Session Zero University - Breaking Free of DnD with Hartly Llosa - Session Zero Heroes - A TTRPG Actual Play Podcast

Episode Transcript
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>> Skylar (00:15):
Welcome, students, to Session Zero
University. My name is Professor Rainier, one of the
many teachers here at the university. But for right
now, I am your orientation
representative. Here at scu, you will
find a variety of professors well versed in the realms
of tabletop role playing games, offering you

(00:35):
their insight on every facet of
TTRPG's. Perhaps you'd like to
take a homebrwing class with our potions
professor or join in on a role playinging
class put on by our theater department. Be
sure to take all your required general education
classes like Character Creation 101,
Intro to World Building, and NPC

(00:58):
Voices for Beginners to help round out
your education. There are also plenty of electives
and intramural opportunities to add some fun and
diversity into your everyday schedule. So get
out there and learn. Whether you'hoping to
graduate with a degree in DMing or playing, it
matters not. There is always room to
grow at Session Zero University.

>> Hartley (01:31):
Hello, students. Please sit down at
your tables and.

>> Skylar (01:35):
U, take out your books.

>> Hartley (01:37):
And u,

>> Skylar (01:37):
Oh, you only have D and D books, is
that right?

>> Hartley (01:41):
Well, yeah, that needs to stop.

>> Skylar (01:44):
There are many tabletop role playing games other
than D and D. That's what today's class is
about.

>> Hartley (01:51):
I'm going to be teaching you all.

>> Skylar (01:52):
How to break out of the D.

>> Hartley (01:54):
And D only mindset.

>> Skylar (01:55):
Hartley Yosa, welcome so much,
to the Session Zero University, our special
new series that we've kind of started to
discuss. Kind of a bit more expanded
world of TTRPGs, and sort of
learning and finding new ways to grow as
game masters, as players, whatever
the case, today, again, thank you so much for being on the show

(02:18):
to talk to us about getting free of that D
and D only mindset and also
the Nightbringer RPG that you're working on, which we'll be
talking about here at the end. But before we get to that, let's talk about
getting free of that D and D mindset. So
obviously we kind of understand that
D and D is kind of the big dominating
RPG of, our time. I mean, ever since it came out, kind

(02:41):
of the OG ttrpg, in
general, stemming all the way back to when it kind of came out in the
70s and got popular in the 80s. So we've definitely seen
a big resurgence of it lately, which on one
hand is nice, in the sense that we get to see a lot
more people getting introduced to TTRPGs. But what
would you say are maybe some of the things that might have gotten it
re sparked that popularity of, Dungeons and

(03:03):
Dragons.

>> Hartley (03:04):
yeah, well, first off, I'm glad to be here.

>> Skylar (03:06):
Yeah, yeah, sorry, I should have paused to let you.

>> Hartley (03:09):
Yeah. tabletop role playing games are really
interesting because they
combine theatrical improv
and stuff like that with math
and tactics and statistics and lots
of stuff like that. And I mean, that varies across tabletop role playing
games. You're going to find some that have no math at

(03:29):
all, or some that have
no improv at all. But
with D and D on the rise more recently.
Well, I mean, a lot of it is partially like
Stranger Things and stuff like that and
just shows that you used it. Although
I actually have never watched Critical Role

(03:50):
at all, but so much that
it is one of the main proprietors
of getting new people into it and stuff like that.

>> Skylar (03:59):
Very true. Yeah, absolutely.

>> Hartley (04:01):
I think it's also partially
that the WOTC has been trying
to push D and to newer
people, which can be a
good and bad thing. Which I think, looking at
the questions we'll probably get more into later. I think
it's just a lot of it is word of mouth, because

(04:21):
if one person gets it and then they get some
friends in on it, I think a lot of it is word of mouth. And
probably also the fact that
people that used to play it
are. Some of them are becoming teachers and
then they open up a lot of
stuff which then gets other people into it.
Right. Then go and word of Math

(04:44):
again.

>> Skylar (04:44):
absolutely. I've definitely heard of plenty of like,
school, like, what's the word? Like clubs and stuff
like that that have started implementing like a D and D program that some M
teacher usually is in charge of or something like that. So, yeah,
definitely kind of seeing that as
a way that D and D kind of gets introduced into society.

>> Hartley (05:02):
Because a lot of times
when you, like during the beginning
of Dungeonson and Dragons, it was mostly teenagers and stuff that were
playing it a lot, and then
it kind of disappeared for a while because they were
probably all a lot more busy
and like, no longer had the time for

(05:23):
it. And now I think
part of their resurgence has been people
remembering, oh, hey, that game was fun, why don't I play
it?

>> Skylar (05:32):
Right? And seeing it in the media, like you
mentioned before, like seeing it in Stranger Things and being like, oh, man, I
want to get back to that again, I want to play that again. We should do that.

>> Hartley (05:41):
Yeah.

>> Skylar (05:41):
So obviously we. We see that D and D
has kind of become one of the. The most popular
TTRPGs, you know, in existence. But with that being Said, you
know, we kind of want to. I mean, there's. There's so
many TTRPGs out there. why, I mean, why
would you say. Or what would your argument be for kind
of why we should move kind of towards
other RPGs and maybe step a little bit away from D and D

(06:04):
and the excessive focus on D.

>> Hartley (06:05):
And D. So the thing with that is
that people a lot of the times say
that I like D and D, I know how to
play D and D. Why don't I just
homebrew D and D for my means instead of learning a whole
new system.

>> Skylar (06:21):
Right.

>> Hartley (06:22):
Which in some cases
it's good. But I think it's
interesting to be able to see how
other systems tackle things. Right.

>> Skylar (06:32):
Right.

>> Hartley (06:32):
Like there are some really interesting mechanics
that aren't D and D like at all. Like
homebrewing them into D and D just really wouldn't
or work.

>> Skylar (06:42):
Right.

>> Hartley (06:43):
But these mechanics are interesting.

>> Skylar (06:45):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (06:46):
And like are fun to
play with and bring up good situations at the table
and stuff.
And there are a lot of things that just can't be home
bred well into D and without making it
like a slog vest.

>> Skylar (06:59):
Yes.

>> Hartley (07:01):
Because with Dungeons and Dragons
it was originally meant to be strictly one
setting. Right. With the Forgotten Realms.
But then WAOTC has
been expanding it so that you can
play in a lot more things. And to do that they have
to spread the rules a little bit thin. Right. which

(07:22):
means that it's not as specific on
some things. Like if you want to run a heist game
in Dungeons and Dragons, it is doable.

>> Skylar (07:30):
Ye.

>> Hartley (07:30):
Right. I've done it before and it can be really fun.

>> Skylar (07:33):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (07:34):
You can run a heist and
like using the rule set.
When you're sneaking around the corner,
everybody's rolling stealth and that's all you're doing.

>> Skylar (07:44):
Yep.

>> Hartley (07:44):
There's no other way to sneak. It is just the
stealth score. Because to spread
itself so thin so they
can cover everything, it has to be
mediocreate everything.

>> Skylar (07:56):
Right.

>> Hartley (07:57):
Then in opposition, if you were to run
a heist game in like Blades in the Dark.
Right.

>> Skylar (08:04):
M.

>> Hartley (08:04):
It gives you a completely different feel.
And the system is structured so that
it feels like a height.

>> Skylar (08:13):
Right.

