August 8, 2025 • 22 mins
In this solo episode of TableTalk Friday, we land in the chaotic sweet spot of beginning DMing—setting boundaries, managing player expectations, and embracing creativity. Seth dives into everything from tackling isekai-style campaigns and reining in chaotic groups, to balancing 3D printing prep with player agency. Whether you're about to run your first session or just want tips on smoother table dynamics, this one's got practical advice and real talk.
🎲 Topics Covered:
- Setting clear boundaries at character creation and during play
- Isekai campaign ideas: what works and what doesn’t
- Strategies for improvising when your players derail your prep
- 3D-printing session prep versus empowering player agency
- Choosing beginner-friendly adventures (e.g., Lost Mine of Phandelver, Dragon of Icespire Peak)
- Running D&D in high school or limited-time environments
Whether you're a veteran DM or about to run your first session, this episode is packed with honest advice and entertaining D&D stories.
📺 Subscribe on YouTube as well!
💌 Share Your Story: Got a wild D&D tale, a DMing question, or a funny campaign moment? Email us at tabletalkfriday@gmail.com and we might feature you in a future episode!
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Join our Patreon at patreon.com/TableTalkFriday for bonus episodes, early access, and behind-the-scenes content. Your support keeps the dice rolling!
#DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #DungeonMasterTips #TTRPG #TabletopRPG #dndadvice #becomeaDM #dndstories
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Table Talk Friday, your weekly dose of
D&D banter between three men ina bedroom.
If you like their style, comeback every Friday for another
upload.
Now, back to the boys.
(00:30):
large questions of D&D advice,and I'm just going to try to
give the best advice I can basedon my DMing experience and my
D&D player experience.
So number one is, is it wrong torequest that players keep their
characters, for lack of a betterword, normal?
A player has some characterideas that I'm uncomfortable
(00:52):
with as the DM, and want to knowif I just shouldn't DM if it's
an issue for me, or if it'salright to request they choose
something a bit more simple.
So, it's my first time playingD&D, and I'm jumping into DMing.
I've got a campaign planned, andso far have three players, one
of which has had an interestingidea for their character.
First, they want to be FreddyFazbear.
(01:14):
Hold there, hold there.
Is the setting...
Five Nights at Freddy's.
Okay, we'll continue.
Then changed it to just a bearnamed Frederick.
There we go.
Okay, that's a little moreclarification.
Now they've gone and jumped intoan entire different body of
water saying they want to be avampire based off the folklore
(01:35):
from the movie Sinners.
You know, in another episodewhere I gave more unsolicited
D&D advice, I did say thatbasing...
a lot of your stuff off ofthings that you have seen before
is a good idea.
Let's continue.
When they asked about Freddy, Itold them something along the
(01:57):
lines of, bro, I ain'tcomfortable with that right now.
I can't even begin to grasp howexactly Freddy Fazbear could be
a playable character in D&D andhow that'd work.
And then they requested to justbe a bear named Frederick.
Okay.
I told them that the issue is isthat it's a bear.
(02:18):
They said they'll just make abear named Frederick, as in the,
I don't want to say this word,slang, to describe a certain
body type in men.
Okay, I see what they mean.
I said that was fine.
Now, they want a sinner'svampire.
I really just want a campaignwith characters that everyone
can understand well enoughwithout having to dig online
(02:40):
about folklore or how a GDanimatronic works.
would go about his life in a D&Dcampaign.
It also just doesn't make senseto me seeing as the campaign is
Isekai-themed, and they've allbeen trucked into the campaign,
and the main goal is to get backto where they came from.
Hold the phone.
You're doing an Isekai campaign.
(03:01):
So, okay, I'm not gonna go toohard into this person exactly,
but you're doing an Isekaicampaign.
They can be from wherever, and Ithink it would make sense.
They could be Luke Skywalkergetting thrown into this world
and having to make it back tothe Star War.
They could be Naruto needing toreturn to the Leaf Village.
(03:27):
Because as far as I'm concerned,this is an isekai.
Sorry for the long post andrantish quality to it.
Just a bit frustrated.
I just want to know if it'salright to request more simple
characters or if I should justnot DM if it's an issue for me.
Thanks for reading.
Okay, I am not going to bustthis person's balls too much
because they said...
I think they said at thebeginning, right?
First time playing D&D, they'rejumping into DMing.
That's amazing, dude.
(03:48):
When I first started DMing, sofirst of all, I'm going to say
just do it.
Just DM it no matter what youDM.
But whenever I first startedD&D, I also picked up DMing very
quick, and I DMed a 11 to 13.
I really can't remember how manyit was.
I think it was 11.
(04:09):
I'm going to stick with thenumber 11 from now on because
this is the third time I've saidthis in a row.
