Tactical Studies Rules

We discuss the news and then delve into the Vault with James Sherwood.

Hosts: William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, and Gretchen Winkler

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Welcome to We Are Technology’sUser friendly.
2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,
technology architect.
And this is User Friendly 2.0.
I am your host is always Bill Sikkens.
Joining me Bill and Gretchen.
Welcome to this week's show.
Hello there.

(00:31):
This is a weirdto think that after this week,
we only have one new show this year,and then we're off to 2026.
Yeah, I was very quickly.
On that note,we are going to have a new show next week.
We're going to be talking aboutsome very unique scams.
We've talked about scams in the past,
but this some of these take the casea little bit and we'll get into that.

(00:53):
Week after that we're going to bererunning some stuff from this year.
And then the week after that,which is in the new year,
we're going to be discussingtech, trends,
both what's happened in 2025and what we are projecting for 2026.
So that's what we have up and comingthis week.
We're going to be talking about DungeonsDragons in-depth games with the ball
is going to bejoining us here in a little bit

(01:14):
right after the news going oversome of the history, who Gary Gygax is.
If you don't know that name, you will.
And so on.
So that'll be kind of cool coming up here.
But before that, let'sgo ahead and just jump in.
What do we have in the news this week.
All right.
World's first 3D printed cornea
restores blind patients sight.

(01:35):
Yeah.
And you know I love seeing where thesethings are going for quality of life.
Sight is something that if you have it,you take it for granted.
If you don't,you realize you want it back.
I think those are the two schoolsof thought.
The only third one would be is somebodythat's born
with outside that maybe doesn't knowwhat it's like to have it, but
at the end of the day, it's more,
in my opinion,one of the most important senses we have,
and it's also one of the ones that's theeasiest to screw up with different things.

(01:59):
There's diseases like like regenerationand other things.
It's just with age, your eyesget out of whack sometimes, you know,
there's all kinds of different thingsthat can happen.
And they've been working on technologyfor replacing
basically your eyeball for a while now,and they've
come up with some different things.
About ten years ago,they had a camera that
installed into your eyeand didn't really work all that well.

(02:20):
And then the other problem wasthe company went out of business.
So the people that had it no longerget it repaired.
Oh no kidding.
Yeah,there were some difficulties like that.
So out here,you know, the product itself,
if you are completely blind,it certainly gave you more sight.
So it was worth doing.
But, you know, it's
one of those kind of things that I thinknow we're getting into a little bit more
where our technology is catching up,and we have the ability

(02:42):
to start to really do these things.
And like this headline talksabout the world's first 3D printed cornea.
We're looking at technology like that.
They also have some other thingswe talked about a few weeks ago,
using cybernetics for doingsome of this type of stuff, and really
to bring back sight is a major thingand bringing back quality of life.
And it's something that I'm glad to seewe're

(03:04):
starting to really have on the tablein a meaningful way.
So we'll be watching this going forward,
of course,but it's going to be interesting
when we start getting some data next yearon what works and what doesn't,
and what people are thinking in the testgroups.
They're starting to get this into.
Las Vegas as new charge.
So this one is a little over the top.

(03:27):
Obnoxious in my opinion.
Now, we've talked in the past about Vegasand the fact that they are charging
a lot of kind of, hidden fees used to bethe entertainment capital of the world.
Now, I've heard it called the Hidden Fee
capital of the worlddue to these things, resort fees.
And you go out to eatand you have a kitchen fee and a tip
and a gratuity,which I used to think were the same thing.

(03:49):
When did they have a chair fee?
Yeah, there's a facilities fee.
There is largely a facilitiesand some restaurants.
So that would be a chair fee really.
Like fee and
and a fork and a spoon and a knife fee.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, it's, there actually is a fee,just as a little aside on this and,

(04:09):
it's one of the hotels.
And if you get room service,
if you want them to actuallybring real silverware,
you get the additional feecharged you for that.
If you're okay with plastic,where you don't.
I mean, it's just kind of ridiculouswhere all of this is going
and they are starting to see visitorsdrop.
I can imagine why I'mI'm not going to see us this year because.
Not because, of course, because I don'twant to get, you know, have that happen.

(04:33):
So in any event to make things better,the government's gotten involved now.
And if you don't hear the sarcasmin my voice, I will emphasize that
this had started about a year ago,and there's been 119 people
that have run afoul of this.
So basically what's going on
is if you've been to Las Vegas,you probably know about this.
If you don't,there are walkways that go over the strip

(04:55):
every so often, periodically up and down
so that, you can walk from one sideto the other, like if you're walking down
the sidewalk, you don't have to go on thestreet, which is very busy.
Well, for some reason, Clark County
decided to pass a lawthat it is a crime to stop
while you're walking over these walkwaysor even, like, a traffic ticket.