>> Hartley (08:13):
Right. So it has things like
flashbacks.
And like changing plans on
your feet. And it
has like, it's sometimes easier to get
immobilized and stuff like that so that it
gives you more of that feel like, oh, no, Billy's down.
What are we going to do in the plan without Him.

>> Skylar (08:33):
Right.

>> Hartley (08:34):
Not necessarily dead but. And it has mechanics
for the police and like stuff like that and people
trying to stop you and although you
can certainly have
pre planned police and
complications and stuff in D and D, it's
just nowhere near that level

(08:55):
of like mechanically built
in that like you
don't know what's going to happen when you enter into this heist.

>> Skylar (09:03):
Right.

>> Hartley (09:04):
And the mechanics, every single thing you do
is changing a bunch of other stuff.

>> Skylar (09:09):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (09:10):
But then if you tryied to run Blades in the Dark
and you try to run like a high fantasy
dungeon crawl, I mean you could
do it but it just wouldn't be as
effective.

>> Skylar (09:22):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (09:23):
So a lot of games
like that are very narrowed in.
Which can lead to amazing games and
stuff. Whereas DND D is very
broad so they. It can cover a lot of things.

>> Skylar (09:37):
Yes.

>> Hartley (09:37):
Which sometimes, sometimes that's what you want. Sometimes you
want to do a little bit of everything and that There are also
TTRPGs that are similar to that
which then at that point it's just
your preference of mechanics.

>> Skylar (09:50):
Right, right. I think that's a good way to put it too. Is
that like. Yes. Anything could be done in
a singular system to some extent. It's just
not going to be as fun, it's not going to be as smooth and it's
not going to be as immersive as you know, we
would want as people that are trying to create these collaborative
stories with the other player, or with the players and so on and so

(10:10):
forth. We want that system that actually
fits the narrative and fits the story that's that you're
trying to tell. And to do that you're going to need those
mechanics. We saw that a lot at session zero Heroes and we did our
Benders and Brew series which was in av the Last Airbender
or sorry Avatar Legends which is set in AVR the Last
Airbender. And there are some really
interesting pieces or mechanics inside of

(10:32):
Avatar Legends that really create that sort of
emotional focus on things, the
inner turmoil of your character.

>> Hartley (10:40):
That system is very narrative
based. It's been a while since I
haven't actually played but I've listened to ah from a few
different places where it's very heavily
narratively based like healing
requires talking and bonding with the rest of your
party members and a lot of
your skills can be used inside and outside

(11:02):
of combat and stuff like that.

>> Skylar (11:04):
Yeah, it's less like numbers focused, it's a
little bit more narrative as you mentioned before. So.

>> Hartley (11:09):
Yeah. And like that kind of Game where
it is very narrative focused and you start out with a lot
of secrets.

>> Skylar (11:16):
Right.

>> Hartley (11:17):
And slowly revealing that over time. I feel like that would be
a great game to play with a group of strangers at
some sort of club.

>> Skylar (11:24):
Oh yes. New play like new people that you
aren't familiar with.

>> Hartley (11:28):
Yeah. So like some games
require lots of teamwork and
stuff like that. So I really feel like there are different
games for different situations.

>> Skylar (11:38):
I never really thought about it that way before, but that is a really good point.
Like knowing who you're going to be playing
with is like D and D, I would say is
very pretty collaborative. I mean I guess you can really pick it up with
anybody, anywhere, anytime. But I think there's enough
in it that's very focused on
teamwork and having a party that's
cohesive. But yeah, that's a really good point. Like Avatar

(12:01):
Legends could be a really good game to introduce to a group
that doesn't know each other and therefore you don't
know their tendencies and then
their's secrets that you're eventually going to lead and those kind of get
translated both as the players but also within their
careacter. That's really cool. I never thought about that before. That would be an
interesting way to kind of categorize
RPGs.

>> Hartley (12:22):
Yeah. Because like Pathfinder
I feel like could go either way.
Because if you pre plan and have
a really nice party composition, it can be great.

>> Skylar (12:32):
Ye.

>> Hartley (12:33):
But then also a lot of the times the
characters like by themselves
are fine.
Because Pathfinder allows you to be so
specialized.

>> Skylar (12:41):
Right.

>> Hartley (12:42):
If you just make sure that you're not all wizards.
Other than that you can just
do your own thing.

>> Skylar (12:50):
Yeah. I think that's kind of playing off of this idea of
sort of playing with players that you don't know very well.
One thing that I've always noticed and one thing I love to do when I do Powered by
the Apocalypse game. So anything from masks all
the way to we've done Escape from Dino island, we did a really
fun one with that. And I love to
go behind the scenes to each one of the players before we get started and

(13:10):
say, okay, I want you to make some sort of like
secret mission or secret goal
that you have that the others don't have. Right. You're all going to be in the
same group. You're all going to have kind of this singular
go to. We're going to defeat the monster, we're going to get off this island,
whatever the case. But saying to Them like, hey,
I also want you as a person to be

(13:30):
focused on one particular weird thing.
Right. And if you do that with people that know each
other super well, the problem is that they have tells. It's kind
of like poker. Right. Like, I know that he's bluffing, or
I know that he's got a secret, or I know he wants me to go to
this particular thing because
he knows this guy outside of game. Right.

(13:50):
Yeah. So that's a fun idea is like, there are certain
games that work with the idea of
new people and being able to kind of play around
with the opportunity to create some like, added
drama and added character stuff. And then there's some that don't.

>> Hartley (14:05):
I think also a lot of games
work differently on the DM side.
Or gm, Whatever term is used for the game.
And sometimes it's completely different than with
the player. Sometimes a very narrative system can have a very crunchy
GM side.

>> Skylar (14:21):
True.

>> Hartley (14:22):
and stuff like that. So I think also
finding a system that works well
with your GMing style is really important.
Like, I know, the Dark Eye
has its lore and
maps and terrain and stuff like, written out
in so much detail that in a map

(14:42):
the size, like a huge
map, there's at least a paragraph for
every single town.

>> Skylar (14:48):
Wow.

>> Hartley (14:49):
Something like that. And Dark Eye is
a popular tabletop role playing game in I believe
it's Germany.

>> Skylar (14:57):
Interesting.

>> Hartley (14:57):
Okay.

>> Skylar (14:58):
Like, it takes place in dreaming.

>> Hartley (14:59):
I tried playing it with my group, because I thought
it was really fun. But the character
creation process gives you. I believe it's
like 100 points. Maybe it's a thousand
that you put into every single skill. And it's like the most
intricate, complex. And then the system is
also s. Not as crunchy as character creation.

(15:19):
If you don't know what you're doing with character creation,
sure. It's just not really playable. And the
character creation is so difficult that my group wasn't able
to handle it.

>> Skylar (15:28):
yes. And that actually kind of goes into the next kind of
question or topic that I was going to ask about, which
is obviously one of the biggest fears. And I know I've
had it. I've been the guy that said, well, let's try to do a
D and D campaign that's not set in a high fantasy world. And then
quickly realized this is. This is a mess to either
make or try to come up with. so for those
GMs and players out there that are like, oh,

(15:51):
I'd love to use a new system, but
I'm really not looking forward to the idea of
trying to figure it out or whatever the case. What kind
of how can we as the
DM'and the players of this world, how can we overcome
that fear or that dread or whatever it is that you want to call
it, to push through and inevitably take
on those new systems?

>> Hartley (16:12):
Podcasts are really helpful. Yeah, actual play
podcasts, listening to the system being played by
other people is really helpful. One shots.
True M. Run a one shot with your group, see how they
feel about something before diving in.

