August 15, 2025 • 52 mins
Today Firefighter Eric (Sean) joins us to talk about creating interesting characters and building to big, impactful moments. Seth and Sean explore the art of D&D character creation, memorable campaign moments, and their experiences as players and Dungeon Masters. They reflect on how thoughtful character development leads to impactful storytelling and unforgettable gaming experiences.
• Sean's approach to character creation includes detailed backstories that provide motivation during crucial moments
• The mysterious Sir Barnaby character demonstrates how effective personality traits can create intrigue
• Sean's Theros campaign featured players recovering memories through coin collection while dealing with permanent injuries
• Character sacrifices, like trading one's life to resurrect loved ones, create powerful narrative moments
• Simple tabletop setups (laminated grid maps, basic miniatures) can be just as effective as expensive equipment
• Virtual tabletops like Roll20 offer accessible alternatives to physical maps for remote players
• Finding balance between preparation and spontaneity enhances the D&D experience
• Friendship and connection remain central to the game despite players living in different locations
💌 Share Your Story: Got a wild D&D tale, a DMing question, or a funny campaign moment? Email us at tabletalkfriday@gmail.com and we might feature you in a future episode!
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Join our Patreon at patreon.com/TableTalkFriday for bonus episodes, early access, and behind-the-scenes content. Your support keeps the dice rolling!
#DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #DungeonMasterTips #TTRPG #TabletopRPG #dndadvice #becomeaDM #dndstories
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hiya, welcome to Table Talk Friday, your weekly
dose of D&D banter between threemen in a bedroom.
If you like their style, pleasegive them a follow on whichever
podcast service you prefer, andcome back every Friday for
another upload.
Now, I'll send it over to them.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
Welcome to Table Talk Friday.
My name is formerly SethPittman, and today I am joined
by one of my best friends, SeanSexton, who has...
Been playing in our D&D game foryears and years at this point.
Sean, how are you doing today?
I'm doing great.
How are you?
I'm fantastic.
Really, you know, I woke up thismorning feeling a lot of good
(00:38):
energy.
Had a cat sleeping right next tomy head.
You know, now a cat person.
Don't know if you knew aboutthat.
SPEAKER_03 (00:45):
Yeah, I did hear through the grapevine and the
cat tree, if you will.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Yeah, and the cat tree.
So today, one, I just wanted tocatch up with you a little bit.
I feel like you and I don't geta lot of time to just sit down
and talk.
I get a good bit of time to talkto Zach and Drew and Patrick and
Chase, just I don't get a lot oftime to talk to you.
Yeah, not so much.
I mean, next week is a big weekfor you.
SPEAKER_03 (01:10):
Some might say, others may not.
Getting married, which is bothscary and fun and exciting,
so...
SPEAKER_01 (01:18):
I mean,
SPEAKER_03 (01:18):
if
SPEAKER_01 (01:20):
anything, I feel like your relationship has been
one of the most secure ones I'veever seen in my life.
So I love to see two of my goodfriends from college getting
married.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (01:32):
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think itsurprised anyone.
So no,
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
absolutely not.
But it's exciting.
I'm I'm mostly excited to catchup with everybody because I
haven't seen anybody in personin a while.
And then on top of that, like Imessaged our friend currently
has a theater show, Eric, theother day because I hadn't
talked to him since we all livetogether.
He'll be there.
Yeah, I messaged him.
(01:55):
I was like, dude, I hate that Ididn't need to make it to your
show.
I'll see you at the wedding.
And he was like, no problem.
Like, I'll see you there.
But yeah, it's super excitingthat we're going to get to
actually hang out with everybodyagain.
SPEAKER_03 (02:06):
Yeah, I'm really hoping we can pull together a
in-person session because whenwas the last time ever everyone
was in person
SPEAKER_01 (02:18):
it was probably it had to be the time and my
grandparents right when youshowed up yeah yeah yeah yeah
when you guys showed up randomlyat the door which i was thinking
about that the other day becauseyou were trying to get everybody
together in north carolina and ihad just started my leave And I
(02:39):
was like, what would happen if Ijust showed up at the door?
Like, flew across the country,showed up at the door, like, I'm
here just for D&D, and then I'mleaving.
Yeah, I mean...
SPEAKER_03 (02:53):
Well, didn't you guys think I was the pizza man
anyways or something?
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
We did.
We were like, who the heck couldbe here?
Did someone delivering ourpizza?
And then, no, it wasn't.
I remember, I think Drew openedthe door, or did I open the
door, and saw...
you and emily and like who theheck are you oh my god it's sean
yeah yeah for for any listenerswho don't know sean lives
extremely far away up inmaryland we were all in north
(03:18):
carolina and now i'm across thecountry in texas so i'm i told
you i'm
SPEAKER_03 (03:22):
still in maryland
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
yeah yeah he's still really far away i told drew all
the time back when we livedtogether, I was like, one day
we're all going to be indifferent places.
It's going to happen.
He was like, no, it's not.
We're all going to be right hereforever.
And now it's happened.
SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It happened pretty quick too.
Cause doesn't Zach live prettygood distance.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
He's like, yeah, he's like an hour and a half,
two hours away now, I thinkfrom, from Drew and them.
So that, that was like when youwere trying to get everybody
together a few weeks ago, he waslike, I'm really far off.
I don't think I can make it.
Yeah.
It grown up.
and getting married, huh?
Everyone.
Everyone.
We still got two.
We still got two singlebachelors.
Oh, yeah.
(04:06):
Yeah, well, and Zach's stillsingle for another six, seven
weeks.
Or not single.
He's engaged.
Yeah, engaged.
He's engaged for six or sevenmore weeks, so he's not tied
down yet.
Not yet.
SPEAKER_03 (04:21):
But it comes up fast.
I'm sure you can attest to that.
I...
Propose to Emily or fiance Eric.
I don't know what you want tocall it.
No, you can go with whatever.
At the end of last year.
And I was like, that date's sofar away.
And it just screams up on you.
(04:43):
And now it's next week.
Now it's next
SPEAKER_01 (04:45):
week.
No, I remember I was like, oh myGod, like you, me and Zach all
got married within like a yearof each other.
Yeah, pretty close together.
So I just had my firstanniversary.
And obviously, militarymarriages are different than
regular marriages.
They're done out of obligationand less out of testing the
(05:07):
waters, right?
Because if you want to hold arelationship while you're in the
military, marriage is the onlyoption on the table.
Because you're all going to bein different places.
You're never going to see eachother again.
Luckily, for the way mine workedout, Everything's been perfect.
It's all been sunshines andrainbows ever since that day.
(05:29):
Literally couldn't have askedfor a better outcome.
But I saw three or fourmarriages fall apart in my brief
experience seeing people allgetting married at that one
school I was at.
Because you're there for solong, you meet a lot of people.
So people were getting married alot.
And I saw three or four justfall apart in front of me.
(05:51):
And I'm sure that's that's a lotmore common with the military.
Yeah, it's an extremely highstatistic.
And I got lucky.
So yeah, couldn't couldn't haveasked for a better outcome,
which I mean, you haven't mether in person, have you?
I have not.
So next week, that'll actuallythat'll actually happen.
(06:14):
But cool.
No, that's all.
Super exciting stuff.
I remember.
So last week I talked to Patrickabout his experience running a
brand new campaign for us.
We had never had him as a DMbefore.
And while we were talking aboutthat, we talked about each of
the players in our campaign.
Right.
And when I brought up you andyou're because we were I was
(06:34):
mostly asking Patrick what hisskills like what he thinks his
skills are, as opposed to likeall the other people who have DM
because he's seen so many of us.
Everybody except for Chase hasDM at this point.
SPEAKER_03 (06:46):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (06:46):
which he's got
SPEAKER_03 (06:47):
to at this point.
We got to complete the rounds.
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
I was texting him earlier today about that.
So for we were going throughthat and when we got to you, I
specifically mentioned I waslike what Sean's biggest
strength is in my eyes is theway he he writes his characters
and like the way his his worldkind of comes to life.
(07:10):
Because I know you put a lot ofeffort into into your
preparation, right?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (07:15):
Yeah, I have a pretty good backstory with most
characters that's pretty fleshedout, and so...
When RP moments come up, I canuse stuff and kind of add a
little more depth to thecharacter that you bring into
the world, which Sir Barnaby isgoing to come to life over the
next few sessions, which will bepretty fun.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Sir Barnaby is crazy.
So for anybody at home, SirBarnaby, from my knowledge,
because I don't know hisbackstory, I am literally just
the plain guy playing along.
From my knowledge, is thisentity that in a suit of some
kind.
His name is Sir Barnaby.
He talks through a cup like thisconstantly.
(07:59):
And all I really know about himis he says he's a human.
SPEAKER_03 (08:05):
And that's all you need to know, because he is a
human.
He's a normal human.
human man that breathes
SPEAKER_01 (08:14):
air.
Yeah, exactly.
That's literally all I knowabout him, and I know that he
helps out a lot, and he's verystrong.
Yes.
And I love it.
The kind of building you do foryour characters is something I
don't really do because a lot oftimes, one, I have barely any
experience being a player.
That is true.
I have barely played D&D.
(08:35):
I have always DM'd, so I havevery little experience writing a
character up.
But likewise, I have foundmyself as one of those players
who falls into the characterafter a session or two.
Like, I'll make the character belike, I want to play this.
And then I'll come up with avoice and I'll go, all right,
the work here is done.
And then as I'm playing it, thecharacter gets made.
(08:58):
Like, ask me a question about mybackstory.
Yeah, you ask me a questionabout my backstory, and I just
say something.
And then it's canon.
So that's the experience I'vehad making characters in the
past, but every time I've hadone with you, I guess with the
exception of Beryl, Beryl waskind of a blank slate when we
(09:19):
first met him, right?
We just knew he was a Kenku, andhe named himself after an object
he saw.
SPEAKER_03 (09:25):
Yep, that's pretty much it to his backstory.
I didn't put too much thoughtinto him, both fortunately and
unfortunately.
He ended up being a very funcharacter, but
SPEAKER_01 (09:39):
he ended up getting the party named after him.
Yes.
So, yeah, I do feel like yourbiggest strength is the way you
portray your characters.
Now, I didn't have a pleasure ofbeing a part of Theros.
I was going through the worstmoments of my life.
But yeah, I didn't have apleasure of playing in that
campaign.
So I wanted to get your.
read on how you feel thatcampaign went, as well as you
(10:02):
don't have to go into like a tonof story or anything.
But how did you prep for it?
Everyone seemed very happy,happy with it.
Like, what did you do for that?
So
SPEAKER_03 (10:09):
the Theros book is it's like, I'm sure it's like
Spelljammer, you got your ownbook for the for the world.
So the first first thing I didwas I read through, like, 70% of
the book, because some of it'slike, you know, filler.
And like, if you're doingspecific campaigns, it kind of
leads you down how to makepeople villains and stuff like
(10:33):
that.
But in the Theros book itself,it lists all the gods, which
there's a ton of them.
And they're all pretty muchbased off of Greek gods.
And so I made a bunch of notes.
And so I was like, this person'saka Zeus.
And then like, you know, so on.
So it kind of helped me keepthings straight.
(10:54):
But with each of them, itprovided like three or four
myths or legends about each god.
And Athreos, which is the god ofpassage, which ferries people
across their version of the StyxRiver into the afterlife.
