Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Joy of GMing w the Slovenly Trulls!
28 Plays13 days ago
Welcome to The Joy of GMing, the companion series to Narrative Feats!
This week, Casey Jones sits down with Lyssa and Shardae of the Slovenly Trulls!
Join us for a truly refreshing discussion of feminism in TTRPG, the patriarchy and the almost indelible fingerprints it's left on gaming, and a hopeful future for the pastime! We'll be covering a lot of ground in this episode, and be exploring how to update some monsters for the 21st century.
Don’t miss this conversation-- support the Slovenly Trulls, connect with them on social media, and join our Discord to keep the discussion going!
Subscribe, leave a comment, and follow us on BluSky and Xfor more updates. Come play with Casey on Startplaying! And don’t forget to send your questions to NarrativeFeatsPodcast@gmail.com!
Music by Tabletop Audio
Theme by RJ Pirchinello
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Series
00:00:34
Speaker
Whether you're at a game table, in your comfiest chair, reading a book, or listening at home, there's nothing like a great adventure story. But they don't happen by accident. Welcome to the joy of GMing, a special interview series on the craft of great gaming. There's just something magic about sitting down to a good table with great friends, isn't there?
00:00:55
Speaker
If you're a lifelong gamer or a newbie rolling up your first character sheet, if you're a DM or GM or just can't get enough tabletop talk in your day, this is the show for you.
Show Features and Goals
00:01:07
Speaker
Each episode will bring you amazing guest speakers to talk about writing games and running them, legends and lore of your favorite tabletops, and oh so useful tricks of the trade. Here's some amazing stories, get inspired for your next game, and join us for an hour and a half or so of lively conversation.
00:01:26
Speaker
This sister series to narrative feats, the tabletop anthology, will be released between episodes with our ongoing serialized show. We cover some making of and behind the scenes tidbits of our latest mod as well, so do stick around.
Guest Introduction: Casey Jones
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm Casey Jones. Over the last dozen years, I've written and produced screenplays, children's animation for TV and film, graphic novels, stage plays, murder mysteries, and award-winning audio adventures. I've also been writing and running tabletop games for over 10 years.
00:01:56
Speaker
Join us as we dive deep into tabletop with experts in the field.
Special Guests: Lissa and Sade on D&D and Feminism
00:02:02
Speaker
Experts like our special guest today, the slovenly trawls. Lissa and Sade are two big, bad, evil girls who rant about D and&D, feminism, and the high wizard of patriarchy in a monthly deep dive covering the problematic past of TTRPGs and how we can learn from them, all with sighted sources. Lissa, Sade, welcome to the show.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yay! Hi. Thank you so much for having us. What a big hype that was. Oh my god, I'm so pumped now. I know. You wrote it. We are delighted to have you with us. So let's jump right in. The motivations and mission of your podcast are entirely self-evident.
Exploring Patriarchal Roots in D&D
00:02:46
Speaker
I did want to ask first, what inspired the title?
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, I don't know if you ah know this, but there is a thing called the harlot table in AD&D. So if you go back in time to the beginning of what D and&D was, you could have urban encounters with women of the night. And just to put things plainly, you could roll on a table and there were different kinds of women's of the night.
00:03:17
Speaker
One being a slumly troll, which is basically a dirty prostitute. a And then there were what? Slatterings of trollops. Saucy tarts. One ton wench. Cheap trollop. High madam.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Expensive doxy. Essentially, no descriptions given, but with the implication that depending on the adjective given, so slovenly crawl, dirty prostituting, you were more likely to probably get an STD if you're- The gift that keeps on taking. And a wonderful night or evening with said lady or gentleman or they then. Not really even gentlemen because they didn't have a male equivalent for a male prostitute. Like the only like male adjectives they had were the higher numbers you can roll. And one of them was I think Sly Pimp. Sly Pimp was, yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
well No, that was wealthy procurist. There was another one on there that was more masculine leaning, but it made no adjectives like slovenly or cheap or anything. They were very like neutral and were kind of implied to be the the proprietors of the establishment more so than the actual sex workers.
00:04:39
Speaker
Incredible. So part of the problem with privilege, or even just the absence of obstacles, means that some pretty gross behavior and institutions can be largely invisible to a lot of men. So before we deep dive, I would love and appreciate it if you could give our listeners a brief overview of what you mean when you say patriarchy. Like, what exactly are we talking about when we are talking about the patriarchy here?
Patriarchal Norms in Gaming Society
00:05:10
Speaker
When we talk about the patriarchy, we talk about the BBEG, that is, the patriarchy, which is the society, the Western society that we live in today, which has been created mostly by cis, straight, white men, or cis, straight, white men.
00:05:30
Speaker
So we're talking about like the bigger societal like constructions of the patriarchy, which also includes things like capitalism as well, which is also a construct of the patriarchy. So when we talk about the patriarchy, we're talking about the big overarching, like this is the society that we live in that was created by white men or white men, essentially. Yeah, a lot of the things we take for granted, the things that are like societal norms that don't really get talked about,
00:05:55
Speaker
yeah it's much very much like these people built this society to up these people and to take away and or oppress the other people not necessarily always implicitly to oppress others but it ends up being that because they're not getting the same kind of treatment fundamentally from a ground up like systemic base foundation of society, you do end up oppressing or limiting how much they can achieve within society. So that's what we're talking about.
00:06:34
Speaker
Things like the glass ceiling, which can be seen through, but not actually pushed through without something like a sledgehammer. Really well put. So the patriarchy's fingerprints are everywhere. As experts in the history of D and&D sexism.
Impact of Female Contributors in D&D
00:06:52
Speaker
Are there any feminine or non-binary writers that have contributed meaningfully to D and&D in the last few years that you've especially liked or latched onto in addition to the majority of the masculine lean leaning writers that have had their hands in addition after addition after addition of D&D?
00:07:13
Speaker
Really a lot of our episodes usually focus on the history because that's where like historically like in the 70s 80s 90s into the early 2000s that's where a lot of the major issues are and you could still see ripples in like fourth and fifth edition but it's a lot better.
00:07:28
Speaker
And especially 5th edition doesn't really have a lot of hooks to grab into. It's just like, oh, these are the ripple effects of what happened in the past. So we mostly focus on the past, but a couple of my names that come to mind and is that just to put it on the table, TSR, which is the original company that owned D and&D, it didn't just employ men, like for the most part, it 100%.
00:07:48
Speaker
yeah But there were also um writers at the table and editors at the table that were women. Mary Kirby ah comes to mind, I think, um or no, that's that's the wrong one. um who wrote there's a There's a woman writer who wrote Baba Yaga, and she contributed a lot um to the ah presentation of Baba Yaga in early D and&D.
00:08:16
Speaker
And there was also um an editor whose name is also escaping me. And she pulled, she's like the reason that Drizzt exists, because she pulled Brandon Sanderson's original manuscript out of a sludge pile. And she actually encouraged um Brandon Sanderson to include ah women characters in his writing.
00:08:39
Speaker
when he didn't in the original draft of Drizzt. Or the Crystal Shari, technically, because Drizzt wasn't the main character at first. That would didn't come till later. But there have always been like feminine and female presence throughout the history of D&D. They're just not really talked about a lot of the time. And also, I'm terrible with names. So just because I'm forgetting their names, um' that's just a me problem. I am awful with names. It is not a problem you have you're on your own. I also am pretty lousy with names, with names.
00:09:07
Speaker
Like it's gotten to the point, like when I'm meeting someone new, I literally picture their name and flashing lights over their head because like visually sometimes I'm better than just like the
Origins and Motivations of the Podcast
00:09:18
Speaker
word. So if I put David or, you know, Shanna in flashing lights over their head is like, okay, that's right. I named that person David because that's their name. Because it's easy to remember.
00:09:31
Speaker
easier, we'll say easier. Yeah, yeah, easier. I don't know if Alyssa has any other names to add to that list. But those are the first ones that kind of mine. I will look up the names so I can shout them out while Alyssa lists hers. Yeah, I was I was just trying to look up the names. I'm like, I mean, part of the problem is that there aren't a lot to pick from.
00:09:49
Speaker
Lisa Smedman. Lisa Smedman, that's the Baba Yaga writer. Yes, she is incredible. Incredible. Dancing had a Baba Yaga 2E from 1995. Yeah. But I am so bad with names. I, having taken history in high school, ah you would think that I would have a better understanding of history. But my brain kind of goes like amidst the details. And then it's like I look at the big picture.
00:10:16
Speaker
And, which is not helpful, but usually I have short A to back me up and give the details, but I think we're both having kind of a day today where we're just like, Oh, wait, it's that one. You know, the one that's on the tip of your tongue that like,
00:10:34
Speaker
I know I want to honor, I want to honor these women, but what I did want to say was that although, like one of the reasons I think that we do look mainly at the historical D and&D, not just because you know it's got the juicy details and like things like the harlot table.
00:10:50
Speaker
But it's important as both Chardet and I did take history in school and having kind of like a general interest in that
Feminist Exploration of D&D: Starting Point
00:11:00
Speaker
kind of thing. it's You can't look at 5E until you know where it started from. So where this podcast started was from us being very angry at a tweet.