(05:18):
It is a misdemeanor crime, and 119people have been arrested for committing
the crime of taking a selfie or somethingwhile over the street and stop.
And that's crazy.
Yeah, I tend to completely agreeand it's one of those things.
Watch yourself if you are in Vegas.
There's a lot of weirdthings that are going on now.
And, but this one was over the top when Iwhen I found out about it,

(05:40):
they did check on it. It's a thing.
You can look it up and,you know, see all the details on it.
But yeah, it's, now a crime.
Like a crime that goes on your record.
Crime?
You know.
What did you do? I murdered somebody.What are you in jail for?
Oh, I stole $1 million. And you know whatare you in jail for?
I stopped on the walkwaygoing over Las Vegas Boulevard.
You know, in between the Luxorand whatever.

(06:02):
You take a tourist photo. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. You know, I mean, jeez.
Yeah.
They're not.
They're not thinking,
All right,
it might save or destroy us.
And I'm not talking about those chargesand fees.
Harvard'sAvi Loeb issues stark alien warning.

(06:25):
If three Eye Atlas isn't a comment.
Yeah, we've talked about this in the past,but this is just all over
the news lately.
So December 19th
is the day that the, guy Atlasis going to make the closest pass,
and then it starts on its wayout of the solar system.
And there, you know,the thing of videos is that aliens.

(06:48):
Well, you know,if it is, that would certainly be.
I don't even know if the word
Earth shattering would be correct for thatcertainly would change things.
But at the end of the day,
one of the things I thinkthat this researcher, who is a very much
respected scientist, is trying to put outthere is we cannot assume anything.
And the scientific community is,oh, you know, it's a comment

(07:10):
and we're tryingto make it fit into that box.
And when it does all these weird things,we're trying to figure out a reason
why it's doing those weird things,because it's a comet.
So the idea has been suggested.
We talked about it before.
This is some kind of an alien spaceshipor a probe or something of that nature.
It has exhibitedsome unusual characteristics.
The tails on the wrong way.
It's changed colors.

(07:30):
There are materials in the exhaustthat up until now, exhaust.
There we go on the engine. Right.
And that the tail of the comet
that are things that we've only seenproduced by industry, never naturally.
So there are some very unusualcharacteristics about this object.
It's the third known thingthat we've witnessed
that's come from outside of the solarsystem, meaning that it was formed.

(07:51):
Or if you want to go with thisbuilt elsewhere and has come here.
So, you know, it's going to be interestingwhen the 19th comes and goes
to see what is actually going on here.
They're gettingsome better pictures of it too.
And that seems to be,something that's even supporting
Loeb's idea a little bit morebecause it does look unusual.
And, you know, again, I don't know,what do you guys think?

(08:12):
Are you ready for the space aliens?
Sure.
Why not? Yeah.
You know, I got to say,Roswell has done good with that
for the last 80 years or whateversince, you know, they crashed there so.
Well, you know why not, right?
Scientists create
skin like hydrogel that heals wounds.

(08:33):
Yeah.
So, as with medical things,
you know what is actually claimed hereand what actually is or isn't reality.
You know, maybe two different things,but it's if even close to
what they are saying, it can do it.
Somethingthat, creates or creates, heals wounds.
We can talk today 90% in four hours.
And they claim to have it donefully in 24.

(08:54):
And now again,this is a proof of concept thing.
I looked at it.
There was enough documentationto say that this might actually be real.
I couldn't find any case
studies or anything, but I think this isone of the ones that would be really nice
if it is, because wound treatment isa big deal, can cause a lot of problems.
Infection,and it's just completely unpleasant.
May take a long time to heal.

(09:15):
So if we did get the, quote,Star Trek ability
to heal quickly,it would save a lot of grief.
It really would.
So we'll be keeping an eye on thatwhen we get to go into 2026
to see how real this actually is,
and if we can find some studiesor information on it.
And if you've heard about this,feel free to go to User Friendly Dot show.

(09:36):
Put it in the comments,because I'd love to see
if there's any other informationout there.
The documentation that I foundappears pretty good, but I these days
I can't be sure.
All right.
And real quick, Australia's world worldfirst
social media banfor under sixteens comes into effect.
That's going to be a big deal.
Yeah.

(09:56):
So in Australia if you're under 16you can no longer use social media.
It is a law passed by the government.
It is being done because of some ofthe problems that social media causes.
I know that there are caseswhere the kids don't go to sleep at night
because they're,
checking their feeds
and these type of things, plus predatorsand everything else that we still have.
The kids killing themselvesbecause they're traumatized.

(10:17):
Yeah, yeah, all of this kind of stuff.
Now, there's an argumentfor not doing this through.
Social media has a lot of benefitfor sharing things and getting information
with, you know, friendsand all that kind of stuff.
So it's going to be interestingto see how this goes.
Is the first country that has done this,and we'll be following that too in 2026.
All right.
Let's go back in timeand talk about Dungeons and Dragons.

