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War of the Words - Engineering Social Encounters
16 Plays23 hours ago
Social encounters shouldn’t hinge on a single die roll—and in this episode, we break down how to make them dynamic, player-driven, and memorable. With richer NPCs, meaningful choices, and real consequences, because talking your way through trouble should be just as thrilling as fighting your way out.
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Transcript
Introduction to How We Roll Gaming
00:00:02
Speaker
with the coachman D20 Radio. at Your game is rolled.
00:00:17
Speaker
How will We Roll Gaming is dedicated to spreading enjoyment of great role-playing games. We hope to bring you insights into games you may not have played, tips to be a better game master and player, and share us stories of momentous events at our
Meet the Hosts
00:00:29
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tables.
00:00:29
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Every game is a new story to tell. I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And here's Robert. And this is How We Roll.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast, everybody. I'm here with Robert this time. Last time, Nick and I were Robert-less. And this time, Robert and I are Nick-less.
00:00:55
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Yes, we interchanged a little bit, but I'm glad to be back. Yes, yes. And, you know, i he he said that we're okay to say this.
00:01:06
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We make a lot of fun of him about, you know the whole... Squirrel!...situation. But a squirrel or two have actually gotten into his house again.
00:01:19
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And so he is he's trapping them, and he's just had a hell of a week. so he Yes, so we told him... Take the time. Take a break. You don't need to do this right now. you got enough on your plate.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yep. Take care of the... Squirrel!
00:01:35
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But, so, we will we will handle our topic tonight just fine ourselves. Indeed.
Promoting D20 Radio Network
00:01:44
Speaker
But before we dive into that subject, we want to let you know that one of the other great shows on the D20 Radio Network...
00:01:50
Speaker
I Should Roll is an actual play podcast set in the Mass Effect universe using a homebrew system that's kind of a mix of D&D 5e, Blades in the Dark, Fate, and some other mechanics thrown in for good measure.
00:02:04
Speaker
They currently have two long-form campaigns running, Ride of the Valkyrie, which is set in 2184, and Dangerous, Dangers, set in 2189. Yes, you can find more information on their site.
00:02:19
Speaker
I should roll.com and get the podcast through your preferred platform. And of course, we will have links in the notes. Yes, we will. But now, on to our topic.
Making Social Encounters Engaging
00:02:31
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On to our topic. Now, I i will not lie, i kind of poached this topic from the Discord server of our friend Nate over at Tabletop Empire with his blessings.
00:02:44
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I poached the topic with his blessing. ah Someone was asking, you know, so what do you do with social encounters so that you're not just you rolling dice and saying, okay, you convinced this person of something, now move on.
00:03:05
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How do you make a social encounter actually engaging? Yes, because an in an rpg basically is 50 50 in a story. You have combat encounters, but you also have social encounters depending on the universe.
00:03:20
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Social can sometimes trump combat. Combat can sometimes trump social, but social encounters are still important to any good story. Yep. And so I spoke to Nate and I was like, Hey, you know,
00:03:35
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You said that this is going to be a good idea for a video for Tabletop Empire, but since you'll be focused exclusively on the Star Wars and maybe the Genesis aspect of that, and we discuss games more in general, do you mind if we discuss it too? And he said, go for it. It's going to be six months to a year before I can get to it with the new actual play coming up and the other videos I have.
00:04:03
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that I'm working on, so go for it. So thank you, Nate. Yes, thank you, Nate. Thank you, Nate. So I'm glad that you're here for this one, Robert, because you have an uncanny knack with social characters.
00:04:21
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Yes, thank you. And it actually surprised me as well as in the beginning, before I got into this and some other stuff in my life, I was a very introverted person. i would be the one that goes in maybe sits for an hour, but then the emotional battery is done and I just stop engaging or leave. Yeah. And I think it's not to stereotype, but I think it's fair to say that there's going to be a lot of overlap in the RPG space of players who are introverts or have some degree of social anxiety that being that talky talk person isn't them.
Role-playing for Introverts
00:05:02
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That's part of why they like playing characters like that in an RPG. Exactly. I can only speak from my experience, but I find when you're in a group with people that know you, you know, they won't make fun of you or mock you unless it's in a playful manner like we do with Nick.
00:05:19
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Then you have more freedom to play the role as it is. Like when I make a character and I make them a talker, i want to get into how their personality is. How do they act?
00:05:30
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And. When I may not be able to do this in the real world, I can pretend to be this person in this universe and go all hammy and crazy and just treat it like a like we We like to joke that Ian McDermott, who plays Palpatine, loves to just eat the scenery. So I try to yeah channel my inner Palpatine and eat the
Enhancing Storytelling with Dice Rolls
00:05:48
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scenery. Do it.
00:05:50
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Do it. death One thing that you have to do, too, is you have to make social encounters fun and engaging. Not just that Roll once. Okay, you convince them. Move on.
00:06:03
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Yes, because that's no fun because in real life, when has anyone been convinced by anything in just one go? Right, exactly. And so I... I've been pulling, as we've been prepping for this since this episode, inspiration from our friends, not just at Tabletop Empire, but I was listening to a recent episode of Me and Steve Talk RPGs.
00:06:29
Speaker
And they were talking about, not social encounters, but they were talking about... ah failure being quote unquote gray was the title of the episode where, where you, you roll for something, whether you succeed in the role or not, you're going to succeed in the task.
00:06:56
Speaker
That is interesting. But if it's a failure, if you don't hit your target number or if it's a failure or what have you, yes, you still succeed in the task, but not in the way that you intended or expected.
00:07:11
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Yes, and as we've always talked about, some of the best things that happens in the story come from a failure in a dice roll. Because then the the DM basically has carte blanche to turn this however he wants to.
00:07:25
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And so what that had me thinking of was how successful you are determines the nature of your success. Yes. And I'm going to call back to the Genesis system. I really like how they have, okay, you can succeed, but you can have varying degrees of success, or even you can succeed, but something goes horribly wrong in the process or vice versa. You fail,
00:07:53
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but something really good happens or you fail and something really, really bad happens. And even in that narrative dice system for Genesis and Star Wars, there are occasions where... so my philosophy for making players roll is there shouldn't be a roll if failure isn't not just an option, but interesting.
00:08:21
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Yes, sir. And so with those social checks, with those social encounters, there may be a situation where if they fail the social encounter, then the adventure stops dead. Yeah, like that like they get stonewalled, basically. It's like, well, you failed.
