034: Which Tabletop RPG is a Good Fit for Your Gaming Group? - With Craig Shipman - Claim to Game

Episode Transcript
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>> Clint Scheirer (00:00):
Hey Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com here. Since this episode is so good,
I did not want to interrupt the flow that Craig and I have
here weaving golden words of inspirations. So before
we begin, I want to ensure any fans of 3rd
Floor wars tabletop Talk who are new to listening to
my work with the Claim to Game Podcast, take advantage of the
dedicated freebie that I made

(00:20):
specifically for you. It is a quiz which,
if you answer each question honestly, will guide you
to one game you may or may not have considered to run
for your gaming table. Just click on the link in the show notes
bonus.claimtoggamepodcast.com
FreerPGquiz I put a lot
of time and love into crafting the questions to lead

(00:40):
you to some really great games. Thank you. And
now ono my interview with craigshipman
which tabletop RPG is a good fit
for your gaming group?
There are so many tabletop RPGs that you can
choose from, it can be overwhelming which one to pick,
but this may be the most important thing you do as
a GM in this episode. Craig Shipman of Third

(01:02):
Floor Wars Tabletop Talk helps us hone in on
three main considerations when choosing a game to
play what does a good fit game look like
for the gm? What does a good fit game
look like for the players? Are there
differences between playing in person or online?
We even go a few levels deeper by asking
what kind of genre and vibe do you want for your game?

(01:25):
What level of world simulation and detail do you
want your game to carry for you? And does a pre
made setting or open world setting matter when choosing your
game? This conversation is great if you
are a game master or inspiring game master and
want both you and your players to have
loads of fun. Welcome to Claim to Game. We help

(01:45):
tabletop gamers 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

(02:05):
coaching, teaching and developing easy to follow learning plans
I know I can help you too. Its time for you to make
your claim to game.

(02:42):
Today our focus is how do I
decide what game fits
my table and we had a discussion
about thisuse I wanted to call it the right fit game
and you were like Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com no it can't be the right fit game. It has
to be a good fit cause there's many games yep that
could be a Good fit. so, you know, Craig,

(03:02):
why does this even matter? You know, why do we, why do we
even need to be talking about this? Why should game masters put some
level of consideration, into a good fit
game besides just pulling it off the shelf and start rolling dice?

>> Craig Shipman (03:14):
Well, I think, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, it's not just why does it matter? I think it
is the most important thing you do as a gm.
I think there's. I don't think there's anything else you can do as a GM that's
more important than this. I like the order in which
we're covering things. Cause I think it presents a very strong
hierarchy. People often GMs will find
themselves in a traper. Like, I've gotta find the right game for

(03:34):
my players. That's fine, but that's step
two. Right. The first thing you need to do is find the game for you
because you're gonna be the one GMing and running it.
But it's critical. and that's coming from somebody who's a strong
believer in system matters. so I'm a very big believer. You
know, that game that you pick and the system like really is
important. But that's like a far

(03:54):
distant secondary to the type of stuff we're talking about
today.

When I think of why do I choose or
care so much about a game, it does start with me.

Yeah.

You know, I'm usually the gm. I'm the forever GM in most of
my groups. it's rare that I get to be a player.
And when I do think about the game, it has to start with
me. I have to be excited about. It
has to be something I'm pumped about. Usually it's something
nostalgic for my childhood that has now become a
now become a tabletop RPG of some sort.

That's usually now you have adult money in adult time. So you can
indulge the child,
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com.

That's right. Yeah. Indulge my, my inner child
that was stifled Ash a babe.
so we both agreed this matters. Yeah. And it's most important.
It's the most important thing.
we're gon toa break this up into three parts. I try. I'm very
systematic in the way that I think about this. So this is how I
felt we needed to talk about this. Tonight we're going to
identify what a good fit game looks like for

(04:52):
a gm and then we're going toa go
into the players at the table. What does it look like a good fit for
the players at your table? And after this, we can he
and haw over in person versus
playing online. You have a lot of experience playing
online? I play online, but I think my
most u, confident moments are playing in
person right at a physical table. you know,

(05:15):
and then we can sprinkle in, you know, different GM elements that
might flavor why you would choose one game over another
based on your personal preference. Are you game,
Craig?

Let's do it, my friend. Let's do
it.

What in your mind makes a game a
good fit for a game master? For you?

For me. And then I'll probably extend it beyond me.
but I've got a kind of a weird process. The first thing to
understand is that I have two different hobbies here. I've got
buying and reading RPGs and I have running RPGs
and playing RPGs, and those are two different hobbies for me. I'm very.
I enjoy both of them a lot. but people
talk about their shelf of shame. That is part of my

(05:53):
hobby is my beautiful shelf of all of these you gorgeous
books of games I'll never run.

that's all below me, right here in my desk. They're
stacked at least 10ft high.

The reason it's called third floor wars is the third floor of my
house is my hobby room.

Okay?

And, it's embarrassing for
me, and it's a little unique. And that's why I'm gonna
talk beyond me. But for me, I have to visualize
running the game. So I will read an
rpg, go through it, and then I
sit on it. So it's not uncommon for me to
go to six, eight months between first engaging and deciding.

(06:28):
I think this is the game I wanna run and actually committing
to running it. Because somehow in that period of
time, I have to imagine me
running the game, and I have to visualize and
understand what does it look like when I run Blaze in
the Dark. And once I have a sense of what that is,
then I know I've got the right game. It's time to then decide.

(06:48):
You know, for me, I'm lucky because I have, you know, hundreds of
potential players to pick from. So for me, it's finding the
right players. But for my locals, the next
thing is for me toide, is this the right game for my locals?
I think expanding that out, though, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, what where that
extends to is you have to be excited.
Like, you have to be like, I cannot

(07:08):
wait to run this game. I
can't wait to prep for it. I can't Wait to get other
people excited about it. I can't wait to think of
my own scenario or to play this scenario that I
bought or that's in the back of the book. Like, you have
to be literally at. Your seams
are breaking. You're so excited because if you don't

(07:28):
have that, everything's gonna fail.
it doesn't matter how much your players love the game. If you don't have
more excitement than they do, it's gonna
fall apart.

It's contagious.
Yeah, I, you know when you were talking
and you said, I'm excited, I have
to be excited, I was thinking what makes me excited about a game.
So I already mentioned nostalgia. Right. I
saw a few years ago there was a Terminator
RPG Kickstarter, and I was like, whoa. Like
I could be Arnold. Like finally I can. I

(08:00):
can kick ass. Like I was so pumped to be Arnold
Schwarzenegger and be a Terminator. Or there was a
Turtles game that is. Was Kickstart started and is still
on its way. It's been kind of a long slog to get that actual
physical copy out. in. In the wild.
But there's always some sort of nostalgia. For me,
there's something that I liked in pop culture

(08:20):
that has now been turned into a game.
And I recently did an episode. I think it was episode 31.
I talked with Aaron Art from the
Lore of the Rings-esque podcast, and he had
played D20 & D before, but he didn't know
that there was a. The One Ring second
edition.

It's so good too.

Tabletop game. Yeah, it's one of my, 10ft tall
stacks that are underneath me.

Great, great game.

All the source copies from Freely Publishing. Just
beautiful world building, amazing art.

And mechanically sound too, like mechanically
built to tell. Not just a generic fantasy
game, but mechanically built to tell. A Fellowship
game.

Yeah. And that's such, you know, the Fellowship
is what makes that such a great tabletop
game because you are a team of adventurers telling a
collaborative storytelling game with one goal.

Yep.

Right. There's one goal that you're all at it and it's pretty cool.
So it's nostalgia, but there's
also other aspects that make something exciting for
me as a gm. And it really, it really goes inward
for the kind of template that I like. What kind of game
do I lean towards? I like games that are
more narrative. I'm more of a
storyteller.

So. Real quick on that, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, when you say more narrative,
like, we all toss this around for this
term, what exactly does that mean for you when you say
a game A is more narrative than game B?
What does that mean?

