044: Natural Threats - How Environment Shapes Story in TTRPGs - Claim to Game

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Clint Scheirer (00:01):
Tree. I am, no tree.
I am an ant.

>> Anthony (00:06):
I am an ent.

Whether your party is trying to face off against a
giant anthropomorphic tree or just trying to hide
in a cave during a bad thunderstorm, the
environment and environmental factors can shape the way
you tell stories. When tabletop rolepl playing.
Anthony, author of the daily Dungeon Master blog, is going to
tell you all about how environmental factors like weather,

(00:28):
terrain, landscape, flora and fauna
can alter the mood, challenge the senses
and make for some interesting character choices during
gameplay.
Let's go make your claim to game.

(01:11):
Hey, welcome Anthony. Good to have you here on the Claim to
Game Podcast. I am really excited today
because we are going to be talking about one of the things that I think is
so under talked about when it comes to
storytelling in any tabletop game. And that is
how the environment plays a part
in storytelling, how it plays

(01:32):
and shapes what our characters do, when we're players and
also maybe some of the strategy that we do as a GM
to try to mix things up for the characters. So thanks for being
here.

>> Anthony (01:41):
Absolutely. Glad to be here.

How can we as game masters or Dungeon
Masters if we're the the D20 & D type, how can we
leverage the environment? And when I say environment, what I'm
talking about is terrain, weather.
I'm thinking of, you know, if you insight if your
characters are indoors, you know, anything that's in
the room or anything that's in the building that they're in

(02:03):
to help deepen immersion. Right. Reinforce
the character'tone or the campaign
tone more rather that we want to have our
characters feel and think and
live and breathe.

>> Anthony (02:16):
I think it starts with setting that expectation
at the first session, you know, that, that
there is going to be environment and that
environment is going to have an effect whenever I
give a description of say a
room. Right. and there may be
something with that room that is story
important. I will describe the room and there

(02:38):
will be a clue, maybe very subtle, that
maybe you should check this room a little more. like I'll
talk about it being a disheveled, like a
water dragon heist. It's a disheveled former
office. There's a little bit of dust everywhere. There's
drawers that are partially open,
you know, and the windows are really grimy
or something of that nature. The party will

(03:01):
naturally say okay, they're on
a mission for one thing. But hey, there's these
desk drawers. Maybe something
left, something there. And without saying that
in that description in your Initial description of the room
when they enter, they may not actually see those
things otherwise, when it comes to

(03:21):
environment, oh my gosh, terrain,
and I know not everybody can play with miniatures and terrain,
but you can even do it on a 2D
mat game mat by saying hey, these are
trees or these are boulders. You can't
see on the other side of these. One of the ways I
play primarily although I love my in person
games, is via virtual tabletop.

(03:43):
Right. and I love roll 20 especially
the dynamic lighting feature. Right. their
dynamic lighting feature makes life so easy for
me because they're only going to see what they can
see. And the best part about is there's actually
a functionality for the GM to click on
one of the PCs and hit a
macro. it's control I, I believe. And you

(04:06):
see only what they see. Now of course you get God's eye view, right
of everything. But you can click on them and go
okay, I want this guy to be hidden. Where is it
they can see? And then put them just out of
sight. Know where they would be or
just insight. So they're like hey wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's somebody
there, you know. so yeah,

(04:27):
environmental features can
totally shape where they are mentally
and as their characters being able to step in their character's shoes.

So what I heard you say is that as the, the game
master you can
put yourself in the shoes of the character,
imagine what the terrain looks like to them and
then plan where enemies might be.
surprises.

>> Anthony (04:51):
U.

you're kind of, if you were an author writing a story,
it's like you are, you are outlining what your
characters might stumble upon as they're reading the narrative.

>> Anthony (05:00):
Exactly. if you have for example a narrow
gorge, where there's boulders everywhere
and they have to navigate through this narrow gorge as a dm,
you're, if you just sit up and draw that
map and there's a narrow gorge, they're like okay, we're pulling
out minis, there's an ambush there. They're straight. I'm going to
tell you. But if you're like hey, yeah, you're passing through these narrow
gorges, blah, blah, ah. And you just do that. The

(05:23):
players have the onus then becomes on the players to be
like no, this is definitely a
spot, for an ambush. and
the trick for the GM is to just make it
casual how you describe it. You make it
casual. It just a Matter of fact, hey, you guys are passing
through these narrow gorges. there's boulders everywhere
throughout. So that the players have to think

(05:45):
about the description
instead of you standing up and drawing a map. They're like ohe,
we're pulling out minis. There must be something there. You
know. so when you're describing something, don't put
out the terrain ahead of time.
Wait for wait for the,
the, the party to pick up on those things or
for the reveal of oh, and you're ambushed by all of

(06:07):
these bandits, you know, what have you.

El yeah, as you were talking, I was thinking of
Luke Skywalker talking about Beggar'canyon back
home in his T16 shooting
Womp Rat. Well, I guess I'll go bull eyes.

>> Anthony (06:20):
And womp rats to my T16. Yeah, exactly,
exactly. And that gives that visual
to say okay, it's a, it's you
know that, oh, it's like this.
So if a player can connect two things, something they
know to something you're trying to describe in a fantasy world or a
sci fi or whatever have you, they can connect those things
and get a better mental image of what's going on

(06:42):
and really more make it more immersive for
them.