(11:14):
Half his Magic the Gatheringcard.
Yes.
Yep.
I learned that through Pat.
He was like, oh yeah, thatperson's a magic
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
card.
I didn't know he was part of
SPEAKER_03 (11:23):
Theros until just now.
Yep.
A bunch of magic cards areTheros gods and characters.
But one of his legends was like,one of the reasons he's the
ferryman is he's looking forsomething.
He's looking for somethingspecific.
And I don't know exactly what itstates, but I made it like that
(11:50):
the...
I'm forgetting all their nameson the spot here.
But the Zeus-like character,Helios.
Helios is his name.
He tasks him with finding veryspecific coins that in his mind
he can never find.
And then once he finds thosecoins, he'll be able to ascend
(12:15):
to a different level of godhoodthan this kind of back and forth
task.
And so the hook, if you will, ofthe campaign was the party takes
a path out of the underworld,which is called the Path of
Fennex.
(12:36):
And in doing so, you...
lose yourself.
So when you escape, you have toswim through the Styx River, and
in doing so, you forgetyourself, all your past, your
name, and whatever.
And so when we were making thecampaign, I was like, hey guys,
just give me classes and races,and I'm making your characters.
(12:58):
And so I let them kind of, youknow, I want my character to
kind of be good and kind ofangled this way.
And so after they escape, theyslowly find these coins that
Athreos himself is looking for.
So down the line, he eventuallycatches up with them, and he
(13:21):
allows them to keep looking forthese coins because it means he
gets to ascend.
And that's the kind of reasonthey're allowed to keep going.
But each time they pick up acoin, they're not leveling up,
but they are remembering thepast.
and skills that they used tohave and they would always gain
a level and they would get avision and so slowly i worked
(13:45):
them up to like little bits andpieces of their lives as well as
eventually how they were killedand how they ended up in the
underworld and one of the coolthings we did with that is i
based on all their deaths i gavethem permanent lasting injuries
(14:06):
once they came back to the tothe real world so that was
pretty cool to see see the thecharacters kind of try and work
through them
SPEAKER_01 (14:14):
yeah those are like a lot of mechanics we've never
used before or like we've saidwe're going to use and then not
actually used because i havefound we've we've been like oh
yeah if we take this much healthyou know we're going to do these
lasting injuries and then wedon't actually end up doing it
but it sounds very differentthan the games we're used to
running so what made you want torun this setting specifically
SPEAKER_03 (14:35):
I've always been a big fan of ancient Greece, and
the Percy Jackson books probablygot me pretty early.
And then you move on and see thedifferent cultures as you grow
older.
Sparta is pretty cool.
Just being in tune with ancientGreece is pretty fun.
Hey, I'm going there on myhoneymoon.
(14:56):
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
a big fan of this.
UNKNOWN (14:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:59):
So you just like Greek culture then, which is
cool.
I love Percy Jackson and allthat stuff too.
I thought about when we werefirst starting Storm King,
starting in a setting likeTheros, and I was like, nah,
we're just going ForgottenRealms.
That'll be easy.
But no, I wish that I could havebeen a part of that game.
Luckily, now that I have moretime, if you're doing your
follow-up arcs, I can be here.
SPEAKER_03 (15:21):
Yes, I want to do a follow-up arc because basically
I kind of killed Zack'scharacter's sister and then kind
of maybe revived her so we'llsee where that goes i i don't
know where it's going yet butwe'll get there
SPEAKER_01 (15:39):
yeah for sure no i really want to run my next arc
at some point because we'refinishing patrick soon so i
don't know what we're doing nextyeah and i'm i'm really looking
forward to running the the nextbig campaign that we have but at
the same time i'm like well nowthat everybody has like the
dming itch i don't want to takethe wind out of anyone's sails
by being like i have athree-year game i'd like to run
(16:01):
because as we know i'll justkeep running yeah like so we'll
definitely have to find a way tomake sure that everybody gets to
do the things that they want todo we'll just play every night
Exactly.
SPEAKER_03 (16:14):
Well, I mean, that's one of our biggest issues is
like this, you know, 10 sessioncampaign that we're going to run
takes like two years because wecan't all coordinate on weekends
or whatever.
SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
That's why I had to do Spelljammer the way I did.
Kind of the way we've beenscheduling for the audience
is...
we i've scheduled it so thatpatrick has his campaign going
and if one person can't make itmaybe even two people i'll pick
up the slack and i'll take overthat's only happened one time so
far because the other time i wasthe one who canceled
SPEAKER_03 (16:46):
and it was it's been me so so far that's been unable
to play yeah exactly i'mactually hyped to to play that
character it'll he'll bechallenging
SPEAKER_01 (16:56):
Yeah, my excuse for him not doing anything last time
was that he was too slow to makeit to the deck, and that he was
napping in the hold, so by thetime he got up there, combat was
over.
Which is both in line with mycharacter, so very believable.
Yeah, and he's a pacifist, so hewouldn't have wanted to be in
that fight anyways.
Okay, well, as part of your...
(17:19):
your skill at making characters,I have a prompt for you
specifically, and I think you'llenjoy it.
So this is from userDizzyAge6817, and they say, I
want to play Snorlax in my nextD&D campaign.
And I wanted to use one of themoves it learns...
belly drum a move that cuts inits eight or half your hp but
(17:41):
multiplies your physical attackby four but i think that
quadrupling my strength untilthe end of the battle is too
much so i came up with alwaysgetting the max on my damage
roll very balanced plus six plusstrength modifier but i still
think it's too much what do youthink Yeah, it does sound like
too much.
(18:01):
It does sound
SPEAKER_03 (18:02):
like
SPEAKER_01 (18:03):
too much.
I thought this was fun becausespecifically whenever I was
first starting out DMing our bigcampaigns, you and Zach always
had like optimized characters.
You would look up, like youwould find good builds.
You would really make the mostout of whatever you created.
And I found myself making theencounters way too easy at
first.
And then I was like, I have todo something about this.
UNKNOWN (18:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:24):
I'll be honest with the Theros campaign was kind of
the same way because there'sZach and then there's everyone
else who they have strongcharacters, but they're not.
min-maxed, if you will.
So, like, I would kill half theparty, and then Zack's still
there at, like, 99% HP, justhanging out.
(18:46):
I'm like, we need to fix this.
SPEAKER_01 (18:49):
Yeah, exactly.
The day that I discovered thatGiants could just grapple Zack's
character was the day thateverything changed.
So, anyways, this person wantsto create Snorlax in their game.
Do you think this is a goodidea?
SPEAKER_03 (19:03):
So, Snorlax as a build would be fine i think i
think you could do it i thinkyou could pull it off and it
wouldn't be bad the bad partcomes from where you're doing
the belly drum thing and you'requadrupling your damage each
SPEAKER_01 (19:21):
but sean it's my favorite move i have to have it
in
SPEAKER_03 (19:23):
dnd yeah yeah i think you might need to settle
for something else maybe oh goshi don't know how you'd How do
you do that and not have it
SPEAKER_01 (19:37):
be tough?
I think the best advice I couldgive for this is, one, they make
Pokemon settings, so just playthat.
Or two, you're getting reallycreative.
You're along the right lines forwhat we would want.
If you're going to be into aSnorlax-style character, that's
fine.
How is Snorlax here?
And let's make him fit into theForgotten Realms using the rules
(20:00):
as they're written, right?
Yeah, which is also going to bea task on its own.
I mean, a big earbolg barbarianwho's extremely large and has a
magic item that can keep himenlarged forever.
You
SPEAKER_03 (20:19):
could do that or you could like, you know, drood it
up and like eventually transforminto like owl bears and like
stuff like that.
Yeah.
Kind of lean more into it thatway.
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
Also, my question is, why Snorlax?
Why are we specifically choosingSnorlax for our D&D campaign?
What's so enticing about thisone Pokemon?
SPEAKER_03 (20:42):
Yeah, I don't know, because he doesn't really do
anything.
He sleeps.
He sleeps.
Yeah, he does sleep.
Blocks the path.
Oh, I got a proposition for you.
Okay.
So what if the...
the belly drum thing was almostlike the jiggly puff down smash
(21:06):
in Melee.
Okay.
Where, like, you do, like, it'spretty hard to hit, so maybe,
you know, it's kind of almostlike Great Weapon Master, where
you have this subtraction andthen this great plus, and then
after you do the belly drum, youfall asleep because you're
Snorlax.
SPEAKER_01 (21:25):
Yeah, or like when Haste goes down.
So Ace goes down and you'restunned for a turn.
So you go all out.
This is your super move.
I'm belly drumming half HP,quadruple strength, everything.
You go for that hit.
Even if you miss, it's like, allright, I'm stunned for the turn.
I took my shot and I missed.
SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
Yeah, I think that would be a little more balanced.
And then, you know, the benefitsof it go away for a little
while.
Maybe it's like a once per daything.
SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
I'm not
SPEAKER_03 (21:55):
going
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
to lie.
I think this is a horrible idea.
I did.
But I thought given yourexperience with character
creation, you might have a funidea for it.
Now, the strongest character Ithink you ever made was Newt.
Just based on what I rememberabout him.
And sadly, we've seen many ofyour characters come and go.
(22:17):
Yes.
But I do think you do a greatjob, like you said, of bringing
about those huge charactermoments.
How did you know, specifically,in the moment whenever I offered
the Sword of Azariel to you andyou wanted to take it, and in
the moment when you traded yourlife for the life of your
(22:38):
long-dead wife as your othercharacter, how did you know that
you were going to be the one todo these things?
Because you instantly picked up,like, I'm doing it.
And then also, when you guyshelped out a god, got an offer
of one act of service, youinstantly had the prompt ready
to And we're like, this is whatI want to do.
(22:58):
Now, if you remember my reactionat the time, I was like, okay,
yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_03 (23:05):
Well, so if you, I'm fairly certain we ended a
session in front of the sword ornearby.
I think we did.
I think the next session, wekind of picked it up right
there.
So what I'll say is that week orwhatever it was, was me looking
(23:29):
through the party and beinglike, oh, no one else really
uses swords.
And I'm like, oh, I guess it'sprobably gotta be me.
SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
I guess knowing what the sword did after, it didn't
matter who used a sword.
SPEAKER_03 (23:47):
Yeah, that's true.
I thought, like, you know, well,I'm really the heaviest martial
character.
You know, I guess I
SPEAKER_01 (23:58):
gotta do it.
Okay, and then...
Did you feel like choices likethat enhanced your time with
those characters?
Or did you feel like, man, Iguess I have to do it.
Like, did you feel obligated?
SPEAKER_03 (24:12):
So like obligated in not a bad sense.
So like, you know, you got toput yourself in the headspace of
the character, which like I tryand do.
And so like you have thischaracter that's been traveling
and battling with hiscompatriots for a while now.
And like you're at the end ofthe road.
(24:32):
And, like, it's your life ortheirs for success in the
campaign.
So, like, it was his obligationto do that, but it wasn't, like,
my obligation as a playercharacter.
Right.
I had fun with it.
Like, you know, this is nooseending.
This is how he ends.
Well, I mean, he's an angel now,but that's how he flies away.
(24:55):
So, yeah, I mean, that's kind ofhow I felt with it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:02):
Okay, and then what about the other one, when you
traded your life for your wife'slife, knowing you would have to
make a third character in thesame campaign?