>> Skylar (16:26):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (16:27):
There was one time where I prepped this large
campaign without testing it,
which was like this very
intricate lore based
subterfuge war or whatever
where the players were trying to play both sides and
whatever and they loved
it. And we went through a few sessions but

(16:48):
then eventually I had to call it off because it was an absolute nightmare to
gm. Right. And with something like
that, no one was falling any of the pre
built threads and everything was just like
falling apart. And at the point where
they were now, I had everything that I had
planned completely out the window.

>> Skylar (17:07):
Right.

>> Hartley (17:07):
So something as careful as
that didn't specifically work. And
I think that if I had
tested it with a one shot
in that setting
or whatever, that
was a very political one shot, I would have

(17:29):
been able to see. Yeah. Maybe don't put
effort into doing this campaign or do this
campaign because this just isn't going to
work with this more silly
light group.

>> Skylar (17:41):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (17:41):
So doing one shots with your group is helpful.
I also find that like if you go
online and you find like
public games or whatever,
sometimes the GMs with public games
can be really good. Or like even as a
gm, being a player in a public

(18:01):
game is really helpful.

>> Skylar (18:03):
Oh absolutely. Yeah.

>> Hartley (18:04):
Because then you see how other people are able to gm, and
stuff like that. And if you do bad, it's a public gameing, you're
never going to see those people again.

>> Skylar (18:12):
True.

>> Hartley (18:13):
There's really no downside in it. And a lot of the
times once you play one game it's
much better.

>> Skylar (18:20):
Right. It clicks.

>> Hartley (18:21):
So I'm in a few groups, I
DM for one of them but in one of
the other groups I was in, which this is,
before this I was fully like only playing
D and D M and like maybe
some fate accelerated. But
they decided, the rest of the group had

(18:41):
decided to switch to Pathfinder and I was
kind of considering leaving.

>> Skylar (18:46):
Sure.

>> Hartley (18:46):
Because I had biases and
whatever. And like when I
was trying to learn Pathfinder rules And
stuff. I was kind of only looking at stuff
that was critiquing Pathfinder and
sure. Looking at comparisons between Pathfinder and
Dandy, which I don't really think
you should be trying to compare these systems.

>> Skylar (19:09):
Right.

>> Hartley (19:09):
Because if you compare the systems, then
it just. You kind of lose the feeling
of it.

>> Skylar (19:16):
Yeah. You're not keeping an open mind to like, let me see why
people like this and let me see why the group wants to go
towards this.

>> Hartley (19:23):
One of the things that I heard a lot of was
that, Pathfinder is
horizontal progression opposed to vertical
progression.

>> Skylar (19:32):
Okay.

>> Hartley (19:33):
Which I
have some minor issues with
it, but it really is not as much as people say it is.

>> Skylar (19:41):
Okay, what does that mean exactly?

>> Hartley (19:44):
So with vertical and horizontal, what people.
A lot of people were saying is that Dungeons and
Dragons you get lots of skills that
stack. Right. So, at level two, you gain this
ability. At level three, when you get this ability, you get
this specific buff. At level four, this ability, you can cast
it twice at level and it's just kind of all piling

(20:04):
on to the one or two abilities you get at the beginning.
Right. Which is fun because that means high damage numbers and
whatever. And horizontal progression
is like you get
more options. Right. So it's
not necessarily just stacking all
onto one thing, which I didn't like that.

(20:25):
Right. Because I felt
that eventually you just have so
many options, you're just going to be choosing two or three because there's only so many
things you can do in your turn.

>> Skylar (20:34):
Right.

>> Hartley (20:35):
But with Pathfinder,
right. It. You can do a lot more things
because there's the three action economy. And
it's not necessarily all
horizontal progression. And now that
I think about it, like with D and
D, if you're just always casting Eldritch
Blast as a Warlock, it just kind of becomes

(20:57):
boring.

>> Skylar (20:58):
Yes. Monotonous.

>> Hartley (21:00):
It's, a kind of horizontal progression. But
it's not like you're just getting more things piled on top.
You're swapping out old things for new
things and. Not necessarily,
but you're getting more abilities that you can
use at the same time, but you don't always have
to use them together. Right, Right, right.
Because some of the higher

(21:22):
level stuff for Warlock gives you
bonuses to Eldritch Blast. If you're playing a
Warlock that doesn't use Eldrit Blast, that ability is
useless to you.

>> Skylar (21:31):
Right.

>> Hartley (21:32):
But in Pathfinder, if you're able to
get abilities and stuff
due to it being more horizontal than
vertical, it's not
specifically for one thing. And they're more
versatile.

>> Skylar (21:46):
Sure. So there are going to be situations where an ability
that you have that you might not have really made much use
of up until this point is now incredibly
useful because the situation is there to use
it. Interesting. So what eventually sold you
on Pathfinder enough to kind of stick around, with
the groove?

>> Hartley (22:04):
I played one game and that's all it took. I played one
game and it was fun.

>> Skylar (22:08):
Awesome. Okay.

>> Hartley (22:09):
And then like once you start playing it,
you're going to know whether or not you like the system.

>> Skylar (22:16):
I like that. So highlight here.
First thing to do, obviously is kind of determine
Both as the GM and as your group, what kind of
RPGs you're looking for. Right. What kind of stuff that
they're up for. I, you know, if I'm a GM
that really likes more of a narrative feel, I might be looking at some
of the Powered by the apocxalypse games, for
example. And then I need to look at my players and say, well, do

(22:38):
they also enjoy kind of a more a narrative feel
type situation? Because if they do and they're not
looking for like a heavy numbers, crunchy game, maybe this is
the right fit for us. We can find something within the
narrative genre of TTRPGs, to
pick from. And then from there it's a matter of
like you've just been saying, you know, do a one shot,
do one session and just kind of

(23:01):
get a feel for it. The beauty of it is that a lot of TTRPGs usually
come with you know, these pre written short
campaigns. Avatar led. I know I go back to Avatar
Legends a lot just because that was what kind of started our podcast.
But they have just in the book they have like
five or six I think, different little one shots
that you can do. So taking those two things

(23:21):
as DMs and as players out there who
are like, I'm so used to D and D, but maybe I should look into other
things. But I'm a little nervous. Figure out what
genre of RPG you're looking for, what kind of themes and
so on and so forth. Talk with your players,
combine all of that information and then try something out.
Don'commit over, commit to something.

>> Hartley (23:41):
Yeah. And I think for. There's also the price point, right.
also where buying a new tabletop role playing
game can be pricey because tabletop role playing games are
expensive.

>> Skylar (23:50):
Absolutely, they can be. They absolutely can be.

>> Hartley (23:53):
But if you look
online, most of the times, most
tabletop role playing games have a starter back.

>> Skylar (24:00):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (24:01):
Something like that for free or for very cheap
online?

>> Skylar (24:04):
Absolutely.

>> Hartley (24:05):
Where you don't get the full rules.
You get a starter pack, part of the
rules most of the time for free. You
test with those rules. If your players like it
from there, you buy the rules.

>> Skylar (24:17):
Yes. I like that. And you've got ah, free RPG
Day as an awesome. Like every year, every comic
book store, every board game store, a lot of, well, most of
them, will get like huge pack of just different
little bits and pieces of RPGs so that you can try them out.
Right. which is always really exciting. Or like you
could go to what does it drive through? RPG is a great

(24:37):
place to get them and you can find like, like you said cheap
or free. I mean goodness, like a dollar
to free. And you can get you'll have
access to just like all sorts of things. What other resources can you think
of that would be really helpful towards somebody that
wants to try out a new system?

