. D&D has fiction out there on bookstore shelves. It's got movies. It's got a totally awesome cartoon from the 80s.
00:07:43
Speaker
I will fight with any anyone who says that cartoon was not good. It even had a live action movie. Yep. And it's had several, but only one of them is worth watching. ah
00:07:56
Speaker
So one way or another it's inevitable to have players join a group that aren't familiar with that game's lore. So how do you then help usher those players into the details of a world that you might take for granted?
00:08:14
Speaker
And for that matter, how does a player step into that world? So to help us hash this out, especially that player
Guest Lauren's Gaming Journey
00:08:22
Speaker
part, we have a guest to help us out.
00:08:25
Speaker
A member of our group who's dealt with this very thing more than once in multiple campaigns that they have joined. Join me in welcoming our good friend Lauren to the podcast. how are you doing, Lauren?
00:08:39
Speaker
It's me. I'm Daniel. Yes, it's Yay. Nice. I've arrived onto the main show after being constrained to the side project for so long.
00:08:55
Speaker
but i don't know about side project. I had the idea for casual nerdity before I had the idea for how we roll. The chains have been broken. Yes, yes, I've arrived.
00:09:06
Speaker
and Free me! ah Appropriate, given that now i am in fact running my own sessions and games and such, just not necessarily with the in-person group around here. We got another one.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yes. we we made We made another GM. And another one's coming soon. oh boy! ah Yep, yeahp I'm looking forward to that one too.
00:09:33
Speaker
So, a little background. What brought you into our motley assemblage of players, Loren? Well, generally speaking, ah it was that during the pandemic season, I had very thoroughly isolated myself for a long time. And so I was looking for something to do in person with a group.
00:09:56
Speaker
And so I went online looking for anything in general that would be around where I live. And I found y'all. And in particular, i found Nick's campaign of the My Little Pony game.
00:10:13
Speaker
which is a franchise, well, more like specifically Gen 4 that I've been interested in. And I was like, well, you know what? That sounds neat. I'll go ahead and try that out as something to see if there's like a good vibe around them.
00:10:27
Speaker
And there was. And so I decided to try to join some other games involving things that I might not be as familiar with. including the likes of Star Wars, of which I had seen the original trilogy, and Alien, of which I had not seen anything, and The Walking Dead, of which I had also not seen anything. yeah Well, like Nick made sure to rectify the Alien one, though. Yes, yes, I have in fact seen two of the, two, I guess these days, three of the Alien movies at this point, so.
00:11:00
Speaker
Well, and for what it's worth, having only seen the original trilogy, trip Trilogy for me to say. the group of three things. Yeah.
00:11:11
Speaker
those Those three thing thingies. Yes. um those The only having seen the original trilogy of Star Wars, you have a leg up on a former player in one of the campaigns.
00:11:24
Speaker
Oh boy. Former coworker of mine who had been wanting to play D&D, but knew about our group. And I was like, well, we don't really play D&D.
00:11:36
Speaker
We play Star Wars, e but you know Nick just started a new campaign. Here's what it's about. She's like, okay, I'll give it a try. And she had a ton of fun.
00:11:49
Speaker
She played in ah couple of campaigns and then job stuff happened and she left to become a teacher and moved out of town So just kind of fell out of even joining the games online.
00:12:09
Speaker
ah Life got in the way. Scheduling. I should, of course, I should, of course, note that ah
Helping Players Acclimate to New Game Settings
00:12:19
Speaker
I've been talking about the instances where I didn't know what was going on whenever everybody else did, or at least I wasn't familiar with the core material.
00:12:28
Speaker
ah But I have, in fact, inflicted that upon the group on a number of occasions myself, where, yeah you know, there are two systems that I run ah One is called Ginso Naratograph, based on the Toho series of video games.
00:12:46
Speaker
And the other is called Net Battlers, which is based on the Mega Man Battle Network series of video games. And among the people that play in this group, nobody really knows anything about either of those things. So I have been both on the receiving and the inflicting end of ah this lore uncertainty element. Yeah, I've at least played a Mega Man game, but I had no idea what Toho was. Mm-hmm.
00:13:16
Speaker
And mean, I've been on both sides of it, too, because while I've played a little bit of Cyberpunk 2077 and.
00:13:30
Speaker
Our son had bought the core rulebook for Cyberpunk Red well before Robert started his campaign. and i was like, OK, this is is kind of Shadowrunny kind of thing, which I barely know, too.
00:13:43
Speaker
But cool. Count me in. hmm. And also Fallout. All I know about Fallout is the TV show. Yeah, I mean, I guess at the very least, whenever it comes to Fallout, I've seen a very thorough Let's Play of Fallout 3.
00:13:58
Speaker
So there's there's something in that regard. Great place to start if you don't have the game. Trust me. And whenever I say very thorough Let's Play, I mean made by somebody who actually knows how to play the game and knew all of the things. And like, you know, this person knew what they were doing and they were presenting it to an audience who was expected to not know what was going on.
00:14:19
Speaker
I've mentioned it too, and we'll get into all of these examples a little more thoroughly as as we just kind of kind of rap about all this. Oh God, I just sounded old. As we talk about all of this, we will, or there's another instance potentially coming up that either myself and or friend of the show, GM Brev from the Movie Defenders, ah have both talked about being interested in running the Star Trek RPG for our group.
00:14:55
Speaker
And I'm looking through my screen at Robert. Robert does not know the the trek to the stars. I've watched a movie here and there.
00:15:06
Speaker
And but all I know is that they're space people. Yeah. I watched a show growing up, but that's about it. And that was so long ago. I barely remember anything about it. and i think there's a spaceship in the form of a cube, but that's it.
00:15:20
Speaker
There is! That is one of the enemies. Points for Robert. Although notably, i was actually thinking about it a week or so ago, whenever I described my ideal sort of Star Wars episode or series to you in our last, you know, ah Clone Watch episode, I realized that what I had described was actually far closer to Star Trek than Star Wars.
00:15:49
Speaker
How I wanted to focus on Ahsoka and the droids going to weird planets and doing stuff with weird aliens on them. That's... Yeah, that is very much more Star Trek.
00:16:01
Speaker
And we're going to have to get Robert kind of up to speed in the next couple of months because it's tradition at Gamer Nation Con that we we do to a three-parter with me, you, and Nick...
00:16:18
Speaker
In the theme of the con, and next year's theme is Star Trek. And i don't got any of those Star Trek books. i I do but I'm also debating doing something, spoiler alert, doing something that I did at Gamer Nation Con 9, in which Scott Zumwalt had started putting together a Star Trek Genesis setting.
00:16:49
Speaker
And so I used Genesis to do um a Star Trek one-shot at GamerNationCon 9. So we might do it in Genesis if between now and... so Because we'll need to start planning right after right at the first of the year, no later.
00:17:07
Speaker
If Brev and I can't get Star Trek on the table for everybody by by the end of the year, we'll do it in Genesis.
Learning Game Lore
00:17:16
Speaker
All right, fair enough.
00:17:18
Speaker
Because we know Genesis in and out because it's just Star Wars rules. And you can even use Star Wars dice. Oh, boy. Yes, that is the fun part of it. It's easy accessibility.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yes. Let's start with that first, though. and And I'll ask this of both of you because you've both been faced with with this looking at games that are coming up.