00:08:42
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And so you don't want to do that, but you still want there to be possibilities there. So you have you have them roll. So even in that narrative dice system, if you get a failure, I would say...
00:08:59
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perhaps they still succeed in what they're trying to do. like Let's say they're trying to charm or deceive someone who has a vital piece of information that's going to lead them on to the next leg of the adventure.
00:09:20
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If they fail, they still get information from that person. They might even still get the right information. But if they failed, they didn't charm or deceive them. So as the GM, they still get to that next leg of the adventure.
00:09:38
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you know They're saying, hey, you know we don't know where NPC the Hutt is. but we we need to get to NPC the hut.
00:09:48
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Well, this person is talking to them. They do the social check. They roll their charm. They roll their deception. They fail. The person that they're talking to still tells them, oh, PC the hut, he's in the palace up on the cliff side up there, which is where NPC the hut really is.
00:10:10
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But after the players leave, he alerts NPC the hut that they're coming. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, boss, they're coming. You might want to get ready for it. So they encounter resistance when they get up there, and that's the consequence of the failure.
Preparing Social Encounters
00:10:25
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Not that they didn't get the information that they needed, but because they're going to encounter resistance when they get there.
00:10:34
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Yes, or an alternative is like, well, they fail in their charm and deception. so this species basically does stonewall and be like, yeah, yeah, go away.
00:10:45
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But maybe someone else, say they're in like a seedy bar, maybe someone else, maybe a rival of hes NPC the Hut's like, oh, you want to find NPC the Hut? I know where he is. I want to take him down too.
00:10:57
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Let me tell you about this. Maybe even a way you can get to him. Right. So there's there's different ways to do that. And... Also, you might convince them of whatever you're trying to convince them of, but does that mean that they give you everything?
00:11:16
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No, of course not. I mean, if you meet someone once, you're not going to spill all your deepest, darkest secrets, no matter how much you like them. Right. You know, it it could be a case of you're trying to get that information out of that person.
00:11:34
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you could You could even succeed. But if it's not a huge success, they tell you, oh, NPC the hut is in the palace up on the cliffside.
00:11:47
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What they don't tell you is that there is a trained guard rancor guarding the gates and a garrison of mercenaries inside to take care of unexpected visitors.
00:12:02
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Yes, because they'd be like, okay, I'll tell you, but I'm also not going to risk my skin if he ever finds out I told you anything. So I'm sort of praying that the guards deal with you and this never gets back to me.
00:12:14
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Now, one thing that i I don't do it as much as I would like to do that I do as a GM try to do to make social encounters fun and engaging. When I know a social encounter is inevitable or I'm trying to steer my players towards a social encounter, I like to come up with some dialogue and decision trees for myself.
00:12:41
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Yes, very much as well. Because I can't always, you know, i I was in speech and theater in high school. I took a group improv competition at speech tournaments.
00:12:57
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But there are times that for the life of me, I cannot come up with the NPC's side of the conversation. so if I have been there very much so, especially...
00:13:11
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Especially when I run Cyberpunk and you say something, I was like, I had never thought of that. um ah Yes, it's ah Z. So, yeah, I try to, know, obviously I can't plot out the entire exchange because I don't know what you as the players are going to say.
00:13:34
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yeah But what I can do is kind of come up with a decision tree with some phrases and things like that peppered in there that I can pull from when I'm playing that that NPC that you're talking to.
00:13:50
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or Or what I do at times, especially if you're behind the screen running the game, is that maybe i do do decision trees, but I also think, okay, I've made this character What's their personality? How do they act? Are they more standoffish?
00:14:05
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Are they honestly blunt? Do like to dance around the subject? Are they going to intentionally try to mislead you? So through a conversation, I can still think, okay, this person is intentionally wanted, wants to dislead people.
00:14:18
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So he's going to answer you, but he's going to push you in a direction where he knows is away from the objective, but can still open opportunities to get you back on track. Yep, and that's where just the way my brain works, you know, and people that have been listening for a while have probably picked up that when I come up with a PC or an NPC, a lot of times I like to cast that NPC or cast that character, regardless of whether it's a PC or an NPC. And if I'm casting an actor, I generally have a particular role that that actor was in in mind.
00:15:01
Speaker
And that kind of helps me inform how the character is going to act in response. Like in Far Orbit Project, that vice admiral, that yes star destroyer, you all damn near actually stole. That man who just has to have paranoid schizophrenia. Have all the stuff has.
00:15:24
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Early on, when Nick and I were, not when we were planning the campaign, but when we knew that you were all dead set on trying to capture his Star Destroyer, I was i was looking at Nick and we were planning everything out and i was like, Ricardo Montalban plays this Admiral.
00:15:45
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And he he's kind of like Khan. He's not Mr. Rourke. He's Khan. in Wrath of Khan. And he's like, I can see it. I can see it. So that, A, that's why I was doing the bad Ricardo Montalban impression whenever I spoke for him.
00:16:05
Speaker
But that also informed how he interacted with you all, even though it was never face-to-face. It was all through comms. That's how he, or that's why he interacted with all of you the way that he did.
00:16:21
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Yes. And though at the time we were basically like, oh, come on. It's like, who is this guy? But now we know for the future, it's like, yeah, we got to watch out for this guy. He just loves booby trapping his own places to like the nth degree.
00:16:36
Speaker
the Yep. And in Walking Dead, when we were coming up with the NPC group that is attached to the main party's group, the two of those NPCs that were most fleshed out were um Dolores, the old woman who ran the gated community that you were from, because all of a sudden I was like, this is Mrs. Landingham from the West Wing.
00:17:06
Speaker
And the politician, Elijah Flores, i was like, oh, and this is Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos from the West Wing, but not a benevolent Matt Santos.
Casting and NPC Development
00:17:20
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And so that has that's why those two are the most fleshed out, because I have their voices in my head. Yes, which is kind of ironic, as we only have interacted mostly with Elijah. we Doris has been been kind of been put in in administration and we've never touched her again. Well, and that's that's partly because as you all got into the Las Vegas Strip, it made sense for them to split everybody up and put them where they where they will benefit the society most. Oh yeah, by no means am I saying it a bad decision and truth be told, Yothi, the NPC or PC player Yothi,
00:18:07
Speaker
was the one who was closest to Dolores. And once he what is once he died, there wasn't really someone who was that close to Dolores anymore. Yep, it might be time to go back and revise the NPC group that is quote unquote tied to the PC group.
