August 22, 2025 • 57 mins
This week on TableTalk Friday, Seth and Drew catch up on life, gaming, and everything in between!
From tricky table dynamics to finding the sweet spot between story control and player freedom, this episode is full of practical DM advice, real experiences, and the kind of banter only longtime friends can bring.
🎲 Topics Covered:
- The biggest red flags to watch for in a D&D game
- Balancing story control vs. player choice
- Real DM experiences and lessons learned
- General life updates from Seth and Drew
💌 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!
📢 Support the Show:
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):
Hello and welcome to Table Talk Friday, your weekly
dose of D&D hosted by three boysin a bedroom.
If you like their style, you canfollow them on Instagram,
YouTube and other social mediaplatforms.
And now, back to the boys.
SPEAKER_02 (00:24):
Welcome to Table Talk Friday, a D&D podcast where
two best friends are hanging outin separate bedrooms all the way
across the country from eachother.
My name is formerly SethPittman, and I'm joined today by
one of my best friends, AndrewRomano.
Drew, how are you doing?
Hello, formerly.
I'm doing fantastic today.
(00:46):
I'm not going to lie, I got alittle nostalgic there because I
forgot our intro.
Yeah.
It's been that long.
To be honest, I want to record acouple more of the voice ones
again because it's hard for meto remember the exact script
every time we start.
But I did in the episode I didwith Patrick a few weeks ago.
I forgot the...
Pat, how are you doing today?
And I was like, dang it.
(01:07):
I forgot it.
But I have still had peopledoing the outro things where I'm
like, all right, now take usout.
You totally ruined our brand.
We might as well just change thename of the podcast.
Might as well change the name tolike...
Table Talk Thursday.
Magic the Gathering Saturdays.
It's Saturday where we alwayspost.
Talk about Magic the Gathering.
I'm going to have to wait forone of these topics, but I
(01:28):
wanted Pat to be on so bad todayso that we can pitch you like a
whole thing for Magic.
Like, dude, you have to get intoit.
You have to play.
You guys convinced me.
I know.
You said, let's play.
You hyped it up.
We're going to do this onlinething.
We're going to try to likeDiscord, you know, whatever.
We're going to make it work,right?
It's just so different.
You told me the commander deckthat I needed.
(01:50):
Yeah, we did that.
Yeah, we did that.
I know.
I was thinking about it, too.
I was like, man, we got to getDrew to play because...
I think once you start playing,you're going to be like, oh, now
I have to go to a store andplay, or now I have to have
other people play with me.
Because I did test out SpellTable the other day, though,
because I wanted to learn howto...
I wanted to try it online, andit actually worked out pretty
(02:10):
well.
I joined in with threestrangers, and we played
Commander, the four of us, andit went really well.
I was surprised.
Now, what do you know aboutmagic right now?
Okay, so...
It has been a long time.
Now, when I first got intoMagic, remember, we were playing
D&D, and I was like, oh, no, Ican't be bothered.
(02:31):
I'm just so busy with D&D, and Icouldn't bother.
No, no, no, no, no.
We were into Magic first.
Oh, you're right, you were theother
SPEAKER_03 (02:38):
way
SPEAKER_02 (02:38):
around.
Yeah, we played Magic formonths, just you and I.
I remember specifically, we wereplaying like the Kaladesh
starter kit decks that we hadmade.
Oh, Kaladesh, yes.
And we sat in my room on thattiny little table, and you and I
played for hours.
One time, one of our games wentover an hour with a standard
(02:59):
60-card deck in 20 life becausewe were at a stalemate, and I
eventually pulled it out withone card.
Was that the Sphinx?
Yeah, it was the Sphinx ofMagosi.
I still have it in my binder.
The Sphinx of Magosi.
I remember that, dude.
That was crazy.
So, Magic is a lot different nowin 2025.
Probably all the franchisingkind of stuff?
Yeah, I was going to explain toyou Universes Beyond because
(03:21):
there's so many other propertiescoming out into Magic.
And, you know, Pat and I talkedabout it a little bit moderately
okay with me.
Like, depending on the thing,Spider-Man's about to come out.
And I'm like, I don't really...
I'm not a big fan of...
What?!
UNKNOWN (00:00):
!
SPEAKER_02 (03:34):
Yeah, you know that?
Next set is Spider-Man.
Why?
What is driving these weirdcollabs?
Money, baby.
The Fortnite-ification.
You gotta have money.
Final Fantasy was a huge hit.
It went crazy, but in myopinion, Final Fantasy makes a
lot of sense, right?
It's still fantasy.
You could even see it being partof the D&D multiverse, right?
(03:58):
No, I could see it.
Yeah.
So Final Fantasy made a lot ofsense.
Some of my favorite charactersfrom video games were in there.
And so, of course, I picked upsome Final Fantasy stuff.
I bought the cloud deck.
I trade it to the cloud deck wasone hundred and twenty dollars.
But do you think I paid that?
No, I I got enough cards in theevents that we did at Magic Con
that I traded them to a vendorand paid fifty dollars.
(04:20):
But yeah, so crazy stuff.
But it's good.
Oh, the deck is amazing.
Like, I love it.
It's all equipment, so it'sVoltron.
You throw Cloud down, andequipment automatically attaches
to him, and then you startswinging.
Like, it's full-on, like, aggroVoltron.
Oh, that is cool.
(04:41):
So I love it, and I also made,from Final Fantasy XV, a Noctis
deck, which is three differentcolors, artifacts, again, but
not equipment.
Noctis can pay three.
He has lifelink.
He's a 4-3.
You pay three life...
And you can bring an artifactwith paying its cost back from
the graveyard to thebattlefield.
So like cards that like have ETBtriggers, like Solemn
(05:05):
Simulacrum, you go and get aland out of your deck, put it on
the battlefield tapped, right?
So you can then swing thatcreature, let it die.
It also has a death trigger.
You draw a card, goes to yourgraveyard, then you pay four
again, pay three life, bring itback from the graveyard, do it
all again, right?
Stuff like that.
I love the lifeline combos.
(05:27):
Yeah.
So it's, um, there's a lot offun stuff, but I would
definitely recommend buy apre-con deck.
Me, you and Pat got to gettogether so we can do this, you
know, because I would love to.
Patrick was telling me he's gotlike a bracket two.
There's a whole bracket systemfor our commander decks are set
up and we got to teach you howto play commander.
I know you're not into the idea.
I know you're not super into theidea of like singleton and all
(05:50):
that, not being able to likestrategize as much.
It's just so fun.
So I played it the one timebefore.
I think it was with Pat back incollege.
And I enjoyed it.
It just threw me off.
To me, I really like the idea.
And it's probably the exact samething.
So I'm probably just, you know,just rambling on about crap.
(06:11):
But I like the idea that whenyou're playing non-commander,
you're playing modern orstandard, did they call it?
Yeah.
That you could put up to four inthere.
Not that you want to have...
of every card because that getsreally boring too but i feel
like you had more options whichis a silly argument because
there's 100 cards in a commanderdeck yeah so really i just need
to play the game and stopplaying yeah honestly what we
(06:34):
could do that would make it alot easier than getting you to
go buy something is we can setyou up on a virtual thing and
just have you like i could icould just send you a deck list
and be like here play one of mydecks and you go into the play
tester on there you broadcastyour screen into discord or
something And then we can justsee you moving the deck
virtually so you can try it,right?
And then be like, okay, I'm downto spend$40 on this, right?
(06:56):
And then next thing you know,two grand's down the drain.
And I have no money left and I'maddicted to magic.
Luckily, that hasn't happened tome in the same way that I feel
like it could have in the past.
But I don't want to stick onmagic too long because this is a
D&D podcast.
I have one more life topicoutside of this that is not D&D
(07:17):
related.
And you know how I got you thoseROM hacks, those Pokemon ROM
hacks in the past?
Yeah, I played just the otherday.
Okay, I've got a pitch for youon this too.
A popular YouTuber namedAlpharad has, and I bet some
people listening know this name,has created a Pokemon ROM hack
called Super Mario Mon.
(07:39):
And it is a full Pokemon.
It is a full Pokemon.
Eight gyms battling one.
You're playing as Mario.
Luigi tags along sometimes.
And you are catching things fromthe Mushroom Kingdom and
battling them against Mariocharacters.
And you're racing Bowser becauseyou have to finish first so he
doesn't get to Princess Peachand make the wish.
(08:03):
Make the wish?
Yeah, so the whole overlyingstory or whatever, the
overarching story is you asMario and Luigi...
Princess Peach has created thisgame because now, like, the hat
from Mario Odyssey that, like,captures things, they're using
these to capture differentcreatures from the Mushroom
Kingdom because Princess Peachhas made a game to where if you
(08:26):
participate in this, at the veryend, if you capture, get all
eight Power Stars first, theeight Power Stars instead of
gyms, if you get all eight ofthem first, you get a wish.
I don't know how that works.
Oh, okay.
So Bowser hears about this andit's flipping out.
He's like, why did you notinvite me to play this game?
I should be playing this gametoo.
And there's a couple of littletwists and turns that are really
(08:48):
silly of the, that he does.
Cause there's specific rules youhave to follow.
And he's like, I'm not doingthat.
I'm not following these rules.
And, but I started playing this.
I played it for like six hoursyesterday because at the end of
the day, Gabby's been NuzlockingPokemon Y on the 3DS and, So
she's trying to get really goodat nuzlocks and stuff.
(09:10):
And so I was like, oh, I'll playone.
And so I start playing this.
And it has a nuzlock mode andall the kinds of rules you can
do on it.
It has all this stuff built intothe game.
Like difficulties, nuzlock mode,all of that.
And I was like, hey, you knowwhat?
I'll play this game and thenI'll try nuzlocking it.
It's so fun.
It's so cool.
(09:31):
Or...
Or how repetitive that thesePokemon games have become over
time.
I hear a lot of peoplecomplaining about how it's like
the same old crap all the timeand they're not putting as many
Pokemon on as they used to.
For what reason are they notcatering to the audience by
putting in different game modeslike Nuzlocke?
They actually do.
Indeed, I couldn't tell youbecause I'm like, this was
(09:53):
completely free.
It's on my phone.
Allegedly, it's allegedly on myphone.
you know hypothetically yeahthis alleged pokemon rom hack is
allegedly on my phone and it'sso good and like didn't do any
work for it it's just there butone question before we move on
because i want to hit on thismario pokemon kind of a vibe it
(10:17):
makes me think of this wholepokemon 5e thing that we did for
a while what is meta poke mariosuper mario mon Super Mario?
What is meta, you're saying?
Yeah, like, what is your go-to?
So, like, let's say you'replaying Fire Red.
So, my starter, I did choose theFire starter, which was a
(10:40):
Bob-omb.
And when he evolves, his secondstage is one of the Bob-ombs
that has the red arms and theboxing gloves.
So, he's my main guy right now.
All my other guys are just okay.
There's this, like, I reallydon't know some of the
creatures.
There's so many Mario games andstuff that I'm probably not
familiar with.
(11:01):
So I don't know all of thesecreatures, but there's this one
that's like a little like bulblooking thing.
And it's basically like a grassstarter kind of, but not.
Piranha Plant is one of theother starters you can get.
Oh, heck yeah.
But it's like this little grassbulb looking thing and it knows
moves like Mega Drain and stuff.
(11:22):
And so I've been using this onetoo and it's been helping me out
a good bit.
But yeah, Bob-omb's been like mysweeper.
And I have the level cap mode onso you can't go above a certain
level.
Also, they built in like becauseof the Nuzlocke rules, they give
you like the infinite rare candystuff.
That way if you want to justlike go to the level cap, go to
the next thing, you don't haveto spend time grinding.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
(11:43):
Yeah, so it's been really cool,really fun.
I've been enjoying my gaminglife recently.
Have you been playing anythingoutside the usual?
No, just a little bit of thatPokemon game.
There was something Adventures,Dark Adventures.
Yeah.
Playing a little bit of Hunt.
Oh, well, actually, so not superoutside of Realm, I'm going to
(12:06):
say.
Minecraft, we have beenplaying...
Pretty frequently on a weeklybasis.
Really?
I would say maybe the last threemonths.
We had six people on the otherday grinding away.
We got full netherite gear.
We have several houses.
We're building our secondstorage room that's got 300
(12:26):
double chests in it.
We're going pretty hard rightnow.
That's crazy.
So I leveled up to the plusrealm or something like that so
it stays open all the time.
So we have a Google plan.
This is you and the friends Iknow from before, or this is a
different group?
This is me, my wife, hersisters, and then Malachi and
(12:52):
Tyler.
Wow.
Okay.
That's fun.
We've been kicking it, man.
We've been having a lot of fun.
Even the nights where you don'tsay a whole lot of words, it's
like, let's get on Minecraft andchop some trees for an hour and
kick it.
Gabi and I are just now startingAct 3 of Baldur's Gate together.
So out of the three acts, wefinished two full basically D&D
(13:13):
campaigns at this point.
We're going into Act 3.
I think we're at like 50 hoursinto the game.
Really?
Okay, you're digging in.
Yeah, we've been playing everynight.
And it's been phenomenal becauseI've seen so much stuff I didn't
see the first time.
Like...
I'm seeing the same places, butI'm getting different options.
Different things are happening.
I completely forgot about onething we were supposed to do.
(13:35):
So we ended up triggering one ofthose in-game events that's
like, you can't go back fromhere.
And we didn't read the prompt.
