June 18, 2025 • 47 mins
Dungeons & Dragons has leveled up—from a niche basement game to a full-blown creative movement.
In this episode, we sit down with our friend Justin—a passionate Dungeon Master—to explore how D&D became the go-to outlet for storytelling, improv, friendship, and fantasy.
Justin breaks down what it’s like to run a campaign in 5th Edition, from plotting 20-session arcs and improvising on the fly, to building 3D maps with Tailspire and giving life to dozens of characters through unique voices.
“It’s like cooking a meal for your friends—but the meal is a shared experience you create together.”
In this episode, we explore:
• Why scheduling is the hardest boss in D&D
• How Tailspire and Discord bring virtual campaigns to life
• The evolution of D&D rules: from grid paper and math headaches to streamlined 5E
• Why “session zero” is often the most exciting part
• How pop culture—Stranger Things, Critical Role, Honor Among Thieves—boosted the game’s popularity
• Making your own worlds: GI Joe, Star Wars, or anything your party can imagine
Whether you’re a seasoned player or just curious what your friends are doing for five hours every weekend, this episode offers a real look behind the DM screen—and might just inspire you to roll for initiative.
Hosted by: Cottman, Crawford & The Jersey Guy
Contact us: CCandNJGuy@gmail.com
Links & socials: https://linktr.ee/ccandnjguy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey and welcome to Coming from it and the Jersey
Guy podcast.
How are you people doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
What's up Doing?
Great yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Cool.
Yes, we got Justin back.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Welcome, justin.
Hello guys, thank you forcovering when I wasn't here
Appreciate it?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yes, of course.
Yes, yes, I had a good timedoing that.
Yes, that was a good one.
That was very fun.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, I'm telling you man.
Welcome Justin.
Hello guys, thank you forcovering while I wasn't here.
Appreciate it.
Yes, of course.
Yes, we had a good time doingthat.
Yes, that was a good one.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
That was very fun.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, I'm telling you , man, you could be our guest.
Just keep coming back and forth, you'd be our special guest.
That was like a very naturalyeah, yeah yeah, yeah, it flow.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Topics too.
Yeah, topics are sweet, butthat's the idea, that's the kind
of flow we want to have.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
So that's why it's like yeah,come in, talk about it, laugh,
joke, have a good time.
Yes, continue to offer that,that's it.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
That's it, you're our special guest.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yes, man.
So tonight's topic is D&D,holla, g&d.
Yes, so we're gonna ask.
We'll pick Justin's brain,cause he's the D&D, like, I
guess, savant.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Connoisseur acquaintance we'll do.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
We'll do Connoisseur yeah he's playing it.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
I am, I am playing, I am playing.
I am currently a dungeon masterfor a group of five of my
friends okay five of my friends.
Uh, I've done it one other timefor another group of six and
I'm also in one of my friendscampaigns as a player now.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Are you playing like is online?
Are you playing with the actualboard?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
every game that I have played so far has been
online.
Okay, yeah, are you?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
using a board when you're online, or how do you?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I do.
I use, uh, tailspire, which isa 3d uh digital board where you
are able to create your boards,okay, through it.
Um, super cinematic andthematic looks really cool.
Yeah, it looks like the bestversion of in person when it's
done at its peak, right, whereyou know people go crazy.
(02:12):
Right, making small castles andwhatnot.
Uh, all mimicked in digitalform.
And then, uh, just a discordchat nice to get everyone
connected and videos and allthat okay, all right.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
So now, when you play with your friends, are you
playing online like you would doother um?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
games.
So you know, yeah, yeah, I meanit's pretty, it's like almost
doing the exact same thing.
Okay, same thing.
Yeah, this is just.
It just looks better.
Four hours of the same gamingthat I do with my friends, but
super scheduled yeah, which isalways, of course, the hardest
part.
So there's like a whole.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
D and D community, basically at this point
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
There's like a whole there's like a whole corner of
every social media for it.
Like there's a whole corner ofYouTube that's D and D content
and people talking about it, andthere's a whole dnd community
on twitter and tiktok and yeah,there's these patreon channels
that run dnd games and whatnot,and twitch streamers that's
(03:14):
insane?
Yeah, no, it's.
It's an incredibly largecommunity.
At this point, it's like I feellike almost one in five people
that I have met recently withinthe last few years have at least
either played it or consumedsome of the new media
surrounding it.
Oh no, kidding, you know.
(03:34):
Yeah, whether it's the movie oror any of these streams, these
large scale streams that havecome out.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
A lot of people love it.
Well have you gone to umcomic-con?
Uh, I've never been to acomic-con, so a comic-con?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
the handful of years that I went and it's a couple of
years back that I went theyhave a whole section at the
javits center and they just haveall the tables set up and just
I'm telling you there has to beat least 300 people that are.
Just that were just down.
I don't know what it's been thelast two or three years, but
just man, insane.
And they're all at the tables,they're all set up and on your.
(04:14):
The bad part is that on yourway there they have all the um
little uh shops set up.
Well, you know, like the uhkiosks and people are just like
buying more stuff, gettingdifferent dyes.
You know they're actuallybuying the gear they're wearing
the outfits while they'resitting there playing and stuff,
you know what?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
we should all go to Comic Con.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I'm just saying, dude , yeah, I think, I don't know,
we have to check to see if wecan sign up now.
I don't know.
I mean, we might have to waituntil next year.
I'm a yeah, it's not untiloctober to go right, but yeah
that would be a great ideachanged a lot since.
What oh?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
yeah, 1974 was when it first came out.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, absolutely right um, now, are you familiar
with how they used to play?
I've seen, and this is againthat corner of youtube that,
like some of its dnd history,yeah so sometimes I watch videos
on things I have never seen inmy life or things that are, you
know, two decades old or more.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well now, what do you find more interesting?
The things that you've seen,that you know can make it.
I guess you say I don't want tosay that it made it harder, but
where you were actually havingto make your board, build your
board yeah, so like they used todo combat in ways that were
mathematically oh, like super,super different, right?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
um, in some of the older versions, I think third,
third edition is the most famousfor like having the worst math
system in it for combat, whichis like the main thing that most
people are worried about andthe thing that takes up most of
the session is the combat RightThird edition had some kind of
like someone out there will knowexactly what it is.
(05:56):
You had to do like reverse math.
You had to do like some type ofeither reverse division just to
figure out if something's sucha thing, reverse division,
whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was like something like that.
It was smart enough you.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They were doing pemdas to figure out if someone
hit because of the armor classversus the hit okay, it was
crazy, it was it was when theyfirst started playing.
That was third edition, third,where they really tried to mix
it up and it didn't go right asgreat clearly you know what, we
(06:34):
kind of jumped in.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
While I jumped in, I went ahead a little bit, because
I know only that much about it.
Yeah, what's the basics of thegame?
Like what do I need to be thestarter?
Like what do I have to do to toget in?
Speaker 4 (06:45):
there's a there's a very fun video of this exact
same question happening recentlyon a podcast with john berndahl
nice uh, what's her name fromtrue blood?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
yeah, yeah redhead.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
He asks the exact same question you did and she
said we could actually just playit right now.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I saw that.
I know you're talking aboutright.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
We could play the game right now.
You don't actually needanything except a sheet that
tells you numbers.
Okay, when you build thesecharacters, you have your main
stats.
There's, I think, think, six orseven.
(07:31):
You have constitution,dexterity, strength,
intelligence, charisma, wisdom,six, six attributes.
You get to use a point bysystem to add to those
attributes.
The higher the levels are onthose things, the larger bonus
you get to your roles.
So you're going to be naturallybetter at certain things, right
?
So let's say you guys are agroup of elf scouts that all
(07:56):
decide to be very dexterous andreally good with bows and you're
out on a patrol.
You see, one of you has reallyhigh perception because you
statted into having really highperception and that person ends
up having a passive perception.
That's high enough to see atrail of blood and leaves that
(08:18):
are moved improperly right tolead you guys to an owl bear,
which is a huge mystical bearowl.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
It's as simple as that, but it's been spread out
so beautifully thematically andpeople have added so much more
of the role-playing aspect to itnow that it is a lot more than
just simple combat and verysimple tasks.
Right, the whole storyline.
(08:52):
Your imagination, absolutely,yeah.
But so for for me, building mystories, uh, I have to plot out
probably 20 sessions at a timein my mind as what could happen,
as I kind of try and branch offwith what choices they're going
(09:14):
to end up making and also whatthe dice decide is going to
happen.
Got it before I'm comfortableactually playing.
Got it.
I have to have a 20 sessionplan in my head before.
So detailed, yeah.
Yeah, I write out basicallystrings of timelines based on
(09:36):
what might happen.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's like more complicated than chess.
Yeah, in chess, you have tothink like ahead.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
If I make this move yeah like that.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
So it's like the same .
That's also mathematical, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, and some of
that stuff I actually like Idon't decide exactly how it's
gonna happen.
Some of it I write down as likeyou will roll to see if this
thing happens, if they make thischoice and then go from there.
So some of it is improv, right,like a lot of it is actually
improvisational, just naturally.
If you want to add to it,improv is the way to do it.
(10:13):
Um, so it's not like I don'tknow exactly what's going to
happen all the time.
They're not playing my littleversion of a movie.
It's, we're making a movietogether, right, um?
Or at least that's how I tryand set it up, right.
But then they.
(10:33):
Well, you obviously did a goodjob because you said you're on
what your master of five.
You said uh, yes so hello yeah,dungeon master five right now
they enjoy it.
Yeah, a whole whole lot YepGood, or?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
at least that's what I think.
What does it take to get tothat?
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The key thing scheduling.