(10:37):
Welcome to the vault to the.My name is James Sherwin.
And with metoday is Bill second from User Friendly.
Hello, hello, hello.
And today we're going to talk aboutsomething near and dear to my heart.
I've played it some with Bill as well.
We're going to be talking as kind ofa 30,000ft view of Dungeons and Dragons.

(11:00):
Now, this is somethingI think I think I've heard of.
I, I, I, I remember the name somewhere.
I think this might actually catch on.
I think it could.
And it's been around for a tick.
As I said before,Bill and I have played this together.
I've had I've been playing since 1989.

(11:21):
So the game first came out in 1974.
It was based on the game chainmail, which,
if you've heard of that one,I'm impressed.
It was created by Gary GuyJackson de Amazon.
I always pronounce his name wrong.
They created the company

(11:42):
or Gary Gygax did with Don Kay's calledTactical Studies
Rules, TSR,and it published Dungeons and Dragons.
Okay,I never knew that's what TSR stood for.
So that's an interestingbit of information.
Tactical study rules.
Yeah, neither did I.
I found that out when I was doinga little bit more of a deep dive into it.

(12:03):
I hadn't dugtoo far into the history myself
until here recentlywhen I was getting ready to do this.
I have just been an avid player
for longer than I would care to mention.
But, as I said before, I started in 1989
and it
was the birthday presentfrom a friend of mine because I was

(12:26):
finally old enoughand mature enough as a child
to play the game accurately.
Okay, so a little bit about the history,
it has had about nine revisions there.
It is basic,which is what first came out in 1974.
There is advanced, which came out 80,

(12:51):
I believe it was around 81.
There was advancedsecond edition, advanced second edition,
black edition, third edition, 3.5.
Where they went through and modifiedsome of the third edition rules,
fourth edition and then this edition
with a recent revision to fifth edition2024.

(13:11):
Rules.
Okay, so fifthedition is the most current one.
Fifth edition 2024 is the most current.
I think the dates on the editionsget kind of murky, because it's like,
oh, I'm publishing this bookfrom this set, in this book, from the set.
And the
the reason I ask that question is becauseevery time that I am aware of that,

(13:32):
a new edition has come out, there's alwayssome kind of a meltdown that happens.
And that's how I knew, oh,there's a new edition of 80
and the most one, what you just want to bein that software thing they have.
So I haven't heard any of this lately.
So it makes sense.
It's been a year.It's been a quiet year. No wonder
it has.
And everyso often they like to refresh it.

(13:54):
One of the things for Dungeons and Dragons
they do thethe slang term for it is splat marks.
What that means is you have youryour core books.
You have your player's handbook,
you have your Dungeon master guide,you have your monster manual.
And if you have those three, you can playanything that your heart can think up.

(14:15):
Okay?
And then they come out with booksthat have different rules in them,
or they come out with a lot of campaignsettings,
such as Krinn, also known as Dragonlance.
If you've heard of that series of books,it's a high fantasy
world of war between dragons.

(14:35):
Originally based on books by MargaretWeiss and Tracy
Hickman, it was based on a home game
that they played in thatthey then turned into novels.
So were then, addressed by TSR and turned
into an actual campaign world.
Okay, so let's say I've, I used to loveDragonlance growing up, but I didn't know.
So they were two separate companiesat one time.

(14:58):
Well, Dragonlance waswas a series of books that was published.
It started out with Chronicles.
I can't remember the exact names now.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight or.
Sorry.Yeah, it's been a while for me, too.
I just,
I cast the Minotaur and all of my daddycharacters be named Kaz comes from that.
But, I always thought thatthat was always part of the same thing.

(15:18):
So the books were published by somebody,and then they were the rights to
it were purchased for the campaign,or how did that work?
I don't know, 100%,but what they have done before
with other sets isthey will go to the author and say, hey,
we would like to adapt this for our game
so that other people can explorethis work.

(15:38):
Okay, that happened with the, Forgotten Realms,
which is probably one of the biggest ones.
It's the setting for Baldur's Gate,which if you play or even hear video
games, you've probably heard of Baldur'sGate three sometime here in the last year.
So that was onethat was originally created in 1967.

(16:00):
So seven years beforedaddy was even thought of.
Written by Ed Greenwoodas a C, a setting for his novels,
it caught on
so much that he and TSR lined up togetherand said,
hey, this would be a great placefor people to play.
This would be a great worldfor them to go in and explore.

(16:23):
And you now have dozens of authorsthat have jumped into the world
and expanded it,and you've had movie adaptations
and the most recent one
that Dungeons and Dragons,I believe it's Den of Thieves, was set in
Forgotten Realms Bouldercountyjust set in Forgotten Realms,
probably a dozen video games,all set in Forgotten Realms.

