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Enhancing Your NPCs
18 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of Tabletop Tune Up, Mark and Ben dive into the world of NPCs and how to make them memorable in your RPG sessions. From serving the story and building the world to helping manage time and providing fun moments, NPCs are essential tools for GMs. Learn how to give each NPC clear motivations and how to craft personalities that play against typical archetypes. Discover the power of visuals and quirky details to help your players connect with NPCs, and get tips for expanding the role of memorable characters who might steal the spotlight. We’ll also discuss common pitfalls, like overloading players with information or overshadowing their characters. Tune in for advice on how to create NPCs that resonate with your players and add depth to your game!
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Transcript
Heroic Sacrifice Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
I'll go in. I've created distraction. I got this. I'm okay. I might be able to hold him back, long enough for the aliens to escape. It's suicide. I'm still glorified extra, Fred. I'm a dead man anyway. If I'm gonna die, I'd rather go out of here without a calorie. Guy. Guy. Maybe you're the plucky comic relief. Did you ever think about that? Plucky? Oh, sides. Just sides.
Admiration for Galaxy Quest and Guy as NPC
00:00:52
Speaker
One of my favorite movies ever is Galaxy Quest. What a great quote. And I loved Rockwell in it. Sam Rockwell. Guy is a memorable NPC, is he not? he is I don't have a last name. He just he just personifies the that that the plight of the NPC. yeah just you He's been on that show for years, never gotten his love. and The red shirt.
00:01:18
Speaker
oh Hey you guys, we're back for another episode.
Improving and Impact of NPCs in Games
00:01:22
Speaker
We're gonna talk about enhancing your NPCs. Yeah, like like Sam Rockwell needs any more enhancing. Sam Rockwell is like the perfect NPC. He's the guy that if you were on your best day as a GM, you would invent that guy and plan. Oh my God. Anyway, that i'm just I'm excited to talk about this this week. So where where do we even begin with this, Ben? like ah we We talk about NPCs. you know We run games. We have NPCs. And i got I'm going to be honest with you, Ben. NPCs is a part that I struggle with.
00:01:54
Speaker
it's not It's not my strong suit. It can be a challenge for people. I like your NPCs. I feel like, ah you know, when I meet most of them, you know, we kind of figure out who they are pretty quick. But I do think it's a continuum. I think that, you know, you have some NPCs are really well developed and some NPCs, you're just kind of transactionally there. right I don't need to know who the stable boy is when I'm leaving my horse there for the night, unless that's significant somehow.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, and like I never really know which ones are going to take off, and we're we're going to talk about that, like how you don't get to choose which NPC is people. like If only that was the case, but you what you can do is do your best to make the memorable, which is important because players need to retain the information of the week before or what things that happened, and your NPCs are a big part of that, so you got to make the memorable.
00:02:45
Speaker
We're going to talk about a lot of different ways that NPCs can be really helpful and valuable to you in your games. So maybe the first thing to do, though, is to just start talking about what exactly is the purpose of NPCs?
Role and Importance of NPCs in Storytelling
00:02:55
Speaker
Why do we have NPCs in the game? And in a certain sense, like I get that worlds have people in them and that's fine, right? But the reason why you might want to spend a little extra time and flesh these characters out rather than having them just be you know little transactional nodes where you can buy or sell something or get a piece of critical information that never really comes to life. It's just like, oh yeah, you got that from that guy. There's so much that you can do with great NPCs when you invest in them. So let's talk about a few of those things, Mark. What are some ways that having a particular NPC serves us?
00:03:26
Speaker
they can push the story forward. you know Maybe they could give little bits of information or just give some flavor to the story. If you've got something that's like some sort of dark fantasy or or something where the place is you know filled with plague, ah you know these NPCs can really kind of push that narrative and and let the players know what the stakes are, who's involved.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of ways they can do that, right? They can do that because maybe some NPCs are suffering unjustly, and that's how you build up the villainy, or maybe there's an informant down by the docks, Jimmy the Shoe, and you gotta go get him to give you some critical piece of info. Or you could have an established NPC that the players have grown to enjoy who now has contracted this plague or something. It really ups the stakes of your story to to have these characters involved.