Yeah, the schema that we come to the table with with
all these different movies and books and, and
everything. I, you know what I just heard when you were
talking about gorges and boulders,
like I instantly went to tatooing.
other people might go to a completely different place. So
you know, I think what we bring to the table will shape

(07:06):
the environment as well.
here's my next question. So you talked about the strategies of
surprise for a dungeon master or game
master. and you know, traveling to different
landscapes like the forest, the desert. We already talked about the
gorges and more of that desert like thought
a meaningful part of gameplay. for
me when I'm, when I'm playing with terrain is,

(07:27):
and I'm going to jump around a little bit here is how do I
use the terrain if I am ambushed?
Okay, so let's say I am ambushed by
those bandits. you talked about as the
GM putting the bandit behind a boulder.
So that's just out of reach as a
player. What, how can I use my terrain

(07:47):
to my advantage? You know, in D20 & D, I know there's
rules that go along with this. Other games it's a little bit more
narrative. But how can you use the boulders,
use the sand when you were talking about water
Waterdeep Dragon Heist. You talked about there
being a dusty room. And instantly as
a player I was like, oh man, maybe I could pull up some of that

(08:07):
dust and if somebody came in I could throw it in their eyes
and you know, make them unable to see or give them
a disadvantage of some sort. So, you know, how do
you see players or have you seen really
cool ways that players have used their environment to their
advantage?

>> Anthony (08:22):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I have
a game I've. I created. I
created this world called Southuria the Savage
Marches. I wanted to create a West Marches
style campaign. and I've adapted it for
single player, single party, play.
and it's funny because I put terrain

(08:44):
in there, but terrain has to have a purpose,
right? There's got to be a reason why
this is there, and why this is important
in this part of the story. one of the parts that I
did, was a
tem, A shrine to a sea God,
alongside a river God of the sea.

(09:05):
He was really like a waterways type God.
but part of the
shrine was subsumed by the river
itself, right? So it was
literally on the edge, physically on the edge of the water. So
that the river is going by and that part of
the shrine is open to the water. Well,
the party went into the shrine to try to get these stones.

(09:27):
Oay. and it was hilarious because they
were approached by a bunch of water creatures, intelligent
water creatures, merfolk. And the merfolk were like,
hey, what are you doing here? And immediately the party goes,
we're here to take these things. The merfolk were like, no you're
not. And so then the party ends up with this
combat where they were.

(09:47):
The enemy was using water to suck the party into
the water, making it so it's difficult for them to
fight. And the party started having to think creatively
of how do we not let that be a thingus.
one of them had an ability to basically taking
one of the PCs and drown them, pull them underwater.
So other PCs were like shape water to

(10:09):
put a bubble of air around their head, right? Or to
do things like that. They were using
their understanding of the terrain
in combat to be able to
affect the enemy. just like you were saying, like
dust. They were using things like shape water,
create, destroy water, you know, things of that nature,

(10:29):
to affect the battlefield. And I've seen that
countless times. and it's always
amazing to watch when players get creative with these
things.

I was thinking of Harry Potter with the bubblehead spell. I
think that was how they went into the water. Spoiler alert for
anybody who hasn't seen Harry Potter 4.
You talked about combat. We talked about
how players can use it for themselves, how
NPCs and combatants can use it against

(10:58):
the players. U there's a element that
when you were talking about a shrine to a sea God,
you know there's a bit of lore in our
world, right? There's a bit of a lore into a homebrew
world or a world in a pre made
adventureh. and you,
you mentioned for combat. You know, just trying to be
casual saying oh these are boulders and we're

(11:21):
going through a gorge. what about revealing bits of
the world that you don't just want to, I don't know, throw,
throw a history book over your your players's head and be like
here's the entire world that you're going to be in. Read up on
it so you know every bit of lore. How do you use the
environment that they're walking through to help them,
help them learn more about, about the world they're exploring.

>> Anthony (11:41):
One of the things that I like doing, especially with my
west marches style campaign that I've turn it into
Single party but I've used with other
ones and I've seen with at least one premade
adventure is weather.
Right?

Yes.

>> Anthony (11:56):
Weather can have a huge effect. so
in my sel sery campaign I actually have a
table depending on what biome they're in and
what the weather could be like. so if it's up high in the
mountains and there's precipitation. Well if it's that high they're getting
snow. There is a fel voice on the end.
What is that gonna look like to them? How heavy of snow?

(12:17):
you know we, for those of us who live in colder climates,
I'm actually moving from the deep south to
a much colder climate where a heat advisory
is the mid to low 80s.
Yeah. And so winters there, when you get a heavy
snow, you're not seeing a lot. Right. It's
going to be very difficult visibility. Well that's going to have an effect

(12:38):
in the game. You're gonna have visibility only out just X
amount of feet. And so you're gonna be
making those perception checks,
those attack rolls. if you can't
see, you can't shoot, you can't target. Right.
so those have an effect. Ah,
fog was a big one. You know you're

(12:58):
Wandering through a forest and you have a very dense fog in
the morning. Well, when there's gonna be an
encounter possibility, they're not
gonna see it until they, they and possibly
even the enemy stumbles upon each other. Well, what is that gonna
look like? Right? but one of the best ways I've
seen it that I didn't create was, in. And
I used the example earlier, but. Watereeap Dragon heist.