(16:47):
They did that same thing with Dragonlance.
The series of books came outand were published.
I can't remember nowwho the original publisher was, but,
you know, it's interesting.
It's interesting on thatbecause I my first knowing
of these things, Forgotten Realmswas a video game, I think back in the
like Atari days or something,one of those gold

(17:07):
box ones that they came out withfor a while and that type of a thing.
I'm not aware of a Dragonlance video game,
but again,I had found it through the books,
but it seems like, again,all of these things certainly do set up
for a perfect environment for somethinglike Dungeons and Dragons, in my opinion.
So it does make sense.
But you know, again,at the end of the day, it's
kind of interesting to see the historyhere, the history of these things,

(17:28):
because I had no ideathey came from different,
you know, actually different publishersin different places.
I always thought that,you know, Gary wrote all this stuff
on, you know, on a Sunday afternoonon the train in 1976.
So evidently that's not the case or 74.
And if that's the case,
well, some of them were like Ravenloft.
It's a gothic horrorrealm with these domains

(17:50):
that are controlled by evil entities,anything from witches
to vampires and evil godsand things like that.
That was one that was created by,I believe that one was created
by Gary Gygaxas a different realm to explore.
So it started out as a game realmand then became books.
And then you have the reverse,the ones that started out as books

(18:14):
or as somebody else's creative materialand then became a game route.
So let's say I
you know,we've talked about this in the past,
but let's say that
you have someone that's completely newto Dungeons and Dragons and role playing.
What do you actually need?
You said they're a couple of books,but what is actually required?
What is the process?
How do you get started in this.
Well,so first let's talk a little bit about

(18:35):
what do you do so that we have a frameworkfor what we're going to do.
The indie or Dungeonsand Dragons is collaborative storytelling.
That goes for just about any tabletoprole.
And and what that means is you have two
main types of players.
You have your dungeon master,

(18:58):
who is the personwho is narrating the story.
They create the world.
They create the ideas.
They create all of these things.
And then you have the
players, and the players are the onesthat will actually have the characters.
So if you think of a movie, thethe headline characters,
the main protagonists, that's the player.

(19:22):
So as they move through the storythat's being developed
by the Dungeon Master,but it's collaborative.
Everyone should be having fun.
It's not an us against them.
It's challenges that everyone getsa chance to participate in.
And a well-run gamehas some variety of challenges,
so it's not just going to be, oh, look,I'm hitting something with an ax.

(19:46):
There should be puzzlesand social interactions
and all of these things,if that's what the players enjoy.
And then the Dungeon Master will createnon-player characters, non-player
characters, or all of the peoplethat populate the world
that the player charactersare going to be moving through.
So rather than just talking to namelessbarkeep,

(20:09):
you have Carl, the retired
soldier that opened a bar with his
with his retirement moneyafter having his foot chopped off
or whatever the case may be,you throw those tidbits in there
so that you have some realityin and something to grip.
Yeah,
I know the depth of the charactersdo make it make a huge difference.

(20:30):
And, let me ask you this questionbefore we get into how to play the,
you had mentionedthe idea of the players are kind of
like the players in the movie,but in a movie you have a script,
you know what's going to go on.
How does the Dungeon Masterknow what the characters are going to do?
And you know,
because it's not going to be
something that they're goingto really be able to script out, is it?
It's not.
And it's one of the hardest thingsto learn as a dungeon Master.

(20:56):
There is a saying nothing will mess up
a campaign like players.
So there's a Dungeon Master.
There's a balance betweenhow much prep work you do
and how much salary you put intoyour world, and all of these things,
because the players are going to come inand invariably
they are going to do somethingthat you are not expecting, right?

(21:18):
That's going to deraileverything that you had planned.
So it seems like this is somethingthat actually really builds on itself.
You have a starting point for the story,
but you don't necessarilyknow where it's going to go,
and neither does the Dungeon Master.
At least that's what I'm understanding.
Correct? It's collaborative.
I'll use that word quite a few times.
It is a story that is developed

(21:40):
by the choices that the characters make.
It is a story developed by the path
that the storyor the Dungeon Master wants to take.
It's not sayingthat there is no framework, though,
and what I mean by that is there are
tricks and tips that a Dungeon Mastercan use to keep something going

(22:03):
in the way that it's supposed to do,without feeling like a railroad.
The railroad is one.
The only option you have is to gothe way I want.
But you can nudge you can guide you,you can kind of direct.
There is also a pointat which you can reach
when you just kind of say, you know,
the story has goneso far from what I had prepped.

(22:25):
I need a chance to stop and revampwhat I'm doing so that everyone's
still having fun, because just going by
the seat of my pants isn't going to work.
Now that totally, totally makes sense.
And we're going to break for commercial.
Here we are talking to the vault hostJames Sherwood,
going over the history of Dungeonsand Dragons.
This is user friendly 2.0.We'll be back after the break.

(22:48):
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(23:57):
From 2013 I have things changed.
We are talking to The Vault hostJames Sherwood,
discussing the origins of Dungeonsand Dragons,
and in the previous segment,we went through some of the basics
of how the game came to be,where it is going,
how a Dungeon Master and the charactersand the non-playing characters work.