>> Hartley (24:52):
So we're trying out new system. A lot of the times game
stores will just let you
grab a rulebook and use it in the game store and then put it
back.

>> Skylar (25:02):
Oh that's true. Yeah. If they got like a little library.

>> Hartley (25:04):
Of you stuffime they have
play areas or whatever, you and your
group could go there, test out the rules. If you like
it, then you buy it.

>> Skylar (25:14):
Right.

>> Hartley (25:15):
I don't think you should ever
really be buying
a rulebook before you've tested it out with player. Now
I'm saying this as I'm thinking
about how I just bought the
rules of Blades in the Dark before testing it.

>> Skylar (25:31):
Sure.

>> Hartley (25:31):
with my players. But it's just a fun system.

>> Skylar (25:34):
Yeah, yeah.

>> Hartley (25:35):
Even if I don't end up playing it with other people.

>> Skylar (25:38):
I've also been very guilty of that. All the Kickstarter
campaigns that I've kind of just jumped on because I'm like, that just sounds
cool. I don't know much about it, but it sounds great. So.

>> Hartley (25:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Skylar (25:47):
It happens.

>> Hartley (25:48):
The thing with Kickstarters is you can't really test it.

>> Skylar (25:51):
That's true. Yeah.

>> Hartley (25:52):
So sometimes you just buy games
because you find the game fun.

>> Skylar (25:57):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (25:57):
And from there you can find groups that want to play that
game. And then sometimes you're going to be buying games
for your group.
And I think there's a difference there. I think also when
choosing a game for your group, you start with what
you can handle. Right, Right.
So before you think about what the player preferences are
or whatever they want to do, you need to figure out

(26:19):
what you can handle.
Like do you want to be doing world
building? Do you want to be doing settings?
Do you want to be doing a lot of
math? And like,
do you want to just be sitting back for 30 minutes while
the players talk amongst each other and.

>> Skylar (26:37):
You get to just be like,

>> Hartley (26:38):
And then find
a list of RPGs and then go
to your players and then figure out what
they want to do. Y and whatever.
Now actually I'm not sure if it's in the
players handbooker. Dungeon Master Guide 4 Dungeons &
Dragons. There's a little section at the front
about figuring out what type of players

(27:01):
your players are.

>> Skylar (27:02):
Okay.

>> Hartley (27:02):
A great resource.

>> Skylar (27:04):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (27:04):
We for re finding other games that aren't D and D. Right,
right. Because it gives examples of stuff, that
I think using that would
be helpful in finding players.

>> Skylar (27:15):
Absolutely, absolutely. As we mentioned
before, different players are going to be better for
different scenarios for different TTRPGs, for different
systems, for different mechanics. So there's definitely a lot
of opportunity there. With that being said and I think
we really kind of hit on the idea that there are a lot, there
are a lot of different TTRPGs out there, both

(27:36):
systems or homebrews for pre
existing systems to kind of introduce new themes
and so on and so forth. With that being said, as somebody
that's working on one yourself, what have we seen
as some trends that are kind of starting to emerge as far as
TTRPGs go?

>> Hartley (27:51):
I've seen a little. It's not
much, but I've seen a little bit of a rise in GM
list games.

>> Skylar (27:58):
Oh, okay.

>> Hartley (27:59):
Which are really fun. Sure. I've
seen a lot more movement away from just fully
combat m focus systems.

>> Skylar (28:07):
Yeah, I think I can agree with that. I think I've seen a bit of a lean
narrative. Yes, exactly.

>> Hartley (28:12):
And everything is going rules
light.

>> Skylar (28:16):
Yes, yes, absolutely.

>> Hartley (28:17):
It's just going more and more. Which like
that's a good thing.

>> Skylar (28:22):
Yeah. Oh absolutely.

>> Hartley (28:23):
Because it means that a lot of them are a lot
cheaper and you can get a lot more and try out a lot more
and they're easier to get into. But then I also feel
that sometimes it's a bad thing
because rules, like systems, they're hard to do
longer games in.

>> Skylar (28:38):
Sure. Yeah.

>> Hartley (28:39):
And sometimes you do want that really crunchy
feel at the table.

>> Skylar (28:44):
Right.

>> Hartley (28:44):
But then there's so much harder to make.

>> Skylar (28:47):
Yes, absolute.

>> Hartley (28:48):
Like my system, is
medium.

>> Skylar (28:51):
Yeah, I'd say so. After reading through some of the stuff, I'd say it's
probably about medium.

>> Hartley (28:55):
It's somewhere in between. And I would never be able to do something
as complicated as some of the heavy,
heavy systems.

>> Skylar (29:02):
Sure.

>> Hartley (29:03):
Like Pathfinder. Freaking crazy.

>> Skylar (29:05):
Oh yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

>> Hartley (29:07):
And then that's just like tip of the
iceberg.

>> Skylar (29:10):
Sure.

>> Hartley (29:11):
things get much more in depth
from there. But a lot of trending towards rules
like Zs have been rising in
popularity. Just like short, short games and
then games specifically built for just one jots.

>> Skylar (29:26):
Yes. And I'd actually go off of that too.
And kind of putting those two things together, I've definitely seen a
lot of them that are. It's explicit to
some. Some pre existing media. Right.
Like Avatar Legends because people
wanted to play in Avatar Last Air vendor.
and the whole system is just built around that. So it's very like

(29:46):
straightforward. I saw one during the last time we
went to or the last time they had the RPG
day. one of them I remember seeing was
for Runescape and it's an entire TTRPG
just built explicitly around Runescape. which I thought
was so interesting how much that's like exploded after
just being what it was way back in the day. But

(30:06):
yeah it'and so they are taking that idea of like
let's keep it very narrative. Let's keep it very short
and sweet and let's kind of make it to. I
completely agree towards like kind of a one shot feel. It's really hard to
run like super long term games in these things.

>> Hartley (30:21):
Yeah. Which can be great sometimes but then
it can also be kind of annoying when you do want to
run a long term game. Yeah. I've been looking at
purchasing or pre ordering because I've been looking forward to it.
Which I think is going to be more
crunchy.
Brandon Sanerson's new Cosmere
rpg.

>> Skylar (30:40):
Yeah. Absolutely.

>> Hartley (30:41):
I think that should be interesting.

>> Skylar (30:43):
I agree. Yeah. That's gonna be exciting when that comes out. My wife's
a big fan of the whole series
and she's not super into
TTRPGs but I feel like that might be a way to get
her.

>> Hartley (30:54):
Into it because I know she loves the defly.

(31:18):
Yeah. A lot of tabletop role playing games are going a
lot more simple.
A lot of them are moving away from the D20.

>> Skylar (31:25):
Yes.

>> Hartley (31:26):
So they're discovering other dice systems
and a lot of them are using dice pools or a
D100 system.

>> Skylar (31:33):
Sure.

>> Hartley (31:33):
I think two that I've seen is either
D100 or
just D6.

>> Skylar (31:40):
Yes. I have definitely seen a lot of D6
based systems and a lot of them using the dice pool, which
a.

>> Hartley (31:46):
Lot of people with D6 it's a lot
easier. Right. When you're introducing a new person to the game,
you have to give them these dice. Right. And
say. Yeah. So you're going to have to memorize the names for each
of these. They look really similar.