SPEAKER_03 (25:10):
Oh, that was completely unexpected.
I didn't realize, I forget whatexactly, it was like
SPEAKER_01 (25:19):
some minor deity, right?
Yeah, it was like a minor deityin the Feywild that you guys
assisted in retrieving like aspecial ghost orchid or
something like that.
I believe they needed it forsomething important.
And then when you came back,they were like, well, I'll grant
you one favor.
You requested that your, thatyour wife be brought back to
(25:40):
life or your wife and child.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the minor deity said to you,it's an equivalent exchange in
order to give life.
I have to take life of which youoffered yours up.
SPEAKER_03 (25:56):
Yeah, well, so in my little, like, I type out a
couple paragraphs for eachcharacter, just kind of like
their motivations and what'sgoing on with them.
And with, I think it was Adonis,right?
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, Adonis.
One of the motivating things washe was gone from the city of
Elturel when it fell.
(26:17):
And so he comes back to find thecity gone.
And then, like, eventually hiswife and one child are dead.
And so like, you know, in myhead, like the characters
blaming himself for that theentire time, you give him the
one opportunity to trade hislife for theirs.
He's going to do it.
Like it's no, it's no choice.
(26:38):
It's.
SPEAKER_01 (26:39):
Yeah.
I felt like it was perfectlyjustified when you did it.
It's just, it took me bysurprise.
Cause I was like, because inthat moment I had forgotten to
write a reward for the quest.
So I was like, I'll just offerhim something they want because
I had the whole quest plannedout.
I had everything ready to go.
And I was like, I didn't offer areward.
There was no reason for them todo this.
(26:59):
Yeah.
And so my
SPEAKER_03 (27:00):
character is
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
standing there.
Yeah, kill me.
Literally, you're like it.
So all of a lot of this was madeup like on the spot because I
thought I thought a lot of thecircumstances of it ended up
being fair and making a lot ofsense.
Right.
I was like, oh, yeah, that makesthat makes a lot of sense to me.
Yeah.
And then the way it all wentabout, like it made for amazing
storytelling on like both parts.
And I feel like I usually try togive as much agency to the
(27:23):
players as possible.
So like.
You bring something to me, I'musually going to go, sure.
Unless it makes no sense.
SPEAKER_03 (27:31):
I felt like everything there was fair and
balanced.
And it made, well, a good endingto Adonis as well.
So I wasn't...
SPEAKER_01 (27:41):
outside my character, and I was pretty
happy with it.
You do have the most deathsracked up, I think, but never
because you die, because of astory moment.
Not
SPEAKER_03 (27:50):
in combat, non-combat
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
deaths.
Right, non-combat deaths, justin the same way that I have the
most arms lost.
Dude, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_03 (27:59):
Did you know Pat lost his arms in the Theros
campaign?
SPEAKER_01 (28:03):
I did.
I remember reading those textmessages.
Yeah.
I
SPEAKER_03 (28:08):
was just thinking about that earlier today because
I was like, because we just gotyour robotic arm in the Syndra
Luna campaign.
And I was like, man, that'sbasically what I did for Pat.
And then I was thinking abouthow he just elected to have
robotic arms and had themsevered.
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
You know, I'm happy with his...
with his i don't even know howto put it but his willingness
that's it to go along witheverything because we spent the
whole session trying to find asolution to this problem right
like hey gene's being taken overwe need to find a solution to
this problem like i prayed i didso many different things i had a
little panic episode and thenfinally getting to that point i
(28:53):
like i'm happy with hiswillingness to be like yes you
can solve the problem Yeah, andwe just cut off your arm.
Right, no big deal.
And then he handed me a Bionicone.
It was no big deal.
Which I think the flavor ofdescribing spells coming out of
the Bionic arm is going to be alot of fun.
It is.
That'll be cool.
SPEAKER_03 (29:14):
So in the Theros campaign, tell me what you
think.
Because I'm not...
Pat's running it the way hewants to run it, but you
basically immediately have fullcontrol of the arm.
Right.
for Pat, his arm gave himbonuses eventually and extra
reach and stuff like that, buthe had to almost work on it the
(29:35):
same way we work on magic itemsor projects where he does a roll
at the end of the day and you're25% closer to being able to
fully
SPEAKER_01 (29:47):
use your arm.
Yeah, I could inscribe Salunarunes on it and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04 (29:50):
That
SPEAKER_01 (29:51):
would be cool.
SPEAKER_03 (29:52):
That's how I ended up doing it with him mainly
because he elected to tear offhis arms and then that they were
larger than normal, I think.
Yeah, they were like longerarms.
SPEAKER_01 (30:08):
Okay, I remember the one moment in the last session
where he reacted in a way as thecharacter where he was like, oh
man, but you're kind of small.
Anyways, here's the perfect armfor you.
And I was like, wow, you reallyhad that just sitting right
there.
That's awesome.
Yeah, Pat's pretty comedic withsome of us.
He has a really good comedictiming on all that kind of
(30:31):
stuff.
I'm a big fan of it.
I've enjoyed being a player.
Like I said, I don't have a lotof experience with it.
Yeah.
I really had no footing when Ifirst came in.
Session one, when I was there, Iwas like, I don't know what I'm
doing.
And then by session four, I waslike, okay, I know what this
party's all about now.
UNKNOWN (30:51):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03 (30:52):
it's it's nice not having to prep it ain't it it
SPEAKER_01 (30:56):
is it's nice knowing hey i just have to show up and
that's it and that's it for theweek which granted when i was
running my campaigns i havealways been the dm of like here
is the skeleton of the sessionhere's my five bullet points i
have to hit during the sessionand then just starting because i
do like like i said i like togive like 80 of the agency to
(31:17):
you guys and the 20 of me isknowing what's supposed to
happen
SPEAKER_03 (31:23):
Yeah, I kind of did something a little different
with Theros, where I typed outin my head how, like, the
session would go, and I'dusually have a couple of big
events, and then I would typenotes for, you know, like, say
you have a different newlocation, I added a note for,
like, this, it has this, this,and this, these are the vendors,
(31:44):
or, you know, so forth, and Iended up typing, like, I want to
say like 70 pages of notes forthe Theros campaign, which I
didn't expect, but over
SPEAKER_01 (31:57):
a year or so.
How many sessions was
SPEAKER_03 (31:58):
it?
Let me pull up my notes and Ican tell you.
There was eight sessions in thesecond act, and I want to say 12
sessions
SPEAKER_01 (32:12):
in the second act.
So it was 20 sessions total.
I thought you guys playedlike...
50 sessions without me in myhead, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (32:19):
Not quite.
We definitely struggled withgetting everyone together.
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (32:26):
definitely glad you guys did carry on.
Because I think if I had leftand then the struggle was bad
enough to where everybody waslike, I guess we're just not
going to be able to play D&D,then I don't think we'd all
still be talking as much.
SPEAKER_03 (32:42):
Agreed, which is definitely why I jumped on and I
was like, Hey, let's keep itgoing.
So what, what are the next bigcampaign?
I know you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01 (32:52):
Okay.
So I'll, I'll tip you in on alittle bit since you're the only
one here.
Okay.
So obviously we're doing spelljammer right now.
Now we're going to think aboutthis in the way that the MCU has
been set up, right?
Where you, we, we built up andbuilt up.
We met gods, right?
We built up, we built up, wehelped the gods and we, and we,
we killed the Lord of hell, youknow, to put it plainly.
(33:15):
We've done the huge stuff from a1 to 20, or 3 to 20, whatever it
was.
And now you guys are going tospace to do some multiversal,
not multiversal shit for a veryshort period of time.
I don't want to take too long onit.
Because I feel like one thingthat I've been missing is we
(33:37):
have all these superheroes doingtheir thing, and now I would
like to be back on the streetsof New York.
SPEAKER_03 (33:43):
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_01 (33:44):
Yeah.
So I want to do Spelljammerbecause there is a plot point
I'd like to hit in space.
In space.
Yeah, there's a plot point I'dlike to hit up there and I need
everybody there for when we hitthat point.
But after that, we go to thirdbig campaign.
And what I have planned for itis.
For better or for worse, youguys were in the middle of the
(34:06):
Asmodeus fight, right?
And one thing happened where hewasted a whole turn, right?
Do you remember that moment?
I don't.
Yeah, so he was there.
He was getting ready to cast a9th level spell.
And then, for all intents andpurposes, it just fizzled with
no explanation.
(34:27):
So I'd like to follow up
SPEAKER_03 (34:28):
on that.
There's no follow-up needed.
SPEAKER_01 (34:31):
I would like to follow up on that a little bit.
Is it with him directly?
Maybe, maybe not.
Because we already had Asmodeusas the villain.
And so...
I would like to follow up onthat moment.
Oh, God.
Because I still want yoursuccess in Avernus to feel like
a success because it was.
(34:52):
It was a glorious success.
Now, is this based on a book ofany
SPEAKER_03 (35:00):
kind?
SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
Oh, all right.
No, this is an idea I hadwhenever I did that moment.
And so I need to get there, butI would like to start from like
very bare bones D and D.
Okay.
So I'm thinking we'll probablygo from like, we may start level
one, but we may just start levelthree because it's comfortable.
Okay.
(35:22):
But we're gonna, I may run likea little bit of one of like the,
the book things, or I might justcome up with a one to five
myself.
I don't know what it's going tobe yet, but we'll get there.
Okay.
All right.
I'm excited for it.
But yeah, we'll go from koboldsand goblins to gods again.
That's the natural evolution
SPEAKER_03 (35:42):
of things.
You start out D&D campaign inthieves and hobos, and you end
up being acquainted with gods asthieves and hobos.
SPEAKER_01 (35:51):
So have you noticed in like certain media when you
watch it that like fantasymovies and action stuff are all
designed the same way?
Yeah.
Like, what do you mean?
Like, I watched all of OnePiece, right?
And I didn't watch it.
I read it in the manga.
But every single One Piece arcis the same.
And it's the same formula thatyou use to run a D&D campaign.
(36:16):
Where it's like, we'reintroduced to new place.
Now we're here at new place.
We meet a few people.
This is where and then when likethe two or three little episode
arc ends of like, we're doingthis in this place.
Then it would be like, allright, that's where the session
ends.
And every time it opens up, likewe get to the finale where
there's the big boss battle andthen it's on to the next little
quest line.
And every time I watch it, I'mlike, I can picture the D&D
(36:40):
session happening in my head.
And
SPEAKER_03 (36:44):
this is the entire time while you're reading each
and every page of one piece isthinking about
SPEAKER_01 (36:49):
D&D.
Yeah, yeah.
The only problem is Luffy endsevery fight with one big hit,
and I just don't enjoy that.
Or he's losing the whole time,and then he's like, okay, I'll
just throw all my power intothis, and this guy kills him in
one hit, and I go, oh, okay.
We could have started with that.
Yeah, we could have started withthat one.
Start the fight with that nexttime.
Get emotional earlier on, is allI'm saying.
(37:11):
If you're gonna become the sungod, just do it.
Be a loose cannon.
New DMs here gearing up to hostan in-person campaign.
This is by usersmartcontract7575.
My question for experienced DMs,which we both are, I would say
at this point, how do you doyour tabletop scenes?
