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Lich Please! Episode: 19 Ft Feywild Fiend
61 Plays1 year ago
🎲 Welcome to Lich Please! the ultimate destination for Dungeon Masters and adventurers alike! 🐉 Join Iwan and Alex as they delve into the art of DMing, explore the intricacies of homebrewing content, and embark on a journey through the realms of world-building. With regular special guests, we bring you insightful discussions, tips, and inspiration for your Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
Feywild Fiend: https://www.youtube.com/c/literaryminimalist 🔗
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello
Podcast Return & Introductions
00:00:01
Speaker
and welcome back to the Lich Police podcast. It's been a while. That Christmas upload schedule went well. I think we mentioned multiple times and the episode, it's gonna go out on this date and then it, they ended up going out in January, months after we originally said. But we're back. We're back immediately with a guest, me and Alex as always. And we've got Feywild Fiend is joining us today. Back, yeah.
00:00:29
Speaker
immediately about the guests to talk about more D&D and everything in between.
First D&D Experiences
00:00:36
Speaker
So how did you get your start? Like, what was your introduction, first edition? What was your, how did you get into D&D?
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, so a lot of people think that I've played D&D a lot longer than I have. I'm pretty new to this whole world. So back in, I think 2021, I had a sort of friend group that I knew, but wasn't, you know, hanging out with them on the regular. And I was at a coffee shop with my husband.
00:01:07
Speaker
And while there, ran into one of those friends and I wanted to chat with him, but he's like, oh, I got to go to D&D. And I was like, oh, I've heard of Dungeons and Dragons. It sounds so fun. And he said, well, we just lost a player because of scheduling issues. I can talk to the peeps.
00:01:27
Speaker
and see if we can get you in and they did. So I joined, they were three months into their campaign in like our world time, but it had been hard with COVID to get like a regular schedule. So I wasn't that far into the story. I didn't miss all that much.
00:01:43
Speaker
And I played a circle of the moon, half elf druid, like I think almost everyone does for their first character. And we played that campaign that lasted two years. I think our like big finale was on just about the two year anniversary of when they started. And after that, I ran started running wild beyond the witch light, which is what we are wrapping up now. We were supposed to wrap it up like a month or two ago, but it just didn't work out. So we'll finish that in March.
Spontaneous DMing Adventure
00:02:16
Speaker
I just was a player, and my first time DMing is actually a really fun story that I'm kind of proud of. So we live in Oklahoma, which is notorious for really bad weather. And it was a Friday night. My friend and I wanted to go out to a cool local bar and just have some drinks. And no one was down. I mean, we knew it was kind of rainy. It was kind of cloudy. But we're like, why is no one responding?
00:02:33
Speaker
And it'll be great.
00:02:45
Speaker
to our request. Why does no one want to go vibe? And we get this call from one of our friends who had been texting saying, Hey, are you in this town? And we're like, Yeah, we are. Like, do you want to come hang out? He said, No, you need to come to our house. Right now. There's a tornado warning. There's actually multiple like you need to get off the streets. Oh,
00:03:05
Speaker
I thought it was just a little drizzly. So we go over to his place, his girlfriend's there, now fiance. And so four of our group is, four of the six are there. And we're just hanging out waiting to, you know, get on the road when it's not dangerous. And we were just kind of bored. I said, well, what if we play some D&D? And, you know, we obviously can't do our normal campaign. Two of our people are gone. But I was like, you know, I'll DM. I'll put something, I actually need like 20 minutes.
00:03:35
Speaker
Give me 20 minutes and I got it. I just looked up a dungeon on Google and just decided to put a fey dragon in there and throw zombies in a few rooms and fill the place with mimics that laugh at jokes.
00:03:53
Speaker
It was iconic, if I may say so myself. We had a great time. They still talk about it, makes me feel real good about myself, but that was the first time I ever DM'd was 20 minutes of prep, really weird concept during a tornado. Honestly, that's the best way to do it. That's a trial by fire with that just being a thrown in the deep end. That's honestly, yeah, the best thing about it. Truly. It was a great time. I'm trying to...
Monster Guessing Game
00:04:24
Speaker
We've had so many guests on now who are sort of like content creators. I've been like, people think I've been playing this for a while. And it's been like, I think of the third guest, like I've only been playing it a few years. And it blows my mind every time. I was like, you've learned so much in such a short period of time. You don't know that. You don't know how much I know. Whoa.
00:04:53
Speaker
right so explain the rules it's been a while basically uh what happens is i will read out a few stats of a monster without naming the monster um you two will like buzz in uh make a sound whatever um and tell me your guess after the first guess is if you get if you guys get it wrong i'll do more stats until i've done the whole stat sheet basically um
00:05:17
Speaker
You guys still don't get at the end of the stat sheet, not on wins. It's always guest versus Yuan. You know what? I don't know the current score. I'm going to say... I think I'm losing. It's 2-1 guests. I am losing. Hopefully he'll lose today. I don't anticipate this going well. You might get a chance to tie it up.
00:05:43
Speaker
For clarity, I think we have had, in the past, pseudo dragon. We've had a zombie. We have had, and then it... We've had one more, which we can't remember. I don't remember the other one. Was it Albert? It wasn't Albert. I think it was, yeah. Was it? Yeah, I think it was actually an Albert. You lost that one. Yeah. No, you're right, it was Albert. It was Albert.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah, right. It's always common monsters. You know, that's just the standard rule. I say common, like well-known ones. Cool. Right, is everyone ready? As I'll ever be. Fire away. OK, we will start with armor class hit points speed. It's armor class is 12. Its hit points are 2d6 minus 2. And its speed is 30 feet.
00:06:42
Speaker
Okay. Okay. I'm a class 12. So natural armor. I mean, I figured most monsters are going to have that. Yeah. In like super average speed. It's not crazy beefy. Cool. So I will give you guys some more stats then.
00:07:11
Speaker
We'll go strength, X, and constitution. Strength is 7, Dex is 15, and constitution is 9. Is it a displacer beast? No, it is not a displacer beast. Okay. So very low, very low strength. Well, I'm mindless on strength. Very high Dex.
00:07:39
Speaker
See, at the beginning, when you wear the first set, I was like, you wouldn't do something sneaky, make it like a guard or something, would you? It's like a humanoid guard or something. Okay, well... You know, I'm not gonna fight the hustle on that.
00:08:02
Speaker
I don't even have a monster manual, so it's not going to be that helpful. I don't know. So it's really smart and really fast. Yeah. But not very, is it Edward Cullen?
00:08:37
Speaker
Gosh. I mean, is it a vampire spawn? No, no, it's not. No, because they're idiots. Sorry.
00:08:47
Speaker
I'm not sure, so I'm just terrified. The intelligence was eight. It might have come out as something else, but it's eight intelligence. Oh, I heard 18. I heard 18 as well. Okay. I'm an eight. Intelligence eight. Okay. And it's not Edward Cullen. It's dumb. So it's dumb and weak, but fast. Yeah. Oh gosh, sorry. My cat.
00:09:16
Speaker
Stop it! He's so good, don't worry about it. He's tearing up cardboard. I don't know! We will go to Senses, Languages, and I'll give you the CR as well. Okay, yeah, that'll be good. Senses, 60-foot dog vision, alright. Passive perception's 8. Languages are common and draconic, and the challenge is 1-8. Cobalt?
00:09:47
Speaker
Oh, you can't do that because I ran this on Monday. For the past two sessions, we've been fighting Cobalt and he should know this. And that's film. No, you've done this. Oh, this is a personal attack. Something sneaky and you should have gotten that. Well, that's a shame. You had the upper hand. I did. He could have picked a fade creature.
00:10:18
Speaker
I was thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, I was really language is like, yeah, you guys. I thought you might get on a HP because it's five, two D6 minus two is like five HP average. If that way, you didn't read out five. Yeah. Yeah, I would have got it off five. It would be too obvious. Yeah, cool. Wonderful. Well, three, one.
00:10:49
Speaker
3-1. Yeah. God. Joy to my... I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I know you are. I'll get you back. Okay. I'll find a way. Take you out on Dan. Oh, please don't. Don't let him crush your spirit. Dan always wins.
Favorite D&D Classes & Characters
00:11:09
Speaker
Right. So you said your first class was a circle of the moon, was it? Circle of the moon. Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
Which to be fair, I've never played a Druid ever in my life. Which is cool. It's a great time. Yeah, might have to make one. So, in terms of like every class you've played since your first one, favourite class and subclass. It can be any subclass, it doesn't have to match the class. They can be different.