00:11:14
Speaker
Oh wow, what was that tweet? no it was a It was our very first episode, so if you go listen to our very first episode and don't mind the audio issues that we had back then because you don't start a podcast without audio just issues in the beginning. It started with a quote from Gary Gygax basically saying that women were not built to enjoy D and&D. I beg your pardon.
00:11:37
Speaker
The female brain, I can't remember if that was verbatim, but basically what was implied was the female brain just does not enjoy playing D and&D. or like-minded games. it just And then there was another one from a another designer of D and&D called Jonathan Tweet who also said something along the lines of, oh yeah, most women enjoy LARPing more because it has to do with makeup and pretend.
00:12:13
Speaker
So- As a former LARPer, I was offended by it. yeah As a former larper, I'm offended by that. Thank you, right? It's like, yeah, we do do that. You jealous? like What do you mean? What are you trying to imply here, man? So I think it broke our brains when we just started, like or I just started, and but this had become like my hyper-fixation, right? I made this my entire personality with my neurodivergent audacity.
00:12:44
Speaker
So the audacity of me to find out that this stemmed from a person who thought that I would never enjoy this because my brain was built different. Oh my god. Just was the most offensive thing. I yelled at Sharde. Sharde yelled at me. I think we like raged at each other in on voice chat, on text. We were like talking about this for like a week.
00:13:05
Speaker
Maybe more. Sure. Before we were like, OK, what? And then our like analytical brains kicked in because we at this point in time, we had started had just finished her master's degree and I was still doing my ah my bachelors. So our analytical brains kicked in. And we said, who is this guy? Who is this Jonathan tweet? OK, we have some information from the screenshot, but we need more context. And that was the key word that we basically became what our podcast is today. You want the topic in question, but you want the context around it. What happened? Who were they? what were their What was their background? Can we give them any kind of benefit of the doubt? And what was the situation and what led to this happening? So we started doing the research way before we even figured out
00:14:00
Speaker
we should start a podcast. We were already doing all of this like, out of personal interest research into this topic. And I can't remember who said it, but we were like, maybe if we didn't know any of this, maybe there's people out there who don't know. And then, yeah, it just at some point, somebody said the word podcast, we thought about it, we thought about it a lot more. And then at some point, we had a full first episode, we were like, ready to go.
00:14:26
Speaker
um amazing. Yeah, I can speak from personal experience on both points. Number one, that women somehow enjoy getting made up for LARP more than the dudes. Incorrect. I have attended many larks where the guys spent as much if not more time on their glow up for their PC than their more feminine leaning counterparts. And as someone who runs games plural of D and&D every week, I can personally attest that the ladyfolk that show up to play have as much if not more enthusiasm for the game than some of my more manly man ah players that show up.
00:15:08
Speaker
Like, just in terms of the number of times they come back for more, the women are are representing ah more frequently than the dudes. So yeah, neither of those have basis. In fact, I am happy to confirm.
00:15:22
Speaker
Have you never seen a nerd? Mostly masculine presenting nerds but like oftentimes now I'm seeing a lot of more women and I do think i I fit into this category as well but like when I look at like my father who is not a nerd and and the excitement he gets when he gets to buy a sword or like a prop gun What do you mean masculine presenting people don't like LARPing? Do you do you see the enthusiasm they have for like but the thought of like putting on armor or like looking at like the battlefield? and I'm just like, really? It's not all makeup and wigs and hair and flirting with people, which it can be, and that's totally fine. and I've enjoyed that. but
00:16:05
Speaker
Like, there's this whole other part of LARPing that's just code completely overlooked by blanket statements like, oh yeah, women don't enjoy, but or women enjoy LARP more because it's...
00:16:17
Speaker
made for that because they like makeup and dressing pretty. I would argue that any fandom fervent enough to go and buy props and enjoy looking at, if not just buying swords, is its own form of nerdry. Because like one of my favorite definitions of nerd is someone that is not ashamed of how much they like a thing. And that thing does not need to be D and&D or Star Wars or a fantasy series of choice. It can be swords or medieval armor or fanfic written in the 18th century all of these things have different levels of like how cerebral is this but they can still have you know a level of interest that leads to study that leads to buying things that leads to having a little shrine somewhere in your house of like here's where all my swords are
00:17:05
Speaker
It's the nerd quarter, like every nerd has a nerd quarter. And it doesn't matter like how you present what you identify as and like a lot of this has roots in that original like thing that Gary Gygak said where he literally self-identified as a biological determinist and if once you know that everything makes sense. every Everything falls into place. Every like the puzzle is complete and you're like I understand. I fundamentally understand why everything is broken. for our listeners that don't know. In 100 words or less, what is a biological determinist? Sade, would you like to take this? I will certainly try. I also remember the name of the editor, Mary Kirchhoff, for anybody who wants to know. It was Mary. I just got the last name wrong because I've been playing too much Dragon Age. Biological determinism is when you as a person believe that a person's strengths, a person's personality,
00:17:59
Speaker
what somebody is inherently good at or what they have the ability to do is determined by their biology, yeah not by any outside factors. So in the nature versus nurture debate, it's all nature,
Understanding Biological Determinism
00:18:12
Speaker
period. Next sentence, it has a lot of roots in not only sexism, but also racism because people thought that certain groups of people were predisposed to certain types of behaviors.
00:18:33
Speaker
in like, what, 2005 is insane to me. So it's just like, yeah I'm a biological determinist. Like, okay, you didn't have to say it like that. No.
00:18:44
Speaker
No, you did not. This does segue so neatly into my next question.
Stereotypes of Female Monsters in D&D
00:18:50
Speaker
So in broader strokes, what things do these patriarchy problematic lady monsters have most in common? Let's dish. Like what things in common do the most problematic lady monsters have in common?
00:19:06
Speaker
Is it their appetites? Is it their appearance? Is it their stereotypes? Like what, what, when you're looking at the grand scope of X chromosome, double X chromosome monsters, do you think that they have in common? Just speaking of monsters?
00:19:23
Speaker
Fire I think we could both fire off like example examples or points ah because there's there's a lot of things that can be said about if we're specifically talking about monsters NPCs in general like they could be god say ok monsters was a poorly chosen catch-all I apologize No, that's that's totally okay. and hu First one is ah female sexuality is evil. That's a really big theme. If a feminine-presenting NPC monster deity is outwardly very, very sexualized, and what I mean by very, very sexualized is leather armor, T.E.S.O. BDSM coded in a lot of instances, they are evil when they are in control.
00:20:10
Speaker
they are evil. But when they are more submissive like at the deity Sunae who represents sex and love, well mostly love but also it's applied sex, she is very vanilla, very secure, very mindful, but she's good aligned. That's the big one we've been really deep deep diving into recently.
00:20:32
Speaker
Female sexuality when the woman is in control, specifically, evil. Evil. I think it comes with a lot of stereotypes to begin with. I think there's female monsters are depicted in one of two ways. They are either hag-like or they are a femme fatale, so beautiful, deadly. There's kind of not anything in between.
00:20:56
Speaker
You have your succubus and your harpy and they're the two angel meat. Hags too. Hags side hag and like kind of like witches who have crooked crooked noses and who live in the swamp and they're like ugly and there's this ageism that comes into play as well.
00:21:15
Speaker
and That's another one. What else is there? Unnecessary vanity is a big one. Unnecessary vanity? Yeah, that goes along with like stereotypes of like, oh, we don't have anything for this ah lady in particular. So let's just make her personality vain. Also, let's make sure that these people know that they're women because, oh, look at this. They are unable to organize themselves.
00:21:41
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's a big one. With female-led religion, like when it's a female deity or predominantly female-aligned clergy, there is a very high chance they're going to be unorganized. And like there's no structure here. And the implication is because if a if a woman leads the organization, there are no. Oh, curse my soft feminine brain parts.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. The benefit of the doubt, some of them are evil aligned. So the implication being like, if maybe it's because they don't want the evil to be overpowering and they want a chance for good. but that's not But still, it's just like,
00:22:24
Speaker
it's not all instances and then it's also like a systemic pattern of when they are feminine they are also unable to organize themselves and are chaotically it's just frustrating absolutely no absolutely of course it is uh let's see i mean you could have a whole conversation about the history of how women and female presenting figures are depicted in dnd art Yes. Please. Bring it on. We call it broken spines. Like they are like very in positions that do not make any sense. When they are in an action pose, they usually have their chests out. they But perfectly posed. Yeah, which is not a really good battle stance when you know anything about like how any of that works. But when you see a masculine presenting or male coded or just straight up like male figure,
00:23:15
Speaker
they They may have their shirt off. They may be a little bit more sexualized, but they their poses are never like unrealistic. Painful to hold. and painful, exactly. And then that even leans into like boop using too much boob plate, you know, so ah armor that is more contorted to the female form to make sure, you know, this is a woman and she has boobs. And it got so bad that by fourth edition, they just put boobs on dragonborn women.