We just clicked go on the nextthing.
And so we missed a quest, butit's changed everything because
I was expecting these charactersto end up in a place.
Next thing I know, they're notthere anymore.
This is something you've done inyour previous playthroughs.
Right, I did it.
(13:56):
Yeah, I'm hitting a bit ofuncharted territory.
And in my one run through, therewas a character I didn't
interact with that's supposed toshow up later because I forgot.
I just was like, oh, I didn'tsee it.
And then this one, I got a wholenew like three, four minutes of
cut scene because they actuallywere there this time and we
actually interacted with them.
So I'm hitting unchartedterritory for a lot of things.
(14:16):
And it's it's pretty cool.
So now it's gotten me like I'mback on the Pokemon bug.
I'm on the Baldur's Gate bug.
I got to finish Final Fantasy16.
I've been playing Helldivers 2consistently.
There's so there's so much.
And I only came for like a fewhours a day.
So I don't even have the time todo all of it.
No, I've I've been honestlywanting to do nothing but a
(14:37):
game, even just the same oldstuff.
This dog has taken all my time.
I
SPEAKER_03 (14:42):
wait
SPEAKER_02 (14:42):
for him to fall asleep.
He's adorable.
He's a menace, but he's alsojust...
I love this dog so much, it'sridiculous.
Are you guys training him?
Yeah, no, we train him everyday.
We have a whole regiment withhim, and I gotta say, I don't
know how quickly dogs aresupposed to learn.
I've had dogs around me my wholelife, but I've never had my own.
(15:04):
I'm in charge of this dog,making sure his well-being is
all that, blah, blah, blah.
Morning's so quick.
It's not great at like retainingeverything, but drawing the
connections is like instant.
In one morning in like 10minutes, I said like, I kind of
wanted him to like give me hispaw, right?
So I said paw a couple of timesand I grabbed his hand and put
it in my hand and gave him atreat.
(15:26):
After about 10 minutes, he wasdoing it, putting his hand in my
hand to get the treat.
It's crazy how quick they pickup on stuff.
I don't know.
They're putting something in thewater.
I don't know.
I don't know what it is, but.
You know, I had an animalrecently.
And she has also been learning,but not in the same way.
It's like she's so comfortablein the house now that she's
(15:46):
learned she can jump from thefloor to the counter.
Oh, she's like, wow.
Yeah, she's she's jumping like,you know, over three feet up
into the air to get onto things.
And so she's she's discoveringher talents.
But because of this, what theyrecommend you do, if you look it
up online, is put double sidedtape on those surfaces you don't
want her on, because the secondtheir claws touch it, they're
(16:07):
like, no, no, I'm not going hereanymore.
Really?
So she was getting on our barstools and getting on a
different counter that was alittle out of reach.
She was like able to get onto itand then jump across to get to
the counter.
So I put double sided tape upthere and she'll go up and
she'll just like slowly paw thecounter like I just want to be
up there.
But also her progress, her mainprogress is in the fact that she
(16:33):
will sleep next to us in thebed.
It used to be she would like gosit in the windowsill or like
kind of roam around at night andkeep us up really late now at
bedtime she is laid up againstone of us yesterday she's
sleeping against her headagainst Gabby the top of Gabby's
head she's just like nuzzled upsleeping and then she wakes us
(16:54):
up at her like the time she eatsin the morning so she's like
it's like we're hitting 4 a.m.
she usually eats at like 5 andif we're hitting 4 a.m.
she's like hey where's my foodyou guys have not fed me it's
been multiple hours.
Why are you guys speeders soearly?
We have to be up early.
Army lifestyle, baby.
No, you're wrong.
(17:18):
I go to bed at 9pm and I get upat like 4 or 5.
I gotta start going to bed alittle bit early.
I've been going to bed around11, which...
is earlier than in the morning.
I have most of my life.
Yeah, in the morning.
And I get up, I want to spendmore time with the dog in the
morning.
I want to sit down and train alittle bit more and play with
(17:39):
him just so he's got somethinggoing on.
I think I'm going to go to bed alittle bit earlier.
But that's taken away more frommy gaming lifestyle.
I get no games.
Everybody gets in the way ofgames.
I'm glad that Gabby likes togame as much as she does because
she'll like play her.
If I'm like, I want to play HeldIrish tonight, she'll like sit
and play her Nuzlocke and we'llbe in the same space or like,
(18:00):
OK, we're grinding Baldur'sGate.
We're doing Baldur's Gatetonight.
So it's nice to be on there.
I was going to I was going tosay you have to play it like.
You have to do it.
It's so good.
And it's exactly what you want.
I listened.
I listened back to a bunch ofepisodes recently because, you
know, I was getting nostalgicfor the podcast.
And I listened to the episodewhere Zach and I are just
(18:20):
pitching Baldur's Gate to youthe whole time.
We're just like telling you howgreat it is.
We have that episode.
You mean that 12, 13, 14episodes where it was nothing
but.
Yes, but this is like rightafter the game came out and Zach
and I were still playing it.
And we were like, dude, Drew,you have to play.
It's everything you want.
UNKNOWN (18:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (18:38):
I will.
I'll get to it.
At this point now, what is it?
Two years old?
Year old?
Yeah, almost.
I think it's two years old.
Is it on discount yet?
It has been, but I don't thinkit's on a huge discount.
I've seen it on discount.
See, I'm looking for that sale.
So at this point, it's July.
I could probably wait till BlackFriday.
No, I think you should just buyit.
(18:59):
I know you have enough money tobuy Baldur's Gate.
I do, but do I want it that bad?
I could wait.
I could wait for it to getcheaper.
Okay, so I'm going to try alittle segment with you, okay?
I did this on the podcast bymyself, and I did this on the
podcast with Sean.
I have a prompt.
I'm going to go over it.
We might get into the D&Dfinance stuff a little bit
(19:21):
later, but if not, we can saveit for another episode.
So, I'm going to pitch this toyou.
Do I need alcohol for this?
No, no, no.
So this is userlieenvironmental5207 over on the
D&D subreddit says, I'm playingin a new campaign into one
that's already been going for awhile.
(19:42):
I haven't been here long enoughto know how a regular session
goes yet, but I've played in twoso far.
Both.
Three hours long.
Reasonable.
Reasonable.
I mean, that's about how longours are.
In both of them, for the firsthour and a half, 98% of that
time was listening to the DMdescribe our journey on a ship
and entry into a new city.
The rest of the session isexactly the same.
(20:04):
I don't really know why hestipulated the hour and a half
here if the whole session wasthis way.
You know, first hour and a half,it was 98% of the DM just
narrating.
So was the rest of this session.
Yeah, you could have just saidthe whole time, but that's a
weird way to phrase it.
He asked us how we react tothings and what we'd like to do
about three times in eithersession.
So...
(20:24):
There hasn't been even muchchance to roleplay or explore,
nor has there been any combat.
None.
The DM himself and the playersall seem awesome, but it feels
less like playing D&D and morelike listening to a writer
describe a fixed story in realtime.
Just wondering, is this normal?
In the campaigns I run, as wellas the others that I've been in,
(20:46):
60% of the session has beendirected by and played out by
the PLAYERS, in all caps.
Just looking for some secondaryinput.
Is this normal, Drew?
Is this normal?
No, absolutely not.
I've heard a lot of horrorstories from D&D games that just
went wrong or the DM was crazyor the players were murder hobos
or whatever it would be.
(21:07):
I've never heard of a game thatwas just a cinematic story told
by one person.
That's so weird.
It's not even fun.
As a DM, I love talking about myhomebrew world that I've worked
on for millennia.
But I would never sit here andjust talk at the players the
whole time.
It would be boring.
(21:27):
If I was in this scenario and Iwas a player, I would be sitting
there and then about fiveminutes in to just the monologue
where I haven't been, nothing'sbeen narrated around me or like
you're just describing the wholething.
I'd be five minutes in, I'dstart thinking, when do we play?
And then 10 minutes in, I'dstart thinking, should I say
something?
Should I speak up?
15 minutes in, I would go, I'mgonna sit back on my phone and
(21:50):
look at it until we actually dosomething.
30 minutes in, I'm leaving.
Yeah.
I couldn't do it.
I think it's difficult, andmaybe you feel the same way, but
as people who have played withthe same group of what I would
say are excellent players, andhaving a very specific scenario,
(22:13):
like a certain culture at thetable, I don't know how I would
react to that, because it's justnever happened.
I would like to think, like youwere saying, 30 minutes in, that
I would just kind of start tolounge back a little bit.
But I feel like we wouldquestion it.
Let's just say, you know, Pat'srunning a game.
I feel like you and me wouldstart eyeballing each other.
Like, we even rolled this 45minutes in.
(22:33):
Like, should we take a break?
Maybe I like chat like, hey, canwe talk for a second?
Oh, for sure.
On anything yet?
I mean, there's everybody.
We're all playing a game here.
I want to I want to play.
Yeah.
And that's how I would say,like, we have good
communication.
If we have ever had a problem,we've always been able to talk
(22:53):
about it pretty quickly andeasily.
I don't think we've really hadmany problems we've had to talk
about.
Yeah, I don't think so.
But like if this scenario cameup, which it never will, I would
definitely instantly afterwardsbe like, hey, dude, we didn't
play today.
You kind of just told us whatwas going on.
I probably wouldn't do it withthe whole group there.
I'd be like, hey, can I get youfor like five minutes?
(23:16):
Yeah, I guess like a privatemoment afterwards.
But I don't.
I would stay there the wholetime, but I just might out of
respect.
Like, you know, if you wererunning a game and you did that,
like, obviously you've run somany incredible sessions over
the years.
I'd be like, well, maybe I'lllet Seth do his thing here.
I don't know.
Yeah, maybe if it was a one-timething, right?
Like, wow, that was a lot ofexposition.
(23:39):
But recently, so Patrick and Idid a thing, and Sean and I kind
of talked about this last weektoo, but when Patrick and I were
talking, we talked about each ofour DM styles and stuff, right?
And now...
We still have to wait for Chaseto DM his.
I've been talking to him abouthim DMing a session for us and
everything.
But we've seen everybody DMseparately.
(23:59):
Now, when we described your DMstyle, we described it as the
most work you can put into onesession throughout a year.
Well, it's because I run onegame a year.
I know, I know.
I know if you had a game for us,it would be different, but we
haven't experienced enoughbecause you run one a game a
year for our group specificallynormally.
(24:20):
So how do you think your styleis different from the rest of
the group?
I've been asking all of you guysthis.
I would say my style is mostlike Zach's.
So I think we both put...
And this is not a negativecomment.
We both put a lot of thoughtinto our sessions, and I would
(24:43):
argue way too much.
I think about the session andplan the session so much to the
point where I don't ever want todo it again.
I love running these sessions.
but I hate prepping for itbecause I know it's going to
take me tenfold as long to prepfor it than to run.
And I know you and I have run,or not run, we've played for
(25:07):
Zach, and he ran in similarsituations.
There was, I don't know if youremember that one week where we
really wanted to play Eberron,and he said, oh, sorry guys, but
I only have ten pages of notes.
And you and I both looked ateach other, you know, mouths
agape, like, what in the world?
Ten pages?
Well, and that's inevitably whywe burned Zach out of playing
Eberron with us.
(25:27):
Because...
Because for the audience outthere, I know in the past 120
episodes we did, we talked aboutEberron a little bit, but for a
little recap, Drew and I wereplaying, I was a mastermind
rogue named Agent 99, and he wasa cleric by the name of Glitch.
We were two warforged, we were atwo-man private investigation
(25:47):
agency in Eberron, and we wereabsolute menaces to society.
It wasn't, like, just to put itplainly, we...
Every time, every chance we gotto talk to someone, oh, we were
talking to them.
And whatever information theyhad, we would get.
Even if Zach had to make it upbecause we were taking so long.
(26:09):
We went into the apartment nextdoor.
We basically kicked, I don'tknow if it was a man or whoever
it was.
We kicked him out.
We took over his household andmade it part of our office.
Yeah, we said we need thisbuilding, and our excuse for
doing all of this was, we werecreated two years ago.
(26:30):
The war ended two years ago, wewere created two years ago, we
don't know societal norms.
And do you remember runningthrough the streets of Eberron,
of Sharn, going, we have a writ,we have a writ?
We have a writ.
He took it from us.
He took the writ from us.
He gave us a writ that basicallysaid, hey, they're allowed to be
here.
(26:50):
And we just pretended it let usdo whatever we wanted.
Not pretend.
We made sure it let us dowhatever we wanted to do.
We got away with a lot.
And so after about, you know,six, seven sessions, Zach never
wanted to DM that game for usagain.
Rightfully so.
You know, it was a lot of prepto get ready for.
But likewise, I do think.
Zach gets excited about runninga campaign, and then while I've
(27:14):
explained this many times in ourpast stuff, I will happily just
run an eternal D&D game, andit'll go forever, right?
I'll just show up, I'll DM, andI won't even think twice about
it.
Whereas I think for otherpeople, it takes a little more
social energy for them to do.
It does.
It absolutely does.
And it's crazy that it'ssupposed to be a game.
(27:36):
And it is.
I love the game more thananything.
It's probably my favorite gameof all time.
Maybe next to Doom from 1993, 6,8, wherever it was.
But, you know, it's just rough.
It's rough on the mind having torun all that.
And maybe, you know, I wouldhave more fun prepping if I ran,
you know, not just a Christmasone-off, but maybe an Easter
(27:57):
one-off, too.