00:11:41
Speaker
I haven't played all that many, so let me run through. Circle of the Moon Druid. I do have a very deep love for that one. I do think it's a phenomenal class and subclass. I love that it can be both spell heavy and in our case we didn't have a
00:12:00
Speaker
What's the word for it? The beefy character. Hit hard, take a lot of hits. Tank. Tank. We didn't have a tank. And so I was an off tank because I could turn into a bear twice in a matter of combat. That's a lot of hit points. But once you get to those higher levels, it's less beneficial to turn into a bear and more beneficial to use the spells that you're starting to get.
00:12:22
Speaker
But I don't love that subclass as much because it feels less helpful in combat at some point, but it was still great for role play. I had a great session as a rat on a spy mission, which, I mean, come on. But you can get that with any level of druid. You don't have to be circle of the moon able to get those bigger, beefier creatures. That's the only real reason to do it in my mind. Or you could just play a normal druid to get those easier to transform into animals.
00:12:51
Speaker
And then I've played a tiefling bard, of course, College of Glamour. I wanted her to be fabulous and she was, but I didn't get to play that very much. It was just a one shot. And then I've played right now. I'm playing a level 15 divination wizard, which is a lot of fun. I can.
00:13:15
Speaker
I've been loving it. My friends are making fun of me for not being a vocation, but I'm like, listen, I'm not optimizing this lady. The whole point of her is to be like creepy. It's for a homebrew campaign, so I can't explain too much because our DM wouldn't want me to, but she's essentially a vampire.
00:13:34
Speaker
And I've just made her super gothic. Anything stereotypical, any vampiric or necrotic spells I could find. Like, I'm not going for the best build here. I'm going for commitment to the bet. And that's been a lot of fun for me. So maybe Divination Wizard, but only because
00:13:58
Speaker
Like I've had such a good time role-playing and I feel like once I encounter some other, once I build some other characters, that won't be my favorite for long. But so far, I think it's really a solid combination that just has been a lot of fun for me from a role-playing perspective. I love playing a lot of my characters. They're so much fun. They're goofy, but they're great. They're so much fun. Absolutely.
00:14:24
Speaker
Having fun with those, uh, those, uh, portent dice or the divination with it. Oh my gosh. I'm a menace. I love it. You say that I, it made me remember, I have played a barbarian. I played a fire canossie barbarian.
00:14:52
Speaker
And my, how that came to happen is it was for my birthday. So sometimes on our birthdays, we'll design a one-shot specifically for that person and whoever can come and play will play. And we always design a character for that person. It's fantastic. The first time we did it was for the guy who originally DMed for us. And I made him a paladin named Burthen Day.
00:15:15
Speaker
birthday and we got him these dice with sprinkles in them for like a birthday cake and just made him a super stereotypical paladin, super traditional, all like the most vanilla paladin you can come up with and put a little betrayal. I made his girlfriend's character, his girlfriend in the game, but she was preparing to betray them all. It was a great time.
00:15:41
Speaker
So for my birthday, they made me a barbarian specifically because I would probably never have made one on my own because I do love spellcasters. It's so fun, but I did have a good time with her. I wouldn't say it was my favorite class, but it was really fun getting to do some solid damage. Solid damage is always the best. I love solid damage. Yeah, hitting things is very fun. It's my most enjoyable part. Yeah.
00:16:12
Speaker
Alex tends to be a bit of a rebel in Baal. Oh. I mean... What does that mean? Just for an example, Monday you asked... Was it Monday or was it the week before you asked, can I undo his... Can I undo his bell and then just swing him around? It was before that, yeah. It was before that. What could you? Yes. Oh, you did, but I was like, yeah, you can do that if you want to.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, get creative. Absolutely. And I think that can be a thing that some DMs will, I guess, I guess it comes with confidence as well. The more confident you get in being able to roll with the punches to be like, oh, I can just, you know, mark up this health a little bit if I need to, or mark it down a little bit, or just, yeah, improvise the damage as a matter. It's fine. Go for it.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, we have the guy who normally DMs for us, of course, has a ton of experience with D&D. And for our current Feywild campaign, he's playing a fairy artificer and has been the biggest menace to me of this entire campaign. And the number of times he has used heat metal to demolish someone's HP. I mean, I won't lie, it's been beautiful to watch.
00:17:35
Speaker
But I've had to come to be ready for that. It's an experience I'm hoping to give Alex soon. I'm hoping to not get the full force of that. Yeah, I'm nervous for that. I'm sure I'll be fine. No, I love martial classes and I do enjoy the flexibility because I'm all right with well-casting classes, but then I just, you know...
00:18:05
Speaker
I've done my spellcasters. I've done a few, so yeah. Okay. It's all practice. Nah, I'm on the opposite end. Yeah. Yeah. I love the spell opportunities. I think it's the first time I met someone who started as a spellcaster, at least on this podcast. Because I was told to start as a spellcaster is hard if you start doing it. I agree. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, do a martial subclass. When you get used to it, go spellcasters while you're at them.
00:18:33
Speaker
Sure, I'll do that. And I feel like that was like the jambled thing that people told. I was starting to spellcast about, yeah. Druid as well, it was pretty cool. Yeah, well Druid you can do either, you know? Druid is one of those good ones. Like Ranger that I think sits nicely in between the sort of obligatory spellcaster, obligatory like melee character, and you can dip your toes into whatever sort of field you want to. I think it's a good starting class.
00:19:01
Speaker
Well, I didn't have a hard time with it just because, well, when I studied and the way I viewed it, I just simplified everything going into it. Like, okay, in combat, action, bonus action, move. Know how much movement, that's never going to change unless I pick a certain animal. Bonus action, not that many options with the druid. Sometimes I just use it to say mean things. And then action, like, okay, then we just go look at our action list. And once I just spent 30 minutes,
00:19:30
Speaker
comprehending how spells work, reading their descriptions. At that point, it was a lot of fun just seeing what spells people recommend or what looked the most fun to me and breaking it down piece by piece simplified it a lot for me. I didn't feel like it was confusing at all. I felt like I had a lot of options. And another thing I did to help myself
00:19:50
Speaker
As a druid, you can turn into a lot of different animals. So I had a page of just a list of animals that I could turn into and each of them had a link attached that would bring me straight to their stat block.
00:20:05
Speaker
And doing that, I also then was able to make little notes by them with stars. So I knew, okay, if I have to dig Badger, like make a quick choice, Badger is going to be the best for digging speed. If I have to go really fast and nothing else, I think it was maybe War Horse, like, cause that also gives you the chance to defend yourself a little bit. I just made lists of.
00:20:26
Speaker
If you were in a pinch and it saved one of our characters' lives. He stepped on a trap, released it, thought he had properly counterbalanced, didn't, got buried alive. He would have been dead in two minutes, but I had Badger on hand real fast. I should do my homework. Yeah. That's a very good idea. Yeah. Can't be giving Alex ideas. My campaign's a bit harder. Make more interesting.
00:20:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I've got, I've, so many, we've talked about it before, but I run a very scary encounter, they had a slard. And then the paladin was like, no, command deal. And I was like, no. And then the rest of them just dunked on him. And I was like, this is so boring. It was so much of a fun encounter. They split the party. And I was like, Oh, is it gonna work? And then they already, they already make things interesting. They're an innovative bunch.
00:21:22
Speaker
They always change your plans. Exactly, and that's the best way to... That's great. I'd say so. I'd say we're innovative. We just don't... We just do things. Just like every D&D part, you just never do what they want you to do. Just go do something else. It's the best way to do it.
Resolving Conflicts in D&D
00:21:42
Speaker
We also tend to talk about horror stories, because that's the segment we do at the end.
00:21:51
Speaker
But personal horror stories, have you ever had a horror story from D&D? Obviously you pay with your friends, so it might be unlikely. Have you ever had like, have they had one or has anything gone really bad, like a session or something? Well, you're playing with people. So interpersonal conflict is a given. Yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
No horror stories. There have been moments of tension where one person did something that no one was happy about or said something that was
00:22:27
Speaker
not really the best thing to say, but nothing has ever been detrimental. And we have a close enough friend group that after the session, if it was a big enough problem, someone will approach that person and say, hey, kind of uncool. Like, can we chat about that? And we're able to recognize, okay, someone didn't do something exactly the way they could have. It was maybe a dick move, maybe, you know, uncool.