00:17:41
Speaker
But... with With Robert, it's some nebulous someone. Whereas with with you, Lauren, it was, oh, hey, be these guys that played My Little Pony are going to be playing Star Wars.
00:17:57
Speaker
They were kind of cool. Let me join in on that. So you knew a set date for it. When you're coming into a game that is set in an IP, whether it's licensed or original, like D&D, that you don't know anything about, what, if anything, you typically do to try to get a little bit of that flavor for yourself?
00:18:26
Speaker
Well, let's see. So i think for most of the things that we play that I've had to deal with around here, ah it's ah it's always been something that I am at least tangentially aware of.
00:18:43
Speaker
So I read a lot of TV tropes, you know, the website. I go on that website a lot. Not as much these days, but I have a big history with that site. And I am frequently on the website Tumblr that has many people with many fandoms showing a variety of forms of media that I may not personally interact with any by any substantial amount.
00:19:06
Speaker
And so I think for everything, for every series that we've ever done, i am at least tangentially aware of the general vibe of the series involved.
00:19:19
Speaker
So I don't typically actively look up anything about any series that I go into. And i think there's also another element to it where just the way that I tend to play these games is I don't typically go in with a specific character or build or concept in mind.
00:19:44
Speaker
Instead, i typically see what other people are doing, and I try to fill in the blanks. I try to fulfill some sort of role mechanically that the other people aren't doing, essentially.
00:19:58
Speaker
That's totally fair. that And I kind of like that approach. Robert, I know that Nick and I keep saying, don't don't watch all of Star Trek. You don't need to watch all of Star Trek. There's 60 years worth of Star Trek.
00:20:11
Speaker
Don't kill yourself trying to watch it all. But we've told you that a good primer that's brief to watch and made with current production sensibilities is Strange New Worlds.
00:20:26
Speaker
set Set that aside. You may or may not watch Strange New Worlds. haven't done it yet. Well, you may or may not watch it before we play. But what kind of things, when there's a setting that you're unfamiliar with, do you do to try to get a flavor? Well, at least try to think, especially what the genre is. And start Star Trek, at least, it's something I'm familiar with. It's sci-fi.
00:20:50
Speaker
So I'm expected to be in space. There's going to be aliens. There's going to be technology that we don't see right now that can get a feel like, okay, this is more of an advanced timeline, advanced universe.
00:21:04
Speaker
You're going meet some people, but kind of like with Star Wars and any other world, it's still going to be somewhat current to how real life is. There's going to be people who don't like each other. There are probably going to be corporations, governments, enemy factions, different types of governing.
00:21:23
Speaker
So I just try to feel like, okay, I want to imagine myself in that world with that type of background. And I kind of do the opposite of what Lauren does. I decide, okay, who do, who would i want to be in that universe? Or how do I, what am I envisioning myself or my character to be in that universe?
00:21:44
Speaker
Kind of what I did when we did the dark forces campaign. That's when I ever did with Nick back in the quarantine ages. And i just said, okay, I want to be a spy.
00:21:54
Speaker
So I made a spy character. Kind of just first time working with Hogdudes. That was a hurdle I had to get get over. I was like, all right, I made my character. He's a spy. gave him the career.
00:22:10
Speaker
And I just went with it and said, what will be, will be. I've got my set character. I've got his set demeanor, how he talks. And let's just run with it. Whenever I'm going into a game that I don't know the particular lore on.
00:22:27
Speaker
i have every good intention of, know, because me being me, when I decide, okay, this is a game that that I think I'm going to like and I'm going to play, I go ahead and buy the core rule book or the player's book, whatever is appropriate, whatever that particular game system has.
00:22:46
Speaker
And I have every good intention of sitting down and and reading up on some of those things before I start playing. And then life.
00:22:57
Speaker
and they're like oh And then life. So I show up to the first session I'm like, okay, fake it till you make it, kid. Yep. Yeah.
00:23:10
Speaker
And I just, I felt if there's anything that about the Lord that needs to be known, I trust my GM to give me that information.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yes. Because as a GM myself, I know just like we, just like what triggered this topic I know that I'm going to have people that don't know the the franchise.
00:23:37
Speaker
I showed up at Nick's once when Nick was running the Alien Starter game. Only two people showed up. And I think we've told this story on the show before. I'm pretty sure we have. We have. but It's always good to rehash it, especially for for this type of topic. Oh, yeah.
00:23:53
Speaker
It was me and one other guy. And then Nick running it. And this person... had not only never seen an Alien movie, had never played an RPG.
00:24:05
Speaker
The RPG kind of thing, you especially with Alien, Alien's an easy enough system to teach. So that he picked up on right away. And honestly, for a property like Alien, where youre so the characters are supposed to be surprised and horrified by these Alien life forms that show up,
00:24:30
Speaker
his not being familiar with alien, he had never seen an alien movie. His being unfamiliar with alien made those reactions genuine. Oh yeah. Yeah. You talked about this.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't remember which he saw first, a face hugger, a chest burster, or a full-grown xenomorph. But Nick showed him a picture, and he went, oh, God, and recoiled from the picture.
00:25:03
Speaker
And so it actually kind of helped there. Yeah, and then you said he got full into like when you did your portrayal. yeah I remember Nick saying, yeah, the guy just said,
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to kill that guy. I'm going to kill him. Beautiful. Yeah, like, he's got to die. and i also think that kind of thing works also for, you know Lauren, you said that you weren't familiar with Walking Dead.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yes. Before I started the Walking Dead campaign. I think that same sort of unfamiliarity can kind of help too. Because the the other players in character have mostly kind of filled you in on the things that your character would absolutely know yeah by this point.
00:25:54
Speaker
But... Everything else, that's that's part of why i started off by sending the group to a new location from where they had been yeah through the rest of the outbreak.
00:26:05
Speaker
Because all of the PCs are learning this new environment and the ins and outs and the power structure and all of that. They're all learning that at the same time.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yes, as I understand, most of the lore of The Walking Dead, it mostly comes in the form of interpersonal dynamics, character interactions, that sort of stuff. And so since we're not dealing with any of the original characters of the show or game or the like, ah that means that all of that, all those lore elements are not a factor in your particular game.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, all the only part of the lore that matters is there was the zombie apocalypse. And there are survivors. Yeah, there's a zombie apocalypse.
00:26:58
Speaker
There are survivors. And of course, doesn't matter how you die. If you die and your head's not gone, you'll come back as one of them. Yep. Yep. So, that's it. We just described all the lore that you need for a Walking Dead game.
00:27:12
Speaker
Oh, right! Put him in the head. Good night, everybody!
00:27:19
Speaker
Now, I would like to bring up that whenever I'm in the GM seat and I'm dealing with players that I know are not familiar with the game world, I find that it helps to pre-made characters to, you know sort of establish a baseline for what one can expect out of a character in the game.
00:27:43
Speaker
And for one of them, for Ginso Narrograph, it's always all pre-made characters. There is no mechanic for creating your own character at this time. it's It's going to be added in the game.
00:27:57
Speaker
technically it already is added in Japanese it just hasn't been translated yet because one day the person who's taken on the role of doing the translation for that material ah kind of ended up just taking a really long time with it please please finish the translation i would really like to make another session with with the new material please do that I know you're not being paid for this But we appreciate it. Yes.
