028: From Player to Gamemaster - When do you know enough to start your own game? - With Andy Scheirer - Claim to Game

Episode Transcript
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>> Clint Scheirer (00:00):
All Game masters start somewhere. Whether starting out,
playing as follows, "A player or maybe jumping in and running their very own
game from the beginning. Game masters have
an origin story, an evolution.
In this episode you will get to hear the origin story
of Andy Scheirer. High school Mathy teacher,
listener of the CTG and a
newcomer to the hobby of tabletop

(00:22):
RPGs. Andy will tell us how he has been
sucked in to the tabletop gaming World. We will
cover creating characters, his experience as follows, "A
player in D20 & D and well discuss Andys
ambition as well as his next steps for starting his
very own campaign. Putting on the mantle
of Game Master.
For the very first Time.
Welcome to Claim to Game. We help tabletop gamers

(00:45):
have a great time with friends to experience amazing
stories. It can be overwhelming to start and run
great Games. Lets make it easier for you to play any Game you
want to have fun with your friends. Im Clint
Scheirer. Ive helped thousands of students in my career find their
way to better themselves and better their game.
With more than 10 years experience coaching, teaching

(01:05):
and developing easy to follow learning plans,
I know I can help you too. It s time for you to make
your claim to Game.

(01:39):
Hey Andy. Hello and welcome to Claim
to Game. I am so glad that you are here
today because you are a listener of our
show. You actually listen to the show, you've listened to some
episodes and we are going to talk a little bit about
your tabletop RPG journey and I'm really pumped to
have you here today. So I'm going to kick it off with the
first question.

(02:00):
Can you tell me how you got into playing tabletop
role Playing Games?

>> Speaker C (02:04):
Yeah, definitely. I was going to
my graduate program to become a teacher and I've
always liked Fantasy, at least for a long time,
like Lord of the Rings-esque, that kind of stuff. Some of my buddies were
like hey, we're go goingna do a D20 & D campaign. Do you want to
join? I'm like absolutely. Just got together with them made a
character and that was that. So we lasted for about a year and
then we kind of fizzled out. But it was really fun every Sunday for a

(02:27):
while.

What drew you in? When you played your first game?
You loved Fantasy. But like what about Fantasy was fun?
What about pretending to be a pretend person
made you want to come back the next Sunday?

>> Speaker C (02:38):
Oh, I mean it's just what can menion not being fun, you know like
you've were able to do stuff that you cannot do on your own
like in real life. Right. Like I can't just Walk down the street
and find some weird tavern, owner who's going to give me a Quest.
And, you know, me and my friends could mess with that tavern owner. You know,
we can just say whatever we want and you roll some dice
and it's just a great way, to goof off, you know, like

(02:59):
in a way that you could never do in real life. And that's what I love about it.

So when you were, when you were playing your first Game,
what kind of character were you? What. What was your race?
What was your class? we call it Ancestry and Pathfinder 2E.
But you were playing D20 & D. Like, what were you. And why did you
choose that character?

>> Speaker C (03:15):
My character is, to sum it up succinctly as possible,
it's if Quagmire, we're a warlock, you know, gig
Gigity. So most of his
backstory is he owns a brothel. it's called the Randy
Rogue. and u, you know, passed down from his father and
his pappy before him.

You know, family business. Great.

>> Speaker C (03:34):
and, his name's Long Don Myithril, which I came to meet.
We were. Was one of my buddies actually helped me out with that. U, kind of
bouncing names back and forth.

Long John Myithril, like Mythril from Lord of the Rings-esque,
like the special metal.

>> Speaker C (03:46):
There's actually a por Star named Long Dong
Silver.

Oh, Dong. Okay. Yeah, that, that makes more
sense.

>> Speaker C (03:52):
And so we were making jokes about that, and my buddy goes, what about
Mythril? You know, like, that makes it way more Fantasy relevant.

Ah, okay.

>> Speaker C (04:00):
And D20 Myth was born true Silver.

All right, you were drawn in by being
able to test a Fantasy World, being able to do
things that you can't do in the real World, things that
you can roll dice for and see the results.
we were talking a little bit earlier that your're
a profession, you're a Mathy teacher, you like to
teach Mathy. Do you find that D20
& D kind of caters to that love of that

(04:25):
subject, like being able to. To use Mathy
and use probability and stuff like that?

>> Speaker C (04:30):
Yeah, no, I'm often, we have a healthy population
of students who like D20 & D out here. And so I'm often,
talking like probabilities, like, oh, what if you have
a D20? What if you have this? That's your probabilities, you
know, and so it definitely helps to relate dice to
probabilities. I mean, it's. And it's a really good way to engage with these
kids who maybe don't care about Mathy but they like

(04:50):
D20 & D. So I'm in here like you know these are your odds when you
have this, this check and OPP pulls them in a little.

I remember growing up you go to the class, right? And the
teacher's like Mathy is everywhere. You're going to have to
use it one day.

>> Speaker C (05:02):
Yeah.