11 session campaign and it wasall homebrew I wrote a one city
a couple of like landmarks andthat was that was the extent of
it I really wanted to make myown setting that everything took
place in but I ran into theroadblock that everything was on
(04:32):
me to make up as opposed to likeyou know reading one single lore
book that a lot of people haveread so like sword coast as my
setting or eberron a lot ofpeople know those settings maybe
not if they're first timers buta lot of people know those
settings and it can be helpfulto have a pre-established place
that they're going to now ifyour isekai is taking place on
(04:52):
the sword coast that'sinteresting i think as far as
dnd lore is concerned all theplanes walking and jumping
around and stuff it's not out ofthe realm of possibility that
these characters would be thrownhere for some we've reasoned
like honestly it's not theweirdest thing i've heard so in
you're actually giving me anidea for an isekai one-off now
(05:14):
and that's gonna have to happenat some point in the near future
so what i'm gonna say is i dothink you should dm this session
and see how the experience goesbut I think your player is just
really excited.
They have a lot of ideas.
They're still playingmake-believe.
And if you listen to the episodewhere Patrick and I talk about
(05:35):
his first time DMing or hisfirst time playing, they're
probably not taking it asseriously as you are because
you're jumping right into DMing.
Maybe you've watched someYouTube videos.
You have a little moreexperience with it.
This person might be a littleannoying to you because they're
outside your realm ofexpectation.
Those expectations have not beenproperly set for them.
You're listening and you'recoming and...
(05:58):
asking this question to otherpeople who are also just as
interested in dnd but thisperson might just be not taking
it seriously and i have hadplayers like that before we in
our first campaign ended uphaving to drop someone because
they were not taking the gameseriously there was originally
six players and me as the dm andwe had to drop the sixth player
(06:20):
because in almost every sessionthey would they were a rogue and
they would just give the shadowthe hedgehog like nah I don't
want to do that kind ofresponse.
Like go against the party allthe time.
And then finally, like they wereon their phone every single
session, pretty much the wholetime.
And that's just, that doesn'tmake for good role play, good D
(06:41):
and D.
It really doesn't.
So we dropped a person for thatreason.
So I do think let this personmake a character, set the
expectations that you want.
This is why we have sessionzeros, set the expectations and
go from there.
If this person doesn't respectyour expectations and or doesn't
want to play because they can'tplay Freddy Fazbear because
(07:01):
you're not comfortable withDMing Freddy Fazbear in the
Isekai campaign, then, you know,props.
Just push them to the side andtell them, hey, I think maybe
we're not the group for you.
Those are the two solutions I'vegot for you based on however it
goes.
But I mean, I feel like thisdoes come down to proper DM to
player communication.
(07:22):
Let's jump on to topic numbertwo.
You ever just inform the partythat they are going to the
dungeon you prepped?
I like this one.
I spent all week 3D printingscenery and monsters for an
upcoming dungeon, then handpainting slash airbrushing them.
I had a grand reveal allplanned.
I had the dungeon hidden under acloth ready for its grand
(07:42):
reveal.
Then one guy tried convincingthe party that they shouldn't go
in, that they needed to go offand do this side garbage first.
I literally stopped the game andjust flat out said, guys, I have
nothing else planned here.
I've spent all week on buildingthis, prep this, and getting
ready.
And if you go and wander off todo this side stuff, we'll have
(08:04):
to end it here because I'm notready.
And frankly, I'm a littleannoyed.
Can we please just do thedungeon as planned?
Thankfully, they got the veryunsubtle hint.
You ever just flat out make theparty do what you had planned
rather than wander off?
I do think...
I am a big fan of player agency,but big, big, but it sounds like
(08:27):
you did set the expectationbefore in your quote where you
said, can we just do the dungeonas planned?
Now, my question is, was thatplanned by you or was that like
you asked them at the end oflast session?
Hey, what are you guys planningto do next week?
We're going to do the dungeon.
Cool.
I will make sure it's ready.
It is not.
(08:47):
It is not uncommon to have aplayer who Who's just like,
yeah, no, I, I think we shouldgo take care of this.
And if they're a charismaticperson or they're just annoying
about it and everybody's more oflike, okay, it's not uncommon to
be derailed by people.
My favorite story where I dealtwith this was I had.
(09:10):
the whole night, like the nextmain mission scheduled out,
planned, ready to go.
And it was going to be reallygood because Zach's character
was off doing his own side stuffand Zach couldn't be there this
week.
So I was like, this is perfect.
He doesn't need to be involved.
His character's not here or he'snot going to be here.
So we're going to be all set.
(09:30):
But Zach's character hadn't hadthe opportunity to leave yet
before Drew said, I think it wasDrew.
Yeah, Drew was like, I want togo to the post office and check
on that letter I sent.
Now, probably five to 10sessions prior, I had written a
letter for the moment he wasready to go to the post office.
(09:53):
I just wasn't expecting it to betoday.
So he goes to the post officeand he checks on this letter and
he finds out his mother has beencaptured.
UNKNOWN (10:04):
And
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
But that it's not urgent.
They're waiting for him to getthere.
So I made sure to have that soit made sense.
They're doing this to get tohim.
They're not doing this becausethey want to kill the people of
Nightstone, which is where hisfamily was from.
So after this, of course, Drew,as his character, decides, I
(10:27):
need to go right now.