(24:17):
Let's go ahead and drop back in. James.Welcome back.
Yeah, thank you very much.
So we talked about all thatin the first segment.
And let's go ahead and dive right in.How do you play the game.
What do you need.
So to play the game there's a couple ofvery basic things that you need.
First of all you need I mentionedsome of that in that first section.
You need a player's handbook, a DungeonMaster's guide, and a monster manual.

(24:39):
This is for ease.
I'm talking about first edition,
but these books have been pretty standardthrough every edition since.
Advanced basic was a little bit different.
So in this edition, you're looking, somewhere in the neighborhood.
$50 a book.
But that's reallygoing to be your primary expenditure.

(25:00):
And you can find use copies,you can find digital copies.
And we'll talk a little bit more aboutsome of the digital stuff here in a bit.
I'm gonna just throw this out herebecause it's something
that, I found interesting is the books.
You get what you pay for.
I've always enjoyed the artwork.
This goes a lotbeyond just a system of rules.
You have a lot of depth to all of that.

(25:22):
As far as I know, minor hardbound too.
So it's really a nice quality productthat they put out, in my opinion.
And I love as much as reading about thegaming system, just looking at the artwork
and the different thingsthat are in there.
And it is it's worth what you pay. It is.
And that's one of the things
Wizards of the coastwho bought Dungeons and Dragons in 1997,

(25:43):
and shortly after
that was when third edition came out.
And one of the thingsthe Wizards of the coast really did
was up the production value.
Right.
One of the other things that they did wasthey went to streamline the game
so that it's a lot easier for new playersto join in, because the old one

(26:05):
had a lot of the advancedand the advanced second edition,
and a lot of very cumbersome rulesthat were amazing,
and I missed to some degree,but they were not very player friendly.
I remember that quite well.
You know, my background is in physicsand the whole Mako thing.
I never to this daycouldn't quite figure out.

(26:25):
And for anybody that doesn't know,that's a set of variables
that had to do with how to attack enemiesand that kind of thing.
It's no longer used.
There are people that swear by it, andthere are people that absolutely hate it.
I'm somewhere in the middle that I justhad someone else figure out why,
and if you know what that go means,I would love for you
to throw me a messageand put that in the comment, because that.

(26:47):
Yeah, so you're a die hard,
but, so you need those basic books.
You can get the additional supplements, the various m a worlds
and things like that,but you don't need it.
You can do it.
Just just kind of off the cuffand create the world
that you want to play called homebrew.
The next thing you need is a charactersheet, a character sheet,

(27:10):
a wide variety of ways of doing it.
Yeah.
When I started, the only optionwas a paper character sheet and a pencil.
You write everything downand once you get to your level
five character,it was all started to go sideways.
Everything was a race.
Everything.
Line, script written over itand all of these things.

(27:33):
So it was time to write outa new character sheet.
With the advent of computers,you started having digital character
sheets or a little charactersheets, like PDFs that you could go into
and type on and utilize the laptopor something like that to do that.
That's relatively new.
I know we didn't have thatwhen I was a kid playing.

(27:56):
And then for fifth editionand fifth edition 2024,
there is an amazingsystem called the Endpoint.
D&D beyond is
a computer databasethat you can go in and buy the books,
and everything is built inso you can build characters, you can build
monsters, you can build encounters,you can do notes.

(28:21):
You can build campaigns, you can use maps.
All of these things.
And the character buildermakes it so simple
because everything is rightthere in a digital framework
for you to pull up,and it makes it so much easier.
I think the biggest thingthat I've noticed on
that is the ability to search, because,you know, there are rules on things
and you have an index,of course, in your books and all of that.

(28:44):
But when you're at the table,
there tends to besometimes disagreements on the rules.
And then the next 20 minutes, everybody'spulling out books for 20 minutes.
You're doing well.
And this is something that I've noticed
that you can just simply look at searchlike anything you would on a modern app.
And the information's right there for you.
It, justit saves a lot of time and frustration.

(29:04):
And from that standpoint,I'm one that I've always preferred
the tabletop version of it,but I'm starting to warm up to this
just because it does save so much timeand it also makes it a lot easier
to put your character togetherand all of that.
And the other thing of itis, is your Dungeon master now has access
to what's going on privately,because there's times in game
you don't want the other characters toknow what's going on as part of the game.