00:04:13
Speaker
NPCs are also the characters that your player characters will have important relationships with. The guide, the mentor, the family member, the person who did that character wrong and they're seeking vengeance against. Obviously, all of our villains are NPCs. Essentially, yeah. You know, in a certain sense, we've already covered villains, but this is kind of the superset or the kind of the parent concept that includes not just the bad guys, but also everybody else.
00:04:38
Speaker
And we're putting all these these ah characters that we've kind of developed into a world. And that's one thing we're going to want to do is build that world. And you're going to want to fill it with, you know, interesting people. It can certainly tell you a lot about the world by the way that people in it behave, how they inhabit that world, what kind of expectations they have about the world tells your players what to expect about the world.
NPCs in Character Relationships and Game Dynamics
00:04:59
Speaker
Let's cover something that's kind of a funny thing about NPCs. I use sometimes as GM is I use them to manage time. Yeah.
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, there are, there are sessions that maybe you're not ready to get into a combat that's going to take too long and you need to kill a little bit of time. Well, Hey, maybe it's time for that wacky NPC. And also, I mean, that's a good way of kind of moderating or managing the energy, if you will, of the session, right? You come out of a big, heavy moment, a combat or some other kind of encounter.
00:05:29
Speaker
Well, then it might be nice to have a little conversation with an NPC or to use that NPC to kind of lighten the mood, or for even going the other way, you could use an NPC to build tension. Don't go in that room, said the NPC. Well, no, of course you're going to go in that room, but now you're a little more concerned about it.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that you can certainly have a cliffhanger in your session with an NPC dropping a bit of information that is just a truth bomb to the group. So NPCs can be used in the story. It can be used you know for the characters to serve those characters. You're using it to craft into your world. You're doing all these things. And then on the GM side, you're kind of using it to manage time maybe a little bit, and maybe raise expectations. But you know what? All this is to have fun.
00:06:13
Speaker
These are the characters you guys at GM get to play. And so what's kind of fun is you don't have to just sit with one kind of character that you're gonna play over a long progression of adventures. You can play a new character every week and you can have a lot of fun with that. So if you're a little bit restless like I am and you sort of constantly want a new mouthpiece, this is a great opportunity for you. It's a great part of the GM's task. So, okay, we're gonna have all these different purposes that our NPCs can serve. And and in order to serve those purposes,
00:06:42
Speaker
we've got to invest something in our NPCs. We've got to actually think through how to make them memorable. We've got to think through how to kind of build them into the kind of NPCs that can support those purposes. So Mark, let's talk a little bit about what do you mean by an NPC being memorable and tell me about why that's important.
00:06:58
Speaker
As I kind of stated in the beginning a little bit, I touched on anyway, we maybe play once a week if we're lucky. Having to remember details of the story, the adventure, those details are hard sometimes for players to to just kind of grab into their head. But if it's delivered through a memorable NPC, they're going to remember that NPC.
00:07:20
Speaker
they're going to remember those little details of of information. It's just going to help. Everything's about helping retention, push that story. Yeah. And retention. So NPCs are great for that. You know, if you got a good NPC, they're going to remember that. Yeah. I read somewhere that we tend to remember better with stories than we do with just sort of bullet item facts. And yeah, an NPC is either telling a story or as part of a story that then you remember a lot better.
00:07:45
Speaker
You know, when I worked retail, they would always say that you don't remember a lot of the day to day people that come through, but you always remember the ones that, you know, yelled at you or, or treated you badly. So in a sense, those Karen's out there that, you know, give you the biz, they're memorable. And in a game, memorable is gold. Well, okay. So let's think about how to make our NPCs memorable so that they can do those different
Creating Memorable NPCs
00:08:10
Speaker
purposes. We talked about, where do we want to start here? What is the first thing we should be thinking about?