(37:32):
I subscribe to Incarnate, Idon't know what that is, and
have been building grid maps,and my plan was to print out and
laminate the maps for my playersto use the models they brought
and tokens I purchased.
The problem is, printing themout at an appreciable size is
getting expensive.
The only other options I've seenare tables with built-in VTTs or
(37:53):
projectors, but those optionsalso seem expensive.
Also, how do you keep track ofcombat?
I've tried a few websites likeD&D Battle Tracker, but it just
wasn't working out.
Like, initiative wasn't saving,etc.
So I ended up having to use apen and paper.
This was very taxing to mybandwidth and negatively
affected the combat.
So, thank you to this user forposting this so I could take it,
(38:14):
but...
I want to know your opinion onsetting the scene for D&D,
because by all intents andpurposes, we played with just a
blank grid map for the firstthree years.
SPEAKER_03 (38:29):
Yep.
So it's a little different forme to reply as a DM, because we
use Roll20, which is free, and Ijust save images off of Google
for my maps.
SPEAKER_01 (38:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (38:43):
So I...
But I will say, I don't thinkgoing to a store and printing
out a battle map for each battlemap is the best way to handle
that.
I think we used a laminatedsheet of grid paper for most of
our maps, and I think that waspretty effective, especially if
(39:06):
you add in pictures from books,or sometimes I'll incorporate
pictures in my Roll20, likeJust, hey, this is, you know,
I'm not the best at describingthings.
This is what it looks like, youknow, and help you imagine a
little more.
SPEAKER_01 (39:22):
Yeah, I mean, I would say kind of the same
thing.
I'm trying to use as muchexperience from like when we
used to play in college andstuff as I can, because we for a
long time just had that onething.
battle battle sheet and I wouldjust dry erase erase dry erase
like I would just draw and thenerase and then we would keep
going and then us goingbacktracking would rely on
(39:44):
memory yep which I get how thatcan be taxing but I do think
this person is overthinking justa little bit yes wanting to have
like wanting to have like acritical role style thing where
like you pull out your entirecreated like castle that you're
going to have this fight in andset it down i'm like laminating
and printing these things outsuper cool and if someone did it
(40:07):
for me i would be like wowthat's really cool i really
appreciate it but given that wehad some of our best stories
we've ever told with a markerand some some unpainted minis
yeah yeah i i do think thatmaybe there's a little a little
too much effort going into thatlikewise I, because we use
(40:30):
Roll20 now, I do the exact samething.
I like find images online orI'll go through a Patreon or
something like that and pick outthe maps that I like.
I'm like, oh, I see this artist.
I'll go through their stuff andget it.
And so now that we do that, Ithink that Roll20 is a very good
place to run your D&D sessions.
(40:52):
But there was also the timevirtually where you had to rely
on us on a webcam.
Showing you the maps.
Which
SPEAKER_03 (41:02):
makes it a little more difficult sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
Very, very difficult.
I did feel, like, bad at thosetimes where I was like, I wish
that I could show this to Sean.
I wish that this could, like...
Because did you feel like thatinhibited your experience?
Uh, no.
Not really.
Mostly because I know you're avery technical player.
(41:25):
So, like, knowing yourspacing...
knowing where things were at,which I guess we did have the
little camera arm that faceddown at the back for you most of
the times, but there were timeswhere it was just you on a
laptop screen facing in thegeneral direction.
SPEAKER_02 (41:38):
Yeah, I mean,
SPEAKER_03 (41:41):
it's not the best experience, but the camera arm
definitely alleviated someissues with that, and then just
being able to ask and have youguys be patient with that me not
being able to see like a squarein front of me or something like
that is, I mean, it, it makes itmore playable.
(42:02):
So
SPEAKER_01 (42:02):
yeah, I think, I think the best advice I could
give to this person is to maybeask your players what they would
appreciate.
Cause if your players would beokay with you just having a
laminated battle map or one ofthese books of battle maps, like
you just open it up and it's gotthe maps already made for you.
They have like, dozen of themonline you can just spend your
(42:26):
money on three or four of thoseand you're set for three
campaigns
SPEAKER_03 (42:32):
yeah that that could work and then almost like i feel
like what you did while we wereat college is like to start you
know you have you know 20 minisOkay.
Yeah.
That's what we're starting outwith.
And then, like, this month, youget a couple of these specific
characters for this next fight.
And then you just kind of slowlysnowball and build up a
(42:55):
collection.
That way, it's not every singlesession I have to buy a map and
minis.
A map and minis.
Because that'll, like, it'llmake D&D expensive, and then
it'll also not want you to play.
Like, you won't want to play.
SPEAKER_01 (43:09):
Yeah.
I mean, if you have a local LGSor something like that, local,
local game stores, what I justsaid, that's crazy.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (43:16):
Local LGS.
SPEAKER_01 (43:17):
Yeah.
If you have an LGS near youwhere you can pick up like the
unpainted minis, you know, youcan always paint them later.
Like that's perfectly fine.
But if you, if you have a storelike that, it's like five bucks,
you get two minis.
So slowly work up yourcollection.
That's how I ended up with shellwas worth of minis.
SPEAKER_03 (43:36):
Yeah.
And I, I mean, to start, you'regoing to have the same enemies,
uh, I mean, they're going tolook the same for the first few
fights, but over time you'll beable to like, I mean, Zach has
his organized by like race andmonsters and like stuff like
that.
So it just takes time.
SPEAKER_01 (43:54):
And I don't think using roll 20 at the table
sometimes is a bad thing.
No.
Where like if everybody owns alaptop, even a cheap one.
They can open up Roll20 and seethe map as it is, and you can
either have the grid in front ofyou where everybody has it and
they see the version of the mapyou want them to see, or
everybody just plays it on theirlaptop.
The only thing I would say forthat is if you want your players
(44:17):
to be mindful, maybe don't.
Make sure you're keeping theirattention on you because tapping
out, playing another game, beingon your phone, those things can
take away a lot from thesession.
SPEAKER_03 (44:31):
On the topic of the tables, the TV tables, I don't
know what they're called.
I've always thought they'resuper cool, but then you just
now have a table with a TV init, so unless it's super
well-developed and you can closethe lid over it or something,
(44:51):
it's going to be large, bulky,and in the way.
SPEAKER_01 (44:54):
That way you can play all of Baldur's Gate 3 on
your D&D table.
You have it do the above-downview.
And you play the whole game likethat.
I don't think I could play thewhole game like that.
You'd be leaning over the table.
SPEAKER_03 (45:11):
Yeah.
It's a good option for peoplewith a lot of money, I suppose,
and space.
SPEAKER_01 (45:18):
Yeah.
Not for starting out.
I think you could totally dothat, though.
Now, imagine, like, picturethis.
You have your D&D table, right?
You take the camera in a certainarea of Baldur's Gate 3 and zoom
it out and scroll it over to theside and make sure the reticle's
not appearing.
Boom, you've got a battle mapfrom this kind of area.
(45:39):
Oh, you think?
You think that...
Yeah, all you have to do is dothe top-down view and take it
away from your characters.
And then once you've taken itaway from your characters, now
you've got your virtual table.
Well,
SPEAKER_03 (45:52):
there you go.
You need the small investment of$70 into Baldur's Gate and
probably a couple
SPEAKER_01 (45:58):
hundred for a big monitor, probably at least$1,000
for a nice table.
You're not going to not splurgeon this.
Then you need a computer thatcan run Baldur's Gate 3.
Yeah, some small investments.
But for the enjoyment of yourD&D game, what, are you not
willing to spend the money?
Yeah, exactly.
(46:19):
Because you couldn't have fun
SPEAKER_03 (46:20):
otherwise.
No, you can't.
Absolutely not.
You can't use the same laminatedgrid for
SPEAKER_01 (46:30):
two plus years.
A couple years.
Have you played Baldur's Gate 3lately?
I
SPEAKER_03 (46:37):
have.
Did I tell you what happenedwith my last run?
No.
I've been attempting to beat iton honor mode, but I try and...
I'm block-headed, so I've beentrying to beat it on honor mode
the exact same way the entiretime, and it's not working for
some reason.
(46:58):
But this last time, I did beatit, and there's a known issue on
Xbox, which I didn't know untilI beat the game, is that if your
game crashed at any point duringthe campaign, it can count as...
changing from honor mode tocustom
SPEAKER_01 (47:15):
because it's supposed to save when you close
out right so it probably doesn'toverlap because it crashes
SPEAKER_03 (47:22):
and so at some and i recalled it crashing a few times
because there was some issuesdirectly after patch eight and
so i beat the game and i'm likei'm looking for that xbox
achievement to pop up and Itnever came.
So I'm going back throughanother time
SPEAKER_01 (47:44):
again.
So Gabby and I collectively havethree copies of Baldur's Gate.
I have it on my computer.
She has one on her laptop that Igot for her because I wanted her
to play.
We tried playing it longdistance.
It was very hard to like manage.
Now we're both playing ittogether on my PlayStation.
And it has been some of the mostfun I've had gaming in a long
(48:07):
time because I know the story,right?
I know most of the things thatare going to happen.
But, like, for instance, we'regoing into the Moonrise Towers
area, and we're about to do thewhole assault, and she goes, oh,
my God, we have to go back andget Gale.
And I go, why?
I was like, why?
Why do we need Gale?
And she was like, well, he'ssupposed to blow himself up
here.
And I was like...
(48:31):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
We'll go get him.
So we get him and we get there.
And the game never stops to tellyou that because in that section
of the game, Elder Brain kind ofgoes somewhere else at the time,
so it doesn't give you thatopportunity.
But I loved the thinking of, ohyeah, we'll just blow Gale up.
I'm sure with that.
(48:51):
And now he's on his wholevengeance quest for this crown,
or information on the crown.
But yeah, it's been a lot of funbecause we very quickly started
finding so much stuff that Inever saw in the game.
Cause I only played it one timeall the way through and then
played, I started working on anhonor, honor mode, a run two,
(49:12):
but I haven't finished act onebecause I've just been playing
other things in her interspersedwith it.
So I'm going to try, I'm goingto really try, but I don't
anticipate surviving the firsttime.
SPEAKER_03 (49:24):
Yeah.
So it's, it's either, or with myhonor run two, campaign so far
either i die to the intellectdevourer fight first thing off
the ship or i die at ketherickand then okay twice have i made
it past ketherick so you know
SPEAKER_01 (49:44):
do you feel like after you get
SPEAKER_03 (49:45):
past ketherick it's like smooth sailing oh yeah i
felt like ketherick even even inthe mode that ended up being
nothing i mean it was honor modeall the way through Catherick
was still the hardest.
The second phase of Catherickwas the hardest fight, even to
the final fight.
(50:06):
Jeez.
Catherick
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
was harder.
I wasn't prepared for that,because when I played on
Tactician all the way through, Ihad Karlak just slash Catherick
like four times, and I won.
She just great weapon master,ran through him.
But I know they have legendaryactions, right?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_03 (50:21):
they have legendary actions, and...
The biggest thing with Ketherickis he constantly spawns those
skeletons with him.
And then they can also justchoose to run up and heal him.
And then you can't be on thelittle platform with him and all
this other stuff.
So it is a very difficult fight.
SPEAKER_01 (50:43):
Yeah.
Very difficult.
Okay.
Well, I look forward to gettingthere eventually.
Well, Sean, thank you forjoining me.
on this episode of Table TalkFriday D&D Podcast.
