April 18, 2023 • 46 mins
In his inaugural podcast, Dax Levine chats with fellow Professional Dungeon Master, DM Mic. Not only is Mic a Pro DM, he is a professional stage actor and theater professor with over 30 years of experience acting and gaming. Working on the stages of the American theater has provided him with a wealth of understanding of storytelling and humanity. The pandemic put a halt on live performance for long enough to give him a chance to start working with Dax at Dungeon Master Direct! Dax and Mic gives tips and support for anyone interested in becoming a professional Dungeon Master.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:35):
And welcome to Dungeons and Dax,a podcast where I, Dax Levine, a
professional dungeon master, talk to myfriends about collaborative storytelling
and the awesome, cool things we do.
It's my chance to brag abouthow, how awesome my friends are.
I'm here with one of mygood friends, DM Mic.
Hello.
Hello.
How are you doing today?
(00:56):
I'm fantastic.
I'm fantastic.
Thanks for having me onyour inaugural performance.
Yes, this is our first performance andwe have two people watching right now.
There will be dozens in thefuture, there will be dozens.
But Mic you and I share a profession.
We are both professional dungeon masters.
In fact, we work together and wetalk to each other at least twice a
(01:17):
week about our trials and travailsand our triumphs and victories.
So we're gonna beventuring into that today.
Awesome.
Before I start asking youquestions, I'm gonna brag about
how cool you are a little bit.
Okay.
Go, go ahead.
This fancy, fancy biothat we've got for DM Mic.
Mic is a professional stage actor whostarted running games the same year
(01:39):
he started acting over 30 years ago.
Working on the stages of the AmericanTheater has provided him with a wealth
of understanding of storytelling.
And humanity, while simultaneously givinghim access to tons of colleagues to play
games with Offstage, the pandemic put ahalt on live performance for long enough
to give him a chance to become associatedwith Dax at Dungeon Master Direct.
(02:01):
And that brings us tothis very conversation.
Mm-hmm.
That was, that was almost two years ago.
That's right.
When we started working together.
That's right.
So tell, tell us about your careeras, as an actor, because I talked
to so many people who were like,oh yeah, I was in a play once.
Right.
I had some lines.
I was a theater kid inhigh school or in college.
(02:22):
That's, that's what I say I was.
You know, I did this in college.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I did a lot of improv.
But you, you are a professional.
What does that mean?
I am, I am well there, what it meansto be a professional is that I pay my
mortgage by being an actor on stage.
That's, that's essentially what it means.
But how I got to be there is a lot of workand a lot of trial and a lot of error.
(02:48):
And in the American theater, Imean, up until the pandemic, which
of course has changed everything.
That's the latest bookmark in that story.
But before the pandemic there wasa, a fairly clear route to take.
Now with social media and all, it haschanged somewhat the progression on
how to become a professional performer.
But on stage, suffice to say itmeans you gotta get on stage somehow,
(03:15):
which is a whole lot easier for amale bodied individual than it is
for a female bodied individual.
That's pretty standard.
It's also, harder person of color.
Yeah.
And thankfully that's changing.
That's changing.
But the, the number of roles for malebodied individuals is definitely higher
(03:36):
than the number of roles for female bodiedindividuals just because of classical
theater and the number of male roles.
Right.
So I had a fairly.
Fertile field in which to play.
And as long as I was, you know,responsible with my commitments being
on time, not overloading myself beingdependable, those kinds of things were
(03:58):
able to keep the door open for me.
And then it really becamegetting education on how to
use voice and body and reading.
Consuming more plays and stories,both classical and modern,
and then making those kind ofprofessional, you know, networking
(04:18):
kinds of relationships that span.
I chose to be in the regions ratherthan focus on one particular city.
You know, you can either live.
East Coast, New York or WestCoast LA and New York has got more
theater in it than la but bothof those places are popular hubs.
And then there's a whole glutof people that kind of bounce
(04:41):
around throughout the regions.
And that was my particular pathto jump around throughout as many
different theaters as I could.
Okay.
To make a full year, you know.
So, on that where have you performed?
Ooh, well, let's see.
I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so ahost of theaters in Milwaukee that some
(05:04):
of which aren't around anymore, butthen Some that still are Renaissance
Theater works American PlayersTheater in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
That's a, a big one for me.
Com becoming of age story for me there.
Then artist Repertory Theater inPortland, Oregon on that side of the map.
And then on this side ofthe map where I am now.
(05:24):
The resident ensemble players at theUniversity of Delaware, which has
been my home now for about 12 years.
I'm a founding member of that company,which came about with the idea that we
would help train graduate students in the.
Acting to receive their mfa.
And now we are morphing intohopefully offering a bachelor's
(05:48):
of Arts at that university.
So I teach classes there as well aspeer on stage with the company there.
And those changes that are coming aboutthere are largely, you know, fueled
by the pandemic, but also just mm-hmm.
Changes in personneland all of that stuff.
Okay.
So, Yeah, it's been it's beena rollercoaster as anyone in
(06:09):
the theater will tell you.
Mm-hmm.
And fully imagine.
Yeah.
Like in the introduction you weresaying almost as if I wrote it, that
it gave me enough time to meet you.
This kind of cessation of publicperformance where all of our
performing actually went online.
Gave me the opportunity, freed up thetime cuz it was less, you know, time
intensive, the rehearsals and thingsto be able to start venturing into
(06:31):
professional dungeon mastering, which hasbeen incredibly, incredibly rewarding.
Just as rewarding as the stage.
Yeah.
So we actually met duringsomeone else's game.
That's right.
Somebody's birthday.
Birthday party.
Someone's birthday party.
They hired me as the dungeon master.
Yeah.
And the whole time you werelike, how can I do this?
(06:52):
What is, what is the plan?
What is this theme?
Yeah, you definitely set a barfor me that I did not have.
Both on the electronic medium, but thenalso as just a storyteller in general.
And you, you still do, you you are abenchmark that I, I aim for, you know?
Oh yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you're top notch.
(07:13):
So what was your, what was your planwhen you found out I was hiring?
To put together a resume, whichwas something I'd never done
before for, for dungeon mastering.
You know, what, what does a, what doesa resume for a dungeon master look like?
What would you even putdown as things mm-hmm.
For the potential hire for pe apotential employer to consider.
(07:35):
And so, so that was actually freeingin a way, but then got me to think
critically about like, what, what wouldI consider experience and I would say to
people who are out there trying to thinkabout whether or not they want to be a
professional dungeon master okay, youlove the game and you love playing it.
You love running it.
Done right?
That's all taken care of.
That's easy.
So that's easy.
That's easy.
Easy.
(07:55):
Everybody.
Everybody's got that, right?
Anybody who's gonna be in frontof you asking if you wanna play in
their game has already got that.
So it's this other, the other questionsbecome a little bit more important, like,
what do you have to say what with a story?
What kinds of stories do you want to tell?
Do you have a way of accessingplayers that you don't know and
(08:20):
how do you, how often do yousit down at the table to play?
Can you handle.
Five games a week can or more.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Do you have that kind of stamina?
Do you have that kind of creative stamina?
Right.
Thanks to you know, some industrystandards that were set Yeah.
(08:43):
During the pandemic, you know, withcritical roles, success and all of that.
There is kind of an industry standardof four hour sessions now that
that seems to be fairly mm-hmm.
Standard.
And I know that at your company,Dex, we've, we are achieving a lot
of success with a more two to threehour model being kind of optimal for
both people's schedules nowadays,but also for attention span.
(09:07):
Yeah.
Because when I run a four hour gameand there's an epic combat at the end,
sometimes it bleed into four and a halfor five hours, and I have people on
the East coast who need to go to bed.
So I've been putting that restrainton myself to try to be more economic
with my time and respecting of my, myclient's time as well, because they're
not just investing money to play with us.
(09:28):
But their time is valuable,their sleep is valuable.
They're sacrificing thesethings to be with us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's but yeah, shooting for threehours has been helping me a lot.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And also in, in addition to the, canyou handle five day, five games a week?
Can you handle preppingfor five games a week?
Yeah, five discreet.
(09:49):
Storylines that have playersthat all have different, you
know, needs and requirements.
Mm-hmm.
And are they in fact goingto be there every time?
You know, how committed arethey to being at your sessions?
Can you dance with their absence?
Those are all questions to considerthat you might not be thinking about
when you're like, oh, I can't waitto, to try this out professionally.
(10:11):
You know, can you handlethe nuts and bolts of it?
Really?
The part that starts todrag on you like any career.
You know?
Yeah.
There's stuff like that to consider.
Now, there's
a big difference in playing withfriends and, and colleagues.
You've played with a lot ofyour acting friends and then
playing with complete strangers.
Strangers who you may nothave as much in common with.
(10:32):
Right.
How do you approach a brand new party?
You have.
The moment you meet them is themoment you start playing with them.
How do you, how do you deal with that?
Right, right.
Well, in the theater I alreadyhave a lot of experience with that.
Every new production, the cards arereshuffled and you're sometimes asked
to be working very closely with peopleyou perhaps have never met before.
(10:54):
And some, some maybe you have, butothers that you don't even know.
And How do you get to aworking relationship with that?
And so you have to figure out how tolearn very quickly, which requires
really present communication.
So you have to be able to putyour story in the back seat.
(11:15):
And a great distinction is that youhave the plot, but your players.
Are the story.
There is.
I love that.
No story without them.
They are the main characters and youare providing a framework that showcases
them, which was what I always foundexcellent and still find excellent
about your games decks is that youmake, you make those characters.
(11:40):
The point.