(29:25):
Right?
So and that's always been a bit,you know, difficult and awkward
when two people go into the cornerof the room for ten minutes
and then come back and you're like,okay, what's going to happen to me now?
You can avoid these things.
So, so yeah, it's it isdefinitely something that is a good tool.
One of the other big
things withwith the advent of the Navy on,

(29:46):
you can get these books for about 25
to $30 a piece
in on the digital version,on the DMV on website,
rather than having to spend$50 per book over and over again.
Right.
So it makes it much easier to get into.
Well, there's another step of that too,because from my understanding

(30:08):
and from what we've played with it,there's an ability.
If one person owns a book,share it out to the other players.
So you also get rid of the problem of,oh, we only have one book.
And you know,that could be somewhat cumbersome too.
This does do away with that.
I know there's some limits on that,but it does work quite well from what
I've seen it, and I run several games
and I have my they call the compendium,all of the books that I have shared

(30:32):
in most of these campaigns, so that I'mthe only one that has to pay into it.
Everyone else
can just use what I haveand play and have fun,
and they don't have to worry about too bigan investment.
Yeah, and it does.
It saves a lot on that front.
You know, it's kind of funny
because you talk about use of computersand that type of a thing.

(30:53):
Just a little aside on this, thethis is the first time I've seen it where
I think they've really gotten itright. It's easy to use.
And you talked about the PDFnullable character sheets.
Well, back in the 80s,Commodore 64, in the Atari,
somebody had made an attemptto do something like this,
and unfortunately,it was one of those bits of software
that if that was your first experiencewith roleplaying,

(31:14):
you probably wouldn't continuebecause it was,
you know, so difficult modern day and age.
You have a tablet that runs on a batteryset in front of you on the table.
There were groupsthat were taking these desktop computers,
trying to get together at a tablebecause there was no networking.
Bring them up.
So you have all these monitorsand different things going on,
and it was considered somewhat cumbersome,especially when
because of the day and age, itdidn't save your character sheet or didn't

(31:37):
save changesor some things that you know.
But definitely I've seen this going on.
And then there'sbeen the games and things,
but this time it does seem like it'sseamless, it works
well, and it's just somethingyou can sit down and use.
And there's not the frustrationthat there once was,
but it is kind of funnyto think about this.
The attempts of this have been going onfor, well, 30 years,

(31:59):
and it took that amount of timeto seem to get it to work properly.
50 years actually celebrate the 50th.
Yeah, you're right, 50 years.
It's I don't wantto think I'm not old anyway,
speaking of
expenditure, here comes the probably
from the most expensivepart of the entire game is having dice

(32:22):
and what is known as the Dice Goblin.
And the dice Goblin is somebody who willby dice at the drop of a hat.
Realistically, you need one set.
Oh no, no, that's theoretic.
Well,there's no way that would possibly work.
True.
And the set of dice is
seven die.

(32:43):
You have a four sided, a six sided,
an eight sided, the ten sided,
a 12 sided, a 20 sided,
and then what's known as a percentile, which is a ten sided die
with instead of one through zero,you have ten through zero.

(33:06):
So you put these things togetherand depending on how you're playing
and what type of check you're doing
and and what you're rolling,you're rolling, you however many dice.
Dice are dangerous.
I and I caution you enough on that
because I personally have about 75 sets.

(33:27):
But one of the things that I've takento doing, and there are dozens of dice
superstitions outthere, is for each game that I'm playing.
I have my own 2 or 3 sets,
just because to methat makes it feel a little more real,
and it helps me keep track in my headof what I'm actually play.
Yeah.
And you actually dowant more than one stat,
because there's timesyou do need multiple dice.

(33:49):
No reality one set will get you going.
It's, you know, that's the case.
But you know, and this is another areawhere art in artistic
things have really gotten into that.
Now it's a little bit about availability,but also there are
a lot of different kinds of diceand some really cool ones that,
that you can get that are just go waybeyond just your basic set.

(34:10):
Oh yeah.
I mean, you have your basic plastic
and resin ones, you have silicone dice,you have metal dice.
I have seen stone dice or semi-preciousstone dates.
I saw, set made out of amethystthat were absolutely gorgeous.
I think sterling silver, sterling silver.
I haven't personally seen gold,but I've heard they make them,

(34:34):
they are also nowcoming up in Bluetooth dice,
which is okay once the Bluetooth dies.
So Bluetooth is one of the big thingsthat's happened.
Covid really kicked a lot of thisin which I know
I just said the C-word,but I apologize for that.
One of the things that it did, thoughis it started up remote play.
So you have, websiteslike Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.

(34:57):
So what they allowyou to do is play online.
Well, for those of us like myself,
don't want to click a button and have thattell me what happened.
I can roll a physical diethat is Bluetooth to my computer
and it will populate thatroll into the website.

(35:18):
Oh that's cool, that's cool.
They're not perfect yet.
Last I saw, they were somewherein the neighborhood of 40 or $50 a die.
Wow. One that I sawwas just that they added each one.
20 sided dice.
So there is the entire gambit.
If you're a head,they've got that for you.

(35:40):
Availability.
You can find these all over the place.
You can find them online.
Your big, big bundle deals like Amazon.
And you can find them at your local gamestores, which are great.
I use Wild Things.
And in, OregonI have found really good specials on dice,
and they have a lotof different manufacturers.

(36:02):
So where you can go if you want tolook online that I highly recommend.
I've used them for several dice purchasesand some other accessories.
You may have heard ustalk about it from our Rose city Comic-Con
Misty mountain game.
If you need roleplaying accessories,they've got it and it's.