00:22:57
Speaker
Don't do it again. Let's be chill. And we'll just keep going. And I think that's, we say it every time we reword the horror stories, but the solution 99.9% of the time is just open communication. And it's for such a social game, I think so many stories have so little communication between the people that are playing it. And it's baffling that you can just be like, oh, I've got this issue, but I'm going to keep it bottled up and not talk about it until I explode because it's bothering me so much.
00:23:24
Speaker
you just need to be able to be like it's going to be an awkward conversation sometimes and it's not going to be comfortable to have but that is going to save you so much discomfort down the line.
00:23:33
Speaker
Absolutely. Especially knowing not to do it though in that moment is sometimes best. When you try to confront someone in front of five or six of their friends, defensiveness instantly, but they probably already know by the reaction to the room that they screwed up. Giving them that time to sit on that and then talk to them later gives them a chance to prepare themselves for that potential feedback and be able to say, yeah, I actually already know. I'm sorry.
00:24:03
Speaker
But we also like to ask the complete opposite. Is there a moment like you've been playing and you've been like, wow, that was amazing.
Iconic Role-Play Moments
00:24:10
Speaker
That was such incredible. From the DM or from other players at the table, you've been like, damn, that was peak D&D. Yeah. Oh, there's so many. Everyone says that. I love hearing all the stories. I'm...
00:24:31
Speaker
Because in our first campaign, there were so many. There are also, I find that the stories I hold nearest and dearest to my hearts, hearts, I only have one, to my heart are the ones where something goes really wrong and people lean into it. So the session before I joined that first campaign, I've heard this story, they tell it all the time, because it cracks me up. They were coming up on this farmhouse and they knew there was a hostage situation, orcs everywhere.
00:25:00
Speaker
And they decide, OK, we're going to sneak attack, heist this. And so we're going to split the group, but then sneak through and take out orcs one by one. And that's how we're going to get through this. We're going to come in on both sides of the farmhouse. One group, our rogue and I believe the warlock, were nerfing. Great attack rolls, great sneak rolls coming through, killing orc after orc.
00:25:27
Speaker
The other two, which I kind of think of as dumb and dumber in this situation,
00:25:33
Speaker
All they did that entire time was to fight a drunk orc in an outhouse. They opened that door and the roles were so bad. The other two left and right, taking him out. These guys are just laying it out with him. They couldn't get it done. And so that's one of my favorite stories of them just
00:25:58
Speaker
Oh, it's terrible, but it was hilarious. And then anytime that there's just great role play, I think of the bully wugs in Wild Beyond the Witchlight. There's an area around a hag's hut where there's a community of bully wugs.
00:26:15
Speaker
And they're crazy. There's like, they have a monarchy, but there's constant coups. So every few days or weeks, there's a new king because they keep killing each other. Just always a plot. And it's a lot of fun. And I leaned into them being really dumb and kind of easy to manipulate and watching them role play and just enjoy themselves was a lot of fun. Yeah. Having two bully wugs.
00:26:40
Speaker
realize that there is no captain's guard and deciding that they would be the captain's guard in that moment. Just silly little moments that make people laugh and you can point at that and say, that was a good time. Gosh, I feel like I have better stories than that. That's just off the top of my head. No, that, but it's sometimes like it's the simpler ones that are just, it's like just the better ones. They're good. I'm trying to think of anything that you guys have done.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, one of your stories. There's one that you weren't involved with, but I ran a fantasy high sort of Dimension 20 style campaign once. And they'd taken out this guy and then they'd like hidden his body somewhere, but they'd also taken his like bank key because it was on his body when they found him. And then they went months later
00:27:36
Speaker
and they figured out that they had something at the bank vault. They were like, we'll go to his bank vault. They went in, but obviously his body had been found months ago. These kids walk into the bank and just raid his vault. And they're like, they're exiting. They got the stuff. It's all grand. They were plotting what they're going to do next. And I was like, the police turned up because you've entered a guy's bank vault who's been dead month. And they were like, shit, didn't even think about that. And they get arrested. Oh my gosh.
00:28:04
Speaker
It was just like something I was like, huh, this is just... They've not thought about this because it's been two sessions or so. But for me, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna nope that down. Save that for later. That's great.
00:28:19
Speaker
That actually, that reminded me of a story I do have. It was a one shot we did. I was running it in the Feywild in the winter court. And it was supposed to be a really intense, fast-paced story where my goal at the end, and they knew this, was to kill them. But it would contribute to potentially a future story. And their goal, of course, then is she's saying we are 100% going to die.
00:28:45
Speaker
No, no, no. No, we won't. And they were level 15, so they were really beefy. And it was a very intense night, like a lot of running and fighting and just quick decision making, which is also really fun in its own way. But I had to turn down the music at that one point because they were like, Hannah, it's too stressful. Turn down the music, it's too much. But
00:29:10
Speaker
At one point, this is the Feywild, so I told him, bring weird items, bring weird abilities, like I want this to get weird. And one of them polymorphed himself into a T-Rex. Then rolled, he was a wild magic sorcerer, and the wild magic table
00:29:29
Speaker
first made him blue, so he's a big blue T-Rex. And then again, big table, this wild magic table, many things could go wrong, or for him, terribly right, when he went one size bigger. It was just this massive T-Rex, blue and glowing at one point. We got to the point where he was big blue glowing T-Rex on the battlefield and
Wild Magic & T-Rex Transformation
00:29:58
Speaker
At the end, he actually was able to polymorph himself and one of our other players into birds in a moment of real intensity and escape, which they were never supposed to do. But I didn't think about their high level. They can turn into something that flies. Obviously, they're going to get out of here if I don't mind for that, and I didn't. But his T-Rex, it was beautiful. The wild magic search table is.
00:30:30
Speaker
It's a constant thing that haunts me. Well, I'm thinking, you know, who's going to turn to a teapot? He's going to have fire cast down on him. No, he's going to get bigger and more dangerous is all that's going to happen. It's never the bad thing. It's always going to benefit them. It's never... Never face the consequences of their own actions. No. Unfair.
00:30:57
Speaker
There is the famous Double L story, Alex. What is this? Basically, so this is a while ago as well. I think it must have been six months, seven months ago, maybe? Possibly. I don't remember. It was like halfway through where we are now, I reckon. So probably about six months ago. So yeah, so we had just finished a big fine.
00:31:27
Speaker
and a lot of lore, like background lore and backstories of characters have come out. Mine already out in the open, open book with my character. Everyone else, not so much. So it was great to hear all this lore, all this background stories, right? But everyone started interrogating each other because a lot was happening, right? A lot of like important information that could or could not relate to like the main storyline.
00:31:56
Speaker
One of the characters whose backstory is very secret went to you. It was like 15 sessions in at this point and half of them didn't know what the other person's race was. It was like nobody knew anything about anyone. It was intense. Basically everyone who came to be a half elf, apart from me, who is a Goliath, and just said he was a Goliath. So yeah, everyone was just like, oh, we're half elves. They all look like half elves.
00:32:25
Speaker
As no one knew any better, I thought they were half-elfs for a while. One of the really secretive characters went to the bathroom, and my character was just like, yeah, go with him. We're going to turn it together. And we're having a conversation. The buddy system. Yeah, exactly. We're having a conversation. And I was like, oh, I can't remember how it happened. But I was like, oh, if they're all half-elfs,
00:32:53
Speaker
Surely I must be an elf then, right? Because I'm double their size. My character's like, yeah, shortly. Right. And then he was like, yeah. And he's also tall. Uh, I think six or five or something. So he's like, yeah, I must be an elf as well. I was like, yeah, it makes sense. Let's go provide our logic to the pie, which we did. And then one of them was like, no, but I'm an elf and I'm not double your size, double their size. I'm like half your size. I was like, Oh, so I have a double elf. That's what you're saying.
00:33:23
Speaker
Two elves in a trench coat. Exactly. So I was like, cool, I'm a double elf. So we must all speak the double elf language, right? Which is giant, because that's what I speak. So I'd read books and be like, yeah, this must be like ancient double elf writing, and it's just written in giant. But no one else speaks giant. So as far as I'm concerned, I speak double elf and I am a double elf.