(13:21):
spoiler alert. The adventure is different
depending on what season of the year you decide
to set it in. the summer version of
the adventure runs completely different than the
winter version or the spring version of the,
adventure. And that they even make it so that the
Big Bad is different depending on which

(13:41):
season you're picking. Right.

Cool.

>> Anthony (13:43):
but they have an effect so that, if you're playing the
summer, you're wearing heavy armor,
it gets pretty warm, right? Heavy armor.
You're going to start having issues where wearing heavy armor is going to
like, you might as well have heat, almost have heat
metal being cast on you because you're frying in your armor. You're just
drenched in sweat. just like, during the
spring heavy rain visibility,

(14:06):
you're trying to shoot an arrow in heavy rain
or something of that nature
trajectories are gonna be different, so you're gonna have penalties
to shoot in heavy rain. and, those kind of
things, make the world a
living world. Right? And I love that. I
love having a living world. Something that you can
see, for the players that says it's not

(14:29):
just bright sunshiny day every day.
No, there's a living world going on. There's weather
effects, there's all these other things. and we even see that in the
real world, they delayed the Normandy
invasion because of weather, because
of weather. So those are kind of
things that you think about when you have
these, environmental effects on the players.

You know, I had an interview with David North, East, who's
a professional GM out in the uk,
and he was talking about kind of the same thing
with a town, right? You go to
a town, if the same vendor is always in
his shop, every single time that anybody
goes to that shop. That's not realistic. Shops
close, people go on vacation. You,

(15:15):
you can't always go, every day of the week and get your
goods and your services. So that living, breathing
world based on like, what, what changes in
our world and make it also
change in a game world.
another person who I highly admire and if
anybody ever wants to go to the Third Floor Wars
Tabletop talk podcast Craig Shipman was on here

(15:38):
trying to help people figure out what's a good fit
RPG for your table. For some people that's D20
& D. For other people that might be a different game.
But he said what sometimes really is, the crux
is how much do you want to simulate
the real world?

>> Anthony (15:53):
How crunchy do you want it to be?

Exactly? Cause I said crunchy. And he's like well
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, I think
crunchy really is
simulationist. You know, who, who wants to
simulate our real world as much as possible. And then you do have
rules for travel and rules for
encumbrance when you have too much stuff on like the armor in
the summer.

>> Anthony (16:12):
Ye.

Or, or all these different rules. So it's really
interesting to think about that. Like some folks
would like to have environmental things feel
real and I think there are other people that just want to hand
wave it.

>> Anthony (16:25):
Yeah, yeah. You know, know, for my Sel
Sera campaign it is very exploration heavy
and I'm very upfront in sessions here. This is very
exploration heavy. This is resource management. So
they're tracking, they're beaning.
Right. they're making sure that hey, we have rations
that don't expire. We want to
forage on the way. You know, we want to forage for

(16:47):
food. but I think a ah, better
simulation. Right. Type setting. And
you can do that in the infamous Ampersand. Right.
you can do that. There, there are ways to do it. like the
other thing I have in that one, I tell them turn off.
Coins don't have weight. Coins have weight. And they went
what? I said I hope you brought a bag of holding

(17:07):
a portable hole for that Dragon Hordard you just found. And
they went ``h ah, so now
they have additional goals right in
the story to find certain items so that they
can carry more things.

Well I mean that's been around forever. I think of Token.
Right. When you, when you think of the story of Bilbo
and the. The trolls hoard.

>> Anthony (17:30):
Yeah.

That they found after that whole interaction with the 3
trolls
mercy3mon.
They couldn't take that Hordard with them.

>> Anthony (17:39):
Yeah.

And so I believe in the book they actually buried some of
it next to a stream so that when they came back on the return
journey, hopefully they would be able to go pick up
that. That treasure.

>> Anthony (17:50):
Exactly. Exactly. And you know
u. That and that. And as far as that
goes, that's, that's why I like u, other systems
you know, you were talking about other systems that have a little
crunchier, more simulationist rules and environment
ends up being much more important in those, even more
so than the Ampersand. I'm thinking

(18:10):
specifically for everybody who's.

Like what's the Ampersand? It's D20 & D, right?

>> Anthony (18:14):
Yeah, D20 & D. Yeah, Yeahah. you
know the rune quest and Call of
Cthulhu, you know you're playing one of those
games, basic role playing game system. Right.
You are more restricted to what you can
carry because realistically you're not go going to
be Bristling, with 15
weapons and you're wearing one armor but

(18:35):
carrying something, you know you're gonna have some
issues if you're not strong enough to carry that
full rune quest. For those who don't
know it, whereas D20 & D is more high
fantasy, Tolkien esque Runest is more
like m like Greek mythology
type setting. It's really cool. For those who haven't seen
it, check it out. Chaosium, makes it, it's

(18:58):
amazing. but yeah, those things, Call of
Cthulhu where you're really looking at what can I
realistically or what would I realistically be carrying
on me, as a human being? We
don't think about that with D20 & D because it's this heroic
know I'm marching into the dungeon with you
know, mites my flame tongue and
my fourpole sword and, and, and and you know,

(19:21):
that's not realistic in any way.
and when you're looking at Call of Cthulhu, you were actually thinking of
an actual person who's going
wow, what, what, what, what do I have on me? And
that can affect what's around you.