(36:23):
I've bought
probably two dozen sets from themthat are anywhere
from those silicone dice all the waythrough some beautiful metal dice.
And I really have appreciatedwhat they did.
And their prices are very reasonable.
And, you know, this is one thing to isyou've got artists doing this.
And yeah, you can go on Amazon and ordera set of dice and most of us do have them.

(36:44):
But check out your local game storesbecause you're going to, number one,
find things that you won't find onlinethat are very unique.
And number two, you're supportingthe small businesses and small artists
in a way that is not as accessible.
And other things.
The third part of it is you got to meetgreat people that are also interested
in what you're doing and,figure out new things.
That is a very big part of it.

(37:06):
This is a social activity.
They have come up with a wayto play with one person.
They have come up,they're starting to do some AI generated.
So the AI is the Dungeon Master.
There's some things like that with it.
You can't be sitting down with 3or 4 friends
around a table,rolling some dice and having a lot of ups.

(37:27):
Yeah.
And you and you definitely do.
And sometimes maybe you're wrong,but yeah, you know.
So we've talked about books.
We've talked about dice,we've talked about here are your sheets.
We've talked a little bit about players.
So you have to have a dungeon master.
And then for me personally I like tokeep it to about six player characters.

(37:49):
Once you get over that, you can do it.
You can play with any number,but it starts to get a little bit overly
cumbersome.
The characters are only 12compatible stories.
Not that there can't be tension,not that there can't be a opposing view,
but this is collaborative storytelling.

(38:10):
So if somebody is there
just to break the game,it takes it away from everybody, right?
Yeah. So you want them to get along.
You want them to havethe same concept in mind.
If everybody's coming into it
with a different idea,one person wants it to be comedic
and one person wants it to be super highfantasy

(38:31):
using only only Old Englishor High English, or however you want to do
that,you'll have a lot of conflict at the table
and it won't be as much fun for everyone.
So you do what's known as session zero,
and session zero is sitting downand just talking about
what do you want to see out of the game?
And it's really that simple.

(38:52):
It's sitting down and saying,hey, I, I want to have fun with this.
I don't want it to be hugely serious.
I don't want there to be adult themes,or I don't want there to be horror themes,
or I really want to have a lot of suspensewith it, or a lot more of the political
intrigue and role playing rather than justhitting things with sticks.
And that's when you work those things out,so everyone's on the same page,

(39:15):
so everyone can have the same amountof fun.
Yeah, it's so true.
And that's another thing too,is because the people playing
also bring different techniquesto the table.
There's a lot of people
that are into the acting partor the role playing part in this.
There's a lot of people that dowant to just hit somebody over the head
with a stick of gear, figurativelyin the game, of course, usually.
So, you know, and you bring all of thosethings together and you can actually

(39:36):
if you have a good mix of peopleto get along, that can work well.
But if you don't, it can be a headache.
I know,you know, there's both sides of that's
why it is important to make sure you are,you know, vetting a little bit
and get your session zero downso that you're able to have all of that
and have, you know, knocked outbefore you actually start gaming.
And then comes the most importantis for every player to have

(39:59):
you have your character,and your character is that alternate
persona that you get to bewhen you jump into the game.
It's that break from reality.
It is leaving your careor some worries behind you
and stepping into someone else's lifewith its own cares and worries.
But it allows you to distance yourselffrom who you are and find something unique

(40:21):
for you to play withand for that character.
There are three main components.
The first one is species.
They change from race to specieswith the 2024 advent
a little bit before that actually,which is who do you want to play?
You want to be a sturdy, short dwarf.
You want to be an athlete.You want to be an elf.

(40:44):
What do you want to be?
Do you want to be a variant on human?
But it's kind of
what species do you want to be,and how is that going to interplay
with your backstory?
The second part is class.
Class is how you want to functionmechanically.
You want to be a wizard.
Do you want to be a cleric?

(41:06):
A wizard is casting spells, clericsor healing people
and and providing support.
You can be a fighterhitting people with a big stick.
You can be a thief and sneak around.
There's all of these optionsthat you can look into as to what
you want to play out, and that'll affecthow you interact with the story.

(41:28):
Because if you're the sneaky thief, you'reprobably not going to be a front line
character.
Or if you're the charismatic cleric,you may be doing
worth the role play in thethey call it face.
The person that interacts the mostwith the non-player characters right.
And then you have for me,
probably the biggest part,which is the backstory

(41:52):
and the backstory, is who is thatcharacter lifted out from being just
numbers on the page and rolls of the dice
and determine who that person is,
because I when I go in and play,I don't want to be James, the radio host.
I want to be Brad.
It's the warforged barbarianthat is there in order

(42:14):
to redeem himself from past war crimes.
That is actually a storylinethat I played,
because that's the story that I wantin my head.
That's what I want to create so that I canmove forward with that, you know?
And as far as all that goes to you, talkabout the kind of characters you play.
And this is reallywhere it gets amazing to me,
because you can do anythingyou can think of.