And if at any point in the process yourealize, wait, I'm making what I'm, I'm
making my ideas more important than theirideas, let that little flag come up and
go, okay, it's time to slow, slow downand start listening because players.
Really need to be, in some cases, kindof massaged into their contributions.
(12:07):
Not all players know how to contribute.
These are.
These are interp, these are thedynamics of interpersonal communication,
which confer a lot of people.
Be very, very different.
And so you as the dungeon master, havethe opportunity and dare I say, the
responsibility to listen to your playersand notice when you are overbearing them.
(12:35):
Yeah.
And sometimes that canbe really easy to do.
And
I think that's a big distinction between.
Brand new dms who are so excited and sopassionate about it, and the ones who
have a little bit of mileage behind them.
Mm-hmm.
Cuz DMing is a game.
It's fun.
Right?
We we're supposed to behaving fun with it as well.
Yeah.
And it's easy to get caught upin all of that fun and building
(12:58):
the worlds and creating a story.
A lot of people who want to writebooks will try out some of their
ideas in a d and d campaign to Sure.
Mixed success.
Sure.
Right, right.
Yes.
But it's, it isn't until a DM canreally take that backseat and say,
Hey, I'm going to be, I'm not, Goingfor my Oscar-winning role right here,
I'm not putting on a one-man show.
(13:19):
I don't want everyone to look at me.
I want to be the supporting characters.
Mm-hmm.
I wanna lift the players up.
That's when you start to see someone'sDMing style transform into something
truly immersive, truly collaborative.
And players who may not be confidentor outgoing can, can really
(13:42):
surprise you when you give themthat help and that support Yeah.
That they need.
And, and I love everythingyou're saying about, you know,
creating this environment for
them.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
To circle back to that, that whole,what do you put on a resume is, oh, yes.
Do you have experience with playingor running for game running games
(14:02):
for people who you don't know?
Do you have experience even playing ingames with people that you don't know?
So if there's a local gaming store in yourtown, fortunate enough to have a brick
and mortar shop, that that has a game.
You know, like has tables in the back.
Have you been there, haveyou been in those games where
you don't know these people?
All the only way you knowthem is through this game.
(14:23):
Have you ever tried that?
Because I highly recommend it ifyou haven't yet, and that will
give you an indication as, oh, isthis something that I enjoy doing?
Really?
Do I like people?
Yes.
Do I like people?
That is important.
If you don't like people and youlike elves better than people.
Then perhaps this is something youneed to dance with a little bit
(14:44):
longer before you pull that triggeron becoming a professional because
you to be really successful at this.
And when I say successful, themetric is do your players have fun?
You need to be able to.
Make that space for them to have that fun.
It can't be all about you,mustn't be all about you.
(15:05):
That is a recipe for boredom,for those poor people.
They'll just sit back there and waitfor you to tell them when to roll.
And that's, you know,that's, that's death.
So
we've talked to a lot of teachersand people with customer service
experience and those if you'relooking to be a pro DM and you have
experience with customer service or.
(15:27):
Onboarding, corporatetraining, teaching, oh my gosh.
Teachers do so much work.
Like that's a valuable experience.
And on the other hand, If you wantto be a teacher or someone who does
customer service or someone who doescorporate training, your experience as a
dungeon master should go on your resume.
Yeah.
It is becoming a more sought after skill.
(15:48):
More people are talking about it,more people are familiar with it.
I've done corporate games for Fortune500 tech companies and mm-hmm.
I teach team building principlesbaked into the game and you know,
so they can go to their boss andbe like, Hey, yeah, we talked about
this and this and these principles.
Yeah.
But really we were just fightingmonsters and role-playing.
(16:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's astonishing how often our companygets contacted with those, those offers
from corporate clients who are like, we'relooking for some team building exercise.
We think this might fit our.
Our bill can, do you have anythingto offer on that in that regard?
And we certainly do.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
We blow them away and theykeep coming back and they keep
(16:30):
referring more people to us.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Another thing that's on the risenow that I've noticed, which wasn't
so certainly when I was kind offalling in love with this game is
the number of families who play.
I did not, oh yes.
Start playing this game with my family.
But there are families who.
Definitely are interested in having adungeon master run the game for them.
(16:54):
They, mm-hmm.
Love it.
It, it gives them an opportunityto break down that family hierarchy
so that dad or mom or whoeveris not controlling the game.
It is this other person and then everybodygets to play together, and that's a real
evening of the playing field for a family.
So that's, that's another placethat I would suggest looking at.
(17:18):
Do you have experience?
Dealing with families on their terms,you know, family units and something
we didn't talk about in my pastexperience because it was my job
before acting, was that I was a clown.
I was, I was hoping you would bring
that up.
I didn't want to throw you under thebus and bring it up first, but I'm
(17:39):
so happy it's going this direction.
Like it's shameful.
My shameful past as a clown.
I worked for we were called just clowningaround and then wisely changed our
name to the Children's EntertainmentCompany, which sounds much more reputable
man.
Man, right?
But that gave me experienceworking with families.
(18:02):
When you get invited into a house to dothe child's birthday party, you know,
that is some we're talk where you'renot just entertaining the child, you're
entertaining mom and dad as well.
And as a dungeon master Now who is doingthe same thing, meaning entertaining
the family unit not being a clown,although there's some clowning.
(18:23):
It's not magic shows andballoon animals and face paints.
It's, you know, roll of persuasion.
Check it.
It requires the same skillset I'mdiscovering, meaning you have to
keep the plate spinning of the story.
You have to keep the plate spinningof keeping the child or the kids
engaged, and they can be of any age.
You know, usually they'regetting started around.
(18:44):
You don't see familiesmuch younger than eight.
You know, that's, that's about whenthe kids aren't getting interested
and can sit for more than an hour.
And then like up to teenagers andthen the parents, can you keep the
plate spinning of keeping the parentsengaged as well and have them actually
genuinely interact in the experiencerather than just interacting.
(19:07):
You know, with their child.
Like, come on Tommy, goahead and, and roll the die.
You know, you want the ch you want theparents to ideally also be interested
in playing their character as well.
You want everybody at the tableinvested in their own interface with
the game, rather than, you know,well, I'm just here for the kids.
You know, it'd be, it.
It the best, the best sessionsare when mom, dad, and kids
(19:32):
all remember it, like they all.
Triumphed over Vena, youknow, they all mm-hmm.
Beat the dragon together.
That is, that is gold.
That is a family memorythat they will have forever.
And yeah, they will lay down, youknow, that, that you'll get hired
for that, that that will keep themcoming back to you as a professional.
(19:57):
And that's, I mean, you can't,you can't get better than that.
If you can imagine having, Someexperience like that with your own
family, how great that would be.
Yeah.
You know, so families, strangers,and then of course friends.
Do you have more than one?
(20:19):
Group that you run with.
If you're a, if you're contemplatingbeing a professional, you might wanna
diversify into having s try it, youknow, before you're, before you're
interested in pulling the trigger onbeing a professional or putting your op,
you know, getting your website together.
Or as you're putting your resumetogether, can you run multiple games
(20:44):
even with friends, you know, in one week?
Can you do.
Three different groups.
That might be a good stress test for you.
Do you have the endurance?
Do you have the Yeah.
Capacity.
Do you have the time to devoteto the preparation that you need?
It's right.
It's tough.
When I first started DMing Iwould DM a game on a weekend
and then just be exhausted for,yeah, the rest of the weekend.
(21:06):
Because I am an introvert.
That's my, that's my secret thatI've been hiding from the world.
I am such an introvert, butI have an extrovert skillset.
I can, I can turn it onand I can be entertaining.
But it, it was a struggle when I started.
How did you week to two gamesa week to three games a week.
I just, it was like trainingfor a marathon, uhhuh.
(21:28):
It really was and required a lotof naps during the day and yeah.
Great recovering and, you know,I've, I've, and I've got a great
support system at home and now, NowI can do these games in my sleep.
I don't, but I could.
And you've got two young kids too.
Yes.
Oh, they are so.
Little and, oh, my, my son,he knows what I, what I do.
(21:50):
He's three three and a half and mm-hmm.
Just the other day.
He wasn't bedtime yet, but heran into my office cuz he knows
I have dragons on my bookshelves.
And he just runs in and startsyelling and he, he knows that
daddy plays Dungeons and Dragons.
That's his job.
Right.
Just last night I, I kissed him goodnight.
We were, I just finished dinner,I was going down to do a game.
(22:12):
Mom was gonna put him to bed.
And I started walkingdownstairs without him.
He got really upset because he wantedto walk me to work because that's
like this little ritual that we'vecreated where we come into work.
I sat down and he's like, lights,lights can we, can we have the lights?
Cuz he knows I have these cool lights.
So I let him pick the colorsfor the lights for that game.
(22:34):
Wow.
He wanted blue and pink for the lights.
And so that's that's what I had.
But yeah, he knows what I'm doing.
He knows.
You shouldn't be interinterrupting me while I'm gaming.
Luckily, my office is on adifferent floor than where he
normally hangs out, but mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's been, it's been super fun.
(22:55):
I started the businesswhen he was six months old.
Hmm.
So that's, that's all he's everknown is me having this job.
That brings up a good pointtoo about making sure you're
allocating your space appropriately.
Mm-hmm.
You know, do you have a discreet space inyour home that you can allocate to running
a game for four hours that the rest ofthe family, if you have one, doesn't
(23:17):
blunder into, or the vacuum cleaner'sgoing in the background, you know?
Yeah.
That's, so let's talk about
your setup and your family situation.
Sure, sure.
