July 18, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode of 'Hello Adventurers,' Dungeon Masters Jason Portizo, Joe McCall, and Jim Crocker share a mix of humorous and cautionary RPG horror stories. Drawing from player interactions on Reddit's r/RPGhorrorstories, they discuss issues like problematic player behavior, misunderstandings between DMs and players, and the complexities of role-playing disabilities. The episode also covers combat strategies, game mechanics, and the critical role of clear communication in tabletop gaming. The hosts blend lighthearted anecdotes with serious reflections on ensuring an inclusive and enjoyable gaming experience for everyone involved.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:20):
Hello, Adventure the podcast for roleplayers and game master's up. Level up
your game. We are your dungeonmasters. I'm Jason Portizo, I'm Joe
McAll, and I'm Jim Crocker.And today we are going to do a
special extended edition because we're doing thisonce a week now and we're not gonna
do a little quick episodes, whichmeans we got to drag out content we're
(00:44):
normally we used to do what weused to do, one horror story,
be like, oh cool, that'sa nice little story, then talk about
it for a while and that wasit. We're gonna do a few horror
stories today and we're gonna talk aboutit and we're gonna about all of them
and that should fill the time thatwe need to fit. Yeah, so
deal with it, listener. Yeahhas podcast stuff, all right. So
I got a few stories picked outhere. These are all from Reddit's r
(01:06):
slash RPG horror stories and there's somethere's some fun ones in here. There's
a I got two that are thatare not only labeled as such, but
I agree they are lighthearted. AndI got to here that are a little
more Let's get into these type oftype of things so let's start off with
Philip. Let's start with with oneof the one of the light ones.
So this is from user ar CanisUltra and under our PG horror stories,
(01:32):
and the story is titled player can'tslash refuses to stop saying quote cast it,
and they say that's that's literally thewhole story. I played this with
this guy for years and every timehe used the past form of cast he
would say cast it. We correctedhim, Oh, I don't know,
(01:52):
dozens of times, but he hada really hard time learning things, mixed
with a stubborn heart. Don't getme wrong. Love the guy, and
it wasn't really that big a deal. It was more amusing than anything else.
Side note. When he started playing, his math skills were complete crap.
We also had to do the mathforum where I whether became keeping track
of hit points, adding an attackAC or damage breath. For a few
years. He can math faster thanmost of us. It really taught me
(02:13):
that if you want to be betterat math and increase your mental computational speed,
play D and D or any TETHRPG. Even though he became an expert
at math, he never did masterthe whole casted thing. Yeah, I
kind of twinge a little bit whensome when people say things that are just
like egregiously mispronounced. As much asI my personal character flaw is I forget
(02:38):
names the second I hear them,But when people like mispronounce somebody's name,
it just drives me nuts and thelimit. Yeah, let's talk about this.
So I don't want to I don'twant to sound like an early nineties
hack comedian because my mother in lawactually is awesome. But you know,
let's let's listen. I was aboutto say, but your mother in law
(02:58):
is an early ninety sec median thatwas that would have been a much better
uh uh. My mother in lawis Jerry's Ardwell, what's the deal with
high schoolers? So when it comesto names, she learns it the first
time and that's just how she's gonnasay it forever, and hopefully she got
(03:21):
it right the first time, becausethat's all you're gonna get. There's a
this little luncheon uh near her wherethe name is definitely Sonia, and she
goes there often and like loves tellingus how she how she wanted to go
see Sonja and uh, and Ijust have to kind of just deal with
it, because I've got another severalyears of listening to her say it lined
(03:43):
up in front of me. Souh yeah, it's uh, I feel
your pain. I don't know.Yeah, that's that's a let it go
thing. I think is is wherewe're at with that? And it's it
sounds like that's pretty much what they'rewhere. They're leaving it too. Yeah,
you get to correct them three timestimes, and if after the third
time it doesn't take, then yougot to decide whether you're going to live
(04:04):
with it or not, because it'snot going to take. After after three
tries, if they're still not doingit, then I've got it. I
have a D and D example actually, because I actually have a D and
D. Is it the same example? Joe? Is it? Is it
my son? No? Oh okay, well live one. That's my son?