And that's very reasonable.
If this was my mother, I woulddo the same thing.
I'd say, I need to get a planeticket.
I'm not going to work.
I'm going to save my mother.
You know, it's like taken vibes.
So very reasonable.
I'm not mad about it at all.
But I had no, I got a little bitlazy.
I was in college.
I had a lot of rehearsals goingon.
I had nothing planned.
(10:47):
I was like, oh my God, I need tofigure out how to solve this
problem because I'm not ready.
So I wasn't ready for this.
And Luckily, I had been DMinglong enough.
I think we were like 20 sessionsin this campaign.
I had done a couple one-offs andthen I had done the 11 session
campaign before.
(11:08):
So I've had like 30 to 40sessions under my belt.
I was ready to improv.
I was like, I can do this.
I remember what Nightstone lookslike.
I don't need to pull up maps andI have a dry erase board and I
have markers and I can do this.
So I got everything ready.
I pulled out the map ofNightstone and everything.
I was like, okay, great.
You guys are going to travel toNightstone.
(11:29):
They do the whole travel.
It takes maybe like 10 minutesof our time, like narrating all
the travel.
They get there.
And it was the best session ofD&D.
We played that entire campaign.
The best one.
I know that all of yourexpectation and building it up
and getting all this stuff readyis amazing.
The fact that you 3D printed allyour scenery and your monsters
(11:52):
and you did all this paintingand airbrushing, like...
Props to you for going that far.
I've never gone that far.
I'm more of a dry erase markerand unpainted minis from WizKids
kind of guy.
Or Roll20 token stamp kind ofguy.
So, you know, props to you fordoing all the extra work, going
the extra mile for your players.
(12:12):
But for this one...
I we had the best session ever.
They raided the city, did somelike shenanigans with like going
invisible and sneaking andpicking some people off.
And we had a super emotionalscene where by the skin of their
teeth, Ekanon shot a paralysisarrow.
He had like some paralysispoison he had prepared before
they left.
(12:33):
He shot a paralysis arrow at thebig bag.
The big bad hit him.
The big bad failed, let go ofhis mother because he was going
to kill his mom on the next turnif he didn't hit this arrow.
His mom got away in time andthey triumphed.
It was amazing.
It was a great session.
You can see the emotion in theplayers' faces like we have to
solve this problem.
(12:53):
And it ended up being a huge, ahuge, huge, huge win for me as
the DM improv-ing all of thisand then them as the players
getting through this in onesession.
So like I said, props to you forall the prep.
But sometimes when your playerssend you off the rails, it is
it's a reward because they'reinto something you want to do.
(13:15):
Now, I do see the other side ofthis, though.
Your player might have just beenlike the last guy been being
annoying.
I've been in the places wherepeople are like, no, we should
go.
We should go drinking tonightand gambling.
And they want to spend the wholetime like just there.
And we can do many games thewhole time, but we're not going
to make any progress on thestory.
(13:35):
I've had people want to go offon side tangents before in a
more annoying way, but I've alsohad the side tangents that end
up being the best session of thecampaign.
Up to you to decide which onethis is, or if you're even
comfortable improv-ing whatyou're going to do next.
But yeah, I don't think there'smuch more to say on it because
(13:56):
you have a pretty good read onthe situation.
And one more thing is, I thinkthat...
That what you would be able tosay is what you said is a good
thing.
Like we can do this sidetangent.
We're just going to have to doit next week.
Like if you don't want to do thedungeon, it's fine.
We'll do it next time.
But if you're going to do thisother mission that I need, I
(14:19):
need, I need time to prepare.
That's not a big ask.
Not everybody is going to beable to accidentally do the best
session of the campaign.
But at the same time, yeah.
that's that's pretty much itwell let's go on to the next one
i think that was a really goodprompt though because it's a
good lesson to learn for boththe players and the dm for the
(14:39):
players they need to stick totheir what they're planning to
do because they shouldn't beexpecting so much of the dm and
for the dm like there are timesthat you should be a little more
loose on things like that butthis sounds like since you
prepared so much they probablyknew you were preparing this
much they should respect thatWhat's the easiest starter
(15:03):
campaign to run for a fresh DM?
This is one of my favoritetopics because I have run three
starter campaigns.
So I'll get into it in a fewseconds.
But yeah, I love this.
I currently run a UK high schoolD&D club.
We meet regularly and havearound 20 members, which is
amazing for clubs at our school.
But there's an issue.
Not enough DMs.
(15:24):
Everybody has that issue, exceptour group where everybody has
something they want to DM rightnow.
Everybody wants to DM right now.
We can only play once a week.
I'm in a situation where thereare two groups of around five,
which leaves me often witharound eight players.
That coupled with the fact thatwe often are only meeting in
lunchtimes with around 20minutes of play means that often
in combat, not everyone gets aturn.
(15:45):
For context, we meet threelunches and once after school.
So over the week, we get roughlytwo hours of play.
I love the group, and they arealways patient, but we need to
split the party.