And you're just like yeah, right.
I use more Mathy and D20 & D. That's like the hardest
thing for me as follows, "A GM is to, to do the Mathy and
I usually have somebody help me with my Mathy when I do the
deliberation of calls and things like that.
So you mentioned to me you're going to start a new Game
as follows, "A player. Have you started playing yet or have you started that
new campaign?

>> Speaker C (05:24):
Yeah, we did one session and then I haven't heard back so I don't know if I
got kicked out or Thr Everyone, everyone's just busy and we
haven't found the Time yet.

Was it a pre made adventure that somebody had bought or was it
something they created? Homebrew.

>> Speaker C (05:35):
I believe it was a homebrew from one of my
buddies. I don't know. It was on roll 20 so maybe I don't know if you can do
homebrew on roll 20.

Yeah, yeah. My first adventure that I ever
created when I did my first GMG I, I
created a World in rol 20.
I used a lot of Google images that if I had ever sold that
I would have got like probably legally in TR
trouffble But most of my tokens I
used a tool called Token stamp.
You can upload an image to Token stamp

(06:05):
and it can be any image and then it allows you to
create the border around the token. Just like if
you're playing with two D20 U tokens. Some people use
minis U that are like 3D depending
on if they're playing in person. But having the
tokens were really helpful. So you know
creating maps. There's tons of map makers that you can upload
your maps to. Roll 20. Roll 20 is also free.

(06:28):
There's a good free version of ROL20. Very cool.

>> Speaker C (06:31):
Nice. Yeah it was, it was fairly user friendly by
the players.

Had you ever played on roll 20 before or was that your first time?

>> Speaker C (06:37):
That was my first time. The other ones we in person
and.

I asked you your preference in person or
virtual? What are your thoughts on that?

>> Speaker C (06:45):
Yeah, I mean I think in person is always better. I think you just get a better
chemistry and better vibe when you're in person, it's too
easy to check out when, like, other people are doing stuff. If you're,
you know, not together, you're more present when you're there with somebody. And
it's just way more. Way more fun for this level of stuff.

It's very evident when you're looking at your phone if you're in
person, as opposed to if you're.
If you're on a call. Now, I play some Games
where video doesn't need to be turned on. and
it's kind of like, you know, at a work meeting, some people use
teams if they're in a corporate Job. And, you know, some people
will leave their camera off, and they can really be doing
emails. They can be looking at anything. You lose

(07:22):
the conversation. You know, in a real conversation, you wouldn't just
hopefully start doing something in the middle
of talking to somebody.

>> Speaker C (07:30):
Yeah. Or I get to roast you if you do. You know, like,
my buddies might look at their phone or something. But, you know, we get to call you out
and, and roast you a little bit and gets to be part of the fun.

So your first game, you guys did it
recently. How did your GM M. Your Game
Master, Dungeon master. If, you're playing D20 &
D, how did he start it out? You know,
what was the hook? How did he pull you into this adventure?
Or did you not feel pulled in? Did you feel like it started a little
slow?

>> Speaker C (07:55):
I actually jumped in the Middle. I kind of forgot about this. they had already started
their campaign, and so he had to pull me in. And it was a pretty good one.
It was, So where they were at, they had these different factions of gangs and
everything. I was, in town visiting, and I was
visiting this tavern, and one of the gangs came
in. Cause it was, unbeknownst to me, part of the rival
gang'territory and they just killed everybody except for me. and they

(08:16):
left me a message.

Lone survivor.

>> Speaker C (08:18):
Yeah, I was a lone survivor. They left me a message to
give when these people return, get out of our territory.
Or I can't remember exactly now what the beef
was. The crew that I was joining had kind of
jumped into that on accident, that beef. And so
they were given a message through me, of, you know, you better get out of
here.

Were you wounded? Did they, like, come upon you, like,
wounded? Or were you healed? Like, how did that. How did you appear?

>> Speaker C (08:41):
Unharmed, but covered in blood from everyone else? It was. It
was a very bloody scenario.

Trautic.

>> Speaker C (08:48):
Yeah, but long dg. He Powers through. So
he's resilient, he's tough. As myth
Thrlithri. Very good. Yeah.

So you started playing. You were a lone
survivor. Did you use your back? Did your background
put you in sort of the sole survivor category?
Cause I know in D20 & D, you you get to choose a background
for your character or was your background completely
separate from how your GM introduced you?

>> Speaker C (09:15):
Yeah, so I kind of used my backstory in there as the Reason I was
at the bar was, you know, I was scouting new locations for the for the Randy
Rogue, you know, expand out of. Out of our city.
so that's why I was in town, the, at the tavern.

Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna reel it back U. creating
characters. Right? That's one of my favorite things.
With tabletop RPGs, I've created characters that I've never
played. Ones that just live in a folder of like, wow, it'd be
cool to be this person one day. You know, you said your
process was you were talking to your buddy, right?
Bouncing ideas off of each other. The characters that

(09:47):
you've created, do you usually make them with somebody or do
you. You create the structure and then go
and talk about it? Or what's your process? What's your. Where do you
draw inspiration when you're making your characters? Besides
Quagmire from, from Family Guy?