And then I think I may haveheard repeated. I would love to
(04:25):
hear yours, okay, and Ithink exactly what you're talking about. Yeah,
and actually so so I know Isaid we're splitting hairs, but this
drove me insane. It's because it'smy son. Joe almost had one,
most kid. Yeah, it's thinkingabout it right now. And if you're
(04:46):
listening. I'm I'm sorry. Ilove you. He doesn't. His dad
doesn't show. He does not listento this does some lame show with his
dad on it. So yeah,so there is a spell. I think
it's a cleric spell, Druid cantripand Drewid cantrip, but I think I
think one of our players may havewhatever. So it's Chile, which is
(05:08):
a I think you mean, isa blunt weapon, the real thing that
Irish Scottish in origin. Yeah,but yeah, it's spelled funny as many
is. Anybody named Chavn can tellyou. They spell things funny over there.
(05:28):
The rules just don't count. It'spronounced, they don't, yeah or
c ronan right, So anyway,right, sortia And also what's the new
there's a movie and it's it's notanyway anyway, oh Salwen, Salwen,
So anyway, but I digress,I digress. It's Chile, Okay,
it's Chilely And he kept calling itChile Yep. He'd be like, I'm
(05:54):
gonna cast Chile, and I'm like, chile Lely, You're almost there,
but almost, like I was,like, it's Schilely, it's shalle Lee,
like like it was like nails ona chalkboard. Also, he was
a level to Druid at the time, which meant he cast it fourteenth time.
Yeah, every single, every single, every turn started with castle.
(06:18):
Now my break with it is thathe didn't say with an over the top
accent. I think I think that'sthe bigger, the bigger full pile here.
I just wanted him to finish theword I'm gonna cast Chile. You
cast what I cast? There yougo. It's oh, now I know
that spell. One of my localsthat the word silvery barbs kept getting them.
(06:41):
But yeah, that's no. WhatI was gonna say is, Joe,
do you think our players listen toours, to our show? Yes?
Okay, cool, so I don't. I don't care if he feels
called that or not. I swearto God if I hear him say I'm
gonna roll one D ten one moretime. The D the D in D
six or D ten or D eight. He fully pronounces that die every single
time. It's okay, I'm gonnado a hint for for a two die
(07:03):
six damage and I lose five minutesoff my life span every time he does
it. That's flitting hairs. Thatis not splitting hairs. That is splitting
sells off of my brain? Howmany how many dye six do you take
off of here? I take todie for psychic damage every time he says,
(07:25):
yeah, there you go. It'sfantastic. Maybe it is splitting hairs.
But but all that to say ourcanis ultra. I am on your
side, so I think, though, but cast it. I think we
can just chalk up to a colloquialism. I can't even say that word colloquialism.
There it is. Yeah, proudof you, Joe. So if
(07:46):
you have trouble saying colloquialism or worcechester, sure sauce, leave cast it alone.
And just if everyone else say ittoo. This is just in your
new word. Now it's like inklike eventually, it's just it's gonna become
part of our vernacular vernacular. Thankyou. That is exactly the word I
(08:13):
was, like vernicule, or justsubstitute a different word, you do.
Yeah, I throw the spell athim, toss it. I'm going to
toss a fireball in his direction,but that has a range of touch.
He's not throwing anything. He castit. Yeah, inflict wounds. I
invoke it. Yeah, I agree, this is AA This is properly flared
(08:33):
as lighthearted. Should you let itgo? Probably? Are you going to
have a heart attack over it?Also? Probably you should? You should
get down on your knees and thankyou that like this is what constitutes a
horror story your game. Yeah.If the Restor game is going this,
well, thank guy GaX that thatthis is as bad as it gets for
you. Yeah, so congratulations Slash. I'm so sorry. At least it's
(08:58):
not let son I should to diefor damage. All right, let's get
one that's a little more horrifying here. This is from a user Conngoid.