Well, and with a horror story, when I was talking with Ken
Height who's he's wrote
so many Wonderful RPGs, you know, Delta
Green, He's also. I can't think of all of them off the top
of my head. But when he was talking about
horror, what is, what is the
experience that we're going through? It's fear. Like we're
trying to experience fear. If you're going in and you

(19:58):
are the untouchable Superman,
that there's no kryptonite in sight. So you're just going
to be walking in, you know, Avengers style with no
obstacles. you're not going to be getting what
you're looking for, which in that case is fear and
the opportunity to potentially fail.

>> Anthony (20:15):
Oh yeah, yeah. Which is why environmental,
ah, effects and environmental factors are so
important. You know, an adventure player is
going to think I'm this unstoppable juggernaut. I'm
the juggeraut. Well, when you're fighting
the big bad on
a u, rickety rope
bridge right over

(20:38):
a 200 foot pit of lava,
I might be a little concerned even as this
juggernaut, because I'm like, well, what happens if
he can fly and I can't and he cuts the rope but I
have to take down this bad guy who won't leave this
area. what do I do with
If I'm hunting a red dragon and I go into the cave

(20:58):
and there are pools of lava everywhere and I keep using
lava, but I mean, or
maybe a green dragon. There's pools
of poison things everywhere.
Something that the bad guy is or
the enemy is immune to or has resistance
to but where the party has to worry about that. And the

(21:18):
biggest one that comes to mind for me there is the
dungeon dude setting. The Dungeons of Drachenheim. They
have this thing called the Haze. And there are
so many creatures that are like meh,
you know, and if you make And
there's one faction that has the capability of
ignoring the effects of the haze. One,
and another faction who can gain that ability.

(21:40):
Right. But even then it's more resistance,
not immunity. so you end up
with the players going, we can't stay
here too long because we're gonna start
mutating. Whereas the bad guys are like, I can
do this all day long.

Yeah. There's a time crunch on the effects
that are, you know, what you're talking about is another part
of our environment that unfortunately, I think in the
last, you know, post five years ago we become more
aware is disease.

>> Anthony (22:09):
Yeah.

And you know, with the pandemic and COVID
19 and just any, anything that can affect
health. We don't always think about that in
RPGs. I was, I was listening. One of my absolute
favorite actual plays is the Glass Canon podcast.

>> Anthony (22:23):
Oh yeah.

I love glass cannon. I'm actually wearing a glass,
glass cannon hat right now. This is from one of their
individual live sessions that they do. But
in one of their campaigns, I believe
it might have been a giant slayer.
The party got fleas.

>> Anthony (22:40):
Yeah.

And these. And they couldn't get rid of these
fleas. And it was bad. Like the effects of
these fleas and how it affected their,
their day to day. I would say you know, Pathfinder 2E 1st Edition
and even Pathfinder 2E 2nd Edition are some of those games that are a
little bit more simulationist and crunchy and
have rules for just about everything,
including disease. Have you ever

(23:03):
seen or experienced that in a game where
disease severely handicapped you
or somebody in the party?

>> Anthony (23:10):
Oh, yeah, yeah. u. I mean, let's think
about going through a sewer. And
most, most people don't think about it.

But not like a Ninja Turtle sewer, which is really
cool and rad. We're talking like a real
sewerage. Yeah. Filthy.

>> Anthony (23:26):
And even though although fantasy, but a
medieval sewer. Right. That's gonna be gross.
you know, there's so many adventures that write, that have
scenes and parts of the adventure that take place in the sewer,
but don't consider that that place is gross. That place
carries disease. And when you are
hacking and slashing your way through and taking wounds

(23:47):
and you're standing in even ankle deep,
or water. Right. Sewage,
water, that's gonna have an effect. And that's one of the things
that. There are so many things in Dungeons and Dragons that are hand
waved that you could totally do. People
say, oh, it's too simplistic.
There are so many rich rules in there,
that work for you. There's a whole

(24:10):
table full of different diseases and how the vectors of
those diseases. Right. there's another one,
I thought of that. A, pre written one
that I like, which is Tomb of
Annihilation.

Oh yeah. That's a, that's a classic, right?

>> Anthony (24:25):
Oh yeah.

Did that one show up in Ready Player One?
Wasn't that one of the. It might, it might
be.

>> Anthony (24:32):
Tell me not too. Before Annihilation.

Very campaign.

>> Anthony (24:36):
Yeah, the big campaign.

I would have got so many bad comments from people are like, you're
wrong, Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com.

>> Anthony (24:41):
Right. no. Tomb of Annihilation takes place in this
massive jungle of chultt in the forgotten
Realms. And one of the things that you have to
run with is water. If you
drink water from one of the sources out there, guess what there's a chance for?
Throat leeches. Leeces.
Yeah. which are a real thing, you know, with unfiled,

These aren't the leeches that used to take out your bad blood in the medieval
times and make you better, right?