Well, this is, this, I have asplit level house, so that's why
there's windows that are that big.
So I'm in the lower level and this part,you know, the, the shelving unit behind
me kind of divides it into one half.
(23:37):
I also have a built in like, Bar inmy basement which I've commandeered
as my sort of gaming table.
Okay.
Used, used to run games at itwhen, you know, I would have
people over to the house.
Now primarily the modalitiesin the before times online.
Yeah, in the before times.
Right.
Right before the big booms.
This was a, my favorite spot to run a gamecuz you know, the dice work well on it.
(23:59):
We have the kitchen table upstairs, thefamily has the rest of the other levels.
You know, they can hang out there.
You probably hear.
Occasionally soundfilters down the stairs.
My microphone's pretty sensitive forthis event, but that's it will, you
know, you have sound pollution issues.
Is the lighting good enough to last?
Mm-hmm.
For the entirety?
You know, sometimes you're goingfrom afternoon into evening that.
(24:23):
That kind of thing.
I got desk, gls, all sorts of stuffready to go in case it, it runs long, you
know or depending on what time, like, sotonight I'm running from seven till 11,
so it's gonna start just as at sunsetand then it's gonna be pitch black.
So I gotta have the, youknow, the lights come up.
And In my, I only have one child who's12, so that's that's, I don't have
(24:44):
kids running everywhere, but yes.
Like, like you, they aredefinitely aware of what I do.
Yeah.
So that's, that's, that's fun tohave another, you know, young person
to kind of see it reflected intheir interest and their curiosity,
and I'm like, what do you do?
Mm-hmm.
And then we play games, ofcourse, as a family too.
(25:05):
Yeah.
Which I never played with my.
With my family.
So seeing what kind of charactersthey wanna play, both my wife and my
child, you know, which ones, how dothey like to organize their characters?
My kid likes drawing as well,so that, that's fun to see them
make those characters come alive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would love to use someof their artwork and games.
(25:25):
So yeah, as far as As that goes,do you have the setup for that?
You know, if you're contemplatingbeing a professional, do you have Yeah.
A setup like that?
Or are you primarily going to beinterested in going to people's homes,
you know or being at a space maybe,like we were talking about earlier,
there is some sort of brick andmortar spot that has gaming tables
(25:47):
where they'd be willing to let you.
Run your games there.
They might
want, and that's an option these days.
Totally.
An option.
Yeah.
When when I started the business, it was.
January, 2020 and I was thinking aboutthis hybrid model where I did part of my
stuff online, part of my stuff in person.
Mm-hmm.
Cause I was familiar with both.
When I graduated college, my friendsand I moved all to different states.
(26:08):
So we'd been using thesedigital tools before.
They were cool.
Well before the pandemic.
But as soon as the pandemic hitand I had the business ready to
go, I had to pivot all of my plansto just focus on the online Yeah.
Aspect of it.
And there's a lot of digitalassets out there that are.
(26:28):
Really great, really, really great.
But also you're gonna need to start kindof framing up acquiring those assets.
And are you capable of investing theinitial outlay of capital to be able to
get those digital assets ready to go?
You gotta think of it like a, youknow, like an interactive PowerPoint.
(26:50):
Presentation.
And you want to become proficient orfamiliar with the tools that are on
some of these free websites, these vtts like foundry or like roll 20, which
is predominantly what I use, roll 20.
And then you've
gotta make it look effortless.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So just like any, you know,public speaker, you don't want
(27:10):
them fumbling through their noteswhile they're talking to you.
You don't want endless,sort of like scrolling.
And looking and then movingand manipulating of things.
And then like, okay, go ahead and roll.
You know, you, you want it to be seamless.
You want the art to showup on their screens on cue.
(27:31):
You want if you use music, youwant to make sure that that's
happening when you want it to happen.
And these things all go intothat, you know, that prep time,
which if you're thinking about,okay, I got four, four hours.
A four hour game that even,even four hours, that's easy.
A four hour workday, it'slike, well, remember, Nope.
(27:51):
Perhaps two hours of prep and yep.
Inclusive in that two hours comes,you know, a recap for the next session
that you might want to have prepared.
And I, however you wanna write thatdown, how, however you have that
available to them, you know, youwanna make sure that that's updated.
You want to have like we say, the next setof maps and tokens populated on that map.
(28:18):
And that all takes.
Time.
It just takes time.
Yeah.
Now of course you'll get better at it.
You'll get more swish at putting thestuff out there, but it still takes time.
And do you have that skillsetyet, or do you need to acquire it?
Like, when I started workingwith you, I needed to acquire it.
I didn't have it to go right off the bat.
And.
Wish I had, wish I had, I had somefamiliarity enough so I was conversant,
(28:44):
but I didn't have enough to be runningat the level that I wanted to be.
So these are all things thatbefore you are, before you
are asking for their money.
You might want to be puttingin the time to familiarize
yourself with all of that stuff.
And that's what's greatabout, its that it's.
It's free to get the education.
(29:06):
Mm-hmm.
There's lots of tutorials andthings when it comes down to
one time that goes into it.
Yeah.
When it comes down to the actualassets, that's where you're
gonna be outlaying some money.
And I know UD a how, how longbefore you started actually
making some money at this?
Did it, did it go for you?
So.
(29:26):
I was very thrifty at the beginning.
I started this business with $200 that Igot from my Costco rewards for the years.
I'm like, Hey, hey, hey honey.
This is, this is what I've got.
I'm putting this into the business.
This is what I'm gonna use forthe business license and getting
the bank account set up and I.
You know, buying the assets that Ineeded, I had a lot of assets already.
I was already a collector of the books.
(29:47):
I had already played onthese virtual tabletops.
First time I ran a campaign in Rule20, all my friends, I wasn't be
getting paid for it, but we all pitchedin to buy the books that I needed.
And that's pretty common beyond.
Yeah.
And so the first game that I ran, Iwas using books that I had already
run with friends previously.
(30:08):
Mm-hmm.
Cuz I didn't want to.
Invest too much upfront.
Because there is this mindset whenstarting a new business that if
you have a problem, just throwmoney at it and it'll go away.
And that is not true.
You will run your business intothe ground if you just try to solve
all of your problems with money.
But if you give yourself a budget and I,you get to work within those constraints,
(30:30):
you get to be a little bit more flexible.
I looked at what resources do Ialready have, what resources do I
need next, and what order of priorityare there, are they that's great.
That's smart.
And so I knew I wanted music, but I didn'twant to I needed to find some sort of
streaming service cause I didn't have thetime to go out and pick every single song.
(30:54):
So I was relying on other resourcesthat I found online to help find
entire playlists that I could use.
Instead of buying individualmaps, I would buy them in packs.
I would.
Find ways to subscribe on Patreon.
I would find free versions, trialversions, and eventually would
upgrade to the, you know, morepremium versions as I could afford it.
But I think having that $200 atthe beginning, that's all I needed.
(31:19):
If I would've had a thousand dollarsto start it, I probably would've
blown a lot of money on things Ididn't need, and it wouldn't have
improved the quality of the game.
But I would prioritize whatdo we absolutely need and
what would be nice to have?
Right now you see these bookshelves,you see these cool lights over
there, you know, I can changethem, I can change the colors.
(31:39):
You know, this is cool.
But that wasn't necessary.
That's not what I had when I started, Hmm.
I was in our spare bedroom.
There was a.
Big pile of boxes behind me, andI put a folding screen in front of
those boxes and I put books up on thatscreen and it, and I had fake candles.
And that was it.
That was my, that was my immersive setup.
(32:01):
Mm-hmm.
And I started running games like that.
I was still working anotherday job at the time.
Critical.
Yeah.
I didn't, and then I made certain goals.
On, I'm gonna run one game a week.
I'm gonna run two games a week.
It wasn't until I was running aboutthree or four games a week that I
realized I could replace the incomethat I had at my other job if I quit
(32:24):
and started doing d d full-time.
Mm-hmm.
And so that, and I didn't evenstart paying myself until I
already quit my other job.
There
you go.
That's that's,
that was like six months ofnot taking any money from it.
Money was coming in slowly.
It was strickling in.
But yeah, I invested a lotof time and then by that
summer, it was summer of 2020.
(32:45):
It was a great time to be a pro dm.
Mm-hmm.
I had enough regular clients and mm-hmm.
Create a recurring incomeand that was, that was the.
Goal that I had to give to my wife.
Right.
So just to, we had, we had a sixmonth old, like, I can't just
quit my job and pursue the dream.
(33:06):
That's right.
I had to break it down into smaller tasks.
That's right.
So tracking that, to, to, to picking thatstitching out of the throw pillow there
y'all, that's that, that young personthat he was just mentioning there, that's
the one that's walking him to work now.
Mm-hmm.
And the The, the six months that hewent without paying himself is something
(33:27):
that y'all need to keep in mind too.
Yeah, and we, on thisbroadcast, are representing
two distinctly different paths.
Dax started this gig and built it fromthe ground up, which requires a whole
bunch of steps that have nothing to dowith running a Dungeons and Dragons game.
(33:48):
They have to do, gotta use that
NBA of mine somehow.
Right.
There you
go.
There you go.
And the other guy on this call, thislittle duck here, is the one who got
hired by the one who started the company.
And that is a different boat to be in.
And that means, you know, that'sa w2 and that's a, that's a resume
(34:12):
and that's getting hired, which youhave to decide which one of these
guys are you interested in being?
Which of these humans has the story?
That you want yours to be more alike.
Are you interested in do you wantthis to be your sole means of income?
That puts you in DAXs Camp.