00:28:28
Speaker
yes But also, but then for net battlers, there aren't really any pre-made characters. it's it's the it's going It goes in the opposite direction. Ginster Narrowgraf, all pre-made characters all the time.
00:28:40
Speaker
Net battlers, no pre-made characters. So I spent quite a while crafting a variety of characters for the session that I ran for our group, which only only Nick showed up for, but that's okay.
00:28:55
Speaker
had the Scheduling got all of us that day. Yep. But, you know, I think that if you know that you're going to have players that are not familiar with the system, that aren't familiar with the lore, ah having a few pre-made characters ready ahead of time can be something to help get somebody who's new to this stuff adjusted and, you know, get get them involved rather quickly without having to explain everything all at once.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, in really good way we've done this, I've noticed this. Kind of what we talked about Last time is that when it came to Cyberpunk, when it came to Walking Dead, when it came to Alien, we all, all of us GMing, hosted a one-shot beforehand.
00:29:42
Speaker
Usually with pre-made characters, we'd like, okay, here's how a character is, here's how a setting is, here's how you play. You got it? Okay, now let's go into our own campaign.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yes, and that's definitely helped a lot. And circling back to Star Trek, I know from talking to Brev briefly about it, whichever one of us ends up running it, we're both we both have the same mindset
Future Star Trek RPG Plans
00:30:06
Speaker
going.
00:30:06
Speaker
We're going to run either the starter box set or quick start game that Modiphius has. And here's one thing that, just side note, ah a big thumbs up to Modiphius for this.
00:30:22
Speaker
They did this with the first edition and they did it with the second edition of Star Trek Adventures.
00:30:30
Speaker
they've got a quick start and they've got the starter box set. Both of them use the same pre gens.
00:30:38
Speaker
I see what is every other system that I have ever seen that has like a quick start and, or every other publisher, I should say, because I think Modiphius did it with Dune as well, but I'm not sure.
00:30:53
Speaker
Um, But with other systems that I've seen, if they've got a quick start and they've also got a starter box, the pregens are different. And I like that Modiphius for Star Trek uses the same ones in both, the same PCs in both, because since they are two completely different scenarios,
00:31:21
Speaker
if you play both of them with the same group of players as an introduction, it can show and demonstrate how the same characters can interact with completely different types of stories.
00:31:38
Speaker
It's like this character... might be more prominent in the starter box because it leans into their strengths a little more than the others, but they take a little bit of a backseat in the quick start because it's more about a character with a different skill set.
00:31:56
Speaker
But it shows how you can apply the different skill sets to different situations. And I feel like this is also probably good. its It also sounds like it's a good lesson for a GM as well to understand how your character how your players have built their characters and how to build sessions around those characters as well. Yeah.
00:32:17
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I feel the only time I've ever, at least in my opinion, the only time I've ever seen where one shot probably wouldn't work, at least in the vein of character creation. And one, because of money, and two, this is why I didn't.
00:32:30
Speaker
run one, is The Legend of the Five Rings, because I could do the starter shit and dish out the characters, but I wouldn't have even begun to cover making your characters yeah as you all experienced. Yeah, no, making making your own character in that system is, it is an ordeal.
00:32:48
Speaker
Now, here here's where I'm also going to have to pick on that same publisher, Fantasy Flight slash Edge, in that The Star Wars system.
00:33:01
Speaker
I love the beginner games. The box beginner games. I love them.
00:33:08
Speaker
The beginner game, pre-gen player characters are too streamlined.
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah. they I see what you mean. I've played one before with you. Well, it's like they they do things like, um you know, how... you've you've both played how in the full game for ranged weapons for pistols, rifles, whatever, you have ranged heavy and ranged light that apply different kinds of ranged weapons.
00:33:43
Speaker
The starter games just have ranged. Oh, yeah. And similarly, you there's piloting space for spaceships and piloting planetary for, we'll call them land vehicles, even though some of them hover or are in the air.
00:34:01
Speaker
Or maybe even in the water. Yeah. But the beginner game characters just have piloting. Hmm. Yeah, that's a little too streamlined. Yeah.
00:34:14
Speaker
And while it it gives you an option to, it doesn't just give you an option, it flat out has you give the characters XP at the midpoint of it.
00:34:26
Speaker
There's a truncated specialization tree to pick from to spend that limited XP on just to kind of simulate character advancement. And believe me, I've tried, others have tried,
00:34:40
Speaker
you cannot create those pre-gens as they exist using any of the starting careers and specializations. Oh, wow. didn't even know that. Odd.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, you you can't get to the to the talents that are on the talent trees and that they start with with starting XP and the level of XP that you're given during the beginner's game.
00:35:09
Speaker
they They're beautiful. They are who men fantastic games, especially the Edge of the Empire beginning game is one of the absolute best starting games that I have ever played as a player and a GM.
00:35:23
Speaker
But you cannot create those characters using standard character creation rules. Yeah, thinking back on the character I played, yeah, I believe you. Because that involved even force powers. I was like, yeah, this ain't how the tree works. Yeah.
00:35:38
Speaker
Well, and being fair, we fell in love with the Avatar Legends pregens from the starter box. That's pregens ever. Yeah, you can't build those.
00:35:50
Speaker
Really? I've tried. I've tried to build the one that I play. You can't build it. Very odd. Is it because some talents just aren't offered? or Yeah, some talents aren't offered for the archetypes that those characters are.
00:36:09
Speaker
But thematically they fit for what the starter box is doing with them. Yeah, because I think I checked my own role myself. I was very happy. he It still had the animal companion, but it had some other stuff that weren't there that wasn't there, I remember.
00:36:26
Speaker
Swinging back to the actual main topic, Avatar is a good example. i would I would never in a million years say that I am not familiar with Avatar. I've watched it all the way through.
00:36:38
Speaker
I've seen it like... whats It's on Netflix. I've watched Legend of Korra all the way through. i barely remember the details. Because it's been long enough.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah. So it's like there there are certain standout moments that I remember here and there. But every so often ah a bit of actual lore will come up. And i was like, do I now?
00:37:03
Speaker
But everybody else in the room recognized it. So yay! Yeah. i Remember the Great Divide? I wish I didn't.
00:37:15
Speaker
On the other hand, that has... Not that I have time, because there's plenty of new stuff that I haven't seen yet that I want to watch, but it makes me want to go back and watch it again.
00:37:30
Speaker
Now, you strictly speaking, since I do work from home, I could have it on during the day, If my if my bosses in Prague are listening, I totally don't do that while I'm working.
00:37:43
Speaker
um But I can have it on in the background while I'm working, but it would be in the background. I wouldn't be getting any of it.
00:37:53
Speaker
hu That's why, you know, my my background noise when I work is generally music or I'll put on ah put on you like. crappy daytime tv like you know people's court or something yeah or i'll just i do mine where i sometimes just you know those youtube people that read out reddit stories i'll just play one of those while i'm waiting i see has that ever happened to you though i this is a disingenuous question to ask you lauren because hello casual nerdity oh boy hello clone watch but it
00:38:31
Speaker
Has there been a game for either of you that is based on An existing IP or, you know, even like, again, Dungeons and Dragons isn't based on an existing IP, but it now has a lot of, of ancillary media to it.