So what do you guys think is theeasiest campaign slash setting
for me to try to encourage a newDM to take half the group to do?
I love this.
It sounds like you guys aregetting some popularity going
(16:06):
for a school D&D club, which thefact that you have a school D&D
club makes me so jealous.
I wish I had stuff like thatwhen I was in school or even had
the courage to take part in it.
So I'm glad that D&D...
is getting to the popularitylevel where we can have these
kinds of things and themactually be popular.
So many players, not enough DMs,is a great and horrible problem
(16:28):
to have.
As far as where you shouldstart, I think you need to gauge
the interest and the style ofyour players and who you think
your protege is, who you thinkis going to be the best person
to actually take part of thisgroup and run it.
(16:48):
I think you can present a coupleof options to them, maybe one or
two of the starter kits, sincethose are very cheap and easy to
get into, with a little book togo along with it.
So bring up Lost Mines ofPhandelver.
That's where I started.
I literally started level two,Lost Mines of Phandelver.
They had already done the introgoblin dungeon, but they had not
(17:10):
done the rest of the campaign.
So I was a player in Lost Minesof Phandelver from my first
experience with D&D.
And I personally ran WaterdeepDragon Heist, but I'll give it a
little caveat.
This is a$50 book with a lot ofins and outs and villains.
So if you have an extremelyexcited player who really wants
(17:32):
to try DMing and they want to goall out, I think Waterdeep
Dragon Heist is the beststarting point, but it's a lot
more work.
So if you're just trying to getsomeone to dip their toe into
DMing, Dragon of Icespire Peakor Lost Mines of Phandelver
would be where I would go.
Dragon of Icespire Peak is alittle more open-ended.
They can find the quests thatthey like in there and drop them
(17:54):
in wherever they want.
Lost Mines of Phandelver, Ithink, is an overall more
satisfying story depending onwho's DMing it.
Because it has a beginning,middle, end.
And you...
I think have a little more of anopportunity to meet the
characters and spend time inPhandalin.
(18:16):
And I do find the locations alittle more interesting overall,
too.
I haven't played all of Dragonof Icespire Peak, but I did read
through all of it.
And while you are dealing withthe same setting, I just think I
would enjoy Phandelver more.
And speaking of that, there isPhandelver and below the
Shattered Obelisk.
So if they do feel like runningmore Phandalin later off of one
(18:37):
of these, I they can pick upthat book and keep it going for
the rest of the school year.
Because I think it'll take10-ish sessions, if they're a
little bit slow, going throughthe entirety of Phandelver.
But then if they're...
Lost Mind of Phandelver.
Yeah, I'm correct.
I'm correct.
(18:58):
I was freaking out for a second.
I was like, what is it?
So yeah, I think that that wouldbe a pretty solid option for
them.
And then if they want tocontinue, that's when they pick
up a module.
Storm King's Thunder can go outof Phandelver.
Phandelver and Below ShatteredObelisk can go out of it.
Pretty much any of the modules,honestly, if they're deciding
they want to take their players,you know, wherever.
(19:19):
So those are all great options.
Likewise, you can justbrainstorm some ideas with them
if you're not playing inForgotten Realms setting and you
don't want, like, official...
D&D materials, then you can havethem write up something in the
setting that you guys areplaying in.
If you have a really coolsetting that you've been working
on, it's not a bad idea to havethem homebrew off the start to
(19:41):
get those creative juicesflowing.
I just find that the quality ofwriting isn't as good when
you're also trying to learn allof the rules of a very
complicated role-playing game ontop of it.
So that's kind of what I got foryou on that one.
You know, you can let me know inthe comments if you're watching
(20:02):
on YouTube or just send us anemail at tabletalkfriday at
gmail.com or go over topatreon.com slash
tabletalkfriday.
We have like a little communitychat thing in there.
Let me know if you think any ofthis is good advice.
But yeah, guys, this is a littlebit different of a format for
what we do in Table Talk Friday,especially because everybody is
(20:24):
so busy online.
I end up being the one who has alittle bit more free time and I
enjoy sitting down and talkingabout this kind of stuff.
So I hope you don't mind thatevery couple of weeks it is just
me.
But let me know if you like thisformat.
I think that it kept my thoughtsa little more, you know, right
on target as opposed to likejust letting me ramble about one
topic the entire time.
Me being able to kind ofnormally I'm just going to like
(20:46):
forums and stuff, looking atquestions like these anyways,
and then thinking through likewhat I would like.
you know, how I would actuallysolve this problem.
So allowing me to get mythoughts out like this is
honestly pretty satisfying,especially because I feel like
if any of these people were tolisten to the episode, they
might actually get some goodadvice out of it.
(21:09):
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If you like the show, pleaseleave a like or comment down
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If you want to support the showa little bit better, a little
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Not sure what I'm going to talkabout yet.
(21:30):
Maybe fitness, maybe Magic theGathering, maybe more D&D and
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But yeah, so there's a post showon patreon.com slash
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I honestly, like YouTube's myformat of choice.