If this is something supplemental foryouth, then you're in the Dmk camp.
(34:35):
Because I still make my livingpredominantly by being on stage and
by teaching some classes in academia.
That's how I pay formy house predominantly.
Yeah.
And then I run games.
To supplement that income to makethings work much better in my life.
That's what that's for for me.
So you have to figure out where you,which, you know, boat you are in, and then
(35:02):
there's a bunch of different directionsonce you make that major decision.
I would say.
Are you, and I don't want to
downplay the.
Amount of work you put into justgetting hired in the first place.
Yeah, fair enough.
Hundreds and hundreds of people applied.
When I brought you in, Maria, I had theapplication open for about two days and I
was just, my inbox was absolutely flooded.
(35:24):
It was overwhelmingparsing through everybody.
Yeah.
And so I was looking forvery specific things.
And you stood out, you really stood out.
You've had this incredible skillsetset, this incredible way of being in
your voice and the way you approachedit like an actor, and with the
professionalism and as an actor and I.
(35:45):
I listened to you and Ithought, I wanna learn from me.
I don't, I don't wanna bring someone in.
You know, it's fun mentoringpeople and seeing them grow.
I mean, that's fun.
There's value that comes out ofthat, but I saw you and I'm like, I
wanna learn as much as I can from me.
And maybe, you know, maybe somethingthat I have will rub off on him too.
But I think in the last few yearswe've both gotten so much better
(36:06):
at our craft and at our skillset.
So yes, there is a path whereyou, you get hired by somebody.
And it's already you get to skip someof the business and administrative
steps, but you were ready to take thatstep because you were so competitive
compared to other candidates.
You had such an incredible skill set.
So many years of experience.
(36:28):
And you can back it up and it
shows in mm-hmm.
The way in your games.
Yeah.
Thank you for that acknowledgement.
I totally get that.
And the, the, that goes to the firstpart of our conversation on what,
what makes a compelling resume.
Right.
And since a lot of, I think a lot ofpeople out there who might be listening
to this in search of tips on how tobecome a professional dungeon master
(36:52):
can definitely, Take that to heart.
They need to understand whatmakes them compelling as a person.
Are they a joy to be around?
And as a professional stage actor, Ihad kind of gotten used to the idea.
That people are laying down money tobuy a ticket to be in my presence.
(37:15):
And that's, that's notan egotistical statement.
That's just the fact they'retrying to see a show that I am
going to be up there performing.
Mm-hmm.
Now, if I'm successful at it, it's becauseI'm giving them the space to have a
great time living in their own humanity.
(37:36):
Yeah, they're not up therewatching me be great.
They're up there having a great time.
Being a human being, that's whatthey're in the audience doing.
And if you think about it, that'swhat we are in the audience doing.
You know, my students, I, I.
Use Beyonce as a, as an example,because Beyonce is fierce, right?
But she's not famous.
(37:57):
We don't all know who sheis because she's fierce.
There's plenty of fierce people out there.
We know who she is because we all fearfeel fierce when we listen to her.
That's what makes Beyonce great.
That's why we all know who she is.
That's why she's world famous.
Because no matter who you are,you listen to her music and you're
like, yeah, and that is what.
(38:20):
We are trying to givethem as dungeon masters.
We're trying to give our playersthe opportunity to be epic heroes
and we all have tons of storieswhere that just didn't happen.
But we do have storiestoo, where it did and whoa,
when they get so close to death and thenthey turn it around at the last second.
(38:42):
Yes.
Ah.
Yes.
I love that
feeling.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
We also have a lot of stories wherethe hero, the heroes, quote unquote,
are probably the villains if youlook at it from a certain angle.
But we have great stories where theyare the epic saviors of the realm,
or the universe or the multiverse, orwhatever it is that your story treats on.
(39:04):
So that's, that's arguablywhat theater gave.
Me, and that's the thing that I broughtto the table alongside the punctuality,
the professional, the easy things,you know, the stuff that makes you
a good professional to work with.
That's all that together is what Daxis pointing at when he's acknowledging
me for what it took to get the job.
(39:27):
Also, you'll notice thathe said he had that.
That, you know, open application process.
You know, he's like, put out the callfor resumes and they came flooding in.
Now remember, like we said, way atthe beginning of this, absolutely.
Every single one of those applicationswere put forth by someone who loved
the game, enjoyed playing it, andwould like to run it for other people.
(39:51):
That's a given.
So you need to find what else you've gotto bring to the table, and that's whether
or not you want to be in my shoes or inD'S shoes, meaning you either want to be
hired or you want to be doing the hiring.
Those, those things, thosequestions need to be answered
for both paths in this career.
(40:12):
Absolutely.
And they are both hard.
They're both hard.
Yeah.
Both very, very hard.
Yeah.
They don't happen overnight either.
No.
10 year overnight success iswhat I see thrown around a lot.
But yeah, for me it was 10 yearsof playing the game and being
in theater and teaching improvand working customer service.
(40:33):
I was a, a tour guide in Hawaii.
I would do Zipline tours withpeople and I had to learn.
How I have three hours to leadpeople through through this forest
zipping from from hill to hill.
How do I get to know them?
How do I make them laugh?
How do I help them overcome their fears?
(40:53):
How can I give them this powerful,emotional, transformative experience?
That job as a tour guide prepared mefor being a professional DM because
that's what I do every day now.
That's right.
Helping
people confront their fearsand be epic, be great.
That's, that's, that's great.
Zip lining.
A zip lining tour guide.
(41:14):
Yeah.
That's such a cool job.
Such a cool, it was the second coolest job
I've ever had.
Oh, there you go.
There you go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'd, we were talking to in our weeklymeeting, we were talking to Beth and she
was saying that based on the examinationof the data on, on the hits on our
website, what it is that people aresearching for, you know, higher eddm that.
(41:35):
She would judge.
A lot of those hits are coming frompeople who are looking to be hired.
So we know that there's a lot, or weat least theorize that there's a glut
of people that are very interested inbecoming a professional dungeon master.
But how do you even know whetheror not you'd make a good one?
And how do you then go after becoming.
(41:56):
One, those are thingsthat we think have a lot.
You know, that's a hot button.
That's a lot.
A lot of people are interestedin the answer to that question.
And just like anything, you,they're the, the paths of either
you make it up as you go along.
Or you find someone who already didit and you ask them to, to hold your
hand while you're, while you're goingthrough it, you know those and making
(42:18):
sure it's, make sure it'sworth their time as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do you become anasset for wherever mm-hmm.
You are working?
That's, that's another thing.
So for the Wouldbe Dungeon Masters outthere, that is I'd say a, a big thing
to consider and answer for yourself iswhat, not just what do I have to say
(42:39):
as a storyteller, but what makes me.
I don't know what makes me think I canor why, what is my actual skillset, you
know, can I enunciate what I'm good at?
And in our culture, we don't havea lot of tread on that road because
it sounds egotistical or arrogantto start thinking along those lines.
I may even sound arrogant whenI'm talking about it, but I'm what
(43:01):
I'm trying to counsel you today.
Do is take a look at an objective, lookat yourself as best you can, and figure
out what it is that you can authenticallysay is a strong suit of yours.
I I can talk or you know, likeDak says, I unabashedly, I, I'm an
introvert, but that's a strength.
You see, that's somethingthat's remarkable about him.
(43:23):
Not that there aren't other introverts,but I mean, like that he knows he
is one and can dance with that.
And then, Moreover developed askillset that compensates for that,
that bridges that gap to other people.
Because you can't do this alone, right?
You have to be, you have to have a sincerelove for other people and for humanity,
(43:46):
even though it's all about dragon bornand, and ORs and, and halflings and gnomes
and things, and you know, like war forged.
How great are they?
You know, you gotta also, those are.
All right.
We'd love war for it.
That is all, those are all expansions onthe theme of what it means to be human.
And if you don't have a love forthat, I mean, since I do, I don't,
(44:09):
I don't know what you, what?
I don't know who I would be without it,so I don't know what, there must be great
dungeon masters out there who are like,Humans, I could take 'em or leave them,
but I would recommend if you want to bea professional dungeon master that you at
least cultivate some interest in humans.
Yeah.
And we're
dungeon masters kind of a misnomerbecause even though we are in charge,
(44:33):
we're the servants at the table.
We're there to build everybody else up.
We do this work and this preparationso that other people don't have to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're the servants, we'rethe dungeon servants.
That's who we are.
Right?
Yeah.
A lot of contracts come our way becauseof groups that are established, longtime
groups that love playing with eachother, that are like, we never, there's
(44:56):
always one person running it, and wenever all get to actually play together.
We don't all get to beplayers at the same table.
Can you guys run us through a game?
And that gives them theopportunity to, to do that, to
all be players at the same time.
Those are fun groups too.
Mm-hmm.
Got a couple of those.
Couple of, it's one ofthose tonight, in fact.
(45:16):
Okay.
Well good luck with that game.
I've also got a game tonight.
Yeah.
Maybe we'll bring someoneback from the dead tonight.
Maybe not.
Maybe I'll just kill more.
Maybe I'll bring back oneand kill two and it's place.
Yeah.
That's a whole nother broadcast.
When to kill and whenwhole nother broadcast.
Yeah.
Oh, I could talk
for hours about Oh, sure.
Killing the play.
Sure.
(45:36):
Killing player characters is easy.
That's easy.
Anyone can do that.
Anyone can.
How do you get close to deathand let dance on that line?
That's, that's where I live.
Mm-hmm.
Alright.
Thank you Mic, for taking timeout of your day to being our
first guest on Absolutely.