Yeah, so for me, a narrative game means that
the narrative and the storytelling take
precedence over the crunchiness
of the rules. And crunchy is. We're gonna get into
crunchy. We're gonna get into what crunchy means.
to me, crunchy means that there are very
specific mechanics that,
that control the outcomes of what my

(10:08):
character can and cannot do. there are
some games that lend. That make it
a little looser. I think, I. I'm jumping around
to different systems here, but I played the Star Wars tabletop game by
Fantasy Flights, another favorite of mine. Yeah, I
love that dice pool. Right. Cause the dice pool
will allow you to fail, but in an interesting

(10:28):
way.

The narrative dice system is amazing.

So that's. To me, a more narrative game. Focuses
on mechanics that help you tell a good. Well, I shouldn't
even say. There can be great stories with tough
mechanics, hard mechanics, unforgiving mechanics.
But I like the ones that are more loose, where, you know,
I can still have fun and my character can still kick ass.

Would it be fair to say, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, that. Anda, I'm
gonna put a slightly different term out there and you tell
me if I'm hitting it right. It's a degree of
simulationist, and it sounds to me like you
like the abstract a little bit more
versus the full simulation.
that can happen with quote unquote crunchier games.
Because both games are gonna tell a story, right? Goa.

(11:10):
a story's gonna emerge from our play in a quote
unquote crunchy game versus what is being called a narrative game.
But I'm starting to realize that what I find is
that I don't need to simulate
the world. What I need is
I need a certain feel
and vibe from the game. And I want the
mechanics to be there when I need them. I want them to get the hell out of the

(11:32):
way when I don't need them. And that takes me
out of figuring out how many minutes,
it takes before I drown. Right.

Or travel. survival.
How much food do you have? You know, when I've played
5e, those were the mechanics that just
got brushed over. and that's what I was introduced
to. I was introduced to
D&D5E in 2015,
freshly after the fifth edition, you know, just had come
out and, you know, I was introduced that. That was

(12:02):
a beginner's game. Like, if you were. If you
were beginning the Tabletop journey, like, and you were
new. You started 5e. And what I've learned is that's
not the case.

I disagree.

Oh, really? Oh, please, tell me.

But because of a misconception, though, I
think it's a phenomenal game for
beginner players, because you
don't have to learn anything. Because the play culture
around 5e is that the GM is
the person who learns all of the rules,
who runs the entire game, who
writes out a story and invites you to

(12:37):
play a part in that story.
So for a player, that's great. I
don't need a player's manual. You just tell me when to grab a
die and what number I need to hit. And
so the asymmetrical
load that's on the GM does make
5e great as a beginner player. But I feel like
the players are missing out on so much in that scenario because you can

(13:00):
find something that has a similar load on the player,
but the player gets to engage in the game, which
I don't think necessarily happens at a lot of
5e tables.

That's a really good distinction. That. And that's probably why
I feel like it wasn't a good beginner game. Cause I'm a forever gm,
Right?

Right. Oh, the load for you is a GM is just
ridiculous.

Yeah, it was a lot. So, you know, I took this to
the Reddit community. Right. I wanted to figure out,
as you do. Yes, I love Reddit. Like, I just love it.

I know you do.

Reddit is where. A place where people hide behind
their. Their username, and they will be
audacious. They will say some of the most
aggressive, amazing things that you just can't get
when somebody's identity is connected to it. So,
love it or hate it, we got some pretty good
information. So about 8,000
people viewed and

(13:52):
interacted with this question. And that's incredible. It was
really awesome. And I just said, how do you choose a
good fit game for your table?
and mainly it was GMs that responded.
because anybody who's super excited or crazy in this hobby is
usually a GM of some sortep. That's not a
hard and fast rule, but it's what I've experienced. And from the

(14:13):
conversations that I have at these GMs, I boiled
their advice down to three
questions. I really love breaking it up into threes. I don't
know why, but I guess my brain just thinks that way.
So the first was, what kind of story do you
want to tell? And there were so many answers that
came in. Right. Fantasy Horror, sci fi, superheroes, you

(14:33):
name it. the second question was, do you
prefer a story which leans more to the
narrative or leans to the rules? Heavy
crunch. And I appreciated how you said they're both tell a
story, right. But some
stories require more world
control and that's where the rules come in.

And there's nothing wrong with those people, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, that want that
simulationist, right, that wants the grid and I move
four squares and my reach is, you know, two
feet. And my Hellbeard is going to do different
damage on a different table than my sword.
That shit's awesome for the right people.

Can you give me an example of a game that's an amazing
simulation, like how you explained
it where everything just feels like you're living the world to the
teeth.

Lancer, I think is the best example
of a just crunchy
simulationist game.
I have zero interest in playing
Lancer. but man, if that is your
thing like Lancer'right there, because
the role playing piece of it where I inhabit a
character and speak in a first person and

(15:39):
make decisions in a first person, that
occurs. But it's secondary to
that tactical, building your Mac,
fitting your Mac, maintaining your Mac,
pulling out the minis and fighting a battle
on there. And it's elegant at the same time, it's not
clunky like I think some simulation just games can
be. It's very elegant. But it is a

(16:02):
simulationist game. which is funny cause it's a mech
game. Right? but yeah,
and again, even though I have no interest in playing
Lancer, I've always put that very, very
high, on a pedestal for like, if you want, like to
frein play. And the thing for me, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, is part of the reason why I don't do
this. Like I can play mini war games

(16:22):
to scratch that edge because it's a wonderful Itich
that the tactics and the strategy and the, and
the, the beating of the game.
Right? Like, I get that in my minigames. So I don't look for it
in my RPGs, but for some people, they look for it
in RPGs for both.

Yeah. My buddy Jonathan Eisemann, friend of the
Pod, he said that he's read through the
Lancer book several times and still doesn't know
how to play.

So my advice to him is he needs to start
running it. Yeah, that's the only way you can learn
Lancer. You can't read Lancer and take
it all in.

And you know, that's my suggestion for
when people Wanna learn a game, run it. Yep.
And that was one of the pieces of advice that came up time and time
again. You wanna learn it, go run it and learn as you
go.
Now there was a third question. We can go through all these questions
again. I just wanted to lay them all out. The third question
was do you run a game set in a

(17:17):
pre made universe and world and
setting or do you wanna run a game that's set in
an open world where you were sort of the master of the
universe, you know the world building I think of the
year 0 engine U. I don't know who I was
listening to is probably the, the McCarroys in the adventure
Zone way back when. and they were playing something where they
were creating their world. It was like an

(17:39):
undersea adventure. And that was the first several episodes
was them making up this world that they were then going to play
in. So that was the three main
questions. It was what kind of story do you wanna
tell? Do you prefer a story that leans to the
narrative or the crunchiness? And do
you want a pre made world or not?

Because I'm a pain. I want to reframe
these oay because for me I think they're bringing
up different points than their headlines.
What I'm hoping it'll do for some people listening is it'll
challenge some of the common
language we hear when we talk about our hobby.
so let's talk real quickly about the first one. What kind
of story do you want to tell? I challenge

(18:21):
that you are not telling a story, you're playing
a game. And because it's
magical, the hobby, a story
will emerge from that game.
So I challenge GMs don't
think about what is the story I'm going to tell
that happens all by itself. You

(18:41):
don't need to come up with a three act structure. Our brains
construct the three act structure whether we want to
or not. I don't have to decide what
is gonna be the next thing that happens. What I need to
do is I need to create a world
and populate that world with NPCs.
But I'll say people with people that want

(19:02):
things and are afraid of things,
lay that all out. Then decide if
no player character showed up
what would happen. Then grab
your four agents of chaos, your four players
drop em in that world and then see
what happens and react. Don't

(19:23):
think about like you know then the villain's gonna do
this and then they have to go to this building
to Find that clue. Get rid of all of that mentality.
Don't try to tell a story. Create the
world. Lay out everything there and then
drop your agents of chaos in there and follow them and
react to them. So I'm
reframing that to say you need to find the right

(19:45):
genre and the right feel, which
I completely agree with. Do you. And
again, do it for yourself. Right. If you don't
like horror, don't run a horror game. If
superheroes get you so excited,
that's enough to have four players that don't read comic
books. Get excited. Even if they don't love

(20:05):
superheroes. If you do, it'll work. So I
think it's finding the right genre and I don't
know a better feel, but like the right vibe. Like, what
this. What is it gonna feel like to play this
game? Which I don't think is talked about enough, quite frankly.