Also in RPG horror stories, mildspoilers for Cursustrod, and this one of
very mild spoilers. So if youcare so much about the extra vampire,
(09:18):
yes, skip ahead of skip aheadof skip ahead a little while. But
I don't think it's too too bad. Uh. Player joins campaign, grabs
a wish, and burns it,never to be seen again. The story
goes, So this isn't so mucha horror story as it is a WTF
moment. There are cursal Strata spoilers. My group was playing Curse of Strode
(09:41):
and we were level eight or sowhen a new player joins. In his
first session, we find the luckblade in Strad's castle, and the new
player just happened to be the onewho grabbed it. He was real pushy
with the loot, and the restof the party didn't argue, We're not
really a lot focused group, sowhatever, what do you focus on?
Story? I don't know if you'remean, our caster can not, but
(10:03):
as a not loot focused player,I get that a lot. We're not
really loot focus groups, so whatever. Anyways, we didn't know it was
a luck blade until he attunes toit, and then he learns it has
a wish on it and immediately wishesto be reunited at home with his dead
wife. The DM acquiesces, andthe character poofs away. The player,
(10:24):
happy as a clam, goes onand on about how he completed his character's
backstory he won and how satisfying itwas, and so the rest of the
party you felt like. The dudeshows up, plays for three hours,
Ninja loutes an amazing item, thendisappears. He didn't even play long enough
to tell anyone his character's backstory,so no one could share in his accomplishment.
(10:45):
And here's the kicker. The playernever showed up again. He just
played long enough to take the luckblade and dip out of the party.
WTF, all right, kids,that's how you win D and D he
won. He won. I lovethat he never shares the backstories of the
other players. Don't even know,like he was doing a speed run.
Yeah, it's like, wait whatdead wife? Yeah, the problem there
(11:07):
is not that player that that's aDM problem. That's a DM letting that
player do that problem. Shown upto a table that's mid like mid levels
without a backstory that that one isthen on Oh no, no, no,
so right in the middle of that, like like right when you were
reading it, we got the momentwhere the horror story kicked in. He
(11:28):
strong armed his way into the item. Nope, nope, okay, the
DM let him do it. Thatis where that horror story starts. You
can say, no, you could. You know, like, what a
wish is supposed to do is toand this is one of those things where
people get it in their head thata wish can do anything. I'm using
scare quotes here right, air quotesanything, And that is not what a
(11:50):
wish can do if you know,there's a whole text for what wish can
do and what it can't do,and text and and essentially what you can
do is you can kind of youknow, you can simulate a spell effect
up to ninth level right use itusing a wish, and it may be
a spell that already exists, itmay be something that's kind of roughly equivalent.
(12:11):
Like Raven Loft is really specific aboutthe fact that there are no magical
effects that let you leave that demiplane right without you solve the adventure.