And Dax podcast.
Mm-hmm.
The question that we posited was tobe or not to be the Dungeon Master.
(45:59):
What is your answer
to be?
Dungeon Master.
I, I, I say be the Dungeon Master.
That's my advice.
All right well tune in next timeand have a great week everybody.
And welcome to Dungeons and Dax,a podcast where I, Dax Levine, a
professional dungeon master, talk to myfriends about collaborative storytelling
and the awesome, cool things we do.
It's my chance to brag abouthow, how awesome my friends are.
I'm here with one of mygood friends, DM Mic.
Hello.
Hello.
How are you doing today?
(00:56):
I'm fantastic.
I'm fantastic.
Thanks for having me onyour inaugural performance.
Yes, this is our first performance andwe have two people watching right now.
There will be dozens in thefuture, there will be dozens.
But Mic you and I share a profession.
We are both professional dungeon masters.
In fact, we work together and wetalk to each other at least twice a
(01:17):
week about our trials and travailsand our triumphs and victories.
So we're gonna beventuring into that today.
Awesome.
Before I start asking youquestions, I'm gonna brag about
how cool you are a little bit.
Okay.
Go, go ahead.
This fancy, fancy biothat we've got for DM Mic.
Mic is a professional stage actor whostarted running games the same year
(01:39):
he started acting over 30 years ago.
Working on the stages of the AmericanTheater has provided him with a wealth
of understanding of storytelling.
And humanity, while simultaneously givinghim access to tons of colleagues to play
games with Offstage, the pandemic put ahalt on live performance for long enough
to give him a chance to become associatedwith Dax at Dungeon Master Direct.
(02:01):
And that brings us tothis very conversation.
Mm-hmm.
That was, that was almost two years ago.
That's right.
When we started working together.
That's right.
So tell, tell us about your careeras, as an actor, because I talked
to so many people who were like,oh yeah, I was in a play once.
Right.
I had some lines.
I was a theater kid inhigh school or in college.
(02:22):
That's, that's what I say I was.
You know, I did this in college.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I did a lot of improv.
But you, you are a professional.
What does that mean?
I am, I am well there, what it meansto be a professional is that I pay my
mortgage by being an actor on stage.
That's, that's essentially what it means.
But how I got to be there is a lot of workand a lot of trial and a lot of error.
(02:48):
And in the American theater, Imean, up until the pandemic, which
of course has changed everything.
That's the latest bookmark in that story.
But before the pandemic there wasa, a fairly clear route to take.
Now with social media and all, it haschanged somewhat the progression on
how to become a professional performer.
But on stage, suffice to say itmeans you gotta get on stage somehow,
(03:15):
which is a whole lot easier for amale bodied individual than it is
for a female bodied individual.
That's pretty standard.
It's also, harder person of color.
Yeah.
And thankfully that's changing.
That's changing.
But the, the number of roles for malebodied individuals is definitely higher
(03:36):
than the number of roles for female bodiedindividuals just because of classical
theater and the number of male roles.
Right.
So I had a fairly.
Fertile field in which to play.
And as long as I was, you know,responsible with my commitments being
on time, not overloading myself beingdependable, those kinds of things were
(03:58):
able to keep the door open for me.
And then it really becamegetting education on how to
use voice and body and reading.
Consuming more plays and stories,both classical and modern,
and then making those kind ofprofessional, you know, networking
(04:18):
kinds of relationships that span.
I chose to be in the regions ratherthan focus on one particular city.
You know, you can either live.
East Coast, New York or WestCoast LA and New York has got more
theater in it than la but bothof those places are popular hubs.
And then there's a whole glutof people that kind of bounce
(04:41):
around throughout the regions.
And that was my particular pathto jump around throughout as many
different theaters as I could.
Okay.
To make a full year, you know.
So, on that where have you performed?
Ooh, well, let's see.
I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so ahost of theaters in Milwaukee that some
(05:04):
of which aren't around anymore, butthen Some that still are Renaissance
Theater works American PlayersTheater in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
That's a, a big one for me.
Com becoming of age story for me there.
Then artist Repertory Theater inPortland, Oregon on that side of the map.
And then on this side ofthe map where I am now.
(05:24):
The resident ensemble players at theUniversity of Delaware, which has
been my home now for about 12 years.
I'm a founding member of that company,which came about with the idea that we
would help train graduate students in the.
Acting to receive their mfa.
And now we are morphing intohopefully offering a bachelor's
(05:48):
of Arts at that university.
So I teach classes there as well aspeer on stage with the company there.
And those changes that are coming aboutthere are largely, you know, fueled
by the pandemic, but also just mm-hmm.
Changes in personneland all of that stuff.
Okay.
So, Yeah, it's been it's beena rollercoaster as anyone in
(06:09):
the theater will tell you.
Mm-hmm.
And fully imagine.
Yeah.
Like in the introduction you weresaying almost as if I wrote it, that
it gave me enough time to meet you.
This kind of cessation of publicperformance where all of our
performing actually went online.
Gave me the opportunity, freed up thetime cuz it was less, you know, time
intensive, the rehearsals and thingsto be able to start venturing into
(06:31):
professional dungeon mastering, which hasbeen incredibly, incredibly rewarding.
Just as rewarding as the stage.
Yeah.
So we actually met duringsomeone else's game.
That's right.
Somebody's birthday.
Birthday party.
Someone's birthday party.
They hired me as the dungeon master.
Yeah.
And the whole time you werelike, how can I do this?
(06:52):
What is, what is the plan?
What is this theme?
Yeah, you definitely set a barfor me that I did not have.
Both on the electronic medium, but thenalso as just a storyteller in general.
And you, you still do, you you are abenchmark that I, I aim for, you know?
Oh yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you're top notch.
(07:13):
So what was your, what was your planwhen you found out I was hiring?
To put together a resume, whichwas something I'd never done
before for, for dungeon mastering.
You know, what, what does a, what doesa resume for a dungeon master look like?
What would you even putdown as things mm-hmm.
For the potential hire for pe apotential employer to consider.
(07:35):
And so, so that was actually freeingin a way, but then got me to think
critically about like, what, what wouldI consider experience and I would say to
people who are out there trying to thinkabout whether or not they want to be a
professional dungeon master okay, youlove the game and you love playing it.
You love running it.
Done right?
That's all taken care of.
That's easy.
So that's easy.
That's easy.
Easy.
(07:55):
Everybody.
Everybody's got that, right?
Anybody who's gonna be in frontof you asking if you wanna play in
their game has already got that.
So it's this other, the other questionsbecome a little bit more important, like,
what do you have to say what with a story?
What kinds of stories do you want to tell?
Do you have a way of accessingplayers that you don't know and
(08:20):
how do you, how often do yousit down at the table to play?
Can you handle.
Five games a week can or more.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Do you have that kind of stamina?
Do you have that kind of creative stamina?
Right.
Thanks to you know, some industrystandards that were set Yeah.
(08:43):
During the pandemic, you know, withcritical roles, success and all of that.
There is kind of an industry standardof four hour sessions now that
that seems to be fairly mm-hmm.
Standard.
And I know that at your company,Dex, we've, we are achieving a lot
of success with a more two to threehour model being kind of optimal for
both people's schedules nowadays,but also for attention span.
(09:07):
Yeah.
Because when I run a four hour gameand there's an epic combat at the end,
sometimes it bleed into four and a halfor five hours, and I have people on
the East coast who need to go to bed.
So I've been putting that restrainton myself to try to be more economic
with my time and respecting of my, myclient's time as well, because they're
not just investing money to play with us.
(09:28):
But their time is valuable,their sleep is valuable.
They're sacrificing thesethings to be with us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's but yeah, shooting for threehours has been helping me a lot.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And also in, in addition to the, canyou handle five day, five games a week?
Can you handle preppingfor five games a week?
Yeah, five discreet.
(09:49):
Storylines that have playersthat all have different, you
know, needs and requirements.
Mm-hmm.
And are they in fact goingto be there every time?
You know, how committed arethey to being at your sessions?
Can you dance with their absence?
Those are all questions to considerthat you might not be thinking about
when you're like, oh, I can't waitto, to try this out professionally.
(10:11):
You know, can you handlethe nuts and bolts of it?
Really?
The part that starts todrag on you like any career.
You know?
Yeah.
There's stuff like that to consider.
Now, there's
a big difference in playing withfriends and, and colleagues.
You've played with a lot ofyour acting friends and then
playing with complete strangers.
Strangers who you may nothave as much in common with.
(10:32):
Right.
How do you approach a brand new party?
You have.
The moment you meet them is themoment you start playing with them.
How do you, how do you deal with that?
Right, right.
Well, in the theater I alreadyhave a lot of experience with that.
Every new production, the cards arereshuffled and you're sometimes asked
to be working very closely with peopleyou perhaps have never met before.
(10:54):
And some, some maybe you have, butothers that you don't even know.
And How do you get to aworking relationship with that?
And so you have to figure out how tolearn very quickly, which requires
really present communication.
So you have to be able to putyour story in the back seat.
(11:15):
And a great distinction is that youhave the plot, but your players.
Are the story.
There is.
I love that.
No story without them.
They are the main characters and youare providing a framework that showcases
them, which was what I always foundexcellent and still find excellent
about your games decks is that youmake, you make those characters.
(11:40):
The point.
And if at any point in the process yourealize, wait, I'm making what I'm, I'm
making my ideas more important than theirideas, let that little flag come up and
go, okay, it's time to slow, slow downand start listening because players.
Really need to be, in some cases, kindof massaged into their contributions.
(12:07):
Not all players know how to contribute.