I was talking to Ken Height, back in episode
18.

What does he know? What does he
know?

He's a fun guy. Man. It was so much fun.

Great human. And he's forgotten more about role playing than I'll
ever learn.

Wow. And you know, the stuff that he's done with
gerps'horror and what he
continues to do with different renditions of that game
and, the Gumhoes system.
He was saying that when it comes to horror. Cause I
typically don't like horror. I don't like watching horror
movies. My mom loved them. I don't wanna
read a horror book. but he said horror is

(20:58):
not so much about, you know, that scared
feeling. It's playing with your
phobias, but not leaning
into people's traumas.

Oh, oh, I totally agree with that last part.
That last part is big.

And that was beautiful. Cause that's. I think my
fear is I'm gonna play a horror game
and something traumatic to me is going to pop up.

And you have a better chance of it happening there. But it's not the only place that could happen.
Right? It could happen potentially in any genre.

Correct.

That's why safety tools are really important. You and I could talk for
three hours about safety tools, but, No, I
agree. I find. So I'm not only a fan
of horror games and running horror games, but I
love horror books. I love horror TV shows. I
like the movies too. Like, I am. That is my favorite genre
of entertainment. I recently, like, I've

(21:46):
been trying to f. I was on a journey to try to
figure out why. Why do I like horror so much? Cause
I am m. A normal human being who does not have heads in my
freezer. Right. Like, I'm not a badat. Like, that's not who I
am. Right. I'm glad it's good.
Right. why do I like it so much? And I
feel terrible because I cannot remember the name of the podcast.

(22:07):
it's two women that have this phenomenal horror podcast.
I'll look it up, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com. So people can check in in the show
and see which one I'm talking about. But, she nailed
it. What she said, in her book. And I'll
send the book title as well. It's a great book. what she said is
that horror gives you a
safe place to feel
danger when you're

(22:29):
watching a horror movie, when you're playing a horror
role playing game, when you're reading a horror book,
you can pause it, you can turn it off, you can close the
book, you can stop at any point in time. But it
allows you to explore some dangerous things
in the complete total warm
safety of not being there.

(22:49):
And it can be very cathartic. And that's what it is for
me. And I think for a lot of horror fans, it's very cathartic.
If that's an experience you don't even want to
go through in a safe place, then it's not for
you.

Well, and that makes sense. Right? It's sometimes
bravery.
Right. Let's flip it on. You know, any emotion is really what
makes Tabletop so cool, is that you're living these things
that maybe you don't live in your everyday life, or maybe you do and you just
don't realize it. Yep. you know, a lot of times
we discover things about ourselves as we play.

Very true. One of the few hobbies that does that.

Yeah.
All right, let's rephrase question number two.

So question two says, do you prefer a story which leans more to the
narrative storytelling or rules coveryot crut? I think we've already kind of reframed
that a little bit. whereas I think that'a matter
of level of simulation and
the amount of detail. Do you want the game to
carry for you or are you willing to
abstract some things? Right. and I think one of

(23:44):
the perfect examples I talk about that I think
shows abstract versus simulationist is
I'm a thief and I wanna sneak into the
castle. Now in 5e, I'm gonna keep
making stealth checks. Stealth check for the first guard,
for the second guard, for the fourth guard. I hear it jokingly
called, roll to you Fail. Right. Compare that to
Blades in the Dark. Blades in the Dark says one

(24:07):
role. Let's figure out how you did.
Right? And then we'll go through guard one and guard two and guard
three and play it out. And it'll be awesome. Cause we know I
succeeded or I excceeded with complications or whatever it might
be. But that's, I think, a good example of that
array. Same thing with, like, for combat, right? You can have
games where it's one role that says you won the combat. Now tell me

(24:27):
what happens. Or we can spend three sessions
in 5e to roll and miss.
Roll and miss. Roll and hit. Take four damage. Right. And.
And I'm being a little flippant about it. For those who are listening that,
on your feed. Clint, I am not a fan
of 5e, but I love that 5e exists. And I.
I give no slight to people who

(24:48):
love, love that system. It's just not for me. Right.
So, yeah, I think the second one we've kind of covered.

Yeah, I was gonna say. And, this is going on a
tangent, so probably not good podcast etiquette, but the
Flashback mechanic.

That's my entire podcast.

Y. The Flashback mechanic.

Right.

And Blades in the Dark. Can you talk
a little bit about how that. Cause that is something
where you roll once you fail. But then
it's such a cool storytelling element. I just.

I do this a good bit.
So, two games that are built for heists.
Shadow Run and Blades in the Dark. I have run
both. I'm old enough to have run Shadowrun.

What version of Shadown?

Like old man Shadowrun.

Okay.

Terrible, terrible mechanic. Shadown.

Okay.

The two games are very different.
Handling a heist with Shadowrun, it's a more traditional
situation, which is we're gonna pull out a map.
The players as their characters, and
usually mostly just the players as the players are gonna come
up with a plan. Here's our plan. Here's our plan B. Here's our plan
C. What if this happens? You gotta make sure you pack

(25:52):
explosives. I'm gonna make sure I have these spells ready.
Well, you know. Well, what if this happens? Oh, God, we gotta go plan D now.
Right? And it can go two or three sessions in a sadow run where
you are planning the heist for some tables.
That's amazing. Right? That process is
what. Why they play the game. And Blades in the Dark.
Blades in the Dark goes. What's your target?

(26:12):
What are you trying to do? Okay, let's start.
You're like, well, I haven't planned anything. You, the player,
have not planned anything. You are correct. But you
are not a good thief. Turns out your character
is. And your character has done all of the planning.
So let's figure out how well their planning is. So you
drop the player and their character into the

(26:33):
situation. The heist has started. The character has
planned this out. They are a master
heist actor. Right. And what
will happen is I walk up and I say, hey, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com,
there's two guards that are guarding the
vault. And you goew. It's a good
thing that two days ago

(26:53):
I figured out who the two guards were gonna be on
this shift.
And I got one of them drunk and
got a copy of the key. Or
I found out he was sleeping with somebody else, so I
blackmailed him. So he's gonna let us through. It's like,
oh, that's interesting. Let's flash back to that moment.
Let's see if it was successful or not. And let's bring us

(27:16):
back to the present. So what's cool about it
is you get to play as a
master at pulling off these heists. Even
though Craig, you
know, the 9 to 5, 40 hour
week guy and knows nothing about breaking into a
castle or a bank or anything. But I'm playing, you know,
Alfred, who's been doing this his whole life. So yeah,

(27:39):
I think that's a good example of that.

I would say that Blades in the Dark
has a pre made world. Right?
Y like you're in a. Is it
Dundaval? Duskall.

Duskall.

Duskfall. You're in Duskfall.
There's a story kind of like why you're
trapped in this city for your own protection. Can't run
away. It's like a pressure cooker for
conflict. yet there are other
games. I think of the solo. It's not just
solo rpg, but I think of Starforged Forged or Ironsworn.

(28:11):
Ironsworn Sworn by Shawn Tompkin. Super cool dude.
Really great game.

Great games.

That is open world. I mean,
there is a map, but.

Right.

You don't have to stay on that map.

Yep.

And you can make whatever you want.
So the third question that we were maybe going
to rephrase, going
to, adjust discombobble and put it back together. You know, I'm from
Milwaukee. If you go to the Milwaukee airport, there's a disc
recombobulation area after you get through security.
So any Milwaukee people, you got toa go find the discombo.

You've stripped everything. You've been laid bare in front of tsa.
You can put your life Back together.

The recombobulation area after you've been discomboing's amazing. So
we're gonna discombobulate.
This third question. Do you want to run a game
set in a pre made universe and setting or do you want an
open world? That was a question people wanted you to ask.
What, what do you think about that?