>> Anthony (25:06):
Oh, no, they're those leeches, but you're drinking them, they attach to the back
of your throat and suddenly you're choking and dying.
you know, or mosquitoes. If you're in an
area that's heavily infested with Undead. Well, there
are, there are things that are
attracted that undead attract for, you know,
bugs and diseases and you know,

(25:27):
and if you're out there, we all know that one of the
biggest, vectors, for disease,
in a lot of places are mosquitoes. Those annoying little
things and then you slap it, you
know. But those things can carry diseases.
and again, there's so many things in D20
& D where you're like, you're walking through a jungle. Hey, make
a cons save. But why? There's a lot of bugs out

(25:49):
here and you're getting bitten. you're
not able to scratch that itch where a, mosquito got into your
armor and you're like trying to slap away, you
know, not to mention we talked about that environment earlier. Are you
wearing heavy armor, walking through a hot jungle?
You know, so those are things that we like to. That I
like to think about, and look at.

So this was a question that I originally was gonna ask you.
I took it out and now I'm gonna ask it. Cause it just makes sense,
right? There is potential
to so much simulate the real world,
that we can crush our players as game
masters. Right. Like if you have a,
if you have this thing where the player has a

(26:32):
disease and they just can't
shake it and there's no way they're going to get rid of it. And
it's constantly like a thorn in their
side as they're trying to play the game and do cool
things and tell an amazing story. They could get really
demotivated and they might come and say, man, this just isn't fun.
I hate that my player has like
uncontrollable dysentery and I can't like do

(26:54):
anything but just play like the.
Or, yeah, it's like the Oregon Trail. Like
how do you, how do you include environmental factors
without crushing your player spirit and still give them an
opportunity to, to play the game that they want to play? What, what are
some thoughts?

>> Anthony (27:09):
Absolutely. and that's where it has to have a
story reason. Right? When you're going to include
environmental things, there has to be a story reason
for it. for example, I'm
not going to throw them in a sewer and
have them possibly pick up a disease. but
then also say, oh yeah, by the way, it's heavy rain, it's

(27:29):
flooding. Know you could do
that, right? and give that as a challenge
for the players to overcome.

Literally, when it rains, it pours.

>> Anthony (27:38):
Exactly. but you know, and you could give that as A
challenge to the players, as way of doing that. But when
you have something like that, where, like you
said, you have a disease, they're not shaking it, there's
constant effects with it. you're right. It can demotivate
a player. but that's where, as a dm, you need to
turn that around and make that an adventure all of its own.

(27:58):
You have a. You have a party member that has
got this disease. How do we cure
them? You know, we don't have cure disease. We don't
have a palate in the party. We don't have the capability
of the magic to be able to do that. So how do you do that?
Well, you go searching for a cure.
Say you go to the temple. The temple's like, we

(28:18):
don't have that capability. Then,
you go out into the wilderness and find this witch
doctor who's like, yes, I can totally do this. But you need
to go find these rare ingredients.

The sweet taste of my homemade organic
fuel.

>> Anthony (28:33):
And meanwhile, you have this player, like, my life
sucks. You know, and so up to the party
to help that character, who
is temporarily disabled,
helping, them. And it fosters a sense of teamwork,
I think, as well it can.

Yeah.

>> Anthony (28:50):
Ah, making it so that the player affected
is still part of the story. And now the
effect is woven into the story and
creates story moments.

Would you say? are
you an advocate for always in the right
setting, giving your characters a glimmer of hope?

>> Anthony (29:10):
Absolutely.

Like, so it's not easy, but
there's always a chance. Like, ablly, I'think thinking
of Dumb and Dumber, you're saying I have a chance. So you're
telling me there's a chance.

>> Anthony (29:21):
Exactly.

They have a chance to succeed, but they could
fail and they could die. Like, there are real consequences, but there's always a
hope.

>> Anthony (29:28):
Absolutely. one of the games that
I. That I used to run until I had to put it on
pause, was this game I called the Four
Horsemen Campaign. And the party is trying
to stop a resurgence of the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse. yeah. And it's all leading up to
this one. They believe this
bbeg, and they think they know who it is.

(29:50):
and, they're going for to try to defeat
each of the Horsemen. They've defeated war, they've defeated,
Famine, and they're working on Pestilence right now.
and one of the things I have in there is,
in that campaign that I tried to do, and I've
actually had to modify. Cause I've taken it,
one point. It was a little

(30:11):
too rough on them. And I got asked, hey,
man, this is really, like, starting to get grim,
dark. And I'm like, e. It was not my intention. I want there
to be this level of hope, but I want it to
be something where you understand
the bad guys are smart.
it was after I read this book. The enemy knows what they're
doing. The game mast.

The monsters know what they're doing.

>> Anthony (30:33):
Yeah, Yeah.

I actually have it right here. What is the dud's
name? Keith
Aman.

>> Anthony (30:40):
Yes. Yes.

Keith Aman. The monsters know what they're doing.

>> Anthony (30:43):
Absolutely amazing author. I recommend reading it. There's actually a
part two to it as well. but, when I read
that, I was like, these creatures are. Some of these
creatures are smart. And the big bad guy, looking
at his stat block, he is super
intelligent. He's gonna be thinking steps ahead.
So one of the things I introduced was, Because
this set also takes place in a multiverse where

(31:06):
there's other. You know, you can go from place to
place. Like the Forgotten Realms is their own crystal sphere. I use spell jamming
in part of Itkay. and this bad guy went
through all these other places,
getting one of the big bad guys. A big bad guy
from each one, gathering them, and making an evil adventuring
party whose whole job was to foil the

(31:26):
actual adventuring party.

nice. A Dark team.