For those who don't knowalready, you can find us on
patreon.com slashtabletalkfriday.
We've got a bunch of perks overthere.
We do post shows.
We do little meet and greets.
We have a whole chat going onfor the people that are in
(51:05):
there.
And I think most importantly isthe post shows.
I've been recording like...
Ah.
Ah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:37):
Thank you for listening and or watching, and
we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00 (51:43):
Thank you for listening to Table Talk Friday,
a D&D podcast.
For more fun conversations likethis, follow the boys on
whatever podcast service youprefer, and come back every
Friday for another upload.
And if you have your owninquiries, you can find them at
tabletalkfriday at gmail.com.
UNKNOWN (52:04):
Thank you.
Hiya, welcome to Table Talk Friday, your weekly
dose of D&D banter between threemen in a bedroom.
If you like their style, pleasegive them a follow on whichever
podcast service you prefer, andcome back every Friday for
another upload.
Now, I'll send it over to them.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
Welcome to Table Talk Friday.
My name is formerly SethPittman, and today I am joined
by one of my best friends, SeanSexton, who has...
Been playing in our D&D game foryears and years at this point.
Sean, how are you doing today?
I'm doing great.
How are you?
I'm fantastic.
Really, you know, I woke up thismorning feeling a lot of good
(00:38):
energy.
Had a cat sleeping right next tomy head.
You know, now a cat person.
Don't know if you knew aboutthat.
SPEAKER_03 (00:45):
Yeah, I did hear through the grapevine and the
cat tree, if you will.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Yeah, and the cat tree.
So today, one, I just wanted tocatch up with you a little bit.
I feel like you and I don't geta lot of time to just sit down
and talk.
I get a good bit of time to talkto Zach and Drew and Patrick and
Chase, just I don't get a lot oftime to talk to you.
Yeah, not so much.
I mean, next week is a big weekfor you.
SPEAKER_03 (01:10):
Some might say, others may not.
Getting married, which is bothscary and fun and exciting,
so...
SPEAKER_01 (01:18):
I mean,
SPEAKER_03 (01:18):
if
SPEAKER_01 (01:20):
anything, I feel like your relationship has been
one of the most secure ones I'veever seen in my life.
So I love to see two of my goodfriends from college getting
married.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (01:32):
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think itsurprised anyone.
So no,
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
absolutely not.
But it's exciting.
I'm I'm mostly excited to catchup with everybody because I
haven't seen anybody in personin a while.
And then on top of that, like Imessaged our friend currently
has a theater show, Eric, theother day because I hadn't
talked to him since we all livetogether.
He'll be there.
Yeah, I messaged him.
(01:55):
I was like, dude, I hate that Ididn't need to make it to your
show.
I'll see you at the wedding.
And he was like, no problem.
Like, I'll see you there.
But yeah, it's super excitingthat we're going to get to
actually hang out with everybodyagain.
SPEAKER_03 (02:06):
Yeah, I'm really hoping we can pull together a
in-person session because whenwas the last time ever everyone
was in person
SPEAKER_01 (02:18):
it was probably it had to be the time and my
grandparents right when youshowed up yeah yeah yeah yeah
when you guys showed up randomlyat the door which i was thinking
about that the other day becauseyou were trying to get everybody
together in north carolina and ihad just started my leave And I
(02:39):
was like, what would happen if Ijust showed up at the door?
Like, flew across the country,showed up at the door, like, I'm
here just for D&D, and then I'mleaving.
Yeah, I mean...
SPEAKER_03 (02:53):
Well, didn't you guys think I was the pizza man
anyways or something?
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
We did.
We were like, who the heck couldbe here?
Did someone delivering ourpizza?
And then, no, it wasn't.
I remember, I think Drew openedthe door, or did I open the
door, and saw...
you and emily and like who theheck are you oh my god it's sean
yeah yeah for for any listenerswho don't know sean lives
extremely far away up inmaryland we were all in north
(03:18):
carolina and now i'm across thecountry in texas so i'm i told
you i'm
SPEAKER_03 (03:22):
still in maryland
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
yeah yeah he's still really far away i told drew all
the time back when we livedtogether, I was like, one day
we're all going to be indifferent places.
It's going to happen.
He was like, no, it's not.
We're all going to be right hereforever.
And now it's happened.
SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It happened pretty quick too.
Cause doesn't Zach live prettygood distance.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
He's like, yeah, he's like an hour and a half,
two hours away now, I thinkfrom, from Drew and them.
So that, that was like when youwere trying to get everybody
together a few weeks ago, he waslike, I'm really far off.
I don't think I can make it.
Yeah.
It grown up.
and getting married, huh?
Everyone.
Everyone.
We still got two.
We still got two singlebachelors.
Oh, yeah.
(04:06):
Yeah, well, and Zach's stillsingle for another six, seven
weeks.
Or not single.
He's engaged.
Yeah, engaged.
He's engaged for six or sevenmore weeks, so he's not tied
down yet.
Not yet.
SPEAKER_03 (04:21):
But it comes up fast.
I'm sure you can attest to that.
I...
Propose to Emily or fiance Eric.
I don't know what you want tocall it.
No, you can go with whatever.
At the end of last year.
And I was like, that date's sofar away.
And it just screams up on you.
(04:43):
And now it's next week.
Now it's next
SPEAKER_01 (04:45):
week.
No, I remember I was like, oh myGod, like you, me and Zach all
got married within like a yearof each other.
Yeah, pretty close together.
So I just had my firstanniversary.
And obviously, militarymarriages are different than
regular marriages.
They're done out of obligationand less out of testing the
(05:07):
waters, right?
Because if you want to hold arelationship while you're in the
military, marriage is the onlyoption on the table.
Because you're all going to bein different places.
You're never going to see eachother again.
Luckily, for the way mine workedout, Everything's been perfect.
It's all been sunshines andrainbows ever since that day.
(05:29):
Literally couldn't have askedfor a better outcome.
But I saw three or fourmarriages fall apart in my brief
experience seeing people allgetting married at that one
school I was at.
Because you're there for solong, you meet a lot of people.
So people were getting married alot.
And I saw three or four justfall apart in front of me.
(05:51):
And I'm sure that's that's a lotmore common with the military.
Yeah, it's an extremely highstatistic.
And I got lucky.
So yeah, couldn't couldn't haveasked for a better outcome,
which I mean, you haven't mether in person, have you?
I have not.
So next week, that'll actuallythat'll actually happen.
(06:14):
But cool.
No, that's all.
Super exciting stuff.
I remember.
So last week I talked to Patrickabout his experience running a
brand new campaign for us.
We had never had him as a DMbefore.
And while we were talking aboutthat, we talked about each of
the players in our campaign.
Right.
And when I brought up you andyou're because we were I was
(06:34):
mostly asking Patrick what hisskills like what he thinks his
skills are, as opposed to likeall the other people who have DM
because he's seen so many of us.
Everybody except for Chase hasDM at this point.
SPEAKER_03 (06:46):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (06:46):
which he's got
SPEAKER_03 (06:47):
to at this point.
We got to complete the rounds.
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
I was texting him earlier today about that.
So for we were going throughthat and when we got to you, I
specifically mentioned I waslike what Sean's biggest
strength is in my eyes is theway he he writes his characters
and like the way his his worldkind of comes to life.
(07:10):
Because I know you put a lot ofeffort into into your
preparation, right?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (07:15):
Yeah, I have a pretty good backstory with most
characters that's pretty fleshedout, and so...
When RP moments come up, I canuse stuff and kind of add a
little more depth to thecharacter that you bring into
the world, which Sir Barnaby isgoing to come to life over the
next few sessions, which will bepretty fun.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Sir Barnaby is crazy.
So for anybody at home, SirBarnaby, from my knowledge,
because I don't know hisbackstory, I am literally just
the plain guy playing along.
From my knowledge, is thisentity that in a suit of some
kind.
His name is Sir Barnaby.
He talks through a cup like thisconstantly.
(07:59):
And all I really know about himis he says he's a human.
SPEAKER_03 (08:05):
And that's all you need to know, because he is a
human.
He's a normal human.
human man that breathes
SPEAKER_01 (08:14):
air.
Yeah, exactly.
That's literally all I knowabout him, and I know that he
helps out a lot, and he's verystrong.
Yes.
And I love it.
The kind of building you do foryour characters is something I
don't really do because a lot oftimes, one, I have barely any
experience being a player.
That is true.
I have barely played D&D.
(08:35):
I have always DM'd, so I havevery little experience writing a
character up.
But likewise, I have foundmyself as one of those players
who falls into the characterafter a session or two.
Like, I'll make the character belike, I want to play this.
And then I'll come up with avoice and I'll go, all right,
the work here is done.
And then as I'm playing it, thecharacter gets made.
(08:58):
Like, ask me a question about mybackstory.
Yeah, you ask me a questionabout my backstory, and I just
say something.
And then it's canon.
So that's the experience I'vehad making characters in the
past, but every time I've hadone with you, I guess with the
exception of Beryl, Beryl waskind of a blank slate when we
(09:19):
first met him, right?
We just knew he was a Kenku, andhe named himself after an object
he saw.
SPEAKER_03 (09:25):
Yep, that's pretty much it to his backstory.
I didn't put too much thoughtinto him, both fortunately and
unfortunately.
He ended up being a very funcharacter, but
SPEAKER_01 (09:39):
he ended up getting the party named after him.
Yes.
So, yeah, I do feel like yourbiggest strength is the way you
portray your characters.
Now, I didn't have a pleasure ofbeing a part of Theros.
I was going through the worstmoments of my life.
But yeah, I didn't have apleasure of playing in that
campaign.
So I wanted to get your.
read on how you feel thatcampaign went, as well as you
(10:02):
don't have to go into like a tonof story or anything.
But how did you prep for it?
Everyone seemed very happy,happy with it.
Like, what did you do for that?
So
SPEAKER_03 (10:09):
the Theros book is it's like, I'm sure it's like
Spelljammer, you got your ownbook for the for the world.
So the first first thing I didwas I read through, like, 70% of
the book, because some of it'slike, you know, filler.
And like, if you're doingspecific campaigns, it kind of
leads you down how to makepeople villains and stuff like
(10:33):
that.
But in the Theros book itself,it lists all the gods, which
there's a ton of them.
And they're all pretty muchbased off of Greek gods.
And so I made a bunch of notes.
And so I was like, this person'saka Zeus.
And then like, you know, so on.
So it kind of helped me keepthings straight.
(10:54):
But with each of them, itprovided like three or four
myths or legends about each god.
And Athreos, which is the god ofpassage, which ferries people
across their version of the StyxRiver into the afterlife.
(11:14):
Half his Magic the Gatheringcard.
Yes.
Yep.
I learned that through Pat.
He was like, oh yeah, thatperson's a magic
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
card.
I didn't know he was part of
SPEAKER_03 (11:23):
Theros until just now.
Yep.
A bunch of magic cards areTheros gods and characters.
But one of his legends was like,one of the reasons he's the
ferryman is he's looking forsomething.
He's looking for somethingspecific.
And I don't know exactly what itstates, but I made it like that
(11:50):
the...
I'm forgetting all their nameson the spot here.
But the Zeus-like character,Helios.
Helios is his name.
He tasks him with finding veryspecific coins that in his mind
he can never find.