>> Speaker C (10:00):
I mean a lot of it is, I love south park and u. Ah, Family Guy.
And so I have a very juvenile sense of humor. No shame.
Yeah. But the characters themselves, ah, like,
he only helped me with a name. He didn't really help me develop the
character so much. we were just bouncing ideas off for the name
for him. It was just. I just thought it would be really funny this
idea if this, you know, Warlock, who'just super horny

(10:20):
and just makes everything dirty. And it's also, you
know, when you hang out with teenagers all day, you, I think you're kind of. You
get. You re kind ofa get morphed into one a little bit, you know, and so that's my outlet
a little bit is to get rid of. Get myturity
maturity out through this character.

Yeah. That cathartic, ability to
act in, whether it be acting for
real or acting in a D20 & D Game, can get those emotions
and get those. The things you gott bottle up all
day. I've definitely raged as follows, "A barbarian.

>> Speaker C (10:48):
Oh yeah.

In a D20 & D Game where I could not actually rage in real
life?

>> Speaker C (10:52):
Absolutely. Just smash everything.

You know, I can really identify. I had a character that was
Quagmire esque, back in one of our campaigns.
I was a Loxodon, which in the D20 & D World is like an
elephant man. Like, he's actually like a humanoid
elephant. And I, you know, stealing
shamelessly from characters and
books. That's a, that's a method. Like, that's actually
something that many GMs will do. They'll, they'll use common

(11:17):
Fantasy tropes and try to pull them into the
story. and I, I had always loved those
commercials with the most interesting man. Right. For DOSA
keys. So my, my elephant
talked like him, but then he also took on a very
promiscuous.

>> Speaker C (11:32):
that's great.

A promiscuous, you know, saunter as he,
as he went throughout the World.

>> Speaker C (11:37):
Good.

You know, as follows, "A newer player, like, how, how many. Maybe
I shouldn't call you a new player. Like, how many years. If you were
to quantify your, your actual
playime, have you been playing D20 &
D from the first Game till now?

>> Speaker C (11:50):
yeah. I mean, I still call myself a beginner. I've been doing it. I mean, then the first
Game I ever played was probably five years ago, but
it was like, I played for that one for like a year and then I didn't really
play a lot. And then about a year ago, I did a one off with
my partner and some of her friends. Was like, oh, I should, we should
do more of this. I was talking to her. She really liked it. She was like, why don't, why
don't we try to Dungeon Master ourselves? I was like, well,

(12:10):
I don't think you quite understand how hard is a Dungeon Master just yet. she was like,
I can do it. I'm like, you gotta learn the Game first. But
it was, it kind of inspired me of like, why don't, why don't I learn Itus?
I kind of know the Game. I, I want to play a little more and I really like
it. yeah, that was one of my goals this upcoming summer was to actually
learn how to, how to do it.

You said something interesting. You have to learn the Game
first. How much of the Game, how much of Dungeons and
Dragons do you feel like you need to know
before you can run a game? Like, in your, your
opinion, what do you think you need to know to be ready
to run your first game?

>> Speaker C (12:42):
yeah, I guess where I think I like, need more is
just there's so Many, so many like modifiers, like
kind of like Matthew were talking about. Is there so many modifiers you have
to be ready to calculate and know which
ones have to go? and sometimes like even just for my own
character, when I roll something, I'm like, I don't really know exactly
what my end score is.

Do you feel like your GM helps you? Like, is your GM
kind of like the resident expert when you've played in the
past, like helping?

>> Speaker C (13:08):
Yes. Yeah. Okay. That's. Most of the people I play
with don't play like, like my partner who has never played like lo. Way
less'experience than I am.

Yeah.

>> Speaker C (13:16):
So I feel like I probably would have to be at least somewhat of
a.

You know, one of the tips that I've gotten from
people on Reddit, Reddit, Reddit's a wealth of
information for Tabletop RPG. You want to learn
anything? the rp, R
RPG community is really great. Like they'll answer
questions and they're more than happy to jump in. But I asked
them like, what does a GM need to
know to run a game?

(13:43):
Like, how do you learn a game? Like, how do you go through. Do you just read
the book? And there's some people out there that don't like reading. They're like, oh my
gosh, I got to read a 265 page
source book. Or there's some that's even more,
you know. And that was me. I, I fall asleep
reading, Andy. Like, I can't keep my eyes
open probably. Cause I'm usually reading at night after my kids

(14:03):
are in bed. But one of the tips that they gave is
that building a, character actually
can help you learn the Game. So I'll give you
an example. Somebody in
my Game, my first Game, wanted to be a
Wizard. And the Wizards to me are the
hardest thing to learn in D20 & D. And somebody

(14:23):
might comment and be like, no, clint.scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, it's not that hard.
It's just a lot of spells,
right? Maybe not at first, maybe not at first level, but
eventually they have this, this repertoire of
all these different spells and they do different
things and they have different conditions. And I'm like,
oh my Gosh, how am I going toa do it? But if you build your