I don't know.
Yeah, maybe, maybe.
I am thinking, like, Sean askedme last week, he asked me,
What's next?
What's your plan for what we'redoing next?
Because Patrick's about to wrapup his arc, right?
So I am debating on whether Imight be like, hey, can I take
over and just finishSpelljammer?
(28:20):
But at the same time, oh man, Ijust really want to run the next
thing.
I really want to.
I just don't think we're readyfor it yet.
I want to see the next arc, forsure.
I think...
We have put too much thought andhype behind Spelljammer to skip
(28:40):
it at this point, personally.
Well, the idea wouldn't be toskip it.
The idea would be on weeks whenpeople can't be there that
aren't me because I would beDMing, we would still run
Spelljammer.
I think that's kind of whatwe're doing right now.
So if one person's outcalibrating the engines like
Garrus, we just play someSpelljammer.
(29:02):
And I'm cool with that becauseit's still...
Seeing the story is still givingyou an opportunity to flesh out
your world in this kind of canonadventure that we've been on for
five, six years.
Yeah.
I do.
I do.
I don't want to rush throughSpelljammer, but I do kind of
want to check it out.
You know, I want to see what theRock of Brawl or Brawl on the
(29:23):
other planets.
It's some weird space people.
I think it could be cool.
Yeah.
And we're doing Spelljammer notin any way by the book.
I'm only using the spaceships bythe book because, frankly, the
rules are really redundant.
for Spelljammer so really it'sgoing to turn into whatever we
make of it this little adventurein space so I don't know maybe
when Patrick finishes this oneup we'll do the whole wedding
(29:44):
thing next week and then afterthat we'll jump in and try to
try to wrap it up try to getthrough it but I am thinking
it'll be one of those where it'slike we're not taking big breaks
unless two or more people can'tmake it like oh if only one
person can't make it they willsit in the cockpit and They'll
(30:05):
sit down on the poop deck, andthen we'll move on to the next
thing.
Because I am very excited forDMing again.
I even explained to Sean, I waslike, I've never really been a
player for very long.
I did some very short campaigns,10 sessions.
(30:27):
Curse of Strahd was 13 sessions.
Very good number for Curse ofStrahd.
So...
But I was like, yeah, when Istarted playing Jean and jumping
back into like the group becauseI wasn't back in the group for a
while, I took over a little likea year and a half off jumping
back into it.
I showed up and I was like, Idon't know what I'm doing.
I have no clue what's happening.
(30:49):
Well, I mean, to be fair, youjumped in.
I think it was a couple ofsessions in.
It was session two.
SPEAKER_03 (30:53):
So
SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
session two for you guys, you went and did your
little mission and came back andthen met up with me.
Your little mission.
Your little mission that didn'tinvolve me.
So yeah, you guys went out anddid that and came back, and I
joined in on session two, but itwas weird for me jumping into
playing a character.
Like, now Gene has a little morecharacter, but in the first,
like, session, I didn't reallyknow who he was.
(31:16):
I'm curious to, like, pick yourbrain a little bit about, you
know, we don't have to do thisepisode, but...
We can.
To me, I'm thinking as a DM...
what I'm doing is playing a lotof characters.
And so like, I obviously there'sa huge difference between DMing
and being a player, but I wasn'tsure how you were going to be
when you came back.
Cause really you hadn't playedin a very long time, but I'm
(31:38):
surprised to hear how you'rekind of explaining and saying
like, Oh, I didn't know what wasgoing on.
Kind of thing.
Not that you, you know, I don'tthink you think that you did bad
or anything like that, but Ifeel like that's what DMing is.
You're playing, you know, 13characters.
Right, but it's differentwhenever a lot of what you do is
set the scene for the playersand let them interact with the
world.
I would say 80% of what I do isI build the stage and you guys
(32:00):
go and play on it.
And then the other 20% is memoving on to the next thing and
giving a little bit ofexposition or monologuing or
describing something.
But realistically, the amount ofshenanigans...
I just say, yeah, that works.
That happens.
Like being able to capture sixgoblins or make friends with the
(32:22):
Thrykreen spaceship that youimmobilized in space.
So stuff like that, like a lotof times I'm just setting the
scene and being like, go aheadand play.
Let's see what happens.
And that's why I don't put toomuch thought or prep into it,
because in the times where Ihave put tons and tons of work
into a session, we've never donethat.
(32:45):
The times where I've sat downand put so much thought process
or effort into it, I realizedyou guys write the story for me.
You guys already have ideas ofwhat you want to do in your
head.
And as long as I'm familiarenough in my head with my world
and who might be around or whatmight be around, I can usually
(33:05):
say something.
And I don't know, you can giveme an express review on DMing,
but...
I don't feel like I do a bad jobof that whenever we do that.
Oh, no, absolutely.
I think there was a questionbefore about how we kind of
blend together as DMs, how wekind of mix and match.
I think you're really good atkind of a long con approach.
(33:28):
So you're really good at kind oftying the story together and
pulling back to that random plotpoint.
Like, remember that thing?
Remember that spell thatAsmodeus randomly cast, you
know, two years ago?
Yeah, that might be coming upsometime soon, you know?
You also excel at pulling upprime opportunities.
That's what I'm going to say.
I'm going to say being anopportunist of sorts.
(33:49):
So if something happens whereyou think in the heat of the
moment and you're good atquickly picking up on it.
Like that would be really fun ifthat happened and then making it
happen.
Right.
I'm thinking about those thingsand trying to like, how, how can
I make that work?
And how can I get the playersthere?
And, you know, I don't want toleave them too.
And you're just like, Oh, thereit is right there.
(34:09):
Boom.
Take it.
Yeah.
I, okay.
I've never actually thought ofit that way because now that you
bring it up.
Yeah.
I think that that's why I don'tplan so much.
It's because I'm like, I set thestage that things will happen
naturally.
Right.
And I trust that they'll happenand then it'll be a fun time.
As opposed to like being like,OK, I'm going to I'm going to
plan out every single littlething that they're going to go
(34:32):
through and make sure that thebig moments happen.
I'm just like, they'll probablyhappen.
They do.
They always do.
Yeah.
Every every session, there'ssomething to talk about.
So, yeah, I think I actuallythink Patrick does a good job of
that, too, with like justcapitalizing on.
But I think he does it in a muchmore Whereas I'll do it in a
(34:53):
more narrative or trying to makethat player feel very special.
I think Patrick, every time hepulls out that moment, I'm
cracking up.
You know what I mean?
Every time that moment comes up,I'm like, oh my god, I cannot
believe he's doing this.
(35:13):
Patrick is what I'm going tocall the daring DM.
He's always willing to pull outa wacky scenario where it's
exactly that.
Like, I cannot believe you justdid that.
And the story that he tells, Ithink some of us, I would say
even most of us probably, are alittle more on the narrative
kind of cinematic side.
(35:34):
And it's not his style.
And I love it.
It's very...
lighthearted, it's comical, it'shumorous, but I'm still
thoroughly immersed in the storyand I end the sessions thinking
like, man, that was just a funtime.
Yeah.
I just really enjoyed the stuffthat happened today.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah, likewise, whenever I'mplaying in this one, so I always
(35:55):
try to make my characters have acool theme around them, right?
Like, I got to play my Genasicharacter at one point who was
very much like a Spartan.
He wore like a Spartan helmetand had his shield and his
spear.
But this time with Jean, Ireally wanted to capitalize on,
okay, literal, like, clericmagic is just ki blasts and
stuff from Dragon Ball and,like, going, like, all this
(36:17):
radiant energy just going allaround them.
So every time he's doingsomething, like, I try to
narrate it in the most, like,anime ki wave way possible.
Like, him sending off a sacredflame, but, like, Actively while
it's flying.
Shaping it to look like aneedle.
Or something like that.
I really like to over explain.
(36:38):
The little things he does.
Because realistically.
Him being a cleric.
Especially a life cleric.
Like a full on support.
I'm really just casting bless.
SPEAKER_03 (36:48):
Bless is still good, though.
Bless is the best spell.
SPEAKER_02 (36:53):
We slept on Bless for years.
There were years where no onecast Bless.
And now, anytime I have acharacter that has the chance to
have Bless, I'm not sleeping onit.
You can have a martialcharacter, like a paladin that
has Bless and its aura aroundit, and then it's still running
in and getting Divine Smitesoff, but it keeps Bless up the
whole time.
Because that spell is special.
(37:16):
The way it's been working forus.
I'm going to challenge you.
I'm going to say that Bless isnot what it slept on.
Because, as you think, unlessI'm incorrect, maybe Paladins, I
think Clerics are the only onesthat can cast Bless.
SPEAKER_03 (37:32):
Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02 (37:33):
I think so.
I have to double-check.
Realistically, think about it.
I've always loved Bless.
I've always claimed it's one ofmy favorite spells.
Even if I don't use it all thetime, I've always played Clerics
and I've always taken it.
It's always like you take CureWounds, you take Bless, Aid, and
then what else are you taking?
Guiding Bolt, of course.
But what's your flavor afterthat?
(37:53):
It's always been included inkind of my favorites.
I think Clerics are slept on, iswhat it is.
They're the most powerful class.
What do you mean?
I don't think enough people playClerics.
I think they play the TwilightCleric.
As I think about it, since thathas come out, people have been
playing that one more thananything.
We've had, like, three TwilightClerics, and there's only six of
(38:14):
us, and we've only played, like,three games.
Like, three different groups ofcharacters.
It's crazy.
It's strong.
It's flavorful.
It's interesting.
And there's something aboutClerics prior to then that
people are just not into.
I don't know if it's the supportvibe or what it is.
Life Cleric and Light Cleric aretwo of my favorite subclasses in
the game.
I love both of them.
They're awesome.
(38:34):
They're all fantastic.
Grave Cleric.
I mean, come on, that's thecoolest thing.
Twilight, super freaking cool.
Tempest, probably my favoriteabove all.
Forge Cleric is cool.
I like Forge.
I don't know a whole lot aboutthe later levels of some of the,
like the Forge.
No, me neither.
What was the natural?
I can't remember what thenatural one is.
Yeah, I don't know.
Oh, God.
Nature.
I'm going to call it NatureCleric.
(38:55):
I don't know.
But even some of the lesserknown ones are not bad.
They're just fucked on.
You know what?
I wasn't going to agree with youat first.
I now fully agree because I'veonly seen Twilight Clerics for
the last forever.
I know too much about TwilightCleric having never read the
class myself because as the DM,I usually just trust you guys to
(39:15):
know what your characters do.
That's why Patrick was missingso many abilities for so long
because I just trust you guys tofigure it out and tell me what
your characters do.
It's like how we play online andnobody can verify any roles.
I just trust that you guysaren't going to lie to me,
right?
Same deal.
I'm like, oh, they know whattheir character does.
They wouldn't lie to me.
And same dealio here where like,I don't read any of these
(39:35):
classes.
I haven't seen them.
I haven't read a new class in solong.
I just knew like, okay, I'mplaying Jean.
I'm going to play Life Cleric.
Done.
Look it up.
Put all the stuff on my statsheet.
I'm good.
And we've been playing longenough where we can kind of do
that.
We know you could probably name80% to 90% of the classes.
Like, oh yeah, there was thatone.
Like, oh, Death Cleric.
Yeah, I completely forgot thatone existed in the Monster
(39:56):
Manual or something, right?
Yeah.
But we can kind of pick a vibeand then roll with it,
SPEAKER_03 (40:00):
you know?
SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
Yeah, no, I agree.
There's so
SPEAKER_03 (40:03):
many classes now.
SPEAKER_02 (40:04):
It's all the new stuff, too.
I still haven't read through the2024 handbook.
Oh, I don't even own a copy.
It's because after talking toyou guys, like, one, you know,
Wizard has already taken a lotof my money when I go play
Magic, right?
I am trying my best not to spendtoo much because I don't want to
give Hasbro that much money.
(40:27):
But I like the real cards and Idon't want to proxy them because
then I'll get the urge to getthe expensive cards.
And I don't want that urge.
I want to just have the cards atthe power level of the tables I
play at.
And so it gives you a dilemmabecause I don't want to give
money to Big Hasbro either.
No one's taking my money.
(40:47):
Yeah, I don't want to give moneyto Big Hasbro.
So I don't own the 2024handbook.
I don't anticipate buying itbecause I don't know if we're
ever going to play it.
5e is just so good and if weneed more 5e content guess where
we can go there's this websitespelled it's called google and
you can look up anything youwant on it and if you go in
(41:10):
there and you look for likeplayer made content you can find
the best stuff and use it Likethe Tome of Heroes, right?
I was like spelljammers here.
They've got black powdersubclasses in the Tome of
Heroes.
So pick out like if you want touse Tome of Heroes and go for
it.
You let me use Tome of Heroeswhenever I did.
Whenever we did your Christmasone off because I wanted to use
(41:30):
the fire and ice like subclassfor Paladin.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And that was super fun.
I didn't think it was thatpowerful.
I was like these other Paladinsfrom the player's handbook are
way more powerful, but I want toplay this one.
Just what we want to play atthis point.
I played the Voltaren.
Was that Purple Dragon Knight?
Yeah.
Worst class ever.
I can't imagine what anyonewould ever play it.
(41:51):
He had one ability that was likefor that subclass.
I don't think I got to use it.
You're better off just playing aCavalier.