And then once he finds thosecoins, he'll be able to ascend
(12:15):
to a different level of godhoodthan this kind of back and forth
task.
And so the hook, if you will, ofthe campaign was the party takes
a path out of the underworld,which is called the Path of
Fennex.
(12:36):
And in doing so, you...
lose yourself.
So when you escape, you have toswim through the Styx River, and
in doing so, you forgetyourself, all your past, your
name, and whatever.
And so when we were making thecampaign, I was like, hey guys,
just give me classes and races,and I'm making your characters.
(12:58):
And so I let them kind of, youknow, I want my character to
kind of be good and kind ofangled this way.
And so after they escape, theyslowly find these coins that
Athreos himself is looking for.
So down the line, he eventuallycatches up with them, and he
(13:21):
allows them to keep looking forthese coins because it means he
gets to ascend.
And that's the kind of reasonthey're allowed to keep going.
But each time they pick up acoin, they're not leveling up,
but they are remembering thepast.
and skills that they used tohave and they would always gain
a level and they would get avision and so slowly i worked
(13:45):
them up to like little bits andpieces of their lives as well as
eventually how they were killedand how they ended up in the
underworld and one of the coolthings we did with that is i
based on all their deaths i gavethem permanent lasting injuries
(14:06):
once they came back to the tothe real world so that was
pretty cool to see see the thecharacters kind of try and work
through them
SPEAKER_01 (14:14):
yeah those are like a lot of mechanics we've never
used before or like we've saidwe're going to use and then not
actually used because i havefound we've we've been like oh
yeah if we take this much healthyou know we're going to do these
lasting injuries and then wedon't actually end up doing it
but it sounds very differentthan the games we're used to
running so what made you want torun this setting specifically
SPEAKER_03 (14:35):
I've always been a big fan of ancient Greece, and
the Percy Jackson books probablygot me pretty early.
And then you move on and see thedifferent cultures as you grow
older.
Sparta is pretty cool.
Just being in tune with ancientGreece is pretty fun.
Hey, I'm going there on myhoneymoon.
(14:56):
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
a big fan of this.
UNKNOWN (14:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:59):
So you just like Greek culture then, which is
cool.
I love Percy Jackson and allthat stuff too.
I thought about when we werefirst starting Storm King,
starting in a setting likeTheros, and I was like, nah,
we're just going ForgottenRealms.
That'll be easy.
But no, I wish that I could havebeen a part of that game.
Luckily, now that I have moretime, if you're doing your
follow-up arcs, I can be here.
SPEAKER_03 (15:21):
Yes, I want to do a follow-up arc because basically
I kind of killed Zack'scharacter's sister and then kind
of maybe revived her so we'llsee where that goes i i don't
know where it's going yet butwe'll get there
SPEAKER_01 (15:39):
yeah for sure no i really want to run my next arc
at some point because we'refinishing patrick soon so i
don't know what we're doing nextyeah and i'm i'm really looking
forward to running the the nextbig campaign that we have but at
the same time i'm like well nowthat everybody has like the
dming itch i don't want to takethe wind out of anyone's sails
by being like i have athree-year game i'd like to run
(16:01):
because as we know i'll justkeep running yeah like so we'll
definitely have to find a way tomake sure that everybody gets to
do the things that they want todo we'll just play every night
Exactly.
SPEAKER_03 (16:14):
Well, I mean, that's one of our biggest issues is
like this, you know, 10 sessioncampaign that we're going to run
takes like two years because wecan't all coordinate on weekends
or whatever.
SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
That's why I had to do Spelljammer the way I did.
Kind of the way we've beenscheduling for the audience
is...
we i've scheduled it so thatpatrick has his campaign going
and if one person can't make itmaybe even two people i'll pick
up the slack and i'll take overthat's only happened one time so
far because the other time i wasthe one who canceled
SPEAKER_03 (16:46):
and it was it's been me so so far that's been unable
to play yeah exactly i'mactually hyped to to play that
character it'll he'll bechallenging
SPEAKER_01 (16:56):
Yeah, my excuse for him not doing anything last time
was that he was too slow to makeit to the deck, and that he was
napping in the hold, so by thetime he got up there, combat was
over.
Which is both in line with mycharacter, so very believable.
Yeah, and he's a pacifist, so hewouldn't have wanted to be in
that fight anyways.
Okay, well, as part of your...
(17:19):
your skill at making characters,I have a prompt for you
specifically, and I think you'llenjoy it.
So this is from userDizzyAge6817, and they say, I
want to play Snorlax in my nextD&D campaign.
And I wanted to use one of themoves it learns...
belly drum a move that cuts inits eight or half your hp but
(17:41):
multiplies your physical attackby four but i think that
quadrupling my strength untilthe end of the battle is too
much so i came up with alwaysgetting the max on my damage
roll very balanced plus six plusstrength modifier but i still
think it's too much what do youthink Yeah, it does sound like
too much.
(18:01):
It does sound
SPEAKER_03 (18:02):
like
SPEAKER_01 (18:03):
too much.
I thought this was fun becausespecifically whenever I was
first starting out DMing our bigcampaigns, you and Zach always
had like optimized characters.
You would look up, like youwould find good builds.
You would really make the mostout of whatever you created.
And I found myself making theencounters way too easy at
first.
And then I was like, I have todo something about this.
UNKNOWN (18:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:24):
I'll be honest with the Theros campaign was kind of
the same way because there'sZach and then there's everyone
else who they have strongcharacters, but they're not.
min-maxed, if you will.
So, like, I would kill half theparty, and then Zack's still
there at, like, 99% HP, justhanging out.
(18:46):
I'm like, we need to fix this.
SPEAKER_01 (18:49):
Yeah, exactly.
The day that I discovered thatGiants could just grapple Zack's
character was the day thateverything changed.
So, anyways, this person wantsto create Snorlax in their game.
Do you think this is a goodidea?
SPEAKER_03 (19:03):
So, Snorlax as a build would be fine i think i
think you could do it i thinkyou could pull it off and it
wouldn't be bad the bad partcomes from where you're doing
the belly drum thing and you'requadrupling your damage each
SPEAKER_01 (19:21):
but sean it's my favorite move i have to have it
in
SPEAKER_03 (19:23):
dnd yeah yeah i think you might need to settle
for something else maybe oh goshi don't know how you'd How do
you do that and not have it
SPEAKER_01 (19:37):
be tough?
I think the best advice I couldgive for this is, one, they make
Pokemon settings, so just playthat.
Or two, you're getting reallycreative.
You're along the right lines forwhat we would want.
If you're going to be into aSnorlax-style character, that's
fine.
How is Snorlax here?
And let's make him fit into theForgotten Realms using the rules
(20:00):
as they're written, right?
Yeah, which is also going to bea task on its own.
I mean, a big earbolg barbarianwho's extremely large and has a
magic item that can keep himenlarged forever.
You
SPEAKER_03 (20:19):
could do that or you could like, you know, drood it
up and like eventually transforminto like owl bears and like
stuff like that.
Yeah.
Kind of lean more into it thatway.
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
Also, my question is, why Snorlax?
Why are we specifically choosingSnorlax for our D&D campaign?
What's so enticing about thisone Pokemon?
SPEAKER_03 (20:42):
Yeah, I don't know, because he doesn't really do
anything.
He sleeps.
He sleeps.
Yeah, he does sleep.
Blocks the path.
Oh, I got a proposition for you.
Okay.
So what if the...
the belly drum thing was almostlike the jiggly puff down smash
(21:06):
in Melee.
Okay.
Where, like, you do, like, it'spretty hard to hit, so maybe,
you know, it's kind of almostlike Great Weapon Master, where
you have this subtraction andthen this great plus, and then
after you do the belly drum, youfall asleep because you're
Snorlax.
SPEAKER_01 (21:25):
Yeah, or like when Haste goes down.
So Ace goes down and you'restunned for a turn.
So you go all out.
This is your super move.
I'm belly drumming half HP,quadruple strength, everything.
You go for that hit.
Even if you miss, it's like, allright, I'm stunned for the turn.
I took my shot and I missed.
SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
Yeah, I think that would be a little more balanced.
And then, you know, the benefitsof it go away for a little
while.
Maybe it's like a once per daything.
SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
I'm not
SPEAKER_03 (21:55):
going
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
to lie.
I think this is a horrible idea.
I did.
But I thought given yourexperience with character
creation, you might have a funidea for it.
Now, the strongest character Ithink you ever made was Newt.
Just based on what I rememberabout him.
And sadly, we've seen many ofyour characters come and go.
(22:17):
Yes.
But I do think you do a greatjob, like you said, of bringing
about those huge charactermoments.
How did you know, specifically,in the moment whenever I offered
the Sword of Azariel to you andyou wanted to take it, and in
the moment when you traded yourlife for the life of your
(22:38):
long-dead wife as your othercharacter, how did you know that
you were going to be the one todo these things?
Because you instantly picked up,like, I'm doing it.
And then also, when you guyshelped out a god, got an offer
of one act of service, youinstantly had the prompt ready
to And we're like, this is whatI want to do.
(22:58):
Now, if you remember my reactionat the time, I was like, okay,
yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_03 (23:05):
Well, so if you, I'm fairly certain we ended a
session in front of the sword ornearby.
I think we did.
I think the next session, wekind of picked it up right
there.
So what I'll say is that week orwhatever it was, was me looking
(23:29):
through the party and beinglike, oh, no one else really
uses swords.
And I'm like, oh, I guess it'sprobably gotta be me.
SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
I guess knowing what the sword did after, it didn't
matter who used a sword.
SPEAKER_03 (23:47):
Yeah, that's true.
I thought, like, you know, well,I'm really the heaviest martial
character.
You know, I guess I
SPEAKER_01 (23:58):
gotta do it.
Okay, and then...
Did you feel like choices likethat enhanced your time with
those characters?
Or did you feel like, man, Iguess I have to do it.
Like, did you feel obligated?
SPEAKER_03 (24:12):
So like obligated in not a bad sense.
So like, you know, you got toput yourself in the headspace of
the character, which like I tryand do.
And so like you have thischaracter that's been traveling
and battling with hiscompatriots for a while now.
And like you're at the end ofthe road.
(24:32):
And, like, it's your life ortheirs for success in the
campaign.
So, like, it was his obligationto do that, but it wasn't, like,
my obligation as a playercharacter.
Right.
I had fun with it.
Like, you know, this is nooseending.
This is how he ends.
Well, I mean, he's an angel now,but that's how he flies away.
(24:55):
So, yeah, I mean, that's kind ofhow I felt with it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:02):
Okay, and then what about the other one, when you
traded your life for your wife'slife, knowing you would have to
make a third character in thesame campaign?
SPEAKER_03 (25:10):
Oh, that was completely unexpected.
I didn't realize, I forget whatexactly, it was like
SPEAKER_01 (25:19):
some minor deity, right?
Yeah, it was like a minor deityin the Feywild that you guys
assisted in retrieving like aspecial ghost orchid or
something like that.
I believe they needed it forsomething important.
And then when you came back,they were like, well, I'll grant
you one favor.
You requested that your, thatyour wife be brought back to
(25:40):
life or your wife and child.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the minor deity said to you,it's an equivalent exchange in
order to give life.
I have to take life of which youoffered yours up.