00:38:49
Speaker
But has there, has there been and RPG system that has made you say, I want to seek out the material that this is based on, or that is based on this to get a bigger picture of the world?
RPGs Leading to Interest in Source Media
00:39:03
Speaker
There actually has been. ah So notably, my my history with Toho is that for a very long time I listened to the series' music, because the series is very well known for its music, it's excellent.
00:39:18
Speaker
ah But the first time that I actually played one of the games was in 2016, where I played through ah quite a few of the different games that were out at the time. But after about 2018, I stopped playing the games for quite a while. I kept track of the series in sort of like an ancillary sort of way. Just, you know, sometimes it would show up and it'd be like, oh, hey, there's a new character. That's neat.
00:39:44
Speaker
But I wasn't actively playing the games for a very long time. But then Ginso Narrative Graf arrived and I was like, hey, I'd like to try to run this game for some people.
00:39:56
Speaker
And after doing that a few times, I was like, you know, I should really re-familiarize myself with the series and try out some of the new games that have come out recently. And as a result, I got back into the series again. And I was actually playing the video games again. I was streaming it for some friends. I was getting back. yeah I actually started reading one of the manga for the first time.
00:40:17
Speaker
it was ah It was a real reintroduction to the series in a big way. And the same actually happened for Battle Network whenever I started ah doing my Net Battlers game. I actually hadn't played any Mega Man Battle Network games myself, at least not substantially. I had seen very thorough Let's Plays of the games before.
00:40:38
Speaker
But after starting to run my own session of Net Battlers, I actually... got a Mega Man Battle Network fan game called Shanghai EXE, which is also a crossover with Toho. It's Battle Network and Toho together. So it's like, oh man, it's both of those things combined. But it did result in me actually playing a Battle Network game fully through for the first time. And I'm actually considering to start making a let's play of the game where I'll be acting as a a guide and tutorial person for people who might not be familiar with the game, which would be most people on account of it being a fan game that very few people have played.
00:41:19
Speaker
now Now, I know, you know, we we mentioned... our casual nerdity clone watch series. Yes. Nick's not here. You can be honest.
00:41:30
Speaker
Oh yeah. were Were you really interested in learning more about star Wars and watching more star Wars or, or did Nick force you to?
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah. Did he twist that arm? ah No, I think that, uh, One thing is that I greatly prefer animation over live action. And so understanding that there is an animated Star Wars series out there, well, that seems pretty cool to me.
00:41:56
Speaker
And also Ahsoka seemed really cool to me. It's like, she seemed neat. I'd like to know more about her. And so, yeah, Nick decided, hey, let's let's do that thing, because notably, started hanging out in person with Nick outside of the games to what to watch the rest of My Little Pony, which I guess is also another series that, playing the game, sort of got me back into the series again.
00:42:20
Speaker
I had only ever watched the first four seasons out of nine. And so I was like, well, you know, I never watched like half the show. You want to watch that together? And he was like, yeah, sure, we can do that.
00:42:31
Speaker
And then as we finished that marathon, I was like, well, you know, I'd like to keep hanging out. I guess we could do that animated Star Wars series. That would be pretty neat. Could be relevant to some things.
00:42:43
Speaker
And Nick said target locked. Yeah. no he Here's what Nick said. You've taken your first step into a larger world. Beautiful.
00:42:56
Speaker
But on my own side, actually had two examples of this. One as a player and one actually has as the GM. Because when we got back into Aliens, I'd seen Alien and Aliens before.
00:43:09
Speaker
But it had been a long time, so i was like, okay, play this game. Really fun. I'm going to go refresh myself with the Alien the alien franchise again. even watched a movie with Nick and we just had fun watching alien.
00:43:22
Speaker
And then just also being backseat commentators while we were watching it. We was like, you know, I think, I think someone needs to fix that. Or was like, yeah, it's behind you. It was like, yeah, listen to the cat. like And then you got to alien resurrection and you said, what have I done?
00:43:40
Speaker
yeah I've also watched alien and Prometheus. And i was like, what? Yeah. Oh no. ah When the name of hamsters is happening in this thing. And then the other one was actually, this is one of those IPs that don't doesn't actually have a show.
00:43:57
Speaker
has a card game and I think it has some books but doesn't actually have a show or movie was Legend of the Five Rings. Because I remember I got introduced to that at one of the Gamer Nation cons just as a pickup game on Sunday.
00:44:09
Speaker
was like, oh, this is pretty interesting. So I went and picked up a few of the books and be like, oh, this is pretty interesting. But I was like, what's What's the actual lore here? Because this is entirely a mixture of like Japanese samurai and spirits and kind of Japan mythology lore, all that Shinto stuff. And I was like, I need to find something.
00:44:31
Speaker
And I was actually able to find someone on YouTube who's actually going through an entire lore and timeline of the Legend of the Five Rings series. And I was like, I'm going to save that playlist. And I've been watching it since. Yeah.
00:44:44
Speaker
It's actually been helping to understand the land. To this day, one of my biggest regrets of the first Gamer Nation Con that I went to is that I missed out on playing in one of several pickup games of Legend of the Five Rings run by Sam Gregor Stewart, the RPG director of and Edge.
00:45:12
Speaker
Is that the one who wasn't able to make it But he was the guest? Yes, the one who had to leave early, the one who had to leave Friday because of a family emergency. Oh, he was offering to run the games?
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah, he ran in several pickup games of L5R at GamerNationCon 6. And that was my first time going.
00:45:35
Speaker
So I was just, you know, blindly. I knew who Sam was. I recognized his voice from having not heard him on the Order 66 podcast.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah, because nobody listens to that. Nobody he listens to the Order 66. I mean, right now there is no Order 66. Anyway. We love you, Chris. We love you, Phil.
00:45:57
Speaker
I didn't really know much about how the whole pickup game situation worked and all of that. And so I was mainly sticking to the games that I had signed up for.
00:46:12
Speaker
And that was it. And being my first year, i didn't know most of the people yet. and and actually i didn't know anyone other than Stephanie who was there.
00:46:25
Speaker
I knew who some of them were from order 66 and other related podcasts. You knew of them, but you didn't know them. Yeah. Right.
00:46:37
Speaker
Right. So I, I still kick myself that I did not sit in on one of those pickup games that Sam ran. But Hey, because of that, you were able to tell us newcomers to be like,
00:46:50
Speaker
Now, if you don't have one, find a pickup game. Or game anything. Just find one. Yep. Yep. Because, you know, the that, uh, it still haunts me.
00:47:01
Speaker
It haunts me! Oh no we all We all get to experience it together now, for better for worse, depending on how this goes. Um... ah um But, oh, and I'm totally digging L5R. Now, i I think I mentioned this to you. I played like three sessions of a much earlier edition in like the late 90s.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah, they did. I don't know if that was version three or four, but I know they used kind of like the normal standard D100 type dice for that. Yeah. Yeah. the The proprietary dice didn't come along till till Edge. Yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
Or FFG. ah Because they love their proprietary dice. They just love making cool dice designs. Yeah. yeah Well, and you know, it it's... but Let's be honest, it's another revenue stream for the games.
00:47:54
Speaker
Very true. when When you're players, what do you hope that a GM will bring to a table for a setting that you're not familiar with?