I don't think it matters. So this is the one
where I will disagree with 8,000 people under
I don't think this
matters. And the reason is tied to what I talked
about at the very beginning with story. I'm
running a module next month of mothership
called VR Dead. It is a zine.
It has got all, everything I need to run

(29:25):
it. How I run that is
no different than if I had created my
own zine to run if I was
doing a home breew as people call it. And the
reason it's not different is the only thing's different
is do I have a pre
made a setting and
NPCs and what's these

(29:47):
NPCs want already printed for me
or do I need to decide what that is?
But after that it's all the same
the way that I like to at look at and think about
games. So but this is
this is not all about me, right? So for some people this is a critical
question, right? Because what's really being said

(30:09):
here is how much work do you wanna put into this before you start
playing? And I will again challenge.
Well I don't wanna challenge people because there are GMs
out there, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com. That, that is their kink
is creating their own world
and their own like the politics and,
and the geography and you know, this

(30:31):
is why this was like they're creating their own
fantasy novels and that's what they love to do.
And God bless you freaking go. That
is a beautiful way to enjoy this hobby.
that's just not me. so I don't, I don't want to
make it sound like a bad mouth. So, so I take what I said back.
For some people this question is very very important

(30:51):
for me and I wanna challenge people that are listening to think about
maybe it isn't that important and maybe, maybe
the actions as a GM are the same.
But the bigger question I think it's hinting at
is how much load do
you want as a gm? how much do I need to be prepping for
30 minutes before every session or do I need to be prepping

(31:11):
three days before everyssion?
One is not better than the Other, it all depends on what you're looking for. So
that is a decision point.

I'm gonna bring it back to something you said when you were talking about your
process when you're looking for a game.
So you read and then you give
yourself time to sit and think about it. And that may
be months, that may be weeks.
reading has never been something that I do
fast. reading for

(31:38):
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com is a
process. And what I've found for myself
is I sometimes enjoy making my own
world because I don't have to read and
try to soak in somebody
else's world. Same, thing about
campaigns, right? There are certain pre made campaigns,
D20 & D is full of them. And I know you can go on

(32:00):
tabletop, and drive through RPG and you
can get all sorts of really cool
campaigns and really cool adventures that people have written.

Well, I think what you're talking about is the fact that you may
not necessarily enjoy or share my enjoyment of reading games
as much as I do. Right. So for you, the
play part of the hobby is
paramount is what it sounded like to me.

Yeah.

But again, so I'm dyslexic, I'm an
extremely slow reader. I get angry, like
viscerally angry at my wife because she's one of those
people that can read, book a novel in two days. And I just,
it takes me a long time, to read. so
I share that with you, but I also enjoy it. Which sounds
like you may not enjoy it. And that's nothing wrong with that.
But here's the thing that I wanna challenge you

(32:45):
again on is go pick up,
Frostmaiden, right, this huge
hardback 5e, campaign
and just read the first chapter or two to do what
I was just saying, which is, what is this world?
What is the setting? Who is in play here? Who are
the NPCs in play here? And then I don't

(33:06):
care what chapter seven says in
Frostmaiden, because we may never get
there. Cause I have no idea when I drop my agents of Chaos in
there, what's gonna happen. But yeah,
like, and again, for some people, and it sounds like
for you, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com the Juice is
exercising the creativity of Inna. Create
my own scenario, my own settings, my own

(33:28):
NPCs, my own
layout for my players to jump in
and to tear to pieces and ignore 90% of what I
made. Like that is a
phenomenal part of this hobby.

I think I remember where I was going with this as you were talking.
So, the prep. So it takes longer for
me to read something I didn't create to prep
for it than it does for me to make it and then be able
to run it. I enjoy the reading. I mean if my wife was
like, what did you read in the last year? Most of them
would probably. Most of the books I read were probably tabletop
rpg. Good for you. Books that I would never

(34:03):
actually get to play. Right. Because that's
the unspoken, dirty, dirty other hobby
that we have games will never get to run. Mike
Sha Lazy Dungeon Master Sly
Flourish. I
really love the lazy Dungeon master
method of creating an

(34:24):
adventure, creating a campaign, even making a
session that revolutionized the
way that I set up a game. Cause like you said, what are the
NPCs, who are the main players? What are the
secrets and clues? And if your agents of
chaos don't make it real, it
doesn't have to be.

Exactly.

And that's what helped with the prep is you mentioned I
may never get to chapter
seven.

Right.

But I have a starting point. A strong start
I think is what Mike calls it.

Yeah, I think Lazy Dungeon Masters a required reading
for every gm. I think also John For's five
room Dungeon, is another one that I think
even again, if you don't use, even if you don't use
Shay's method, even if you don't use a five room dungeon as a
method, it'll reframe how you think about it. It'll
change how you think about it. And this is me being my

(35:16):
typical shill. I think the third thing that is a
required reading. Even if you never run the game,
or two of them, there's two games you need to own and
you need to read because it'll make you better at every other game you
run. The first one is Blaze in the Dark. Blades in the
Dark will blow your mind and change how you think
about the hobby. You don't have to ever run

(35:36):
Blades in the Dark for it to blow your mind. Turns out it's also a great
freickaking game. The other one is the Warden's
Manual for mothership. What Shama McCoy
put together in this little azine.
size is I think one of the best
GM advice per page that I've ever
come across. so if you never run
Mothership, you still should buy and just go get the PDF.

(35:58):
You can buy just that PDF, the
Warden'PDF on drive thru. It's gonna cost you a couple bucks.
It's phenomenal. And then reading the GM
section of Blades in the Dark will also make you
better at running games.

Burning Wheel, it's a lot of game,
really intense.
Everybody says it's super intense. But all
everybody will say, I don't know how I could ever run
this, but it's so well made and written.
What are your thoughts about that? I've never read through it. I just.
That's rumor.

So I've read a've read Burning Wheel and I've never
run it. And I'll be honest, I never will. It
is, it's a game that
changed how games were thought of. So it'it
is definitely a landmark game.
There was nothing like it before and there was a lot
of like it afterwards, but not as a complete

(36:49):
thing. They just designers were like,
oh, wow. Like, this changes things.
similar to like an apocalypse world, kind of changed how everybody
thought about how games could be run and played.
It's a lot of game. It's a lot of game. But
no, I think that if you've never read
or never read, Burning Wheel, I think

(37:10):
it's an important book. I think it's worth reading, it's
worth owning. I don't put it up there as high
as the ones that I'd mentioned.
you also could read Mike Sha's Complete
Works. You could read Five Room Dungeon, you could read Blades in the
Dark, and you could read the Mothership Wardens Guide
20 times before you finish burning,

(37:31):
Wheel.

A lot of game, a lot of book.

Yeah. but again, here's my
commentary about Burning Wheel. You'll never hear someone go,
what do you think about burning a wheel? And they'll go, yeah, it's fine.
Like, no, either you love
Burning Wheel or you're kind of like me. We're like, yeah, I
mean, it's good. It's a good book. Or
there's people that just hate it. But you never have the milk toast

(37:54):
opinion about bring Wheel.

No. Yeah. It's extreme. There's nothing in the middle.
Not lukewarm.

Yeah. But the people who love it, oh, God, do they love it.

All rightnna Move part two.

Uh-huh.

The good fit for the players.
And my question to you is, you run a lot of games
for a lot of players, and not all games resonate with every
player. How do you balance player
preference with your excitement?