SPEAKER_03 (25:56):
Yeah, well, so in my little, like, I type out a
couple paragraphs for eachcharacter, just kind of like
their motivations and what'sgoing on with them.
And with, I think it was Adonis,right?
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, Adonis.
One of the motivating things washe was gone from the city of
Elturel when it fell.
(26:17):
And so he comes back to find thecity gone.
And then, like, eventually hiswife and one child are dead.
And so like, you know, in myhead, like the characters
blaming himself for that theentire time, you give him the
one opportunity to trade hislife for theirs.
He's going to do it.
Like it's no, it's no choice.
(26:38):
It's.
SPEAKER_01 (26:39):
Yeah.
I felt like it was perfectlyjustified when you did it.
It's just, it took me bysurprise.
Cause I was like, because inthat moment I had forgotten to
write a reward for the quest.
So I was like, I'll just offerhim something they want because
I had the whole quest plannedout.
I had everything ready to go.
And I was like, I didn't offer areward.
There was no reason for them todo this.
(26:59):
Yeah.
And so my
SPEAKER_03 (27:00):
character is
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
standing there.
Yeah, kill me.
Literally, you're like it.
So all of a lot of this was madeup like on the spot because I
thought I thought a lot of thecircumstances of it ended up
being fair and making a lot ofsense.
Right.
I was like, oh, yeah, that makesthat makes a lot of sense to me.
Yeah.
And then the way it all wentabout, like it made for amazing
storytelling on like both parts.
And I feel like I usually try togive as much agency to the
(27:23):
players as possible.
So like.
You bring something to me, I'musually going to go, sure.
Unless it makes no sense.
SPEAKER_03 (27:31):
I felt like everything there was fair and
balanced.
And it made, well, a good endingto Adonis as well.
So I wasn't...
SPEAKER_01 (27:41):
outside my character, and I was pretty
happy with it.
You do have the most deathsracked up, I think, but never
because you die, because of astory moment.
Not
SPEAKER_03 (27:50):
in combat, non-combat
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
deaths.
Right, non-combat deaths, justin the same way that I have the
most arms lost.
Dude, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_03 (27:59):
Did you know Pat lost his arms in the Theros
campaign?
SPEAKER_01 (28:03):
I did.
I remember reading those textmessages.
Yeah.
I
SPEAKER_03 (28:08):
was just thinking about that earlier today because
I was like, because we just gotyour robotic arm in the Syndra
Luna campaign.
And I was like, man, that'sbasically what I did for Pat.
And then I was thinking abouthow he just elected to have
robotic arms and had themsevered.
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
You know, I'm happy with his...
with his i don't even know howto put it but his willingness
that's it to go along witheverything because we spent the
whole session trying to find asolution to this problem right
like hey gene's being taken overwe need to find a solution to
this problem like i prayed i didso many different things i had a
little panic episode and thenfinally getting to that point i
(28:53):
like i'm happy with hiswillingness to be like yes you
can solve the problem Yeah, andwe just cut off your arm.
Right, no big deal.
And then he handed me a Bionicone.
It was no big deal.
Which I think the flavor ofdescribing spells coming out of
the Bionic arm is going to be alot of fun.
It is.
That'll be cool.
SPEAKER_03 (29:14):
So in the Theros campaign, tell me what you
think.
Because I'm not...
Pat's running it the way hewants to run it, but you
basically immediately have fullcontrol of the arm.
Right.
for Pat, his arm gave himbonuses eventually and extra
reach and stuff like that, buthe had to almost work on it the
(29:35):
same way we work on magic itemsor projects where he does a roll
at the end of the day and you're25% closer to being able to
fully
SPEAKER_01 (29:47):
use your arm.
Yeah, I could inscribe Salunarunes on it and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04 (29:50):
That
SPEAKER_01 (29:51):
would be cool.
SPEAKER_03 (29:52):
That's how I ended up doing it with him mainly
because he elected to tear offhis arms and then that they were
larger than normal, I think.
Yeah, they were like longerarms.
SPEAKER_01 (30:08):
Okay, I remember the one moment in the last session
where he reacted in a way as thecharacter where he was like, oh
man, but you're kind of small.
Anyways, here's the perfect armfor you.
And I was like, wow, you reallyhad that just sitting right
there.
That's awesome.
Yeah, Pat's pretty comedic withsome of us.
He has a really good comedictiming on all that kind of
(30:31):
stuff.
I'm a big fan of it.
I've enjoyed being a player.
Like I said, I don't have a lotof experience with it.
Yeah.
I really had no footing when Ifirst came in.
Session one, when I was there, Iwas like, I don't know what I'm
doing.
And then by session four, I waslike, okay, I know what this
party's all about now.
UNKNOWN (30:51):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03 (30:52):
it's it's nice not having to prep it ain't it it
SPEAKER_01 (30:56):
is it's nice knowing hey i just have to show up and
that's it and that's it for theweek which granted when i was
running my campaigns i havealways been the dm of like here
is the skeleton of the sessionhere's my five bullet points i
have to hit during the sessionand then just starting because i
do like like i said i like togive like 80 of the agency to
(31:17):
you guys and the 20 of me isknowing what's supposed to
happen
SPEAKER_03 (31:23):
Yeah, I kind of did something a little different
with Theros, where I typed outin my head how, like, the
session would go, and I'dusually have a couple of big
events, and then I would typenotes for, you know, like, say
you have a different newlocation, I added a note for,
like, this, it has this, this,and this, these are the vendors,
(31:44):
or, you know, so forth, and Iended up typing, like, I want to
say like 70 pages of notes forthe Theros campaign, which I
didn't expect, but over
SPEAKER_01 (31:57):
a year or so.
How many sessions was
SPEAKER_03 (31:58):
it?
Let me pull up my notes and Ican tell you.
There was eight sessions in thesecond act, and I want to say 12
sessions
SPEAKER_01 (32:12):
in the second act.
So it was 20 sessions total.
I thought you guys playedlike...
50 sessions without me in myhead, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (32:19):
Not quite.
We definitely struggled withgetting everyone together.
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (32:26):
definitely glad you guys did carry on.
Because I think if I had leftand then the struggle was bad
enough to where everybody waslike, I guess we're just not
going to be able to play D&D,then I don't think we'd all
still be talking as much.
SPEAKER_03 (32:42):
Agreed, which is definitely why I jumped on and I
was like, Hey, let's keep itgoing.
So what, what are the next bigcampaign?
I know you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01 (32:52):
Okay.
So I'll, I'll tip you in on alittle bit since you're the only
one here.
Okay.
So obviously we're doing spelljammer right now.
Now we're going to think aboutthis in the way that the MCU has
been set up, right?
Where you, we, we built up andbuilt up.
We met gods, right?
We built up, we built up, wehelped the gods and we, and we,
we killed the Lord of hell, youknow, to put it plainly.
(33:15):
We've done the huge stuff from a1 to 20, or 3 to 20, whatever it
was.
And now you guys are going tospace to do some multiversal,
not multiversal shit for a veryshort period of time.
I don't want to take too long onit.
Because I feel like one thingthat I've been missing is we
(33:37):
have all these superheroes doingtheir thing, and now I would
like to be back on the streetsof New York.
SPEAKER_03 (33:43):
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_01 (33:44):
Yeah.
So I want to do Spelljammerbecause there is a plot point
I'd like to hit in space.
In space.
Yeah, there's a plot point I'dlike to hit up there and I need
everybody there for when we hitthat point.
But after that, we go to thirdbig campaign.
And what I have planned for itis.
For better or for worse, youguys were in the middle of the
(34:06):
Asmodeus fight, right?
And one thing happened where hewasted a whole turn, right?
Do you remember that moment?
I don't.
Yeah, so he was there.
He was getting ready to cast a9th level spell.
And then, for all intents andpurposes, it just fizzled with
no explanation.
(34:27):
So I'd like to follow up
SPEAKER_03 (34:28):
on that.
There's no follow-up needed.
SPEAKER_01 (34:31):
I would like to follow up on that a little bit.
Is it with him directly?
Maybe, maybe not.
Because we already had Asmodeusas the villain.
And so...
I would like to follow up onthat moment.
Oh, God.
Because I still want yoursuccess in Avernus to feel like
a success because it was.
(34:52):
It was a glorious success.
Now, is this based on a book ofany
SPEAKER_03 (35:00):
kind?
SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
Oh, all right.
No, this is an idea I hadwhenever I did that moment.
And so I need to get there, butI would like to start from like
very bare bones D and D.
Okay.
So I'm thinking we'll probablygo from like, we may start level
one, but we may just start levelthree because it's comfortable.
Okay.
(35:22):
But we're gonna, I may run likea little bit of one of like the,
the book things, or I might justcome up with a one to five
myself.
I don't know what it's going tobe yet, but we'll get there.
Okay.
All right.
I'm excited for it.
But yeah, we'll go from koboldsand goblins to gods again.
That's the natural evolution
SPEAKER_03 (35:42):
of things.
You start out D&D campaign inthieves and hobos, and you end
up being acquainted with gods asthieves and hobos.
SPEAKER_01 (35:51):
So have you noticed in like certain media when you
watch it that like fantasymovies and action stuff are all
designed the same way?
Yeah.
Like, what do you mean?
Like, I watched all of OnePiece, right?
And I didn't watch it.
I read it in the manga.
But every single One Piece arcis the same.
And it's the same formula thatyou use to run a D&D campaign.
(36:16):
Where it's like, we'reintroduced to new place.
Now we're here at new place.
We meet a few people.
This is where and then when likethe two or three little episode
arc ends of like, we're doingthis in this place.
Then it would be like, allright, that's where the session
ends.
And every time it opens up, likewe get to the finale where
there's the big boss battle andthen it's on to the next little
quest line.
And every time I watch it, I'mlike, I can picture the D&D
(36:40):
session happening in my head.
And
SPEAKER_03 (36:44):
this is the entire time while you're reading each
and every page of one piece isthinking about
SPEAKER_01 (36:49):
D&D.
Yeah, yeah.
The only problem is Luffy endsevery fight with one big hit,
and I just don't enjoy that.
Or he's losing the whole time,and then he's like, okay, I'll
just throw all my power intothis, and this guy kills him in
one hit, and I go, oh, okay.
We could have started with that.
Yeah, we could have started withthat one.
Start the fight with that nexttime.
Get emotional earlier on, is allI'm saying.
(37:11):
If you're gonna become the sungod, just do it.
Be a loose cannon.
New DMs here gearing up to hostan in-person campaign.
This is by usersmartcontract7575.
My question for experienced DMs,which we both are, I would say
at this point, how do you doyour tabletop scenes?
(37:32):
I subscribe to Incarnate, Idon't know what that is, and
have been building grid maps,and my plan was to print out and
laminate the maps for my playersto use the models they brought
and tokens I purchased.
The problem is, printing themout at an appreciable size is
getting expensive.
The only other options I've seenare tables with built-in VTTs or
(37:53):
projectors, but those optionsalso seem expensive.
Also, how do you keep track ofcombat?
I've tried a few websites likeD&D Battle Tracker, but it just
wasn't working out.
Like, initiative wasn't saving,etc.
So I ended up having to use apen and paper.
This was very taxing to mybandwidth and negatively
affected the combat.
So, thank you to this user forposting this so I could take it,
(38:14):
but...
I want to know your opinion onsetting the scene for D&D,
because by all intents andpurposes, we played with just a
blank grid map for the firstthree years.