>> Skylar (31:59):
Yes. That's probably one of the biggest things that slows down
a game of D and D is you get a new person in and they're
like wait, which one is that?

>> Hartley (32:07):
Roling the D12 instead of the D20 for the first.

>> Skylar (32:09):
Exactly, exactly. That moment when they're supposed to do in
D8 it's worth of damage. And they're like I got an 11. And you're like,
how did you. You don't have a multiplier. What are you talking about? You have an
11.

>> Hartley (32:19):
So a lot of dice stuff
changes. Which dice? Sometimes people
just choose dice for no
reason and they're like, I just think this is cool.
Which can be annoying
because like when designing a system, I think the dice
should reflect the system. Oh absolutely. Mathematically.
Like pools and stuff like that have been

(32:42):
coming into popularity where like you're getting
a bunch of D6 and then you're trying to just
roll sixes. Absolutely right. 16 equals a
success. And then you add, instead of
modifiers, you're just adding more dice.

>> Skylar (32:56):
Right.

>> Hartley (32:56):
Which is interesting. And it fits some systems.

>> Skylar (32:58):
Yeah, absolutely. There's ways to make that work and ways that that
works. I know. I just got the Wilderf Feast campaign
stuff from Kickstarter and that's kind of one of the, the themes they
go with that is gaining D sixes
or choosing to take an alternate route that gives you other dice. But
I digress.

>> Hartley (33:15):
I also recently saw one system where each
of the
classes is using different types of dice to
attack and beat the same ac.

>> Skylar (33:24):
Oh, interesting. Okay.

>> Hartley (33:26):
And like doing different dice of damage,
which was interesting.

>> Skylar (33:30):
Yeah. So yeah, dice is definitely kind of a big
element to the trends that we're seeing. And like you said,
dice pools is a big one, which is super
interesting. So with that being said,
let's jump over to We've seen how other people are
kind of working on creating TTRPGs and what seems to
be popular now, which doesn't guarantee that it's going to be popular.

(33:50):
But that's, you know, what we're seeing it like I said, emerging
trends. Jumping over to Nightbringer, which is
your game that you're working on Your system. Tell me
about that. What? I mean, I guess first of all, let's just
start with kind of the basic overview. Tell me a little bit about
what inspired you to make it. What are we looking at when
it comes, to it and its mechanics and so on and so

(34:10):
forth.

>> Hartley (34:11):
So Nightbringer is an Ward Tabletop role playing
game.

>> Skylar (34:14):
Nice.

>> Hartley (34:15):
That's all humans, all wizards.
Right. Which was like around
a year ago, maybe half a year. I don't know. It seems like it's been a
while.

>> Skylar (34:24):
It takes a long time to make it. Yeah, Yeah.

>> Hartley (34:27):
I was thinking about creating like
a simple rules light system or
whatever, which it is not anymore. And
I was just drawing
around on paper, trying to create an interesting
character sheet that had like
skills tied to races tied to classes and everything

(34:48):
tied together. And I wanted to do something interesting
for magic. So I
was looking around and
I kind of felt that if
you're going to have cool magic and
stuff, the melee kind of falls
short.

>> Skylar (35:05):
It's a good point.

>> Hartley (35:07):
Because a person that can cast
a huge ball of fire shouldn't be
equal in power to a guy with a pointy stick.

>> Skylar (35:14):
Right. It kind of goes back to like in avr, the Last
Airbender. You always kind of wonder about the non benders
and you're like, yeah, but I mean I get he's good with the
sword, but like that guy could literally throw a wave of water
on him and then freeze it and he's not gonna be able to do anything, you
know?

>> Hartley (35:29):
Yeah. So. And then I was
working towards the wizard stuff.

>> Skylar (35:35):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (35:36):
And I kind of decided to get rid of
races.

>> Skylar (35:39):
Sure.

>> Hartley (35:40):
Because having it all be human
wizards makes you focus a
lot more on
the classes themselves.

>> Skylar (35:50):
Right.

>> Hartley (35:51):
Than the character's appearance and whatever.
And how the character is culturally.

>> Skylar (35:57):
Yeah. It's one less thing to have to like
think about and focus on when you're creating your character
that like overmpicates things sometimes.

>> Hartley (36:06):
So it's changed a lot. And it's funny that you
mentioned Avatar. right. Because the Initiative
system, one of the main tactical
things, is partially based off of the Avatar system.

>> Skylar (36:17):
Oh, okay.

>> Hartley (36:18):
I was talking with someone after a playte test and they
suggested something from some other system that I was like, oh, that's
similar to the Avatar system, which is what I had the most
experience with. But it's like
if you take the narrative
of the Avatar system and
you just add in a bunch of crunchy math.

>> Skylar (36:38):
Sure.

>> Hartley (36:39):
So the system, it's meant to
be simple to
learn.
It still is. Much easier than Dungeons and
Dragons. And one of the main things is when
creating a character, getting that
character sheet ready is just
so much more simple.

>> Skylar (36:57):
Sure.

>> Hartley (36:58):
Than any other system I've seen.

>> Skylar (37:00):
Okay. Which is great.

>> Hartley (37:01):
Yeah. It's the initiative
system. It is meant it's in
four different rounds.

>> Skylar (37:09):
Okay. Right.

>> Hartley (37:10):
Like how the avatar has.

>> Skylar (37:12):
I think it was three. Three different rounds.

>> Hartley (37:15):
Yeah.

>> Skylar (37:15):
Based on, like, kind of what you want to accomplish
within your turn.

>> Hartley (37:20):
So unlike that, it's. There are four
different rounds, and the more powerful
the spell, the later it goes.

>> Skylar (37:27):
Oh, that makes sense. Okay.

>> Hartley (37:29):
But then if you get attacked before you're able to
get your spell off, there's a chance of dropping it.

>> Skylar (37:35):
O. Okay. More risk, more
reward type thing. Very cool.

>> Hartley (37:40):
And not like fully dropping it, so you don't get it. I used to do
that and people got pissed.

>> Skylar (37:44):
Oh, absolutely.

>> Hartley (37:45):
I had to change it up a little bit.

>> Skylar (37:47):
Sure.

>> Hartley (37:48):
But with the initiative, it makes things
a lot more interesting.

>> Skylar (37:52):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (37:52):
And then. Plus throw reactions in there.
Which I decided that for the
system that I wanted to make, I didn't
want reactions to, be limited,
like in D and D, to only one. If
you want to burn through all your stuff, go ahead and do it.

>> Skylar (38:10):
Okay.

>> Hartley (38:10):
So. And the entire system, it's built around
the fact that wizards are squishy.

>> Skylar (38:16):
Sure.

>> Hartley (38:16):
Right. And it is really
easy to die.

>> Skylar (38:21):
Right.

>> Hartley (38:21):
And then there is revival and stuff like that.
But sometimes that's not the best idea.

>> Skylar (38:26):
Interesting. So with the way the turns
work and thinking kind of just because Avatar
Legends is kind of a framework for
this or an idea that we can grasp onto,
it almost kind of feels like. Almost like a duel.
Like a wizard duel, in a sense. and like
you said, with, like, reactions and stuff. So, like, I'm going toa take a really

(38:47):
powerful spell. It's going to take a little while to get there.
Right. I might get attacked by the other wizard that I'm
fighting in the meantime. And then along the
way, there's going to be reactions to, like, And maybe.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but like, to kind of, like, block a little bit
or.