00:08:14
Speaker
We gotta start, like with any NPC, any e villain, any character, really, what's their motivation? They need to have their own goals, they need to have their own dreams and ambitions, you know? Are they gonna be the greatest shopkeeper in the land, or they just try to put some food on the table? why I mean, what is their goal? It's true enough for the player characters, and it's gotta be true for the non-player characters as well.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I like your point that they don't have to be especially lofty goals or complex goals. It could just be a look. i'm I'm just trying to build my shop, you know, and and of course they can be complex if you want, right? You could have court intrigues and lots of other things going. on Sure.
00:08:54
Speaker
If you're like playing a sci-fi game and you've landed on some planet and this person's charging you exorbitant prices and you realize, oh, he's in a different faction. He doesn't like you. It tells you a lot about that character. And it also might tell the players about the the region, you know, the planet in which they landed on what this maybe this town's alliances are toward. So these are things that the goals kind of can can do that.
00:09:19
Speaker
One of the things I like that you have here in the notes is is in terms of what is it that's really driving these characters? And I mean, there's in a certain sense, that's almost like saying, well, what's their emotional state or what's their sort of hidden desire or fear, right? Because whatever their goals are, they're serving that. And so this is a little bit of that kind of underneath the surface thing is the reason that person is engaged in court intrigue is because they secretly want power or is it that they're trying to build that shop or that they're trying to charge exorbitant prices, you know those factional goods, because they want people to think they're important. I mean, there could be lots of different things. So I think what's really cool, if you can take a moment when you're building your NPCs and just say, all right, what is this person's like emotional life like? Is this somebody who's at heart a bully, or they're fearful, or something else? And then try to connect that to sort of a very actionable external goal. And I think you're going to have a great start.
00:10:17
Speaker
And I think that leads kind of into the character's personality. This NPC's, what are they like now? Because we kind of know their goals. What's their personality? These could be all sorts of different types of personality. They could be really shy or awkward. um That could be something that could stick out to the players.
00:10:34
Speaker
A memorable character is going to be one who kind of goes beyond what you expect the archetype to be. Not every wizard is eccentric. As a matter of fact, that might be really interesting, right? What if you had a wizard who was very practical and down to earth and seemed like a totally regular guy that you'd have a beer with? Did you go to wizard school? Is this for real? Yeah. That person is going to tell you how they might react in those situations. Maybe combining some of those Yeah, that's great. I mean, I'm the kind that wants to play against type. I think people find characters memorable when they get a little bit of a surprise or when they have something unexpected. And so what if you met a rogue who wasn't greedy? I mean, Robin Hood was kind of a rogue who wasn't greedy and we all know who that is. Yeah. So that's what I'd say is is try playing against type, try creating those character and personality traits that, that maybe people wouldn't expect to be associated with that kind of NPC.
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's all sorts of ways you can go with this. There's a, there was a movie I watched a Western, an older Western called My Name is Trinity. I don't know if you've ever seen that one, Ben. No. The, um, the lead character in that film is the laziest gunslinger in the West. That's fantastic.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah. And he's so lazy. He just, he goes through life and he doesn't look like he takes a bath and his horse just drags him and he puts his hat down and just kind of goes in a direction. It's kind of, it's funny, but like that could be a great NPC. Uh, this great gunslinger who's just the laziest person who plays in this role. Oh man. I, I wouldn't be able to answer that one. I can't remember. Okay. Go go watch it though. It's a fun film. That's great.
00:12:14
Speaker
interesting personalities, play against type. um Let's also talk about what they look like. I mean, this is the thing that that we interact with most in life. You've already named some interesting characteristics on this gunslinger. How do we create characters that are memorable because of their appearance and and their how they're presented to the players?