Maybe Scheduling is actuallyand this is like the D&D meme at
this point, scheduling is thebiggest boss in D&D.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Just getting everyone together.
What's like your story arc,like how did you start into dnd?
What got you into dnd?
Speaker 4 (11:10):
right.
So, um, stranger things cameout when I was in high school
and I think that that was the Iknow that was they that they
were big into that.
Yeah yeah, it was like thefirst time I had, like,
discovered dnd existence.
I didn't know about it all ofgrowing up, found an interest in
(11:30):
that part of the show and thenwatched it slowly dissipate from
the show as like a key part,and then I started to try and
seek it out on my own onlinethrough, like YouTube and
whatnot try and seek it out onmy own online through like
youtube and whatnot, right?
um, critical role is the largeststreamer of this and it's a
bunch of uh, voice actors thatare super famous.
(11:54):
You guys definitely know someof these voices.
Oh, really, it's a group ofthem and they stream them
playing dungeons and dragons areinto this yeah, yeah, I'm
trying to think.
That's pretty cool, yeah, I canonly think of so many things.
It'd be funny if it was likeClancy Brown.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
He does like Mr Krabs yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Just for reference, one of the people that's in
Critical Role is Ashley Johnson,who played Ellie's mom In the
Last of Us.
Because, Ashley Johnson is theOriginal voice for Ellie.
Oh, she's just one of thepeople that's In that group of
six or seven that streams online.
They run incredible campaigns.
(12:38):
It's a 200 episode show.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So do they like Do voice?
Do they do voice for likespecific characters and every?
Speaker 4 (12:48):
scene.
So the the DM is Matt Mercer,who is incredibly good at like
switching his voice.
Um, makes all kinds of funnoises, and then almost all of
them play someone with a veryspecific accent.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Wow, every but whether it's like that's cool
and they get a very specificaccent Wow, every.
But whether it's like an old,that's cool.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
And they get like super specific with it too.
It's like old posh English orlike right, like you could do
Southern accent and then you cando like an Atlanta accent in a.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
D and D care or do like a Louisiana.
Yeah, they get super superspecific.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Yeah, they all play some super, super fun characters
and they all these super funvoices for their characters.
Um, that's actually one of likethe really fun parts of uh that
.
Like every dm has their sort ofseasoning, like their secret
sauce.
Some people is like, oh, theydo a bunch of voices and they're
(13:51):
really good at it, so likethat's where I get my immersion
from.
Or there's some people are likereally descriptive during
combat, so that it's envisionedbetter and like more fun.
Right, there's all these littleaspects of like how people make
the game more fun for theirtable.
Right, I try my best to be ajack of all trades.
(14:15):
Right, I'm not the greatestvoice actor known to man.
I try and do as many accentsand voices as possible for them.
Uh, and I have it while you'replaying the game, while I play
the game as depending on thecharacters that I'm playing
because you had to remember.
They're all playing one guy.
I'm playing everyone around,right, um?
So yeah, I try and do as manyvoices as I can.
(14:37):
I try and do accents that I can, in different octaves, right,
so that they can differentiatewho's talking without me having
to say you look to your left andnow this person says right,
they can just hear me say aconversation and know that
they're watching it happen yeahyeah um that's insane, dude.
That's like, and that's justlike basic, like how to make it
(15:00):
obvious what's going on, andeasier.
It takes a while to get it,though, I would think for sure.
But am I the best at that?
No.
Am I the best at describingcombat?
No, but I do take the time tomake sure that, like, there's a
cinematic for every single diceroll.
Got it Right, it playing intheir mind to the best of my
(15:23):
ability.
And then the other thing is the, the material side of it.
So, like, some people makeincredible maps Right, so that
when it's finally time forcombat, it's like this huge
display of like, look what Ifucking made for you guys.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, dude, that's so crazy yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And I and I do get to have that.
It's not as soulful as handmade, obviously to have that.
It's not as soulful as handmade, obviously.
But I do get to have that withmy tailspire maps, because I
will spend hours searching foreither other people's boards and
slabs or using bits and piecesand trying to create my own from
(15:59):
it.
Whole weekends have beendevoted to making a map for
something that might happen.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
And it's happened to me too.
There was one time between thiscampaign and the last with my
current group that I spentprobably the most time I had
spent on a map, just for them totake the peaceful route for
once.
And I was like this is so sickguys.
And then they were like superconfused when the the normally
(16:30):
four hour session was only likethree hours yeah and I had no
idea what to do.
Uh, and sometimes that happens,yeah, sometimes the dice decide
what direction that story isgoing, and that's why I love it
is it regular dice, or is therea special kind of die that you
guys?
use.
So your d20, your 20-sided die,is your most universal die.
(16:51):
It's probably the one thatyou're going to use the most.
Every aspect and attributethat's on that character's stat
sheet is typically rolled with ad20 right.
So every stat that's on theremodifies usually the d20,
whether it's the actual corestats, dex, strength, whatever
it may be, or the skills thatare attached to those core stats
(17:16):
.
So something like let's, Ithink wisdom boosts your nature
skill checks, your survivalskill checks and your animal
handling skill checks.
Wow, the skill checks get superspecific, right?
We're talking about all kindsof different things.
There's a difference betweenperception and investigation.
(17:38):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Those are separate skills.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Right.
Wow, yeah, it gets super, superspecific with the skills and
they're all modified by how youdecide to build the character.
Um, and all of those things arerolled with the d20.
So let's say I'm a sharpshooterand I have a plus 10 to
perception.
I roll that d20, I hit my 15.
That's an all right roll.
(18:01):
My 15 is actually a 25.
That's a super good roll, right.
And that's how the that's anall right role.
My 15 is actually a 25.
That's a super good role, right.
And that's how people build thecharacters up, yeah.
And then obviously, the classesall operate differently in
combat and then some of themoperate differently with a bunch
of skills that they can dooutside of combat.
You know, like sometimes it'sreally really helpful when
(18:24):
someone actually has a flyingspeed Right so that they can do
flight.
For sure, some teams will havethat problem in the earlier game
because they won't have likespells that can give them flight
or anything, or we'll just havea harder time figuring out how
to get a flight speed, or youjust have a druid turn into a
(18:45):
bird.
Yeah, now we have someone thatcan fly there you go, uh, and
that's where, like, the teambuilding stuff comes in and, uh,
session zero is probablyactually my favorite session
because it's where I get toestablish the story and they all
get to talk about their peoplefor the first time to each other
.
That is cool.
Yeah, that session zero isprobably my favorite part,
(19:07):
honestly, because it's wheneveryone's the most excited,
because they know that they'reabout to start, yeah, and they
know that they're about to telleverybody about their character
and like their whole spiel andthey're also finding out, like
my and I do at least a one pagesynopsis of what the whole
campaign is about to be about,got it?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Super fun.
I did not know that all thatwent into yeah, like I had so
dope, I love it.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
That is so awesome, it's it has evolved from being
that thing that you did in theconfines of your basement like
with like three otherof your nerd friends shamedly to
like the equivalent of cookingall of your friends a meal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know whatI mean.
(19:54):
Like I'm gonna spend a bunch oftime to do this thing for you
guys and it's gonna be anexperience for all of us and
that's what it feels like it'sgrown into that now, because
people have added so much ofthat like sauce to it with all
those extra things that they do,and also just how many
(20:15):
additions it's been through.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So what is the 5E mean?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Fifth edition is the most recent edition.
It's the one that I use and I'mthe most familiar with.
It's probably the mostaccessible it's ever been.
It's the mathematically easiestit's ever been.
It's the mathematically easiestit's ever been and it has the
most content that's usable withthat system Wow, okay, out of
all of them.
(20:39):
And then 1D&D is a thing thatthey're doing now.
It's technically the start of anew edition, but it's at its
core it's basically just fifthedition still.
They've just rewritten how somestuff works.
It's almost like a patch notefor fifth edition Got it, where
(21:04):
they change some core skills andcore mechanics for each of the
classes and also some monsters,like amendments Like amendments.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's a really good way of putting it.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
One D&D is the first amendment.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
That is insane.
Okay, because I really thoughtthat D&D and for me.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I knew it was a board game in a sense, but I didn't
know it was that Right.
I thought it had grown to this.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I thought that the board game from when we were
kids, kind of thing.
I thought it was more of likeflipping cards like Yu-Gi-Oh or
some shit, you know what.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Right.
Flipping cards and then roll adie and I'm like, ah, and you
bought the board.
I didn't know that people wereactually making the board.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Even back then they were doing it.
They were doing it on paper.
Yeah, I didn't know it was that.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, that's the grid paper, Right yeah, that was how
it was done for a really longtime.
Yeah, and that's what I'msaying.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I didn't even know that.
I thought it was literally IPokemon, yu-gi-oh, like I
thought that that was there.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I was caught up with you in a sense, oh shit Magic.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I knew it was detailed.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I knew a lot.
You know a lot of people did it.
I was into it even back then,right, but it's not something I
ever got into.
I used to play the video game,though I do remember the video
game, yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, I ever got even past maybe the second round and
that was when I'm lucky If Igot past that, but it was super.
First time it was ahead of itstime, for sure, oh, definitely.
Well, did you ever play likethat, tom D&D?
I never played it, not at all,none of it.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I don't know why I never it just never came across
my horizon.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I feel like for you guys, it was one of those Things
that like, not only did youhave to know about it, but you
had to have four friends whoalso knew about it and wanted to
do it.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's pretty hard to be like a clique, like totally
nerds, especially for that time.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
You're asking five people for like four whole hours
where that's all they're doingConsistent.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You're asking for four whole hours where that's
all they're doing, you know,consistent, yeah, yeah, you're
asking for four whole hours oftheir life and now do you play?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
they're like turning their phones off you know, dude,
that's exactly now.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
But then how often do you play with each one of your,
your different teams or your?