00:48:07
Speaker
Hmm... You know, I think it it really just depends on what the setting is. i don't think I've ever really had any specific expectations, but it's more like different franchises require different materials and different understandings. And since I'm going into a franchise that I am categorically not familiar with in these scenarios, I would not have...
00:48:37
Speaker
expectations, I would not know what would be needed. However, I can say that from the other end, as a GM, ah there's one thing in particular that I bring to Genso narrative graph games now.
00:48:55
Speaker
And it's because Toho is a series that is very focused on its cast of characters. It has over 100 different characters. ah they're all based The vast majority of them are based on Japanese mythology, various yokai or gods or other various creatures. There's some that are from more Western mythologies as well.
00:49:17
Speaker
And so that's a lot of characters to know, and a lot of Ginso narrative graph revolves around ah facilitating interactions between these characters. That's why there is no character creation system in the base game, because it's based around you playing as characters that already exist in the universe, and and facilitating the interactions between them, essentially.
00:49:43
Speaker
And so because of that, one thing that I've started to do is I printed out like 90 different characters, like small ah pieces of paper with the characters on them to show people whenever, anybody that's not familiar with Toho, I have like 90 characters, all of the playable characters, all of the second set of playable characters that will exist someday in English.
00:50:09
Speaker
And then another 30 characters that either exist on the board or could be reasonably assumed. Like it would be easy to insert them into a preexisting event.
00:50:22
Speaker
Like they are not playable in the game, but they exist in events that happen in the game. And so now anytime that somebody comes up to another character I can pull out a piece of paper and like, it's this character and they're based on this particular element of mythology. And I, you know, I can give them at least a general idea of the sort of character that they're interacting with.
00:50:46
Speaker
And cool that's not going to be relevant for every piece of material, but for something like Toho, that is pretty important for that particular series. And there's definitely going to be an element of, you need to be familiar with your series to figure out what that element is for that series. Because it's not always going to be about the specific characters.
00:51:10
Speaker
It might be locations that are more important to a franchise. It might be equipment that's more important to a franchise. And being able to provide visual examples of what those species, locations, equipment, whatever it is, being able to provide examples of what those are is going to be very helpful for whatever franchise it is that you're trying to introduce somebody to.
00:51:34
Speaker
Robert, i before you answer the question, I'm going to kind of modify it a bit for you. okay and And this will also give me and or Brev useful feedback.
00:51:50
Speaker
let's Let's say specifically Star Trek. What would you hope that Brev or i bring to the table to someone who who is only passingly familiar with the existence of Star Trek?
00:52:05
Speaker
what I would do and what I've seen a lot of us do is as GMs and I, I like it because it really helps is that none of us run games and universes where if nobody knows it, it's not hypercritical to know every single thing, every important event or person, character event in that universe, because universes are basically just set pieces.
00:52:29
Speaker
It's the story that matters. And, Anyone who's taken an english english English class in middle and high school has least read ah good five or ten books that have different types of stories.
00:52:40
Speaker
And so the story is the porn part. so yeah And of course, all the stuff in this show can be very simplified. like I think Star Trek has phasers or lasers or something. Exactly. More points for Robert.
00:52:56
Speaker
And I don't need to know how a phaser works. It's just you point and it goes zap. Or I don't need to know how the transporter thing works. It's just, you want to go to A to B?
00:53:07
Speaker
Okay, if X, Y, and Z are involved, you can do it. Or I don't need to know how the shift works. I just know it fly. But if there's something important in the game you need to talk about, maybe there's just a brief excerpt or a brief description.
00:53:22
Speaker
Just say, okay, here's what this is or what this is talking about. And then it's like, oh, okay. But it's not like, okay, you need to know what... ah The captain did in episode 28 of season three of series seven and nothing like that. So, so what you just described coincidentally enough is what back in the sixties and seventies was referred to as Roddenberry physics because the creator of star Trek, Gene Roddenberry
00:53:57
Speaker
infamously, or it might be apocryphal, at one point said, we don't need to know how it works. Show it working and it works.
00:54:08
Speaker
Pretty much. So with Star Trek, if ever I were to come to you and say, you're an officer in Starfleet, which is a united a space United Nations space Navy focused on exploration, you're good.
00:54:27
Speaker
pretty much yeah it's like okay i'm ah i'm an officer on a ship and we're exploring something fine you're exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilizations which quite frequently on most series and in a lot of episodes means going to planets that have been visited before and meeting alien races that have been seen before yeah because when you say okay you're You're military officer in this branch of government going exploring. It's like, okay, I can expect to discover species, animals, flora, maybe some like, if we go count of the route of the old abandoned civilization with their big temples or markers or something, and it's all this archaeology stuff. And it's like, cool, I can expect probably into fights to discover stuff, maybe meet some new animals and fauna.
00:55:18
Speaker
I'm all good.
00:55:21
Speaker
you are ready You are ready to at least play Star Trek, if not run it now, Robert. It's baby steps. Let's start playing and then maybe running. Yeah.
00:55:34
Speaker
But you know, that does bring up a good point that um what we're talking about here are fundamentally games.
Role of Games in Storytelling
00:55:41
Speaker
And games are designed with certain methods of play in mind.
00:55:47
Speaker
Whenever somebody is making the game, they're considering what kind of adventure is the person going to go on? What kind of story is it going to tell? And so with that in mind, different pieces of information are going to be more relevant depending on how the game is designed.
00:56:06
Speaker
So I previously mentioned Toho's, it's against our narrative graph, is very heavily designed around interacting with the characters as the characters. And so ah my informational piece was focused on giving people a better idea of what those characters are.
00:56:24
Speaker
But other games are going to have different points of focus. A game that's focused more around combat, you'll need to be able to prepare information more readily available about combat. Games that are more focused on environmental exploration, you're going to need to be able to provide information that's focused on what the environment is like.
00:56:46
Speaker
And so the the goal here is not to give a holistic understanding of all lore that exists within the franchise. It is to give an understanding of what lore from the franchise is relevant to serve the gameplay involved.
00:57:05
Speaker
Yes, and to kind of give an example of sometimes, if you're doing story-based, there are going to be some things that are important, so you have to emphasize explain. Like when Nick runs his D&D Eberron thing,
00:57:17
Speaker
We don't need to know how all the houses work, their intricate machinations and politics. But we do need to know about the 13th moon because it's going to bring about the apocalypse. Yes.
00:57:28
Speaker
Yep. And like I said, you know I am mining you for... for i don't I don't know what the right word is. I'm mining you for internal feedback to get it ready for Brev or I running Star Trek by pointing all of the questions about this about to you, Robert, focusing it on Star Trek.
00:57:51
Speaker
three And it it's interesting that, Lauren, you mentioned that um ah actually jumping back a second so because I didn't finish my thought about pointing all of Robert's questions towards Star Trek.
00:58:09
Speaker
not um you know it It's interesting. you've You've made me think about it in that I have to put a little or putting a little more thought into the players and the PC's knowledge going back to that guy who showed up for the Alien game.
00:58:30
Speaker
hu If I'm a viewer watching a TV show and I'm familiar with not necessarily all, but a lot of the lore built around the franchise, like Star Trek, there's movies, there's I think now it's a like 11 TV series, something like that.
00:58:50
Speaker
And 60 years worth of lore, including what Star Trek calls B-canon, what Star Wars calls legends, you know stuff that doesn't necessarily, it only counts until and unless it's contradicted on screen.