(14:43):
own character, like one that you'll never play.
This is why I have a big, a big notebook of them,
right, that I've never used. If I know one of my players
is going to be a Wizard and I know they're gonna
take a certain school of magic. Like maybe
they're I can't remember all the ones from D20 & D,
I'll make the character as though I am
them. And that takes a lot of Time,

(15:06):
right? Cause then you're like oh shoot. Like now I'm like
studying everybody's character. And if you have four people now, you're making
four characters that you'll never play. But just finding
the things that are confusing, right? You, you might
be able to look at something and be like, oh, that's easy.
Like I get that. You know, that's why I think a lot of
players start out as fighters because it's something we've seen

(15:26):
in all of our movies, all of our
video Games. If you were to choose something
in D20 & D, a class, a
scenario, a situation, like what feels the most
unclear or confusing when you've
played it or seen other people playing at
your table.

>> Speaker C (15:44):
Yeah, it's definitely the spells and the
cantrips and looking up what all of them do.
Cause it is overwhelming for a, a lot of the classes.
When you just look at like even the sheets and you see
like even like the weapons sometimes it's like there'd be like
two numbers there. It's like a bunch of numbers in one letter. Like a D20.
I know the D20 is always like which dice you're rolling.

(16:05):
but then after that I usually, I don't always know what they
mean.

Yeah, I think with weapons what always
confused me was that one was like my
bonus to my attack that I rolled
with my, you know, my D20. And then
the other was the damage dice if I hit
and I was just like why is there two? And you know, the first
character I ever built, I remember was a rogue.

(16:29):
Kind of like your White collar criminal as my my brother in
law would say. It was like a halfling that was dressed very
floofy with whatever that floofy thing is from the
1800s, like the.

>> Speaker C (16:39):
Awesome powers uhe yeah, whatever that.

Thing is, they would wear. yeah, if anybody knows
what that flooufy thing is that people used to wear when they were fancy.
please send me an email, let me know.
But whatever it was, I remember like
it was a simple dagger. Like I was going to have a simple
dagger and I was going toa be very like, you know, talk my way out of
situations and if I did have to do something I
would stab them, you know. And just that one dagger

(17:05):
of trying to figure out how I was going toa use it. I was looking at my
character sheet and I was like it should be easier than
this. You know I should be able to just write it
down. And then I learned about things like
RO20 where it does it for you. My
favorite virtual tabletop is Foundry. You know I'm not
sponsored by them. I don't get any credit for talking
about Foundry vtt but Foundry is very

(17:27):
customizable. You know I would say roll 20 is great
for people who want Free and they want it you
know very accessible on a browser.
There's ways to make it a you know Foundry accessible on a
browser but like the stuff that it does, the things that it
calculates, the stuff that it keeps track of, you
know that would be, that would be my ideal

(17:48):
if I was running a Game and some people actually use
that. In, in the room they will bring their
laptop or their computer and they'll use
their TV or some sort of monitor
to run the Game. I guess my, my next question
would be would you, would you feel
comfortable enough with technology to try to bring technology

(18:08):
into it or would you feel like you would want to be more analog, you know
with the true spirit of old D20 & D. I

>> Speaker C (18:13):
Would definitely have use technology search functions and that kind of thing.
Being able to just search things instead having to flip two pages is way
more preferable to me.

U tip that my friend Jonathan, a friend of the pod
he uses PDFs so he'll get
the PDF version of the core book and I don't like,
I like PDFs and I don't like PDFs right becausee I don't
have like a tablet that I would read my
PDF on. But what I love about the book is
I like the physical like I can go anywhere I want but I can't

(18:41):
search a book like I can a
PDF. so being able to find those search
functions are pretty helpful.
Here's what I wanna know. If it
was easy, what would it look
like? That's a question that Tim Ferriss who
wrote the four Hour Workee has asked and asks in
his book if it were easy what

(19:02):
would running a Game of D20 & D look like for you?

>> Speaker C (19:05):
Yeah, I mean definitely the roless twentyies style where I can like
if I just need to click on the spell or whatever
like can have it so I can just click on the spell and it kind of does all
that Mathy for me or at least tells me which one numbers.
Dad, that is, "The biggest thing for Me is like some of that
administrative stuff and knowing which
dice to roll, knowing which modifiers to put

(19:25):
in U that's the kind of stuff that really would, if
it were easier and streamlined. RO20 seemed to do a lot
of that. Like, and I think that would if I. Cause I've
only used that the one Time and so if I think if I use that more, I think I'd
probably solve a lot of the problems I think I have.

But you wouldnn play in person, you would want people to
come like to your home so that you would be able to have that
interaction, right?

>> Speaker C (19:46):
Yeah, I would still want people around, but I would like I like having
something to press and so just like just having like one laptop there
for, you know, it doesn't have to be everybody on roll 20.