So excitement first. Yes, excitement is first.
We've established that after that,
it really kind of depends on the playf field
here. Right. So. And we're gonna get into this when we say
in person versus online, but But I'm lucky cause I
have both, right? I have a regular locals game.
It is the same five or six players and they rotate

(38:39):
in. We rotate GMs as well. So
I am often the player, not just the gm. Even though it's all hosted
here. And we're all very different.
There's all of us like different things.
And you know, there's a
certain social contract that has to be in place if you
have a constrained pool at your table,

(38:59):
which is we are going to find the game
and that's all we're gonna play and it's gonna scratch all the
right itches for everybody. Or kind of like what I
have here is we're gonna
experiment, right? Jim is gonna run this
game and you know what? I bet Jesse's
gonna love it and Craig's gonna hate it. But

(39:20):
then we're gonna get James to run a game and
Craig's gonna love it and Jesse's not gonna like it. But both
Craig and Jesse are looking for games that'challenge us. And you
know, so we're up for this laboratory, we're up for this
experiment. Otherwise, you do need to consider
that, right? But the Matrix is very similar that you're gonna
judge this off of, right? Where do your players

(39:40):
individually fall on a simulationist versus,
abstract, genre.
You don't want to run Call of Cthulhu if you've got three of
your four players hate horror. So you definitely have to consider
that. But Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, it's so, in my opinion,
so secondary to the first one. but it doesn't veto it
either, right? Like I like if someone

(40:00):
said to me, hey, Craig, could you run this game for this table? And I knew
all of them have zero interest in horror. They hate
horror. It doesn't matter how much I love horror. It's not
gonna land. So I might go to my second favorite, right? Where I still. But I
can't go to some place where I don't have passion, right?
So if they said to me, hey, Craig, would you go run 5e for this
group? I'be m say the answer

(40:20):
is no. Because I am not going to love it
enough to make it a good experience for
everybody. But in its own way, I guess what I'm saying,
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, is I think that the
decision matrix is the same for the gm, but I do
believe it's secondary. And you also have to
understand why are people coming to the table,
right? So my local group, like I said,

(40:41):
it's a bit of a laboratory. We wanna try a lot of different Games we
wanna like play different genres, we wanna try different
mechanics. We really, really
want is, we want people who don't normally run games to run
games. People that do normally run games, you get a chance to play.
And for people like me, who are often the gm, for
us to bring a passion project to the table, like that's why

(41:02):
we get together to play games for each
table. It's different. So you definitely need to have the conversation of why are
we meeting every other Thursday?

Is that from experience where you've been at a table or
been in a group where there was not a social contract or did
you just know going in this is how I
want to come to this hobby.

I think the contrast for that. Clint, the answer is no.
But that's because, my local
games for the past 20 some odd years that I've been
playing are, are curated. But
the comparison I'll give is the difference between my home game here
and playing at a convention. You know, when you play at a convention,
whoever signs up, signs up and you don't know what that GM

(41:41):
is until unless you know they re, you know, known by name, you don't know what you're going toa
get into. So that's where that social, I think the social
contract for most local games is built in,
unless it's not discussed at all. And
even if you've been playing with the same group for 30 years
now, I challenge you to go, why are we
doing this? Like Steve, why do you like to do this?

(42:01):
Betty, why do you like to do this? Why do you make sure that every first
Saturday we're here playing? You might be
surprised what people tell you it's the same reason, like I'm a
huge fan of safety tools in session zero. Even with people you've
played with, you know, for most of your adult life
at a convention, the GM
has a different conversation to start off with. And I think you have to

(42:21):
be explicit about that social contract because you're playing
with strangers. And it's also very different me
from an online perspective because of, you
know, there's a lot of people on my Patreon that get to play at
my table who I've never met in person. And so there is
a certain social contract conversation that has to happen.

It made me think of a conversation I had with Robin D.
Laws and he was talking about his book, you know,
the Laws is of Good Game Mastering.
Great Book Figuring out How Everybody
Likes to Play. Right. I've learned that I like
to butt kick, I like to Get. I
am always the tank. I love to go in and start

(42:59):
swinging. Like, I will pull the gun first. I'm the
Han Solo, you know?
But there are other people who love the strategize,
and they want. They want the strategy. And if you
don't have that, they're not gonna have fun.
And so that's part of the social contract, too. Like you said,
asking them, figuring out why they're there, that is so

(43:20):
important.

Yeah. Understand the alchemy. Right? Understand the alchemy. And part of
that social contract is to Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, is that sometimes when you wanna
pull your blaster out, you know that I think Betty kind
of wants to do some planning here. So, you know what? I won't grab my blaster
this time. That's part of that social contract.

Sharing the spotlight.

Yeah. And in the same way, too, that when
the GM puts, a clue in front of you
or puts a lead in front of you, you need to figure
out why your character is going to follow that lead. Because
part of that social contract is that I am here
to engage in the game.
so you don't be that girl

(43:55):
or that guy that says, oh, that's not what my character
would do. Like, that's not why we're here,
so stop it.

I'm also a method actor, according to Robin's,
terminology.
So I'm the guy that's like, my character would do this. And I've
learned the hard way, some people don't have fun
with that. I can ruin fun.

Yeah. And I think that it can be
fun because the activity you're going through
there is trying to inhabit a character.
What I talk to about with a lot of other people is
don't come in there inhabiting a fully fleshed
out human or dragon where the hell you're playing. Right. A
fully fleshed out character. Sketch out your character,
let them be their own thing, and then

(44:38):
hop in and discover your character through
play. I think that throw away your
34 page backstories, just put a sketch
together, and then I think our
method players might realize that there's an
incredible amount of joy of discovering
who Gargar the Barbarian really
is. And the only way to figure out who Gargar is is

(45:00):
to have Gargar in the world, facing
adversity and most importantly, making
choices. And if you jump in as a method
player into a stranger's body
and allow that stranger to react in real time,
not because of the page four of my backstory,
you're gonna find an incredible amount of Joy as a method.

Player, you know, that's interesting.
Remember I created, I was asked to play the
Starfinder playtest last, this last fall.
Very cool. I was a lot of fun and I
went in my character, you know, the butt kicking
lizard doo, the strong be beefy guy.
And there was a moment where this cat like

(45:40):
character, I can't remember the name of all the
races, but she or
he reached out to me and we formed a
bond. there was something where I saved
him and I started him calling him my little
dancing buddy. Cause he did something where he was dancing.
And if I had gone with my backstory, we would'never had that
really beautiful moment or that fun inside joke,

(46:03):
you know, that you just can't get if you just follow the script
on paper, everything looks like it should have worked.
The game is a good fit for me as a gm.
seemed like it was going toa be a good fit for the players.
You start playing and then
it feels like you might wa want toa abandon the
game. What are the signs

(46:23):
for that? for you? And maybe you've never experienced
this, but what would be the signs for somebody?

No, I have. We have pulled the plug many a time.
it's never happened on the channel because my process to
bring something to the channel to play live
is different than bringing it to the table. I talked about here.
Local. It's very much an experiment and we have pulled the plug
on many a game here. I don't know Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, if I have
got specific signs, but everybody
knows. Everybody knows. And it's

(46:51):
why I think it's important to have
what, some sort of structured post
game discussion in every single
session. The way I tend to structure is a thing called
Thought Stars and Wishes, which I stole from Jason
Cordova's, the Gauntlet. Thought, Stars and Wishes.
I added thoughts. I think his is just starting. Stars and Wishes.
I have thoughts. Stars and Wishes. You can see it on my channel all the

(47:14):
time. And that is a way to kind
of gauge, where is everybody? Here's what you
shouldn't do. Don't end every session. Go. Did everybod
have fun? that gives you no
information whatsoever, right? Unless you're, you
know, most people are gonna be polite or they're not gonna say anything.
They're not gonn to express their thoughts. What I

(47:34):
like about thoughts, Stars and Wishes, thoughts is
tell me about your thoughts about the
game, the mechanics,
the setting, like the game. Outside of how we're
engaging with the game. What are your thoughts about the Game.
And what you'll hear people go is, I like this about this
game. I struggle here, right? So they're
not sharing their opinion about the session. They just

(47:56):
played with their friends. And you put so much time and effort
into, so it's safe for them to go.
Man, I'm really struggling with those grappling rules.
Unbelievable information for you to be, able to gauge where the table
is. Stars. Stars
is the opposite of saying, you know, what,
didn't you like stars? Tells you two

(48:17):
things. And with stars is, is when did
this shine? And a star can be a moment, it can be
a player, it can be something about the
system. But the star. When players tell you
they're stars, they're telling you what they want more of which
is a GM is gold, right? So if I say
my star was when, after the dungeon,

(48:37):
after we fought the big bad and we're
sitting around, I had a moment with Genevieve and
Genevieves'the way that her and I interacted and when she
said this, like, like, it was just awesome. I mean, that tells
you that player is telling you what they love about this
hobby. And you need to listen to that as a gm.
And then wishes is, what are you not

(48:58):
getting that you want? Or what you. What are you getting that you
want more of? So everything is still the positive,
right? Nothing negative here. And
what you'll find or what I have found, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, I can't speak for you. What I have
found is through this process, you
can gauge where everybody is.
If, man, if they're rattling off their thought stars and wishes,

(49:18):
like, like, oh, God, like, I have five stars,
right? And like, oh, I want so much, you
know, Then you know that this is working. We're cooking
with gas. Like, is. This is fantastic.
If people start going, I don't really have any thoughts. And, my star
is, when we killed the guy. And, I wish
that, we could figure out the answer to the
mystery. If you get four of those happening

(49:41):
as you go through thought stars and wishes, you might be playing the wrong
game and you might need to pull the plug. Or as the gm, if
you don't give them damn what the four of them are gonna say,
then you probably are running the wrong game. But,
man, when you do thought stars and wishes at the end of the
session, and people are like, oh, and then there was
this, and then there was that. Now, God, I'm really hoping

(50:01):
to find out, like, I know that
Voldemort is looking for this, and I wanna understand why
he, like, dude, that's the game. You're good.