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, you know, this is an interesting one. You can always do like the classic scar or things like that, but sometimes it's really little things. It could be the the fancy hat they're wearing, like like as if they're going to, you know, the the dog races or horse races or something, you know, something that just kind of sets them apart. It doesn't have to be big, but it's just got to stick in the player's mind just a little bit.
00:12:58
Speaker
You know what you're reminding me of is I'm thinking about the first time we see Ron Weasley get to Hogwarts and Draco comes up to me and he goes, red hair, ginger, hand me down clothes, you must be a Weasley. Oh man, that's brutal. Oh man, he clearly has made an impression. There's a, what a Weasley looks like apparently and that makes Ron memorable to us.
00:13:22
Speaker
True. But it also makes, was it Malfoy? Is that the character's name? It also makes him kind of memorable too, that he's that that guy who, right you know. he's kind of the oh We found the bully.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, ah you know, these are memorable characters, but like, there's not a lot to that. There's nothing really, but just the ginger is enough that will stick in their heads. The players at the table the next week, what they're going to remember is the ginger. Right. and With the hand me down close.
00:13:55
Speaker
Allegedly. Allegedly. Okay, now we're ah crossing over some serious stuff here. Allegedly. Allegedly. Okay. No, but like those little details are the things that we're going to remember sometimes. When it's also what they do, they may have interesting details, right? Like strange habits, you know, the professor that's constantly cleaning his glasses or the model that's constantly kind of twirling her hair. Yeah. What are some other things that would be interesting details that you might add besides odd habits?
00:14:23
Speaker
I remember an NPC I ran a long time ago that was, he was always popping sunflower seeds or something. That was just what he was doing. He was always eating sunflower seeds. And at some point they came across some sort of scene and they found a bunch of sunflower seeds at the scene. So they knew this other NPC was there. So they were able to go find that NPC because they remembered, Oh yeah, that was the guy who was always popping sunflower seeds. That's fantastic.
00:14:51
Speaker
those little details can allow you to tell stories by connecting some of those details. Oh, you know, the person had a fancy hat. right they were see They were here, and you're like, that's Francesca. right right She wears a fancy hat. you know There's neat things you can do with speech. We talked a little bit last week about finding your character's voice. um You know what's a neat example of this? If you go back and read Tad Williams' The Dragonbone Chair, there's a character in there who's, is he a dwarf? Not really. he's some kind of other species. It's a fantasy story. but It's like Danny DeVito. i don't know what he is I'm not really sure. But here's what's cool about it, right? He's always talking in like, I am doing this, you know, we are now walking and to doing the thing and we are thinking, you know, that was the way he would talk. Very distinctive kind of character in that case. Yeah. Think about all the senses too. It could just be that they smell bad. All the things about these, you know, making them memorable is to serve the story is to make the details of your story memorable, but also like they give you avenues to tell a bigger story if, if they're successful, if people like them. So let's talk about like what makes the players like them. Cause that's been, I don't know what the heck makes them like them. Well, this is this is a really kind of important thing, right? Is that when when these things hit with the players, then if you didn't have a lot of detail in these characters and you didn't really know much about them, you're going to need to learn fast because the characters are going on to continue to interact with these non-player characters. And so you're going to want to be ready to thicken up their story and thicken up their stuff. But let's talk about why it is that
00:16:30
Speaker
those players might be interested in these characters.
Avoiding Common NPC Mistakes
00:16:33
Speaker
I think the first thing is I've seen a lot of this happen at tables where the NPC endured or persisted in some moment where you thought, oh, they were toast. Oh, yeah. Or the NPC that keeps hitting or getting dodgy every time an attack comes. Or the one that hit that critical and dropped a dragon that you guys thought was going to be a big deal. You're like, oh my god, that was the NPC.
00:16:56
Speaker
I'll put this out there. He was even less of an NPC. He was just a character on the board. And all of a sudden the players are like, well, he needs a name now. Yeah. Yeah, that happens. Totally a thing. It might be that these things are a hit because you find a couple of details that your characters find especially cool. It might be that they're a hit because maybe not in combat, they do something else that's remarkable.