These are.
These are interp, these are thedynamics of interpersonal communication,
which confer a lot of people.
Be very, very different.
And so you as the dungeon master, havethe opportunity and dare I say, the
responsibility to listen to your playersand notice when you are overbearing them.
(12:35):
Yeah.
And sometimes that canbe really easy to do.
And
I think that's a big distinction between.
Brand new dms who are so excited and sopassionate about it, and the ones who
have a little bit of mileage behind them.
Mm-hmm.
Cuz DMing is a game.
It's fun.
Right?
We we're supposed to behaving fun with it as well.
Yeah.
And it's easy to get caught upin all of that fun and building
(12:58):
the worlds and creating a story.
A lot of people who want to writebooks will try out some of their
ideas in a d and d campaign to Sure.
Mixed success.
Sure.
Right, right.
Yes.
But it's, it isn't until a DM canreally take that backseat and say,
Hey, I'm going to be, I'm not, Goingfor my Oscar-winning role right here,
I'm not putting on a one-man show.
(13:19):
I don't want everyone to look at me.
I want to be the supporting characters.
Mm-hmm.
I wanna lift the players up.
That's when you start to see someone'sDMing style transform into something
truly immersive, truly collaborative.
And players who may not be confidentor outgoing can, can really
(13:42):
surprise you when you give themthat help and that support Yeah.
That they need.
And, and I love everythingyou're saying about, you know,
creating this environment for
them.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
To circle back to that, that whole,what do you put on a resume is, oh, yes.
Do you have experience with playingor running for game running games
(14:02):
for people who you don't know?
Do you have experience even playing ingames with people that you don't know?
So if there's a local gaming store in yourtown, fortunate enough to have a brick
and mortar shop, that that has a game.
You know, like has tables in the back.
Have you been there, haveyou been in those games where
you don't know these people?
All the only way you knowthem is through this game.
(14:23):
Have you ever tried that?
Because I highly recommend it ifyou haven't yet, and that will
give you an indication as, oh, isthis something that I enjoy doing?
Really?
Do I like people?
Yes.
Do I like people?
That is important.
If you don't like people and youlike elves better than people.
Then perhaps this is something youneed to dance with a little bit
(14:44):
longer before you pull that triggeron becoming a professional because
you to be really successful at this.
And when I say successful, themetric is do your players have fun?
You need to be able to.
Make that space for them to have that fun.
It can't be all about you,mustn't be all about you.
(15:05):
That is a recipe for boredom,for those poor people.
They'll just sit back there and waitfor you to tell them when to roll.
And that's, you know,that's, that's death.
So
we've talked to a lot of teachersand people with customer service
experience and those if you'relooking to be a pro DM and you have
experience with customer service or.
(15:27):
Onboarding, corporatetraining, teaching, oh my gosh.
Teachers do so much work.
Like that's a valuable experience.
And on the other hand, If you wantto be a teacher or someone who does
customer service or someone who doescorporate training, your experience as a
dungeon master should go on your resume.
Yeah.
It is becoming a more sought after skill.
(15:48):
More people are talking about it,more people are familiar with it.
I've done corporate games for Fortune500 tech companies and mm-hmm.
I teach team building principlesbaked into the game and you know,
so they can go to their boss andbe like, Hey, yeah, we talked about
this and this and these principles.
Yeah.
But really we were just fightingmonsters and role-playing.
(16:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's astonishing how often our companygets contacted with those, those offers
from corporate clients who are like, we'relooking for some team building exercise.
We think this might fit our.
Our bill can, do you have anythingto offer on that in that regard?
And we certainly do.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
We blow them away and theykeep coming back and they keep
(16:30):
referring more people to us.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Another thing that's on the risenow that I've noticed, which wasn't
so certainly when I was kind offalling in love with this game is
the number of families who play.
I did not, oh yes.
Start playing this game with my family.
But there are families who.
Definitely are interested in having adungeon master run the game for them.
(16:54):
They, mm-hmm.
Love it.
It, it gives them an opportunityto break down that family hierarchy
so that dad or mom or whoeveris not controlling the game.
It is this other person and then everybodygets to play together, and that's a real
evening of the playing field for a family.
So that's, that's another placethat I would suggest looking at.
(17:18):
Do you have experience?
Dealing with families on their terms,you know, family units and something
we didn't talk about in my pastexperience because it was my job
before acting, was that I was a clown.
I was, I was hoping you would bring
that up.
I didn't want to throw you under thebus and bring it up first, but I'm
(17:39):
so happy it's going this direction.
Like it's shameful.
My shameful past as a clown.
I worked for we were called just clowningaround and then wisely changed our
name to the Children's EntertainmentCompany, which sounds much more reputable
man.
Man, right?
But that gave me experienceworking with families.
(18:02):
When you get invited into a house to dothe child's birthday party, you know,
that is some we're talk where you'renot just entertaining the child, you're
entertaining mom and dad as well.
And as a dungeon master Now who is doingthe same thing, meaning entertaining
the family unit not being a clown,although there's some clowning.
(18:23):
It's not magic shows andballoon animals and face paints.
It's, you know, roll of persuasion.
Check it.
It requires the same skillset I'mdiscovering, meaning you have to
keep the plate spinning of the story.
You have to keep the plate spinningof keeping the child or the kids
engaged, and they can be of any age.
You know, usually they'regetting started around.
(18:44):
You don't see familiesmuch younger than eight.
You know, that's, that's about whenthe kids aren't getting interested
and can sit for more than an hour.
And then like up to teenagers andthen the parents, can you keep the
plate spinning of keeping the parentsengaged as well and have them actually
genuinely interact in the experiencerather than just interacting.
(19:07):
You know, with their child.
Like, come on Tommy, goahead and, and roll the die.
You know, you want the ch you want theparents to ideally also be interested
in playing their character as well.
You want everybody at the tableinvested in their own interface with
the game, rather than, you know,well, I'm just here for the kids.
You know, it'd be, it.
It the best, the best sessionsare when mom, dad, and kids
(19:32):
all remember it, like they all.
Triumphed over Vena, youknow, they all mm-hmm.
Beat the dragon together.
That is, that is gold.
That is a family memorythat they will have forever.
And yeah, they will lay down, youknow, that, that you'll get hired
for that, that that will keep themcoming back to you as a professional.
(19:57):
And that's, I mean, you can't,you can't get better than that.
If you can imagine having, Someexperience like that with your own
family, how great that would be.
Yeah.
You know, so families, strangers,and then of course friends.
Do you have more than one?
(20:19):
Group that you run with.
If you're a, if you're contemplatingbeing a professional, you might wanna
diversify into having s try it, youknow, before you're, before you're
interested in pulling the trigger onbeing a professional or putting your op,
you know, getting your website together.
Or as you're putting your resumetogether, can you run multiple games
(20:44):
even with friends, you know, in one week?
Can you do.
Three different groups.
That might be a good stress test for you.
Do you have the endurance?
Do you have the Yeah.
Capacity.
Do you have the time to devoteto the preparation that you need?
It's right.
It's tough.
When I first started DMing Iwould DM a game on a weekend
and then just be exhausted for,yeah, the rest of the weekend.
(21:06):
Because I am an introvert.
That's my, that's my secret thatI've been hiding from the world.
I am such an introvert, butI have an extrovert skillset.
I can, I can turn it onand I can be entertaining.
But it, it was a struggle when I started.
How did you week to two gamesa week to three games a week.
I just, it was like trainingfor a marathon, uhhuh.
(21:28):
It really was and required a lotof naps during the day and yeah.
Great recovering and, you know,I've, I've, and I've got a great
support system at home and now, NowI can do these games in my sleep.
I don't, but I could.
And you've got two young kids too.
Yes.
Oh, they are so.
Little and, oh, my, my son,he knows what I, what I do.
(21:50):
He's three three and a half and mm-hmm.
Just the other day.
He wasn't bedtime yet, but heran into my office cuz he knows
I have dragons on my bookshelves.
And he just runs in and startsyelling and he, he knows that
daddy plays Dungeons and Dragons.
That's his job.
Right.
Just last night I, I kissed him goodnight.
We were, I just finished dinner,I was going down to do a game.
(22:12):
Mom was gonna put him to bed.
And I started walkingdownstairs without him.
He got really upset because he wantedto walk me to work because that's
like this little ritual that we'vecreated where we come into work.
I sat down and he's like, lights,lights can we, can we have the lights?
Cuz he knows I have these cool lights.
So I let him pick the colorsfor the lights for that game.
(22:34):
Wow.
He wanted blue and pink for the lights.
And so that's that's what I had.
But yeah, he knows what I'm doing.
He knows.
You shouldn't be interinterrupting me while I'm gaming.
Luckily, my office is on adifferent floor than where he
normally hangs out, but mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's been, it's been super fun.
(22:55):
I started the businesswhen he was six months old.
Hmm.
So that's, that's all he's everknown is me having this job.
That brings up a good pointtoo about making sure you're
allocating your space appropriately.
Mm-hmm.
You know, do you have a discreet space inyour home that you can allocate to running
a game for four hours that the rest ofthe family, if you have one, doesn't
(23:17):
blunder into, or the vacuum cleaner'sgoing in the background, you know?
Yeah.
That's, so let's talk about
your setup and your family situation.
Sure, sure.
Well, this is, this, I have asplit level house, so that's why
there's windows that are that big.
So I'm in the lower level and this part,you know, the, the shelving unit behind
me kind of divides it into one half.
(23:37):
I also have a built in like, Bar inmy basement which I've commandeered
as my sort of gaming table.