Play anything else.
Don't play Purple Dragon Knight.
Which is a shame because they'reso thematically cool.
I love them.
They're like this commandingkind of fighter.
But the abilities are just sobad.
Yeah.
But I had to play it just to saythat I did.
(42:11):
Because I just recently, and Iknow we've talked about this in
previous episodes of thepodcast, there were other
classes that I, or we'll justsay classes, that I hadn't
played.
And since we've stopped thepodcast, I've played every one.
I've played Warlock.
Wow.
And Paladin, I think, that Ihadn't played at the time.
(42:32):
I've played them all now.
I don't know if there's one Ihaven't played.
I mean, there probably is,right?
Because I don't play that often.
Could be.
I've never played Articifer.
It's...
interesting.
Not my favorite class, by anymeans, but it's...
I think it's cool thematically.
(42:52):
So, yeah, I don't know.
I'll...
Hopefully, I get to play morecharacters in the future.
Sean was talking to me a littlebit about having another arc
planned out for his thing, buthe's not done yet.
Pat, obviously, is going to havehis next thing he wants to do.
I would feel bad stepping oneverybody's DMing toes if I was
like, hey, I have the nextthree-year campaign ready.
Are you guys ready?
(43:12):
I don't think you'd be steppingon anybody's toes.
I think you should put it outthere and put the vibe in that
you would like to run again.
I would let Pat and Maybe Seanrun their course.
Yeah, maybe we do like a spelljammer for a little bit, then go
into their next arc that theywant to do and then run the next
big thing.
Maybe I'd be into that.
(43:34):
Yeah, I think I think that's agood idea.
I would run for chase more thananything or than anything.
You want him to run something?
Yeah.
yes he's well he's the only onethat hasn't run for anybody i
think he was telling me he waslike i don't know if i should be
on an episode if i haven't dm'dbefore and i was like dude you
don't need to dm what i need isi was like i want you to come in
and i want you to tell the storyof how we started playing dnd
(43:58):
together i want you to tell howi got you to be my friend and
how i came to your door everysaturday and woke you up because
i was bored and alone in collegeand then I want to, I want to
tell the story about like, causehim and I started playing around
the same time.
He, he started the session afterme for the, for the, for the
lanky Eric campaign.
(44:19):
So he's one session newer to Dand D than me.
So yeah, I want, I want him totell those stories as a player
and then maybe we canre-interview him on like, you
know, talking about hisexperience as a DM for the first
time.
That's exactly what you do.
You do two weeks in a row withChase.
(44:39):
It's the pre-workout.
How's it going?
How are you feeling beforehand?
The tailgate.
Afterwards, you just did it.
How did it go?
What were you thinking the wholetime?
What do you think went well?
I'd love to actually watch thoseback-to-back.
I think that would be cool.
We've got to plan that out.
Likewise, Sean pitched an idea.
Since you're listening to usplan things and talk things out,
(45:04):
Sean was like, I would love todo to actually do a live play,
like record some sessions thatwe play.
And I was like, I mean, it'seasy for me to set up like I
could set it up to where all ofour faces are there.
And we have like all the audiofrom my end, like it would be
super easy for me to set up.
So that might be if everybody islike permission for that in like
(45:26):
a start at the start of acampaign, you know, that could
be some good content to put outthere.
Could be.
It could be.
I think mostly, but I just don'twant it to feel performative.
Like we're not playing upanything for the audience.
I would still want it to just beour sessions.
They just happen to me online.
Yeah, I think we would have tolike sit down and have a talk
(45:47):
with everybody.
Yeah.
And kind of the feel that we'regoing for.
because I'm by no means going tonot be myself or not make jokes
or not do something I want to doin the game because we're on
camera.
I'm going to live my characterthe way I want to play that
character.
Yeah, exactly.
Luckily, I feel like all of ourcharacters typically are putting
in the work to just tell astory.
No one's doing anything theyshouldn't be doing anyways.
(46:10):
No one's just a bunch ofsquirrels or anything.
Yeah, no one's just a bunch ofsquirrels.
But yeah.
Okay.
No, I think we've got a lot ofgood things to put out there.
I have one more piece of advicethat I would like us to give
since we didn't get into thefinance stuff.
I know we're getting close tothe end of the episode though,
but I have one more promptbecause I think this one's a
little bit fun and we both havegood advice to give on it.
(46:31):
So DMs, how do you deal?
This is from user no status1219.
DMs, how do you deal withquestions like why us when the
NPC is stronger?
I'm talking about questions likeif X is so powerful, why doesn't
he come and solve this?
Why not just ask the city guard?
Why doesn't XYZ intervene?
(46:52):
Why doesn't this NPC enjoy theparty if they want the same
thing as us?
Why do we have to do all thework?
I notice these questions arevery common at every table, and
I'm looking for clever ways todeal with them when my players
will inevitably ask.
Hmm.
I don't feel like that comes upvery often at all at our tables,
(47:12):
and I don't know if that'sbecause we're experienced and
we've worked through that.
Obviously, I've DMed a lot ofgames, but far and in between,
they're very scattered.
I wouldn't say I'm aprofessional DM by any means.
I don't think about thatusually.
Maybe that's something thatcomes up.
I don't know.
You've played for me, Seth.
Have you ever felt like that wasthe case?
(47:36):
No, but I made this joke in thefirst session I was in Patrick's
campaign.
Because remember that he had ushelping the city guard.
And I looked at the main guy Iargued with, remember?
Because he was being a jerk tous.
Because we were the mercenariesthat were hired to help out.
(47:58):
And so he's talking to us, and Iwas like...
He was like, yeah, so these guysare apparently supposed to help
us, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, hey, they hiredus here to do this.
If you're so special, why don'tyou go do it?
And so I did argue with the guy,and I was like, no, we're doing
your job for you.
Oh, you want to go out andpatrol?
Like...
okay, we're going to do the samething, but over here where
(48:19):
things are happening.
I feel like that's, that's agood example of like a situation
where that didn't kind of unfoldthough, because you were arguing
because he was a jerk.
Like I expected that.
Like, of course he's not goingto help us because you know, he
may be better than us for all weknow, but he's a douche.
Yeah, of course, he's going todo his thing.
I remember he asked me, he waslike, do you know what the city
(48:42):
guard does?
And I said, walk around and lookfor problems.
That was a hard job.
I was like, walk around and lookfor problems.
And he goes, yeah.
And I said, so what do you wantus to do?
The same thing.
And he goes, yes.
So it's that I've had such ablast in Patrick's campaign.
(49:04):
And I can't think of any othersituation like that, like what
that user was kind of askingabout.
But I feel like there's always areason.
Like, if you're immersed kind ofin your character and you're
thinking about the world at handor the situation, whatever it
may be, you're always thinking,you know, like, we were in a big
(49:26):
fight with an angel in hell atthe end of one of our campaigns,
right?
And, you know...
She was off doing another thing,and that was fine.
She wasn't helping us becauseshe was handling that thing over
there, and we had other peoplethat were helping us along the
way or that we hadn't seen in awhile.
They were doing this, or theywere playing their own role in
(49:46):
the war at hand.
Or, for instance, in the battleHell Riders versus Yinagoo and
his gnolls, you guys had yourbattle happening on the
battlefield while you watchedZariel and Yinagoo fight in the
sky.
yeah that was a big deal and ididn't feel like oh why isn't
she over here she clearly hadher hands full over there yeah
(50:08):
exactly i think having thosethings happen off screen or like
having those characters beinginvolved is important because
it's like in storm king'sthunder you guys had two giant
companions like you haddifferent companions that came
along with you for a while andthey did help out but combat was
notably harder And thenlikewise, my question to this
person's player is if they doask and they're like, oh, well,
(50:30):
if Dern's giving us the quest ofthe Yawning Portal, the place he
has to take care of and owns anddoesn't want to adventure
anymore, why doesn't he go takecare of it?
Why is he telling us to do it ifhe's so powerful?
My question would be to thosecharacters, what, you don't want
an adventure?
You don't want money?
I mean, we'll go do it.
You don't want to go take onthis big challenge, this big,
uh, you know, uh, extravagantadventure.
Like I think the answer isusually like, Hey, we're paying
(50:54):
you to do it.
So we don't have to, or, or likeget off his butt and go on this
adventure.
No, he's got you.
He's got money to give you.
Or like the, the big arch magehires you, right?
He needs you to go do something.
He's super powerful.
He can cast time stop maybe.
But at the same time, he needsyou to go do this.
Cause he has work to do.
He has things to conjure andspells to cast.
UNKNOWN (51:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:15):
Do you think it's kind of like an egotistical
problem?
Maybe.
Do you think that the playersare just thinking, well, I'm the
main character, so why isn't itall happening here?
Well, actually, sure, you're themain character of this game, but
in this world, there are thingslarger than you.
And that's how it is.
I think the best advice you cangive for this is make sure, like
(51:36):
to the DM specifically, if thisis a problem at your table,
characters are constantly like,why do we have to do this?
Then...
Make sure that those NPCs havesomething going on and they're
not just sitting at home.
Like you don't want to beinvested.
Don't have him come walk back inon the NPC and he's just sitting
back on the couch drinking andplaying Helldivers 2.
(51:59):
Maybe maybe they come back andthey're in the middle of
something crazy or they'reyelling at someone or meeting
with a high ranking official.
Have something going on aroundthe characters.
The world does still move whileyour players are playing.
This actually came up inBaldur's Gate.
It's not a huge point that'smade or anything, but one of the
(52:20):
dialogue options that I had tochoose at one point was like, if
Mistress is so powerful, whydoesn't she handle it herself?
And one of the characters islike, what's his name?
Owl?
Like the big god above all thegods?
Sure, we'll go with that.
Aeos or Owl or something likethat.
They're like...
That is strictly forbidden.
(52:42):
Like the gods are not allowed tointervene with what we're doing
down here.
Could she?
Absolutely.
But she'd be breaking a lot ofrules.
Is what they said.
So there are answers to thosequestions when it comes to
characters like that.
Like, oh, if you're able tocommunicate with this god, why
don't they solve all yourproblems?
That's always interesting in theDivine campaigns, right?
(53:02):
We've seen that in recent onesthat we've played, where it's
like,
SPEAKER_03 (53:05):
well, you know,
SPEAKER_02 (53:06):
they're really powerful, they're talking to us,
but why aren't they talking tothat person?
Why aren't they giving us...
Why are they talking in riddles?
For what reason?
Why don't you just tell us whatwe need to do?
Yeah, because they'reomnipotent.
They know everything.
Oh, yeah, that's totally fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What was that guy's name inPharaoh?
(53:28):
I didn't put it up.
Oh, no, you weren't there.
That was such a good...
We could talk about it anotherday, but you missed out, man.
That was not here right there.
I know.
I talked to Sean about it alittle bit last week.
We're like, man, I wish I couldhave been a part of that.
But I told him, I was like,dude, I wish I could have been
there, but I was going throughthe hardest times of my life.
(53:48):
And now that they're over, I'mglad to be back in a D&D.
Thank you, man.
Make the good D&D memories.
Heck yeah.
And that's the whole thing.
Did I go away for a while?
Yeah.
But finally I'm able to comeback and do this kind of stuff.
And it feels really good to beable to sit down and play or sit
down and record a coupleepisodes of the podcast so we
(54:09):
can all talk about it.
It's nice that I got theexperiences that I got, but as
we've said in many, manyepisodes of Table Talk Friday, a
D&D podcast on Table TalkFriday, or patreon.com slash
tabletalkfriday over on Patreon.
More on the YouTube channel.
You know, all these places thatmay or may not be posted.
This is like the one hobby thatcan't go away.
(54:30):
Especially for our group,because if we didn't have this,
I feel like we might not begoing to Sean's wedding next
week.
Or...
It's possible.
Or like, we might not have allthis stuff planned, and we might
not be planning to all see eachother at all these times.
We might have all fallen apart.
So...
You gotta have, you gotta havesomething that keeps you all
together.
You know, the older you get, Ithink it's more important to
(54:51):
whether it's Minecraft or D andD or I don't know, book club,
you know, whatever you got, justhave some fun.
Maybe like with your friends.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's the most important thing.
And with that, thank you guys somuch for listening to this
episode of Table Talk Friday, aD&D podcast, as I just
mentioned, in a very, verystuttery, difficult kind of way.
(55:12):
You can find us over onPatreon.com slash Table Talk
Friday.
We have many, many perks foryou.
You can get the episodes a weekearly.
You can do an exclusive postshow.
Listen to that, which we'reabout to record right after this
for maybe 15, 20 minutes beforeI have to go see Fantastic Four,
which I'm very excited to see.
outside of that though if youjust want to support listen to
us on youtube listen to us onall your podcast services all
(55:35):
over the globe you know itshould be on every single one if
you search us up and with that ithink i'm gonna need oh my god i
didn't even think about whichcharacter i could question right
now shaw shaw's gonna have totake us out here but but i'm i'm
not the back This is blasphemy.
(55:57):
You have to do it.
I made Patrick do it, and I madeSean do it.
I like his voice.
Thanks all for watching,listening in on your stones or
whatever you got.
I'm just a friendly courier.
I don't really know what I'mdoing here.
I'm really just delivering thisletter, so if you could just
(56:18):
leave me alone, that would bereal cool.
So, yeah, just have a good timeand leave me alone.
Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_01 (56:25):
Thank you for listening to Table Talk Friday.