00:23:46
Speaker
which doesn't even make sense. But there is a Dragon Magazine article out there that literally says, oh, this is why they have them. They actually are mammals. And then you're like, no, no, they're not because you see dragons lay eggs and they're reptilian. And what do you mean? And like they go out of their way to like justify sexualizing even dragon born. And I say sexualizing like,
00:24:14
Speaker
the patriarchy sexualizes boobs. We don't. like yeah they They put their titties out because it is very alluring to a very specific audience. And that's just kind of the overlying theme, right? like this game We found that this game originally, and in a lot of instances, was made by men for men. So they like the the the preferences of other people were not taken into account at all.
00:24:40
Speaker
Let's talk about those other people for a moment. Quick sidebar after the controversy around some covers that were published several years ago now of Spider Woman, you know, crawling over the lip of a building with both her chest presenting and her ass in the air in like physically painful ways to hold some artists, both pro and amateur,
00:25:02
Speaker
started doing poses of people like Hawkeye where, you know, he was doing the the Cupid's bow kiss with his ass directly facing yeah the viewer and like also just twisted around contorting like, oh yes, Hawkeye can do this too. um They are absolutely worth Googling um and searching for like Hawkeye, feminine pose, response and things like that because he wasn't the only one done, but he was the one that ah that rose most most directly to mind. As far as the leanings that you're talking about for artwork, I can absolutely confirm that. ah When I was working on my own graphic novel, I could got some 18 years ago now,
00:25:46
Speaker
like I specifically remember having to go back to my penciler and saying, can we make this the lead character's chest smaller? We've had conversations about this. Her kind her her uniform is a leotard. like There is no exposed skin from like the neck down. And like when he came back with some of the the character designs, I was like, yeah, no, his character is 13. Please make the chest smaller. Please make her... This is not how this is supposed to go.
00:26:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And like he took the notes, he took the notes, but I had to give them in the first place, you know? Yeah, you shouldn't have had to give them in the first place is the problem. Alas. So have any, in D and&D, across first edition to 2024, have any feminine monsters or other NPCs, like we mentioned, demigods, the fae, etc.
00:26:39
Speaker
Have any of these feminine characters gotten worse, in your opinion, with the latest round of updates? And we'll have a follow-up question to that, but like, let's start with that. Have any of these feminine NPCs that can be portrayed gotten worse, in your opinion?
00:26:55
Speaker
I think shardae has a view. There is definitely like a look on your faces. So I'm thinking the answer is yes. I can't hide from it. The drama happening on her face right now. let's Spill that tea. I mean the first one we kind of talked about this before we started recording is Banshees.
00:27:13
Speaker
Like Banshees got so much worse in fifth edition for literally no reason. Banshee mythology is just seeped in misunderstandings of like what Banshees actually are in Celtic mythology and D and&D has gotten that wrong a lot. But then they started putting their own spin on it. They started putting their own lore to it. They're like, okay, well, our version of Banshees are creatures that were slain and want revenge on people. And that's just what we're sticking with. And they, I think, did their best version of that fourth edition where it wasn't really tied to a specific species.
00:27:43
Speaker
Um, the only reason I think that it was tied to women was because of the art. I don't think it was ever explicit in the tax that I needed to be a woman. But then fifth edition just kind of like scrapped all that and was just like, no, actually, no, they were elven maidens who were slain in distress.
00:28:01
Speaker
And they also really, really like shiny things. And it was like, this is fifth. What are you talking about? You didn't even have any of this in fourth edition, where you just kind of made them a little bit more generic, but that was fine, because at least they weren't like you know shrieking angry women and all the stereotypes that go along with folklore. That's not D and&D's fault. They just adapted the game. But then they just like went back 10 years.
00:28:27
Speaker
and they were like, oh no, they love shiny objects and they are elven maidens in distress. And they're like, oh, that's amazing. Why do you do that in fifth edition though? Like you're supposed to be the quote good one, unquote. And that's, I think, but that was the catalyst for um me really looking a lot deeper into fifth edition and how many like really problematic things are still present in that thing.
00:28:53
Speaker
They're out there numerous. But yeah, that's the big one that stands out in my mind. I don't know if Alyssa has any other examples. I mean, in terms
Improved Portrayal of Female Characters
00:29:01
Speaker
of ah the Banshees, I think it's the the weirdest thing about that is because we look into the context of Banshees and what they were originally in Irish and Celtic folklore, they were supposed to be warning you of somebody's death in terms of like families.
00:29:21
Speaker
Like somebody from your family would be warning you, you would hear a scream that meant that somebody was in danger or somebody somebody was currently in danger or was going to be in danger.
00:29:33
Speaker
So they were an ancestor of some kind, warning you, not freaking people out, not attacking people, not taking souls or whatever other things that Banshees have been said to now do in modern culture and stories. But yeah, it's it's the weirdest twist. And then PIE goes and says, oh yeah, they're elven maidens. They like shiny objects. And you're like, based on what? Based on what? and Why?
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, that seems like a random pull. Quick shout out to your episode, Can She, Banshee? A truly fine two hours plus of listening. Go check it out on The Slovenly Trolls. So as a follow up, contrary to the Banshee, have any of these feminine NPCs gotten better with time? Have there been marked improvements? And if so, what kind?
00:30:25
Speaker
I'll let Lissa start with this one, because I already have one thing that came to mind, but I you i i jumped off the last one. Let Lissa take that one. Trying to think of something.
00:30:40
Speaker
It's always such an interesting thing to talk about lore when I'm not the whore for lore on our podcast. Do you want me to say it? Do you want me to say what I'm thinking? I mostly do the context, so that's why hyper fixation, so that it's like, oh yes, what did Chardet say on one of our apps?
00:30:57
Speaker
Chardet, why don't you set the flatter and then Lissa can bring out the garnish. No, but this is your territory. Go for it. Okay, okay, okay. I just don't want to like take up like too much space, but but the first um example that comes to mind is Igwulf, Natasha the Dark, slash Tasha. You might know her in the edition as the author of the Deep Anamakhan of Igwulf and the face of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. She started out as just like a stereotypical like witch in D and&D. She like a beautiful witch, not a hag type witch. And she literally like consorted with a demon. She has a whole backstory where she like gets it on with Brozd, the demon lord.
00:31:36
Speaker
Which honestly, I ship it. Like it's an evil pairing and I'm like, you know what, be awful together. I love that for you. But she also has a lot of problematic stuff in her history where she is like oh you know overly sexualized. A lot of her achievements were ah tied to her predecessor, Zagig, who was a man. So they had a lot of problematic stuff. But by the time Fifth Edition comes around, oh my God, she's incredible, like amazing character. Like if you have not either read Tasha's Call of Everything and see her little asides that she makes like in character, being amazing. And also, this is a little bit of spoiler territory, so if you
00:32:19
Speaker
are playing this campaign or want to, maybe you don't want to, but if you are very curious on how 5th edition Iqwilv slash Tasha is portrayed, Wild Beyond the Witchlight,
00:32:31
Speaker
in Incredible. Like she's in that and it's amazing. well there's And that is, yeah, a huge improvement just overall. Like going from, you know, stereotypical, you know, sexy witch consorting with demons, but also she only got where she was because of a man. And then towards the end, she's like, no, she earned everything that she got. And also she's Baba Yaga's daughter, which is incredible lore. Amazing.
00:33:00
Speaker
Wasn't Luthic also? Yeah, no, Luthic's a good example. Talk about Luthic. So, Luthic is the partner wife of the orc demigod, Groosh, and I think she just kind of started off as this wife known through her husband sort of deal. I can't remember you, you did, I think most of the lore of that as well. She was, yeah, her portfolio was, was over female orc servitude. If that, yeah. yeah vibe That's a hell of a portfolio.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, big barf. Very much like serving her husband known because of her husband didn't much have anything of her own. ah she She was said to, I think, kind of be not like a decision maker, but she was said to be able to slightly sway Groomsch and her son, whose name is escaping me. Back true. Back true, yeah.
00:34:03
Speaker
But then, like, that was the only thing that she had going for her. And I mean, she's a she's a fear or or woman, like very capable warrior. But she was like put into this gender role of mother, traditional mother and.
00:34:20
Speaker
wife and because she's married to someone like Grouche who's this big masculine, hulking energy and this like very traditional masculine male warrior being an evil as that. He had so much lore because I think in that episode I looked at like Grouche and then we compared it to Luthic. Grouche had so much lore to him i thought when we compared to like how much like we you had to look at when you looked at the entirety of the lore of groos to luthik luthik was just like a fraction like she did she wasn't important she wasn't the big one she was just there to support her man but i believe in fifth edition she got her own not purview but she got like
00:35:07
Speaker
she Her portfolio kind of changed, so she still had ties to motherhood. she use She's still called the Cave Mother, but she had more of like almost like a witchy aspect to her. She was known more so for her powers with the Earth.
00:35:25
Speaker
And she also was suggested, not just in fifth edition, I believe in fourth edition as well, to be like, honestly, the power behind me work Pantheon. And she's the brains behind the operation. And I'm like, see, I like that better. I like that better. And she's like operating under the radar, in a sense. And there are hints that don't actually become canon, but like they're for DMs or players to play with if they want to.