>> Anthony (31:30):
Yeah, yeah. The A
team. If they were bad guys, you know. Ye.
And so the party then found
every time they were trying to get something, these guys had gotten
it, or these guys were in the middle of getting it. And the party
was like, no. And they'd have to fight
these big bad guys. And early on they realized they were
outclassed. And this

(31:52):
is a.
Goes to a different, modifier as far
as, environment. is the idea
that environment doesn't have to be
the setting. A dungeon, a forest, anything else.
An environment can be a
showdown between two
rival adventuring parties. And Drakenenheim does the same thing.

(32:13):
Right? there are rival adventuring parties. There's no
necessarily. No bad blood between them. But,
hey, Faction A sent this group to
go get this item. And
the faction you're working for sent you to get the same item. And
you get there together, and you're like, well,
who's going toa get it? Well, we want to succeed. Well, we

(32:33):
want to succeed. And those things
can be an environment of themselves,
right?

so those are different things to A social environment.

>> Anthony (32:43):
Exactly, exactly.

Okay.

>> Anthony (32:45):
Eberron does the same thing. There's a campaign called ah, Eberron,
the Oracle of War, where you're on a ship
during a ball, ah, during this gala.
And it's a social environment where
you're trying to navigate this thing
to get a MacGuffin for that adventure. all
the while trying to navigate

(33:06):
this social stuff. and there's a lot of
things factors in that one that make it interesting.
You're not allowed to bring weapons and there's
a, or magic items of any kind. And there's
a mage sitting there, an Arch Magge sitting there with detect
magic going constantly just watching.
And so you're trying to avoid her
while trying to get the thing. You have

(33:28):
people sneaking onto the boat, trying to sneak onto the boat to
try to get the thing. and
that social aspect makes it an even
more enriched environment that, that can tell
a story, you.

Know, for anybody who wants a really good
political intrigue. Mistborn the Final
Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Yeah, he does such a
good job talking about that, that social
environment and how do you navigate without getting found out.
And then when you are found out, then you can have combat.

>> Anthony (33:58):
Yeah.

Then you can fight. but until then you're, yeah.

>> Anthony (34:01):
You choose violence, we accept, kind of thing. But
yeah, that is it's really fascinating
that. and RPGs. I
love all RPGs. I like trying new
ones. I found one by accident,
by a group, by a guy, whose company
is called Davis and Daughter Games. And it was
a game, an RPG that is a

(34:24):
combination of like D20 & D Ultralight.
And if you remember that old 90s
80s 90s board game that got revamped
ah, in the recent history called Hero Quest.

Oh yeah.

>> Anthony (34:36):
So you had.

My buddy loves Hero.

>> Anthony (34:39):
Yeah, yeah. and you have these tiles that are the
terrain and you have monsters on there,
but they're social settings.
And I play it with my seven year old
son. he loves the game and it's all D sixes
with various. Like some sides have three, sometimes have one
or zero, whatever, depending on the color of the dice,
whatever. but he walked in and I said, I was like, you

(35:01):
don't have to just fight the monsters. He goes, oh.
I said, yeah, you don't have to fight the monsters. Sometimes you can talk to the
monsters and you can talk to them and
maybe discover something what's going on
or maybe convince them not to Fight. And he goes,
that just blew his mind. He's like, because he's watching,
he watched cartoons like Spidey and Friends, things like that.

(35:21):
And I tell him it's like that. I said what do they do? Do they fight
right away or what do they do? He goes, they try to talk
to them. I said yeah, you could do that.
Yeah, you could fight the monster but you could also try talking to
them. so the first mission, he walks in and
there's these goblin workers, these low level goblin
patsy'and he's like, hey,

(35:43):
we're the good guys. Do you want to be
here? And they're like no, not really. We
don't like our boss. Well, if you clear out we'll take
care of your boss. And of course it's in seven year
old speak. But you know, it was this really
good thing. And those social
environments are so important,
to be able to throw those in there as well.

(36:06):
For, for I would say
story and player enrichment and character,
character driven storytelling.

So this isn't quite the same
thing but you recently wrote a blog
post, at least recently right now called
Ecohresros in the Wild.

>> Anthony (36:25):
Yeah.

And it talked about, it made me very much
think about Ents. It made me think about
tokens whole like hidden
meaning behind like nature and the natural
way of the world getting ah, taken over by industrialization. It
was very cool. how do you adapt
that idea of like,

(36:47):
you knowususe there's an idea of like a faction
and organized like bad guys. But then
there's also like this is just the natural way that
the saber tooth, tiger, lion, bear or
whatever you know, crazy creature we're fighting
acts. You know, it's just defending
itself. This is just its natural way of things
and it's trying to preserve itself.

(37:10):
How do you, how do you integrate that into
a game without
turning into an all out horror fest?
you know, I know there's a little bit of conversation. There's a
little bit of conversation that you have in the session. 0 like what are we looking
for in this game? What, what are, you know, what do we not want? Like there's
some people that are like do not include spiders. If

(37:30):
you include spiders in this, I'm not playing. Yeah, because spiders
are awful and like that, that gets like a phobia instead
of a fear that, that's kind of fun to overcome.