Okay.
Used, used to run games at itwhen, you know, I would have
people over to the house.
Now primarily the modalitiesin the before times online.
Yeah, in the before times.
Right.
Right before the big booms.
This was a, my favorite spot to run a gamecuz you know, the dice work well on it.
(23:59):
We have the kitchen table upstairs, thefamily has the rest of the other levels.
You know, they can hang out there.
You probably hear.
Occasionally soundfilters down the stairs.
My microphone's pretty sensitive forthis event, but that's it will, you
know, you have sound pollution issues.
Is the lighting good enough to last?
Mm-hmm.
For the entirety?
You know, sometimes you're goingfrom afternoon into evening that.
(24:23):
That kind of thing.
I got desk, gls, all sorts of stuffready to go in case it, it runs long, you
know or depending on what time, like, sotonight I'm running from seven till 11,
so it's gonna start just as at sunsetand then it's gonna be pitch black.
So I gotta have the, youknow, the lights come up.
And In my, I only have one child who's12, so that's that's, I don't have
(24:44):
kids running everywhere, but yes.
Like, like you, they aredefinitely aware of what I do.
Yeah.
So that's, that's, that's fun tohave another, you know, young person
to kind of see it reflected intheir interest and their curiosity,
and I'm like, what do you do?
Mm-hmm.
And then we play games, ofcourse, as a family too.
(25:05):
Yeah.
Which I never played with my.
With my family.
So seeing what kind of charactersthey wanna play, both my wife and my
child, you know, which ones, how dothey like to organize their characters?
My kid likes drawing as well,so that, that's fun to see them
make those characters come alive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would love to use someof their artwork and games.
(25:25):
So yeah, as far as As that goes,do you have the setup for that?
You know, if you're contemplatingbeing a professional, do you have Yeah.
A setup like that?
Or are you primarily going to beinterested in going to people's homes,
you know or being at a space maybe,like we were talking about earlier,
there is some sort of brick andmortar spot that has gaming tables
(25:47):
where they'd be willing to let you.
Run your games there.
They might
want, and that's an option these days.
Totally.
An option.
Yeah.
When when I started the business, it was.
January, 2020 and I was thinking aboutthis hybrid model where I did part of my
stuff online, part of my stuff in person.
Mm-hmm.
Cause I was familiar with both.
When I graduated college, my friendsand I moved all to different states.
(26:08):
So we'd been using thesedigital tools before.
They were cool.
Well before the pandemic.
But as soon as the pandemic hitand I had the business ready to
go, I had to pivot all of my plansto just focus on the online Yeah.
Aspect of it.
And there's a lot of digitalassets out there that are.
(26:28):
Really great, really, really great.
But also you're gonna need to start kindof framing up acquiring those assets.
And are you capable of investing theinitial outlay of capital to be able to
get those digital assets ready to go?
You gotta think of it like a, youknow, like an interactive PowerPoint.
(26:50):
Presentation.
And you want to become proficient orfamiliar with the tools that are on
some of these free websites, these vtts like foundry or like roll 20, which
is predominantly what I use, roll 20.
And then you've
gotta make it look effortless.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So just like any, you know,public speaker, you don't want
(27:10):
them fumbling through their noteswhile they're talking to you.
You don't want endless,sort of like scrolling.
And looking and then movingand manipulating of things.
And then like, okay, go ahead and roll.
You know, you, you want it to be seamless.
You want the art to showup on their screens on cue.
(27:31):
You want if you use music, youwant to make sure that that's
happening when you want it to happen.
And these things all go intothat, you know, that prep time,
which if you're thinking about,okay, I got four, four hours.
A four hour game that even,even four hours, that's easy.
A four hour workday, it'slike, well, remember, Nope.
(27:51):
Perhaps two hours of prep and yep.
Inclusive in that two hours comes,you know, a recap for the next session
that you might want to have prepared.
And I, however you wanna write thatdown, how, however you have that
available to them, you know, youwanna make sure that that's updated.
You want to have like we say, the next setof maps and tokens populated on that map.
(28:18):
And that all takes.
Time.
It just takes time.
Yeah.
Now of course you'll get better at it.
You'll get more swish at putting thestuff out there, but it still takes time.
And do you have that skillsetyet, or do you need to acquire it?
Like, when I started workingwith you, I needed to acquire it.
I didn't have it to go right off the bat.
And.
Wish I had, wish I had, I had somefamiliarity enough so I was conversant,
(28:44):
but I didn't have enough to be runningat the level that I wanted to be.
So these are all things thatbefore you are, before you
are asking for their money.
You might want to be puttingin the time to familiarize
yourself with all of that stuff.
And that's what's greatabout, its that it's.
It's free to get the education.
(29:06):
Mm-hmm.
There's lots of tutorials andthings when it comes down to
one time that goes into it.
Yeah.
When it comes down to the actualassets, that's where you're
gonna be outlaying some money.
And I know UD a how, how longbefore you started actually
making some money at this?
Did it, did it go for you?
So.
(29:26):
I was very thrifty at the beginning.
I started this business with $200 that Igot from my Costco rewards for the years.
I'm like, Hey, hey, hey honey.
This is, this is what I've got.
I'm putting this into the business.
This is what I'm gonna use forthe business license and getting
the bank account set up and I.
You know, buying the assets that Ineeded, I had a lot of assets already.
I was already a collector of the books.
(29:47):
I had already played onthese virtual tabletops.
First time I ran a campaign in Rule20, all my friends, I wasn't be
getting paid for it, but we all pitchedin to buy the books that I needed.
And that's pretty common beyond.
Yeah.
And so the first game that I ran, Iwas using books that I had already
run with friends previously.
(30:08):
Mm-hmm.
Cuz I didn't want to.
Invest too much upfront.
Because there is this mindset whenstarting a new business that if
you have a problem, just throwmoney at it and it'll go away.
And that is not true.
You will run your business intothe ground if you just try to solve
all of your problems with money.
But if you give yourself a budget and I,you get to work within those constraints,
(30:30):
you get to be a little bit more flexible.
I looked at what resources do Ialready have, what resources do I
need next, and what order of priorityare there, are they that's great.
That's smart.
And so I knew I wanted music, but I didn'twant to I needed to find some sort of
streaming service cause I didn't have thetime to go out and pick every single song.
(30:54):
So I was relying on other resourcesthat I found online to help find
entire playlists that I could use.
Instead of buying individualmaps, I would buy them in packs.
I would.
Find ways to subscribe on Patreon.
I would find free versions, trialversions, and eventually would
upgrade to the, you know, morepremium versions as I could afford it.
But I think having that $200 atthe beginning, that's all I needed.
(31:19):
If I would've had a thousand dollarsto start it, I probably would've
blown a lot of money on things Ididn't need, and it wouldn't have
improved the quality of the game.
But I would prioritize whatdo we absolutely need and
what would be nice to have?
Right now you see these bookshelves,you see these cool lights over
there, you know, I can changethem, I can change the colors.
(31:39):
You know, this is cool.
But that wasn't necessary.
That's not what I had when I started, Hmm.
I was in our spare bedroom.
There was a.
Big pile of boxes behind me, andI put a folding screen in front of
those boxes and I put books up on thatscreen and it, and I had fake candles.
And that was it.
That was my, that was my immersive setup.
(32:01):
Mm-hmm.
And I started running games like that.
I was still working anotherday job at the time.
Critical.
Yeah.
I didn't, and then I made certain goals.
On, I'm gonna run one game a week.
I'm gonna run two games a week.
It wasn't until I was running aboutthree or four games a week that I
realized I could replace the incomethat I had at my other job if I quit
(32:24):
and started doing d d full-time.
Mm-hmm.
And so that, and I didn't evenstart paying myself until I
already quit my other job.
There
you go.
That's that's,
that was like six months ofnot taking any money from it.
Money was coming in slowly.
It was strickling in.
But yeah, I invested a lotof time and then by that
summer, it was summer of 2020.
(32:45):
It was a great time to be a pro dm.
Mm-hmm.
I had enough regular clients and mm-hmm.
Create a recurring incomeand that was, that was the.
Goal that I had to give to my wife.
Right.
So just to, we had, we had a sixmonth old, like, I can't just
quit my job and pursue the dream.
(33:06):
That's right.
I had to break it down into smaller tasks.
That's right.
So tracking that, to, to, to picking thatstitching out of the throw pillow there
y'all, that's that, that young personthat he was just mentioning there, that's
the one that's walking him to work now.
Mm-hmm.
And the The, the six months that hewent without paying himself is something
(33:27):
that y'all need to keep in mind too.
Yeah, and we, on thisbroadcast, are representing
two distinctly different paths.
Dax started this gig and built it fromthe ground up, which requires a whole
bunch of steps that have nothing to dowith running a Dungeons and Dragons game.
(33:48):
They have to do, gotta use that
NBA of mine somehow.
Right.
There you
go.
There you go.
And the other guy on this call, thislittle duck here, is the one who got
hired by the one who started the company.
And that is a different boat to be in.
And that means, you know, that'sa w2 and that's a, that's a resume
(34:12):
and that's getting hired, which youhave to decide which one of these
guys are you interested in being?
Which of these humans has the story?
That you want yours to be more alike.
Are you interested in do you wantthis to be your sole means of income?
That puts you in DAXs Camp.
If this is something supplemental foryouth, then you're in the Dmk camp.
(34:35):
Because I still make my livingpredominantly by being on stage and
by teaching some classes in academia.
That's how I pay formy house predominantly.
Yeah.
And then I run games.
To supplement that income to makethings work much better in my life.