00:35:54
Speaker
of luthick just conspiring to overtake her husband. And I'm like, yes, absolutely. I 100% yes. I don't care if this is an evil pantheon because the orc can't be an unfortunate evil. But like again, good for her. like I'm rooting for her. You go, girl.
00:36:11
Speaker
I think we were, at that point when we were doing the episode, of I think we were both pretty much in the mindset of like, oh my god, leave him already. And didn't we? We also came up with a conspiracy theory that Groomsh and Corell in the Rothea was an elf deity who has his own problematic past. They should just go off and be problematic together. Yeah, they deserve each other. Bring us the worst in each other. It'll make a great act too.
00:36:35
Speaker
ah Literally, yeah. That's that's our like head cannon. They were so obsessed with each other. like Be gay together. Do crimes. Be gay, do crime. like Go off. Amazing. So one of the things I love most about your show is how, in addition to critique, you provide constructive criticism, like actual, actionable suggestions for making these feminine creatures and NPCs less patriarchal, more balanced, and even more thematically consistent with their roots in fables and myths and legend. Like, I am a huge fan of, like, actionable advice, not just, well, here's your problem, without any kind of suggestions as how to turn things around. So, for our homebrew creators that might be listening,
00:37:28
Speaker
to help them create some more well-rounded she-beasts. What suggestions might you have? God, where do we start? ums Start wherever you want. She-beasts that are able to plan and carry out their evil plans if they're evil. They're good plans if they're good. Not all women are incapable of forming plans when it comes to like warfare and tactics. True.
00:37:57
Speaker
then have this lack of organization and nobody rises to anything it's just like a doggy dog kind of world with stuff like that like just I feel like the most important thing is get to know the stereotypes of feminine presenting people of other people and steer away from them. Do something that's out. I know this is really difficult to do like it to think out of the box just like out of the box and make something out of the box like duh like I wish I could just do that but
00:38:35
Speaker
It's so much more interesting when you smartly play with stereotypes. Like if you know that there is a stereotype, flip the stereotype, play against stereotype. Or if you're playing into a stereotype, change it in a way that makes it new, makes it interesting. Yeah. So yeah you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to kind of like tweak it a little bit so that it runs a bit different.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah. And as a separate tack of this kind of advice, one of the best tips I ever read when trying to make a character more to give it more depth um was to flip the gender. Like, if your main character is just you automatically go to token mail and you've got their backstory and their traits and how they look and forth thing, like,
00:39:30
Speaker
flip the script, make them a woman. Same backstory, same desires, same goals, same relationships, but change just the gender and see what happens. I think that in particular is ah an effective way of getting outside the box when all you know is inside the box. So like instead of like, well, I don't know how to write women, okay, write a dude and then turn him around.
00:39:57
Speaker
Here's the thing, you do know how to write a woman, you just don't want to. Or you don't want to use that part of your brain because it's hard because sometimes, listen, I'm a cancer. I am a very empathetic person. So like I have always put myself in the shoes of other people, but not everybody does that. hity Everybody's brain works that way. So the changes we suggest, like Lissa said, it's they are hard. It is hard to change the way you think, especially if you've been, you know, ah we're all in the patriarchy together. We've all like been exposed to all of these stereotypes and like subtle and not so subtle messaging. It's hard to deprogram. It really, really is. Like I didn't even have like my feminist awakening until
00:40:46
Speaker
I'm going to say right around the time when we started this podcast, like there were like little like drippings and like little um steps along the way, but then there was one catalyst that really got my brain, re I rewired my brain to start looking for these things.
00:41:03
Speaker
And another part of piece of actionable advice that hopefully you can take from listening to our podcast or just this episode or whatever is just look at what you're portraying at your table. What messages are you sending to your players as a DM? What messages are you sending as a player to other players? Because at the end of the day, we all just want to play a game. We want not want to have fun. We all want to be, in my opinion, I hope I'm not like generalizing too much. have a safe space to like imagine and have fun and just so just have a think about what you were doing as an active participant in the story and what you are saying when you are seeing those stereotypes. What are those stereotypes saying and what do you maybe want them to say? What are you as the DM or the player doing to either not easy but like actionable changes and doing like step by step.
00:42:06
Speaker
like listening to consuming media that you don't usually consume or listening to our podcast or like Asians represent or the three black half lengths or like people who talk about these issues and from perspectives that maybe you haven't considered more or explored in your horizons yeah yes that broadening your horizons is incredibly important to not only puncturing the patriarchy because you can't disassemble what you can't see.
00:42:34
Speaker
and like my own experience as you know starting out as a cis hat dude and figuring out who I actually am. Like one of the biggest eye openers for me was in like middle school of like, wait a minute, are you saying that you have obstacles that I don't? Are you saying that you have disadvantages that I don't? Well, you never talk about them. You never bring them up. So it was just part of the terrain.
00:42:58
Speaker
It was just part of the way things were. And it wasn't until it was actually pointed out to me that I could start to notice, that I could start to see between the gaps in egalitarianism, you know? I think one of the biggest, potentially remaining stereotypes about feminism in general is that the feminist view is women are better than men. And that's not it.
00:43:23
Speaker
no that' Women are equal to men. Different then, but equal to. like Feminists are not trying to grab more of the pie that, in theory, the society. Because guess what? Society's not pie. People can have rights. They're not taking away from yours.
00:43:40
Speaker
give the benefit of the doubt there is good feminism and there's also bad feminism. There's women who think, the white woman feminism we'll call it, it's it's the very much yeah yeah it's it's the problematic feminism where you think you're doing a good thing and you're making a big fuss about things but you're not coming, you are coming with the best intentions but I think the way they go about it doing it is not helpful to everyone. It's helpful to possibly one group of people, say white women, but it's not intersectional feminism. And when you start looking at intersectional feminism, that becomes a whole lot more difficult because like you said, you don't know the struggles that other people are going through. I think especially like if you're a 13 year old or even as ah as an adult, if you're not exposed to people who come from that kind of background, you don't have
00:44:36
Speaker
intimate friendships with people of different marginalized groups, you don't get exposed to like the issues that they're going through. And every every child thinks that what I go through is what other people go through. Like my childhood was what their childhood was. And then, like, my brain works how their brain works, like, or then it's the opposite of, like, oh, my God, I'm different, and but but that's, like, insecurities. But, like, you, what you go through, you think is the norm of, like, oh, yes, I went through this hardship. Of course, every child goes through this hardship, and then you hear about these, like, rich people who have never had to do a day of work in their life, and they're just cruising on in life, and you're like,
00:45:20
Speaker
what ah but like then there's people who are worse off than you who have to struggle way more than you do just because of the color of their skin just because of their sexuality just because of the brain the way their brain works and you won't know until you talk to someone like that until you educate yourself on them their issues so when it comes to like also trying to fix your games. If you're trying to create a more inclusive world, a more realistic world with more diversity, talk to people who are from different backgrounds. Ask them
00:46:01
Speaker
What would a character from your background look like you can buy like NPC tables or or but set packs from people who come from those backgrounds who create like indie creators or or something.
00:46:16
Speaker
because this stuff already exists. like They're creating their own characters and you can just maybe exchange characters or like have a conversation. and But the problem is that requires you to you to be vulnerable. And I think that's where the difficulty lies is because playing TTRPGs is inherently well neuro having vulnerability. Having conversations with people when you want to diversify and open up yourself to something outside of yourself, that's me having to be vulnerable. And I think that's as difficult as stereotypically people who come here are nerds. We don't have necessarily the best social skills. Some of us do, but a lot of us struggle with those social skills. And that's why D and&D is like the safe haven where you get to practice being social. and been fun yeah Well won't attack you. That and I mean also being vulnerable right because like for a really long time at least well times are changing but whatever but like even when I was in high school I wasn't gonna tell anybody outside my friend group that I was larping I was getting bullied enough as I was grabbing glasses yeah and being like not like a way thin woman like I was already getting bullied enough like I'm not gonna go around telling people I play
00:47:34
Speaker
I started playing D and&D in like 3.5, but that eventually like went into LARPing and I mostly LARP. So I wasn't going to tell people that. Like, no, I didn't want more attention on that. But now nerd culture is a little bit more mainstream, but you still have, you know, different sects of like, it's a very nuanced issue for sure. But like having nerds be vulnerable, like when we all kind of have an almost shared experience potentially or a majority, of like being a little bit like I don't want to say like closeted and nerd dumb but kind of in a way because it wasn't that it wasn't like accepted it's hard like these things are hard to talk about these things are hard to do like so it it comes with discomfort
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's very uncomfortable, and it's uncomfortable to also
Encouraging Inclusivity in Tabletop Gaming
00:48:19
Speaker
admit you're wrong. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my yes. Okay, so I am gonna take the ball and run with it. um Number one, I would like to encourage our listeners to think about vulnerability not as something related to weakness, to be avoided, but instead something that requires courage.
00:48:39
Speaker
because when we open ourselves to vulnerability, when we open up the way we think and our mindset to, well, there could be a better way of thinking about this than the way I currently know, or, well, you know, I have had misunderstandings with so-and-so who is a different gender for me and, you know, a different racial background, and I have never really examined why we don't get along or why we don't really click.