00:33:54
Speaker
Um, and it's now canonical in the law. Um, it was written down on the dissident somewhere. I mean, I'm not at all surprised that a Goliath is the one who came up with the double elf language. Yeah. Um, a lot, a lot of, uh, a lot of stupid things has been said by my characters. Um, and I love it. It's fun. Yeah. It is. That's a very culturally significant part of our campaign. Um.
00:34:23
Speaker
Thank you for letting me in on this. I'll be sure, yeah. It's deep dark, damn law. It is, it is. We actually have a, um, on the discord we use to, uh, to play is we have a channel section called Dan's Fun Facts, basically after my character. And I will just write a random fact, might not have said it before. I'll just write one in really stupid. It's properly like, ah, it could be something mentally traumatic to regular people. Like.
00:34:54
Speaker
Um, one of them is when he was three, he killed his cousin by playing a game, the axe throwing game, where you just throw an axe at someone and have to get as close to the head. Oh, he's a three year old. So he killed him. And I was like, yeah, it's a fun fact. Like, yeah, that's cousin died. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's great. I'd play a good character and I love it. That is great.
00:35:20
Speaker
We need something like that. We keep a one note of different session notes that anyone can contribute to. We do have an iconic quotes section. We have a quotes section. Oh, good. Everyone needs a quotes section. It's so much fun. Everyone needs one. You can't let yourself forget those moments. True. I feel like we haven't had a quote in a while, but as you mentioned it, I feel like it's been a long time since a funny quote has come out.
00:35:46
Speaker
Need more iconic behavior to go around. True. Gotta refresh yourselves. I've got to check the coats now, see what we've got. Oh gosh, see if I should pull up mine. I don't even know. Might not be worth tracking down right now. One of the coats as our paladin said does divine sense of penetration power. Oh! That was referral to we were in a dungeon with wolves. He's trying to find out if he can just divine sense past the wall.
00:36:19
Speaker
You can't use the word penetration. That's always going to turn into something. I want to fist that eye hole, roll to double fist. We have a weird thing about holes in our campaign. Why is that such a present joke? It's a big thing for us as well. I think this might just be a universal bad D&D behavior.
00:36:52
Speaker
I think we're all just immature. Just scrolling back. I think a personal favorite of mine that I've just found is, and I don't run with the context of it, but apparently I once said, I don't want a flower. I want my family back. I have no idea of the context in that. This was, so at the start of our campaign is, we made a very bad mistake and got this whole carriage basically killed, right?
00:37:17
Speaker
We made it to the next room. We were spotted and then met this really grumpy guy in the tavern. One of us decided to go over and speak to him. He's like, oh, I hate you lot. You guys got my family killed. She's like, oh, here's a flower. And that's where the quote came from. She's like, I don't want a flower. Let's fix it. Sorry. Yeah. I'm apparently on record for having said, please don't hit on my giant snail. He's asexual. Setting boundaries.
00:37:46
Speaker
I don't remember the context for that one. Roll with advantage because you've already consumed some of the hag. That was a constitution saving throw. She wanted to eat the hag once they killed her. The quote section is always very interesting. I've reached the part where we talked about
00:38:15
Speaker
Because for, what is it? Detects good and evil. There's smells to it. For some reason, neutral is mayonnaise. Because mayo is neutral. I stand by this. We're not going to open this bag because it's a constant vein of aggression in our party, but I stand by that mayo is neutral.
00:38:41
Speaker
There is a regular debate about mayonnaise. Is this a character or are you talking about mayonnaise? Mayonnaise. The smell of mayonnaise is the neutral form. So we've got a thing where when you pass the vine and the vine detects good and evil, good, evil and neutral all have different smells. I can't remember what good is. In fact, I can't even remember what evil is. It just smells bad, right? Probably like rotten eggs.
00:39:05
Speaker
Probably, yeah. I think so. Like mayonnaise, in my opinion. But apparently mayonnaise... No, mayonnaise is an evil smell. Exactly. Mayonnaise is an evil smell. Yes. If someone were to cast any spell, and I instantly smelled any kind of dairy, I'd throw up. The spell would have two benefits at that point. Agreed. See, the minute this podcast goes
Amusing Campaign Quotes
00:39:30
Speaker
out, I'm
00:39:35
Speaker
No, that's terrible. I've moved and don't have my little pot of mayo anymore that I used to keep on a shelf. It's gone. Was it there for sniffing? It was. It was good, high quality mayonnaise that my friends had brought me back from London.
00:40:01
Speaker
A neutral smells like peanut butter. No one's ever gagged when they smelled peanut butter. No, you're probably right on that one. I can't debate that. I'm just not fucking mayonnaise. Terrific. I know when it comes back up, I'm just going to be sad again.
00:40:23
Speaker
Every time I hear it, I'm just sad. Because I'm the only person as well. Me and Emma are the only people who have this problem with this mayonnaise, I think. Submit my vote. You're just strange. You're strange towards me. In fact, this is getting brought up the minute we stop recording. The second I'm just going to write in the chat, I don't know, guys, mayonnaise, confirm, even smell, right? I'll be debating that, viciously.
00:40:53
Speaker
So you have mentioned that you have DMed. Do you have a preference on, you mentioned your first campaign was Homebrewing. Do you have a preference between running modules or do you prefer sort of Homebrewing your own? So anytime I've Homebrewed, it has been something very short, either a one-shot or a mini campaign, which I've loved. Which light?
00:41:21
Speaker
I wish I had given myself more time to change it. I don't think it was for me as written. I think it was for a different kind of player with different goals. And so I haven't enjoyed Witchlight as much. I mean, we've had fun, but I am about to run Curse of Strahd, which I'm looking forward to because looking at it,
00:41:46
Speaker
Like it's a very strong module as written. And I know that I really don't have to change anything if I don't want to, whereas, which I should have. And if I had more time, I would have half home brewed it and I think been a lot happier. So I don't think it matters to me as long as the story is good. I mean, I'm not going to have fun with a homebrew story if I wrote something that isn't any good. And I'm going to have less, you know, I'm going to have a great time with a story that is good, even if someone else wrote it.
00:42:15
Speaker
So before I ask the next question, I'm going to say, if you are planning on playing Strahd or are wanting to play Strahd, skip forward a few minutes. Are you planning on running it as is from the beginning, from level one? That is my question.
00:42:29
Speaker
So are you referring to the house? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Don't listen. Don't listen. So I am running death house. I, what I'm doing, I don't understand. Okay. I think it's dumb that they're supposed to be level one until they get to the house. And then while they're in the house, jumping up to level two, because it seems like just an interruption. So I'm starting them at level two, like,
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah. Like why are we just doing that right now? Someone online suggesting, tell them to bring three character sheets, one to level three. And I was like, what's the point? Yeah. That's so fast. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm starting them at level two. They'll be level two throughout the whole house. And if they make it out alive, I think at that point they'll go to level three. But yeah, I do plan on running death house. It looks like a great time.
00:43:24
Speaker
I made a small change that I have been told was evil when I ran Death House. Okay, what is this? I gave them a- I gave them a puppy right at the start of Death House. You did not. I did. I was- What is wrong with you? All my friends are zoologists and I was like, oh, this is gonna be fun. They love that dog. And at the end,
00:43:49
Speaker
One of them was like, we've got to kill the dog. And then half of them were like, no. Half of them were like, yes. And then one of them was like, you know, because of the sacrifice. Yes. No, but it's, it was such a role play wise. It was a very fun experience. They hated me. They didn't speak to me. It was fine, but I wouldn't either. I mean, I kind of want to do it now, but that's horrible. It's, it's, it's such a fun idea. And cause you,
00:44:18
Speaker
It is a disappointment to that one player if they do go that route that does die, because they do have to come up with a new character. In this, they get the sacrifice and Dell1 has to roll the new one. They just have to face the shambling man that's just sat in the corner waiting for them.
00:44:34
Speaker
I don't know if this is how it's written in a book. I've seen a campaign where people played it that it was per person one sacrifice if it was something small, like a rat or let's say a puppy. Because if it's just one person and it's one life that's not intelligent, like a humanoid would be, that it only counts for that person. So they can get out and they can deal with the consequences of what they've done emotionally, but everyone else is still stuck until they make a big sacrifice together.
00:45:03
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, I could say how that would be. I would have given them four coffees. I would have given them four coffees. I would have given them four coffees. I would have given them four coffees. I would have to be fair. It's individualized trauma.