Yeah. So I've heard this called like a hybrid
situation where you have both
virtual but also in person. You know, some people will
bring their own laptops, some people will bring, you know, their
tablet or something to be able to move their characters
around. But you'll sign
in if you were using ROL20
for exampleh, if you were using roll20 you

(20:18):
would sign in as the GM,
which gives you the GM view. Right. So there's some
things that only the GM can see, especially if
you. U I don't know if you have to upgrade with ROL20 to get the
fog of war, where it covers things as you're
moving through orm line of sight.
That's a pretty cool feature. but what it would do

(20:38):
is you would see that on your laptop,
but then you would sign in as follows, "A player up on
the screen. So then the map that they're looking
at is their map and
they can move their own tokens almost like you had a map
in the center of the table, but they're moving them on their own
devices. So that. I've done that

(20:58):
before. It works pretty well. And I think
the only thing I wished I had was a bigger tv,
like a bigger monitor. There's some people that do
like these tables, TVS built into
their gaming table.

>> Speaker C (21:12):
That would be cool.

Yeah, you can. There's like a dude on YouTube that like
goes through how he built his and what, what it, what he, you know,
bought to do it. U I've never had the Time nor the
income to go and do something like that.

>> Speaker C (21:24):
But yeah, it sounds, sounds like a. Yeah,
sounds like a wonderful idea. But I don't think I'm ever gonna put into practice.

You know, I've also. One of the other tools that I
really love is the Lazy Dungeon master and Return
of the Lazy Dungeon master by Mike Sha.
His idea is how can I
prep the least amount and still
give people the feeling of
agency? Like they have a, like what their
choices matter. That's like the one way you can make me

(21:54):
notnna play a Game is.

>> Speaker C (21:56):
If I like forced you into a tunnel.

Yeah, like, yeah, the railroading I think.

>> Speaker C (22:00):
Can't do that.

Yeah, yeah, keg do that. But he,
one of the things he said I'm probably gonna butcher it is that it
doesn't become real until your
players make it real.
So there's like a whole bunch of list of things that you can
potentially have them do, places that they might go and
see and you might have an idea of like the main plot points

(22:22):
that you can fit in where you want but unless
they bring it into fruition and it makes sense,
you, it's just a note on your page,
you know. And I've adopted that way of
GMG and it put a whole lot of stress
off of me.
So if you were gonna play, if you were gonna have
your own game, would you take a pre

(22:44):
made adventure or would you wanna build your own adventure?
Homebrew.

>> Speaker C (22:47):
Think I'd probably try to do a pre made one
first to get a look at it and see
like a structure first.

Have you had your eyes on any of them?

>> Speaker C (22:57):
No, I haven't really. Like I just kind of got the
idea to be to Dungeon master in my
head recently and I was just planning to start in the
summer so I haven't really like done any
real work towards it and so my
only view of it all has been a player so far.

That's another place where I jump into Reddit.
I'd just be like What is the best
module for a new gm?
but with a really great story. My favorite was
the beginner's box for D20 & D. It was called Lost
Minds of Vandelvever. It's a very beloved
adventure but there's so many ones that I think

(23:34):
are cooler. that would be really fun and you don't always have
to start at first level. sometimes the
slog of being a first level squishy character
isn't so fun.
Would you ever consider doing a one shot like you, you've joined
a one shot where they played one Game and this couple of hours
and then the story was done. Would you, would you
want to start a full campaign right away?

(23:56):
Or do you feel like the one shot might be a way to, to jump into
it?

>> Speaker C (23:59):
I was thinking a one shot probably be how I would
first start out. But it kind of depends on who
want to just play and what they want to do. If they were interested in a campaign, I
might try a campaign. My thought was to start with a one shot.

How are you going to find your players? Like do
you already know who you want to ask?

>> Speaker C (24:15):
Yeah, I got plenty of people I can ask. Y. I don't think finding
a for a one shot, I don't think it'd be hard to find
people to do a sustained campaign.
That's where when you get to be an adult, that's, that's a challenge to
get people every single week or every other week
even, or the consistency gets challenging.

I've tried every month. That's like the
best way I can do it. And if I had my way, I would
love to play every week. Oh, that would be so cool. Just
like you're watching a TV show but you get to live the TV
show. I was talking to some other
gamers and they said they're number one challenges,
scheduling hands down. It's

(24:52):
just so hard. And they use all the different apps. Like there's Doodle,
which I don't know if Doodle is still free. That used to be a
really cool app where you'd see everybody's schedule and they would select
the dates that worked for them. Yeah, there's all sorts
of calendar scheduling apps. But do you feel like
we've missed anything? Like is there any,
any questions that you feel like should be asked

(25:13):
that I did not ask?

>> Speaker C (25:14):
Can I ask you some questions?

Yeah, go ahead.

>> Speaker C (25:18):
I mean what was like what's the best advice you
got when you first started?

Yeah, so the best advice I got when I started
as follows, "A player and this kind of went
down the rabbit hole because I was like so what
can I do? What can I do? Like in
this made up World, like and my, my
brother in law was the guy who got me into it. His name's Tyler, super
cool dude. And he was like
anything, you can do whatever you want.