00:49:05
Speaker
It is humbling to actually talk to someone and say, you know, actually, I don't know where you're coming from. I don't quite see the point you're making. And to admit that, like, it's not about being stupid or being seen as stupid. What's stupid is pretending you get it and then being proven out later that you have no idea what the hell they were actually talking about. The much, much smarter way to go is actually, do you mind explaining that?
00:49:33
Speaker
uh real quick because i'm not sure i'm on the same page this is one of those things that gets easier with practice like admitting you don't know something could be it could feel embarrassing it could feel humbling you could have been discouraged from saying things like that in school i don't know i was certainly was but as an adult You are responsible for your own ability to communicate with others. And part of that, one of the tools that gets overlooked a lot of the time, is opening yourself to the vulnerability of not understanding where someone else is coming from, not understanding their experience.
00:50:13
Speaker
And at a game, whether it's LARP or Tabletop, getting to put on other shoes is a fan fantastic opportunity to socialize, to experience things that aren't necessarily in your usual wheelhouse. One of the best things I ever did as a LARP-er was finish up with the character that I felt had explored everything I was going to explore in that particular direction.
00:50:38
Speaker
And then I chose a character that was distinctly, on purpose, different from myself. Because I wanted to see what would it feel like to be super socially adept and just great with everybody. And that character came together in a way that surprised me. You know, just like, because the way I imagined, oh, he's just relaxed and comfortable talking to anybody, or at least knows how to look and feel that way, opened my eyes to the pressure it can take to be that person.
00:51:08
Speaker
yeah it exposed you to different experiences Exactly, exactly. like one ah Like a possible way to broach this subject is to ask someone that you that is of a different demographic than you, like what are some of your favorite movies? What are some of your favorite TV shows? What pieces of storytelling capture a perspective that you identify with? So maybe I can go get more familiar with it in a way that doesn't tax you and make it your job to catch me up on this and so forth. Because I know that one of the frustrations
00:51:41
Speaker
that people experience is like it's not my job to educate you it's not my job to bring you up to speed on this it's your job to go and get caught up um and that's that's the world we live in um and yeah it can be uncomfortable to ask those questions but like anything worth learning like anything worth doing getting over the discomfort and getting to the good stuff is worth it so much of the time. Like there will be times where we make mistakes, where we, you know, a faux pas slips from our lips and we have absolutely no idea. We have absolutely no idea that we just did. um And hopefully we are around people that can like just, actually you can't say that. you know that's That's not something you can you should really be bringing up. You know, that kind of thing. like
00:52:31
Speaker
We'll say gentle or delicate nudges in a more enlightened direction. um i Anyway, i' I've gone off on a tangent. It's an important tangent though. It is an important tangent. Yeah. It's a good tangent to go on.
00:52:45
Speaker
Tabletop is such a wonderful place to explore and experiment. I think that was the the point I was ah was orbiting of like you can use your time at a game to try and experience something that is not your norm.
00:53:03
Speaker
When I am running games of Curse of Strahd, for instance, like one of the things I let everyone know at the table that's playing a PC is these people are not going to like you. They are not going to warm to you. They are not going to treat you as pre preferred citizens. It has nothing to do with your race. It has nothing to do with your gender. It has everything to do with the fact that you're not from around here.
00:53:27
Speaker
And as that outsider, that is where the this treatment is coming from. And I wanted them to be prepared for that because you know, it is easy to misconstrue it as like, oh, that character is just racist or oh, that character is just sex like, no, they're just an asshole to everybody. This is what it feels like.
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, and that's kind of like the important thing too, like speaking of other actionable things you can do. Session zeros are so important. Like I will never students stop advocating for them. Even if you've been, let's say you've been, cause this has happened in my experience. Say you've been playing with the same group of people for a couple of years. You know, they're your good friends, best friends, whatever. and You haven't used safety tools at the table or you have never like talked about the theme of the campaign before or never like discussed what kind of characters you wanted to play before.
00:54:17
Speaker
or like what kind of party you want to like build together before. And it just kind of worked out and you don't think you need to do it. Trust me. As like speaking from a DM perspective and also speaking as a player who has like Bennett tables where session zeros have happened and where they haven't happened. Session zeros always make a campaign better. like Whether you are using any type of safety tools, whether or not it's just like building characters together or talking about the campaign or talking about issues like we've been talking about today, like what are you comfortable with? What are you not comfortable with?
00:54:55
Speaker
yes What kind of um should we have any sort of like key code to or like write like a hand gesture or something if you're uncomfortable because you don't you're not comfortable top saying you're uncomfortable out loud like what can we make this the best experience it doesn't matter if you're strangers or if the best your best friends like having that together makes games just so much absolutely just a better experience because every campaign is going to have hiccups every campaign is going to experience like blips because that's how humans
00:55:33
Speaker
work for a lot and things happen. But a lot of that can be mitigated or you have the tools or the vocabulary because you did a session zero and you could work back to, oh, but this is talked about. Or, you know, maybe for the next session zero, you know now to like reach topics like that before doing like committing it to an entire campaign.
00:55:54
Speaker
like Having these discussions and having open communication at the table is just the best way. like And it's not going to be perfect ever. Never. It's never perfect. But at least you can make the effort to like make it the best experience possible. Absolutely. Lissa, were you going to add something?
00:56:13
Speaker
even Even if you are playing with people who you fundamentally know as human beings, I mean, you've been playing D and&D together for like five, 10, 15, maybe even more years, you can think you know a person, but you, and unless you weren't them, because people change, finances change, lives change, people go through trauma, people go through hardship. Some, what you may have been comfortable playing in college,
00:56:42
Speaker
this like escapist, like no dark fantasies, these nothing off limits, like everything's a yay go for 20 years, 15 years, 10, five, maybe six months later.
00:56:54
Speaker
Maybe they went through something and something they're not comfortable doing something anymore. You would hope that if you're very good friends with them that they would, you know, come and tell you and maybe you do know, but maybe that's something that they don't want to discuss. That's something that they just want to say, look, this is off the table. I don't want to have this issue come up. Every house needs fire safety measures. You hope that you don't need to use them.
00:57:23
Speaker
You hope that you don't need to play the X card. You hope that you don't need to like take a time out and have a conversation of like actually what we're talking about now I'm uncomfortable with. But you that that doesn't mean you build a house without the fire safety like built into it so that you have the tools to be able to actually, in a situation where you actually need it, to have that ability to fix, put out the fire.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yes, so it's a really good way of putting it. Yeah. Like, when it comes to a Session Zero, the power to communicate with each other and get on the same page of expectations is critical. Again, when we're running a game of Curse of Strahd, for instance, the Session Zero is not only about things like, well, this is my character, this is what they want, this is where they come from, et cetera, it is also about establishing tone.
00:58:24
Speaker
It is about establishing what you are want, what you are willing, and what you won't be interested in having at the table. One of the examples I like to give is that one of our players at a given table ah was uncomfortable with the idea of any harm coming to children. And that extended to ghosts because, you know, they would have had to have died in order for to become ghosts in the first place. And I was like, okay, that is an entirely valid thing.
00:58:50
Speaker
let's ask the question, how young is too young? Like, would the ghost of a 14-year-old be more palatable than the ghost of a 12-year-old, for instance? And they said, yeah, actually. um Like, a 14-year-old or older, i like, would be would not run up against the the innocence and, like, the the, oh, no. And so we modified. Like, there are there are segments of that game that have, like, little children ghosts. And so we just mushed them together into an older character.
00:59:18
Speaker
that was more palatable and wasn't going to upset anyone at the table. Yeah, yeah also, so just in general, like because you also taught mentioned before, like, homebrewing stuff, that's been a tradition in D and&D since the beginning. Absolutely. You can engage with whatever edition of D and&D that you want to, whether it's fifth edition or whether you want to play a D and&D. It's your table. You do what you want to do.
00:59:44
Speaker
And you can change whatever you want to change because it's in the rules that you can. So even the people who are out there who are saying, well, why are you changing this? It's as written. Let's just play. It's as written. Well, no, actually, no. you can change whatever you want because I'm actually in the Dungeon Master's Guide in D dm&D actually Gary Gygax himself said like change whatever you want to fit your game don't be married to this content so like don't be afraid as a dungeon master to like change things to fix
01:00:21
Speaker
like to, I don't even want to say fix it, because that's not quite what I want. But like, you know it improve the experience for your players you and yourself. You want to create the most fun that everybody can have. And if you are afraid of teetering into a topic that is your no-go zone, if you have some kind of background, if you have like, you don't want ghost children, like if you're playing in a game, you're not going to have fun playing a game that's fundamentally about the issues that are distressful to you. yeah So in order for every, you want your players to have fun. In order to have fun, you need to know what is off limits for them because that's like a no go zone. And then you work around that. So yeah the goal is to create a story, whether you're playing all combat, no role play or all role play minimum combat because you just want to fight each other verbally.