Yeah.

and the last little piece I'll put on there, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, is don't
be afraid to pull the plug,
because the only thing worse than not playing
is playing a bad game. So,
like. And be honest with them. Caus a lot of times
what's happening there is that they're waiting for someone to say
it. So whether you're a player, a gm,

(50:30):
you'd be the one to say it, going, maybe we
should play Starforged Forged next week. Who wants to run Starforged
Forged?

That was a selfish question. I'll just say
that was a selfish question.

Are you in a bad game?

Clint, help. help me. You
know what it is is that I've been the guy like, hey, did
you guys have fun? And you're right. The
responses are polite. It's not good. You.
This is completely not a Tabletop book, but it's a book
called the Mom Test. I m don't know that it's
an entrepreneurial book. It's about asking
questions to clients so that you get real

(51:04):
information. Because if you ask your mom,
hey, Mom, I'm gonna create, this podcast
about tabletop RPGs. What do you think about. Oh,
honey, that just looks so great. You'll
be great at it. You're my big boy.
And then what did I really get from
that? but there are better questions that
we can be asking. So I won't go through all the questions in that

(51:26):
book, but that's what I'm hearing from you.

Similar idea.

Ask good questions at the end when you're doing that de
escalation period. And then you
get information that can either fuel the game to
continue or, you know, pull the plug.

And I'll really highlight the wishes part of that, because
that is pure kindling for you as a gm,
because they're telling you, I liked this, and I want
more of this, or this hasn't happened. And I would like
that you take those and you plan
session four. Like, oh, okay, this.
We need more of this. This hasn't happened. I need to introduce

(52:01):
this, and nobody mentioned that. So I can probably
throw that in the back burner, maybe. Doesn't. Nobody's really wishing for
that. Like, it just fuels
what your next session will look like.

And as a lazy Dungeon Master methodologist,
I would just. I know exactly my NPCs, I
know my secret clues, and then they get to make it
happen.

You try it, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com. Thoughts, stars, and wishes.

All right, let's dive into person versus
online. What unique challenges
do you face, Craig, when
you're not in person, like
you're online with people. What challenges would anybody
playing online have to run into?

I think the biggest distinction what you
lose online, there's a lot you gain online. I'll talk about that in a second. But
you lose a lot body language. We're all in a box, we're
Hollywood Squares, I just showed my age and
you lose body language. which can be very
informative for you as a gm. There's
more stealthy distractions available. An

(53:00):
online play, it's easy for me in person to see if someone's on
their phone, which is not me saying to that player, you like,
no, you don't do that. What that's telling me is I am not
engaging them and the way they need to be engaged, that's a
me problem, that's not a Steve on his phone problem.
Right. And that could be the wrong system. That could be a lot of
reasons. But I need to talk to Steve about it a little bit versus
punishing Steve for being that. Whereas when you're playing

(53:23):
online, I could, I've got four monitors in my setup. I
could have like three different, you know,
Amazon and Drive Through RPG
and you would never know in online play. As a result,
like style wise, I'm a little bit different in online
play. And online play you need to move that spotlight a
lot more. you need to really

(53:44):
proactively engage and keep them going. And
I think in online play, thought stars and wishes are even
more important because
you're not getting the information you, can
in an in person game. Now
that makes it sound like I prefer in person to
online. And if I had to pick one or the other, I

(54:04):
would pick in person. But here's what I would be giving up. The
beauty of online is it is a
big world and a big hobby.
And one of the things that I love
about my channel, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, is I have
played with over 50 different, I've run games
for over 50 different people. People that I
never would have met, never would have engaged with.

(54:27):
And my growth as a GM has come
from having so many different people to
engage with. And I have played in games that were
run by people that I would not be able to play with. Cause they live
in Australia. And the beauty of online
play is that you really, you've got, you've got so
much available to you out there. So I

(54:47):
think if you don't play online, you should try it. It's not for
everybody, but I think what I love the most about it is
that, man. You can just. You get to
explore different players, different GMs, different
styles, different games. Whereas things can be a little bit
more constrained, you know, within person play.

And, I can't remember the specific episode where I
talk about this, but there are many ways to find
games. Looking for a game
lfg, it's in every Discord channel,
it's in every. I mean, it's on Reddit, it's on many different
circles on Facebook. Go to any social media group that
involves tabletop gaming. You can find a game.

Yeah. And don't be afraid to pay for a game. Try it once or
twice. And, if you hate it, then never do it
again. But get rid of that stigma that's
out there. There's a lot to be said for paying
for a game commits you and it commits the people that are at
the table with you.

Yeah, it's validation for interest when somebody
puts their money.

Great way to put it.

Yeah, Great validation. I'm gonna steal that.
Not, some people think it's like you're
not as genuine or something if you're charging. And
that's not the case at all.

No, just the opposite. I literally have skin in the game. Cause
I paid for this.

I dropped money. And sometimes it's no more than $10.

It seems like a lot, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, because normally you don't do it
right. But, like if I were to tell you
you're gonna pay $10 for a coffee, be like,
okay. Cause I pay $6 now.

It better be a good price.

Right? But I pay $6 now when I go to Starbucks. Right. But
if you're used to playing nothing to play an rpg and then you hear
dollars, you're like, oh, my God. But for
many people, it's nothing. So I definitely encourage. If you've never
paid for a game, you should.

Yeah, that's actually how my cousin, Andy, he was
actually on the pod. I don't think I said he was my cousin on
the episode. But now everybody knows Cats's out of the bag.

Exc. Cs.

Yeah, those shires.
he actually got into the hobby because
he was going through his, master's program, and a
bunch of people from the masters program decided to get together and
pay agm.

That's so cool. So cool.

Play the game. And he's like, this is wonderful. And now he wants to do
it himself, so it's contagious.

Oh, that's great.

Oh, that's a great story.
You know, I was thinking of Unique Challenges in
person. And I found that it's harder to
get people together.

Yes.

Unless you have that 30 year group that just does that as
a part of their normal time.

It's a bigger commitment. Right. It's actually something I should have
brought up and I didn't even. I don't know if I've ever even thought about it. But
there's two levels of commitment here, which is
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com reaches out to me and says, hey Craig,
can I steal an hour and a half from you on
a Tuesday night and let's record a podcast together?
Yeah, dude, I gotcha. Let's do this right

(57:30):
versus hey Craig, can you drive over to my
house and let's get it all set
up and know and let's record this podcast
together. I'm telling you right now, Clinton, if you and I were in the
same room, this podcast would be a little bit better than it
is right now. Right. Cause we would again for the same reasons, Body
Langth, you know, so on and so forth. But it probably

(57:50):
wouldn't have happened. Right. It's much easier for me to
go, yeah, I can be downstairs doing the
dishes until five minutes of I come up and I spend
an hour and a half, two hours with Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com. That's not that commitment
if it's gonna be going to Clint's. That suddenly becomes the
whole day. The whole evening now is devoted, you
know, to that. So that's a really good point,

(58:10):
is
the balance is a little bit easier on online play. I don't think
I fully have thought about that before.

My dream would be to have an in person,
once a week game, long term campaign
in a game that I love, with friends that I love. Right.
Utopia. Yip. Haven't, found that yet.