(25:45):
I'm like wait, so I can, I can get
up like on top of the statue and just start like
raining down, you know, hell
on all these like little, little booger Gobliny things.
He's like, yeah, you can do whatever you want.
And I did that right when I was playing with him and he was cool
with it. But then I got into some other

(26:05):
groups where they weren't cool with
that because every player plays a little bit
differently. I, I am of the rule
of cool, kind of way of playing. If
it's cool, I'm okay. Letting,
letting rules slide is. But
the careful thing you have to do is be careful
that everybody has that expectation.

(26:28):
Because if you're playing with somebody who's like, the
rules are importantly, you got a rules lawyer. That's a
term in D20 & D and all tabletop role Playing, somebody
that's going to hold you to it. Rules is written
is, "The, the law. They don't like playing with me
unless I'm ready to play with them and abide by the
rules. You know, I would say the best advice was yes, you can
do anything if it's agreed upon

(26:51):
by the group. So having that shared
commonality, I think the other thing that was
really helpful for me is, "The suggestion to have what's called
a session zero. And that's where
everybody gets together and you talk
through table rules
etiquette. You know, like when we're at the
table, our phones allowed. Now some people are like,

(27:13):
no, you can't have your phone. Other people like, I don't care. You know, text whoever
you need to. Are snacks allowed? Can people
be chomping like, and eating chips and
doing all this stuff? So that was the other really
helpful thing. And no person told me to do a session zero.
That was something that just came up timing Time and again on
all the forums, all the podcasts was that

(27:34):
session zeros are also where people can make their characters
together. And that's cool. I've done that as well.
I actually stole a, a mechanic
from fate. I believe it's fate. Somebody's going to tell me it wasn't
fate, but it was the fate Fate Game.
And there's a way that they create bonds
with one another. Fiasco is another

(27:54):
Game. Fiasco by Jason Morningstar is another Game that
creates bonds between players at the table.
And having pre made bonds,
just people automatically have story hooks.
They automatically know what to do. Like your GM
took you as follows, "A scouter
and made you a survivor and that's how you entered
in. So instantly they're like, well this

(28:16):
guy's. Everybody was killed. We got
to bring him into the fold. Like it was just natural that that's what would
happen next in a story. so bonds are really
important. Session zero is really important.
Having agreed upon how are we playing and
are we playing fast and loose? Are we Playing hardcore.
Each Game will lend itself
to the rules. Lawyers

(28:38):
and others like Pathfinder 2E, Pathfinder 2E
2e, super hardcore rules.
Like, it's very mechanical, very strategic.

>> Speaker C (28:46):
Is that a different game or is that like a different.

Yeah, so Pathfinder 2E is like D20 and D's
cousin, so to speak. they used to be the same
game and they actually broke away after Dungeons
and Dragons went into its 4 Edition. there were gamers
who were like, we hate this. We don't like this
new version. And so they kept with
Pathfinder 2E. It was called 3.5. And

(29:09):
they created Pathfinder 2E 1. And that's when Paizo,
the company, not Wizard's of the Coast, but
Paizo came to be. So that
Game is a lot more strategic
than D20 & D. D&D5E I think, is easier for
players to come into. And I really loved
5e. But there came to a point where me personally,

(29:30):
I felt, there weren't enough options.
Like I wanted to be very customizable
in my character. Almost like I'm playing Skyrim
or, Mass Effect was, was one of my favorite Games
of all Time. M and I felt like you could really customize like
your person. U. Jedi, what was it
called? Knights of the Old Republic was another Game that I

(29:50):
used to play all the Time growing up. And you could really just
make your person your own. so Pathfinder 2E, I think,
lends better to customization and making your
character. And because I love character creation so much, it's like my
favorite. Nobody's gonna make the same
character twice when you're playing Pathfinder 2E, whereas
D20 & D, you're like, oh, I have a barbarian and he

(30:10):
can do this and you can multi class. But usually if
you just stay on the path, that's kind of gonna happen. That's my own opinion.
Some people are gonna be like, T&D5E rocks.
then you have some people that love Pathfinder 2E 2E. It's kind of
a contentious thing. And there's some people who like both.
So that was more than what you wanted in the answer.

>> Speaker C (30:28):
But that was good.

I think you said.
What was the best advice I'm gonna recap.
Best advice is have a
session 0 agree upon how
you're going to play table etiquette and house
rules. And some of those things will happen as you go.
and then also you can do anything as
long as it's agreed upon.

>> Speaker C (30:48):
Gotcha. Yeah, I knowh. my Dungeon Master had a. Had a
session 0 the first one I did. I do remember that.
Where we all just got together. We. I think we hooked some.
Our just like you were talking about. He hooked some of our characters together in certain
ways. Like these people were like half brothers or something. Like, don't
remember all the details. It was a long time ago. But, he
did a lot of the things. And now having you, you talking about, it's

(31:09):
really funny to kind of think back and like, oh, that's, that's what he was doing.