01:01:19
Speaker
but Coming soon puzzles puzzles puzzles yeah or our puzzles yeah are just you want to do you what Just want to do puzzles and like yeah it like it doesn't matter what kind of game you are as long as you are like talking with them and you know the no-go zone like You want people to have fun in order to have fun? You need to know what they think is i enjoy therefore yeah have session zero Find out what makes them tick Yeah, this is from the beginning a game of collaboration and it is so much easier to collaborate when you are all on the same page. ah Knowing your players wants knowing their tolerances ah can only improve the quality of the enjoyment
01:02:07
Speaker
And that is what they're going to remember because your players may forget a plot twist.
Power of Emotional Storytelling
01:02:11
Speaker
They may forget the name of the barkeep at the tavern. They visited three towns ago. They are going to remember the way your game made them feel.
01:02:21
Speaker
that is what's going to stay with them. And this is your opportunity to improve on that capacity. Like a solid session zero um with the right safety tools to get everybody on the same page is invaluable as far as I'm concerned. Just absolutely invaluable. We're all on the same team.
01:02:43
Speaker
Like, we all want to play a game and enjoy it, whether it's with friends, whether it's with strangers, and it's just about having fun and play and engaging with a hobby that we all enjoy. And not everybody is gonna fit in every table, and that's okay. That's why it's important to talk about these things. I would do terribly at a combat-only table. I would get so bored so quickly, min-maxing, not my jam, but I have so many friends who love min-maxing and who love exploiting the system.
01:03:12
Speaker
And I love that for them. That's not fun for me. I like emotional turmoil, personally. I like a variety background. So yeah, I like that. I like i like feeling things. I like crying at the table, making people cry. But in a good way, that's safe for everybody. It's like emotions that come up naturally. yeah I always say as a DM, I'm like, I never go out to make my players cry. Like, I might go, hee hee, ha ha, ha ha, I'm gonna make you cry. I never do, because the best moments are when the players make themselves cry.
01:03:45
Speaker
but that's the but that um'm umm im mu la One of the things I love to do with a character is to twist the emotional torque by reminding them of decisions they made in the past or like parts of their dark of their backstory that are currently relevant. yeah I am putting my Wednesday table through a vampire's castle essentially as just like a an appetizer for the fight with Strahd that they're going to be having months and months and months from now. And there's a haunted painting on the wall.
01:04:21
Speaker
ah that brings up deliberately one of like a particular PC's worst memory. And like it is fresh in their minds because they've brought up the academy that where they trained and the weapons they learned to use there and so forth. And one of these weapons misfired on them earlier that session. So like they're getting themselves together and they're walking down a new hall and they say, okay, wisdom safe. Okay, not so much. You you notice a painting on the far wall.
01:04:51
Speaker
of the worst night of your life. And you are lost in that for five minutes. What does your character feel here? And like, that is all based on their choices. They wrote the backstory of the darkest night. Like they, I did not write that for them. I just reminded them of it. You did this to yourself.
01:05:14
Speaker
I am not a devil. I'm God, who can also be evil. When it comes to like, because that sounds like you want to challenge players and you want to challenge yeah the characters themselves and you want the the players to figure out how their character gets challenged and how the character possibly reacts.
01:05:36
Speaker
But I feel like you don't want to challenge the player in a way two that pushes them into, oh, I'm going to traumatize you now. The player wants to come out of this going like, oh, that was interesting. Oh, that was fun. I enjoyed that. Not like, oh my God, I'm never going to play D and&D again.
Understanding Player Boundaries
01:05:55
Speaker
Excellent point. Yeah. And that's a, that's a very fine line to walk sometimes because again, like we've mentioned before, like sometimes you have traumas that you didn't even know about. And so a player didn't tell the DM and it's not even, it's nobody's fault. It's like, I didn't know I could get triggered by this. There was a line there. I didn't know it was under the ground.
01:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. like i didn't I didn't know the lizards would eat my face. so you know That just took me back to preschool for reasons I had no idea were there. like i didn't like You never know because everything is changing. People are flawed. It's just having a consciousness. It's just being aware of these things.
01:06:37
Speaker
not only as a DM, but also as a player, because it tables work cohesively so much better when you don't put all the pressure on the DM. as well, and you should always be conscious of that. Like, the DM is like a referee, but they're not a parent. Like, you might joke about it, but like, you're not their parent. And they're not a therapist. And they're not a therapist. D&D can be therapeutic, but you should absolutely not have your DM be your therapist and have them work through, like, very traumatic parts of your life without discussing it first. Yeah, I am not your therapist. If everybody's consenting, great, love that for you. D&D is a great therapeutic tool.
01:07:16
Speaker
but yeah don't yeah there are very thin lines to walk here and i think one of the best ways that we can identify this like you want to tell a story that is exciting and impactful not traumatizing there is a specific way we can avoid this um yeah And that is by focusing on terror instead of horror. And these have very specific definitions. Terror is the anticipation of the scary unwanted thing. Horror is the reaction to having experienced that unpleasant, terrifying, the scary bad thing.
01:07:54
Speaker
So, like, if we set the scene and have our players tiptoeing through a darkened warehouse, and there is evidence that some kind of monster has sucked all the life and vitality, literally flattening people into two-dimensional shadows or paintings on the wall, like, that can be scary. And the details of it can become clearer and paint more of a picture the deeper they get into that warehouse. But, you know, you do not throw them into a challenge where the first thing that's going to happen to them is that 2D monster immediately springs out and gives them an incredibly difficult or unmissable challenge where, oh well, your character just died. How did it feel being flattened in a 2D two d ah to-dimensional space with no hope of reprieve?
01:08:43
Speaker
Like, it is so much more enjoyable to circle that possibility and watch how it affects other things. NPCs can snap and lose their tempers like, I've had it! I've got to get out of here! You know? And like, there are all sorts of ways that we can skirt that horror and stay in terror.
01:09:03
Speaker
And one of the ways is showing how those scary things have impacted on existing NPCs. Like if you're climbing into the dark building and find someone on the front stoop hugging themselves, they are pale and shivering and have a thousand-yard stare because of what they just experienced is plenty to give your players yeah to to like let their imaginations you know like paint the picture of what could actually be up there so that you don't have to horrify them.
01:09:34
Speaker
and maybe some tables like really like exploring that stuff and like really getting into the horror and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that it's just you have to be on the same page you have to be egalitarian with it you gotta like make sure everybody's on the same page like bringing this back to like feminist ideas and egalitarianism just like that's what it That's what it is. That's what we're advocating for, is just treating everybody equally, having open conversations so we can tell cool stories. And yeah, the the start of tabletop games and D and&D is rife with really awful stuff that didn't probably think about the consequences of their actions because they were straight-wise this white man that went through hardships, but not hardships because of what they looked like.
01:10:18
Speaker
they were what they were born as. They went through life in a very privileged position and did not acknowledge their privilege and they put a lot of stuff in the game like horror elements, like things that might potentially trigger people or give people bad tastes in their mouth because they weren't making the game for anybody but themselves.
01:10:39
Speaker
and some tables still run that way. Like, oh, this is our game and this is how we like to play it. And if you don't like it, don't play. It's like, okay, we won't, that's fine. But like, we should also be talking about these issues so that we know how to tackle them. And so more people could enjoy the game. So the game keeps getting made so that we can keep enjoying the game. Like, wait hello. If your priority as a dungeon master is your own enjoyment, write a book.
01:11:06
Speaker
write a script. Tell that story that you want the outcome of to be your specific thing. Go write a book, write a short story. Get that story out because your players may not be down for that, even if it's been discussed because a game with a preset ending that has no alternative or wiggle room is a game on tracks and your players will notice that. Just play a video game. Exactly. Just play a video game. There's a reason tabletop games are so magical when they are done correctly. It's that I am a writer and I'm a DM. And my writing brain is different than my DM brain because my writing brain wants control all the time and nobody can step out of line.
01:11:54
Speaker
But my DM brain is like my players are gonna, I'm gonna give them a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I love you. Here's a present for this beautiful bouquet of flowers. They're gonna set it on fire and stomp on it, but they're not gonna know that they're doing that. And they don't do it because they're like try and be mean they're just doing this like oh well my character would do this because they're allergic to flowers actually and i listen yeah you know and it's okay like it's fun like it's a collaborative game like yeah that has that could have an ending but the ending is going to vary
01:12:30
Speaker
If you want to play a game where the endings can vary but you still go to the same outcome, play a video game. If you yeah want to be in a world where you can control what everyone's doing and just railroad them all the time, write something that doesn't involve anyone else in your creative process.
01:12:49
Speaker
like Just, I don't know how else to put it. like it There are similarities in the creative process, 100%. Being a writer totally helps me as a GM, but it also hinders me a lot, especially when I was an early GM and I'm like, I can't control these people. and That was a big learning curve for me. Two things I wanna, Lissa, do you have anything to add?
01:13:18
Speaker
I'm not a DM. Well, I kind of am. i I've run a D and&D for babies for my grandparents and my aunt and my uncle, um which is cute. it it's ah It's a dumbed down version of D and&D, a simplified version, but i I've not run like a an actual game of D and&D for anyone.