00:18:26
Speaker
True, true. Because my character still has ed but he really needs to speak to Ed because Ed's been kind of in the background. I'll talk about others, but I need my iPads dude back. I need my bro back.
00:18:40
Speaker
But what what else? you I know that ah sometimes in cyberpunk, we do run into a lot of of social interactions because those are the calm before the storm, before you throw the kitchen sink at us when we get to combat. And that's no fault of yours. That's not a complaint like you were saying about the Admiral ah or anything else.
00:19:05
Speaker
That's not a complaint. It's just the nature of cyberpunk. Yeah, it's very much true. there's There's no real peace. There's just silence before you get into the next gunfight.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yes. And so I just like to think the big thing about cyberpunk is, especially in the book, it says it's not a linear campaign in a sense. You can make linear campaigns through it, but it's basically a sandbox survival game.
00:19:33
Speaker
Only instead of in a jungle, you're in an urban city just trying to pay rent. So you got to think of the people you'll encounter. It'd be people offering you jobs. It could just be innocent bystanders. It could be your neighbor, your chill neighbor next door. It could be the crazy homeless guy who eats hot dogs and stares at you.
00:19:49
Speaker
It's just like, what do you expect in a cyberpunk city? And then, yes, Cyberpunk 2077 really helped me. i would just sometimes just walk around. and see what people were doing in their spare time. It's like, okay, that guy's doing that. They're just sitting over there.
00:20:04
Speaker
This story was pretty nice. Oh, there's the flaming crotch guy. It's like, what do you expect to see re see in a dystopian cyberpunk setting? Then I just run run with it.
00:20:15
Speaker
I try to give, like I said, I give my NPCs personalities, especially the fixers who the crew deals with. There's Marcos who's more like chill, gives you the jobs, let you handle it while Well, their new picture that they met Callista is going to be more suave and ethereal and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
00:20:37
Speaker
And I need you to do this. But she's also down to earth that she's in a small community. That's going to be fleshed out later as she'll get jobs. But she's also a layer of trust. You got to get to her before she starts opening up.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yep. Yep. And i I do kind of the same thing with with Walking Dead, although with with Walking Dead, it's hard for me to come up with those decision and dialogue trees because it has ended up being so much a sandbox.
00:21:09
Speaker
Very, very true. And I've found that you silently giving us permission to play just regular NPCs just out in the wild has also helped as well because we just We just make up our own personalities and the conversation just flows.
00:21:26
Speaker
And then I take notes. It's like, okay, I liked this NPC and this is their personality. Okay. Let me file them away for later.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah. Just another thing is you're making this story as a group. So by all means, let your players give your NPCs personalities and you're just like, ah done. Perfect. Now I know what that, how that person acts and what they would say in a situation.
00:21:52
Speaker
And my my Star Wars Rebel Yell campaign, the one with the rock band, you've sat in on playing one of the attached NPCs. But 95% of that campaign is social encounters.
Performance Mechanics in RPG
00:22:11
Speaker
It's built around basically social encounters, both small and large.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, because you're a rock band. you're not You may be rebels, but you're not. Rebels. at least not currently they aren't. Yeah, you're just rebels.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah. And the mechanic that I made up for their performances is basically a skill challenge of a series of social checks. Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker
that they have to make. It's it's a series of so of social checks making up a single social encounter that they have to reach X number of total successes before Y number of failed checks.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yes. And that's very effective in what you're going for. And they have to explain what they're doing that contributes to that large social check.
00:23:20
Speaker
So, for instance, Nick is the stagehand and pyrotechnics expert and roadie kind of all rolled into one.
00:23:32
Speaker
And so Nick's character's contributions might not come from social skills. they might They usually come from mechanics checks for setting up the equipment and the pyro.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yes, or how Stephanie's character is the singer, so she's more the charm person while... Well, and i actually, the way I wrote those up, she has options.
00:23:57
Speaker
yeah depend It depends on the type of song that she's performing and what kind of reaction she's trying to elicit from the audience.
00:24:08
Speaker
Is it charm? you know Is it a a happy, peppy song that she's trying to charm the audience onto her side? Or is it a song where she is trying to deceive them into having a particular reaction to the lyrics and the music?
00:24:30
Speaker
Yes. so it it It can even be, you haven't been in a while, so you know how Dan's Amonin bouncer?
00:24:41
Speaker
the Yep, the security guard. Yep. He got up on stage before one of their shows and just started doing ragecore screaming and did it as coercion and but succeeded, succeeded because he got the crowd on his side.
00:25:04
Speaker
So it could be coercion for the singing.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yep. And and that definitely works, especially with some styles of music. And you know Lauren plays the guitar, here Star Wars equivalent of guitar in the band.
Significance of Social Interactions
00:25:24
Speaker
Similar charm, deception, you know what are they trying to evoke by the playing? Yeah, and then Betsy character's the manager, so it could be negotiation, leadership, some type of knowledge skill for organization, like getting everything set up.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yep, and she she runs into having to do a lot of social checks with the other player characters, too. Yes, because that's a thing. It doesn't have to be PC and PC.
00:25:52
Speaker
Some of our best social and encounters have been PC to PC, especially, I'm going to fall back on again, Walking Dead. When my characters and Dante's characters always talk, there's always a semblance of older elder talking to younger PC and they're both butting heads. We also have mutual respect. So there's this back and forth like he has his own, ah his character has his own of my ideals, my character has his own ideals and just gets to a point where it's like, we're trying to
00:26:23
Speaker
Give ourselves that one last line before we walk off dramatically, as we say. Yep. And in situations like that, as a GM, I let the two of you play it out.
00:26:34
Speaker
And then if there comes a point that I think, okay, I want mechanically...
00:26:46
Speaker
for or Let me rephrase that. I want the outcome of this to be based on the mechanics. Yes, the the two of you are role-playing beautifully and you know your characters, but A, so that we can actually get some dice rolling, and yeah and and be there might be an outcome that I see based on the mechanics, whether it's a pass or fail, at which point I'll tell one of you to make a check and make it an opposed check.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yes. And yeah, especially in that case, sometimes like Daryl said, if there's a place where you're like, okay, i do need a roll, that's fine. But other times you can just let it run and the social encounter builds itself and you've got Plenty of stuff you can use down the road.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yep. Now, going back to our old favorite of Star Wars, there are some talents that go along with social skills that are frankly broken.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yes. Intimidating is broken. Scasing tirade was homebrewed fixed. Yes. So part part of what I think is broken, and we've explained this amongst ourselves, but we'll explain it for the audience, is scathing tirade allows the person with that talent to roll a set, and I think it's what, a two difficulty? Yeah, average, two purple.