Yeah, definitely not, I'm definitely not coming up
with this on my own. Like I, I did. I was in the
same spot when I began and I was like, I really want to
run my own Game because I'm not getting to play enough. Or maybe a
group fell apart kind of like you. You're like,
we played for about a year and then they kind of fizzled
and then I wanted to do my own thing. Well, how do you do

(31:34):
your own thing? Like, do I need to get the books? Do I
need, you know, will I have people to play with me? Do I need to
get a virtual tabletop? Do I need to pay? Or can I use the Free
version, you know, and give it a trial run?
I've also tried to go all analog before
where I bought a map. it was called a
Battle mat. I bought it from Paizo. And you just use

(31:54):
a dry erase marker. You know, you can play D20 &
D with bare bones just in your
imagination. Theater of the mind. And as
long as you just have some tokens, a dry erase marker or a dry
erase board, you can make a lot of that stuff
up as you go. But it's a different style of
Playing than if you were buying a pre made adventure

(32:14):
that has pre made maps and everything ready for you.
I think the other thing is some people think when you buy a
pre made Game, they're like, oh, I don't have
to do any work. Like they've done it all for me.

>> Speaker C (32:26):
U.

this is great, but you still have to read it.
Like you still have to prepare and you know, as I know,
one of my favorite podcasts, the Glass Cannon
Network, their, one of their main GMs is Troy
Lavalley and he will read the whole book.
He'll read the whole book and then he'll go back, you know, so like
he like immerses himself. He's also an actor by
training. And so I think that's like a form of method

(32:48):
acting. But you know, sometimes
that's why I like creating my own story more
because I know it instantly because I created it.
But then you have to go and make all the monsters and build the
encounters. Which there's some really great tools out there for building
encounters on the fly. U. I always liked
kobold Fight Club. I think it's called like kobold Fight

(33:09):
Club. Plus now I think there was some like,
oh, what do you call it? Licensing issues with the name
or something like that. But you literally can just put in
the number of players that you have on the
board, choose the monsters and it'll tell you
the difficulty of the encounter so you don't have
to create that. That was super helpful for
me because I didn't want toa just obliterate my first

(33:32):
level characters with you know, a Medusa
or some sort of centaur that comes in and just
blasts them out ofilln. you know, you got toa give them
the grunts. They gotta fight the goblins. They gotta, you know,
maybe a bugbear. The pre made adventures do that
already. As long as you're okay reading. I listen to a lot of
actual play podcasts. You know, I know not another D20 &

(33:52):
D Podcast is really popular for
Dungeons and Dragons. You got critical role who's
like the King, the big kid in the playground
that's been around for a long time. A bunch of voice actors are
playing D20 & D and Matt Mercer is,
I believe he played the voice of
Ganondorf in the last Legend,
of Zelda Game. So he's like a legit dude. And they doo,

(34:15):
vox mcchnna vox machinna. I'm probably saying it
wrong. It's now a TV show. Cause they're all
voice actors, right? So now you have like a cartoon and D20
& D is not like a nerdy thing anymore.

>> Speaker C (34:27):
I think I've seen that maybe, or at least like
I've seen an ad for it or something.

yeah, that came out of their Game.
The Mighty Nine I think was in their first campaign. It's
like three, four hours long. I can't watch it.
You know, no disrespect, I'm sure it's wonderful material, but
it's just like, oh my gosh, I don't have time anymore. Like where was
this when I was in college and didn't have kids and a
Job? Yeah, I would have ate this up.

(34:52):
You know something else that came out. I asked you the
question, would you ever consider other
Games other than D20 & D? And you
said yes. What would you be
Looking for. Would you be looking for something still with that
Fantasy feel or is there like think of a
movie or something you've always wanted to play? If there was an
RPG for it, what would it be?

>> Speaker C (35:13):
I would also be down for sci Fi. I definitely enjoy the sci fi
world as well as Fantasy and so those two would definitely be
my, my main choices.

What is your favorite sci fi series
or favorite sci fi movie?

>> Speaker C (35:27):
U. Stargate SG1's probably my favorite series. Probably what I've
seen the most at least. Really?
I watched that and Sert Atlantis. So several, many times
through.

I loved Atlantis. That was a great one.

>> Speaker C (35:38):
yeah, it's really funny with. Now that Jason Momoa got big,
I'll be watching it on TV and my partner comes in, she's like, was that, is that
Jason Momoa?

Like, yeah, he is kind of scrawny.

>> Speaker C (35:49):
Yeah. You can't, you can't tell right away, but when you look close enough you're
like, oh, that is Jason Mo.