I like seeing everything over onYouTube and seeing the views and
(21:52):
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(22:12):
Thank you guys so much forlistening this week and I'll
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(22:36):
Once again, thank you forlistening to the show.
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Give us a follow.
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Have a good one.
See ya.
Bye-bye.
Welcome to Table Talk Friday, your weekly dose of
D&D banter between three men ina bedroom.
If you like their style, comeback every Friday for another
upload.
Now, back to the boys.
(00:30):
large questions of D&D advice,and I'm just going to try to
give the best advice I can basedon my DMing experience and my
D&D player experience.
So number one is, is it wrong torequest that players keep their
characters, for lack of a betterword, normal?
A player has some characterideas that I'm uncomfortable
(00:52):
with as the DM, and want to knowif I just shouldn't DM if it's
an issue for me, or if it'salright to request they choose
something a bit more simple.
So, it's my first time playingD&D, and I'm jumping into DMing.
I've got a campaign planned, andso far have three players, one
of which has had an interestingidea for their character.
First, they want to be FreddyFazbear.
(01:14):
Hold there, hold there.
Is the setting...
Five Nights at Freddy's.
Okay, we'll continue.
Then changed it to just a bearnamed Frederick.
There we go.
Okay, that's a little moreclarification.
Now they've gone and jumped intoan entire different body of
water saying they want to be avampire based off the folklore
(01:35):
from the movie Sinners.
You know, in another episodewhere I gave more unsolicited
D&D advice, I did say thatbasing...
a lot of your stuff off ofthings that you have seen before
is a good idea.
Let's continue.
When they asked about Freddy, Itold them something along the
(01:57):
lines of, bro, I ain'tcomfortable with that right now.
I can't even begin to grasp howexactly Freddy Fazbear could be
a playable character in D&D andhow that'd work.
And then they requested to justbe a bear named Frederick.
Okay.
I told them that the issue is isthat it's a bear.
(02:18):
They said they'll just make abear named Frederick, as in the,
I don't want to say this word,slang, to describe a certain
body type in men.
Okay, I see what they mean.
I said that was fine.
Now, they want a sinner'svampire.
I really just want a campaignwith characters that everyone
can understand well enoughwithout having to dig online
(02:40):
about folklore or how a GDanimatronic works.
would go about his life in a D&Dcampaign.
It also just doesn't make senseto me seeing as the campaign is
Isekai-themed, and they've allbeen trucked into the campaign,
and the main goal is to get backto where they came from.
Hold the phone.
You're doing an Isekai campaign.
(03:01):
So, okay, I'm not gonna go toohard into this person exactly,
but you're doing an Isekaicampaign.
They can be from wherever, and Ithink it would make sense.
They could be Luke Skywalkergetting thrown into this world
and having to make it back tothe Star War.
They could be Naruto needing toreturn to the Leaf Village.
(03:27):
Because as far as I'm concerned,this is an isekai.
Sorry for the long post andrantish quality to it.
Just a bit frustrated.
I just want to know if it'salright to request more simple
characters or if I should justnot DM if it's an issue for me.
Thanks for reading.
Okay, I am not going to bustthis person's balls too much
because they said...
I think they said at thebeginning, right?
First time playing D&D, they'rejumping into DMing.
That's amazing, dude.
(03:48):
When I first started DMing, sofirst of all, I'm going to say
just do it.
Just DM it no matter what youDM.
But whenever I first startedD&D, I also picked up DMing very
quick, and I DMed a 11 to 13.
I really can't remember how manyit was.
I think it was 11.
(04:09):
I'm going to stick with thenumber 11 from now on because
this is the third time I've saidthis in a row.
11 session campaign and it wasall homebrew I wrote a one city
a couple of like landmarks andthat was that was the extent of
it I really wanted to make myown setting that everything took
place in but I ran into theroadblock that everything was on
(04:32):
me to make up as opposed to likeyou know reading one single lore
book that a lot of people haveread so like sword coast as my
setting or eberron a lot ofpeople know those settings maybe
not if they're first timers buta lot of people know those
settings and it can be helpfulto have a pre-established place
that they're going to now ifyour isekai is taking place on
(04:52):
the sword coast that'sinteresting i think as far as
dnd lore is concerned all theplanes walking and jumping
around and stuff it's not out ofthe realm of possibility that
these characters would be thrownhere for some we've reasoned
like honestly it's not theweirdest thing i've heard so in
you're actually giving me anidea for an isekai one-off now
(05:14):
and that's gonna have to happenat some point in the near future
so what i'm gonna say is i dothink you should dm this session
and see how the experience goesbut I think your player is just
really excited.
They have a lot of ideas.
They're still playingmake-believe.
And if you listen to the episodewhere Patrick and I talk about
(05:35):
his first time DMing or hisfirst time playing, they're
probably not taking it asseriously as you are because
you're jumping right into DMing.
Maybe you've watched someYouTube videos.
You have a little moreexperience with it.
This person might be a littleannoying to you because they're
outside your realm ofexpectation.
Those expectations have not beenproperly set for them.