SPEAKER_03 (38:29):
Yep.
So it's a little different forme to reply as a DM, because we
use Roll20, which is free, and Ijust save images off of Google
for my maps.
SPEAKER_01 (38:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (38:43):
So I...
But I will say, I don't thinkgoing to a store and printing
out a battle map for each battlemap is the best way to handle
that.
I think we used a laminatedsheet of grid paper for most of
our maps, and I think that waspretty effective, especially if
(39:06):
you add in pictures from books,or sometimes I'll incorporate
pictures in my Roll20, likeJust, hey, this is, you know,
I'm not the best at describingthings.
This is what it looks like, youknow, and help you imagine a
little more.
SPEAKER_01 (39:22):
Yeah, I mean, I would say kind of the same
thing.
I'm trying to use as muchexperience from like when we
used to play in college andstuff as I can, because we for a
long time just had that onething.
battle battle sheet and I wouldjust dry erase erase dry erase
like I would just draw and thenerase and then we would keep
going and then us goingbacktracking would rely on
(39:44):
memory yep which I get how thatcan be taxing but I do think
this person is overthinking justa little bit yes wanting to have
like wanting to have like acritical role style thing where
like you pull out your entirecreated like castle that you're
going to have this fight in andset it down i'm like laminating
and printing these things outsuper cool and if someone did it
(40:07):
for me i would be like wowthat's really cool i really
appreciate it but given that wehad some of our best stories
we've ever told with a markerand some some unpainted minis
yeah yeah i i do think thatmaybe there's a little a little
too much effort going into thatlikewise I, because we use
(40:30):
Roll20 now, I do the exact samething.
I like find images online orI'll go through a Patreon or
something like that and pick outthe maps that I like.
I'm like, oh, I see this artist.
I'll go through their stuff andget it.
And so now that we do that, Ithink that Roll20 is a very good
place to run your D&D sessions.
(40:52):
But there was also the timevirtually where you had to rely
on us on a webcam.
Showing you the maps.
Which
SPEAKER_03 (41:02):
makes it a little more difficult sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
Very, very difficult.
I did feel, like, bad at thosetimes where I was like, I wish
that I could show this to Sean.
I wish that this could, like...
Because did you feel like thatinhibited your experience?
Uh, no.
Not really.
Mostly because I know you're avery technical player.
(41:25):
So, like, knowing yourspacing...
knowing where things were at,which I guess we did have the
little camera arm that faceddown at the back for you most of
the times, but there were timeswhere it was just you on a
laptop screen facing in thegeneral direction.
SPEAKER_02 (41:38):
Yeah, I mean,
SPEAKER_03 (41:41):
it's not the best experience, but the camera arm
definitely alleviated someissues with that, and then just
being able to ask and have youguys be patient with that me not
being able to see like a squarein front of me or something like
that is, I mean, it, it makes itmore playable.
(42:02):
So
SPEAKER_01 (42:02):
yeah, I think, I think the best advice I could
give to this person is to maybeask your players what they would
appreciate.
Cause if your players would beokay with you just having a
laminated battle map or one ofthese books of battle maps, like
you just open it up and it's gotthe maps already made for you.
They have like, dozen of themonline you can just spend your
(42:26):
money on three or four of thoseand you're set for three
campaigns
SPEAKER_03 (42:32):
yeah that that could work and then almost like i feel
like what you did while we wereat college is like to start you
know you have you know 20 minisOkay.
Yeah.
That's what we're starting outwith.
And then, like, this month, youget a couple of these specific
characters for this next fight.
And then you just kind of slowlysnowball and build up a
(42:55):
collection.
That way, it's not every singlesession I have to buy a map and
minis.
A map and minis.
Because that'll, like, it'llmake D&D expensive, and then
it'll also not want you to play.
Like, you won't want to play.
SPEAKER_01 (43:09):
Yeah.
I mean, if you have a local LGSor something like that, local,
local game stores, what I justsaid, that's crazy.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (43:16):
Local LGS.
SPEAKER_01 (43:17):
Yeah.
If you have an LGS near youwhere you can pick up like the
unpainted minis, you know, youcan always paint them later.
Like that's perfectly fine.
But if you, if you have a storelike that, it's like five bucks,
you get two minis.
So slowly work up yourcollection.
That's how I ended up with shellwas worth of minis.
SPEAKER_03 (43:36):
Yeah.
And I, I mean, to start, you'regoing to have the same enemies,
uh, I mean, they're going tolook the same for the first few
fights, but over time you'll beable to like, I mean, Zach has
his organized by like race andmonsters and like stuff like
that.
So it just takes time.
SPEAKER_01 (43:54):
And I don't think using roll 20 at the table
sometimes is a bad thing.
No.
Where like if everybody owns alaptop, even a cheap one.
They can open up Roll20 and seethe map as it is, and you can
either have the grid in front ofyou where everybody has it and
they see the version of the mapyou want them to see, or
everybody just plays it on theirlaptop.
The only thing I would say forthat is if you want your players
(44:17):
to be mindful, maybe don't.
Make sure you're keeping theirattention on you because tapping
out, playing another game, beingon your phone, those things can
take away a lot from thesession.
SPEAKER_03 (44:31):
On the topic of the tables, the TV tables, I don't
know what they're called.
I've always thought they'resuper cool, but then you just
now have a table with a TV init, so unless it's super
well-developed and you can closethe lid over it or something,
(44:51):
it's going to be large, bulky,and in the way.
SPEAKER_01 (44:54):
That way you can play all of Baldur's Gate 3 on
your D&D table.
You have it do the above-downview.
And you play the whole game likethat.
I don't think I could play thewhole game like that.
You'd be leaning over the table.
SPEAKER_03 (45:11):
Yeah.
It's a good option for peoplewith a lot of money, I suppose,
and space.
SPEAKER_01 (45:18):
Yeah.
Not for starting out.
I think you could totally dothat, though.
Now, imagine, like, picturethis.
You have your D&D table, right?
You take the camera in a certainarea of Baldur's Gate 3 and zoom
it out and scroll it over to theside and make sure the reticle's
not appearing.
Boom, you've got a battle mapfrom this kind of area.
(45:39):
Oh, you think?
You think that...
Yeah, all you have to do is dothe top-down view and take it
away from your characters.
And then once you've taken itaway from your characters, now
you've got your virtual table.
Well,
SPEAKER_03 (45:52):
there you go.
You need the small investment of$70 into Baldur's Gate and
probably a couple
SPEAKER_01 (45:58):
hundred for a big monitor, probably at least$1,000
for a nice table.
You're not going to not splurgeon this.
Then you need a computer thatcan run Baldur's Gate 3.
Yeah, some small investments.
But for the enjoyment of yourD&D game, what, are you not
willing to spend the money?
Yeah, exactly.
(46:19):
Because you couldn't have fun
SPEAKER_03 (46:20):
otherwise.
No, you can't.
Absolutely not.
You can't use the same laminatedgrid for
SPEAKER_01 (46:30):
two plus years.
A couple years.
Have you played Baldur's Gate 3lately?
I
SPEAKER_03 (46:37):
have.
Did I tell you what happenedwith my last run?
No.
I've been attempting to beat iton honor mode, but I try and...
I'm block-headed, so I've beentrying to beat it on honor mode
the exact same way the entiretime, and it's not working for
some reason.
(46:58):
But this last time, I did beatit, and there's a known issue on
Xbox, which I didn't know untilI beat the game, is that if your
game crashed at any point duringthe campaign, it can count as...
changing from honor mode tocustom
SPEAKER_01 (47:15):
because it's supposed to save when you close
out right so it probably doesn'toverlap because it crashes
SPEAKER_03 (47:22):
and so at some and i recalled it crashing a few times
because there was some issuesdirectly after patch eight and
so i beat the game and i'm likei'm looking for that xbox
achievement to pop up and Itnever came.
So I'm going back throughanother time
SPEAKER_01 (47:44):
again.
So Gabby and I collectively havethree copies of Baldur's Gate.
I have it on my computer.
She has one on her laptop that Igot for her because I wanted her
to play.
We tried playing it longdistance.
It was very hard to like manage.
Now we're both playing ittogether on my PlayStation.
And it has been some of the mostfun I've had gaming in a long
(48:07):
time because I know the story,right?
I know most of the things thatare going to happen.
But, like, for instance, we'regoing into the Moonrise Towers
area, and we're about to do thewhole assault, and she goes, oh,
my God, we have to go back andget Gale.
And I go, why?
I was like, why?
Why do we need Gale?
And she was like, well, he'ssupposed to blow himself up
here.
And I was like...
(48:31):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
We'll go get him.
So we get him and we get there.
And the game never stops to tellyou that because in that section
of the game, Elder Brain kind ofgoes somewhere else at the time,
so it doesn't give you thatopportunity.
But I loved the thinking of, ohyeah, we'll just blow Gale up.
I'm sure with that.
(48:51):
And now he's on his wholevengeance quest for this crown,
or information on the crown.
But yeah, it's been a lot of funbecause we very quickly started
finding so much stuff that Inever saw in the game.
Cause I only played it one timeall the way through and then
played, I started working on anhonor, honor mode, a run two,
(49:12):
but I haven't finished act onebecause I've just been playing
other things in her interspersedwith it.
So I'm going to try, I'm goingto really try, but I don't
anticipate surviving the firsttime.
SPEAKER_03 (49:24):
Yeah.
So it's, it's either, or with myhonor run two, campaign so far
either i die to the intellectdevourer fight first thing off
the ship or i die at ketherickand then okay twice have i made
it past ketherick so you know
SPEAKER_01 (49:44):
do you feel like after you get
SPEAKER_03 (49:45):
past ketherick it's like smooth sailing oh yeah i
felt like ketherick even even inthe mode that ended up being
nothing i mean it was honor modeall the way through Catherick
was still the hardest.
The second phase of Catherickwas the hardest fight, even to
the final fight.
(50:06):
Jeez.
Catherick
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
was harder.
I wasn't prepared for that,because when I played on
Tactician all the way through, Ihad Karlak just slash Catherick
like four times, and I won.
She just great weapon master,ran through him.
But I know they have legendaryactions, right?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_03 (50:21):
they have legendary actions, and...
The biggest thing with Ketherickis he constantly spawns those
skeletons with him.
And then they can also justchoose to run up and heal him.
And then you can't be on thelittle platform with him and all
this other stuff.
So it is a very difficult fight.
SPEAKER_01 (50:43):
Yeah.
Very difficult.
Okay.
Well, I look forward to gettingthere eventually.
Well, Sean, thank you forjoining me.
on this episode of Table TalkFriday D&D Podcast.
For those who don't knowalready, you can find us on
patreon.com slashtabletalkfriday.
We've got a bunch of perks overthere.
We do post shows.
We do little meet and greets.
We have a whole chat going onfor the people that are in
(51:05):
there.
And I think most importantly isthe post shows.
I've been recording like...
Ah.
Ah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:37):
Thank you for listening and or watching, and
we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00 (51:43):
Thank you for listening to Table Talk Friday,
a D&D podcast.
For more fun conversations likethis, follow the boys on
whatever podcast service youprefer, and come back every
Friday for another upload.
And if you have your owninquiries, you can find them at
tabletalkfriday at gmail.com.
UNKNOWN (52:04):
Thank you.
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