00:17:20
Speaker
So when when they are a hit, well, let's just assume that you haven't really flushed this NPC out. If they are a hit, that's something you're going to want to jump on. You're going to want to take advantage of it. Start working on a backstory or flush them out a little bit. Or if maybe a player took a, you know, maybe asks for some suggestions from the ah the the table.
00:17:41
Speaker
It's fun because you can you can get some of those details after the game as people are kind of talking about stuff that happened and you know people do this where oh yeah you remember that session we did this thing whatever but a lot of times they'll start talking about the NPC and they'll start riffing on it they'll go like oh I'll bet at home he's this or that way or oh I'll bet this or that thing happened to him and you can actually start borrowing the details and writing that down.
00:18:04
Speaker
So let that NPC that you now have given a name, you know upgrade them a little bit. Give him a promotion. give might Give him a promotion. Yeah. I mean, be ready though, because these things can happen. You got it you got to be ready as a GM. They're going to let you know what they like it. We've talked about in that case, being ready for the unexpected. This can also go the other way too. They can start to get really involved in an NPC and then the luck of the dice, maybe the NPC gets crushed or remove from their life or maybe the players even worse. Well, like the unlike of the day. unlike of the guys Maybe the players even have a poor role of some kind and they offend this NPC yeah and then they kind of lose some face there. So the relationships are going to be very fluid. And I think the the be ready for the unexpected line here is really about saying whichever way that goes, whichever way serves those purposes that we talked about and that takes advantage of the fact that that you're reading the room and the players are are into it. That's what you want to kind of run with.
00:19:03
Speaker
also like you know we talked about this in the villains episode about how villains have a beginning middle and end now all npc's don't necessarily have to have that but there might be some that you might want to have an end to to serve the story i mean they could have a beginning middle and end as well ah so that sounds ominous you're you must be thinking a though of more things than just they get killed right like they can also NPCs right off in the sunset they could be trade the group they i mean how do you understand that there's also avenues there there for you to use they're there for you to use to it to evoke things from the players right npc's aren't really you guys maybe you need to be reminded of this the way the players need to be reminded the characters are there is tools for you.
00:19:51
Speaker
They are. And these are things that you do want to be careful with. ah Let's talk a little quick about some of the things that we want to be avoiding Ben. Yeah. Okay. So we've talked about all the things that, that when things go right and when we're trying to make a memorable, here's what you want to do. Here's some things to try. Here's some things to not do, which I think are like, these are some standard rookie mistakes. Every one of these I've done and most of them I did early on and I got wiser later. So we're hopefully going to save you friends. Some of our scar tissue here. The first one is don't info dumper Mary Sue.
00:20:21
Speaker
The info dump is when the character, this NPC exists basically so that they can have the GM read like 10 paragraphs of world backstory or whatever. Oh my gosh, please. Can you just spare me? The info dump I've definitely done.
00:20:35
Speaker
So Mary Sue is just whenever your GM basically puts their own perspective into the game through the voice of a character, when really it's just the GM's kind of thing. A Mary Sue could be, let's say that I had ah ah a deep and abiding problem with capitalism. And so I use a Mary Sue character to sit there and be talking about how, you know, capitalism and is evil and the, you know, all these different kinds of things, right? Like it's a distraction. It's it's a hobby horse.
00:21:03
Speaker
It's not really what you want to spend your time doing. your Your NPCs need to have their own kind of character and integrity in their own things to do. All right, so no Mary Sues in your game. Don't have a Mary Sue in your game.
00:21:14
Speaker
other things. Mark, have you ever used an NPC that essentially kind of overshadowed the player characters? I don't know if I've ever had a Gandalf, per se, that I can think of. I think I've always kind of not liked those types of characters. I remember early in some of my gaming experiences, there was a few gems that ran, really like they, maybe it was some sort of character that they had played for years and it now became the Gandalf kind of character. And man, we always entered those characters.