00:28:22
Speaker
Two purple, two difficulty ah social check. And if they succeed, successes inflict strain upon the targets.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yes, and in Star Wars, when your strain reaches your threshold, you basically pass out. You pass out or you you can't function. Yeah, or you can't function. You're like sitting there like... Now, the problem there is that now the problem there is that It's a set difficulty and it's pretty easy difficulty.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yes. And as the more advanced the the character becomes, the easier it is to overcome that. And the way I always jokingly phrase it is you can take out enemies by peppering with peppering them with your mama jokes.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yes. And like he says in the higher tiers, because usually scathing thyroid is an action, but you can get it to a place where it can be done as a maneuver. And you're allowed two maneuvers a turn.
00:29:25
Speaker
So you could skating Tyree twice. And then i do it as an action. Yes. You could do it three times. And my character, who is a talker with a lot of coercion, it would be like two two bad dice versus like six or seven good dice.
00:29:42
Speaker
Even better when I actually play it out. And if I do really good, Daryl's like, okay, get this many boosts. So it wouldd be like, yeah it could be like seven to 12 dice versus two.
00:29:54
Speaker
Right. so To the point where I knocked out like four like mid-tier antagonists in one go. And so what we have done to homebrew that is if it is being used actively...
00:30:13
Speaker
more or less as a weapon against another character, being that it's a social check rather than that set difficulty, it's an opposed check.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yes, so the difficulty depends on that person's basically mental discipline and fortitude. Yeah. Where some people are going have that two dice, some people are going to have four really bad dice you've got to fight against.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yep, um I want you to try using your scathing... tie we're We're going to bring in Thrawn, and you're going to have to scathing tirade Thrawn. Ooh, that'd be a that's such a challenge.
00:30:49
Speaker
He's got like five red. Something like that, yes. Discipline. Scathing tirade the Emperor. ah I'd be electrocuted.
00:31:04
Speaker
Well, that was that was quite... entertaining. it's like, you know who you're talking to. I invented that.
00:31:14
Speaker
Have you seen my work with mall? ah ah Oh, mall. That was good. um Yes, it was very good. Two episodes. The first two episodes were good. Anyway, back on track. um But yeah, you, you don't want to you want social encounters to be fun. You want social encounters to be engaging.
00:31:38
Speaker
you'd like any other encounter. You don't want them to be lopsided. Exactly. You do not want entirely one sided where either an NPC is talking too much, is talking too much, or you're just hitting a wall. Like you, you're never going to convince this person of anything. Yeah. Or you,
00:31:56
Speaker
in terms of the mechanics, you also don't want it to be too lopsided. You know, if let let's say, you know you're doing just plain old D and D five v you, you want it to be a challenge worth actually rolling for if you're going to make the player roll.
00:32:17
Speaker
And so yeah if it's, if they have to get better than a 3 or 4 or a 5 on their D20 in D&D, the odds are they're going to do it. Yes, it is possible.
00:32:35
Speaker
it is It is statistically possible for them to fail. But odds are they won't. At which point, we cycle back to what Steve and Steve were talking about.
00:32:50
Speaker
If you still want them to roll, that roll isn't to see whether or not they're actually going to succeed. It's going to see how well they succeed and are there other factors in play with their success? Yes.
00:33:04
Speaker
That's why I like how especially like how some citizens would be like, OK, there are simple and everyday tasks like anyone can do it. You don't need a role that can work in social encounters, too. You don't need a role to talk to someone. You don't need a role to buy from a convenience store. You don't need a role.
00:33:20
Speaker
to tell the the high guard in the bathroom to just pass out. You don't need to do any of that. Yeah. Now, I like this convenience store example because it's it kind of you know puts me in the mind of the entire difficulty system for what Nick and I were talking about last time, which is Star Trek Adventures.
00:33:47
Speaker
The difficulty ranges from zero to five. on any tasks. And a zero is like what you were just saying. It's a task that you don't need to roll. It's an action that you don't need to roll for. It's buying a candy bar from the guy at the convenience store.
00:34:06
Speaker
Now, that can become an actual check If you're trying to deceive the guy at the convenience store, oh, my my dad's out pumping gas on that pump right out there. He's going to take care of this when he comes in.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah. Or apply him with either another deception or even a charm check. If it's true, it's like, look, I haven't eaten in three days. I i really don't have money, but I'm starving, man. Please just let me have this bar.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, so at that point, and in this case, whether you not you get whether or not you get that candy bar, it's not necessarily going to be a a huge consequence if you pass or fail.
00:34:55
Speaker
But you that's maybe something worth rolling. Yes. And then there are the harder checks where you're like trying to convince, say, you were...
00:35:06
Speaker
You were speeding. Now you've got to convince a police officer to let you off with a warning and not a ticket. Or worse, you need to get this done because you don't want him to know what you have in the ha the trunk.
00:35:18
Speaker
So you don't want to raise any suspicions. Right. At that point, you lay you roll over to your charm Because I don't want to give him any reason to think that there's anything going on.
00:35:34
Speaker
i want I want him to, you know what, he's going to give me a ticket. I'm in a stolen car with a body in the trunk anyway. I don't want him to look too closely.
00:35:46
Speaker
Give me the ticket. Yes, I'm going to be the model citizen, let him do his job. Hands on. 3 and 3 and not, 10 and 2, and just like, yep, yep, officer. Yes, sir. Not doing anything. You have a great day, sir. I'm so happy you caught me.
00:36:05
Speaker
And you know in that case, your ID is probably fake anyway. So you you want it you want him to go along, go on about his business so that you can get out of there.
00:36:19
Speaker
Now, something we touched on at the beginning. that I think is really important for us to talk about is those players who are introverted or socially awkward who are playing talky or face characters because
Supporting Introverted Players
00:36:37
Speaker
that's not them. And so they want to to kind of role play that. They want to live that fantasy since it's not them.
00:36:46
Speaker
yeah Just like, you know, none of us are, you know, smugglers in outer space or barbarians or what. So we're playing characters that we're not in real life. suave con men that can get you to do anything.
00:36:59
Speaker
Exactly. So the first thing that I try to keep in mind is I know that those players exist because there are times that I am that player. Right.