You're listening and you'recoming and...
(05:58):
asking this question to otherpeople who are also just as
interested in dnd but thisperson might just be not taking
it seriously and i have hadplayers like that before we in
our first campaign ended uphaving to drop someone because
they were not taking the gameseriously there was originally
six players and me as the dm andwe had to drop the sixth player
(06:20):
because in almost every sessionthey would they were a rogue and
they would just give the shadowthe hedgehog like nah I don't
want to do that kind ofresponse.
Like go against the party allthe time.
And then finally, like they wereon their phone every single
session, pretty much the wholetime.
And that's just, that doesn'tmake for good role play, good D
(06:41):
and D.
It really doesn't.
So we dropped a person for thatreason.
So I do think let this personmake a character, set the
expectations that you want.
This is why we have sessionzeros, set the expectations and
go from there.
If this person doesn't respectyour expectations and or doesn't
want to play because they can'tplay Freddy Fazbear because
(07:01):
you're not comfortable withDMing Freddy Fazbear in the
Isekai campaign, then, you know,props.
Just push them to the side andtell them, hey, I think maybe
we're not the group for you.
Those are the two solutions I'vegot for you based on however it
goes.
But I mean, I feel like thisdoes come down to proper DM to
player communication.
(07:22):
Let's jump on to topic numbertwo.
You ever just inform the partythat they are going to the
dungeon you prepped?
I like this one.
I spent all week 3D printingscenery and monsters for an
upcoming dungeon, then handpainting slash airbrushing them.
I had a grand reveal allplanned.
I had the dungeon hidden under acloth ready for its grand
(07:42):
reveal.
Then one guy tried convincingthe party that they shouldn't go
in, that they needed to go offand do this side garbage first.
I literally stopped the game andjust flat out said, guys, I have
nothing else planned here.
I've spent all week on buildingthis, prep this, and getting
ready.
And if you go and wander off todo this side stuff, we'll have
(08:04):
to end it here because I'm notready.
And frankly, I'm a littleannoyed.
Can we please just do thedungeon as planned?
Thankfully, they got the veryunsubtle hint.
You ever just flat out make theparty do what you had planned
rather than wander off?
I do think...
I am a big fan of player agency,but big, big, but it sounds like
(08:27):
you did set the expectationbefore in your quote where you
said, can we just do the dungeonas planned?
Now, my question is, was thatplanned by you or was that like
you asked them at the end oflast session?
Hey, what are you guys planningto do next week?
We're going to do the dungeon.
Cool.
I will make sure it's ready.
It is not.
(08:47):
It is not uncommon to have aplayer who Who's just like,
yeah, no, I, I think we shouldgo take care of this.
And if they're a charismaticperson or they're just annoying
about it and everybody's more oflike, okay, it's not uncommon to
be derailed by people.
My favorite story where I dealtwith this was I had.
(09:10):
the whole night, like the nextmain mission scheduled out,
planned, ready to go.
And it was going to be reallygood because Zach's character
was off doing his own side stuffand Zach couldn't be there this
week.
So I was like, this is perfect.
He doesn't need to be involved.
His character's not here or he'snot going to be here.
So we're going to be all set.
(09:30):
But Zach's character hadn't hadthe opportunity to leave yet
before Drew said, I think it wasDrew.
Yeah, Drew was like, I want togo to the post office and check
on that letter I sent.
Now, probably five to 10sessions prior, I had written a
letter for the moment he wasready to go to the post office.
(09:53):
I just wasn't expecting it to betoday.
So he goes to the post officeand he checks on this letter and
he finds out his mother has beencaptured.
UNKNOWN (10:04):
And
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
But that it's not urgent.
They're waiting for him to getthere.
So I made sure to have that soit made sense.
They're doing this to get tohim.
They're not doing this becausethey want to kill the people of
Nightstone, which is where hisfamily was from.
So after this, of course, Drew,as his character, decides, I
(10:27):
need to go right now.
And that's very reasonable.
If this was my mother, I woulddo the same thing.
I'd say, I need to get a planeticket.
I'm not going to work.
I'm going to save my mother.
You know, it's like taken vibes.
So very reasonable.
I'm not mad about it at all.
But I had no, I got a little bitlazy.
I was in college.
I had a lot of rehearsals goingon.
I had nothing planned.
(10:47):
I was like, oh my God, I need tofigure out how to solve this
problem because I'm not ready.
So I wasn't ready for this.
And Luckily, I had been DMinglong enough.
I think we were like 20 sessionsin this campaign.
I had done a couple one-offs andthen I had done the 11 session
campaign before.
(11:08):
So I've had like 30 to 40sessions under my belt.
I was ready to improv.
I was like, I can do this.
I remember what Nightstone lookslike.
I don't need to pull up maps andI have a dry erase board and I
have markers and I can do this.
So I got everything ready.
I pulled out the map ofNightstone and everything.
I was like, okay, great.
You guys are going to travel toNightstone.
(11:29):
They do the whole travel.
It takes maybe like 10 minutesof our time, like narrating all
the travel.