00:21:44
Speaker
I do think that even if you had a character sort of swoop in who is like the guy who's going to pull your parties fat out of the fire when that dragon is coming after him, even that feels a little cheap. That feels like kind of a bad adventure design problem.
00:21:58
Speaker
It's unearned. Yeah. Yeah. I had never really been fond of that. Nobody likes that. Stick with ones that the players that you can feel have a genuine connection toward. And I find typically those NPCs to be beneath them in some way, shape or form, at least on the hierarchy of adventures. An NPC in in a certain sense knows their place. That's funny. That's a good point. I mean, you have this nice note here about not letting them kind of overstay their welcome. and You talked about these things having their ends. yeah Say something about like when you feel like an NPC is is ready to be done and you want to move them off stage. If an NPC is ready to serve a story in a certain way that involves them exiting the stage, I want to make sure that exit is memorable.
Memorable NPC Exits
00:22:44
Speaker
I want them to kind of like the players to feel that that loss is important because that loss could have been them or something. Interesting.
00:22:52
Speaker
I'll give you an example of one that we said goodbye to in the game. We had, we had an NPC by the name of shortchange in one of our games. Shortchange was that ah halfling that the players had met and some really early on in the game. And he was a swindler. He loved just bilking people out of money. If you could played lots of games of chance and he lost the most of them. Don't get me wrong. The guy was by no means good at his job.
00:23:17
Speaker
But the players took a shine to him for whatever reason, and he became an actual NPC. And later, when he was gone, I think everybody kind of had a sweet spot. Sure change. Oh, sure change. Yeah. So you want to make sure that that it's impactful. Don't just be, you know, Joss, we'd need to have characters left and right. But make make sure if you do, it serves something. Yeah. Just keep the characters, the NPCs, the way you're using them, bringing them on stage, taking them off stage.
00:23:47
Speaker
make sure they serve those purposes that you have for them. And I think that's going to be great. Some final thoughts, not everybody in the NPC catalog is going to be a hit and that's okay. You may create some NPCs and you think they're going to kill and they don't, you know, this is a little bit of a standup comedy routine that every GM is going to do. So yeah.
00:24:03
Speaker
Don't get too tied up in that. Let them go. yeah What else, Mark? Yeah, have fun. Experiment. you know Find voices. Find personalities. Find characters. And just have fun. And let your players kind of guide you. Don't feel bad about moving on and finding a new NPC. There's a new NPC in every town. do That's right. Every adventure, you can find a new NPC. yeah And remember, friends, these are going to be things that happen both because you've prepped and by happy accidents.
00:24:39
Speaker
All that is our tune-up segment has begun.
Magic Shops in Games
00:24:42
Speaker
ah Mark, here this week we have a question from one of our listeners. He says, should magic shops exist? And how much should magic items cost? ah No, they should not exist. Thank you for tuning into Tabletop Tune-Up. My name is Mark.
00:25:02
Speaker
i've I've seen some exceptions that I've really enjoyed. Why aren't you a fan of Magic Shops? What is it that they kind of miss or do you run? I don't think there's much of a fun story to, you know, I got my weapon at the store. like you know yeah I always loved in Lord of the Rings when they got some items from Galadriel. Right. And it it felt like it was earned and it felt like there was a story there and it was in some places it was kind of sweet. ah So that's kind of what I want to see in the game. I don't really want to see a store where they can sell it. However, I have seen situations where people have made stores that have been very unique.
00:25:39
Speaker
that i've thought I've had a second thought about. One of my players had presented to me an idea of, hey, what do retired artificers do? They rent out items and they just charge and they just charge a ah fee. And if you don't pay, they deactivate it. That's fascinating. And I was like, that's a great idea. Yeah.
00:25:59
Speaker
wow Because now you've got an NPC that you can interact with that's kind of fun and you have to pay make payments to for an awesome item. to it You know what I mean? like it It could be a lot of fun like if you if you miss your payment. God, the entire economy around like repo men and pawn shops, like oh yeah think about that. Wow. yeah so Yeah, that could be kind of fun. What what about you, Ben? What are your thoughts?