Speaker 4 (23:23):
so, uh, because of scheduling, it's been a
nightmare right um, which issupernatural and it happens.
Uh, we were playing once a week.
At one point, then we wereplaying, I think, once a month.
Oh right, uh, now it's beenwhenever we can get everybody
(23:45):
together to do it, it's uh yeah,there's been schedule changes
for some of the guys and it's uh, we like just cannot line up
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
See what happens that's adulting for you yeah, it
happens, I.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I whip up my own little thing of like hey, open
this when it's time to go again.
Yeah, uh, so that I can evenremember everything down to the
nitty-gritty detail.
Yeah, right, because I canwrite like they're going to get
the dragon right.
But there's also like they'regoing to get the dragon.
They also talked to thatambassador and pissed her off.
(24:20):
Really bad, right, right.
You know what I mean.
Like there's other stuff thathappened, all of those other
little things right because itmight take a really long time
for us to play again, and I willbe expected to remember that
because one of them does, youknow what.
I mean One of them is going tobe like whatever happened to
that ambassador.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, exactly.
So you just put something outof your ass, not?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
with my all right With my current friends that I'm
playing with.
They're like some of my bestbest friends.
They wouldn't do that.
The last group that I'm playingwith, they're like some of my
best best friends.
They wouldn't do that.
The last group that I wasplaying with was good friends,
but they, you know, yeah, theywould have done it.
Oh, they would have done it.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Somebody would have done it.
I think it's cool that the gamehas grown like that.
It had a beginning and had astart, because it didn't have
the technology that we have nowRight.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
that's why I'm bugging out with that.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
How would we always say Imagine if we had the
technology?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Oh dude, oh my gosh, right, right, right.
But you know I'm glad we didn't, because you know we would have
got caught.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
But think about it though, we would be like and
then our kids would be even moreoff the wall bananas.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I mean, yeah, you guys were getting what?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
dozens of people to be out all night and, yeah, the
sun was, yeah, right, yeah, ifyou could get that same
community fully connected online, right?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
that whole time?
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Yeah, well now.
So do you find that peopleplaying different games?
Um so like with my son?
Um, he's a pc head and I forgotwhat game he's playing right
now, but he's in it and they'lldo like you said they'll have
campaigns all night long.
You know, it's not a, it's notum, uh, it's not a call of duty,
right, I forgot what game itwas that he's playing, but
(25:58):
anyways, he does that.
So, like then, is it dependingon the game that then more
people are into it?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
yeah, well, I mean, the biggest thing is is the game
cross platform?
Right, right, if, if it's agame that's made to be
multiplayer and cooperative andit is cross platform, so like
everyone can play with eachother regardless of what they're
on, it's probably going to endup it's like destined to be one
(26:23):
of the more popular games.
Got it Just immediately.
That's like the new stat, it'sthe new gold standard.
Okay, you know what I mean?
Yeah, which is actually, atthis point, starting to become
the bare minimum, right, like,if you don't have cross-platform
, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
yeah, yeah, because then it's like oh sorry, I can't
play it on my iphone right, Ican't right, right it's gonna.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
And then the other thing too is right for like or
like.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Oh, I gotta play the android version with right,
right, right.
The other thing too is rightfor like or like.
Oh, I got to play the Androidversion.
Right, right, right.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
The other thing, too, is the game's population.
You've now like segregated yeah, completely, so they're only
going to have maybe 2000 peopleto play with on this console,
and then there's 20,000 peoplethat get to play on this console
and they have a great time butthere's 5 000 that play on this.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, wow, like hard to find a match, depending on
the time of day online you'regonna have it's gonna be huge,
yeah, no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
A lot of people are gonna be on there, just yeah,
yeah.
And is there any such thing asa pickup game for?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
dnd.
Yeah, yeah.
So there's um.
You could Google search D&D oneshot right now and they would
probably give you several pagesof just really good one shot
campaigns where it's just likewe're going to play D&D today
for five hours and that's it.
That's crazy.
(27:43):
Just a single episode Likethose ones really do feel like
right.
So like normal, d&d feels like areally long tv show, right,
right like star trek, but a oneshot feels like a movie okay it
feels like a like a super shortmovie you pack it full of action
, you try and pack it full of uh, like a very catchy story and
(28:08):
you give it like a climaticconclusion towards the back end
of usually four to five hours.
How did?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
you like the movie.
Yeah, no, you gotta be honest,justin bro, you can't, because,
see, I don't play the game and Ithought the movie was pretty
groovy.
That fantasy like, oh okay,that's cool.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
No, that's fine.
Which movie?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
are we talking about the Dungeons and Dragons movie?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Honor Among Thieves.
Yes, I do remember that one.
The Dungeons and Dragons movieRight Was probably one of my
favorite action adventure moviesin a decade.
Okay, it was so good theycaptured the whimsy of table.
I'm going to have to watch thisthey captured the whimsiness of
table play without ever showingyou the table.
(28:52):
Okay, right, like, it's justthe actual story that someone
would play Right Donebeautifully in world in the
traditional D and D setting,which is the forgotten realms.
Right, they mentioned all kindsof fun stuff for people like me
who play, like all the otherplaces in forgotten realms.
(29:12):
Realms, yeah, um, baldur's gate.
Baldur's gate is the big one,right, they drop.
They named drop Baldur's gatein it, which is the, the video
game that exists for it.
That's huge.
Um, yeah, the.
The movie is so, so good and Idesperately hope that it gets a
(29:35):
sequel.
Yeah, because right now theythere's like no talks.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, chris pine was uh-huh, he plays.
He plays captain kirk in startrek yeah, yeah, yeah yeah that
guy?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
yeah, chris pine plays the.
Uh, he's a.
I did see all they did releaseall their stat sheets, oh did
they yeah, oh yeah, oh see,that's cool.
They did stat sheets for everysingle character.
He was, I think, a bard yes, hewas a multi-class.
He was a bard and a rogue yeah,he was like four levels of bard
.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Okay, which?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
means what?
Two levels of rogue, that'syour classes.
The bard is a very charismaheavy class that has basic
spellcasting and it's usuallyillusions okay, um, yeah, that
was his character, right.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah, he did, he did, he did.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
No, he was charismatic yeah, he was like
very persuasive.
He was very funny.
Yeah, he did basic little magicright and he was also kind of
stealthy.
Yeah, that was like his thing.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Um, so you think that all the characters fit oh,
absolutely yeah, they nailed it.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
That was a good, every single representation of
the game then absolutely,especially the uh, the guy that
was clearly higher level thanthem, right?
Yeah the paladin guy uh-huh,paladins traditionally like no
intelligence, no kidding nointelligence whatsoever.
But in this it was different no,no, no in the movie there is a
(31:00):
paladin, but he is like he'slike prince charming, where
there's like there's not athought behind those eyes.
Oh my god yeah, but he looksgreat.
You know he's a pretty boywhatever, and he's a pretty boy
about yeah to look at him andshit, it's a good movie, it's a
good I like, I said I like itbut see now the funny.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Like not changing the side, we go together but it's,
I can get into the dnd and watchthat with no problem.
But then I have a hard timewatching the dc movies.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
You know what I'm saying because, even though I
know it's a little bit like, I'mlike ah right, I know it's a
different thing, but yeah theysaid dungeon and dragons movie
was pretty daggons 50 bro it wasso good I was in it and they
could do so so much more with it, because they're in like yeah
right, they did it in the, thesetting that has the most
content, which is the forgottenrealms right?
(31:49):
It's like there's years andyears and years of stuff for
them to use.
Now do you?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
think it would be a worthwhile with that same crew.
Would there be a worth?
Could they?
Speaker 4 (31:59):
yeah, like well yeah, they could definitely return
those characters there's.
They all have like another 10or 12 levels worth of stuff that
they could they could be muchstronger, all of them um, so
they could come back.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, the sequel could be them stronger.
Yeah, like they could come back.
Like you know, after some time,one piece right, right, right
right.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, it could be much.
It could be much much laterthing.
Yeah, um, and that is kind ofthe fun part too is like the
level changing thing yeah, right, yeah like leveling up feels
like a real progression of timefor every single character and
some people.
All right, very few people usethe experience points, which is
(32:42):
like if you kill this, you getthis many points and then we
have to do fucking math tofigure out, to figure out when
you're gonna level up.
Some people do that.
I don't because it's silly,right?
Um, I do the milestone method,which is just like if I feel
that they've hit a milestone,got it, or like something that's
genuinely impressive, theylevel up now, is it impressive
(33:05):
because of how they're playingor impressive because of the
story that you've written?
it can be a combination of both,right?
So let's say, I think it's justtime for them to level up,
because it's about to get a lotharder.
Okay, um, I can try andimplement, uh, something
thematically that would makethat possible.
(33:29):
Like, maybe they receive ablessing, okay, or a boon from a
god, um, or they have thisinteraction with a demigod, or
something okay that offers themthat blessing or boon, um, and
it just equates to they level up.
That's pretty huge.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
You know, that's something really cool.
You could pretty much do almostanything.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, there's the.
The mechanics allow the improvto flow Right.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
You know what I mean, right.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
There is a mechanic that I can rely on or backstep
to when I need it to make thestory go the way it needs to go,
which is really just forwardyou know, whatever direction
they decide to go, fine, I justI can do things always
mechanically to make it goforward.
Um, not always easy.
(34:24):
Sometimes it does brick wall,uh, yeah, you can break wall bad
.