And it's very easy for the DMto just say Nope, no, you
can't, Like I know it's awish, but you know, Strad's will
(12:33):
is the thing that you know holdsover everything here and you can't just you
can't just blow out of there anddo that. To my mind, that
feels like it's just an incredibly easything to just say no to sure,
And there's such a stigma, solike, I don't want to Realroad,
anybody, I don't want to,you know, it's like, no,
you can keep people from breaking yourgame. You can just say no,
(12:54):
you're not going to break my game. And that's not Railroad. Anybody railroading
anybody that that's protecting the autonomy andthe choices of all the other players at
the table. Is what's going onthere when you do that. At the
same time, if I may,this player told on themselves, you know,
and and good riddance in some ways, because like all I can think
(13:18):
is like, well, that's whatmy character would have done, and you
know, and at the very leastwhat the DM can do is say,
poof, they're gone, the swordremains behind, right, so that you
know, because also like like Ihate that there's a wish attached to that
thing, because the real use isthat you know, that's a great weapon
(13:43):
to use against the vampire, right, because it's not all the sunbeam effect
and all that kind of stuff andeverything, and the wish is almost incidental
to what's going on with it.Although you know, great Smith, if
you're put it like absolutely should thereshould be some table consensus about how you
use that and what goes on withit and stuff like that. But at
the very least, when they youknow, when they were gone, the
(14:07):
DM could have given the sword tothe rest of the party, right,
and I hope that they did.When it became clear that that guy was
just a was just there to troll. I'm really curious whether, man,
now, I really want to knowwhether that was like pure serendipity or whether
this guy was like, oh,you guys are playing STRAWD whereabout in the
(14:31):
castle? Are you just curious?You know, like that kind of thing,
whether he had some sense of whatwas going on and knew that they
were somewhere around there and like waskind of trolling them and doing it on
purpose and you know strange. Yeah, it feels like the player knew because
this is a published book everything.Oh yeah, yeah you can. We
(14:54):
talked about this last time where wherethe players were trying to speed run straw
and this might be just another speedrun thing. I'll look at the comments
here. A lot of people aresaying, like, yeah, strat speed
run. The guy ringers doing myfavorite ones that he wanted, he wanted
d and d H he is him. That's one of my favorite ones,
and of course the inevitable. Ialso choose this guy's dead wife, which
is a there's a couple other goodones here, but be Reunited with My
(15:18):
dead wife. A lightning hit bolthits you, It disintegrates, you missed
an opportunity to be a genie.You know. Actually, yeah, that
is one of the comments here reunitewith dead wife. The first finger on
the monkey's Paul furls he is nowsitting in his home with the corpse of
his wife. Yes, yeah,or neither, he said, I think
(15:41):
he should be staying in the coffinskeleton permanently. Yeah, there is a
couple of people bringing up let's seethe says the DM messed up the description
for that particular item says that wishingto leave Borrovia is one of the few
things that that particular item cannot do. Chang, there we go. I
hadn't remembered whether that was specific toit, Like, I don't think it
(16:03):
was in the original edition, butin five e if it specifically says that.
But but absolutely there. You know. The module is like, here's
all of the ways players may tryto, you know, shortcut getting to
the end to leave Borrovia. Noneof these will work. And I'm glad
that they called that out specifically forsure. Yes, yeah, so another
chilly one. Some of these trollstories are kind of funny, and that's
(16:25):
only our is funny. And ifa player, if a player shows up,
doesn't troll st poofs themselves out ofthe game and then disappears. You
just be like, hey, thatwas weird, right, and then just
and then just move on without them. And that's also a thing where there
is nothing wrong with stopping kind ofstepping out of character for a moment and
going Okay, that kind of sucked. I don't like that for you guys.
(16:45):
We're going to rewind the game backto the beginning of that session and
we're going to pretend that never happenedand replay with everybody that's being serious about
it, because that guy didn't workout now that it's just as adults.
And a couple of things worth noticingnoting here this this was an online game
on Roll twenty. The problem sorry, that's where the horror story the problem
(17:07):
players seem to be a friend ofa friend. Yeah, okay, we're
a friend of one of the otherplayers, and just like you know,
you know, vet your friends better. Yep, yep. But I'm just
going to add to the the otherthing. This is why I like some
magic items that you don't get everythingup front, that you have to like
awaken you know, and get doan awakened status through something or you know,
(17:30):
because giving them access so so earlyon, right, like you haven't
access to wish, probably a badidea. Yep, yeah, obviously it's
just following the module, No,I know which you know, these things
are play tested, right, everything'sperfect, right, and this is just
funny. This is where it comesto. Yeah again, like the modules
(17:52):
printed, it's already out there,but it is up to you to run
the game. So no one's disagreeingthat the young here, whether the player
was just trying to be a trollin the DM enabled it, No one's
disagreement with that. However, alot of people are agreeing that, like
story wise, this is awesome,Like the player just came in there,
kicked the door open, we blinkedthemselves out of existence and won the game.