They get there.
And it was the best session ofD&D.
We played that entire campaign.
The best one.
I know that all of yourexpectation and building it up
and getting all this stuff readyis amazing.
The fact that you 3D printed allyour scenery and your monsters
(11:52):
and you did all this paintingand airbrushing, like...
Props to you for going that far.
I've never gone that far.
I'm more of a dry erase markerand unpainted minis from WizKids
kind of guy.
Or Roll20 token stamp kind ofguy.
So, you know, props to you fordoing all the extra work, going
the extra mile for your players.
(12:12):
But for this one...
I we had the best session ever.
They raided the city, did somelike shenanigans with like going
invisible and sneaking andpicking some people off.
And we had a super emotionalscene where by the skin of their
teeth, Ekanon shot a paralysisarrow.
He had like some paralysispoison he had prepared before
they left.
(12:33):
He shot a paralysis arrow at thebig bag.
The big bad hit him.
The big bad failed, let go ofhis mother because he was going
to kill his mom on the next turnif he didn't hit this arrow.
His mom got away in time andthey triumphed.
It was amazing.
It was a great session.
You can see the emotion in theplayers' faces like we have to
solve this problem.
(12:53):
And it ended up being a huge, ahuge, huge, huge win for me as
the DM improv-ing all of thisand then them as the players
getting through this in onesession.
So like I said, props to you forall the prep.
But sometimes when your playerssend you off the rails, it is
it's a reward because they'reinto something you want to do.
(13:15):
Now, I do see the other side ofthis, though.
Your player might have just beenlike the last guy been being
annoying.
I've been in the places wherepeople are like, no, we should
go.
We should go drinking tonightand gambling.
And they want to spend the wholetime like just there.
And we can do many games thewhole time, but we're not going
to make any progress on thestory.
(13:35):
I've had people want to go offon side tangents before in a
more annoying way, but I've alsohad the side tangents that end
up being the best session of thecampaign.
Up to you to decide which onethis is, or if you're even
comfortable improv-ing whatyou're going to do next.
But yeah, I don't think there'smuch more to say on it because
(13:56):
you have a pretty good read onthe situation.
And one more thing is, I thinkthat...
That what you would be able tosay is what you said is a good
thing.
Like we can do this sidetangent.
We're just going to have to doit next week.
Like if you don't want to do thedungeon, it's fine.
We'll do it next time.
But if you're going to do thisother mission that I need, I
(14:19):
need, I need time to prepare.
That's not a big ask.
Not everybody is going to beable to accidentally do the best
session of the campaign.
But at the same time, yeah.
that's that's pretty much itwell let's go on to the next one
i think that was a really goodprompt though because it's a
good lesson to learn for boththe players and the dm for the
(14:39):
players they need to stick totheir what they're planning to
do because they shouldn't beexpecting so much of the dm and
for the dm like there are timesthat you should be a little more
loose on things like that butthis sounds like since you
prepared so much they probablyknew you were preparing this
much they should respect thatWhat's the easiest starter
(15:03):
campaign to run for a fresh DM?
This is one of my favoritetopics because I have run three
starter campaigns.
So I'll get into it in a fewseconds.
But yeah, I love this.
I currently run a UK high schoolD&D club.
We meet regularly and havearound 20 members, which is
amazing for clubs at our school.
But there's an issue.
Not enough DMs.
(15:24):
Everybody has that issue, exceptour group where everybody has
something they want to DM rightnow.
Everybody wants to DM right now.
We can only play once a week.
I'm in a situation where thereare two groups of around five,
which leaves me often witharound eight players.
That coupled with the fact thatwe often are only meeting in
lunchtimes with around 20minutes of play means that often
in combat, not everyone gets aturn.
(15:45):
For context, we meet threelunches and once after school.
So over the week, we get roughlytwo hours of play.
I love the group, and they arealways patient, but we need to
split the party.
So what do you guys think is theeasiest campaign slash setting
for me to try to encourage a newDM to take half the group to do?
I love this.
It sounds like you guys aregetting some popularity going
(16:06):
for a school D&D club, which thefact that you have a school D&D
club makes me so jealous.
I wish I had stuff like thatwhen I was in school or even had
the courage to take part in it.
So I'm glad that D&D...
is getting to the popularitylevel where we can have these
kinds of things and themactually be popular.
So many players, not enough DMs,is a great and horrible problem
(16:28):
to have.
As far as where you shouldstart, I think you need to gauge
the interest and the style ofyour players and who you think
your protege is, who you thinkis going to be the best person
to actually take part of thisgroup and run it.
(16:48):
I think you can present a coupleof options to them, maybe one or
two of the starter kits, sincethose are very cheap and easy to
get into, with a little book togo along with it.
So bring up Lost Mines ofPhandelver.
That's where I started.
I literally started level two,Lost Mines of Phandelver.
They had already done the introgoblin dungeon, but they had not
(17:10):
done the rest of the campaign.
So I was a player in Lost Minesof Phandelver from my first
experience with D&D.