Brick wall, uh yeah, you canbrick wall bad, uh, and and nine
times out of ten.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
The brick wall actually is just a tpk, a total
party kill.
You say four hours, so fourhours is exactly that's the
length of the game, or you cancome back and still continue.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Oh, I continue from where we left, oh every single
time um, I get yeah ever end atsome point I mean I have an idea
of what it looks like with themending.
Yeah, sometimes I envision likeall right, what does it look
like if this story and thesecharacters hit level 15 and
(35:04):
that's the end?
15 is pretty high.
From 15 to 20 it gets crazy.
Okay, combat takes like longerthan four hours at those levels
because people are pulling apartthe fucking fabrics of reality
right you're right, the level 20sorcerer is gonna like make it,
so there's no ground under youyeah, right stuff like that and
(35:29):
I me personally I don't thinkthat that that's like where it
starts to get not fun, rightyeah, it's like now, it's like
you, just yeah, it's like dragonball, you know just right,
everybody's just dragging yeahexactly.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
We're cratering the earth and all that other stupid
right which is fun in some, insome aspects.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Not for that game, not for right not for something
that we're going to investmonths into doing.
It's just not as fun.
It'd be really cool for aone-shot Right.
Yeah right, right, I would loveto run a level 21 shot, just to
see how bad it gets.
Yeah, yeah yeah.
That's something I should do.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Well, I mean, you got your crews already, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
They would be so happy to do that.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
To get to play a level 20 character is a
privilege and we'll have youback and you can tell us how it
was.
We'll have like a whole othervideo game yeah, because that's
insane.
That would be so freaking cool.
Yeah, I mean again, onlybecause I see like you're just
loving the hell out of it.
Yeah, I, I absolutely love thisand I've seen other people that
(36:31):
love it.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
So then to know that that would be something like
yeah, there's people who areprobably nuts about this yeah, I
mean it's it's if, if paintingsor visual art and poems and
literature are thoughtful art.
(36:51):
Right, and music is audio, artand movies are a combination of
those things.
Yep.
What is it when I also addimprovising with my friends too?
Yeah, because that's what I'mdoing Improvising.
I'm making a movie, improvisingit with my friends in real time
(37:12):
.
Right, that's like as artisticas it can get you know what.
I mean, when you actually thinkabout it, and for me it's like,
as someone who was, who wasalways, I think, a creative, but
never found their way to youknow, like the tangibleness of
being a creative.
Yes, dnd was absolutely thatfor me.
(37:35):
Okay, uh, yeah, it's.
Yeah, I think it makes you moresocial.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I think it makes you more creative do you have your
past stories, like in other, thegames that you've played before
?
Because then I'm thinking rightnow you write this down, you
know maybe almost copyrighted orwhatever you know I'm saying,
and then, just so, it's a moviestudio.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
You know what I mean and I could easily make a book
out of the last campaign I didor the one that's currently
happening, and it would bepretty close to high fantasy,
like Lord of the Rings.
But I don't keep it as archaicas Lord of the Rings.
(38:23):
You know what I mean, becausemost of Lord of the Rings world
is pretty brutal and archaic andpretty simple, you know what I
mean.
And magic is not as prominentin it.
Obviously I keep it a littlecloser to high fantasy, though,
right, there's a little bit moreof that Harry Potter whimsiness
(38:44):
.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, okay, it's cool .
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Magic.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Dude, you should totally do it.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
I'm going to have to check the movie out.
Yeah Well, you should totallydo it.
I'm going to have to check themovie out.
Yeah, Well you got to see themovie.
But now I'm hooked on yousaying your stories are like
that.
I would love to read yourstories.
Or, like I said, even ifsomebody could animate his story
like you said, send them to thecomic book almost yeah.
Oh, make it a comic.
Yeah, that would be a reallygroovy graphic novel.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
It's awesome.
You know that it's good becauseof the reactions of the players
.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I've had people cry.
I've had people laugh.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
I've had my headset almost exploding off my head
because they're all screaming.
If I can make a story thatconveys just this group of
people, that are part of it, tofeel that way about it yeah,
this must be a good story atthat point.
Hell, yeah, yeah, as long asyou're getting the appropriate
reactions at your table or atleast close to what heard.
(39:41):
Play like you know somebodylike a cop you know your friends
are, you know, just regularnerds.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
you know, like what is it?
Like?
The character of people, thekind of people?
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Right, right, right yeah.
No, I mean it's still nerdy atits core.
It's still nerdy at its corefor sure.
But I think theater, reallyTheater kids.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
No kidding, because they, but I, I think theater,
really theater, kids.
No kidding, because I get toact, right, right, it's improv,
that's all improv.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
It's basically free stage time with friends yeah um,
yeah, theater kids is is yourbiggest dynamic, that it's like
clearly prominent in um.
And then I think, just your,your gamers, that are in it for
a story, okay, so, like yourlast of us, god of war enjoyers,
(40:40):
people that are in it for, like, campaign games right, balder's
gate just came out, what twoyears ago?
The game that they worked onfor apparently a decade.
It's still one of the mostplayed games for the fantasy
category, right, like, and it'stwo or three years old now.
Okay, yeah, it's incrediblygood.
(41:01):
I think a lot of people, right,we had, we had stranger things,
we had critical role the twitchseries that became super super
popular.
You have brendan lee mulligan'sdimension 20 series another
streaming one that became super,super popular.
Um, then you have balder's gate.
So now everyone that somehowhasn't seen stranger things
(41:25):
right, and or is a gamer hugepopulation now knows about D&D
Because they're playing Baldur'sGate and then they're saying
you know what, I can make astory.
Yeah, I could just make thisgame for my friends.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Have you read any stories that kind of like you
know blew you away or you wereimpressed with?
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah.
So there's like a whole sectionof Reddit where people talk
about their D and D campaigns.
They're like this is what'sfucking going on with my people
right now.
Wow, Okay, I've seen.
Yeah, there's been some, somecrazy, crazy ones.
I've heard of stuff like likean in-game and real life
proposal at the same time.
(42:09):
No way game and real lifeproposal at the same time?
No way.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yeah, that's insane, yeah people get crazy, yeah
people people will die for thisshit, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
what I'm saying, dude.
I mean, and I guess, if therewas an easier way to, um, I mean
, I'm just into anime.
I like the cartoons to just,you know, take your stories and
animate them and whatnot.
To me that would be insane,like that would be uh, this
happened.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Critical role, uh, made a series with Amazon, an
animated series.
No shit, yeah, the uh, thefirst campaign of critical role
is being animated right now.
There's already two seasons out.
I didn't even know that.
Yeah, yeah, it's an Amazon show.
It's called critical role.
It's called yeah, it's calledcritical role.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
I think no kidding yeah, it's called critical role
and they're animating theirsecond campaign, right?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
no shit, all right, I'm gonna look that up.
It's awesome.
The artist for it is the guythat was the the art the
animator for it is the DCcartoon animator from Teen
Titans to Justice League movieShut up.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
That guy.
So that's the animator for thisshow.
That shit is fire.
Critical role.
Gonna go watch it now.
Critical role.
Definitely gonna go watch it.
It's really good stuff.
I can't wait, I gotta, I gotta,I love.
Like I said, I'd rather watchit than play it.
I'm gonna go roll, definitelygonna go watch it.
It's really good stuff.
That is shit, man.
I can't wait.
It's really good stuff.
I gotta, I gotta, I love.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Like I said, I'd rather watch it than play it.
I know it sounds stupid, butnot stupid, but I'm just like,
well, you know what it is, Ithink you have to have.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
that would have is my thing I can do this kind of
thing.
I mean, you know well hearinghow justin is talking about it
bro, yeah, I just don't knowvery intricate, you know
intricate, yeah, I just don'thave the time for anything.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, yeah I mean time again, scheduling is the
biggest boss of legends anddragons.
Yeah, live life.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
Yeah, yeah, I live by the seat of my pants but, yeah,
man, it's it is so, soimportant to find the time to go
out and play.
Yeah, uh, and dnd is like sucha nice, easy, formal way, right
to really feel like I'm in thetreehouse again okay, you know
(44:24):
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Okay, okay, um, I get it yeah, it's cool's just
incredible.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
That is way groovy, that is awesome.
Yeah, listen bro.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
I'm definitely going to look for that.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
That's a lot yeah.
It's just amazing what you cando.
I feel like I just blasted thatyou guys?
Speaker 3 (44:44):
I didn't know, I didn't know.
Yeah because I knew it wasthere.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Like I said, I've been to a handful of Comic-Cons,
but I just know the like boardgame.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, yeah, right, right, right and that's what I
thought it was, bro.
I thought it was a board gamethat you know.
People just started to buildcastles on and, like you know,
look at these guys, they'refreaking doofuses.
I wouldn't sit there thisfucking long.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's so cool because you could make your own
characters right, so you couldbe like we're going to do GI Joe
theme.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
We're going to do GI Joe versus.
Cobra, cobra commander is oneof your characters.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
You can make it compatible to whatever you need
it to, be okay, like if wewanted to run it as a star wars,
one shot right.
You could do it with everythingthat exists in the game yeah,
easily right, that's sweet yeahthat is so sick.
That's the modular bit of it.
Yeah, it's like.
I love it.
It can get super fun.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
I love that yeah make it however you want.
Well, with that, bro, Iappreciate you being here.
Thank you Of course.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I had fun with that one, I think.
Yeah, you do, just make surePeople follow us On Instagram oh
.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Instagram.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Facebook.
And again we are On YouTube, onour YouTube.
Uh huh, alright, so yes, fullvideo Hell yeah, come in yeah
youtube.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
All right.
So yes, full video.
Oh yeah, come in.