00:59:08
Speaker
Oh, like the PC-98 era in Toho. Yeah, they have that too. So, um As a player, her as a viewer, if I see a callback that doesn't necessarily impact the actual story being told, as a viewer, it's fine for me to be the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme.
00:59:33
Speaker
It's like, oh, oh, it's the thing.
00:59:39
Speaker
As PCs... those PCs won't necessarily know the significance of the Easter egg or the callback. So if I were to have, say, ah you know, a...
00:59:53
Speaker
character from the original series of Star Trek or from Strange New Worlds show up in the campaign idea that I have that's set kind of mid next mid late next generation early mid deep space nine time frame which means absolutely nothing to you Robert um if I have a character pop up from an earlier series that's significant to the episode or to this session that I'm running, that previous episode, your character wouldn't have watched.
01:00:35
Speaker
You won't get the callback unless it is something that was significant to Starfleet and Starfleet has reports filed on it, but you're not necessarily going to know that up but off the top of your head.
01:00:49
Speaker
You're going to go research that and get that information as part of the session. Yes. Or a good way to think of it is someone who hasn't encountered this universe is kind of on the nose.
01:01:05
Speaker
Treat it like a game going at the con because we create create our game in a universe, but we also know there might be some people who don't know anything. So we tailor make our story to be like, okay, this is how it runs.
01:01:19
Speaker
This is the important information and you're going to work through it to reach a certain end goal. Gamer Nation Con 8. I ran the long defunct DC Heroes RPG.
01:01:33
Speaker
And my pregens that I made were a mashup of, I had six pregens. I had six three DC characters and three Marvel characters all from the eighties, since that was the theme of the con.
01:01:50
Speaker
And I had little capsules of, you like three, maybe four short paragraphs of the character's history and,
01:02:02
Speaker
and basic personality, one of my players at the table sat down, picked up a character, Booster Gold from DC. Had never heard of Booster Gold before.
01:02:15
Speaker
Read the capsule, And she played the character perfectly. oh nice. Based upon that capsule. She's like, that's just what you, based on that, that's what it seemed like, you know, the character was, would be like, is like, you are on the nose.
01:02:34
Speaker
I had the same thing happen with one of my Toho games where, somebody picked up this character Utsuho Ryuji and she she's got nuclear power, but she knows nothing else other than nuclear power. She's she's like a flying nuclear bomb that just blows people up.
01:02:51
Speaker
And the the player who decided to play as Utsuho, man, she she got it. She got that. character She was blowing everybody up. Or as a microcosm, when we did our Delta Green thing, we were just creating the characters.
01:03:06
Speaker
And when we finished our fireman, we all just looked at each other. Did we just make Buck? we We made Buck from 9-1-1, didn't we? Yes, we did. And the minute he was put down, someone was like,
Adapting Invincible Comic to RPG
01:03:19
Speaker
is this just Buck from 9-1-1?
01:03:22
Speaker
is that yes We said yes. And she's I'm playing him because I love him. Yep. And going back to your point, Lauren, different systems approach different different properties and themes different ways.
01:03:39
Speaker
And appropriately enough, mentioned up at the top of the show, Free League's Invincible Kickstarter, which ostensibly it's being billed as superhero role playing.
01:03:50
Speaker
And um some of us were talking about it in the Me and Steve Talk RPGs Discord just this afternoon. And Steve asked, are they using the Year Zero engine, which is the same engine that they use for Alien and Walking Dead and pretty much everything else?
01:04:11
Speaker
He's like, because it's been pointed out that that system seems to work best for more survival, survival horror type games. um And so since he only has a couple of games in the year Year Zero system, Steve is like, how's that going to work for superheroes?
01:04:33
Speaker
was like, well, I haven't unzipped the quick start yet, so I haven't looked at the nitty gritty. But the more I started thinking about it and I haven't mentioned this in the Discord yet, the more I started thinking about it, if you think about what Invincible is thats The Year Zero engine might work because it's pretty brutal.
01:04:57
Speaker
Invincible is pretty brutal. yeah It's real yeahs higher stakes than your average superhero RPG would be. This is true.
01:05:08
Speaker
and Invincible would not work well in the Marvel Multiverse RPG. no, it wouldn't. um have haven't played our friend Dante's Mutants and Masterminds game yet, but I don't think it would work in Mutants and Masterminds.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah. You might be able to get brutal high stakes thing. Yeah. you know yeah You might be able to do something in like, say, a Genesis or a D20 system where you can get that brutal that have players be or PCs be that easy to be damaged ah by other superhumans the more I think about it the year zero engine might kind of be ideal because you're you're getting however they end up scaling it I'm gonna have to look at the scaling
01:06:12
Speaker
You can do that kind of thing with a modest handful of dice as opposed to having to have fists full of dice to have characters of power levels like Invincible or Omni-Man.
01:06:28
Speaker
That was one of the things that DC Heroes did in that you're trying to deal with a setting that has characters that range from Batman, who's just like a peak human,
01:06:41
Speaker
to Superman, who at the time could effectively juggle planets. And so how do you have a system with stats that accommodate both of those extremes without you having to roll 8,000 dice for Superman?
01:07:01
Speaker
You give Batman, I have a plan. Well, what they did is The stat values were on a geometric progression.
01:07:12
Speaker
So for instance, strength. ah they They had a benchmark for whatever a strength of one was. A strength of two was double that. A strength of three was double two.
01:07:26
Speaker
And so on and so on. So that Superman can still be like you know ah a strength 11 or 12, whatever he was. And you're still only rolling, i believe it was two D10s for all of your rolls.
01:07:43
Speaker
Because what they had a chart where you had your effect value, what your stat was for the pertinent thing. And ah resistance value, which, and then when you compared them on the chart, that gave you your target number. Where they converged on the chart is your target number that you have to roll.
01:08:06
Speaker
And then you roll you rolled two D10s to try to meet or exceed your target number. Yeah, all right. And they also had a mechanic with it they called column shifts that, like, let's say your target number was a seventh.
01:08:22
Speaker
but you rolled 16, you count it, you start counting how many columns over above the seven until you get to the last thing, you know, that, that 16 hits.
01:08:40
Speaker
And you're like, okay, I shift this many columns over so when I go to look how much damage I did, i shift my my result value by that many columns. so So it accounts for that you know rally of power as you know your last-ditch effort or you're like, this guy's really pissing me off, so I hit him really hard and I have a better effect.
01:09:07
Speaker
So it was a really... There's a lot of fiddly bits and having to deal with charts and tables to do everything. But it was a really elegant system for including characters of such vast power levels all in the same universe.
01:09:27
Speaker
So DC Heroes was cool. And i i the more I think about it, the more I now want to unzip the quick start for Invincible and take a look. Because I think that might actually...
01:09:39
Speaker
be a good reason to use the year zero engine for invincible. Nice. July. 2026. Hey, Robert, I have a question for you.
01:09:54
Speaker
Not, not that I think that we're at the end of the, the episode, but with Nick, not here, how do we know that it's the end of the episode? Cause Nick's not here to bully.