For more information, advice,questions, comments, and
concerns, you can email the boysat tabletalkfriday at gmail.com.
And if you'd like to tell yourown stories, why don't you hit
(56:49):
them up there?
Send an inquiry or something, asending spell.
Thank you very much forlistening and please follow and
come back next week.
Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
Hello and welcome to Table Talk Friday, your weekly
dose of D&D hosted by three boysin a bedroom.
If you like their style, you canfollow them on Instagram,
YouTube and other social mediaplatforms.
And now, back to the boys.
SPEAKER_02 (00:24):
Welcome to Table Talk Friday, a D&D podcast where
two best friends are hanging outin separate bedrooms all the way
across the country from eachother.
My name is formerly SethPittman, and I'm joined today by
one of my best friends, AndrewRomano.
Drew, how are you doing?
Hello, formerly.
I'm doing fantastic today.
(00:46):
I'm not going to lie, I got alittle nostalgic there because I
forgot our intro.
Yeah.
It's been that long.
To be honest, I want to record acouple more of the voice ones
again because it's hard for meto remember the exact script
every time we start.
But I did in the episode I didwith Patrick a few weeks ago.
I forgot the...
Pat, how are you doing today?
And I was like, dang it.
(01:07):
I forgot it.
But I have still had peopledoing the outro things where I'm
like, all right, now take usout.
You totally ruined our brand.
We might as well just change thename of the podcast.
Might as well change the name tolike...
Table Talk Thursday.
Magic the Gathering Saturdays.
It's Saturday where we alwayspost.
Talk about Magic the Gathering.
I'm going to have to wait forone of these topics, but I
(01:28):
wanted Pat to be on so bad todayso that we can pitch you like a
whole thing for Magic.
Like, dude, you have to get intoit.
You have to play.
You guys convinced me.
I know.
You said, let's play.
You hyped it up.
We're going to do this onlinething.
We're going to try to likeDiscord, you know, whatever.
We're going to make it work,right?
It's just so different.
You told me the commander deckthat I needed.
(01:50):
Yeah, we did that.
Yeah, we did that.
I know.
I was thinking about it, too.
I was like, man, we got to getDrew to play because...
I think once you start playing,you're going to be like, oh, now
I have to go to a store andplay, or now I have to have
other people play with me.
Because I did test out SpellTable the other day, though,
because I wanted to learn howto...
I wanted to try it online, andit actually worked out pretty
(02:10):
well.
I joined in with threestrangers, and we played
Commander, the four of us, andit went really well.
I was surprised.
Now, what do you know aboutmagic right now?
Okay, so...
It has been a long time.
Now, when I first got intoMagic, remember, we were playing
D&D, and I was like, oh, no, Ican't be bothered.
(02:31):
I'm just so busy with D&D, and Icouldn't bother.
No, no, no, no, no.
We were into Magic first.
Oh, you're right, you were theother
SPEAKER_03 (02:38):
way
SPEAKER_02 (02:38):
around.
Yeah, we played Magic formonths, just you and I.
I remember specifically, we wereplaying like the Kaladesh
starter kit decks that we hadmade.
Oh, Kaladesh, yes.
And we sat in my room on thattiny little table, and you and I
played for hours.
One time, one of our games wentover an hour with a standard
(02:59):
60-card deck in 20 life becausewe were at a stalemate, and I
eventually pulled it out withone card.
Was that the Sphinx?
Yeah, it was the Sphinx ofMagosi.
I still have it in my binder.
The Sphinx of Magosi.
I remember that, dude.
That was crazy.
So, Magic is a lot different nowin 2025.
Probably all the franchisingkind of stuff?
Yeah, I was going to explain toyou Universes Beyond because
(03:21):
there's so many other propertiescoming out into Magic.
And, you know, Pat and I talkedabout it a little bit moderately
okay with me.
Like, depending on the thing,Spider-Man's about to come out.
And I'm like, I don't really...
I'm not a big fan of...
What?!
UNKNOWN (00:00):
!
SPEAKER_02 (03:34):
Yeah, you know that?
Next set is Spider-Man.
Why?
What is driving these weirdcollabs?
Money, baby.
The Fortnite-ification.
You gotta have money.
Final Fantasy was a huge hit.
It went crazy, but in myopinion, Final Fantasy makes a
lot of sense, right?
It's still fantasy.
You could even see it being partof the D&D multiverse, right?
(03:58):
No, I could see it.
Yeah.
So Final Fantasy made a lot ofsense.
Some of my favorite charactersfrom video games were in there.
And so, of course, I picked upsome Final Fantasy stuff.
I bought the cloud deck.
I trade it to the cloud deck wasone hundred and twenty dollars.
But do you think I paid that?
No, I I got enough cards in theevents that we did at Magic Con
that I traded them to a vendorand paid fifty dollars.
(04:20):
But yeah, so crazy stuff.
But it's good.
Oh, the deck is amazing.
Like, I love it.
It's all equipment, so it'sVoltron.
You throw Cloud down, andequipment automatically attaches
to him, and then you startswinging.
Like, it's full-on, like, aggroVoltron.
Oh, that is cool.
(04:41):
So I love it, and I also made,from Final Fantasy XV, a Noctis
deck, which is three differentcolors, artifacts, again, but
not equipment.
Noctis can pay three.
He has lifelink.
He's a 4-3.
You pay three life...
And you can bring an artifactwith paying its cost back from
the graveyard to thebattlefield.
So like cards that like have ETBtriggers, like Solemn
(05:05):
Simulacrum, you go and get aland out of your deck, put it on
the battlefield tapped, right?
So you can then swing thatcreature, let it die.
It also has a death trigger.
You draw a card, goes to yourgraveyard, then you pay four
again, pay three life, bring itback from the graveyard, do it
all again, right?
Stuff like that.
I love the lifeline combos.
(05:27):
Yeah.
So it's, um, there's a lot offun stuff, but I would
definitely recommend buy apre-con deck.
Me, you and Pat got to gettogether so we can do this, you
know, because I would love to.
Patrick was telling me he's gotlike a bracket two.
There's a whole bracket systemfor our commander decks are set
up and we got to teach you howto play commander.
I know you're not into the idea.
I know you're not super into theidea of like singleton and all
(05:50):
that, not being able to likestrategize as much.
It's just so fun.
So I played it the one timebefore.
I think it was with Pat back incollege.
And I enjoyed it.
It just threw me off.
To me, I really like the idea.
And it's probably the exact samething.
So I'm probably just, you know,just rambling on about crap.
(06:11):
But I like the idea that whenyou're playing non-commander,
you're playing modern orstandard, did they call it?
Yeah.
That you could put up to four inthere.
Not that you want to have...
of every card because that getsreally boring too but i feel
like you had more options whichis a silly argument because
there's 100 cards in a commanderdeck yeah so really i just need
to play the game and stopplaying yeah honestly what we
(06:34):
could do that would make it alot easier than getting you to
go buy something is we can setyou up on a virtual thing and
just have you like i could icould just send you a deck list
and be like here play one of mydecks and you go into the play
tester on there you broadcastyour screen into discord or
something And then we can justsee you moving the deck
virtually so you can try it,right?
And then be like, okay, I'm downto spend$40 on this, right?
(06:56):
And then next thing you know,two grand's down the drain.
And I have no money left and I'maddicted to magic.
Luckily, that hasn't happened tome in the same way that I feel
like it could have in the past.
But I don't want to stick onmagic too long because this is a
D&D podcast.
I have one more life topicoutside of this that is not D&D
(07:17):
related.
And you know how I got you thoseROM hacks, those Pokemon ROM
hacks in the past?
Yeah, I played just the otherday.
Okay, I've got a pitch for youon this too.
A popular YouTuber namedAlpharad has, and I bet some
people listening know this name,has created a Pokemon ROM hack
called Super Mario Mon.
(07:39):
And it is a full Pokemon.
It is a full Pokemon.
Eight gyms battling one.
You're playing as Mario.
Luigi tags along sometimes.
And you are catching things fromthe Mushroom Kingdom and
battling them against Mariocharacters.
And you're racing Bowser becauseyou have to finish first so he
doesn't get to Princess Peachand make the wish.
(08:03):
Make the wish?
Yeah, so the whole overlyingstory or whatever, the
overarching story is you asMario and Luigi...
Princess Peach has created thisgame because now, like, the hat
from Mario Odyssey that, like,captures things, they're using
these to capture differentcreatures from the Mushroom
Kingdom because Princess Peachhas made a game to where if you
(08:26):
participate in this, at the veryend, if you capture, get all
eight Power Stars first, theeight Power Stars instead of
gyms, if you get all eight ofthem first, you get a wish.
I don't know how that works.
Oh, okay.
So Bowser hears about this andit's flipping out.
He's like, why did you notinvite me to play this game?
I should be playing this gametoo.
And there's a couple of littletwists and turns that are really
(08:48):
silly of the, that he does.
Cause there's specific rules youhave to follow.
And he's like, I'm not doingthat.
I'm not following these rules.
And, but I started playing this.
I played it for like six hoursyesterday because at the end of
the day, Gabby's been NuzlockingPokemon Y on the 3DS and, So
she's trying to get really goodat nuzlocks and stuff.
(09:10):
And so I was like, oh, I'll playone.
And so I start playing this.
And it has a nuzlock mode andall the kinds of rules you can
do on it.
It has all this stuff built intothe game.
Like difficulties, nuzlock mode,all of that.
And I was like, hey, you knowwhat?
I'll play this game and thenI'll try nuzlocking it.
It's so fun.
It's so cool.
(09:31):
Or...
Or how repetitive that thesePokemon games have become over
time.
I hear a lot of peoplecomplaining about how it's like
the same old crap all the timeand they're not putting as many
Pokemon on as they used to.
For what reason are they notcatering to the audience by
putting in different game modeslike Nuzlocke?
They actually do.
Indeed, I couldn't tell youbecause I'm like, this was
(09:53):
completely free.
It's on my phone.
Allegedly, it's allegedly on myphone.
you know hypothetically yeahthis alleged pokemon rom hack is
allegedly on my phone and it'sso good and like didn't do any
work for it it's just there butone question before we move on
because i want to hit on thismario pokemon kind of a vibe it
(10:17):
makes me think of this wholepokemon 5e thing that we did for
a while what is meta poke mariosuper mario mon Super Mario?
What is meta, you're saying?
Yeah, like, what is your go-to?
So, like, let's say you'replaying Fire Red.
So, my starter, I did choose theFire starter, which was a
(10:40):
Bob-omb.
And when he evolves, his secondstage is one of the Bob-ombs
that has the red arms and theboxing gloves.
So, he's my main guy right now.
All my other guys are just okay.
There's this, like, I reallydon't know some of the
creatures.
There's so many Mario games andstuff that I'm probably not
familiar with.
(11:01):
So I don't know all of thesecreatures, but there's this one
that's like a little like bulblooking thing.
And it's basically like a grassstarter kind of, but not.
Piranha Plant is one of theother starters you can get.
Oh, heck yeah.
But it's like this little grassbulb looking thing and it knows
moves like Mega Drain and stuff.
(11:22):
And so I've been using this onetoo and it's been helping me out
a good bit.
But yeah, Bob-omb's been like mysweeper.
And I have the level cap mode onso you can't go above a certain
level.
Also, they built in like becauseof the Nuzlocke rules, they give
you like the infinite rare candystuff.
That way if you want to justlike go to the level cap, go to
the next thing, you don't haveto spend time grinding.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
(11:43):
Yeah, so it's been really cool,really fun.
I've been enjoying my gaminglife recently.
Have you been playing anythingoutside the usual?
No, just a little bit of thatPokemon game.
There was something Adventures,Dark Adventures.
Yeah.
Playing a little bit of Hunt.
Oh, well, actually, so not superoutside of Realm, I'm going to
(12:06):
say.
Minecraft, we have beenplaying...
Pretty frequently on a weeklybasis.
Really?
I would say maybe the last threemonths.
We had six people on the otherday grinding away.
We got full netherite gear.
We have several houses.
We're building our secondstorage room that's got 300
(12:26):
double chests in it.
We're going pretty hard rightnow.
That's crazy.
So I leveled up to the plusrealm or something like that so
it stays open all the time.
So we have a Google plan.
This is you and the friends Iknow from before, or this is a
different group?
This is me, my wife, hersisters, and then Malachi and
(12:52):
Tyler.
Wow.
Okay.
That's fun.
We've been kicking it, man.
We've been having a lot of fun.
Even the nights where you don'tsay a whole lot of words, it's
like, let's get on Minecraft andchop some trees for an hour and
kick it.
Gabi and I are just now startingAct 3 of Baldur's Gate together.
So out of the three acts, wefinished two full basically D&D
(13:13):
campaigns at this point.
We're going into Act 3.
I think we're at like 50 hoursinto the game.
Really?
Okay, you're digging in.
Yeah, we've been playing everynight.
And it's been phenomenal becauseI've seen so much stuff I didn't
see the first time.
Like...
I'm seeing the same places, butI'm getting different options.
Different things are happening.
I completely forgot about onething we were supposed to do.
(13:35):
So we ended up triggering one ofthose in-game events that's
like, you can't go back fromhere.
And we didn't read the prompt.
We just clicked go on the nextthing.
And so we missed a quest, butit's changed everything because
I was expecting these charactersto end up in a place.
Next thing I know, they're notthere anymore.
This is something you've done inyour previous playthroughs.
Right, I did it.