00:45:16
Speaker
If I was there, right, if I had known you and you'd have somehow invited me to that campaign and I saw the puppy and you didn't sacrifice it, I would have written a new character on the spot. I would have killed my character. I'm not getting the dog. The dog's not dying. They didn't care enough, right? A new character like that would have happened from the back of some of the reserves. So you're saying a group of sex zoologists didn't care about the puppy enough? Oh, trust me, they cared. They really cared. It was so funny.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah, well, that, yeah, I remember getting that story. It made me sad for what you're going to do to actually, when I heard it, I was like, if I see a puppy, I have to leave it. Like, I can't, can't have an emotional attention to any pets in Joanne's campaigns. I'm just going to leave them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've made it very clear. If it's in combat, it's fair game. I'm coming for it. Yeah. Good thing. So you're very careful around, uh,
00:46:16
Speaker
If it has stats. Yeah. It's there to be hit. Yeah. I think my players have a giant snail and they love Jeb. They love Jeb so much. And I've told him, Jeb could be helpful to you in combat, but he's going to, if he has a stat block, he has HP and they have, he's just been like a carrier for them. Like a mule. Cause they're like, we're not risking his life. We can't risk job. Very, very valid. It's like, we just got a job. Oh my God. I never thought about that.
00:46:45
Speaker
Oh my God, he got a dog. Oh, he did get a dog. Well, so, but, but, but Strife has died. And so this was, this was the funniest thing. Um, I guess it was a little cruel by myself and Michael to do this, but, uh, so Strife was in combat and was fighting and I know the play got a nat one right next to Strife. And I was like, okay. So.
00:47:11
Speaker
You obviously either, this was because we've recently implemented crit fumbles and crit fails, but this was before we did that. So it was like, roll a d6. On a one to three, you hit the dog. On a four to six, you hit yourself and that's fine. Hits the one to three. Does the damage on the dog. The dog dies at that point, but sinks into the ground and disappears. And then the player is distraught being like, shit, I've killed the dog.
00:47:41
Speaker
The player I'd given the dog to, fully aware this dog's gonna come back. Fully aware this dog is incorporeal and will just rematerialize somewhere else. Didn't say a thing. Until they get back to town and the dog has just sat there waiting for them. It was a chaotic few minutes. Oh my gosh. I joined the session. All I hear is, Alex, the dog died. So once, I didn't even get to pet it in character. I mean, the dog died and I just can't. I'm just having a session.
00:48:10
Speaker
You've put me in a bad mood at the start of this session. I'm going to do this. And then he was just alive again. I feel like y'all's group is like, if I had a nickel for every time we've killed a dog, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot. But why did that happen twice? That's, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've killed many things by accident, to be fair. Mainly a lot of people. So that's- Yes. Yeah.
00:48:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. All right. I mean, I've killed a stray in PC. They were in a war zone. OK. How is that on me? So Alex has mentioned their little mistake a few times here. And I think I just want to clarify. I run this campaign for three groups. Only one of them has made this mistake. The rest of them are like, no, no, no. We've been contracted to carry this caravan to the next town. We're going to stick with the caravan. Goblins attack these guys. They're like, oh.
00:49:08
Speaker
Goblin Den over there, let's go find them, leave the caravan, come back, obviously it's been raided. I would be an irresponsible DM if I didn't grab that moment. You had one job. Yeah, literally. You know, everyone shouldn't have listened to my character. I'm clearly going to go and kill God. I'm a f***ing goliath fighter.
00:49:31
Speaker
That's true. It's been proven this campaign. I've got the least logic out of everybody. I killed 3,042 people because of God blew up a volcano and I asked him to do it again. All right. And I'm proud of that number. That's true. You did. You did do that. Yeah. Higher skill count. Um, it's kind of weird that you run with a number. I'm not gonna lie. I just throw that out there. It's very specific.
00:49:58
Speaker
and I bring it up with it. It's great. I should have started logging the kills I get because it's now going to turn into a competition as of last session. I was
Debating Homebrew Rules
00:50:13
Speaker
going to say we need to do a second segment before we do the horror story which
00:50:20
Speaker
We have got carried away, but we'll get... Well, I don't think this will be too long of a conversation because I don't know how many people actually run with this rule. So we do a homebrew rule that people use so frequently, it's basically become core. And the rule that I selected today was changing flanking. So it doesn't give you advantage, but you get a plus something to your attack rather than a flat advantage.
00:50:50
Speaker
Um, which I don't know how I feel about. I don't know. I don't feel like it's different enough to be all that offensive. Like I don't feel like this is a right or wrong answer situation. I feel like players would like it less until it benefits them. I feel like it's a less helpful mechanic, but at the same time it's more because you could roll out advantage and then roll
00:51:19
Speaker
lower for your second rule and it doesn't matter. I don't know, I don't feel like there's like a right or wrong here. That's my thing. Normally you read these rules and they're different enough to make the game more exciting. It's something different. This just felt like it's just variation. It's very neutral change. Yeah. But neutral in the peanut butter way, not in the mayonnaise way.
00:51:45
Speaker
I feel attacked. I feel like it's more like on average it's probably just more consistently helpful than a varnish because you can still roll too bad dice obviously. I prefer rolling too nice than having one dice.
00:52:05
Speaker
Well, it leaves that risk up in the air. Like this could be really great and really helpful. Like maybe you get a nat 20 on that second roll, which you're just not going to do with the other rule unless you rolled a nat on the first. Exactly. So higher, yeah, it's a, keeping the original rules just gives you a higher potential for like either greatness or severe disappointment, which can be a lot of fun. The payoff is better with advantage.
00:52:33
Speaker
Do you, you mentioned you play with a few groups, do you use crit successes and crit fumble tables? Because we've just died using them and they are, they are fun. They're terrifying. I mean, for me, I mean, because I use them as well for the monsters, the 100 is quadruple damage, which is terrifying as a player, but also for me as a DF.
00:53:00
Speaker
I haven't even looked at those tables. They're terrifying. It scares me every time I hear one of the rolls. To be fair, last session I rolled like four in that 20s. I had great fun. Yeah, you did. My dice could never. I had less fun.
00:53:19
Speaker
That's my 4x4 man 20s for the year. I'm never rolling an add 20 again. Yeah, no, it was great until something attacked me and rolled an add 20 and rolled triple damage. I was scared. I've got second win, not second win. Stones endurance. Stones endurance, yeah. So it was a triple damage. It was a cobalt, it was like, okay. Yeah, it was a cobalt. It turned into 3d6.
00:53:48
Speaker
So, like, it was nothing. You were fine. Whenever damage is tripled or multiplied, you always roll the lowest possible dice that you possibly could. We had a character in our finale for our first campaign. We were fighting a dragon on top of this castle, and his character stayed by the edge of the castle. We didn't really think about the fact that the dragon's right there, rolled a grapple him, did a great job, hold him. Droppings of reaction.
00:54:18
Speaker
drops him off a 90 foot plus castle. He's already taken damage. We do D10 per 10 feet. And our DM rolled so low that it didn't even knock him out. He like landed in a soft patch of snow and survived. And just got back up and kept trying to hit him from the bottom. Like,
00:54:48
Speaker
It's always the most intense roles where, like, how did he roll 10 D10s and not kill him? Yeah, that is insane. Is it time for my favorite segment? What's my favorite bit? Yes!
Player Behavior & Campaign Dynamics
00:55:05
Speaker
I love the horror stories. They're so good. I'm curious about this. So today's horror story is titled, and this is from a play I was basically saying, so the player tries DMing for the first time.
00:55:16
Speaker
other player actively ruins his game so he wouldn't do it again. Yeah, whenever at this time I found it quite interesting, I was like, oh, why would you do that? Because there are new DMs, what? That's so mean. Oh, that's awful already. I mean, I guess I should reserve judgment. So, so for context, I wasn't around for this. I'm our group's perma DM.
00:55:45
Speaker
But at this point in time, I couldn't attend weekly, so every other week my players would play board games. One of these weeks, our newest player, let's call him Barry, decides he wants to try DMing. Now Barry isn't very ingrained in need culture, but he loves D&D and he loves World of Warcraft. So he decided he would literally run World of Warcraft with D&D. Not inspired by just D&D and the Warcraft world. He asked me if this was okay, and of course I said yes. I was more disappointed that I wouldn't be able to play it.