01:10:05
Speaker
Well, We never said he had to be here for us to bully him. We can do some good old cyberbullying we want to. boy. Now, like I said, I'm not saying that we've necessarily reached the end of the episode because I just went off on a little tangent that thinking about that element made me think of. What what other things do either of you think we might want to touch on before we do start cyberbullying, Nick?
01:10:33
Speaker
Well, i've got so I've got another thing. So whenever i'm no for it whenever I'm GMing for my online group, it typically takes people a while to actually start showing up, you know, as is pretty standard for most tabletop groups, I would imagine.
01:10:49
Speaker
ah And so one thing that I usually do to help keep the people that are there entertained and to keep discussion going until everybody shows up is i actually tend to play and stream a video game for a while before everybody shows up. And of course, the two games that I run are based on Toho and Mega Man, both video game series. And so frequently what I do is I play a video game of the series that's relevant ah for the game.
01:11:21
Speaker
And so sometimes whenever people show up who aren't familiar with Toho or aren't familiar with Mega Man, I'll be playing a game to essentially give them an idea of what the core series feels like and is about.
01:11:38
Speaker
And of course I recognize this is not ah viable for every piece of media. A Toho game typically takes about 30 minutes to beat. And i typically wait for about 30 minutes for everybody to show up.
01:11:52
Speaker
Mega Man is a very... ah I don't know. i don't know how to word it. Blocky game. That's it. It exists in very ah specified segments that you can pick up and put down again. So I can easily pick up a Mega Man game, play it for about 30 minutes and then just put it down and get to the game.
01:12:11
Speaker
You know, the tabletop game at hand. ah this may not work so well if the piece of media is based on a TV show or a comic book or something that you can't watch somebody do.
01:12:24
Speaker
But it can be, you know, it's it's what I do because it is relevant to the types of media that I interact with, essentially. You know, video games are the primary form of media that I consume.
01:12:39
Speaker
therere They're the primary media that I am familiar with. They're what I... deal with so uh it this this is a methodology that works for me and i think that it has helped multiple people get a better idea of the franchises involved and get more invested in the games at hand yes and then what kind of two things i can pick up on is if you have someone who's entirely new to the universe and it's a game that hasn't even started yet as we all say session zero
01:13:13
Speaker
You can briefly lore dump, just describe the world and be like, that's where you're going to be. So expect this, this, and this. This is a factor. is a factor. This a factor. Because that's a good purpose says zero is just introduce the world to new players if they've never met it.
01:13:29
Speaker
And maybe even if you want to learn more about this, you can watch this or read this or just search on your own. Doesn't matter. But this is kind the streamline.
01:13:40
Speaker
But if they're coming in the middle of a campaign, then what I sometimes do is like, but use and I'll use a knowledge check to be like, I explained something, I'll be like, someone roll me a knowledge check, someone succeeds, and I just explain that topic, that thing, kind of briefly lore dump in the actual session, so anyone who's not there, anyone who doesn't know the universe can be like, oh, so that's what that means, okay.
01:14:05
Speaker
Cool. and Yeah, that's that's definitely getting me thinking about how to, because From my understanding, most of our group is barely familiar with the setting of Star Trek.
01:14:20
Speaker
And the the downside to that is um want to play too.
01:14:28
Speaker
But you know I am obviously, at least for a first campaign, going to be the sole GM, and unless I can get Brev in to run an entire campaign for us, which I would not complain about.
01:14:42
Speaker
Neither would i yeah I. still remember when I was going to run the I Am Running Legend of the Five Wings, and you were just like, yeah, I could run it too, but I really want to play in it.
01:14:53
Speaker
I look forward to the day that I actually get to play Ginsoneratograph. Someday.
01:15:01
Speaker
Now there there are some systems that somebody is always going to be the forever GM. Yep. Seems like that might be me.
01:15:12
Speaker
And then right now I'd say it's Nick with Avatar because no, no one wants to run that. We all want to play that. Yeah. yeah say Yep. I mean, that's, that's kind of the problem that, uh, that our son has that he's,
01:15:30
Speaker
He bought the Cyberpunk Red core rulebook. He bought the Fallout core rulebook. um There was something else that he bought the core rulebook for. And he's like, this is great, but everybody that i know wants to play, nobody wants to run it.
01:15:49
Speaker
So I'm having to run it, but I want to play it too. yeah And I kind of feel that, like I love running Cyberpunk Red, but it's like,
01:16:00
Speaker
I also want to play, which is, I'm really excited when next year, at least Nick is foreshadowing, that he's going to bring his own Cyberpunk in here. And I'll be like, yes, I can play. Yeah, which I i keep but you know kind of smacking our son around. like, you bought the Cyberpunk Redcore book because you want to play it. You don't want to run it.
01:16:21
Speaker
Robert's got a campaign. Come join us. But he he's currently in a mode where he's just kind of, after playing such campaign after campaign after campaign, he's just kind of burnt out.
01:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, I get that. So, he will eventually, I think he's decided he's going to stay part of the Fallout campaign.
01:16:47
Speaker
But oh which means that, you like it's harder for me to commandeer his core rule book. So I'm going to have to buy my own.
01:16:56
Speaker
but um But speaking of, I also going back to just you not really housekeeping, but planning ahead, Robert, whichever system we decide on, on running our Star Trek game in for Gamer Nation Con next year, ah it's Modiphius.
01:17:13
Speaker
So it's the same Basically the same 2D20 system that Fallout is. Easy to understand. For second edition, they got rid of the D6s.
01:17:25
Speaker
So what do they use? i I have not had a chance to read into it yet to to see. So I'm not sure how exactly damage and all of that is is dealt out.
01:17:39
Speaker
But it's the same basic 2D20 system that Modiphius uses for pretty much all of their RPGs. Anyway, you know think now... i do kind of I have kind of a funny observation, actually. It's not necessarily related to the topic at hand, but, you know, Robert, the the two of the games that you run, Legend of the Five Rings, is ah based on you know Japanese mythology and history and stuff.
01:18:07
Speaker
And then the other one, Cyberpunk, is a futuristic world where the internet is connected to everything. the The two games that I run are Toho, which is based on Japanese mythology and history and the like, and Mega Man Battle Network, which is a futuristic world where the internet is connected to everything.
01:18:24
Speaker
yeah but The only difference is that both of my series are based on video games and are much more lighthearted, whereas both of your series are, I believe, tabletop originals that are tend to be ah substantially darker.
01:18:37
Speaker
Yes, they're much more serious, like... ah I wouldn't exactly call Legend of the Fire Rings grimdark, but it's definitely kind of dark fantasy.
01:18:48
Speaker
So it's it's funny how both of our both of the series that we run that are more unique to us are like direct counterparts in the exact same way in that regard. but Looking over at my game shelf.
01:19:04
Speaker
A Mega Man meets a cyberpunk. Oh no. Who are you? I'm you, but darker. Who are you? I'm you, but more light. Yeah. and look Looking over at my game shelf, I'm like, it would be interesting, but kind of redundant.
01:19:19
Speaker
Just to see the difference between Robert's running Cyberpunk. I'm looking up at my shelf and I have the starter box for Shadowrun, which is pretty similar and in theming and content.
01:19:33
Speaker
And the second setting book that Fantasy Flight released for Genesis was Android, which is... pretty much a cyberpunk shadow run by another name.
01:19:49
Speaker
So it it would be interesting to run all three of them kind of back to back to just see what differences the different systems bring.