Yeah, because I appreciateeverybody, everybody been,
they've been watching, peoplehave been watching so appreciate
it.
Thank you much because uh Ilove you guys.
Without you, we wouldn't behere.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
Thank you for being here, bro, thank you for saying
yeah, because you could havebeen like yeah, no, I'm.
Uh, you know what?
No, I, I will never pass uptalking about D&D.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
You got to come here and talk about everything.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Unless it's for to play.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
D&D.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah, I turn into a different beast as soon as I
hear D&D, Nice Well, again,thank you for being here.
So until next time, everybody,thank you for being here.
Love, peace and hair grease.
Live long and prosper Go veganHolla.
Hey and welcome to Coming from it and the Jersey
Guy podcast.
How are you people doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
What's up Doing?
Great yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Cool.
Yes, we got Justin back.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Welcome, justin.
Hello guys, thank you forcovering when I wasn't here
Appreciate it?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yes, of course.
Yes, yes, I had a good timedoing that.
Yes, that was a good one.
That was very fun.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, I'm telling you man.
Welcome Justin.
Hello guys, thank you forcovering while I wasn't here.
Appreciate it.
Yes, of course.
Yes, we had a good time doingthat.
Yes, that was a good one.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
That was very fun.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, I'm telling you , man, you could be our guest.
Just keep coming back and forth, you'd be our special guest.
That was like a very naturalyeah, yeah yeah, yeah, it flow.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Topics too.
Yeah, topics are sweet, butthat's the idea, that's the kind
of flow we want to have.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
So that's why it's like yeah,come in, talk about it, laugh,
joke, have a good time.
Yes, continue to offer that,that's it.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
That's it, you're our special guest.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yes, man.
So tonight's topic is D&D,holla, g&d.
Yes, so we're gonna ask.
We'll pick Justin's brain,cause he's the D&D, like, I
guess, savant.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Connoisseur acquaintance we'll do.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
We'll do Connoisseur yeah he's playing it.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
I am, I am playing, I am playing.
I am currently a dungeon masterfor a group of five of my
friends okay five of my friends.
Uh, I've done it one other timefor another group of six and
I'm also in one of my friendscampaigns as a player now.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Are you playing like is online?
Are you playing with the actualboard?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
every game that I have played so far has been
online.
Okay, yeah, are you?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
using a board when you're online, or how do you?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I do.
I use, uh, tailspire, which isa 3d uh digital board where you
are able to create your boards,okay, through it.
Um, super cinematic andthematic looks really cool.
Yeah, it looks like the bestversion of in person when it's
done at its peak, right, whereyou know people go crazy.
(02:12):
Right, making small castles andwhatnot.
Uh, all mimicked in digitalform.
And then, uh, just a discordchat nice to get everyone
connected and videos and allthat okay, all right.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
So now, when you play with your friends, are you
playing online like you would doother um?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
games.
So you know, yeah, yeah, I meanit's pretty, it's like almost
doing the exact same thing.
Okay, same thing.
Yeah, this is just.
It just looks better.
Four hours of the same gamingthat I do with my friends, but
super scheduled yeah, which isalways, of course, the hardest
part.
So there's like a whole.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
D and D community, basically at this point
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
There's like a whole there's like a whole corner of
every social media for it.
Like there's a whole corner ofYouTube that's D and D content
and people talking about it, andthere's a whole dnd community
on twitter and tiktok and yeah,there's these patreon channels
that run dnd games and whatnot,and twitch streamers that's
(03:14):
insane?
Yeah, no, it's.
It's an incredibly largecommunity.
At this point, it's like I feellike almost one in five people
that I have met recently withinthe last few years have at least
either played it or consumedsome of the new media
surrounding it.
Oh no, kidding, you know.
(03:34):
Yeah, whether it's the movie oror any of these streams, these
large scale streams that havecome out.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
A lot of people love it.
Well have you gone to umcomic-con?
Uh, I've never been to acomic-con, so a comic-con?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
the handful of years that I went and it's a couple of
years back that I went theyhave a whole section at the
javits center and they just haveall the tables set up and just
I'm telling you there has to beat least 300 people that are.
Just that were just down.
I don't know what it's been thelast two or three years, but
just man, insane.
And they're all at the tables,they're all set up and on your.
(04:14):
The bad part is that on yourway there they have all the um
little uh shops set up.
Well, you know, like the uhkiosks and people are just like
buying more stuff, gettingdifferent dyes.
You know they're actuallybuying the gear they're wearing
the outfits while they'resitting there playing and stuff,
you know what?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
we should all go to Comic Con.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I'm just saying, dude , yeah, I think, I don't know,
we have to check to see if wecan sign up now.
I don't know.
I mean, we might have to waituntil next year.
I'm a yeah, it's not untiloctober to go right, but yeah
that would be a great ideachanged a lot since.
What oh?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
yeah, 1974 was when it first came out.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, absolutely right um, now, are you familiar
with how they used to play?
I've seen, and this is againthat corner of youtube that,
like some of its dnd history,yeah so sometimes I watch videos
on things I have never seen inmy life or things that are, you
know, two decades old or more.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well now, what do you find more interesting?
The things that you've seen,that you know can make it.
I guess you say I don't want tosay that it made it harder, but
where you were actually havingto make your board, build your
board yeah, so like they used todo combat in ways that were
mathematically oh, like super,super different, right?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
um, in some of the older versions, I think third,
third edition is the most famousfor like having the worst math
system in it for combat, whichis like the main thing that most
people are worried about andthe thing that takes up most of
the session is the combat RightThird edition had some kind of
like someone out there will knowexactly what it is.
(05:56):
You had to do like reverse math.
You had to do like some type ofeither reverse division just to
figure out if something's sucha thing, reverse division,
whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was like something like that.
It was smart enough you.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They were doing pemdas to figure out if someone
hit because of the armor classversus the hit okay, it was
crazy, it was it was when theyfirst started playing.
That was third edition, third,where they really tried to mix
it up and it didn't go right asgreat clearly you know what, we
(06:34):
kind of jumped in.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
While I jumped in, I went ahead a little bit, because
I know only that much about it.
Yeah, what's the basics of thegame?
Like what do I need to be thestarter?
Like what do I have to do to toget in?
Speaker 4 (06:45):
there's a there's a very fun video of this exact
same question happening recentlyon a podcast with john berndahl
nice uh, what's her name fromtrue blood?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
yeah, yeah redhead.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
He asks the exact same question you did and she
said we could actually just playit right now.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I saw that.
I know you're talking aboutright.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
We could play the game right now.
You don't actually needanything except a sheet that
tells you numbers.
Okay, when you build thesecharacters, you have your main
stats.
There's, I think, think, six orseven.
(07:31):
You have constitution,dexterity, strength,
intelligence, charisma, wisdom,six, six attributes.
You get to use a point bysystem to add to those
attributes.
The higher the levels are onthose things, the larger bonus
you get to your roles.
So you're going to be naturallybetter at certain things, right
?
So let's say you guys are agroup of elf scouts that all
(07:56):
decide to be very dexterous andreally good with bows and you're
out on a patrol.
You see, one of you has reallyhigh perception because you
statted into having really highperception and that person ends
up having a passive perception.
That's high enough to see atrail of blood and leaves that
(08:18):
are moved improperly right tolead you guys to an owl bear,
which is a huge mystical bearowl.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
It's as simple as that, but it's been spread out
so beautifully thematically andpeople have added so much more
of the role-playing aspect to itnow that it is a lot more than
just simple combat and verysimple tasks.
Right, the whole storyline.
(08:52):
Your imagination, absolutely,yeah.
But so for for me, building mystories, uh, I have to plot out
probably 20 sessions at a timein my mind as what could happen,
as I kind of try and branch offwith what choices they're going
(09:14):
to end up making and also whatthe dice decide is going to
happen.
Got it before I'm comfortableactually playing.
Got it.
I have to have a 20 sessionplan in my head before.
So detailed, yeah.
Yeah, I write out basicallystrings of timelines based on
(09:36):
what might happen.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's like more complicated than chess.
Yeah, in chess, you have tothink like ahead.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
If I make this move yeah like that.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
So it's like the same .
That's also mathematical, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, and some of
that stuff I actually like Idon't decide exactly how it's
gonna happen.
Some of it I write down as likeyou will roll to see if this
thing happens, if they make thischoice and then go from there.
So some of it is improv, right,like a lot of it is actually
improvisational, just naturally.
If you want to add to it,improv is the way to do it.
(10:13):
Um, so it's not like I don'tknow exactly what's going to
happen all the time.
They're not playing my littleversion of a movie.
It's, we're making a movietogether, right, um?
Or at least that's how I tryand set it up, right.
But then they.
(10:33):
Well, you obviously did a goodjob because you said you're on
what your master of five.
You said uh, yes so hello yeah,dungeon master five right now
they enjoy it.
Yeah, a whole whole lot YepGood, or?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
at least that's what I think.
What does it take to get tothat?
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The key thing scheduling.
Maybe Scheduling is actuallyand this is like the D&D meme at
this point, scheduling is thebiggest boss in D&D.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Just getting everyone together.
What's like your story arc,like how did you start into dnd?
What got you into dnd?
Speaker 4 (11:10):
right.
So, um, stranger things cameout when I was in high school
and I think that that was the Iknow that was they that they
were big into that.
Yeah yeah, it was like thefirst time I had, like,
discovered dnd existence.
I didn't know about it all ofgrowing up, found an interest in
(11:30):
that part of the show and thenwatched it slowly dissipate from
the show as like a key part,and then I started to try and
seek it out on my own onlinethrough, like YouTube and
whatnot try and seek it out onmy own online through like
youtube and whatnot, right?
um, critical role is the largeststreamer of this and it's a
bunch of uh, voice actors thatare super famous.