I loved it because John Shephpard was the name of the main
character and that's the main character in Mass
Effect. Like it's just like the same, the same
name. Free League Publishing is one of my
absolute favorite publishers right now. They, I
did the Kickstarter a couple years ago for the. The
One Ring second Edition. So that's the Lord of

(36:14):
the Rings-esque RPG that's probably the most popular and
used right now. there's definitely a Star
Wars RPG. I think
Fantasy Flight Starforged Wars RPG is, "The most recent one
and I played that with a buddy, his name's Robert. Also a cool
dude, friend of the pod. What's crazy about that
Game is that the, they have
it's a dice Pool. So

(36:37):
much like, you know, there's one dice and you're adding a
modifier. This one is more story or
narrative based. There's Games that don't have anything to do with
like, it's not so much about winning. It's
telling a good story. So they'll roll a bunch of
dice based on your abilities and whatever and then you're
canceling out like pluses and minuses,
canceling out successes and failures until like,

(36:59):
so you could potentially succeed what you're
doing, but with a setback.
So it's like you did it, but now there's
something that's messing with you guys and you have a new
issue that's involved. And I
just think that's so cool. Like it really flips the whole
like, if I get this number, then I win. on

(37:20):
its head it allows for more depth of storytelling.
But for the crunchy people, they're like, e, give me
Pathfinder 2E. I don't want pluses
and minuses. Just give me a success or a failure.
One of the Games that I play, that I've wanted to play
and I would love to play this with people on, on the
Podcast, it's Blades in the Dark.
So that's, that's one where. And

(37:42):
I, I'm gonna butcher this too. You're in
a city, kind of like a steampunk,
turn of the century kind of apocalyptic World
where you are caught inside of the
city. There are demons outside of the city
that prevent you from leaving. And you are, you have like a
force field around the city and you are a

(38:02):
bunch of scoundrels. You're all like a
team of criminals that have to steal
things. But you can't escape. You can't just leave
the country because you'll be eaten up by
demons. So it's like a pressure
cooker of conflict
and story. Cause you have to somehow survive
these heists and still get away with it. That would be

(38:24):
like my number one if I could. If I had the infinite number
of Time to do things.

>> Speaker C (38:29):
I should have been taking notes. I feel like, if you think
about any of the various like
Games we talked about or things that, like names that I'm probably going to forget and
you want to write them down, that would be a. That'd be amazing.

I'll put all the resources in the show. Notes.

>> Speaker C (38:43):
Oh, excellenth.

Cobol Fight Club and roll 20.
I'll put in there so that they, you know, the people know about it.

>> Speaker C (38:50):
Perfect.

Right now I'm playing one game. I get
my once a week, but I don't have to gm. I'm doing the
so Pathfinder 2E. Right. We talked about Pathfinder 2E.
Dirty cousin of D20 & D. They created
a. Basically D20 & D in space.
So that's another Fantasy option. It's called
Starfinder. Starfinder one was kind of

(39:11):
weird in the rules and I think they
made it more like. So Pathfinder 2E 2e was super
crunchy. Pathfinder or sorry 1e
First Edition was really crunchy. And
then they recently came out over the last few years
with Pathfinder 2E 2e which has gotten really
great.

>> Speaker C (39:29):
When you say crunchy, what do you mean by
that?

Yeah, so crunchy means like lots of
modifiers, lots of like
looking up the rule.

>> Speaker C (39:38):
Gott crunch a lot of numbers and.

Some People love that. Some people are like, I only won it if it has
really intense Mathy or you
can only move X number. Like,
I, I think of like, somebody be like, well, if I was calculating
the arc, of this, parabola, you
know, with the wind resistance and.
The way that the sun is hitting.
Like, that would be what I mean by

(40:01):
crunchy.

>> Speaker C (40:01):
Gotcha.

Well, cool, man. Thanks for, thanks for coming on. Really
love your story of getting into it, loving
it, and then wanting to jump in and run it.
I think a lot of people feel that, and I think a lot of people
feel overwhelmed doing it for the very first time.
And they're just tips and tricks that you can spend
hours looking at it on Reddit or you can just listen to somebody tell you

(40:23):
what to do.

>> Speaker C (40:24):
Yeah, no, I'll reach out when I start a game on my own. I, I think it'd be a.
You could do a cool ar.

Oh, that'd be awesome. And then you can tell me what worked for you, like,
what are some things that you learned along the way as you
started your game that you didn't expect? Excited to see
what you do. Really awesome to connect with you. And,
and feel free to reach out if you want anything, need anything, or just
want a chat.

>> Speaker C (40:43):
Yeah, I'll text you when I started looking at campaigns and stuff. But yeah,
again, let me know anytime you need somebody to hop on the
Podcast or if you ever need a somebody, play. I got play a
Game. I'm here.

Thanks, Andy. Take care.

>> Speaker C (40:54):
Good to see you. Take care. Have a good one.

Join us next time as we find the best ways to have
great times with friends and experience amazing stories
through Tabletop role Playing.
Have you ever wanted to start your.
Very own Tabletop RPG group, but you.
Just don't know how? What if you could follow six
simple tasks to get your Game up. And running in less
than 30 days? Ho you can, my
friend, download the Free Quick Start guide either by clicking on

(41:19):
the link in the show notes or by visiting
claimt2gamepodcast.com commt follow the six
simple tasks outlined in the guide and go
Enjoy and play your best game. And may you keep having
fun as we continue to make our claim to Game.

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028: From Player to Gamemaster - When do you know enough to start your own game? - With Andy Scheirer

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}028: From Player to Gamemaster - When do you know enough to start your own game? - With Andy Scheirer