01:20:02
Speaker
Yeah. It actually kind of themes. Yes. And that's, it's not the same, but it reminds me of that. ah My Little Pony meets Transformers meets G.I. Joe meets Power Rangers book that I know Nick has. Oh, yes.
01:20:16
Speaker
Yeah, they well, they they put out a full source book on crossing over G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Power Rangers. This year, for Free RPG Day, Renegade released a one-shot that is all four of the lines together, adding My Little Pony in.
01:20:36
Speaker
So... It's there. It exists. And when when Brev and I showed that to Scott, Brev's co-host on the Movie Defenders, when we first mentioned it, Scott thought that we were kidding.
01:20:52
Speaker
And I posted a picture of the cover and Brev was like, see?
01:20:58
Speaker
and Scott was like, oh my god. It's like, so is the G.I. Joe thinking he's tripping? Is the Power Ranger tripping? the Transformer somehow tripping? Because I see a talking pony.
01:21:13
Speaker
Well, I mean, i know that that you dropped out of Nick's G.I. Joe Transformers campaign, and it's been ages since we've played it, but when we last played, he did bring in a Power Ranger and a pony for the big endgame of, you know,
01:21:33
Speaker
so I don't know if we're at the end game of the 1984 portion of it before the big time jump or if it's just like a major climax but it's one of those you realities are colliding kind of thing. If I was still if i wasm still playing that my character would be like that pony is talking.
01:21:55
Speaker
That pony is talking. That's exactly what my character is doing. oh andm waiting I'm waiting for him to start up the actual crossover adventure so that I can join in.
01:22:07
Speaker
ah you know what? The weirdest fan crossover I've ever seen, but somehow worked, is the whole My Little Pony meets Ace Attorney. I don't know why it works, but it works.
01:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. So since it's online, there are some fan cases you can actually watch. It's pretty fun. Nice. Well, since that, that campaign is down to three of us and, you know, Nick's not here.
01:22:33
Speaker
And I know that Nick probably doesn't listen to the episodes when they're done. Well, I mean, he can't even find the script. How can he find the episode?
01:22:45
Speaker
What? ah Robert, remember what I did on April Fool's Day and you and Betsy helped me out? So because it's down to just three of us and I was the only Joe, my son was making it was going to run start running two characters.
01:23:03
Speaker
So he made a G.I. Joe character. who is one of the characters that Sam leaped into on the original series and who was the person who revived and ran Project Quantum Leap in the revival series. and Because he was a soldier in Vietnam in the original series.
01:23:29
Speaker
And so it may it would make perfect sense that he is on the Joes in the eighty s I'm sure Nick will like that. But we we weren't, he wasn't going to be obvious about it.
01:23:43
Speaker
Of course, of course. So it's like, I love it. I love it. I mean, I helped him come up with the idea. i was like, you know, when he was just trying to figure out, you know, what to do with the Joe, I was like, I have a really fun idea to kind of mess with Nick if you want to, if you want it.
01:24:03
Speaker
and toys me I always want to mess with Nick. Right? So it's time to bully Nick, I guess. Oh boy, it's
Humorous Cyberbullying Plot
01:24:13
Speaker
time! Lauren, as our guest, would you like to be the first to cyber bully Nick today?
01:24:20
Speaker
Nick, Nick, it's time. It's time for you to get back onto the My Little Pony. I'm waiting for it. I came here for the My Little Pony and you're you're not running it, Nick. Come on. Come on, Nick. Go on and ah do do the ponies. Give us the ponies. That's what I came here for. Please.
01:24:36
Speaker
Please, Nick. Anyway, that's not really bullying. I don't know. that's ah I'm not very good at bullying people. Oh, I know what we can do. I know you're still looking into getting that calculator plushie, Daryl.
01:24:49
Speaker
What we now need to get is I need to get a plushie of a squirrel so it can hold the calculator plushie. And I just put it on Nick's bed. Beautiful.
01:25:02
Speaker
I am i am going to see if I can get a hold of a spare, not not the plushie, spare one of these from work. wo And give to him.
01:25:21
Speaker
Wrap up in a nice, beautiful package and give to Nick. And see, here here's where we find out if Nick is actually listening or watching to the show.
01:25:33
Speaker
For those of you listening, when I said one of these, I held up a TI Inspire CX2 CAS graphing calculator. Nick's favorite.
01:25:44
Speaker
Of course. ni Nick loves math. Yep, it's his favorite. Loves math so much. Just as much as he likes squirrels. Yes, yes. Whenever I talked about the idea that I was going to have a chemistry man dungeon in my Mega Man game where I would make my players do actual math problems in order to solve the dungeon puzzles. He was ecstatic about that idea.
01:26:10
Speaker
I ever tell either of you? i know I've mentioned it to Nick. A couple of years ago, working at conference, um, one working a math conference I wanted to get one of the giveaway t-shirts that we had at our booth to give Nick which said on the front it said spread math love o but we ran out of shirts giving them to visitors to the booth took precedence over you know playing a cruel prank on a friend
01:26:49
Speaker
I'm sure we could find something on Amazon or eBay. Oh, all I need to do is talk to our trade show person and ask her, what shirts do we have excess of? Or better, Daryl, don't tell Nick, but create a one-of-a-kind shirt on our merch store just for him. Oh, boy.
01:27:10
Speaker
in place of the D20, it has a calculator. Yep. yeah And we can even use a Star Wars quote. What are the odds?
01:27:21
Speaker
Beautiful. Beautiful. i I believe that we have sufficiently bullied Nick um in his in his not presence. Mm-hmm. So we have reached the point of the show where I say, check out our website at howwerollgaming.com.
01:27:41
Speaker
And there you'll find information about our current campaigns, podcast archive, links to our merch store and all our social media, including our two meetup
Promoting Engagement and Support
01:27:52
Speaker
groups.
01:27:52
Speaker
So if you happen to be in the greater Dallas Fort Worth area and you would like to play ah game with one of us or with all of us, with our group, ah check out the meetup groups. You can sign up there.
01:28:08
Speaker
And like Lauren, you can become sucked into our group for life. Yay. Yep. And you can also directly support the show through Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash how we roll gaming and you'll see our different membership tiers starting at just $2 a month.
01:28:24
Speaker
We can call it the squirrel tier in honor of Nick with special recognition on our discord server and higher tiers giving you on air credit and discounts on our merch store. And finally, if you have any questions you'd like us to answer, topics you'd like us to cover, or even submit your own RPG Glory story for us to read on the air in the future, just shoot us an email at podcast at howwerollgaming.com.
01:28:51
Speaker
And Lauren, thank you for being with us. ah Do you have have any anything any projects that you would like to plug? not not Not under the... Nothing that's available yet, but I will say that I am currently working on a new Let's Play, which you may be able to see in the imminent future on Mr. Game & Pie.
01:29:18
Speaker
Look forward to that. Indeed. And in the meantime, Nick wasn't here, so he doesn't get to say goodbye. But I'm Daryl.
01:29:30
Speaker
And I'm Robert. And I'm Lauren. And this is how we roll.
01:29:38
Speaker
This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2025, How We Roll Gaming LLC. All games and associated intellectual properties are copyright their respective owners, and How We Roll Gaming makes no claim of ownership by discussing them here.