(42:37):
And I've been in some gameswhere you're not always the good guys,
and those can be very funto, you know, it just depends on,
you know, what you want to doand what the group wants to do
and what whatyou're kind of in the mood for.
But I've I've played it from both endsand it's been a lot of fun.
I have found that there are certain
character classes that I like to do thatI'm more comfortable with.
Sometimes I'll get out of that boxand then things get real weird.

(43:00):
But you know, it's againone of those type of things,
and it does make a lot of sense.
What you're saying.
Well,and then it's all about finding a way
to create a persona other than yourself
and seeing how it plays in the storywith these other people.
My biggest takeaway for thisis having that chance with other people

(43:23):
to really explore what you want to do now,and that is that's absolutely true.
All kinds of things.
Just a little bit here,James, talk about the vault.
Give us an exampleor explanation of what you're doing.
I mean you've done some segments here,but I understand
you're going to be making thisa standalone show.
When I got into this, the vault was,hey, you want to

(43:43):
come on and talk about some games?And it's taken off.
Apparently people like what I have to say
and it is turning into possiblymy own show.
The vault is a chance
for me to look at any type of gameyou can think of.
I've done board games,I've done video games, role playing
games, you name it, I want to touch on it

(44:05):
and it is real reviewsfrom somebody who's willing to play them.
It is a layman's view.
I am not a professional gamer.
I do not spend well.
The night I spent decades on,
but it's somebody who goes inand looks at it from the standpoint
of what makes a game fun

(44:27):
and what are the components of it.
And let me test these thingsand really get involved in it.
And it's something that I am passionate.
It's something that I very muchenjoy doing.
And I think it's importantto do this on out.
You know,there's a lot of people that review
games, video games and that type of thing,and there's very good people at that.

(44:47):
What you're doing is a little bitbeyond that.
First of all, it's not just video games.
As you said previously, you're going to be
covering all aspects of games, butit's also the ability to actually dig in
and see how these things goand not go by some press release.
But the reality,
and I think
that's somethingthat I'm really looking forward to,
you know, being able to hear aboutand and kind of see where that goes.

(45:08):
And yes, your segments have been extremelywell received.
We get a lot of commentsevery time that you're on and all of that.
So it's going to be, I think, amazingto see where this ends up going.
And I think it's going to go well.
So you know right nowuser friendly dot show.
The bolt dotshow is going to be the domain for that.
And it's up and running right now.
But there's going to be some more thingscoming up there as time progresses.

(45:29):
And you know whatever however we goforward is going to be there.
So I'll be the place to check it out.
And one other thingI just want to brought in the last minute
or so we have here is if this is somethingwhere you're having trouble
finding other people to play with,there's a lot of different ways to go
about that.
Most conventionsyou can do drop in gaming, but again,
a lot of your local stores,your game shops will have sessions set up.

(45:52):
Right.
You want to speak to that for
just a little bit hereon our last about 10s here.
Sure.
If you can find a local game shopwhich you can find in most towns,
easiest way to do it.
You walk in and you say, hey, I would loveto jump into at the indie game.
Do you host here?
Do you know of groups where I can playand they'll find it.

(46:13):
And if you're having a hard time findingsomewhere or if you're more remote,
you can go on to somewhere like roll20.comand they actually have game finders.
You put in the type of gameyou want to play,
and it brings up a list of gamesthat have open availability.
And then you can jump into thatand you can find someone to play with.
It may not be quiteas much fun for me online,

(46:35):
but it still gives you the chanceto immerse yourself
in that story and find outif it's something that you want to do.
Yeah, and very much out there.
And it's a starting pointand a way to meet new people
that have the same interest.
Well, games, thank you for joining usthis week and good luck with the vault.
This is user friendly 2.0 until next week.
Keeping you safe on the cutting edge.
Thank you for takingthe time to listen to the vault again.

(46:57):
My name is James Sherwood, I'm the hostand I would really like to hear from you.
If anybody has any comments or questions,feel free to go to my website.
It is the vault dot show.
Down at the bottomthere's a tab for contact Us.
You can feel free to go on there,drop a line, ask questions,
make comments on the showor if you have any any input.

(47:20):
I would love to hear it
next time on the vault,we're going to go ahead and take a quick
look into trading card games,especially a new game that we ran across
at Rose cityComic-Con 2025 called Soul Masters.
It's a new training card gamethat has multiple levels of strategy
and some absolutely beautiful artwork,so tune in next time where I meet with

(47:41):
some friends of mineto talk about what this game looks like
and how it stacks up againstsome of the other items in the genre.
So again,I look forward to hearing from you.
You all take care and I will see you nexttime when we break into some more fun.
User Friendly 2.0.
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(48:02):
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(48:23):
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