>> Hartley (39:02):
Or even so by reactions. There
are some blocking stuff, but it's mostly spells.

>> Skylar (39:08):
Right.

>> Hartley (39:08):
Other spells, which,
like, every spell has a
cost in mana or soul or.
Yeah. What to call it. We've been debating between a
few names, but every spell has a
cost. Right. Including the reaction
spells. And because of the fact
that wizards are squishy and wizards burn out. F.

(39:30):
I want the feeling that you burn out fast.

>> Skylar (39:32):
Yeah, absolutely.

>> Hartley (39:34):
Right. And combat is very fast.

>> Skylar (39:35):
Yes.

>> Hartley (39:36):
So you have six mana per level.

>> Skylar (39:39):
Sure.

>> Hartley (39:40):
And each spell is going to be costing one or
two, at first level. Right.
So that's three to six
spells, including the reactions, which
reactions tend to cost more.

>> Skylar (39:51):
That makes sense.

>> Hartley (39:53):
So using a reaction, it's
pricey.

>> Skylar (39:56):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (39:57):
And some of the reactions are rerolling
dice. Some of them are mitigating damage and stuff like
that. I believe there's one that does
damage to an enemy when they attack you.
and some movement stuff. But it's a lot
more pricey to do something not on your turn than to do it
on your turn.

>> Skylar (40:15):
Sure, that makes sense.

>> Hartley (40:16):
And when I've explained the initiative system to people,
sometimes they get confused.
And actually I once tried playtesting the
version that they thought they were going to play.

>> Skylar (40:27):
Okay.

>> Hartley (40:28):
It didn't. It sounds like a good idea, but
it's not. Which is where everyone is
acting separately and they have a certain amount of turns
to charge up their spell and then they play it. So the way
that the system, which is
like, okay, so I cast this and then in
two rounds I'll be able to cast this. And then three rounds I'll be able to cast

(40:48):
this. Which sounds like it would work, but it
just doesn't.

>> Skylar (40:52):
Right, sure.

>> Hartley (40:53):
Like players are nowhere near coordinated enough
to be able to do that.

>> Skylar (40:58):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I mean, hey, that's
why we do playtesting.

>> Hartley (41:03):
But what I have now
is there are four rounds in these
rounds right at the beginning. So it's four
rounds in a cycle. And the cycles are broken
up at the beginning of every cycle. The players
talk and deliberate. Then everyone tells the DM
which round they're going on.

>> Skylar (41:23):
Oh, okay.

>> Hartley (41:24):
So everyone tells the DM which round they're going on. And then the
DM says when the enemies are going.

>> Skylar (41:29):
Mm

>> Hartley (41:29):
Right.

>> Skylar (41:29):
And you can obviously have multiple people that are going in
round two or something like that.

>> Hartley (41:34):
Everything in the round happens simultaneously.

>> Skylar (41:37):
Okay.

>> Hartley (41:38):
You just go around. And if I
were to get attacked for five damage and that were to kill
me.
I also go on the same roundute and I were to make an attack
against some other enemy for three damage, that enemy still
takes three damage and I go down.

>> Skylar (41:52):
Okay. Okay. Because you're throwing this like bolt of
lightning just as he's also throwing a bolt of lightning back at
you and they're hitting each other. That's cool. Okay. I like
it. Very cool.

>> Hartley (42:03):
So the stuff happens at the same time on a round and
then at the End of the round you get to choose new
positions. In the round.

>> Skylar (42:10):
Oh, okay. So you can say okay, I want to be in different.

>> Hartley (42:13):
Yeah, yeaheah.

>> Skylar (42:14):
Round one this time around.

>> Hartley (42:16):
And so you don't have to specify what you're doing, you just have to
specify which round you're going on.

>> Skylar (42:20):
Gotcha.

>> Hartley (42:21):
And different spells have round specifications.

>> Skylar (42:24):
Right, right. I was just going to say that makes sense. Okay.

>> Hartley (42:26):
Like round two or later. Now if you get
hit, like if you decide to go round four and you get
hit. Right.
That means that on your turn, even though you are in
round four, you are going to be acting as if it's around
three.

>> Skylar (42:40):
Okay.

>> Hartley (42:41):
You got partially disrupted. Got it. So
you can only cast around three and lower spells. If you
got hit again before you were able to go, then you would
be going round two
spells even though you are at round
four.

>> Skylar (42:56):
Right. So it's like you're setting the mana, or whatever you decide to call
it aside to cast this larger spell
and then you're getting hit and realizing I'm not going to be able to take
this spell. I need to exude this mana, into
something less intense, but something
nonetheless so that I can help my team for whatever however it is that you want
to do it. And it also keeps the options open too.

(43:16):
So if someone gets hit, one of your friends gets hit
in round one and I go into round two. And I was like, well,
I was going to cast a fireball at somebody, but I
think instead I'm going to deviate that mana into doing
a healing spell to bring that one player. Oh, okay. Very
cool. Okay.

>> Hartley (43:31):
Yeah. Ye. So the four runs are instant, swift, focused and
tactical.

>> Skylar (43:35):
Okay. Oh, that makes sense. Very cool. I like how they're
named based on the speed at which're you're casting a
spell. Okay, very cool.

>> Hartley (43:42):
Now the other thing which I forgot
because this was semi recent is the
four ability scores are kind
of unique to the system unike other system because
they're used both inside and outside of combat.
Like four different things.
Because in a game like Dungeons and
Dragons you are using your attack modifier

(44:04):
for attacking and then that's all it does. Right, Right. So what
we have is we have the four skills. Occultism, Might,
awareness and cunning.

>> Skylar (44:11):
Okay.

>> Hartley (44:12):
So occultism is going to be used for
things like you keeping focus on your
spells.

>> Skylar (44:18):
Okay.

>> Hartley (44:19):
Recalling knowledge, knowing about
history, solving puzzles
and doing intellect based things.

>> Skylar (44:28):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (44:28):
your might skill is going to be used
for doing damage oay
against enemies with your spell and it's going
to be helping you resist against status effects.
Right. So if you need to make some sort of save
against the stat effect, you're going to be using your might as well. And
it's going to be used for like breaking
down doors and doing other strength based things.

>> Skylar (44:51):
Sure. It's your personal like it's, it's attack,
defense and constitutional all kind of rolled into one.

>> Hartley (44:57):
And your awareness, that's
what you're going to be doing when you roll a
hit on an attack.

>> Skylar (45:04):
Right.

>> Hartley (45:04):
You're going to roll with your
awareness to see if you hit.

>> Skylar (45:10):
Yeah, yeah.

>> Hartley (45:10):
Your hit chance.

>> Skylar (45:12):
Got it. Your accuracy, your
perception.

>> Hartley (45:15):
Now awareness, it's not just
perceptive. Awareness is also social awareness. Right. So
you're using that for social situations as well.

>> Skylar (45:24):
Nice.

>> Hartley (45:24):
And like talking to people
and stuff like that. And then cunning
is your deception, your
stealth, your acrobatics. And it's also what you're going to
be using to dodge.

>> Skylar (45:38):
Okay.

>> Hartley (45:39):
And what your AC is mostly going to be based off of.

>> Skylar (45:41):
Right, right. That makes sense. Very cool.

>> Hartley (45:44):
It's very different than how in other systems they kind
of have two sets of skills. One for
combat, one for out of combat.

>> Skylar (45:52):
Got it.