And I personally ran WaterdeepDragon Heist, but I'll give it a
little caveat.
This is a$50 book with a lot ofins and outs and villains.
So if you have an extremelyexcited player who really wants
(17:32):
to try DMing and they want to goall out, I think Waterdeep
Dragon Heist is the beststarting point, but it's a lot
more work.
So if you're just trying to getsomeone to dip their toe into
DMing, Dragon of Icespire Peakor Lost Mines of Phandelver
would be where I would go.
Dragon of Icespire Peak is alittle more open-ended.
They can find the quests thatthey like in there and drop them
(17:54):
in wherever they want.
Lost Mines of Phandelver, Ithink, is an overall more
satisfying story depending onwho's DMing it.
Because it has a beginning,middle, end.
And you...
I think have a little more of anopportunity to meet the
characters and spend time inPhandalin.
(18:16):
And I do find the locations alittle more interesting overall,
too.
I haven't played all of Dragonof Icespire Peak, but I did read
through all of it.
And while you are dealing withthe same setting, I just think I
would enjoy Phandelver more.
And speaking of that, there isPhandelver and below the
Shattered Obelisk.
So if they do feel like runningmore Phandalin later off of one
(18:37):
of these, I they can pick upthat book and keep it going for
the rest of the school year.
Because I think it'll take10-ish sessions, if they're a
little bit slow, going throughthe entirety of Phandelver.
But then if they're...
Lost Mind of Phandelver.
Yeah, I'm correct.
I'm correct.
(18:58):
I was freaking out for a second.
I was like, what is it?
So yeah, I think that that wouldbe a pretty solid option for
them.
And then if they want tocontinue, that's when they pick
up a module.
Storm King's Thunder can go outof Phandelver.
Phandelver and Below ShatteredObelisk can go out of it.
Pretty much any of the modules,honestly, if they're deciding
they want to take their players,you know, wherever.
(19:19):
So those are all great options.
Likewise, you can justbrainstorm some ideas with them
if you're not playing inForgotten Realms setting and you
don't want, like, official...
D&D materials, then you can havethem write up something in the
setting that you guys areplaying in.
If you have a really coolsetting that you've been working
on, it's not a bad idea to havethem homebrew off the start to
(19:41):
get those creative juicesflowing.
I just find that the quality ofwriting isn't as good when
you're also trying to learn allof the rules of a very
complicated role-playing game ontop of it.
So that's kind of what I got foryou on that one.
You know, you can let me know inthe comments if you're watching
(20:02):
on YouTube or just send us anemail at tabletalkfriday at
gmail.com or go over topatreon.com slash
tabletalkfriday.
We have like a little communitychat thing in there.
Let me know if you think any ofthis is good advice.
But yeah, guys, this is a littlebit different of a format for
what we do in Table Talk Friday,especially because everybody is
(20:24):
so busy online.
I end up being the one who has alittle bit more free time and I
enjoy sitting down and talkingabout this kind of stuff.
So I hope you don't mind thatevery couple of weeks it is just
me.
But let me know if you like thisformat.
I think that it kept my thoughtsa little more, you know, right
on target as opposed to likejust letting me ramble about one
topic the entire time.
Me being able to kind ofnormally I'm just going to like
(20:46):
forums and stuff, looking atquestions like these anyways,
and then thinking through likewhat I would like.
you know, how I would actuallysolve this problem.
So allowing me to get mythoughts out like this is
honestly pretty satisfying,especially because I feel like
if any of these people were tolisten to the episode, they
might actually get some goodadvice out of it.
(21:09):
So yeah, love where the podcastis going again so far.
If you like the show, pleaseleave a like or comment down
below.
And yeah, You can find us overon patreon.com slash
tabletalkfriday.
If you want to support the showa little bit better, a little
more financially, there's someextra perks that go in there
like the post show that I willrecord right after this.
Not sure what I'm going to talkabout yet.
(21:30):
Maybe fitness, maybe Magic theGathering, maybe more D&D and
how our group's been doinglately.
But yeah, so there's a post showon patreon.com slash
tabletalkfriday.
And then you can find us onyoutube.com slash
tabletalkfriday where the entirepodcast is uploaded.
I honestly, like YouTube's myformat of choice.
I like seeing everything over onYouTube and seeing the views and
(21:52):
being able to trap analyticsover there.
We're also on every podcastservice under the globe.
Everything that Buzzsproutoffers is where we're at.
And like I said before, if youhave any questions, comments,
concerns about the show, go totabletalkfriday.com Send us an
email really quick.
I promise I'll answer becauseI've got it on my phone and I
get notifications every time anemail comes in.
(22:12):
Thank you guys so much forlistening this week and I'll
catch you in the next episode.
If you'd like to follow the boysanywhere or send them any
inquiries, anything you'd liketo say to them, you can do so at
tabletalkfriday at gmail.com.
(22:36):
Once again, thank you forlistening to the show.
Come back next Friday.
Give us a follow.
Rate us five stars and whatnot.
Have a good one.
See ya.
Bye-bye.
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