Yeah. And there's so many factors and one of the biggest factors,
luck. as far as that's concerned, it's a
call to get more comfortable with online play.

The last bit here, discovering new elements
are flavor, adding things into a game that you already love
playing, but experimenting. Your group does a
lot of experimenting, which is really fun to hear.
There are some groups that would be like, what are you doing?
Why are we doing this? And you have to be open to
it. Or that social contract has to at least say,

(58:59):
we are open to doing these things. When
you choose a new game, you
look for something unique to highlight.

So let's put this in two different aspects.
Because how I pick a game for my locals
is different than how I pick a game for the channel. There's
different decision making for that. I Think m more people will relate
to how I pick for the locals. But just very briefly for
online, there's a lot of factors that I consider stuff that we've
talked about. Do I love it? Am I gonna be passionate about it? Can
I sell this game? Because of my situation, I

(59:30):
get to pick players. I don't have to make find the game for
a table. Right. What I like play with my
locals. You know, it has to be a little bit more of a,
you know, a curated type thing. So I'm looking
for different types of things. With online, I'm looking
for underrepresented games. What this world
does not need is another five eap. We don't need

(59:50):
another Dungeon and Dragons actual play. We're good, we're
good. There's so many good games out there. Clint
and I try to bring games to the channel
that I think deserve more time and more visibility.
So that's a big factor. I've now got a sense for
my hundreds of patrons that I have, I have a sense of kind of
we're a bit of a curated community, right? Cause talk about
pagmg, they're paying to be a part of my community.

(01:00:13):
Right. So through the podcast
or through the online play, that's a little
bit self selecting. Right. So I have kind of.
I kind of get what my group of potential
players are gonna get into. And that's part of my decision making.
Though I do bring games that I know will challenge that
group and will make them go. Boy, I don't
think I'd ever would do that. but I think.

(01:00:36):
I think m. maybe you would. Un. Let's try it, right
for here for the locals.
I try to first find the game that I'm gonna be
passionate about. We've already covered that. But I. I
also will pick games based off of my table.
Right. and again, I know
Betsy loves this in games. I know that

(01:00:56):
Jesse loves that in games. So
I look for that Goldilocks. But I also, you know, will
find games that. That challenge that.
I feel like I'm a broken record client. It comes down to what am I excited
to run? That is the. That is the primary.

>> Clint Scheirer (01:01:10):
In both scenarios, repetition is the master
teacher. It is okay to say something more than once.
U. it's very good.
So excitement first for you. Passion is
contagious. It overflows. You know,
there's one aspect of the
visual and audio presentation of a game,
right. If I'm physically at a table,

(01:01:31):
there's maybe a map, maybe there's not maybe
we're doing theater of the mind. when you're
playing online, do you try
to use more of your voice and
more of your talking and more of your,
I guess, speaking to engage or do
you use a virtual map? Do

(01:01:51):
you use, video with audio?
Right. Music. what are your
suggestions to GMs? This is the real
question. What are your suggestions to GMs to
help engage their players online when they don't
have them physically in front of them?

>> Craig Shipman (01:02:07):
So how I run a game isn't much different than in person
or online. My style of, my GMing
style is the same. I think the only thing, the only
thing, style wise, it's a little bit different is I,
I teach as I run more online
than I do in person. And I'll be repetitive, right.
So if you watch my APs, you'll see me explain

(01:02:27):
a mechanic as it's engaged in the game. Even though
I know all four of my players know this. Right.
playing. I'm not doing this just for the four of them
in person. I wouldn't go over those rules again. Cause I
know all four of them already know it.
So I think whether you sat at my table, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, or played with
me online, I don't think you would see two different

(01:02:47):
Craig's in that scenario. Craig does voices, at his house, but he doesn't
do voices online. None of that. Style wise,
it's very much identical. The difference is,
is that when me and the locals are up here, nobody's watching us.
We wanna screw around and talk about the latest,
Starforged Wars TV series on Disney for 45 minutes. Let's
just do it. Cause that's why we're here, right? As a community.

(01:03:08):
And to do that, nobody's gonna watch that, right? Whereas when I
play online, it is, it is for an
audience. Now I'm a firm believer
that if I make it a fun game that my players love,
the audience will find it. so at no point do I
ever design anything for the
audience. It's always for my table. But I do

(01:03:29):
things that are, that are different for the audience. Some
basic things, you know, audio quality, making
sure everybody has a good mic, make sure everybody, you know,
is, has got a decent camera. Making
sure that we have a pace that we're keeping
and we're staying focused as we play. That's far more part
of my online than in my in person.

(01:03:49):
production value is important to me online because I
wanna look like a big channel. I wanna look like a much bigger channel than
I really am. Because I'm a firm believer that that's how you
become a big channel and how you gather an
audience. I don't know how many actual play podcasts
you've listened to, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, but, man, in the first 30
seconds, if your audio is garbage, I don't
care what you're playing and how great it's gonna

(01:04:12):
be, but we're done'we're. Done.
But if it sounds professional, if it sounds
like you have hundreds of thousands of listeners
a month, even if you only have
seven, then, then that's how you get to
100,000 listens a month. Right? Is by sounding that
way. The one thing that ties this together, though,

(01:04:32):
and this is something that I did not know until I
be became an online
streaming GM or whatever the hell I am,
is everybody, and I
mean everybody needs to record their sessions,
even if you are not showing it to anybody,
because that will make you level up as a

(01:04:53):
GM in a way that you will not
even comprehend if you're not doing it.
I started doing this online
and then very quickly realized, like, I can go back
and watch. And
what you will learn as a gm, going back
and watching or listening if you just record the audio

(01:05:15):
is so much like. Like what
is working, what isn't working. Where are they getting
excited? Jim just randomly just mentioned
something that. Honestly, because I'spinning plates up here behind
the GM screen, I didn't even pick up on it, but now that I'm
passively listening, I am picking up on
it. Like, you will find yourself just

(01:05:35):
improving so much and just.
And even for prep, like, God, where did we
leave off? Well, I can go grab the recording and watch the last
30 minutes of it and know immediately where we left
off. so I think the one thing that will I will tie the two of
them together is if you're not recording your sessions, I highly
recommend that you do. It's very valuable.

That's not just in gaming.
there's. I was listening to Chris Voss, who was
an FBI negotiator. He was talking to
Jordan Harbinger on the Jordan Harbinger show, and he was saying
that oftentimes they will have wingmen when
they're in a negotiation because the wingn
can look and see what's happening beyond what the
negotiator saying. And then when they break up with

(01:06:16):
their session and they're like, okay, we need to talk to our people.
the wingn will say things. And I don't remember him saying
that. Yip, And Chris Foss will be like it's a good thing I have these
other people. So it's almost like you're creating wingmen for
yourself by recording. You are your wingmeman just in
the future watching yourself playing in the past, no
question.

And if you have a group of locals and you're playing a long term campaign with
those locals, imagine the value of recording
it and then distributing that recording to them.
Some of your players won't engage with it. Some of them, it's gonna be
critical. Right. I know I gotta go to
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com on
Saturday morning. It's been a month. Cause the last one know our
other one got canceled. I'm just on the way there,

(01:06:55):
I'm gonna listen ah as I'm driving to Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com
and then when I get there I'm go. It's like we played
yesterday.

That's awesome. That's a really good thought. And you know,
for people who are in person there are some
limitations. Right. You know, I guess you could record on
your phone I suppose literally put your.

Clint, the phones are amazing. The mics on phones
compared to the stuff that we had before. Take your phone,
put it in the middle of the table.

Yeah.

The other thing you mentioned and I apologize cause I think I forgot about it and I just
remembered things like you know, sound, music,
ambiance and stuff. I am still. I have not answered
that question. So lately I've been playing around with
having music and sound effects on the channel. I don't know if I like
it yet or not. I've abandoned it at my
locals game. I find it to be more distracting
than immersive handouts. I

(01:07:42):
struggle with. I will do more handouts in person than
I will online. I find them distracting online.
I don't do battle maps but that's just
meeah. I think in some way if you're playing
what we were talking about, the abstract versus the
tactical simulationist, online play is better
to the point where even if you're playing in person, having a flat

(01:08:03):
screen TV laying on the table and having
people play on that, that can make things considerably
easier. Having a VTT that handles
some of that heavy load in the mechanic
of you know all his armor class is
this and I've got that and I've got a you biting weapon and if I
damage him, he gets bleed like having a VTT that

(01:08:23):
carries all of that, that's phenomenal. And you can use that even at home
games. But yeah, as far as like sound
effects, lighting, you know,
mood stuff, I Personally think I'm gonna end up
not doing it, even though I'm experimenting with it right now.