00:37:11
Speaker
There are definitely times that I am that player. So you don't want to penalize them if they can't come up with a great speech or interaction on the spot.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, don't be like and like ah a GM that's like, okay, you're trying to convince him. Convince me. Right. Now, I will i will say, you know, from time to time, if we hit something that's social encounter, I'll be like, okay, what's your pitch?
00:37:42
Speaker
You know, still me on it. Yeah, and I'll be like, okay, how do you do this? Because if they say I say I charm him or I try to deceive him, I'll say, okay, what what do you say? Because i I'm one of those like, don't just say you're going to do it and roll. It's like, no, no, no, tell me what you're going to do.
00:37:59
Speaker
That can help me both decide. the difficulty for it, but also it's not just I convince him I got a 20. It's like, OK, but what are you convincing him to do?
00:38:10
Speaker
Right. Now, I've been in spots as a player where you I am just low ebb mentally yeah that that session.
00:38:22
Speaker
And I i think it it's been in in one or two of your games once or twice that I have just said, Robert, my battery is low today.
00:38:34
Speaker
i can't think of exactly what my character is saying, but this is the approach that I'm taking. I'm going to appeal to their sense of honor and duty. I'm going to approach it from a case from the angle of, well, I am here to do this and I need you to let me through so that I can, because it's what I am supposed to do. And then I'm going to appeal to their conscience by saying, if you don't let me, this horrible thing is going to happen or something like that. Yes. And I'll be like, can okay. And then I'm like, okay, how what does the embassy like? Is he, is he an actual like honorable person? He's just trying to do his job or is he like,
00:39:20
Speaker
a black hearted jerk who just is in it from the money that can determine how difficult it's going to be. But I don't be like, no, Daryl, have to actually talk to him. But I'm like, OK, you're describing what you want to do, how it's go how you're trying to affect him. And that as a GM is like, OK, I've got a difficulty in mind. Roll.
00:39:37
Speaker
Yep. And then then I roll. So that you don't want to penalize them when when they can't do that. Hell, there are times when we're recording this podcast that I suddenly just lock up and I'm like, I don't know what to say. so Me too. so it it happens. And it it doesn't even have to be that introverted or socially awkward player. It could be an extrovert who is a social butterfly, who just the situation...
00:40:10
Speaker
That you as the GM have put in front of them. they I have no real frame of reference for this. I don't know what i What this character would say.
00:40:22
Speaker
in this instance. You've caught me off guard. I tell him a joke. Yeah. So. let them give you a description of the approach that they're trying to take, how they, they want to approach it and go from there. Don't make them come up with a whole, you know, Aaron Sorkin level bit of dialogue. Yeah. that Like you said, we're not, we're not part of an improv club that we're going be great on. Well, we improv.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah. Which means a also it never hurts as a GM to say, okay, Okay, gang, and we're going to have this session next week. I'm going to tell you it's going to favor heavily on the social side. So if you can think on how your characters may act in this situation, that'd be great to give you a frame of mind.
00:41:13
Speaker
Yep. Let them know that there's going to be a social encounter. Encourage them to maybe come up with something ahead of time. Don't punish them still, though, if they can't or don't. Yes, because even setting the scene can tell them maybe something they can do besides talking. Like, you're going to gala.
00:41:30
Speaker
a very high, peppy, noble gala. So you've got to dress up, but there's going to be plenty of rich food, a lot of rich people that if you're the talker, you can try and con, or if you're a thief, you can just start going around and pickpocketing, maybe you're there to make alliances or just protect someone, so you're just scanning the room.
00:41:50
Speaker
That's still a social encounter, but like Daryl does in his Rebel Yell game, it's just you can find other things to do that doesn't involve you talking to someone. Well, and the other thing, too, is that if it's a large event like that, then one of the things that that could occur is that the the game may be heavy on shenanigans, kind of like our Jewel of Yavin mini campaign. that Like our Every campaign? Well, yeah, but we in Nick's Jewel of Yavin mini campaign for Star Wars when he ran that, we did end up at a a fancy party. We were at an auction and i was basically Bugs Bunny. Yeah, I was just an adrenaline junkie for going fast in cars.
00:42:51
Speaker
I but I mean, I was practically literally Bugs Bunny. I was Jackson the green humanoid rabbit that George Lucas hates from the early Marvel Star Wars comics. And I leaned into the Bugs Bunny of it all. And at that party, i dressed in clothes like Lando's.
00:43:12
Speaker
And I tied a picture of Lando's face over my face. And I walked around doing a bad Billy Dee Williams impression, but I rolled deception.
00:43:24
Speaker
And it worked. And it worked. So I just got to have fun walking around doing a bad Lando impression as Jackson.
00:43:37
Speaker
And everyone at the gala thought I was Lando. Yes, or my character, who's an Ewok, who I've labeled the adrenaline junkie, so he wants to get the fastest to A to B, even if it's just for a goal. It's like, hey, we need people to bet high.
00:43:55
Speaker
who has a lot of money, oh, that guy. But I know that guy doesn't like that guy, and he also likes this other person who doesn't like that guy. So my character, while I'm thinking of what to do to convince him, I just literally go up, steal the other guy's data pad, give it to the other guy, and be like, yo you, you bid.
00:44:12
Speaker
he's like, oh, yeah, yeah. but And then my character's fun, he's like, oh, yeah. Because my character's like, okay, you need him to bid? Okay, I'll give him what he needs to bid, and then you just do it. but Why are we wasting time?
00:44:23
Speaker
Yep. And one of the things that I have found through our group is that when you do make it a good, safe space for the people who aren't used to being social like that to go ahead and play that character, hey it if you see the wheels turning, don't stop them, don't rush them.
00:44:52
Speaker
Let the wheels turn. Let them come up with what they're going to say if they're actually trying to come up with what they're going to say. Let the wheels turn. Yes.
00:45:04
Speaker
Like you said, going back to Skating Tirade, when my character did it the first time, I was like, I've never done ah like a diss like this before. So I was just thinking, like okay, maybe this or this. And then when I finished, you were all like, wow.
00:45:20
Speaker
That was good. Yes. Yes, your your scathing tirades for your character are legendary. and That was entirely like, oh, what am I saying? I don't know, this sounds right. So maybe I'll try this.
00:45:35
Speaker
And so I'm not going to penalize anybody if they are if they're actually trying to do it. I'm not going to rush them because that is going to short-circuit them. Yes.