00:56:15
Speaker
So the game light rolls around and Barry and the other three players set up. Barry introduced the world and says the players have all been summoned by the key. Problem player, let's call him Joe, decides he's not using a game for D&D and is going to be a dick about this. He met the games hard apparently given he's played Warcraft and knows the plot. I don't know how bad it was because he wasn't there. For the first three hours Joe wanders off to a random map point to witness events he shouldn't
00:56:42
Speaker
He insults high-level characters openly and lures innocents into deadly traps. By hour four, they are summoned by the king again. Joe Den tells the king he's going to try to do NSFW stuff about his consent. Okay. To the king.
00:56:57
Speaker
Barry kind of laughs it off and carries on but Joe keeps saying these things and then he proceeds to keep doing them. At that point Barry, still in character as King, teleports Joe outside, leaves him, tells him he's banished and lucky to be saved in the realm. Joe attacks the guard saying he can't enter the castle. Four rounds of combat go by and Joe isn't trying to fight, just trying to go inside.
00:57:22
Speaker
he does and gets to the king who after all this uses power word kill and kills joe's character outright joe says that's a bad dm move barry and the other two players agreed he was warned barry says he should write up the character who is more heroic so he does he writes up an over vengeance paladin who is the child of the last character
00:57:44
Speaker
This almost doesn't sound real. It's so bad. Did you make up the most awful potential storyline that you could have come up with? Did you ask yourself, I'm going to create a fake story. What is the worst thing a person could do back to back? It almost feels like that. I'm reading off a black screen. This is all from my head. You're lying to us.
00:58:14
Speaker
I mean, it's very well written for coming out of your brain. Great. You should DM. I should. Barry ends the session in combat with his random paladin attacking guards, then quits DMing via text the next day, and says to me privately, we'll never DM again. It was heartbreaking because he put a lot of work in. The only upside is that I removed Joe from our long-term D&D game, replacing a few of those who were interested. This was about eight months ago, and Barry still refuses to DM again.
00:58:44
Speaker
I later learned from Joe, he didn't want to compact campaigns right at the same time. So that's why he destroyed the other campaign. When asked why he even agreed to play, he said it's because that's what we did on a Wednesday. Insane. Absolutely insane. Yeah. Sounds like a bad person. Yeah. I'm very glad that they ended up at the end there, that they removed them because that would have absolutely been my, um, my response to that is just get rid of them.
00:59:10
Speaker
Like they wouldn't be in my game. If I came back and heard that they wouldn't, I would immediately be like, you know, you're gone. There's no excuse for that. That is wild. After eight months as well, I feel so bad for her. Well, I'm not surprised. I wouldn't. I don't think I would.
00:59:31
Speaker
DMing's hard. We had a friend who danced for the first time, and she hasn't had the time to DM again. It's just been a time thing. But she did a great job. We all had fun. We still talk about that one shot, still tell stories from it. I still think about it. I told her, that's my Roman empire. Loved it. And I remember
00:59:55
Speaker
she had that typical DM feeling afterwards of like, are you sure that that wasn't the worst thing that you've ever experienced ever? And I'm like, yeah, I'm quite sure. And if you have, I mean, you're going to feel that no matter what, that you're going to feel some level of, oh, that was kind of terrible and I could have done all these things differently, but to then have someone actively trying to ruin all the hard work you put in, that's going to crush your spirit in any situation.
01:00:24
Speaker
Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, that is rough. Joe is... Some comment is, Joe has the mentality of applying. What was that? The top comment is, Joe, as in the one who ruined the game, has the mentality of applying. Yeah, he's a child, basically. Yeah. There's no... Yeah, that is insane. It feels very gatekeeper as well.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, just in a way like two campaigns at the same time is odd. I feel like if you play D&D, you want to run, you want to be in so many campaigns. Yeah, I do personally. Well, and if he couldn't handle that, then why is it up to him to ruin the campaign just because he can't be part of it? Like how bad is your FOMO that you're going to ruin your friendships? Yeah, the absolution of that's either said or just like,
01:01:19
Speaker
didn't come to the second campaign on the Wednesdays because the other one still ran. Yeah. That's sad. And it's definitely up there with one of the worst stories we've had of us. Yeah. So do you remember our tier list of the worst and the least bad that we had? Because I remember the bad one. Yeah, everyone remembers the bad one. That one was atrocious.
01:01:45
Speaker
I remember that the are sort of not like the least bad one as well. So we sort of have the worst one we've had and the least bad. The least bad was someone has made a post about this DM. Bearing in mind, it was their first time DMing and everything we read was just it's an inexperienced DM. Like it's not a horror story.
DMing Joys & Challenges
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah. First time. There's no need to like give them a little grace. Yeah. It's like experience and that's it.
01:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, not everyone's gonna be Brennan Lee Mulligan right off the bat. Literally. Or ever. I mean, we could only dream. I don't have my poster. I normally have a poster of Brennan gracing the background. I don't have it up today. I'll have to put it up. You've defected. Well, I've moved and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put stuff on the wall, so I'll figure that out.
01:02:40
Speaker
The command strips, they have command strips specifically for posters. I'll find some. Don't give up. The worst one we had was someone turned D&D into microtransactions and had a player that was paying in real money for magical items. They were paying to come back to life. The DM was then focusing them in combat till they were dying. 700 euros, they were in debt.
01:03:11
Speaker
Genuinely why the worst one we've read and so the thing is as well. Obviously I do the horror stories The same person posted right there like yeah, here's another horror story from this campaign I Know what else has read this that's come the podcast. Not even your hands, right? I can't read this horror story because our channel would get that right when I tell you this other story is worse than
01:03:40
Speaker
When I read it, I was like, okay, this is even like, you are in the most insane campaign ever. It's wild, the stuff that person is like posted about that campaign. I was like, okay, yeah, that is, that is. Yeah, it was not good. It was not good at all. I think people should remember, I don't know what the story is or how bad it is or why it's so bad. I think people should remember that you don't have to play D&D.
01:04:09
Speaker
It's fun to play D&D, but only if it's fun. It's a game. Why are you gonna play if it's not fun? And if people are abusing you, like, you don't have to do it. Exactly. People need to be empowered. Step away from those guys. Because there are so many.
01:04:37
Speaker
I feel like the number of good campaigns outweigh the bad by such a magnitude. It's stupid, but the ones that you just hear so many shits or some people it's like, you just got a bad bunch. Like, please don't, don't stop trying because if anyone is listening and you are looking for a good campaign, I have never failed to find a good group from the, especially Dimension 20 sort of fan groups on Facebook and stuff. They, I mean, people in there are amazing.
01:05:04
Speaker
They're so fun, they're so open to play. Probably even critical role. Like if you were looking for a group, a post in there, but I don't want to play a game. That's probably the best way to do it. I don't know if you find some great people doing that. Yeah. The Facebook group chats, however. Oh, yes. I'm aware. We'll ask. We've had some. Yeah, they will always ask for hey DMing, which like, you know, we've talked about here before.
01:05:31
Speaker
It's a thing that happens, but if you're a new player and you post in the Facebook group chat, do it in the fan page group chats or something. Don't do it in ones that are specific for Facebook. I'm a part of the D&D United Kingdom group finder, whatever it was called, right? That's how I go into D&D, and I didn't make it both the way I did. Absolutely, someone would have posted and said, oh, you should be in my campaign.
01:05:59
Speaker
10 quid, right? So if you're a new player, just go to the fan groups, right? They're better. You find nicer people. Yeah, there are some, we've had some interesting people apply to beat. I mean, you, I don't, you probably don't have experience with like finding and bringing in more random people to your groups, but it's, it can be a harrowing experience. I can say, I can say that. I got very lucky.
01:06:26
Speaker
I just said, oh, D&D sounds so fun. And he said, well, last week we lost a person. And there was no bad blood from it either. Their schedule just didn't work out. So the group was solid. They were having a good time. They'd all known each other for years. And I got let on there on something really good. That's the best way to do things. That's the best outcome.
01:06:56
Speaker
It baffles me, and I guess slightly off track, but that some of the, like you post this, I've been like, looking for players. The opening messages some people send that they think makes them look attractive to join a campaign is wild. Some of the things that I've read, I had one person ask what the like the group split was. I mean, it was like, oh, you know, it's a barbarian. It's this, it's this, it's this. I mean, I don't think I said barbarian. Maybe I did because I thought you were a barbarian.