(13:56):
Yeah, I'm hitting a bit ofuncharted territory.
And in my one run through, therewas a character I didn't
interact with that's supposed toshow up later because I forgot.
I just was like, oh, I didn'tsee it.
And then this one, I got a wholenew like three, four minutes of
cut scene because they actuallywere there this time and we
actually interacted with them.
So I'm hitting unchartedterritory for a lot of things.
(14:16):
And it's it's pretty cool.
So now it's gotten me like I'mback on the Pokemon bug.
I'm on the Baldur's Gate bug.
I got to finish Final Fantasy16.
I've been playing Helldivers 2consistently.
There's so there's so much.
And I only came for like a fewhours a day.
So I don't even have the time todo all of it.
No, I've I've been honestlywanting to do nothing but a
(14:37):
game, even just the same oldstuff.
This dog has taken all my time.
I
SPEAKER_03 (14:42):
wait
SPEAKER_02 (14:42):
for him to fall asleep.
He's adorable.
He's a menace, but he's alsojust...
I love this dog so much, it'sridiculous.
Are you guys training him?
Yeah, no, we train him everyday.
We have a whole regiment withhim, and I gotta say, I don't
know how quickly dogs aresupposed to learn.
I've had dogs around me my wholelife, but I've never had my own.
(15:04):
I'm in charge of this dog,making sure his well-being is
all that, blah, blah, blah.
Morning's so quick.
It's not great at like retainingeverything, but drawing the
connections is like instant.
In one morning in like 10minutes, I said like, I kind of
wanted him to like give me hispaw, right?
So I said paw a couple of timesand I grabbed his hand and put
it in my hand and gave him atreat.
(15:26):
After about 10 minutes, he wasdoing it, putting his hand in my
hand to get the treat.
It's crazy how quick they pickup on stuff.
I don't know.
They're putting something in thewater.
I don't know.
I don't know what it is, but.
You know, I had an animalrecently.
And she has also been learning,but not in the same way.
It's like she's so comfortablein the house now that she's
(15:46):
learned she can jump from thefloor to the counter.
Oh, she's like, wow.
Yeah, she's she's jumping like,you know, over three feet up
into the air to get onto things.
And so she's she's discoveringher talents.
But because of this, what theyrecommend you do, if you look it
up online, is put double sidedtape on those surfaces you don't
want her on, because the secondtheir claws touch it, they're
(16:07):
like, no, no, I'm not going hereanymore.
Really?
So she was getting on our barstools and getting on a
different counter that was alittle out of reach.
She was like able to get onto itand then jump across to get to
the counter.
So I put double sided tape upthere and she'll go up and
she'll just like slowly paw thecounter like I just want to be
up there.
But also her progress, her mainprogress is in the fact that she
(16:33):
will sleep next to us in thebed.
It used to be she would like gosit in the windowsill or like
kind of roam around at night andkeep us up really late now at
bedtime she is laid up againstone of us yesterday she's
sleeping against her headagainst Gabby the top of Gabby's
head she's just like nuzzled upsleeping and then she wakes us
(16:54):
up at her like the time she eatsin the morning so she's like
it's like we're hitting 4 a.m.
she usually eats at like 5 andif we're hitting 4 a.m.
she's like hey where's my foodyou guys have not fed me it's
been multiple hours.
Why are you guys speeders soearly?
We have to be up early.
Army lifestyle, baby.
No, you're wrong.
(17:18):
I go to bed at 9pm and I get upat like 4 or 5.
I gotta start going to bed alittle bit early.
I've been going to bed around11, which...
is earlier than in the morning.
I have most of my life.
Yeah, in the morning.
And I get up, I want to spendmore time with the dog in the
morning.
I want to sit down and train alittle bit more and play with
(17:39):
him just so he's got somethinggoing on.
I think I'm going to go to bed alittle bit earlier.
But that's taken away more frommy gaming lifestyle.
I get no games.
Everybody gets in the way ofgames.
I'm glad that Gabby likes togame as much as she does because
she'll like play her.
If I'm like, I want to play HeldIrish tonight, she'll like sit
and play her Nuzlocke and we'llbe in the same space or like,
(18:00):
OK, we're grinding Baldur'sGate.
We're doing Baldur's Gatetonight.
So it's nice to be on there.
I was going to I was going tosay you have to play it like.
You have to do it.
It's so good.
And it's exactly what you want.
I listened.
I listened back to a bunch ofepisodes recently because, you
know, I was getting nostalgicfor the podcast.
And I listened to the episodewhere Zach and I are just
(18:20):
pitching Baldur's Gate to youthe whole time.
We're just like telling you howgreat it is.
We have that episode.
You mean that 12, 13, 14episodes where it was nothing
but.
Yes, but this is like rightafter the game came out and Zach
and I were still playing it.
And we were like, dude, Drew,you have to play.
It's everything you want.
UNKNOWN (18:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (18:38):
I will.
I'll get to it.
At this point now, what is it?
Two years old?
Year old?
Yeah, almost.
I think it's two years old.
Is it on discount yet?
It has been, but I don't thinkit's on a huge discount.
I've seen it on discount.
See, I'm looking for that sale.
So at this point, it's July.
I could probably wait till BlackFriday.
No, I think you should just buyit.
(18:59):
I know you have enough money tobuy Baldur's Gate.
I do, but do I want it that bad?
I could wait.
I could wait for it to getcheaper.
Okay, so I'm going to try alittle segment with you, okay?
I did this on the podcast bymyself, and I did this on the
podcast with Sean.
I have a prompt.
I'm going to go over it.
We might get into the D&Dfinance stuff a little bit
(19:21):
later, but if not, we can saveit for another episode.
So, I'm going to pitch this toyou.
Do I need alcohol for this?
No, no, no.
So this is userlieenvironmental5207 over on the
D&D subreddit says, I'm playingin a new campaign into one
that's already been going for awhile.
(19:42):
I haven't been here long enoughto know how a regular session
goes yet, but I've played in twoso far.
Both.
Three hours long.
Reasonable.
Reasonable.
I mean, that's about how longours are.
In both of them, for the firsthour and a half, 98% of that
time was listening to the DMdescribe our journey on a ship
and entry into a new city.
The rest of the session isexactly the same.
(20:04):
I don't really know why hestipulated the hour and a half
here if the whole session wasthis way.
You know, first hour and a half,it was 98% of the DM just
narrating.
So was the rest of this session.
Yeah, you could have just saidthe whole time, but that's a
weird way to phrase it.
He asked us how we react tothings and what we'd like to do
about three times in eithersession.
So...
(20:24):
There hasn't been even muchchance to roleplay or explore,
nor has there been any combat.
None.
The DM himself and the playersall seem awesome, but it feels
less like playing D&D and morelike listening to a writer
describe a fixed story in realtime.
Just wondering, is this normal?
In the campaigns I run, as wellas the others that I've been in,
(20:46):
60% of the session has beendirected by and played out by
the PLAYERS, in all caps.
Just looking for some secondaryinput.
Is this normal, Drew?
Is this normal?
No, absolutely not.
I've heard a lot of horrorstories from D&D games that just
went wrong or the DM was crazyor the players were murder hobos
or whatever it would be.
(21:07):
I've never heard of a game thatwas just a cinematic story told
by one person.
That's so weird.
It's not even fun.
As a DM, I love talking about myhomebrew world that I've worked
on for millennia.
But I would never sit here andjust talk at the players the
whole time.
It would be boring.
(21:27):
If I was in this scenario and Iwas a player, I would be sitting
there and then about fiveminutes in to just the monologue
where I haven't been, nothing'sbeen narrated around me or like
you're just describing the wholething.
I'd be five minutes in, I'dstart thinking, when do we play?
And then 10 minutes in, I'dstart thinking, should I say
something?
Should I speak up?
15 minutes in, I would go, I'mgonna sit back on my phone and
(21:50):
look at it until we actually dosomething.
30 minutes in, I'm leaving.
Yeah.
I couldn't do it.
I think it's difficult, andmaybe you feel the same way, but
as people who have played withthe same group of what I would
say are excellent players, andhaving a very specific scenario,
(22:13):
like a certain culture at thetable, I don't know how I would
react to that, because it's justnever happened.
I would like to think, like youwere saying, 30 minutes in, that
I would just kind of start tolounge back a little bit.
But I feel like we wouldquestion it.
Let's just say, you know, Pat'srunning a game.
I feel like you and me wouldstart eyeballing each other.
Like, we even rolled this 45minutes in.
(22:33):
Like, should we take a break?
Maybe I like chat like, hey, canwe talk for a second?
Oh, for sure.
On anything yet?
I mean, there's everybody.
We're all playing a game here.
I want to I want to play.
Yeah.
And that's how I would say,like, we have good
communication.
If we have ever had a problem,we've always been able to talk
(22:53):
about it pretty quickly andeasily.
I don't think we've really hadmany problems we've had to talk
about.
Yeah, I don't think so.
But like if this scenario cameup, which it never will, I would
definitely instantly afterwardsbe like, hey, dude, we didn't
play today.
You kind of just told us whatwas going on.
I probably wouldn't do it withthe whole group there.
I'd be like, hey, can I get youfor like five minutes?
(23:16):
Yeah, I guess like a privatemoment afterwards.
But I don't.
I would stay there the wholetime, but I just might out of
respect.
Like, you know, if you wererunning a game and you did that,
like, obviously you've run somany incredible sessions over
the years.
I'd be like, well, maybe I'lllet Seth do his thing here.
I don't know.
Yeah, maybe if it was a one-timething, right?
Like, wow, that was a lot ofexposition.
(23:39):
But recently, so Patrick and Idid a thing, and Sean and I kind
of talked about this last weektoo, but when Patrick and I were
talking, we talked about each ofour DM styles and stuff, right?
And now...
We still have to wait for Chaseto DM his.
I've been talking to him abouthim DMing a session for us and
everything.
But we've seen everybody DMseparately.
(23:59):
Now, when we described your DMstyle, we described it as the
most work you can put into onesession throughout a year.
Well, it's because I run onegame a year.
I know, I know.
I know if you had a game for us,it would be different, but we
haven't experienced enoughbecause you run one a game a
year for our group specificallynormally.
(24:20):
So how do you think your styleis different from the rest of
the group?
I've been asking all of you guysthis.
I would say my style is mostlike Zach's.
So I think we both put...
And this is not a negativecomment.
We both put a lot of thoughtinto our sessions, and I would
(24:43):
argue way too much.
I think about the session andplan the session so much to the
point where I don't ever want todo it again.
I love running these sessions.
but I hate prepping for itbecause I know it's going to
take me tenfold as long to prepfor it than to run.
And I know you and I have run,or not run, we've played for
(25:07):
Zach, and he ran in similarsituations.
There was, I don't know if youremember that one week where we
really wanted to play Eberron,and he said, oh, sorry guys, but
I only have ten pages of notes.
And you and I both looked ateach other, you know, mouths
agape, like, what in the world?
Ten pages?
Well, and that's inevitably whywe burned Zach out of playing
Eberron with us.
(25:27):
Because...
Because for the audience outthere, I know in the past 120
episodes we did, we talked aboutEberron a little bit, but for a
little recap, Drew and I wereplaying, I was a mastermind
rogue named Agent 99, and he wasa cleric by the name of Glitch.
We were two warforged, we were atwo-man private investigation
(25:47):
agency in Eberron, and we wereabsolute menaces to society.
It wasn't, like, just to put itplainly, we...
Every time, every chance we gotto talk to someone, oh, we were
talking to them.
And whatever information theyhad, we would get.
Even if Zach had to make it upbecause we were taking so long.
(26:09):
We went into the apartment nextdoor.
We basically kicked, I don'tknow if it was a man or whoever
it was.
We kicked him out.
We took over his household andmade it part of our office.
Yeah, we said we need thisbuilding, and our excuse for
doing all of this was, we werecreated two years ago.
(26:30):
The war ended two years ago, wewere created two years ago, we
don't know societal norms.
And do you remember runningthrough the streets of Eberron,
of Sharn, going, we have a writ,we have a writ?
We have a writ.
He took it from us.
He took the writ from us.
He gave us a writ that basicallysaid, hey, they're allowed to be
here.
(26:50):
And we just pretended it let usdo whatever we wanted.
Not pretend.
We made sure it let us dowhatever we wanted to do.
We got away with a lot.
And so after about, you know,six, seven sessions, Zach never
wanted to DM that game for usagain.
Rightfully so.
You know, it was a lot of prepto get ready for.
But likewise, I do think.
Zach gets excited about runninga campaign, and then while I've
(27:14):
explained this many times in ourpast stuff, I will happily just
run an eternal D&D game, andit'll go forever, right?
I'll just show up, I'll DM, andI won't even think twice about
it.
Whereas I think for otherpeople, it takes a little more
social energy for them to do.
It does.
It absolutely does.
And it's crazy that it'ssupposed to be a game.
(27:36):
And it is.
I love the game more thananything.
It's probably my favorite gameof all time.
Maybe next to Doom from 1993, 6,8, wherever it was.
But, you know, it's just rough.
It's rough on the mind having torun all that.
And maybe, you know, I wouldhave more fun prepping if I ran,
you know, not just a Christmasone-off, but maybe an Easter
(27:57):
one-off, too.
I don't know.
Yeah, maybe, maybe.
I am thinking, like, Sean askedme last week, he asked me,
What's next?
What's your plan for what we'redoing next?
Because Patrick's about to wrapup his arc, right?