01:13:41
Speaker
Well, it doesn't need to be your perspective as a DM. Like as a player who comes to the table, how does it feel when you know that your tastes and your perspective are being accommodated? Well, it feels great. Like I have the best time because again, this is this is about vulnerability. Like when you come to the table, you make yourself vulnerable because inherently while you and your character are separate, there is a little bit of you in whenever you portray a character. Like it's it's you reacting. So there's an element of vulnerability inherently whenever you play, even if you're playing an NPC, like for that's out of a book, it's still you reacting to that. You are the one in control. So when I come to play D and&D,
01:14:33
Speaker
i I am accepting that i need I am being vulnerable to play a fun game and I trust that my GM, my DM, my co-players want to also have a fun game and that if I know that we've had a session zero and we've talked about this is what we want to do, this is how it's gonna go, this is how long it's gonna be, these are the vibes, what are these are my characters, these are your characters, oh my god, maybe we have already, like when I do APs, like maybe we already come up with like ridiculous ideas of jokes that we could do. like I you recently played a game of Stoneburger with some people that I hadn't played with before.
01:15:17
Speaker
But it was so much fun because i we were all just being our wacky selves. We came up with this weird subplot that doesn't even exist in the game where my character was trying to bring capitalism as a non non--dwarf, as a demon pretending to be a dwarf and bringing capitalism to Space hold on and then do that in my game, too. And now you're bringing it in other games. Excuse me. I have obsessions. Listen, I want to bring capitalism to everywhere. We have we have trees of pizza like what?
01:15:55
Speaker
and we can we We came up with these ideas in session zero and it made playing the actual play so much more fun because we were all like none of us was taking this seriously. We had one guy who was like a 90s emo kid. Like the vibe was very much like the 90s and capitalism and like Mall of America and there was like a bar there was a fake Barnes and Nobles and there was a food court and everything.
01:16:22
Speaker
So like it makes it so much more fun when you're going in and you're like, oh, man, I get it. It's the 90s. It's a mall. We're here to bring capitalism. And i'm just goingnna we're going to wing it. You said the magic words, we came up with, not the DM came up with, and then we played. Oh, no. She was not prepared. She was not prepared.
01:16:47
Speaker
she got the she got the vibe She got the vibe after session zero, but like the the the setting and the game itself was not built for the ridiculousness that the players brought in. That was all us. But she ran with it, and she was like, okay, well, I guess Barnes and Nobles is now what like hay bales and ah poor people.
01:17:08
Speaker
Or I can't remember what it It was like running. It was like a running joke now for all of us. it Like we all adapted. Farms and peasants. Yeah. um Farms and farmers. Like we've been talking about the the magic element that can make tabletops special and that is collaboration.
01:17:32
Speaker
Um, and one of like, uh, something that, uh, Chardet said that stuck with me is that DM's instinct, like, Oh, I'm going to show them a good time and I'm going to put them through this emotional experience. And that has, that has the the possibility to go sideways. If like your grip on the reins is a little too tight. And I, I personally do not call myself a dungeon master.
01:17:57
Speaker
I call myself a dungeon maestro. My job is to make sweet music with my table. And a good conductor does not just, the good the conductor is not the star of the show. The conductor is the one that knows how to bring the attention to the brass section and then bring up the woodwinds as the percussion in the back makes their presence known. And like, it's great to talk about that metaphorically, but the how, the actionable thing you can do is make sure at every table that every player gets some individual attention.
The Role of the Dungeon Master
01:18:31
Speaker
Not just during an action round, but during emotional scenes, during dramatic moments. Like, RCAB, the bold. You have just had this experience of watching this peasant ah be fed for the first time in days by something that the cat kind in your party did. How does this make you feel?
01:18:50
Speaker
cat kind character. You have been a rogue your whole life. What motivated you to give your last rations to Urchin the Third? What was going through your head when you thought that? And by checking in with them, not only so that they can get like, oh, okay, yeah, as this character, this is what I was feeling in this moment. Or this is what I was thinking or doing. That was my motivation.
01:19:14
Speaker
the other players at the table hear that shit. They get that insight into your character. And it is just as important to do it with Mark Larv the Shy as it is with Captain Confident. Because, you know, yeah Captain Confident can steal the spotlight and come in with his plus three rapier to, you know, do the the elegant sword work while Mark Larv the Shy is just over there ah casting buff spells, you know, and making blessings happen. um But we can check in with Mark Larv the Shy.
01:19:44
Speaker
As this happens, as like as you watch your ah your compatriots fight this hag, what is going through Mark Larv the Shy's mind? How does this feel for you? And that but gives everyone at the table exposure to what Mark Larv is thinking, to what Captain Confident is saying, and like the different perspectives. Because when we hear from all of them, that is when you get the most well-rounded story.
01:20:10
Speaker
That is when the magic can spring up from details that never occur to the DM. And that's also like kind of branching off that. That's why over the years I have loosened my opinions on metagaming as a DM. Like metagaming for a really long time was like a slurp. Like a curse word. Like you can't metagame in DM.
01:20:32
Speaker
like you can't if you know the staff block for the beholder and you like are using that to get the one up on the beholder like that's bad or yeah your character doesn't actually know that like why why are you talking about that if your character doesn't know that and there are instances where I'm like yeah your character doesn't know that but you clearly want to be included in this conversation so how would your character react to let's remind you what you have yeah How would your character react? Because in most instances, I don't think metagaming is ever done on purpose. It's never done no in like a way to like undermine the DM or another player. It's mostly from what I've been able to observe. It's players wanting to engage more, but not realizing how What has your character done? You've forgotten.
01:21:25
Speaker
that you weren't there. what What does your character want to say? Why do you want your character to engage in this conversation or this fight or whatever? And then we'll figure out a way together as the DM and the player or as the entire group to make that happen. And then like, zoop, zoop, zoop, maybe do like a little like rewind, and like, okay, maybe your character didn't say that, but how would you like
01:21:53
Speaker
for so long was like, you can't metagame, metagaming is bad. It's like, no, I think metagaming is more of like a tool in order to be like, in order for players to just be like, I want to be included, but I don't know how because my character has been off doing this other thing. And I have been left alone for 30 minutes and my brain is wandering and I want to keep playing with you guys, but I don't know how.
01:22:16
Speaker
So it' it's like ah it's like a signal almost in a way and having those out of game conversations and not being afraid to go out of character for a couple minutes to figure out how to like, you know, change the scene or scenario can only benefit the game in my opinion. People might disagree with me and that's totally valid, but that's like how my- Bring it in the comments. That has like, yeah, those in the comments yell at me.
01:22:39
Speaker
i But you saying that has reminded me of that because I've been at a lot of tables before. More like metagaming was like I've been chastised for metagaming and that's so valid. Like if the DM doesn't want me playing in a certain way, I will do my best to accommodate the DM and what they want to do. But as a DM, I just feel like my perspective has completely changed on how I specifically handle it.
01:23:06
Speaker
As a DM, when a character starts to metagame, one of my favorite ways to nip that in the bud is ask them, how does Mark Clark know that? How would Mark Clark come across that information? Instead of just saying, you don't know that, ask them, how would Mark Clark know that? And when they don't come up with an answer, it's like,
01:23:25
Speaker
is like, yeah, no, your time in the halfling village did not prepare you for beholders. I am sorry. Or as a player, would I oftentimes ask Shardé or my DMs, like would my, if I know something, like I know that we're gonna be, this, we're talking about Loth, but we're talking about this mystical creature that like, would my character know? I asked my DM, would my character know this? And she'll say, hmm,
01:23:53
Speaker
convince either it's one of two things. It's roll me a religion, roll me a history, roll me something and then there's a DC that I have to beat or convince me where your character would have heard, read or yeah witnessed or yeah, as an example, like convince me in lore, where would your character have come across this being?
01:24:18
Speaker
Like how would you know about this? And then I make my case and yeah whether or not you present your case to the jury i that my case to the jury and the jury will decide whether or not my character knows what's being talked about. Like you can also.
01:24:33
Speaker
have them do an arcana check or a history check.
Managing Metagaming
01:24:37
Speaker
And depending on how they roll, even if it is completely out of their wheelhouse, you can find justifications. Like I'll give an example of like from my Adventures on the High Seas game, Adrift, we had our PCs come up against an exotic disease that was to what was local to the area they were in, which was very far from home.
01:24:59
Speaker
and one of our characters did a medicine check and he rolled higher than I expected him to still having never had an opportunity to come across this and so what we did was justify like you have never read about this you have never studied this in a book you haven't had to because you were on a crew where someone died of this and you watched it happen like giving them context and story so that they could have experienced something in that neighborhood without being an expert in it, helps keep the story grounded.
01:25:31
Speaker
as well as give them opportunities to adjust their expectations. And a super easy way to do it, like, to have that meta conversation at the at the game is like, above table, I have a question, so and so. And just those two magic words, above table, we immediately know we're no longer talking as the characters, we're talking up yeah about the characters and the player's information thereof.