01:07:28
Speaker
Um, yeah, you do act like a barbarian. I sometimes forget you're a fighter. And then they went, no, no, no. Like the group split and I was like, what do you mean? And I was, I was like, Oh, I was like, no. If you're having to ask that question, you're not getting, it doesn't, I got a few times here.
01:07:54
Speaker
It does. It happens a lot and it's upsetting. Every time it's upsetting to me. It's not great on some of the Facebook chats. People have some weird perspectives and priorities.
01:08:19
Speaker
I can't remember what creator says it, but they're like, if you treat D&D like a dating simulator, it's gonna go badly for you every single time and you're going to ruin everyone's time. It's not a dating simulator, it's a social game. What's the same energy as only having female friends because you would secretly date them if they were down? At that point, you're not really friends. Yeah. You're not here to play D&D. Yeah. Exactly.
01:08:47
Speaker
And what's worse is you're not being honest about it. Like if that's what people want, I honestly, I can see potential disaster, but like, at least it's honest disaster. If people were to get together and say, I want to treat D&D like a dating thing. And if people just, you know, had maybe a big club or a big group where that, you know, I can't see it going well, but at least be honest.
01:09:13
Speaker
It definitely wouldn't go well. I think I think it would go horribly. But man, get a film crew in there. Make that some reality TV. Come on. Oh, I would watch it. No, if we're gonna be messy, film it, you know. I mean, I've had a guess at
01:09:40
Speaker
the opposite. And I've told this story before, and I think I remember a message in the group chat immediately when it happened. I joined a server because they were advertising players. And they had their like, they, their, what's the word for it? I can, I can think of it in Welsh, but it's, it's, you're like, you have to fill in this like form identifying yourself and stuff. So I was like, fine, I'll fill it in. Cause it was like named, um, like,
01:10:05
Speaker
gender identification for that which is like I'm pronouns which is important but they also had sexual orientation at the bottom and I was like well I'm not gonna fill that in because it's not relevant the character I want to play is not my gender is not my sexuality like it's irrelevant to my place in this server now you have to fill it in and I was like but it's that is not okay it's irrelevant none of it matters it's irrelevant and extremely nosy
01:10:32
Speaker
And then they kicked me and I was like, well, fair enough, but it's not relevant. It doesn't matter. You don't want to be part of it. Exactly. But I think baffling baffling was just, I think we have got so lucky in advertising online in our current group. Yeah. I mean, I got, I got very lucky because you've got two wonderful groups. Yeah. My first campaign online, uh, firstly was like,
01:11:00
Speaker
So I was up one in the morning till like five in the morning to play. But everyone was really nice and it was the guy who walked me through into the server, which was cool. So I'd already spoken to him. And then for Yuan's campaign, I'd like to say now I messaged him in October and he didn't reply for like three months.
01:11:18
Speaker
I got, I messaged him October and your wag got back to me in January and he was like, ah, you still wanna play? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go on then. So I got quite lucky. I've not had a bad application for work. There's been one campaign that I started on Wednesdays. I was meant to be a part of that literally stops after one session because basically everyone talked out. It was sad as we played with room.
01:11:44
Speaker
Which was that? This was before I even started playing with you. So this is when I tried to get in as many campaigns as possible. And it was on Wednesdays. It was cool, like the law seemed cool. They had maps and everything. I was like, yeah, this is sick. Because my first campaign didn't have maps, it was just imagination, right? So I was like, oh, maps, this is cool. And then basically, all that was like, oh,
01:12:16
Speaker
of course you would make a rogue changeling wouldn't you? I'm going to do every single martial class that exists. I love them. They're too fun.
01:12:31
Speaker
So if you kill off that, expect another one. Have you ever played a spell cluster? I have. I say that currently on my Monday with Americans, because my original monk, Dragonborn,
01:12:48
Speaker
Uh, died. Sat. Um, so now I play a, um, yeah, there's, we have a, we have a, on the discord, we have like a death log. It's meant to be for all the companions, but it's just my character's name. Like six of our companions died. It's just my character's name. Um, I do have- Gone, but not forgotten. Yeah, literally. Um, yeah, there is a statue of me in, in one of the seas we were in, um, which is cool. I like that. Um,
01:13:18
Speaker
But yeah, so I play now Asamir, Asamir, how do you say it? Asamir? Yeah, that's the one. Sawlock, which is cool. I decided to do it after basically playing Baldur's Gate. I was like, yeah, this ain't bad. I might try one. Yeah, it's all right. I'm a lot less creative with that class than I am with my martial classes.
01:13:47
Speaker
I have no creativity, I just shoot things. Yeah. So yeah, I've tried it. Well, I don't know. You didn't ask, but I would encourage you then to think about, okay, if get into headspace you're in with a martial class. Yeah, this spell hit something. You could also do that with your fist with a martial class. How would you switch up where you hit? Just do the same thing with the spell. What can you hit that's different that can also have a solid impact?
01:14:41
Speaker
I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do.
01:14:47
Speaker
Yeah, great game I haven't even touched playing martial class in that right both the characters are control because I play with friend one of them is a Pirate kinetic geo man, sir And the other and the character I created is Conjurant because yes
01:15:13
Speaker
I think we had the same logic because I've done the same. Yeah, it's a Conjurer and it's got Aerofurge and Hydrosophist on the site. Yeah, on online games, I just don't play martial classes. I'm kind of boring. But role-playing games, in real life and stuff like war games, I will just play martial classes most of the time. It becomes easier in my brain how to do things with them. Yeah, it just makes more sense. That's so interesting.
01:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'm one of the different people, because a lot of people say spell casting, throw classes, and feel creative, because you can do more things, which you can, because you have spells. But I prefer it the other way around. Yeah. Well, and some people have more creativity in simplicity. That's when you're raising children, and they say, I'm bored, good. You have less to do, less to think about, less to interact with. You can do something with that. Be creative.
01:16:08
Speaker
And that's where real creativity is born is things are a little more pared back and it gives you more space to breathe rather than letting a spell define what exactly you might do with that. Yeah. Yeah. I think more time as well is because I get bored when I have to keep rolling the same dice like every attack. Like I hate sitting there like, Oh, I'm going to hit you with my
Spells vs. Battle Axes
01:16:29
Speaker
battle axe. Oh, wait a minute. I'm going to hit you on my battle axe. That's true.
01:16:34
Speaker
Yeah. Actually, now I'm thinking about what you do, that is very true. I don't remember the last time I actually hit someone. Last session, we had a whole combat, like three different sections of the Goblin Camp. I don't think I swan my axe once that whole session. No, I don't. I just find it so boring, which is why, because when you're start casting, there's so many spells, it's different. You don't have to roll the same dice all the time. Martial archetypes, yeah. You basically got one dice, it's a bit different.
01:17:04
Speaker
I know, I know, I know, I know.
Slow Progression in Campaign
01:17:12
Speaker
People are always shocked when we say that you're 33 sessions in and you're still level two. We've been going over a year now. How? What have y'all been doing? I refuse to go from level three.
01:17:34
Speaker
But for context, I will say that the group I run on Friday are nine sessions in, they are further ahead than you guys. Yeah, we do get a bit sidetracked. You do, you do. Yeah, the main like me as long as you're having a good time. I think that's exactly. I mean, it's very different vibes. Yeah,
Religious Conversion Story
01:17:56
Speaker
it is. I don't know about the Friday group, but we have I say we
01:18:00
Speaker
I personally have tried to convert whole towns religion as a non- you did you did you did try yeah it's just fun yeah yeah you do you do you do I mean that that was also I that was an interesting story because you contacted a god the god had been gone in this world for a while now and you asked the god for a bone and she was like sure have a have a bit of my dress and you tied it around it and you went to a cleric
01:18:30
Speaker
Now, clerics and paladins don't speak to gods in this world because they've been asleep for a long time. So Dan walks in with a piece of a god's clothing and they're like, this is the most divine artifact for thousands of miles. And it's just on this random goliath in town now. She was just in awe. Well, what kind of omen does she feel that is?
01:18:58
Speaker
The Cleric was like, oh my fucking god, what the fuck is going on? What is this? What are you? Who are you? They wanted it. And was just freaked out. Yeah, she wanted it. Of course she wanted it. Yeah, it's great. It means I can drink alcohol without suffering, basically. It's the greatest boon I've ever made. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, so my character is, like, we've got a Cleric and a Paladin, and I have spoken to God more than both of them, and I think it's
01:19:27
Speaker
because they pray all the time. I do pray a lot now, my character, just to speak to God, because I enjoy it. My role's a shit, I've got a minus one. It's still happened more than anything for them. But you know what?