So I am debating on whether Imight be like, hey, can I take
over and just finishSpelljammer?
(28:20):
But at the same time, oh man, Ijust really want to run the next
thing.
I really want to.
I just don't think we're readyfor it yet.
I want to see the next arc, forsure.
I think...
We have put too much thought andhype behind Spelljammer to skip
(28:40):
it at this point, personally.
Well, the idea wouldn't be toskip it.
The idea would be on weeks whenpeople can't be there that
aren't me because I would beDMing, we would still run
Spelljammer.
I think that's kind of whatwe're doing right now.
So if one person's outcalibrating the engines like
Garrus, we just play someSpelljammer.
(29:02):
And I'm cool with that becauseit's still...
Seeing the story is still givingyou an opportunity to flesh out
your world in this kind of canonadventure that we've been on for
five, six years.
Yeah.
I do.
I do.
I don't want to rush throughSpelljammer, but I do kind of
want to check it out.
You know, I want to see what theRock of Brawl or Brawl on the
(29:23):
other planets.
It's some weird space people.
I think it could be cool.
Yeah.
And we're doing Spelljammer notin any way by the book.
I'm only using the spaceships bythe book because, frankly, the
rules are really redundant.
for Spelljammer so really it'sgoing to turn into whatever we
make of it this little adventurein space so I don't know maybe
when Patrick finishes this oneup we'll do the whole wedding
(29:44):
thing next week and then afterthat we'll jump in and try to
try to wrap it up try to getthrough it but I am thinking
it'll be one of those where it'slike we're not taking big breaks
unless two or more people can'tmake it like oh if only one
person can't make it they willsit in the cockpit and They'll
(30:05):
sit down on the poop deck, andthen we'll move on to the next
thing.
Because I am very excited forDMing again.
I even explained to Sean, I waslike, I've never really been a
player for very long.
I did some very short campaigns,10 sessions.
(30:27):
Curse of Strahd was 13 sessions.
Very good number for Curse ofStrahd.
So...
But I was like, yeah, when Istarted playing Jean and jumping
back into like the group becauseI wasn't back in the group for a
while, I took over a little likea year and a half off jumping
back into it.
I showed up and I was like, Idon't know what I'm doing.
I have no clue what's happening.
(30:49):
Well, I mean, to be fair, youjumped in.
I think it was a couple ofsessions in.
It was session two.
SPEAKER_03 (30:53):
So
SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
session two for you guys, you went and did your
little mission and came back andthen met up with me.
Your little mission.
Your little mission that didn'tinvolve me.
So yeah, you guys went out anddid that and came back, and I
joined in on session two, but itwas weird for me jumping into
playing a character.
Like, now Gene has a little morecharacter, but in the first,
like, session, I didn't reallyknow who he was.
(31:16):
I'm curious to, like, pick yourbrain a little bit about, you
know, we don't have to do thisepisode, but...
We can.
To me, I'm thinking as a DM...
what I'm doing is playing a lotof characters.
And so like, I obviously there'sa huge difference between DMing
and being a player, but I wasn'tsure how you were going to be
when you came back.
Cause really you hadn't playedin a very long time, but I'm
(31:38):
surprised to hear how you'rekind of explaining and saying
like, Oh, I didn't know what wasgoing on.
Kind of thing.
Not that you, you know, I don'tthink you think that you did bad
or anything like that, but Ifeel like that's what DMing is.
You're playing, you know, 13characters.
Right, but it's differentwhenever a lot of what you do is
set the scene for the playersand let them interact with the
world.
I would say 80% of what I do isI build the stage and you guys
(32:00):
go and play on it.
And then the other 20% is memoving on to the next thing and
giving a little bit ofexposition or monologuing or
describing something.
But realistically, the amount ofshenanigans...
I just say, yeah, that works.
That happens.
Like being able to capture sixgoblins or make friends with the
(32:22):
Thrykreen spaceship that youimmobilized in space.
So stuff like that, like a lotof times I'm just setting the
scene and being like, go aheadand play.
Let's see what happens.
And that's why I don't put toomuch thought or prep into it,
because in the times where Ihave put tons and tons of work
into a session, we've never donethat.
(32:45):
The times where I've sat downand put so much thought process
or effort into it, I realizedyou guys write the story for me.
You guys already have ideas ofwhat you want to do in your
head.
And as long as I'm familiarenough in my head with my world
and who might be around or whatmight be around, I can usually
(33:05):
say something.
And I don't know, you can giveme an express review on DMing,
but...
I don't feel like I do a bad jobof that whenever we do that.
Oh, no, absolutely.
I think there was a questionbefore about how we kind of
blend together as DMs, how wekind of mix and match.
I think you're really good atkind of a long con approach.
(33:28):
So you're really good at kind oftying the story together and
pulling back to that random plotpoint.
Like, remember that thing?
Remember that spell thatAsmodeus randomly cast, you
know, two years ago?
Yeah, that might be coming upsometime soon, you know?
You also excel at pulling upprime opportunities.
That's what I'm going to say.
I'm going to say being anopportunist of sorts.
(33:49):
So if something happens whereyou think in the heat of the
moment and you're good atquickly picking up on it.
Like that would be really fun ifthat happened and then making it
happen.
Right.
I'm thinking about those thingsand trying to like, how, how can
I make that work?
And how can I get the playersthere?
And, you know, I don't want toleave them too.
And you're just like, Oh, thereit is right there.
(34:09):
Boom.
Take it.
Yeah.
I, okay.
I've never actually thought ofit that way because now that you
bring it up.
Yeah.
I think that that's why I don'tplan so much.
It's because I'm like, I set thestage that things will happen
naturally.
Right.
And I trust that they'll happenand then it'll be a fun time.
As opposed to like being like,OK, I'm going to I'm going to
plan out every single littlething that they're going to go
(34:32):
through and make sure that thebig moments happen.
I'm just like, they'll probablyhappen.
They do.
They always do.
Yeah.
Every every session, there'ssomething to talk about.
So, yeah, I think I actuallythink Patrick does a good job of
that, too, with like justcapitalizing on.
But I think he does it in a muchmore Whereas I'll do it in a
(34:53):
more narrative or trying to makethat player feel very special.
I think Patrick, every time hepulls out that moment, I'm
cracking up.
You know what I mean?
Every time that moment comes up,I'm like, oh my god, I cannot
believe he's doing this.
(35:13):
Patrick is what I'm going tocall the daring DM.
He's always willing to pull outa wacky scenario where it's
exactly that.
Like, I cannot believe you justdid that.
And the story that he tells, Ithink some of us, I would say
even most of us probably, are alittle more on the narrative
kind of cinematic side.
(35:34):
And it's not his style.
And I love it.
It's very...
lighthearted, it's comical, it'shumorous, but I'm still
thoroughly immersed in the storyand I end the sessions thinking
like, man, that was just a funtime.
Yeah.
I just really enjoyed the stuffthat happened today.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah, likewise, whenever I'mplaying in this one, so I always
(35:55):
try to make my characters have acool theme around them, right?
Like, I got to play my Genasicharacter at one point who was
very much like a Spartan.
He wore like a Spartan helmetand had his shield and his
spear.
But this time with Jean, Ireally wanted to capitalize on,
okay, literal, like, clericmagic is just ki blasts and
stuff from Dragon Ball and,like, going, like, all this
(36:17):
radiant energy just going allaround them.
So every time he's doingsomething, like, I try to
narrate it in the most, like,anime ki wave way possible.
Like, him sending off a sacredflame, but, like, Actively while
it's flying.
Shaping it to look like aneedle.
Or something like that.
I really like to over explain.
(36:38):
The little things he does.
Because realistically.
Him being a cleric.
Especially a life cleric.
Like a full on support.
I'm really just casting bless.
SPEAKER_03 (36:48):
Bless is still good, though.
Bless is the best spell.
SPEAKER_02 (36:53):
We slept on Bless for years.
There were years where no onecast Bless.
And now, anytime I have acharacter that has the chance to
have Bless, I'm not sleeping onit.
You can have a martialcharacter, like a paladin that
has Bless and its aura aroundit, and then it's still running
in and getting Divine Smitesoff, but it keeps Bless up the
whole time.
Because that spell is special.
(37:16):
The way it's been working forus.
I'm going to challenge you.
I'm going to say that Bless isnot what it slept on.
Because, as you think, unlessI'm incorrect, maybe Paladins, I
think Clerics are the only onesthat can cast Bless.
SPEAKER_03 (37:32):
Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02 (37:33):
I think so.
I have to double-check.
Realistically, think about it.
I've always loved Bless.
I've always claimed it's one ofmy favorite spells.
Even if I don't use it all thetime, I've always played Clerics
and I've always taken it.
It's always like you take CureWounds, you take Bless, Aid, and
then what else are you taking?
Guiding Bolt, of course.
But what's your flavor afterthat?
(37:53):
It's always been included inkind of my favorites.
I think Clerics are slept on, iswhat it is.
They're the most powerful class.
What do you mean?
I don't think enough people playClerics.
I think they play the TwilightCleric.
As I think about it, since thathas come out, people have been
playing that one more thananything.
We've had, like, three TwilightClerics, and there's only six of
(38:14):
us, and we've only played, like,three games.
Like, three different groups ofcharacters.
It's crazy.
It's strong.
It's flavorful.
It's interesting.
And there's something aboutClerics prior to then that
people are just not into.
I don't know if it's the supportvibe or what it is.
Life Cleric and Light Cleric aretwo of my favorite subclasses in
the game.
I love both of them.
They're awesome.
(38:34):
They're all fantastic.
Grave Cleric.
I mean, come on, that's thecoolest thing.
Twilight, super freaking cool.
Tempest, probably my favoriteabove all.
Forge Cleric is cool.
I like Forge.
I don't know a whole lot aboutthe later levels of some of the,
like the Forge.
No, me neither.
What was the natural?
I can't remember what thenatural one is.
Yeah, I don't know.
Oh, God.
Nature.
I'm going to call it NatureCleric.
(38:55):
I don't know.
But even some of the lesserknown ones are not bad.
They're just fucked on.
You know what?
I wasn't going to agree with youat first.
I now fully agree because I'veonly seen Twilight Clerics for
the last forever.
I know too much about TwilightCleric having never read the
class myself because as the DM,I usually just trust you guys to
(39:15):
know what your characters do.
That's why Patrick was missingso many abilities for so long
because I just trust you guys tofigure it out and tell me what
your characters do.
It's like how we play online andnobody can verify any roles.
I just trust that you guysaren't going to lie to me,
right?
Same deal.
I'm like, oh, they know whattheir character does.
They wouldn't lie to me.
And same dealio here where like,I don't read any of these
(39:35):
classes.
I haven't seen them.
I haven't read a new class in solong.
I just knew like, okay, I'mplaying Jean.
I'm going to play Life Cleric.
Done.
Look it up.
Put all the stuff on my statsheet.
I'm good.
And we've been playing longenough where we can kind of do
that.
We know you could probably name80% to 90% of the classes.
Like, oh yeah, there was thatone.
Like, oh, Death Cleric.
Yeah, I completely forgot thatone existed in the Monster
(39:56):
Manual or something, right?
Yeah.
But we can kind of pick a vibeand then roll with it,
SPEAKER_03 (40:00):
you know?
SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
Yeah, no, I agree.
There's so
SPEAKER_03 (40:03):
many classes now.
SPEAKER_02 (40:04):
It's all the new stuff, too.
I still haven't read through the2024 handbook.
Oh, I don't even own a copy.
It's because after talking toyou guys, like, one, you know,
Wizard has already taken a lotof my money when I go play
Magic, right?
I am trying my best not to spendtoo much because I don't want to
give Hasbro that much money.
(40:27):
But I like the real cards and Idon't want to proxy them because
then I'll get the urge to getthe expensive cards.
And I don't want that urge.
I want to just have the cards atthe power level of the tables I
play at.
And so it gives you a dilemmabecause I don't want to give
money to Big Hasbro either.
No one's taking my money.
(40:47):
Yeah, I don't want to give moneyto Big Hasbro.
So I don't own the 2024handbook.
I don't anticipate buying itbecause I don't know if we're
ever going to play it.
5e is just so good and if weneed more 5e content guess where
we can go there's this websitespelled it's called google and
you can look up anything youwant on it and if you go in
(41:10):
there and you look for likeplayer made content you can find
the best stuff and use it Likethe Tome of Heroes, right?
I was like spelljammers here.
They've got black powdersubclasses in the Tome of
Heroes.
So pick out like if you want touse Tome of Heroes and go for
it.
You let me use Tome of Heroeswhenever I did.
Whenever we did your Christmasone off because I wanted to use
(41:30):
the fire and ice like subclassfor Paladin.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And that was super fun.
I didn't think it was thatpowerful.
I was like these other Paladinsfrom the player's handbook are
way more powerful, but I want toplay this one.
Just what we want to play atthis point.
I played the Voltaren.
Was that Purple Dragon Knight?
Yeah.
Worst class ever.
I can't imagine what anyonewould ever play it.
(41:51):
He had one ability that was likefor that subclass.
I don't think I got to use it.
You're better off just playing aCavalier.
Play anything else.
Don't play Purple Dragon Knight.
Which is a shame because they'reso thematically cool.
I love them.
They're like this commandingkind of fighter.
But the abilities are just sobad.
Yeah.
But I had to play it just to saythat I did.