That's what that's for for me.
So you have to figure out where you,which, you know, boat you are in, and then
(35:02):
there's a bunch of different directionsonce you make that major decision.
I would say.
Are you, and I don't want to
downplay the.
Amount of work you put into justgetting hired in the first place.
Yeah, fair enough.
Hundreds and hundreds of people applied.
When I brought you in, Maria, I had theapplication open for about two days and I
was just, my inbox was absolutely flooded.
(35:24):
It was overwhelmingparsing through everybody.
Yeah.
And so I was looking forvery specific things.
And you stood out, you really stood out.
You've had this incredible skillsetset, this incredible way of being in
your voice and the way you approachedit like an actor, and with the
professionalism and as an actor and I.
(35:45):
I listened to you and Ithought, I wanna learn from me.
I don't, I don't wanna bring someone in.
You know, it's fun mentoringpeople and seeing them grow.
I mean, that's fun.
There's value that comes out ofthat, but I saw you and I'm like, I
wanna learn as much as I can from me.
And maybe, you know, maybe somethingthat I have will rub off on him too.
But I think in the last few yearswe've both gotten so much better
(36:06):
at our craft and at our skillset.
So yes, there is a path whereyou, you get hired by somebody.
And it's already you get to skip someof the business and administrative
steps, but you were ready to take thatstep because you were so competitive
compared to other candidates.
You had such an incredible skill set.
So many years of experience.
(36:28):
And you can back it up and it
shows in mm-hmm.
The way in your games.
Yeah.
Thank you for that acknowledgement.
I totally get that.
And the, the, that goes to the firstpart of our conversation on what,
what makes a compelling resume.
Right.
And since a lot of, I think a lot ofpeople out there who might be listening
to this in search of tips on how tobecome a professional dungeon master
(36:52):
can definitely, Take that to heart.
They need to understand whatmakes them compelling as a person.
Are they a joy to be around?
And as a professional stage actor, Ihad kind of gotten used to the idea.
That people are laying down money tobuy a ticket to be in my presence.
(37:15):
And that's, that's notan egotistical statement.
That's just the fact they'retrying to see a show that I am
going to be up there performing.
Mm-hmm.
Now, if I'm successful at it, it's becauseI'm giving them the space to have a
great time living in their own humanity.
(37:36):
Yeah, they're not up therewatching me be great.
They're up there having a great time.
Being a human being, that's whatthey're in the audience doing.
And if you think about it, that'swhat we are in the audience doing.
You know, my students, I, I.
Use Beyonce as a, as an example,because Beyonce is fierce, right?
But she's not famous.
(37:57):
We don't all know who sheis because she's fierce.
There's plenty of fierce people out there.
We know who she is because we all fearfeel fierce when we listen to her.
That's what makes Beyonce great.
That's why we all know who she is.
That's why she's world famous.
Because no matter who you are,you listen to her music and you're
like, yeah, and that is what.
(38:20):
We are trying to givethem as dungeon masters.
We're trying to give our playersthe opportunity to be epic heroes
and we all have tons of storieswhere that just didn't happen.
But we do have storiestoo, where it did and whoa,
when they get so close to death and thenthey turn it around at the last second.
(38:42):
Yes.
Ah.
Yes.
I love that
feeling.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
We also have a lot of stories wherethe hero, the heroes, quote unquote,
are probably the villains if youlook at it from a certain angle.
But we have great stories where theyare the epic saviors of the realm,
or the universe or the multiverse, orwhatever it is that your story treats on.
(39:04):
So that's, that's arguablywhat theater gave.
Me, and that's the thing that I broughtto the table alongside the punctuality,
the professional, the easy things,you know, the stuff that makes you
a good professional to work with.
That's all that together is what Daxis pointing at when he's acknowledging
me for what it took to get the job.
(39:27):
Also, you'll notice thathe said he had that.
That, you know, open application process.
You know, he's like, put out the callfor resumes and they came flooding in.
Now remember, like we said, way atthe beginning of this, absolutely.
Every single one of those applicationswere put forth by someone who loved
the game, enjoyed playing it, andwould like to run it for other people.
(39:51):
That's a given.
So you need to find what else you've gotto bring to the table, and that's whether
or not you want to be in my shoes or inD'S shoes, meaning you either want to be
hired or you want to be doing the hiring.
Those, those things, thosequestions need to be answered
for both paths in this career.
(40:12):
Absolutely.
And they are both hard.
They're both hard.
Yeah.
Both very, very hard.
Yeah.
They don't happen overnight either.
No.
10 year overnight success iswhat I see thrown around a lot.
But yeah, for me it was 10 yearsof playing the game and being
in theater and teaching improvand working customer service.
(40:33):
I was a, a tour guide in Hawaii.
I would do Zipline tours withpeople and I had to learn.
How I have three hours to leadpeople through through this forest
zipping from from hill to hill.
How do I get to know them?
How do I make them laugh?
How do I help them overcome their fears?
(40:53):
How can I give them this powerful,emotional, transformative experience?
That job as a tour guide prepared mefor being a professional DM because
that's what I do every day now.
That's right.
Helping
people confront their fearsand be epic, be great.
That's, that's, that's great.
Zip lining.
A zip lining tour guide.
(41:14):
Yeah.
That's such a cool job.
Such a cool, it was the second coolest job
I've ever had.
Oh, there you go.
There you go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'd, we were talking to in our weeklymeeting, we were talking to Beth and she
was saying that based on the examinationof the data on, on the hits on our
website, what it is that people aresearching for, you know, higher eddm that.
(41:35):
She would judge.
A lot of those hits are coming frompeople who are looking to be hired.
So we know that there's a lot, or weat least theorize that there's a glut
of people that are very interested inbecoming a professional dungeon master.
But how do you even know whetheror not you'd make a good one?
And how do you then go after becoming.
(41:56):
One, those are thingsthat we think have a lot.
You know, that's a hot button.
That's a lot.
A lot of people are interestedin the answer to that question.
And just like anything, you,they're the, the paths of either
you make it up as you go along.
Or you find someone who already didit and you ask them to, to hold your
hand while you're, while you're goingthrough it, you know those and making
(42:18):
sure it's, make sure it'sworth their time as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do you become anasset for wherever mm-hmm.
You are working?
That's, that's another thing.
So for the Wouldbe Dungeon Masters outthere, that is I'd say a, a big thing
to consider and answer for yourself iswhat, not just what do I have to say
(42:39):
as a storyteller, but what makes me.
I don't know what makes me think I canor why, what is my actual skillset, you
know, can I enunciate what I'm good at?
And in our culture, we don't havea lot of tread on that road because
it sounds egotistical or arrogantto start thinking along those lines.
I may even sound arrogant whenI'm talking about it, but I'm what
(43:01):
I'm trying to counsel you today.
Do is take a look at an objective, lookat yourself as best you can, and figure
out what it is that you can authenticallysay is a strong suit of yours.
I I can talk or you know, likeDak says, I unabashedly, I, I'm an
introvert, but that's a strength.
You see, that's somethingthat's remarkable about him.
(43:23):
Not that there aren't other introverts,but I mean, like that he knows he
is one and can dance with that.
And then, Moreover developed askillset that compensates for that,
that bridges that gap to other people.
Because you can't do this alone, right?
You have to be, you have to have a sincerelove for other people and for humanity,
(43:46):
even though it's all about dragon bornand, and ORs and, and halflings and gnomes
and things, and you know, like war forged.
How great are they?
You know, you gotta also, those are.
All right.
We'd love war for it.
That is all, those are all expansions onthe theme of what it means to be human.
And if you don't have a love forthat, I mean, since I do, I don't,
(44:09):
I don't know what you, what?
I don't know who I would be without it,so I don't know what, there must be great
dungeon masters out there who are like,Humans, I could take 'em or leave them,
but I would recommend if you want to bea professional dungeon master that you at
least cultivate some interest in humans.
Yeah.
And we're
dungeon masters kind of a misnomerbecause even though we are in charge,
(44:33):
we're the servants at the table.
We're there to build everybody else up.
We do this work and this preparationso that other people don't have to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're the servants, we'rethe dungeon servants.
That's who we are.
Right?
Yeah.
A lot of contracts come our way becauseof groups that are established, longtime
groups that love playing with eachother, that are like, we never, there's
(44:56):
always one person running it, and wenever all get to actually play together.
We don't all get to beplayers at the same table.
Can you guys run us through a game?
And that gives them theopportunity to, to do that, to
all be players at the same time.
Those are fun groups too.
Mm-hmm.
Got a couple of those.
Couple of, it's one ofthose tonight, in fact.
(45:16):
Okay.
Well good luck with that game.
I've also got a game tonight.
Yeah.
Maybe we'll bring someoneback from the dead tonight.
Maybe not.
Maybe I'll just kill more.
Maybe I'll bring back oneand kill two and it's place.
Yeah.
That's a whole nother broadcast.
When to kill and whenwhole nother broadcast.
Yeah.
Oh, I could talk
for hours about Oh, sure.
Killing the play.
Sure.
(45:36):
Killing player characters is easy.
That's easy.
Anyone can do that.
Anyone can.
How do you get close to deathand let dance on that line?
That's, that's where I live.
Mm-hmm.
Alright.
Thank you Mic, for taking timeout of your day to being our
first guest on Absolutely.
And Dax podcast.
Mm-hmm.
The question that we posited was tobe or not to be the Dungeon Master.
(45:59):
What is your answer
to be?
Dungeon Master.
I, I, I say be the Dungeon Master.
That's my advice.
All right well tune in next timeand have a great week everybody.
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