00:26:20
Speaker
So ah should they exist? I think a lot depends on how you want to treat magic in your world. We talked about this in the episode on items. ah We talked about wanting to invest items of story. And I think you're repeating some of those notes here. And I agree. I also think there's a couple of interesting ways to go with magic shops. The first way is kind of in that monkey's paw or needful things kind of thing. Oh, yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker
You could do some stuff there that could be really fun. And then the magic shop is, you know and who knows whether you're going to get cursed or not, or who knows whether this thing is going to be a little of both, or or maybe there's going to be a price that's associated with a magic item that you don't want to pay. And it could be really interesting to to fold some semi-magical or some semi-cursed items into a shop full of regular mundane stuff. And the shop keyword kind of looks over at you as you pull something off the shelf and says, oh, I see you found the such and such. you know or Or maybe, yeah, and running on that kind of idea that you're talking about, Ben, it could be kind of fun to have a magic shop owner that doesn't really know anything about magic per se. He's kind of a bit of a charlatan, and maybe he's got a few magic items in there, but to him, everything in there is magic.
00:27:30
Speaker
Right. That's so great. So like the players have to kind of weed out what is real. I so love the idea that like buried in that place somewhere is like a plus two sword yeah or an amazing wondrous item. But you're going to have to like hope you can find it or sort it out of all that stuff. One of those potions is a potion of giant strength. And there's another one in there that's a laxative. And I hope you know which one's which. Yeah. So I mean, do I dislike magic shops? Yes. But could they be very fun if you do it right?
00:28:00
Speaker
100% yeah, I got another thought too, right? Which is that if you kind of look at some of these settings and I'm thinking about like Eberron is a higher magic setting where a lot of magic has been incorporated into that society in ways that we find familiar in modern society like they've got essentially like magic trains and They've got other kinds of things that that make their world look a lot like our world, but it's magic that's running things instead of science and so on. I think in those cases, you can do a lot of really fun stuff with a magic shop because then a magic shop is very much like a regular hardware store or gear shop or whatever kind of shop it is that we might have in our world.
00:28:35
Speaker
And so I think if you do that, you could do some interesting stuff too. And I think a lot of the fun of that is just going to be how much can you make people feel like magic is doing stuff that we all kind of know, but in a different way? Is magic the gun? Is magic the jackhammer? Is magic the welding torch or whatever?
00:28:54
Speaker
The bottom line, though, I guess, would be that we don't know what your table likes or dislikes. If that's something they really enjoy, by all means do it. But there are ways that you could make it even more fun and and take that and tune that up to the next level. So ah hopefully some of those ideas, so at least maybe pushing your mind into a direction, hopefully that's helpful for some of you out there. Yeah. If you could read about the history of the Industrial Revolution, you might get some interesting ideas around what to do with a magic based economy, I think.
00:29:23
Speaker
Okay. Well, I think that about sums up our episode, right Ben? What do we got coming up down the pipes? What do you think? Oh man, we've got some cool stuff coming in 2025 friends. Our next episode is going to be ah about, we're going to essentially, I think kind of continue on with our stuff about adventure design, which this episode was a part of that. We're going to talk about balancing your party. And there's a few different ways we talk about that. um We'll certainly be talking about... I love this one that you've got, Mark. You came up with this idea about talking trash. Oh, I love talking trash, Ben. You know I do. You sure do. All right, friends. And then not too far in the future, we're going to talk about the pulp genre and pulp adventures and how to do that. and um
00:30:06
Speaker
Looking forward to that one. That's a big pulp thing. Well, everybody, thank you for tuning in. Mom, I appreciate you i being our listener. That's right. We're going to let y you all go. ah But until then, you guys, keep those dice rolling.
00:32:29
Speaker
Joan, no!