00:45:47
Speaker
And I'm also, if if they try... And they ultimately say, you know what? I'm sorry. I i can't come up with anything. I'm sorry. Totally fine. Totally fine. What are you trying to do?
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah. What are you trying to do? And then they'll tell us, they'll tell me it's like, okay, great. That's going to be, that's going to be more a negotiation than a charm or a deception. So let's roll your negotiation. Now, since it is against another player or another character, an NPC, rather than a set difficulty, this is going to be an opposed check. And here's what your difficulty is.
00:46:26
Speaker
Yeah. And that can work just as well. Basically. engineering social encounters, but also realizing social encounters, not just people just having eloquent conversations.
00:46:38
Speaker
It's a different totally different facet where someone may be talking, someone may be doing something behind the scenes, but it all adds to the result of the social encounter. And doesn't have to be Shakespearean. It can just be, i am trying to do this, basically just describe, and third person what you care is going to do. That can still work for us.
00:46:58
Speaker
The only thing that doesn't work for us if you just say I'm doing this, and you roll, and I'm just like... I'm going to deceive them. I'm going to deceive them. My deception is this, and I'm going to roll now.
00:47:14
Speaker
Here's my result. I succeeded.
00:47:19
Speaker
What do I do with that? i can just say, great, you deceived them, and... um You deceive them. They now think that you really do have a stick of gum to give them when you don't.
00:47:34
Speaker
Yes, it's like, you don't give me anything to work with. I don't really have anything to work with you. It's like, okay, you deceive them that, I don't know, that that door to the right is not oiled well, so it creaks when you open it.
00:47:50
Speaker
And where I was starting to go with talking about our group, too, before I kind of sidetracked myself, is that I've seen that players who may start off uncomfortable with being the social type character, if they find that character that really clicks with them, and as the group, you are welcoming and enabling of them becoming that social character, then as that campaign goes on, they're going to come out of that shell a little bit because you've all shown that you are welcoming
00:48:35
Speaker
this change, this growth, this experimentation with the character. Yeah, and I've i've seen that. Best I like to think of is Lawrence and Jewel of Yavin with Nelly the Exploding Hamster, basically, to where it worked so well.
00:48:50
Speaker
He brought another Wendition into another campaign because he liked it so much. Yep. And is just having is having fun basically playing a cartoon character in D&D.
Playing Against Type
00:49:03
Speaker
Yes. Well, I haven't really, myself and Julia, upn I haven't really done kind of like a speedster, just very kind of like simple childlike person before. So I just made truck truck was like, OK, we're going to try this. And then everyone loved them.
00:49:18
Speaker
And like I said, I just I channeled my inner Bugs Bunny to play Jackson. ah Kind of a Jackson with a Roger Rabbit in certain situations, too. Kind of, kind of.
00:49:33
Speaker
And it it was just a lot of fun. Although probably the character that I have had the most fun playing in any of our games is still, and you weren't in this campaign, but I know that you've heard about it, but the Age of Rebellion Special Missions Group campaign where I was a spy.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yes, you're many times of using the signature ability. Well, not not even just the signature ability, but the the spy was a genuine triple agent. and you know Okay, not going lie.
00:50:15
Speaker
I said that i I borrow characters from other media to get inspiration, although the character was cast as Tom Hiddleston.
00:50:29
Speaker
when i when I cast him, the inspiration for the character is, have you ever seen Atomic Blonde?
00:50:38
Speaker
Charlize Theron. A long time ago. It's been a hot minute. So the inspiration for the character was Charlize Theron's character in Atomic Blonde, which um you...
00:50:55
Speaker
i I want to give a spoiler alert for everyone listening for a movie that has been out for probably close to 10 years, if not more so. Spoilers.
00:51:17
Speaker
But spoiler alert, you've been duly warned while I rambled a spoiler alert. She's a triple agent. In the movie, we're introduced to her as MI6 agent.
00:51:34
Speaker
Near the end of the movie, it's revealed that she, and this is all taking place during the, it the story takes place literally at the time that the Berlin Wall comes down.
00:51:48
Speaker
So we're introduced to her as MI6 agent being debriefed about the mission.
00:51:58
Speaker
And part of the mission is there's a double agent in Berlin that has gotten a hold of, or in Berlin, there is a list of all of the undercover agents for every agency out there.
00:52:17
Speaker
And she has to get it before a double agent gets it. Well then, near the end of the movie, she then meets with the Russian agency that we've seen members of throughout the movie, and we're told that she's the double agent.
00:52:43
Speaker
And the the KGB then proceeds to, you know, look, we need to tie up loose ends, so they're going to eliminate her. She takes out the agents that are in the room,
00:52:54
Speaker
and then heads to an airport and gets on a plane with the CIA director that was in her debriefing at MI6. And we find out that she's really a CIA agent who was undercover in both MI6 and the KGB.
00:53:17
Speaker
Yeah. I'm an agent sort of an agent of an agent. So my character was a triple agent like that, really worked for rebel intelligence, but was a genuine member of Imperial intelligence as part of his cover. And the Empire sent him into the hut cartels as part of his cover.
00:53:45
Speaker
So The Huck cartel end got jettisoned pretty quickly, but I was still doing double agent stuff. And a lot of the things that I did sprung out of the role play of that, of the social aspect of it.
00:54:04
Speaker
We were, Nick ran one session that was basically inspired by Apocalypse Now. And this small village is about to be attacked by the Empire, but Colonel Kurtz effectively wasn't going to do anything to fight them off.
00:54:26
Speaker
He's going to let them come in and just get our group.
00:54:31
Speaker
At which point I sidled up and used my social skills to convince him to have his people fight ah help us fight off the Empire.
00:54:45
Speaker
He did. While the battle's going on, I sidled back up to him, put my arm around him, and i was like, I knew that you would make the right choice. And then I cut his throat.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yes. Remember that story. And everybody else in the group is like, what? I was like, I hate to, know, trot out a trope, but it's what my character would do.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yes. And I introduced him by saying he does wet work with no qualms. So, you know, I...
00:55:26
Speaker
If ever something like this is going to derail things, I trust Nick to rein me in and make me do things as a check where there is a possibility of failure.
00:55:39
Speaker
Yes, or...
00:55:43
Speaker
i thought Oh, yes, I remember. And just also loving to play a character. i remember when we were still doing the now-in-a-hiatus Galaxy Edge campaign,
00:55:55
Speaker
that the character I made, i went into a different direction. Because I mostly play either like... I play mostly good characters. But in this time I was like, no, I want to play ah like a i bad character, like a genuinely evil character.