>> Anthony (37:38):
Yeah.

You know, how do you incorporate nature, striking
back and enjoy it
a couple ways.

>> Anthony (37:46):
number one you get into morally gray
areas, Which I love, throwing morally
gray areas to my players.
but with regards to that one, Myl Suria campaign,
just south of town is, ah, a forested area in
which there's a grove. It's a dryad grove.
And if you engage dryad, they're like, hey, you, what's
hanging out in the rest of this forest? Give, us an idea of what

(38:08):
we're looking at. And she starts listening up. She goes, well, there's this
treant friend of mine named Narlroot. He hangs out over this
way. There's a big nest of giant
spiders, down that way. you may want to avoid
them. They're not very nice. and, oh, and there's the grumpy
old owl Beare that patrols this forest. What is that
again? Owl bear. And they go, I'm sorry, wait, wait, wait,

(38:29):
wait. Grumpy old Albert. Oh, yeah.
his mate has a den over on the south side of the forest.
And, he patrols the woods. This is kind of his territory. he and
I get along well because, you know, dry it. but, he's.
Yeah, he tends to be a little grumpy, with his
territory. And the party goes,
oh, that. Oh, okay.

(38:49):
and we're north of town. There's this
Treian, that is very angry.
Like, he chooses violence
first to
war. And you have to talk him down
before he decides to go into his rage.
Because there are. There's another

(39:10):
settlement. And I'm not going to spoil why there's another settlement
outside of town, but there's another settlement where they've been cutting down
his saplings and taking them for firewood
and building materials. And he's angry about it.
so he attacks any humanoid that walks through
because he assumes they're going to do that. and it works like
that for a lot of things. We saw it in Tolkien,

(39:30):
right? The Trons, when they come through and they're like, I knew
these trees, they were friends. And suddenly
you have battle music playing. And all the
Treons come emerging from the forest and they start
laying waste to everything Sauron did or
Saraman did. those are things I
love doing.
but one of the examples that I put forth in my

(39:52):
blog, which is, an adventure I wanna run
eventually, and I talk about moral ambiguity,
is the idea that this town
has a forested area nearby. And normally
they would just take little bits,
but they're experiencing a brutal winter.
Well, what do they do? They've got cut down more wood, you

(40:12):
know, and the forest creatures
suddenly have less forest
and that deforestation is happening as a result of. We just need to
survive. And like the dryad,
the niadss, the Trions, the whatever is
out there, go, hey, this is our home. You
can't do this. So you have to go as

(40:33):
a party, as a player, you're looking at,
well, we get both sides and both sides have a valid
point. How do we do
this without causing them to go into
conflict? Because one side will eventually wipe out the
other. Things aren't dealt with. I like those,
like I said, those morly gray areas, where

(40:53):
you have,
you have creatures
or things that are just
trying to survive.

Yeah.

>> Anthony (41:04):
You know, just trying to survive. So how do you deal with that?

What a lesson about life. Like, you
will always come into contact with people that have a
valid point. How do you hold both
loosely and be able to come up with a
common solution? Like man,
if people just played tabletop role playing games, maybe we'd
have a.

>> Anthony (41:26):
Happier world, you know, and that's
great. That's why I like introducing young,
people to tabletop games. Because it
gets those conversations happening, especially when you put them in
those situations. Right. I recently
helped a, friend, who's a high school, teacher
stand up her, her tabletop club. And

(41:46):
when I help run tables for her,
run games with these young people, I put
these morally ambiguous things and half
the table'like hey, let's just do this. The other table'like wait a
minute, but what about this?
and the other side of the table goes,
well, I mean this needs to happen, this
is our mission. But the other side of the table is going, but

(42:08):
wait, what about them?
You know, and they're starting this conversation
early so that when they get to
adults, you know, they have a better idea of
navigating those things in real life.

Super cool. And we are going toa do
a complete episode all about
organized play. it's going to be so great. But that's such a
good segue. Like that makes so much sense to,
you know, this is a safe place where
we can have really tough conversations. So it
doesn't just have to happen right away. You know, that's kind of how

(42:43):
I'm a parent. I'm a parent. I have kids.
Right. And we try to have conversations at home. Working
through conflict.

>> Anthony (42:51):
Yeah.

So that hopefully my kids can go out into the world and not, you
know, somebody in the face.

>> Anthony (42:56):
Exactly.

You know, murder, hobo.

>> Anthony (42:59):
Yeah, exactly. you know,
I look at some of these things and I like
putting morally,
not necessarily mor ambiguous but making sure that there
is a point in the
story to these things. one of the
things that I did and I used to be a foster

(43:21):
parent. and ah, and we're
getting into this next episode. But you know,
how I started an organized play was by accident. I
was giving my wife a day off without having to worry about the kids. And I
took all my kids and the foster kids to go play D20 & D.
you know, and I liked watching them
react to situations and even adult

(43:42):
players, I like watching them react to situations where
there is no clear good guy or bad guy.
Right. and seeing what they do with it.
But when it comes to things like environment,
setting the scene has a lot to do
with that. And I talked about it at the beginning.
But setting the scene has everything to do with

(44:04):
that. describing the plight
of this town with a brutal winner. You know,
describing how they're. How everything is so
cold. and then
describing the scene of the forest and you see
nothing but tree stumps for miles.
Know, setting those scenes to having that

(44:24):
descriptor like I was talking about in the very beginning. You know,
that has a big thing to do with
giving an emotional connection. You
knoweah, putting that emotional connection in there
so that they, they really get that immersive
feeling.