Music can be tough because when you have, when you
have it too loud, or you could have it
great on your end, but then it starts blasting through
the other person's computer, and then you're spending
time trying to do the tech, and then now you've lost the
immersion completely. That's a bummer.

That's a good ad for Sarnscape. One thing I love about Sarnscape
is that each of your players control their own
volume. or they can just not engage it at
all versus piping it through the live
feed of your voice. So, for
those of you that are playing with it, Serscape, I think, is
free. what's one big thing that's nice about Snscape is
that players can engage with it or not engage with it. It's completely

(01:09:16):
up to them. And if they do engage with it, they can have it loud or
soft, and it has nothing to do with how you're broadcasting it.

I'm going to ask the question I always ask
people, and I like this question
because there's something about the economy of words.
So only giving somebody a certain amount of
words to speak to be. You have to choose your words
wisely. I want you to give me a 10
word phrase that is a takeaway
for all of our listeners. The

(01:09:45):
listener listening right now, the person who's going to be sitting at
the table. Like, when it comes to choosing a good
fit game for their table, what
is a ten word phrase that they
can remember to help them, whether
they're a gm? I think maybe the gm. Let's focus on the gm,
the person who's running the game.

So I feel like I have to write a haiku when you say to, like, I'm sitting here
going, what I know what you're saying with
10 words though, is keep it short. Which is, if I
have to boil it down, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, the headline for
what we've been talking about is
find something that excites you enough that'll excite
the table. I think that, I mean, we went into a lot of

(01:10:25):
details and the things beyond that, but I think that's the headline, which
is find something that you're excited about enough to
excite everybody else at the table.

Thanks, Craig. Thanks for meeting with me. Where
can people find you? Yeah, where can they get
moreable Tabletop Talk?

My main two avenues is I have a podcast called Tabletop Talk.
The focus of Tabletop Talk is me interviewing creators
from people who make scenarios to people who
make games. I've had some of the largest,
names in, in tabletop gaming on my channel.
I've had a lot of people you've never heard of. It's a nice mixture of the
two. But if you wanna understand how those books

(01:11:01):
on your shelf got made from the very beginning
idea to kickst starting them to
publishing them out. a really. It's a podcast about the creative
process, but it's focused on tabletop creators. So that's
Tabletop Talk. It's everywhere. Any podctcher has it. The
other avenue, if you wanna see me run games or
hand picked guest gm. s that kind of embody what we've

(01:11:21):
been talking about today. Third Floor wars on YouTube or
Twitch. I've got hundreds of ah, APs that you can peel
through. more than half a horror. Just
a big shocker. Yeah. So YouTube,
Twitch and your podctcher, are the best
places to catch me. Third Floor Wars. And then the podcast is called
Tabletop Talk.

Yeah, it's phenomenal. For those of you guys who have not listened to
Craig, not listened to the people that he interviews. And it's right, like
there's big names, people you never heard of. But
regardless, there's value
in one. Stirring up
passion for my hobby. Loving
of Tabletop. Like you guys were talking about,
Conan the Barbarian. New. The new game that was coming

(01:12:00):
out. And I'm like, I didn't even know there was a Conan game coming out. How cool is
that?

I've been told that I'm the most expensive free podcast
to listen to. because you
listen to these people that are making these games, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, and their
passion that's behind it. You're like, I need to buy this
game. Like I never thought I'd be buying another
Conan game. But after hearing about the process that
they went through to make this and the passion behind it, like

(01:12:27):
I've got go in this game. but I'm gonna put you
on the spot, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, because there's people on your
feed that just heard me talk about my stuff, but there's people on my
feed that may not know about you. So we found
each other mutually. Cause we're mutual fans of each other's podcasts. And
one thing that I think is fun is that we have two very
different podcasts. But I love that we both admire, the work

(01:12:47):
of each other. So Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, for my listeners on my feed, where
do they need to go?

Yeah, so I run the Claim to Game
Podcast. We're pretty fresh, pretty new.
started in 2024. You can find me on any
podcast listening application or wherever
you listen to podcasts. you can also find
me@claimtogamepodcast.com do. Ah, we have a
discord community. It's pretty tiny, pretty small,

(01:13:12):
at the current state. But, that's a place where you can
learn how to tell good
stories. that's what I am most passionate about, getting
people together to tell amazing stories. And that's what this
hobby does. On my podcast, I bring people that are
creators, but also people who can give
advice about how to be a better gm.
Not even better. It's not a bad and a good, like how

(01:13:34):
to just. How to hone your craft to
have more fun. And if you're.

Yeah, how to level up.

Yeah, how to level up. How to level up
to how to also engage your players. And if
you're a player considering to be a GM and
you're like, oh, man, I got imposter syndrome. I don't think I
can do this. you can, you can
totally do this. And you're gonna bring your own flavor and your
own, passion to it. So highly encourage you to check

(01:14:01):
me out. And also if you're on social, I am on
one social platform and that is
Threads. so if you wanna find me on
threads.netlininchiire, that's
another place you can find me.

I gotta get you over to Blue Sky, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com. so for my
feed, your listeners already know this and may not have
heard me phrased this way, but my listeners that have not heard of you need to
know this one. There's several things that I love about Clint's podcast.
One is, unlike my podcast, it's very bite
sized. Clint is very methodical about
boiling things down there. it's

(01:14:33):
very focused and it's, it's easy
to consume. And that is a huge
thing, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, that you came out of the gate for two.
You sound like you have 100,000 listeners a
month. And I think that that is, a big
deal. Your sound quality, the amount of time and effort you
put into planning of your podcast, the quality of
your podcast is phenomenal. The last thing I'll

(01:14:55):
say is that I find Clint's podcast very
actionable.
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com,
obviously, as you probably have picked up on, has a
background in consuming a lot of.
What is that kind of media call, not self help. There's a term
for it, right? Which is, you know, understanding how to
say, I have a problem and I want actionable,
solutions. I don't want to talk in the abstract. I want to

(01:15:17):
say here's the four things that I here's the three ways to do this.
Here's seven things you need to think about. You do a great job,
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, of
applying that type of mentality to this
hobby. and it makes you stand out. It's very, very unique.
so for my listeners, if you want a great 20 minutes, 15
minutes, 30 minutes, and you're gonna get done with it and
Clint's gonna close it out by saying, here's four things you need to think about. Here's

(01:15:38):
three things that you can do. Claim to game is
phenomenal.

Thanks Craig. My heart feels so full right
now.

Well, as it should.

Cool. Well dude, I had a
blast. This is so much fun.

I did two Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com and the one thing that we need to make a
promise to each other is that you're going to play in
one of my horror games.

Oh my gosh.
I'll leave my phobias at the door.

This is a lot of fun brother. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you so much Craig for taking the time to share your
wisdom and experience and what to consider when choosing a
good fit game for your gaming table. And if you made it to the
end of this episode, you are elite and I do not
want you to forget that. If you want to explore some potential good fit
games for your group, you should check out the free RPG
quiz. Answer each question honestly and it will guide

(01:16:30):
you to one game that you may or may not have considered
to run for your gaming table. Just click on the link in
the show notes
bonus.claimtoggamepodcast.com
Freerpgquiz also
Craig convinced me im now not only on threads but
I have made my way on over to blueky. Find
me now. Clintshire

(01:16:50):
bsky Social Join us
next time as we find the best ways to have great times with
friends and experience amazing stories through
tabletop Rolepl playing.

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034: Which Tabletop RPG is a Good Fit for Your Gaming Group? - With Craig Shipman

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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;}034: Which Tabletop RPG is a Good Fit for Your Gaming Group? - With Craig Shipman