00:56:10
Speaker
So I made up this woman named Zelra. And I was like, okay, what do I want her personality to be? So I did a mixture of parts of the Joker, specifically Mark Hamill's performance, and...
00:56:24
Speaker
You'll know this because of your because of the boy, but Tyrion Kalos from the Ruby show, basically, they're basic chaos incarnate.
00:56:36
Speaker
They love violence and chaos and destruction because it just basically makes them feel good. But I want her, I want that love for chaos that Tyrion had, but a more com composed, can still can still have social encounters,
00:56:52
Speaker
like the Joker can, but you know, you say one bad thing, she may just pull out a gun or a lightsaber and just cut you in half. And just because you're like, yeah, you're boring now. And so I made her like that, even to where she has like a cis spirit in her head and giving her like schizophrenia, basically she has a broken mind. And through the campaign, I just played her like that. She was always happy and bubbly, but she'd be like, okay, I stabbed this guy with manticore venom.
00:57:19
Speaker
And they and't remember what I remember when I did that, it like, Oh, it's like, oh, you see this guy you do this and convulse and that is like, oh, they did it. They went that way.
00:57:31
Speaker
Or when Nick's like, yeah, we're looking for a seed of rage. And I'm like, oh really? and my character's like, you are, are you? You are, are you? I could do a lot with that.
00:57:45
Speaker
Well, and that's the thing that I liked about that. That's why that spy is one of my favorite characters still. It was so against type for the kind of characters that I typically play.
00:57:56
Speaker
You totally agree with that. Like Star Wars, I'm 95% of the time i am a staunch good guy every so often.
00:58:08
Speaker
knew i Probably about half of that time, it's a Jedi adjacent character or at the very least it it's a good guy that this person was very much ah another bit of inspiration that I took for the character was the operative for so from Serenity where he's like I'm fighting to make a world to make a galaxy a better place that there's no place for me in
00:58:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's basically I want a world where monsters like I am don't exist. Yeah. You there is no place for me in this better galaxy that I'm trying to make. And I'm fine with that.
00:58:54
Speaker
And so all of the horrible things that I do are worth it so that people like me don't exist. Yes. Or I like to play myself. I also like to play good characters, want to help people.
00:59:06
Speaker
Even when we're playing more like we're criminals, I still be like, yeah, I'll steal and cheat and con, but i'm not a I'm not a jerk. I'm going to be nice to people and try to help my crew or my people or even the orphan on the street that my character adopted.
00:59:24
Speaker
But no, I just want a few i want to know what it's like playing a character who's just know purely selfish. I am out there for my own needs. I'm out there for my own gains. I'm going to do what makes me feel good. I don't care what happens to anybody else.
00:59:39
Speaker
Yep, definitely. And to an extent, too, a way to work with social encounters, it's kind of hinted at in the title of the episode.
00:59:49
Speaker
And all of us at work these days get some kind of training on people trying to social engineer us. Oh, yes. i'm in ah I'm in a job where I literally talk to people on the phone.
01:00:02
Speaker
Psychology and word choice and all of that is integral to what I do. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean, the on the occasions now that I interact with our customers, they're escalated. So it it has a negative connotation. But if you think I'm not choosing my words and phrasing and approach in a way to socially engineer them, then che you're crazy.
01:00:32
Speaker
Because or I'm trying to de-escalate them and get the solution that I'm supposed to abide by in the first place and that our employees are supposed to abide by in the first place that has the customer escalated to begin with.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yes. Or when I play like criminal manipulative characters who like, who can talk the way around, ive found that when my company does their annual like fraud or identity theft training, where they talk about,
01:01:04
Speaker
Social engineering causes most of the breaches. i take inspiration from that in a good way. I'm not tricking anybody, but in a good way because, OK, so that's how it's done in real life. Well, let me engineer it for when I'm playing my character who's conning or trying to convince people to do what he wants.
01:01:24
Speaker
And I found that it works at times. Yep. let Let me tweak this to fit the setting of the game that I'm running. Or that I'm playing, if I'm playing a character that does that kind of thing.
01:01:37
Speaker
Yes. Or or like you like you say, find an actor or a scene of a movie or show you like and just dig into it, dissect it, and use it towards how you're acting your character.
01:01:54
Speaker
Yep. And it's like Nick tried multiple times to get a a particular Star Wars campaign off the ground that I was a, I was Star-Lord.
01:02:11
Speaker
There are no two ways about it. I was Star-Lord. But who was Groot? Xander. i can see it. he he was He was an IG assassin droid, but it was basically our Groot.
01:02:29
Speaker
I could see that, it especially even though this might have happened when you guys were playing this, bit specifically if he was teenage Groot. Like, am Groot. playing his little game. yeah he was He was more first movie.
01:02:42
Speaker
Yeah. and And Stephanie was also an Ewok like you were in Jewel of Yavin, but she was an Ewok slicer.
01:02:53
Speaker
Her Ewok slicer couldn't, so could understand basic, but couldn't speak it. So had a data pad with sound clips loaded up, basically had a soundboard and that's how he communicated.
01:03:08
Speaker
But he was a good slicer. it's like Yeah, I can't speak your language, but I can speak that computer's language. Yep, pretty much. Pretty much. so and And the thing is, once...
01:03:24
Speaker
when When Nick finally got the campaign going and it still ended up petering out, we were having trouble getting getting a real feel for the campaign. We we were kind of struggling.
01:03:39
Speaker
And then there was one session where just the way everything lined up, we fell into that Guardians of the Galaxy mold.
01:03:50
Speaker
And we're like, oh, this is it. this is This is how it works. These are how these characters work. And so it did. And that that was less a social, although I used the social aspect of the character as much as I used the shooting aspect of the character. Because he he he was Star-Lord, legendary outlaw.
01:04:19
Speaker
He's like, oh, come on, man. Oh, man. But yeah, that there's a lot of things that you can do with social encounters to make them more than just
Storytelling Over Dice Rolls
01:04:30
Speaker
rolling dice. If all they are is rolling dice, I find that bores me to tears.
01:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, why aren't you just, don't know, playing a video game then? Yeah, you get you get the same thing. at least you get cut scenes where you don't have to do anything. Right. So I think we've touched on most of most of our thoughts on making social encounters like that. Was there anything that you wanted to?