(11:54):
You guys definitely know someof these voices.
Oh, really, it's a group ofthem and they stream them
playing dungeons and dragons areinto this yeah, yeah, I'm
trying to think.
That's pretty cool, yeah, I canonly think of so many things.
It'd be funny if it was likeClancy Brown.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
He does like Mr Krabs yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Just for reference, one of the people that's in
Critical Role is Ashley Johnson,who played Ellie's mom In the
Last of Us.
Because, Ashley Johnson is theOriginal voice for Ellie.
Oh, she's just one of thepeople that's In that group of
six or seven that streams online.
They run incredible campaigns.
(12:38):
It's a 200 episode show.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So do they like Do voice?
Do they do voice for likespecific characters and every?
Speaker 4 (12:48):
scene.
So the the DM is Matt Mercer,who is incredibly good at like
switching his voice.
Um, makes all kinds of funnoises, and then almost all of
them play someone with a veryspecific accent.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Wow, every but whether it's like that's cool
and they get a very specificaccent Wow, every.
But whether it's like an old,that's cool.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
And they get like super specific with it too.
It's like old posh English orlike right, like you could do
Southern accent and then you cando like an Atlanta accent in a.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
D and D care or do like a Louisiana.
Yeah, they get super superspecific.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Yeah, they all play some super, super fun characters
and they all these super funvoices for their characters.
Um, that's actually one of likethe really fun parts of uh that
.
Like every dm has their sort ofseasoning, like their secret
sauce.
Some people is like, oh, theydo a bunch of voices and they're
(13:51):
really good at it, so likethat's where I get my immersion
from.
Or there's some people are likereally descriptive during
combat, so that it's envisionedbetter and like more fun.
Right, there's all these littleaspects of like how people make
the game more fun for theirtable.
Right, I try my best to be ajack of all trades.
(14:15):
Right, I'm not the greatestvoice actor known to man.
I try and do as many accentsand voices as possible for them.
Uh, and I have it while you'replaying the game, while I play
the game as depending on thecharacters that I'm playing
because you had to remember.
They're all playing one guy.
I'm playing everyone around,right, um?
So yeah, I try and do as manyvoices as I can.
(14:37):
I try and do accents that I can, in different octaves, right,
so that they can differentiatewho's talking without me having
to say you look to your left andnow this person says right,
they can just hear me say aconversation and know that
they're watching it happen yeahyeah um that's insane, dude.
That's like, and that's justlike basic, like how to make it
(15:00):
obvious what's going on, andeasier.
It takes a while to get it,though, I would think for sure.
But am I the best at that?
No.
Am I the best at describingcombat?
No, but I do take the time tomake sure that, like, there's a
cinematic for every single diceroll.
Got it Right, it playing intheir mind to the best of my
(15:23):
ability.
And then the other thing is the, the material side of it.
So, like, some people makeincredible maps Right, so that
when it's finally time forcombat, it's like this huge
display of like, look what Ifucking made for you guys.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, dude, that's so crazy yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And I and I do get to have that.
It's not as soulful as handmade, obviously to have that.
It's not as soulful as handmade, obviously.
But I do get to have that withmy tailspire maps, because I
will spend hours searching foreither other people's boards and
slabs or using bits and piecesand trying to create my own from
(15:59):
it.
Whole weekends have beendevoted to making a map for
something that might happen.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
And it's happened to me too.
There was one time between thiscampaign and the last with my
current group that I spentprobably the most time I had
spent on a map, just for them totake the peaceful route for
once.
And I was like this is so sickguys.
And then they were like superconfused when the the normally
(16:30):
four hour session was only likethree hours yeah and I had no
idea what to do.
Uh, and sometimes that happens,yeah, sometimes the dice decide
what direction that story isgoing, and that's why I love it
is it regular dice, or is therea special kind of die that you
guys?
use.
So your d20, your 20-sided die,is your most universal die.
(16:51):
It's probably the one thatyou're going to use the most.
Every aspect and attributethat's on that character's stat
sheet is typically rolled with ad20 right.
So every stat that's on theremodifies usually the d20,
whether it's the actual corestats, dex, strength, whatever
it may be, or the skills thatare attached to those core stats
(17:16):
.
So something like let's, Ithink wisdom boosts your nature
skill checks, your survivalskill checks and your animal
handling skill checks.
Wow, the skill checks get superspecific, right?
We're talking about all kindsof different things.
There's a difference betweenperception and investigation.
(17:38):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Those are separate skills.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Right.
Wow, yeah, it gets super, superspecific with the skills and
they're all modified by how youdecide to build the character.
Um, and all of those things arerolled with the d20.
So let's say I'm a sharpshooterand I have a plus 10 to
perception.
I roll that d20, I hit my 15.
That's an all right roll.
(18:01):
My 15 is actually a 25.
That's a super good roll, right.
And that's how the that's anall right role.
My 15 is actually a 25.
That's a super good role, right.
And that's how people build thecharacters up, yeah.
And then obviously, the classesall operate differently in
combat and then some of themoperate differently with a bunch
of skills that they can dooutside of combat.
You know, like sometimes it'sreally really helpful when
(18:24):
someone actually has a flyingspeed Right so that they can do
flight.
For sure, some teams will havethat problem in the earlier game
because they won't have likespells that can give them flight
or anything, or we'll just havea harder time figuring out how
to get a flight speed, or youjust have a druid turn into a
(18:45):
bird.
Yeah, now we have someone thatcan fly there you go, uh, and
that's where, like, the teambuilding stuff comes in and, uh,
session zero is probablyactually my favorite session
because it's where I get toestablish the story and they all
get to talk about their peoplefor the first time to each other
.
That is cool.
Yeah, that session zero isprobably my favorite part,
(19:07):
honestly, because it's wheneveryone's the most excited,
because they know that they'reabout to start, yeah, and they
know that they're about to telleverybody about their character
and like their whole spiel andthey're also finding out, like
my and I do at least a one pagesynopsis of what the whole
campaign is about to be about,got it?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Super fun.
I did not know that all thatwent into yeah, like I had so
dope, I love it.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
That is so awesome, it's it has evolved from being
that thing that you did in theconfines of your basement like
with like three otherof your nerd friends shamedly to
like the equivalent of cookingall of your friends a meal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know whatI mean.
(19:54):
Like I'm gonna spend a bunch oftime to do this thing for you
guys and it's gonna be anexperience for all of us and
that's what it feels like it'sgrown into that now, because
people have added so much ofthat like sauce to it with all
those extra things that they do,and also just how many
(20:15):
additions it's been through.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So what is the 5E mean?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Fifth edition is the most recent edition.
It's the one that I use and I'mthe most familiar with.
It's probably the mostaccessible it's ever been.
It's the mathematically easiestit's ever been.
It's the mathematically easiestit's ever been and it has the
most content that's usable withthat system Wow, okay, out of
all of them.
(20:39):
And then 1D&D is a thing thatthey're doing now.
It's technically the start of anew edition, but it's at its
core it's basically just fifthedition still.
They've just rewritten how somestuff works.
It's almost like a patch notefor fifth edition Got it, where
(21:04):
they change some core skills andcore mechanics for each of the
classes and also some monsters,like amendments Like amendments.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's a really good way of putting it.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
One D&D is the first amendment.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
That is insane.
Okay, because I really thoughtthat D&D and for me.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I knew it was a board game in a sense, but I didn't
know it was that Right.
I thought it had grown to this.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I thought that the board game from when we were
kids, kind of thing.
I thought it was more of likeflipping cards like Yu-Gi-Oh or
some shit, you know what.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Right.
Flipping cards and then roll adie and I'm like, ah, and you
bought the board.
I didn't know that people wereactually making the board.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Even back then they were doing it.
They were doing it on paper.
Yeah, I didn't know it was that.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, that's the grid paper, Right yeah, that was how
it was done for a really longtime.
Yeah, and that's what I'msaying.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I didn't even know that.
I thought it was literally IPokemon, yu-gi-oh, like I
thought that that was there.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I was caught up with you in a sense, oh shit Magic.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I knew it was detailed.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I knew a lot.
You know a lot of people did it.
I was into it even back then,right, but it's not something I
ever got into.
I used to play the video game,though I do remember the video
game, yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, I ever got even past maybe the second round and
that was when I'm lucky If Igot past that, but it was super.
First time it was ahead of itstime, for sure, oh, definitely.
Well, did you ever play likethat, tom D&D?
I never played it, not at all,none of it.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I don't know why I never it just never came across
my horizon.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I feel like for you guys, it was one of those Things
that like, not only did youhave to know about it, but you
had to have four friends whoalso knew about it and wanted to
do it.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's pretty hard to be like a clique, like totally
nerds, especially for that time.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
You're asking five people for like four whole hours
where that's all they're doingConsistent.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You're asking for four whole hours where that's
all they're doing, you know,consistent, yeah, yeah, you're
asking for four whole hours oftheir life and now do you play?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
they're like turning their phones off you know, dude,
that's exactly now.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
But then how often do you play with each one of your,
your different teams or your?
Speaker 4 (23:23):
so, uh, because of scheduling, it's been a
nightmare right um, which issupernatural and it happens.
Uh, we were playing once a week.
At one point, then we wereplaying, I think, once a month.
Oh right, uh, now it's beenwhenever we can get everybody
(23:45):
together to do it, it's uh yeah,there's been schedule changes
for some of the guys and it's uh, we like just cannot line up
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
See what happens that's adulting for you yeah, it
happens, I.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I whip up my own little thing of like hey, open
this when it's time to go again.