(42:11):
Because I just recently, and Iknow we've talked about this in
previous episodes of thepodcast, there were other
classes that I, or we'll justsay classes, that I hadn't
played.
And since we've stopped thepodcast, I've played every one.
I've played Warlock.
Wow.
And Paladin, I think, that Ihadn't played at the time.
(42:32):
I've played them all now.
I don't know if there's one Ihaven't played.
I mean, there probably is,right?
Because I don't play that often.
Could be.
I've never played Articifer.
It's...
interesting.
Not my favorite class, by anymeans, but it's...
I think it's cool thematically.
(42:52):
So, yeah, I don't know.
I'll...
Hopefully, I get to play morecharacters in the future.
Sean was talking to me a littlebit about having another arc
planned out for his thing, buthe's not done yet.
Pat, obviously, is going to havehis next thing he wants to do.
I would feel bad stepping oneverybody's DMing toes if I was
like, hey, I have the nextthree-year campaign ready.
Are you guys ready?
(43:12):
I don't think you'd be steppingon anybody's toes.
I think you should put it outthere and put the vibe in that
you would like to run again.
I would let Pat and Maybe Seanrun their course.
Yeah, maybe we do like a spelljammer for a little bit, then go
into their next arc that theywant to do and then run the next
big thing.
Maybe I'd be into that.
(43:34):
Yeah, I think I think that's agood idea.
I would run for chase more thananything or than anything.
You want him to run something?
Yeah.
yes he's well he's the only onethat hasn't run for anybody i
think he was telling me he waslike i don't know if i should be
on an episode if i haven't dm'dbefore and i was like dude you
don't need to dm what i need isi was like i want you to come in
and i want you to tell the storyof how we started playing dnd
(43:58):
together i want you to tell howi got you to be my friend and
how i came to your door everysaturday and woke you up because
i was bored and alone in collegeand then I want to, I want to
tell the story about like, causehim and I started playing around
the same time.
He, he started the session afterme for the, for the, for the
lanky Eric campaign.
(44:19):
So he's one session newer to Dand D than me.
So yeah, I want, I want him totell those stories as a player
and then maybe we canre-interview him on like, you
know, talking about hisexperience as a DM for the first
time.
That's exactly what you do.
You do two weeks in a row withChase.
(44:39):
It's the pre-workout.
How's it going?
How are you feeling beforehand?
The tailgate.
Afterwards, you just did it.
How did it go?
What were you thinking the wholetime?
What do you think went well?
I'd love to actually watch thoseback-to-back.
I think that would be cool.
We've got to plan that out.
Likewise, Sean pitched an idea.
Since you're listening to usplan things and talk things out,
(45:04):
Sean was like, I would love todo to actually do a live play,
like record some sessions thatwe play.
And I was like, I mean, it'seasy for me to set up like I
could set it up to where all ofour faces are there.
And we have like all the audiofrom my end, like it would be
super easy for me to set up.
So that might be if everybody islike permission for that in like
(45:26):
a start at the start of acampaign, you know, that could
be some good content to put outthere.
Could be.
It could be.
I think mostly, but I just don'twant it to feel performative.
Like we're not playing upanything for the audience.
I would still want it to just beour sessions.
They just happen to me online.
Yeah, I think we would have tolike sit down and have a talk
(45:47):
with everybody.
Yeah.
And kind of the feel that we'regoing for.
because I'm by no means going tonot be myself or not make jokes
or not do something I want to doin the game because we're on
camera.
I'm going to live my characterthe way I want to play that
character.
Yeah, exactly.
Luckily, I feel like all of ourcharacters typically are putting
in the work to just tell astory.
No one's doing anything theyshouldn't be doing anyways.
(46:10):
No one's just a bunch ofsquirrels or anything.
Yeah, no one's just a bunch ofsquirrels.
But yeah.
Okay.
No, I think we've got a lot ofgood things to put out there.
I have one more piece of advicethat I would like us to give
since we didn't get into thefinance stuff.
I know we're getting close tothe end of the episode though,
but I have one more promptbecause I think this one's a
little bit fun and we both havegood advice to give on it.
(46:31):
So DMs, how do you deal?
This is from user no status1219.
DMs, how do you deal withquestions like why us when the
NPC is stronger?
I'm talking about questions likeif X is so powerful, why doesn't
he come and solve this?
Why not just ask the city guard?
Why doesn't XYZ intervene?
(46:52):
Why doesn't this NPC enjoy theparty if they want the same
thing as us?
Why do we have to do all thework?
I notice these questions arevery common at every table, and
I'm looking for clever ways todeal with them when my players
will inevitably ask.
Hmm.
I don't feel like that comes upvery often at all at our tables,
(47:12):
and I don't know if that'sbecause we're experienced and
we've worked through that.
Obviously, I've DMed a lot ofgames, but far and in between,
they're very scattered.
I wouldn't say I'm aprofessional DM by any means.
I don't think about thatusually.
Maybe that's something thatcomes up.
I don't know.
You've played for me, Seth.
Have you ever felt like that wasthe case?
(47:36):
No, but I made this joke in thefirst session I was in Patrick's
campaign.
Because remember that he had ushelping the city guard.
And I looked at the main guy Iargued with, remember?
Because he was being a jerk tous.
Because we were the mercenariesthat were hired to help out.
(47:58):
And so he's talking to us, and Iwas like...
He was like, yeah, so these guysare apparently supposed to help
us, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, hey, they hiredus here to do this.
If you're so special, why don'tyou go do it?
And so I did argue with the guy,and I was like, no, we're doing
your job for you.
Oh, you want to go out andpatrol?
Like...
okay, we're going to do the samething, but over here where
(48:19):
things are happening.
I feel like that's, that's agood example of like a situation
where that didn't kind of unfoldthough, because you were arguing
because he was a jerk.
Like I expected that.
Like, of course he's not goingto help us because you know, he
may be better than us for all weknow, but he's a douche.
Yeah, of course, he's going todo his thing.
I remember he asked me, he waslike, do you know what the city
(48:42):
guard does?
And I said, walk around and lookfor problems.
That was a hard job.
I was like, walk around and lookfor problems.
And he goes, yeah.
And I said, so what do you wantus to do?
The same thing.
And he goes, yes.
So it's that I've had such ablast in Patrick's campaign.
(49:04):
And I can't think of any othersituation like that, like what
that user was kind of askingabout.
But I feel like there's always areason.
Like, if you're immersed kind ofin your character and you're
thinking about the world at handor the situation, whatever it
may be, you're always thinking,you know, like, we were in a big
(49:26):
fight with an angel in hell atthe end of one of our campaigns,
right?
And, you know...
She was off doing another thing,and that was fine.
She wasn't helping us becauseshe was handling that thing over
there, and we had other peoplethat were helping us along the
way or that we hadn't seen in awhile.
They were doing this, or theywere playing their own role in
(49:46):
the war at hand.
Or, for instance, in the battleHell Riders versus Yinagoo and
his gnolls, you guys had yourbattle happening on the
battlefield while you watchedZariel and Yinagoo fight in the
sky.
yeah that was a big deal and ididn't feel like oh why isn't
she over here she clearly hadher hands full over there yeah
(50:08):
exactly i think having thosethings happen off screen or like
having those characters beinginvolved is important because
it's like in storm king'sthunder you guys had two giant
companions like you haddifferent companions that came
along with you for a while andthey did help out but combat was
notably harder And thenlikewise, my question to this
person's player is if they doask and they're like, oh, well,
(50:30):
if Dern's giving us the quest ofthe Yawning Portal, the place he
has to take care of and owns anddoesn't want to adventure
anymore, why doesn't he go takecare of it?
Why is he telling us to do it ifhe's so powerful?
My question would be to thosecharacters, what, you don't want
an adventure?
You don't want money?
I mean, we'll go do it.
You don't want to go take onthis big challenge, this big,
uh, you know, uh, extravagantadventure.
Like I think the answer isusually like, Hey, we're paying
(50:54):
you to do it.
So we don't have to, or, or likeget off his butt and go on this
adventure.
No, he's got you.
He's got money to give you.
Or like the, the big arch magehires you, right?
He needs you to go do something.
He's super powerful.
He can cast time stop maybe.
But at the same time, he needsyou to go do this.
Cause he has work to do.
He has things to conjure andspells to cast.
UNKNOWN (51:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:15):
Do you think it's kind of like an egotistical
problem?
Maybe.
Do you think that the playersare just thinking, well, I'm the
main character, so why isn't itall happening here?
Well, actually, sure, you're themain character of this game, but
in this world, there are thingslarger than you.
And that's how it is.
I think the best advice you cangive for this is make sure, like
(51:36):
to the DM specifically, if thisis a problem at your table,
characters are constantly like,why do we have to do this?
Then...
Make sure that those NPCs havesomething going on and they're
not just sitting at home.
Like you don't want to beinvested.
Don't have him come walk back inon the NPC and he's just sitting
back on the couch drinking andplaying Helldivers 2.
(51:59):
Maybe maybe they come back andthey're in the middle of
something crazy or they'reyelling at someone or meeting
with a high ranking official.
Have something going on aroundthe characters.
The world does still move whileyour players are playing.
This actually came up inBaldur's Gate.
It's not a huge point that'smade or anything, but one of the
(52:20):
dialogue options that I had tochoose at one point was like, if
Mistress is so powerful, whydoesn't she handle it herself?
And one of the characters islike, what's his name?
Owl?
Like the big god above all thegods?
Sure, we'll go with that.
Aeos or Owl or something likethat.
They're like...
That is strictly forbidden.
(52:42):
Like the gods are not allowed tointervene with what we're doing
down here.
Could she?
Absolutely.
But she'd be breaking a lot ofrules.
Is what they said.
So there are answers to thosequestions when it comes to
characters like that.
Like, oh, if you're able tocommunicate with this god, why
don't they solve all yourproblems?
That's always interesting in theDivine campaigns, right?
(53:02):
We've seen that in recent onesthat we've played, where it's
like,
SPEAKER_03 (53:05):
well, you know,
SPEAKER_02 (53:06):
they're really powerful, they're talking to us,
but why aren't they talking tothat person?
Why aren't they giving us...
Why are they talking in riddles?
For what reason?
Why don't you just tell us whatwe need to do?
Yeah, because they'reomnipotent.
They know everything.
Oh, yeah, that's totally fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What was that guy's name inPharaoh?
(53:28):
I didn't put it up.
Oh, no, you weren't there.
That was such a good...
We could talk about it anotherday, but you missed out, man.
That was not here right there.
I know.
I talked to Sean about it alittle bit last week.
We're like, man, I wish I couldhave been a part of that.
But I told him, I was like,dude, I wish I could have been
there, but I was going throughthe hardest times of my life.
(53:48):
And now that they're over, I'mglad to be back in a D&D.
Thank you, man.
Make the good D&D memories.
Heck yeah.
And that's the whole thing.
Did I go away for a while?
Yeah.
But finally I'm able to comeback and do this kind of stuff.
And it feels really good to beable to sit down and play or sit
down and record a coupleepisodes of the podcast so we
(54:09):
can all talk about it.
It's nice that I got theexperiences that I got, but as
we've said in many, manyepisodes of Table Talk Friday, a
D&D podcast on Table TalkFriday, or patreon.com slash
tabletalkfriday over on Patreon.
More on the YouTube channel.
You know, all these places thatmay or may not be posted.
This is like the one hobby thatcan't go away.
(54:30):
Especially for our group,because if we didn't have this,
I feel like we might not begoing to Sean's wedding next
week.
Or...
It's possible.
Or like, we might not have allthis stuff planned, and we might
not be planning to all see eachother at all these times.
We might have all fallen apart.
So...
You gotta have, you gotta havesomething that keeps you all
together.
You know, the older you get, Ithink it's more important to
(54:51):
whether it's Minecraft or D andD or I don't know, book club,
you know, whatever you got, justhave some fun.
Maybe like with your friends.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's the most important thing.
And with that, thank you guys somuch for listening to this
episode of Table Talk Friday, aD&D podcast, as I just
mentioned, in a very, verystuttery, difficult kind of way.
(55:12):
You can find us over onPatreon.com slash Table Talk
Friday.
We have many, many perks foryou.
You can get the episodes a weekearly.
You can do an exclusive postshow.
Listen to that, which we'reabout to record right after this
for maybe 15, 20 minutes beforeI have to go see Fantastic Four,
which I'm very excited to see.
outside of that though if youjust want to support listen to
us on youtube listen to us onall your podcast services all
(55:35):
over the globe you know itshould be on every single one if
you search us up and with that ithink i'm gonna need oh my god i
didn't even think about whichcharacter i could question right
now shaw shaw's gonna have totake us out here but but i'm i'm
not the back This is blasphemy.
(55:57):
You have to do it.
I made Patrick do it, and I madeSean do it.
I like his voice.
Thanks all for watching,listening in on your stones or
whatever you got.
I'm just a friendly courier.
I don't really know what I'mdoing here.
I'm really just delivering thisletter, so if you could just
(56:18):
leave me alone, that would bereal cool.
So, yeah, just have a good timeand leave me alone.
Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_01 (56:25):
Thank you for listening to Table Talk Friday.
For more information, advice,questions, comments, and
concerns, you can email the boysat tabletalkfriday at gmail.com.
And if you'd like to tell yourown stories, why don't you hit
(56:49):
them up there?
Send an inquiry or something, asending spell.
Thank you very much forlistening and please follow and
come back next week.
Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
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