We're such visual creatures and this game
that we play, this, this this make believe
environment, Making it more real and more tangible and
more physical or social. Right. With
these different environments, really, really really bring it to
life. for, for game masters and for players.

>> Anthony (44:56):
Absolutely.

You've mentioned a couple modules, a couple
games, a couple of paths. Can
you list off and recommend some of the published
adventures, whether it's D20 & D or just games in general
that you think exemplify a strong use
of the environment and landscape and storytelling that
our listener can, can check out.

>> Anthony (45:17):
Absolutely. And I've mentioned some of them. Waterap Dragon
Heist is a really big one. it's one of my favorites because of the
replayability. it's never the same game twice.
the MacGuffin is the same but how you go about getting it,
maintaining it and or everything else with it
is completely different. but I love Watery Dragon
Heist because it really used environment. Another

(45:38):
one that's really good that I mentioned briefly was the
Eberron campaign, Oracle of War. It was originally
written for organized play, but I ran it without
organized play. and it is amazing
because it has this very unique
place called the Mororland, where the environment
is huge part of the story.
Living spells and bodies don't

(46:00):
decompose. So, you know, things of that
nature where you get some really cool, weird
environmental effects.

Was there automatons introduced in that?
Was Eperon the campaign where you could be a
forged. Yes. I played one of those
one time in a one shot. It was super fun.

>> Anthony (46:17):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved War Force. When the E. Evern
setting came out, I was like, war Force are cool,
let's do this. But,
yeah, that. So Eberron and the whole
campaign revolved primarily around the mournland. Right?
You spent more time in the mournland than you did anything
else. but, the last one I would say that I

(46:37):
recommend would, be
Dungeons of Drachenheim. That whole idea of the
haze, you know, the idea
that you can't take a long rest in town because you'll pick
up contamination. And if you long rest
with contamination, there's a chance you get another level of
contamination. And if you get too much, you
irrevocably turn into a horrific monster.

(47:00):
which is great. It's awesome.
so, those are things that,
when it comes to environment, they're
really, really, good resources and really good
games. I've taken my homebrew stuff. I've stolen stuff
from each of those campaigns.

Steal like an artist?

>> Anthony (47:17):
Exact.

It's a real thing. Y.

>> Anthony (47:19):
Exactly. so I've taken those things and
incorpor into my own homebrew games. much to
everybody's, delight, usually. Delight.

All right, finally, Anthony, there is one thing that
I do every time I have a guest on the show. I'll even do it the
next time that you're on the show. but it's an activity that I
learned from Eric Newsom. he worked for npr. He's
now, you know, a writer and a blogger and a
podcaster and it does his own thing. But his
activity is to create a ten word phrase,

(47:48):
no more, no less. You have to use the economy of words to try
to encapsulate the core message of what we've been
trying to talk about today. So could you give us a
ten word phrase for our listener to help them
consider using the environment in their game settings and
also in the storytelling, of the games they play?

>> Anthony (48:05):
Oh, yeah. I would say
actions have consequences. You must face or
consequences face you.

Interesting. Can you say it one more time?

>> Anthony (48:16):
Actions have consequences that
or actions have consequences you must face
or consequences face you.

Very good. And the consequences can
sometimes be our environment, whether we like it or
not.

>> Anthony (48:31):
Exactly.

If people want to find you or
find what you do or you know what, where
would you direct people? Where's the best place for people to connect
with what you do and what your work is?

>> Anthony (48:43):
Absolutely. I'm on Bluesky, Instagram
and TikTok. and I
have my obviously my website, the
dailydungeonmaster.coma, where I have my blog.
I also have an online store there, where you can buy
things. in fact I've got a ah, discount
code for anybody who's listening, ah,
claim to the number two game. and that

(49:05):
will give you a 15% off anything in my online
store.

Nice. We'll include all that in the show notes, all of
Anthony Social'his website and the discount
code. Thank you. That's super generous. Absolutely. Well,
thanks for being here today. So glad we were able to connect
and hope you have a good one. Want to have you on again
for sure for the next episode.

>> Anthony (49:24):
A.B. absolutely. Thanks Clint.

Thanks again Anthony. And remember, actions have
consequences you must face, otherwise those
consequences face. You use nature as
a way to enhance your storytelling. Whether you're the game
master or the.

>> Anthony (49:38):
Player, the master of games.

Please hit like or subscribe if you liked what you heard today. And if you
listen on Apple Podcast or Spotify, Go ahead and give
the CTG five stars and leave a review. And
may you keep having fun as you continue to have a great time with friends
and tell amazing stories through tabletop role playing games.

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044: Natural Threats - How Environment Shapes Story in TTRPGs

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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;}044: Natural Threats - How Environment Shapes Story in TTRPGs