Yeah, uh, so that I can evenremember everything down to the
nitty-gritty detail.
Yeah, right, because I canwrite like they're going to get
the dragon right.
But there's also like they'regoing to get the dragon.
They also talked to thatambassador and pissed her off.
(24:20):
Really bad, right, right.
You know what I mean.
Like there's other stuff thathappened, all of those other
little things right because itmight take a really long time
for us to play again, and I willbe expected to remember that
because one of them does, youknow what.
I mean One of them is going tobe like whatever happened to
that ambassador.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, exactly.
So you just put something outof your ass, not?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
with my all right With my current friends that I'm
playing with.
They're like some of my bestbest friends.
They wouldn't do that.
The last group that I'm playingwith, they're like some of my
best best friends.
They wouldn't do that.
The last group that I wasplaying with was good friends,
but they, you know, yeah, theywould have done it.
Oh, they would have done it.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Somebody would have done it.
I think it's cool that the gamehas grown like that.
It had a beginning and had astart, because it didn't have
the technology that we have nowRight.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
that's why I'm bugging out with that.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
How would we always say Imagine if we had the
technology?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Oh dude, oh my gosh, right, right, right.
But you know I'm glad we didn't, because you know we would have
got caught.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
But think about it though, we would be like and
then our kids would be even moreoff the wall bananas.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I mean, yeah, you guys were getting what?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
dozens of people to be out all night and, yeah, the
sun was, yeah, right, yeah, ifyou could get that same
community fully connected online, right?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
that whole time?
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Yeah, well now.
So do you find that peopleplaying different games?
Um so like with my son?
Um, he's a pc head and I forgotwhat game he's playing right
now, but he's in it and they'lldo like you said they'll have
campaigns all night long.
You know, it's not a, it's notum, uh, it's not a call of duty,
right, I forgot what game itwas that he's playing, but
(25:58):
anyways, he does that.
So, like then, is it dependingon the game that then more
people are into it?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
yeah, well, I mean, the biggest thing is is the game
cross platform?
Right, right, if, if it's agame that's made to be
multiplayer and cooperative andit is cross platform, so like
everyone can play with eachother regardless of what they're
on, it's probably going to endup it's like destined to be one
(26:23):
of the more popular games.
Got it Just immediately.
That's like the new stat, it'sthe new gold standard.
Okay, you know what I mean?
Yeah, which is actually, atthis point, starting to become
the bare minimum, right, like,if you don't have cross-platform
, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
yeah, yeah, because then it's like oh sorry, I can't
play it on my iphone right, Ican't right, right it's gonna.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
And then the other thing too is right for like or
like.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Oh, I gotta play the android version with right,
right, right.
The other thing too is rightfor like or like.
Oh, I got to play the Androidversion.
Right, right, right.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
The other thing, too, is the game's population.
You've now like segregated yeah, completely, so they're only
going to have maybe 2000 peopleto play with on this console,
and then there's 20,000 peoplethat get to play on this console
and they have a great time butthere's 5 000 that play on this.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, wow, like hard to find a match, depending on
the time of day online you'regonna have it's gonna be huge,
yeah, no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
A lot of people are gonna be on there, just yeah,
yeah.
And is there any such thing asa pickup game for?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
dnd.
Yeah, yeah.
So there's um.
You could Google search D&D oneshot right now and they would
probably give you several pagesof just really good one shot
campaigns where it's just likewe're going to play D&D today
for five hours and that's it.
That's crazy.
(27:43):
Just a single episode Likethose ones really do feel like
right.
So like normal, d&d feels like areally long tv show, right,
right like star trek, but a oneshot feels like a movie okay it
feels like a like a super shortmovie you pack it full of action
, you try and pack it full of uh, like a very catchy story and
(28:08):
you give it like a climaticconclusion towards the back end
of usually four to five hours.
How did?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
you like the movie.
Yeah, no, you gotta be honest,justin bro, you can't, because,
see, I don't play the game and Ithought the movie was pretty
groovy.
That fantasy like, oh okay,that's cool.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
No, that's fine.
Which movie?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
are we talking about the Dungeons and Dragons movie?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Honor Among Thieves.
Yes, I do remember that one.
The Dungeons and Dragons movieRight Was probably one of my
favorite action adventure moviesin a decade.
Okay, it was so good theycaptured the whimsy of table.
I'm going to have to watch thisthey captured the whimsiness of
table play without ever showingyou the table.
(28:52):
Okay, right, like, it's justthe actual story that someone
would play Right Donebeautifully in world in the
traditional D and D setting,which is the forgotten realms.
Right, they mentioned all kindsof fun stuff for people like me
who play, like all the otherplaces in forgotten realms.
(29:12):
Realms, yeah, um, baldur's gate.
Baldur's gate is the big one,right, they drop.
They named drop Baldur's gatein it, which is the, the video
game that exists for it.
That's huge.
Um, yeah, the.
The movie is so, so good and Idesperately hope that it gets a
(29:35):
sequel.
Yeah, because right now theythere's like no talks.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, chris pine was uh-huh, he plays.
He plays captain kirk in startrek yeah, yeah, yeah yeah that
guy?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
yeah, chris pine plays the.
Uh, he's a.
I did see all they did releaseall their stat sheets, oh did
they yeah, oh yeah, oh see,that's cool.
They did stat sheets for everysingle character.
He was, I think, a bard yes, hewas a multi-class.
He was a bard and a rogue yeah,he was like four levels of bard
.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Okay, which?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
means what?
Two levels of rogue, that'syour classes.
The bard is a very charismaheavy class that has basic
spellcasting and it's usuallyillusions okay, um, yeah, that
was his character, right.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah, he did, he did, he did.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
No, he was charismatic yeah, he was like
very persuasive.
He was very funny.
Yeah, he did basic little magicright and he was also kind of
stealthy.
Yeah, that was like his thing.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Um, so you think that all the characters fit oh,
absolutely yeah, they nailed it.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
That was a good, every single representation of
the game then absolutely,especially the uh, the guy that
was clearly higher level thanthem, right?
Yeah the paladin guy uh-huh,paladins traditionally like no
intelligence, no kidding nointelligence whatsoever.
But in this it was different no,no, no in the movie there is a
(31:00):
paladin, but he is like he'slike prince charming, where
there's like there's not athought behind those eyes.
Oh my god yeah, but he looksgreat.
You know he's a pretty boywhatever, and he's a pretty boy
about yeah to look at him andshit, it's a good movie, it's a
good I like, I said I like itbut see now the funny.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Like not changing the side, we go together but it's,
I can get into the dnd and watchthat with no problem.
But then I have a hard timewatching the dc movies.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
You know what I'm saying because, even though I
know it's a little bit like, I'mlike ah right, I know it's a
different thing, but yeah theysaid dungeon and dragons movie
was pretty daggons 50 bro it wasso good I was in it and they
could do so so much more with it, because they're in like yeah
right, they did it in the, thesetting that has the most
content, which is the forgottenrealms right?
(31:49):
It's like there's years andyears and years of stuff for
them to use.
Now do you?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
think it would be a worthwhile with that same crew.
Would there be a worth?
Could they?
Speaker 4 (31:59):
yeah, like well yeah, they could definitely return
those characters there's.
They all have like another 10or 12 levels worth of stuff that
they could they could be muchstronger, all of them um, so
they could come back.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, the sequel could be them stronger.
Yeah, like they could come back.
Like you know, after some time,one piece right, right, right
right.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, it could be much.
It could be much much laterthing.
Yeah, um, and that is kind ofthe fun part too is like the
level changing thing yeah, right, yeah like leveling up feels
like a real progression of timefor every single character and
some people.
All right, very few people usethe experience points, which is
(32:42):
like if you kill this, you getthis many points and then we
have to do fucking math tofigure out, to figure out when
you're gonna level up.
Some people do that.
I don't because it's silly,right?
Um, I do the milestone method,which is just like if I feel
that they've hit a milestone,got it, or like something that's
genuinely impressive, theylevel up now, is it impressive
(33:05):
because of how they're playingor impressive because of the
story that you've written?
it can be a combination of both,right?
So let's say, I think it's justtime for them to level up,
because it's about to get a lotharder.
Okay, um, I can try andimplement, uh, something
thematically that would makethat possible.
(33:29):
Like, maybe they receive ablessing, okay, or a boon from a
god, um, or they have thisinteraction with a demigod, or
something okay that offers themthat blessing or boon, um, and
it just equates to they level up.
That's pretty huge.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
You know, that's something really cool.
You could pretty much do almostanything.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, there's the.
The mechanics allow the improvto flow Right.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
You know what I mean, right.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
There is a mechanic that I can rely on or backstep
to when I need it to make thestory go the way it needs to go,
which is really just forwardyou know, whatever direction
they decide to go, fine, I justI can do things always
mechanically to make it goforward.
Um, not always easy.
(34:24):
Sometimes it does brick wall,uh, yeah, you can break wall bad
.
Brick wall, uh yeah, you canbrick wall bad, uh, and and nine
times out of ten.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
The brick wall actually is just a tpk, a total
party kill.
You say four hours, so fourhours is exactly that's the
length of the game, or you cancome back and still continue.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Oh, I continue from where we left, oh every single
time um, I get yeah ever end atsome point I mean I have an idea
of what it looks like with themending.
Yeah, sometimes I envision likeall right, what does it look
like if this story and thesecharacters hit level 15 and
(35:04):
that's the end?
15 is pretty high.
From 15 to 20 it gets crazy.