>> Hartley (45:52):
We kind of tie them in together and the way you get
those skills is when you're creating your character
through level ups, they're really not going to change. Sure.
Because I think it's kind of stupid
with games where if you
get a plus one in strength and the monster also gets a plus one
in strength as you level up, it doesn't do anything.

(46:12):
Right. So I really think there's not
really a point in doing that.

>> Skylar (46:16):
Yeah. And there's kind of a weird aspect of it too, of like, okay, you
went and fought something on day one and
you beat it and you leveled up. And then day two your
strength went up by a score of two. Right. So it's
like overnight you, you gain two whole
points of strength and it changed like all these stats and like everything else,
like there's a little bit of lacking logic there for
sure.

>> Hartley (46:37):
But out of the four scales you set one of them to
negus 1, 1 to 0, 1 to plus 1 and 1 to 2.
OK. And the thing with that is
that all four of those skills are really vital. Yes.
You're going to be using them a lot. There are only four
skills, so where you put those points is very
important.

>> Skylar (46:54):
That makes sense.

>> Hartley (46:55):
Going back to wizards being squishy and whatever,
plus one or plus two or minus one is a lot
because we use a 3D4
system.

>> Skylar (47:04):
Okay. So you're rolling three D4s,
which is.

>> Hartley (47:10):
Because wizard, like, it's fully
D4. Right. Because Wizards are squishy and
you're going to be having 6 HP at level one.

>> Skylar (47:18):
Right. So people are going to go down quick.

>> Hartley (47:21):
With a D4, you're going to go down fast.

>> Skylar (47:23):
Yes, that makes sense.

>> Hartley (47:25):
And then it was going to be 2D4, but
then me, my editor, we were re looking at
the probability curve and it just was too steep.

>> Skylar (47:33):
Right.

>> Hartley (47:34):
So, we needed to move to 3D4.

>> Skylar (47:35):
Hey, you know, like I said, playtesting and understanding the math.
That's really cool.

>> Hartley (47:39):
And I'm going to talk about one more thing before I
actually get into spells themselves, which is the meat
of system, which is we do
a few things like tethering,
which is your connection to
reality. And it's
a scale that goes
from. It's not numerical, but

(48:00):
it's six in either direction from center.

>> Skylar (48:03):
Oh, okay.

>> Hartley (48:04):
Right. And it's your amount of
tetheredness to reality.

>> Skylar (48:08):
Okay.

>> Hartley (48:09):
Right. So one side is reality, one side is
magic. And there are situations
where you're going to be moving along that scale.
Right. And when you move towards magic. Right.
Because at level one, you're going to be. And
it's consistent for every character, you're going to be having 6 HP
and 6 Mana.

>> Skylar (48:27):
Okay.

>> Hartley (48:28):
To start, when you move towards
magic, you get plus one
mana. Minus one HP.

>> Skylar (48:34):
Okay.

>> Hartley (48:36):
You move again. Plus one mana. minus one HP.

>> Skylar (48:38):
Right. And it continues to st in the.

>> Hartley (48:40):
Other way, you're going to be getting minus one N plus one
HP.

>> Skylar (48:43):
Gotcha.

>> Hartley (48:44):
So it's a balance.

>> Skylar (48:47):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (48:48):
Where you want to be on that. And
if you reach either side. Right. So
if you go too far and you go into magic,
you die.

>> Skylar (48:57):
Right.

>> Hartley (48:58):
And enemies can push you as well
in combat.

>> Skylar (49:02):
Right.

>> Hartley (49:02):
And there are situations that without
your will, you get pushed. Right. So it's. How
close do you want to be to risk?

>> Skylar (49:09):
Yeah.

>> Hartley (49:10):
When you get pushed into the magic side, you
die. And
thinking about doing some sort of explosion.
Right. Where you explode. Yes. And you deal all graph done of
damage to everyone. and on the
other side, if you get pushed too far and you go fully into
reality at that point, you lose all

(49:30):
your magic. You can't cast it again.

>> Skylar (49:31):
Got it. O.

>> Hartley (49:34):
So that character basically has to be retired.

>> Skylar (49:36):
Yeah. It also opens up a really interesting from
within the world perspective and the lore perspective of
like this entire group of people that have lost their magic
along the way. And like what they've kind of had to turn
into.

>> Hartley (49:49):
Yeah. And on that scale
of negative 6 to positive 6, you can gain wounds in
combatmm.
Right. So when you take a bunch of damage and stuff, you
can get wounds. And there are physical
wounds and soul wounds. Right.
And physical wounds. When you get a physical wound
on that scale, the last part gets blocked

(50:09):
off.

>> Skylar (50:10):
Oh. So then you re.

>> Hartley (50:11):
That means the barrier of losing your magic is one
closer. Right.

>> Skylar (50:15):
So you're moving this way and then it starts moving
this way. I know I just realized this is an audio
podcast and I just motioned with my hands, but I think people get
it.

>> Hartley (50:24):
Yeah. And then the soul wounds do the same thing on the
other side.

>> Skylar (50:27):
Gotcha. That makes sense.

>> Hartley (50:30):
Which does some stuff. And a lot of it is based on
recovery. Right. So it's going to be difficult to recover.
###Ah from a lot of your stuff. Now going into the actual
classes and magic, which is the important
stuff.

>> Skylar (50:42):
Well hey, the mechanics are important too.

>> Hartley (50:44):
Yeah. There are four classes
which are, the Chronomanceswr.
Which deals with time magic and
they're doing a lot of manipulation
stuff. There's the Eler,
which does elemental magic.

>> Skylar (51:01):
Yep.

>> Hartley (51:01):
Sen Br Mancer, which does transmutation
magic. And they're a little bit unique as
they mainly work in melee.

>> Skylar (51:09):
Okay.

>> Hartley (51:10):
and then there's the Necromancer which
does the summoning and the healing.

>> Skylar (51:15):
Awesome.

>> Hartley (51:15):
So these spells unlike other all wizard
systems because most all wizard systems I've
seen have you doing like
putting together ur own spells on your turn or whatever
and doing stuff. Because just for all wizards
you can't just get a few hundred
spells. I'm getting a few hundred spells.
I'm just going to actually brute force it and write them all out. Which

(51:37):
is the hardest part.

>> Skylar (51:39):
Yes.

>> Hartley (51:39):
currently I think I have like 25W and
before February I need a hundred more.
And writing a hundred unique spells
is really difficult.

>> Skylar (51:49):
Oh absolutely. I can only imagine.

>> Hartley (51:52):
But there's a lot of
variety and uniqueness in the spells and I'm trying to make
them so that you can use it out
of combat.

>> Skylar (52:02):
Sure.

>> Hartley (52:03):
Because it's important that characters
are able to do the things inside and outside of
combat.

>> Skylar (52:09):
So it's very strategic within
your party, which I think is really cool. Like you said at
the beginning of each cycle. Cycle. Thank you. I was like, it
starts with the sea. within each. At the beginning of each cycle they're talking
amongst themselves like let's make a plan Here, but obviously they
don't know necessarily what whoever they're fighting
is, is going to do. So. Yeah, that's really cool. I like

(52:29):
it.

>> Hartley (52:30):
yeah, like, I've seen during playst, people buff each
other. Buff each other, each other for like three rounds.
And then the highest damage I've ever seen at playist was
43 damage.

>> Skylar (52:40):
43. Holy cow.

>> Hartley (52:42):
Something like that. Because they found some sort of loophole
in the system, which I had to go
and patch.

>> Skylar (52:49):
Exactly.