01:04:56
Speaker
I've had one more because this is something just thought about. it like We talked about engineering social encounters, but how about dealing with one suddenly pops up? Because I know in Star Wars, with the with the charmer, their diplomatic tree, there's a signature ability.
01:05:13
Speaker
where you can turn an actual combat encounter into a social encounter. hasn't I don't believe it's happened yet in our groups, but there can be a time where you can use that signal ability to turn combat into so into a social encounter.
01:05:27
Speaker
So I was wondering, we've talked about planning it or kind of setting up, what do we do when it's just like sudden the player's like, wait, I wanna do this and I wanna talk it out.
01:05:37
Speaker
you're just like, that's not how I planned this going. But give me your best shot. So for me, that would be where the movie nerd in me would come out and I would immediately start diving into my internal movie library.
01:05:58
Speaker
When has something similar to this happened in a movie or a TV show? ah Or even if a situation exactly like this or super close to this hasn't happened in something that I can think of,
01:06:13
Speaker
that's where casting my NPCs or my PC comes in. like, okay, how would they approach this? How would Khan, going back to our Far Orbit project and that Vice Admiral?
01:06:29
Speaker
Because I'm sure at this point, your character has the signature ability that you're talking about, doesn't he? I think I went with a different one, but I thought about getting it before.
01:06:41
Speaker
So... yeah your a situation actually like actually happened when we did the Rebel Yell forward crossover and the Admiral came to kind of like try and arrest us.
01:06:51
Speaker
I don't know if it was... think it was with Dante's character that did one of your spy things and said, hey, something worse is happening over there. You should go get it. Yep. Yep.
01:07:03
Speaker
Now, if your character had that... that signature ability that you were talking about that turns combat into a social encounter. As co-GM of that campaign, what I would probably do at that point, if I couldn't think of a specific scenario where I've seen it happen, I would go back to okay, this Admiral is Khan.
01:07:30
Speaker
So how would Khan approach it? Now, Khan might take that as a challenge. Because Khan is you believes that he has, it's rather than your character, we're talking about Captain Kirk here.
01:07:47
Speaker
Khan thinks that he is superior to Kirk in every way, including in intellect. So Khan would take this as a challenge. Like, okay, let me outsmart Kirk. Let me outtalk Kirk.
01:08:04
Speaker
And at that point, we would just riff until such time as, okay, we've riffed back and forth. We have established through that riffing boosts and setbacks.
01:08:19
Speaker
Now let's let's get the dice pool. Who's going to roll? and I always defer to having the players roll. So the Admiral's di or discipline is the difficulty.
01:08:36
Speaker
based on your approach that you've had in the conversation, here is the skill that you are going to use, charm, deception, negotiation, whatever it is.
01:08:48
Speaker
And here's your difficulty. You're going to take this many boosts because of the argument that you took, the approach that you took, and you're going to get this many setbacks because of these factors on the part of the Admiral.
01:09:04
Speaker
But let's let's play a little tennis back and forth as much as we can to determine what those are going to be. And then the outcome is going to be based on the role.
01:09:17
Speaker
And in in a case like that, I would say that a failure would be a failure. Yes. It's like failure. Well, we tried.
01:09:29
Speaker
Or like Hans said, boring conversation anyway. Yes. Luke, we're going to have company. But yeah, there's there's something to be said there. And if you know your character as a player really well,
Growing in Social Roles
01:09:43
Speaker
and if you have a decent grasp on the NPC as the GM, then even those sudden pop-up social encounters like that should should be pretty fun.
01:09:54
Speaker
Unless everyone is having a brain lock day. Yes. And it can even make a comedic moment where They start talking and the other goons like, but what is happening right now?
01:10:06
Speaker
thought we were going to kill them. Yeah. yeah And you can have that be the reaction of the underlings that are around. Boss, you wanted us to kill them and now you're just trying to talk them to death?
01:10:20
Speaker
What's up with that? He is not getting the last word on me. He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him. Yeah. bars that could just shoot them well I mean du at that point it becomes the RPG social encounter version of the movie cliche where 10 ninjas are attacking one person and they attack one at a time yeah but no that that was a that was a good good addition there what what else do you have if anything
01:11:00
Speaker
yeah kind of the inverse and kind of a failure type of thing. When does a social encounter get acceptable to be like, okay, now you're in combat?
01:11:13
Speaker
um I would say that kind of falls on what I said about the end of that social encounter that suddenly pops up.
01:11:24
Speaker
um If you have a social encounter going on that there is a genuine consequence of failure. ah Failing the the encounter isn't going to put the game in a logjam.
01:11:42
Speaker
Or even if they were meant to succeed with this social encounter, again, another one can come up. to get them in the direction that they want to go. If it's going to be narratively interesting for failure in that social check, when you finally say, okay, now it's time to roll dice.
01:12:04
Speaker
If it's a failure, that's when it turns into combat. Fair, fair.
Closing Remarks and Nick's Squirrel Issue
01:12:10
Speaker
And then, right. I think that was all I wanted to talk about in addition. Anything you got? Yep.
01:12:17
Speaker
No, no, I think we got it all. And we're we're not going to be picking on Nick tonight because Nick's not here. We just wish him the best of luck in getting the squirrel out of the house.
01:12:29
Speaker
Yes, he did say he was going to get his traps and he's probably setting that up. He's at least said he's got the squirrel trapped somewhere to where it cannot get out. But now he's just had to set up the traps and hopefully he has enough peanut butter to lure it in. Hopefully so.
01:12:45
Speaker
So we will just skip right to the point of the show where I say, check out our website at howwerollgaming.com. And there you'll find information about our current campaigns, the podcast archive, and links to our merch store and all of our social media accounts. yess Yes. You can also directly support the show through our Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash howwerollgaming.com. And you'll see our different membership tiers starting at just $2 a month with special recognition on our Discord server and higher tiers giving you on-air credit and discounts on our merch store.
01:13:21
Speaker
And finally, if you have any questions you'd like us to answer, topics you'd like us to cover, or even submit your own RPG Glory story, shoot us an email at podcast at howwerollgaming.com.
01:13:34
Speaker
Yes, sirree. That's the end of the episode. That's the end of the episode. So we hope to see you again next time. Until then, as always, I'm Daryl. And I'm Robert.
01:13:46
Speaker
And this is how we roll.
01:13:51
Speaker
This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2026, How We Roll Gaming, LLC. All games and associated intellectual properties are copyrighted their respective owners, and How We Roll Gaming makes no claim of ownership by discussing them here.