Okay, combat takes like longerthan four hours at those levels
because people are pulling apartthe fucking fabrics of reality
right you're right, the level 20sorcerer is gonna like make it,
so there's no ground under youyeah, right stuff like that and
(35:29):
I me personally I don't thinkthat that that's like where it
starts to get not fun, rightyeah, it's like now, it's like
you, just yeah, it's like dragonball, you know just right,
everybody's just dragging yeahexactly.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
We're cratering the earth and all that other stupid
right which is fun in some, insome aspects.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Not for that game, not for right not for something
that we're going to investmonths into doing.
It's just not as fun.
It'd be really cool for aone-shot Right.
Yeah right, right, I would loveto run a level 21 shot, just to
see how bad it gets.
Yeah, yeah yeah.
That's something I should do.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Well, I mean, you got your crews already, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
They would be so happy to do that.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
To get to play a level 20 character is a
privilege and we'll have youback and you can tell us how it
was.
We'll have like a whole othervideo game yeah, because that's
insane.
That would be so freaking cool.
Yeah, I mean again, onlybecause I see like you're just
loving the hell out of it.
Yeah, I, I absolutely love thisand I've seen other people that
(36:31):
love it.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
So then to know that that would be something like
yeah, there's people who areprobably nuts about this yeah, I
mean it's it's if, if paintingsor visual art and poems and
literature are thoughtful art.
(36:51):
Right, and music is audio, artand movies are a combination of
those things.
Yep.
What is it when I also addimprovising with my friends too?
Yeah, because that's what I'mdoing Improvising.
I'm making a movie, improvisingit with my friends in real time
(37:12):
.
Right, that's like as artisticas it can get you know what.
I mean, when you actually thinkabout it, and for me it's like,
as someone who was, who wasalways, I think, a creative, but
never found their way to youknow, like the tangibleness of
being a creative.
Yes, dnd was absolutely thatfor me.
(37:35):
Okay, uh, yeah, it's.
Yeah, I think it makes you moresocial.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I think it makes you more creative do you have your
past stories, like in other, thegames that you've played before
?
Because then I'm thinking rightnow you write this down, you
know maybe almost copyrighted orwhatever you know I'm saying,
and then, just so, it's a moviestudio.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
You know what I mean and I could easily make a book
out of the last campaign I didor the one that's currently
happening, and it would bepretty close to high fantasy,
like Lord of the Rings.
But I don't keep it as archaicas Lord of the Rings.
(38:23):
You know what I mean, becausemost of Lord of the Rings world
is pretty brutal and archaic andpretty simple, you know what I
mean.
And magic is not as prominentin it.
Obviously I keep it a littlecloser to high fantasy, though,
right, there's a little bit moreof that Harry Potter whimsiness
(38:44):
.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, okay, it's cool .
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Magic.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Dude, you should totally do it.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
I'm going to have to check the movie out.
Yeah Well, you should totallydo it.
I'm going to have to check themovie out.
Yeah, Well you got to see themovie.
But now I'm hooked on yousaying your stories are like
that.
I would love to read yourstories.
Or, like I said, even ifsomebody could animate his story
like you said, send them to thecomic book almost yeah.
Oh, make it a comic.
Yeah, that would be a reallygroovy graphic novel.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
It's awesome.
You know that it's good becauseof the reactions of the players
.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I've had people cry.
I've had people laugh.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
I've had my headset almost exploding off my head
because they're all screaming.
If I can make a story thatconveys just this group of
people, that are part of it, tofeel that way about it yeah,
this must be a good story atthat point.
Hell, yeah, yeah, as long asyou're getting the appropriate
reactions at your table or atleast close to what heard.
(39:41):
Play like you know somebodylike a cop you know your friends
are, you know, just regularnerds.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
you know, like what is it?
Like?
The character of people, thekind of people?
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Right, right, right yeah.
No, I mean it's still nerdy atits core.
It's still nerdy at its corefor sure.
But I think theater, reallyTheater kids.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
No kidding, because they, but I, I think theater,
really theater, kids.
No kidding, because I get toact, right, right, it's improv,
that's all improv.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
It's basically free stage time with friends yeah um,
yeah, theater kids is is yourbiggest dynamic, that it's like
clearly prominent in um.
And then I think, just your,your gamers, that are in it for
a story, okay, so, like yourlast of us, god of war enjoyers,
(40:40):
people that are in it for, like, campaign games right, balder's
gate just came out, what twoyears ago?
The game that they worked onfor apparently a decade.
It's still one of the mostplayed games for the fantasy
category, right, like, and it'stwo or three years old now.
Okay, yeah, it's incrediblygood.
(41:01):
I think a lot of people, right,we had, we had stranger things,
we had critical role the twitchseries that became super super
popular.
You have brendan lee mulligan'sdimension 20 series another
streaming one that became super,super popular.
Um, then you have balder's gate.
So now everyone that somehowhasn't seen stranger things
(41:25):
right, and or is a gamer hugepopulation now knows about D&D
Because they're playing Baldur'sGate and then they're saying
you know what, I can make astory.
Yeah, I could just make thisgame for my friends.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Have you read any stories that kind of like you
know blew you away or you wereimpressed with?
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah.
So there's like a whole sectionof Reddit where people talk
about their D and D campaigns.
They're like this is what'sfucking going on with my people
right now.
Wow, Okay, I've seen.
Yeah, there's been some, somecrazy, crazy ones.
I've heard of stuff like likean in-game and real life
proposal at the same time.
(42:09):
No way game and real lifeproposal at the same time?
No way.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yeah, that's insane, yeah people get crazy, yeah
people people will die for thisshit, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
what I'm saying, dude.
I mean, and I guess, if therewas an easier way to, um, I mean
, I'm just into anime.
I like the cartoons to just,you know, take your stories and
animate them and whatnot.
To me that would be insane,like that would be uh, this
happened.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Critical role, uh, made a series with Amazon, an
animated series.
No shit, yeah, the uh, thefirst campaign of critical role
is being animated right now.
There's already two seasons out.
I didn't even know that.
Yeah, yeah, it's an Amazon show.
It's called critical role.
It's called yeah, it's calledcritical role.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
I think no kidding yeah, it's called critical role
and they're animating theirsecond campaign, right?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
no shit, all right, I'm gonna look that up.
It's awesome.
The artist for it is the guythat was the the art the
animator for it is the DCcartoon animator from Teen
Titans to Justice League movieShut up.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
That guy.
So that's the animator for thisshow.
That shit is fire.
Critical role.
Gonna go watch it now.
Critical role.
Definitely gonna go watch it.
It's really good stuff.
I can't wait, I gotta, I gotta,I love.
Like I said, I'd rather watchit than play it.
I'm gonna go roll, definitelygonna go watch it.
It's really good stuff.
That is shit, man.
I can't wait.
It's really good stuff.
I gotta, I gotta, I love.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Like I said, I'd rather watch it than play it.
I know it sounds stupid, butnot stupid, but I'm just like,
well, you know what it is, Ithink you have to have.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
that would have is my thing I can do this kind of
thing.
I mean, you know well hearinghow justin is talking about it
bro, yeah, I just don't knowvery intricate, you know
intricate, yeah, I just don'thave the time for anything.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, yeah I mean time again, scheduling is the
biggest boss of legends anddragons.
Yeah, live life.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
Yeah, yeah, I live by the seat of my pants but, yeah,
man, it's it is so, soimportant to find the time to go
out and play.
Yeah, uh, and dnd is like sucha nice, easy, formal way, right
to really feel like I'm in thetreehouse again okay, you know
(44:24):
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Okay, okay, um, I get it yeah, it's cool's just
incredible.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
That is way groovy, that is awesome.
Yeah, listen bro.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
I'm definitely going to look for that.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
That's a lot yeah.
It's just amazing what you cando.
I feel like I just blasted thatyou guys?
Speaker 3 (44:44):
I didn't know, I didn't know.
Yeah because I knew it wasthere.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Like I said, I've been to a handful of Comic-Cons,
but I just know the like boardgame.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, yeah, right, right, right and that's what I
thought it was, bro.
I thought it was a board gamethat you know.
People just started to buildcastles on and, like you know,
look at these guys, they'refreaking doofuses.
I wouldn't sit there thisfucking long.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's so cool because you could make your own
characters right, so you couldbe like we're going to do GI Joe
theme.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
We're going to do GI Joe versus.
Cobra, cobra commander is oneof your characters.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
You can make it compatible to whatever you need
it to, be okay, like if wewanted to run it as a star wars,
one shot right.
You could do it with everythingthat exists in the game yeah,
easily right, that's sweet yeahthat is so sick.
That's the modular bit of it.
Yeah, it's like.
I love it.
It can get super fun.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
I love that yeah make it however you want.
Well, with that, bro, Iappreciate you being here.
Thank you Of course.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I had fun with that one, I think.
Yeah, you do, just make surePeople follow us On Instagram oh
.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Instagram.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Facebook.
And again we are On YouTube, onour YouTube.
Uh huh, alright, so yes, fullvideo Hell yeah, come in yeah
youtube.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
All right.
So yes, full video.
Oh yeah, come in.
Yeah, because I appreciateeverybody, everybody been,
they've been watching, peoplehave been watching so appreciate
it.
Thank you much because uh Ilove you guys.
Without you, we wouldn't behere.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
Thank you for being here, bro, thank you for saying
yeah, because you could havebeen like yeah, no, I'm.
Uh, you know what?
No, I, I will never pass uptalking about D&D.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
You got to come here and talk about everything.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Unless it's for to play.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
D&D.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah, I turn into a different beast as soon as I
hear D&D, Nice Well, again,thank you for being here.
So until next time, everybody,thank you for being here.
Love, peace and hair grease.
Live long and prosper Go veganHolla.
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