01:25:55
Speaker
um And it it makes it super easy to keep those separate so you don't muddy the waters of what you know versus what the character knows. Yeah, cause sometimes it can, it can get confusing. I think one of the first things that I did as a DM was I incorporated something I learned from larping, which is we would do hand gestures, be like, are you talking in character or out of character? When you were out of character, you put your hat, you used to put your hand on your head and you're like, I have a question or hey, can we pause? I have to go to bathroom or like something like that. yeah But that evolved into me suggesting for my table to cross your fingers and like have a hand gesture saying,
01:26:34
Speaker
I have a question and but like you're you're in like the middle of a conversation and you don't want to like interrupt the flow but you really have like an important question you like cross your fingers or you do a hand gesture those are great
01:27:01
Speaker
can even reverse time. You can retcon stuff. You can like do whatever you want to make sure everybody's enjoying themselves.
Creative Character Crafting Challenge
01:27:07
Speaker
Absolutely. This brings us back around to the topic of which you are experts. I have come up with a fun challenge. um You have the opportunity to whip up from scratch a feminine or female D and&D monster, demigod, fey creature, whatever you want in any category you want. What monster is missing from the mainstream menagerie?
01:27:35
Speaker
What do you draw from? What are their rules? What do they look like? You get to grab bag all your favorite qualities and put them around one thing. What does that look like? What have I not done for our Patreon? through my pat I literally rewrite the lore into what I want it to be. I'm trying to think of something that I haven't already done. Have you done Jenny Green Teeth? Oh.
Archetypal Witch Figures
01:28:01
Speaker
So, like, as you've been talking about all these contrasts between, like, ancient, ugly, hideous hag and perfect, pristine woman of, like, you know, temptation and and lascivious lusts, it got me thinking about the triptych of witches, which is the mother, the maiden, and the crone. And if you don't fall into one of those categories, then it just doesn't show up. So I was thinking, what would Jenny Green Teeth look like if she was just having a day Like if she has just got a mud mask on and like drinking is a mug of swamp water and like just thinking about life, you know, like in the middle of the road, not hideous, not breathtakingly beautiful, but just just Jenny Green Teeth trying to get through her her her life.
01:28:49
Speaker
Oh, that's incredible. I don't know, should I use an example of something I've already done or should I do a new one? If you want. The challenge is a new one, right? So I feel like I'd be cheating if I... I had this idea recently because we just finished doing an episode on Malkin that, who is the queen of the succubi, for those who don't know, she's even queen of the succubi.
Satirizing Beauty Standards
01:29:10
Speaker
And she's the stereotypical, like, sexy woman, picture succubi. That's what Malkin that is.
01:29:18
Speaker
But in demon lore and mythology it's it's so interesting because it's very heavily based on the seven deadly sins but they are like the uglier sins are usually just like oozes of like gross disgusting things like they are almost satirized versions and i'm like what would a satirized version of like a personification of lust And my mind started like turning. So I would love to make a creature that just is a satire on lust. I want her to have the biggest titties. I want her to have a big juicy butt to the point where it looks disgusting. It has boils on it. But like maybe they have an ability to like make themselves look beautiful. But really everything that this creature is
01:30:07
Speaker
is an over exaggeration of beauty standards that are put on women. So the big boobs, the big lips, like filler in the cheeks, but it doesn't look good. The flexible spine. Yeah, they have a broken spine that goes like this. Like I want it to look like disgusting because I want it to be all of the different beauty standards on one creature. And it's just to be this gross mess when you see it all like the perfect feminine person doesn't exist because these are all the beauty standards you have to, you know, be in the world and just have that be like its own monster to overcome.
01:30:49
Speaker
I'm just suddenly picturing like instead of your traditional woman putting on lipstick and getting that cat's eye eyeliner just right before they step out. Like this person does a disguise self to look more average and mundane. ah Yeah. leave The castle for the day. so yeah gotta to downplay those I got a downplay of the titties. go down a couple. Where is that? smock
01:31:20
Speaker
the the unsexiest garment known to man, the smog. Not even fun to say. Like, Lissa, what would you add to the the stereotype parody of the the feminine ideal? I feel like I'm so, one of the things that I have never played is a wizard because it terrifies
Creating a Gender-Bent Wizard
01:31:40
Speaker
me. I don't know why. I i think just it's overwhelming with the amount of magic spells that they have.
01:31:48
Speaker
um So I would like to create like, I would want to create like the stereotype wizard, the the old guy in the tower, except she is there. And it's an old woman in the tower. And it's just like a gender bent wizard. I was thinking of like, okay, like but maybe something like Elminster, but then I'm like, wait, but he's he's already kind of he he already did the Elmara.
01:32:17
Speaker
He does have a gender-bent version of himself. Yeah, he has a gender-bent version of him. He did a part of his journey as gender-bent, which was meant for probably a bit of shits and giggles, and also men.
01:32:36
Speaker
um and also very weird vibes and stories, but that's a different discussion for a different day. sure um But i I want the stereotypical wizard, but just gender bent, living in this tower, coming up with kooky ah creations and and creating magical weapons and having conspiracy theories and just ridiculously antisocial and hates everybody.
01:33:03
Speaker
I dig it. I dig it. The, the, the, the, the she hermit. chairrman it' it's a Sherman. i'm i'm the pur I'm the wizard in the tower. I just want to be her. I just want to read books and be be in a tower in a lucky way.
Exploration of 'Equal Rites' by Terry Pratchett
01:33:19
Speaker
Have you ever read Terry Pratchett's Discworld book, Equal Rights, R-I-T-E-S? Oh, um I think I own it, but I don't think I have read it. I have read some of Terry Pratchett. um i I adore the Discworld books, and one of them, like... They are very good. So the wizards at Unseen University could not be more stereotypical stereotypically male. um The big guts, the long beards, the the the set-in-their-ways attitudes, the dusty academia, and equal rights revolves around a girl who becomes a wizard. Not a witch, a wizard.
01:33:58
Speaker
which is magic works differently on the disc than Masculine than wizard magic they just do for a number of reasons and this girl escarena uh acquires from her dad i might be mixing stories but escarena um arrives at Unseen University with a staff of her own ah that is a wizard staff and like, nope, I'm a girl, but with your power set, whatcha gonna do? And like, they have to wrap their heads around, hold on, i a girl wants to do wizarding magic.
01:34:31
Speaker
read it, equal rights, R-I-T-E-S. It is one of his earlier Discworld books, so it's not quite as like polished and locked into the voice that he develops in some of his later ones, but it is absolutely worth the read.
Character Spotlight: Jacandra
01:34:44
Speaker
Cycling back to Chardet's suggestion, like I had this image appear in my head of your character, but with their own version of Cassandra syndrome, um like let's name her Jacandra or Jafandra or whatever, and where Cassandra was cursed not to be believed, Jacandra is just too hot for anyone to take her seriously. Yeah, it's like the the bimbo kind of stereotype where- Exactly. Like the Elle was like, oh, she's underestimated because she looked a very specific way.
01:35:17
Speaker
That comet in the sky is an ill omen. We have three days to protect the village before Anarchy falls, and they're like, just, Andra. God, she is hot, but she sure talks a lot, doesn't she? You know? Yeah. Like, they're there. It's so sweet that you think you're helping. Go away now. I'm like, I hate to leave, but I want to watch you go. I would love to see that character just have her come up in. On them.
01:35:46
Speaker
Yeah, on them. No, no, no, no, no. Have her be, I don't say like become the BBG, become the hero and like prove everybody wrong. Oh my, that's fantastic. So yeah, thank you both for indulging me in that fun little experiment of whipping up your own NPC using those tropes and turning them on their heads. That's so fun. It has been a genuine treat talking with you both
Slovenly Trolls' Online Presence
01:36:13
Speaker
today. So slovenly trolls, how can our listeners get in touch with you? Where can they support you?
01:36:20
Speaker
man well we are on the social medias everywhere or we try to be so we are on twitter instagram tick tock threads uh we oh and blue sky yes yes yes that's having a resurgence right now blue sky and we also have a patreon if you would like to monetarily support us and we do do like i mentioned before like monthly lori writes where we You try to tackle all the stereotypes, but we also have book club and we have an after show. If you want to come hang out there, we we hang out there. um But mostly you can find us. The most consistent I would say you could find us is we publish our podcast every month on the first of the month.
01:37:01
Speaker
and we tackle all of the problematic sexist stuff that we can find. Lissa contextualizes all of it in the grand scheme of everything. And then I do conspiracy boards about all the lore that's in my head, like the one we just recorded. And I then made the conspiracy board for the first time and it we sometimes go off the deep end and it's very fun. Amazing.
01:37:25
Speaker
It has been such an absolute delight to talk with both of you today. I can't thank you enough for joining me on our show. And finally, to our listeners, another big thank you for sharing your precious time with
Podcast Closing Statements
01:37:41
Speaker
us. If you feel it's been well spent, please share the joy of GMing with your friends. You can email your questions for me and our future guests at NarrativeFeetsPodcast at gmail dot.com. And if you'd like me to run a game for you or take my workshop on character voices, come reach out on StartPlaying.games. Leave a review, rate the show, and find us on them socials at NarrativeFeets and wherever you get your podcasts.
01:38:07
Speaker
Don't forget to join our Discord. Links to everything, including for them trolls, in the doobly-doo. From all of us, I am Casey Jones. There are exciting things to come, my friends. I'm glad you're along for the ride. Thank you so much, and have a great day.