Divine Communication Pursuit
01:19:40
Speaker
Your religion is that low, and yet you are still pursuing that communication to a God. I imagine that would be admirable. Exactly. The devotion despite experience and knowledge. Number one disciple. That's why I try to convert the heart.
01:19:55
Speaker
It went awful because my charisma is also minus one. I only have like three good stats. So I'm very bad at everything else. But I have so far, I've persuaded someone that I've done magic to like heal a town.
Pretend Magic Deception
01:20:11
Speaker
Right. When we were, when we went to do the slards, I said, when I, when I rolled really well in the deception check, I was doing magic that our cleric was doing to like heal the room, like a ritual.
01:20:23
Speaker
Oh, oh yeah, I remember. I pretended, I did sounds, I did everything. I pretended and I rolled like an 18 on my deception check. It was, it was, it was amazing. You committed to the bit. I committed to the bit. So I had to reward it. It was, it was, it was a good bit. That's great. I do like playing fun characters. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to be had empty.
01:20:47
Speaker
Do you guys run with rule of call very much or are you much more sort of as like rules as written?
Balancing Rule of Cool
01:20:56
Speaker
I think we do a balance. We make sure that it's not like completely improbable for rules as written.
01:21:05
Speaker
Rule of cool for us, I think more comes into play when there is not a rule against it. Like technically you could probably find one, but like why? It'd be cool. We, uh, only example I can think of right now is we have a cleric in our campaign and he wants, so he's a hair and gone, hair and gone cleric.
Church of Kev Storyline
01:21:27
Speaker
So originally a fae creature, but not raised in the fae wild. And his backstory, he used to be,
01:21:35
Speaker
drinking, gambling, and then he encountered a god. A god came to him and divinely shared who he is. His name is Kevin, god of vibes, and he was born as man but ascended to godhood because he was such a strong hank.
01:21:56
Speaker
Okay. I love Kevin. All right. Oh, we absolutely do. We have buried to Kevin before, sessions before. Everywhere he goes, he tells people about our Lord and Savior Kev. And no one knows who, no one else has ever heard of this God. And so I know what's going on there, but my players are like, okay, I've never heard of this God. I'm like, no, but Cuddles, which is the character's name, Cuddles has cleric powers.
01:22:23
Speaker
Like, he is a light cleric, and so they can't decide if Kevin is just a different god and he's got the identity wrong, or if Kevin is a legit
01:22:34
Speaker
God who has ascended and I think they're leaning towards that right now. I'm not going to tell anyone what it is. I mean, you don't get to know, but it's a lot of fun having Kev and they have a holy symbol. They've actually established a church in the Feywild called the Church of Kev and it has several branches. The highest tier you can be in is the vibe branch. Yeah.
01:23:01
Speaker
The way of the vibe, the way of the paw, the way of the blade, they have different ways. It's become a whole thing. I think they're establishing a cult. It's a good one. It's very good.
01:23:21
Speaker
I will tell him that. He's constantly, because the vibes are so fucked in the Feywild right now, in Witchlight, that he declares, especially during combat, he is in a holy war to restore the vibes. The vibes are rancid. And like, yeah, Kevin isn't an official god in D&D and like, it's a little, who cares?
Mercenary Nature & Debts
01:23:50
Speaker
Matt, what a good time to have Kev around. Exactly. Gotta love Kev. Oh, he's great. You guys made me make a cult. I had to, I had to, I had to spitball a cult. Welcome cult. The granddaughter of the arcane button. And it's, it just buttons. Go for little dude. Oh, what's his name? What's his name? It's been so long since we've spoken to him.
01:24:20
Speaker
It begins with a B. It does. It's something von Braun. Bertram, it is Bertram von Braun. And he is just a goofy little dude with a suit of all buttons. Pause button beer, which is like a glass full of buttons. Just a guy who loves buttons. His own language, buttonish, which we've been trying on for 20 sessions. Sounds like he's cooking. He is. He's a fun dude.
01:24:54
Speaker
The beloved NPCs. I love, I love making random NPCs and giving them the dumbest names. I mean, you guys, well, you guys could have gone and helped two families who were the Wimsey Feathers and the Snickerfluffs, but you chose not to.
01:25:17
Speaker
Nah, why do that? Eh, why help people? We're not heroes. Oh, you guys aren't. You guys are mercenaries. Oh no. Yeah, we are absolutely not heroes. Yeah, we are the furthest from heroes. We're notorious. You've got a dark reputation. We do. We do. We have to work for free to pay off our debts for getting people killed. So, yeah, we are.
01:25:50
Speaker
I think I'm starting to understand why you haven't leveled up yet. You're also very easily distractable, I think. I give you something fun and shiny, and you're like, oh, we'll do that instead of what we're contracted to do. Yeah, we get distracted. That's fine. So it goes. Yeah, pretty much.
01:26:17
Speaker
Thank you very much for joining us today and chatting all things D
Shoutouts to D&D Creators
01:26:21
Speaker
&D. We have one last question, which we always ask. Are there any smaller D&D creators that you want to shout out? I think there's opportunity to do so now. Oh, I didn't prepare for this. It puts everyone on the spot and I'd love it every time. Hold on, hold on. No, because I'm not passing this up. Well, first of all, myself, I'm a small creator, Feywild Fiend on YouTube. Check me out.
01:26:47
Speaker
It's great. Let's see. Definitely have your link in the description. So go ahead and subscribe guys. Like, subscribe, comment below.
01:27:00
Speaker
Okay, I actually have someone who just popped up on the scene for me at least pretty recently. His name is Delver. At The Delver, he is doing some pretty good content. And then, it's a really small creator I can think of off the top of my head, but I know I'm going to think of more later and kick myself.
01:27:24
Speaker
Pull out your phone. That's what people have done. People have like scrolled through their follow list and been like, oh, this person, this person, this person. I'm scrolling through Discord right now. I'm just looking at... I know you had Indestructible on here. Yes. Yes. That was a very good episode. I love that one. Jenny D, real small creator, up and coming. Should check her out.
01:27:54
Speaker
That was a stupid joke. Gabe. Yeah, Gabe. Yeah. We had Gabe as well. Oh, I like Val from corkboards and curiosities. Kelsey from the arcane library. Those aren't as small. But well, I actually don't know how big Val is. Let's look at corkboards and curiosities. And that might be it. That might be all I can think of. I can't type things whenever I'm in a rush.
01:28:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's the stress of typing. I know. Yeah, she's a small channel. Corkboards and Curiosities is a small one. Ooh, one of her more popular videos. Running a female Strahd. I'm about to go watch that. Oh, that could be good. That would be a fun dynamic.
01:28:46
Speaker
That's real. I've seen people do it, but I've only seen one person do it. So I'm curious what she'd have to say. Oh, and her filming set up a school. Yeah. Val from Core Chords and Curiosities, Kelsey from the Arcane Library, and Sean from the channel Delver, D-E-L-V-E-R. And that's where I'll cut myself off. And then if there's anyone else, I'm sorry. You're all great. Yeah.
01:29:15
Speaker
What we're like, it's interesting looking for people to come on because you're like, oh, we can get this person, this person. And then the list just gets stupidly long and you're like, ah, we can't fit everyone in. Oh, so you're not giving people a shout out. You're not giving people shout outs. You're trying to get a list for you. You have ulterior motives. The ulterior motives might have been revealed there, but, uh, you know,
01:29:41
Speaker
mind you we've got to get we've got to get ideas from somewhere yeah again thank you very much for joining us it's been great having you on um thank you also very much for listening um we are back um as it's already been revealed on their channel we are getting the eldritch pod blast guys on next week so very much looking forward to that be another great episode
01:30:10
Speaker
Yeah, thank you very much for watching. We are on all those podcast channels, Spotify, Amazon, Google, which I think is becoming YouTube at some point. We've had a notification about it. It's like merging somewhere. They're moving to YouTube. Yeah, you do. I read them. It's fine. You don't need to.
01:30:33
Speaker
will be on YouTube and it'll go out probably on a Saturday, on Saturday, this Saturday coming the 24th, no? 23rd at 2 p.m. So yeah, thank you very much for watching and we will see you next week.