>> Hartley (52:50):
Like, it's very cooperative,
compared to some other systems where you're just doing stuff by
yourself.

>> Skylar (52:57):
Yes, absolutely. And things like D and D and
stuff are very. Have, that tendency where one
person can kind of just disappear off and do their own thing.
And of course, as the dm, you're like, okay, well, now I've got two
whole stories going on here that I have to try to juggle. But in this
case, everybody's trying to work together to make sure
that whatever it is they do, because if they all split up, I
mean, that's a recipe for disaster. Yeah,

(53:20):
I know we're kind of coming to the end of the time and stuff like that. And I don't want
to push you too far past, I guess if anything, we'll leave,
lore and worlds for people to go
explore themselves and check out. So with that being
said, where can people find
Nightbringer? Where can people, get more information on this if
they wanted to check it out and, and possibly get it?

>> Hartley (53:40):
Hartley.com comm h a r tash l-y.com do
has some minor info and then
has the links to the stuff that
you're going to be needing, like the email list
and the Kickstarter.

>> Skylar (53:53):
Perfect.

>> Hartley (53:53):
Kickstarter currently split up
into a few tiers, which
this will probably change
until February. So I'm not going to state any prices
and stuff. Most likely going to
be a digital, a
physical, and then maybe some sort
of box set.

>> Skylar (54:14):
Sure.

>> Hartley (54:14):
we're still trying to figure that out. And then there are some higher tiers
where you get to design spells that go into the rulebook.

>> Skylar (54:20):
Awesome.

>> Hartley (54:21):
Or you get to play in a
campaign with me. GMing.

>> Skylar (54:26):
Nice.

>> Hartley (54:27):
And some other stuff.

>> Skylar (54:28):
Sweet.

>> Hartley (54:29):
Check it out. Look at the teiers, see what you can do.

>> Skylar (54:32):
Yeah. And also, of course, I'll point out, if you check out
our links, wherever it is that you find that, especially with like,
linktreee and so on, I'll definitely have a link to the
Kickstarter there as well. So if you're listening to this right now.
Hartley.com is a fantastic way to find
out about the Kickstarter. Or if you check out our links, you'll see it
in there as well. So one way or another, check it
out.

(54:55):
It's time for intramurals.
One of the things that we like to do, for Session zero, Heroes, and
as I mentioned before, this is a new sort of series that we're
doing. And so the idea that we have here is when we were
talking before this, you mentioned all the wizards and
all the magic kind of focus going on with Nightbringer. And I thought,
well, this is one of the games that we wrote up, and it seems like the

(55:16):
best one. So if you, if you have that link, do
you still have that link that I sent on the Word document?

>> Hartley (55:22):
Yes.

>> Skylar (55:22):
Okay, sweet.

>> Hartley (55:23):
The random word generator.

>> Skylar (55:25):
Yes. So it's just a random word generator. And the idea here
is that, you're taking, I'm going to say,
we can do 10, 10 random words,
and you take two of those words, put them together, and
you're creating a spell using those two words. And we'll just
describe, what we come up with. So, jump in there.
Feel free to do that. I can start. I

(55:45):
have o. Okay. This
is an intense one. So I have detached
design, which in my mind I imagine
some very, like, horrific, disturbing
spell of, like, a person.
And they cast detached design on a
person and it separates like a limb or something like that. Like,
its whole purpose is

(56:07):
destroying things from whatever their initial
design was. So there's one of mine.

>> Hartley (56:12):
Yeah. So two here are
volatile productive.

>> Skylar (56:16):
Okay.

>> Hartley (56:17):
Which I think could put
someone into that mindset where
you're listening to a podcasting, you spend three hours cleaning up.

>> Skylar (56:26):
Something m. So it could be kind of
beneficial.

>> Hartley (56:29):
Or you write a bunch, and then
afterwards you look back at it and it's really not the best. But you spent
like five hours working on it.

>> Skylar (56:37):
that zone out situation which could.

>> Hartley (56:40):
Be used on an enemy
to make them
stop focusing on the battle.

>> Skylar (56:47):
Yeah, I like that. I like that
a lot. let's see, another one that I just got.
it's just lucky sugar. and
the idea is that you use it to enchant explicitly
sugar, which means you have to be carrying a bag
or some receptacle of sugar around with you. and you're
enchanting the sugar so that while you have it on your person,

(57:08):
you can scatter it on something as if it were like some kind
of pixie dust. And it would have luck.

>> Hartley (57:13):
So, like, beneficial pocket sample.

>> Skylar (57:15):
Yes, yeah, exactly, exactly. maybe that
gives you advantage on a roll or maybe that gives you a
bonus to a roll or something along those lines. Whatever the case, it
is lucky sugar.

>> Hartley (57:26):
I got Aquatic Veil.

>> Skylar (57:28):
Oh, that sounds cool.

>> Hartley (57:29):
Would be used in some sorts of underwater
battles against monsters and stuff. Yeah, there
are like sharks and I believe a few other
species. They can sense
electricity through the water and whatever. And that's what they used
to track a lot of prey. And I could be wrong on the
exact word.

>> Skylar (57:47):
Sure.

>> Hartley (57:47):
And so they don't need to see or smell you to be able to
find you. And I think that might
block that and
kind of make you invisible to
them. Or if you're playing in a more sci fi
ish, it could also block radar o
ways of tracking you underwater.

>> Skylar (58:07):
Nice, nice. Go incognito
mode. Very cool. my last
one that I've got here is a, ah,
mysterious table. It's very similar to
Unseen Servant, but instead of an unseen like
humanoid person that's doing little tasks for you,
it is an unseen table. It is an invisible table.
It's a very magician based spell. Right. Just setting

(58:30):
things there that make it look like they're floating. you can move
the table around so then obviously anything on the table moves.
It's not like, what is it? Floating disck where it can
hold like a ridiculous amount of weight. It's a wooden table. It
only holds whatever a wooden table could hold. And a very rickety
wooden table at that. But for kind of doing
some interesting illusory kind of stuff.

>> Hartley (58:49):
could be kind of fun, I got. Which could
be catastrophic in some sort of u,
high fantasy monarchy.

>> Skylar (58:56):
Oh, fantastic.

>> Hartley (58:57):
destroy government.

>> Skylar (58:58):
Holy cow. The whole thing. Wow.

>> Hartley (59:02):
A high power spell that automatically
instates you as the king.

>> Skylar (59:06):
Oh my gosh. That is a. That's got to
be, you know, talking to D and D terms. That's a ninth level spell
right there. That's got to be some
instantly just I'm the king now. I like it.
I like it. Awesome. Well, that's battle wizards. Like I said,
just kind of a fun short game. hey, maybe it gives you some ideas
for, some spells that, you can add in a Nightbringer. Who knows?

(59:26):
But Hartley, I really want to say a huge thank you
for being on the show, for joining us, for sharing your insight and
for sharing your expertise within the world of tabletop role playing
games and for telling us all about the amazing
upcoming, TTRPG that is Nightbring.

>> Hartley (59:40):
Yeah. Thank you for having me.

>> Skylar (59:42):
Absolutely. And of course, if you're listening once
again, be sure to check out Knbringer, head over to Hartley
uh.com or of course we'll have links
as well to make sure that you get to the right place. I'll see you guys
next time.
Thank you so much for joining us for today's class.

(01:00:04):
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Session Zero University - Breaking Free of DnD with Hartly Llosa

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Session Zero University - Breaking Free of DnD with Hartly Llosa