(18:18):
So congratulations to that player. Areyour trophies in the mail? Hello
Adventurers, Thank you so much forlistening. If you enjoy the show,
the absolute best thing you can doto support us is to subscribe so you'll
be notified when new episodes are released. You can also leave us a review
five stars. Of course, thatwill help us get seen by more D
(18:38):
and D players and more than anythingelse, just tell your friends about us.
If you like what we're doing here, then there's a good chance that
your DM or your players will enjoyit too. And you don't need to
loop gold to do any of that. We appreciate your listening. Now back
to the show. All right,let's do another bad DM planning story.
This is coming from Panda Priests andthe story is titled The Familiar we talked
(19:03):
about for two hours outside of sessionis actually just an owl. This was
maybe a year ago before Session fouror five of Minds of Fendelver. With
some randos online, my arcane trickstergot the spell find Familiar. I told
my DM I wanted to give myfamiliar personality and lore, and she seemed
excited and enthusiastic. We exchanged ideasfor about two hours over text about my
(19:27):
character summoning the spirit of his oldacting coach to come help the party.
I even told her about the ritualand the flavor I wanted to give it.
When it came time in the session, she YadA YadA away my ritual.
Then let me describe what the owllooked like. I told the owl
to introduce herself to the party,remembering how the DM told me overtext what
kind of voice she would use for, only to be told she can't talk
(19:48):
because she's just an owl. ThisDM had made a separate voice channel in
that discord server for one on oneconversations, so I asked her to talk
there. I asked her why shetotally changed the character we meet together and
agreed on, and she started yellingat me about how she can't put all
her focus on just one player.I just left, So it's kind of
(20:08):
happy ending. Yeah, that that'sjust you do. Mismatched expectations. Yeah,
very very clearly is what's going on. Have the DM saved her two
hours of grief and just just belike, hey, you have the familiar
is just going to do normal familiarstuff. I don't. I just don't
have the time or bandwidth to voiceanother you know, familiar character. Sounds
(20:33):
like fun, but it's just notgonna happen. Sounds like maybe the DM
had gotten in overhead though possibly orover their head, possibly that like they
wanted to do all that, andor maybe another player was like, wait,
you're doing all that like for them, like that's okay, here's my
idea for my familiar. Yeah,yeah, kind of a thing and they're
like, well, this is toomuch. But it just comes down to
(20:55):
probably communication and just because you haveto be able to say and have those
hard convers Hey, listen, Iknow that we spend a lot of time
talking about this, you know what, after I thought about it, I'm
just not going to be able todo that. You know, I'm not
going to have the bandwidth to doit, or you I just can't I
can't keep track of that too orwhatever it is. Yeah, And I
think it's also one of those thingswhere different people have different ideas about what
(21:21):
it means to have conversations like outsideof the session, and like like some
people have it in their heads thatwhat that means is that you're creating you
know, fodder and lore and allthis kind of stuff that that then is
going to get referred back to inthe session and it's going to enrich everything
and enhance it, you know,and other people, including I think a
(21:45):
lot of dms have the attitude towardsthat, like, well, the separate
discord server is for like that playerthat needs to get out of their system,
like the eight pages of backstory theyhave on their OWL familiar. That's
why I let them do that,right, because we don't want to do
that in game, right, Likeand and and if you're not real clear
(22:10):
about the nature of what that betweengame stuff is, that's one of those
places where I think those disagreements canhappen. Yeah, because that's like that
Druid or whatever wants to spend youknow, wants to have a fifteen minute
scene where their owl gets you know, has a conversation with every other character
(22:32):
and stuff like this, you know, and the characters are like, can
we just go into this cave please, because there's gold inside there and goblins
and balance. Yeah, that that'stough to balance for a you know,
for a DM. But but thatjust sounds like what happened there is that.
Yeah, it's you know, theykind to your a bone by having
that, you know, that extraneousdiscussion. But then when it came to
(22:52):
be game time, it's like,okay, we're not going to spend twenty
minutes doing this. Yeah I thoughtabout it, and like I'm not going
to do that. Yeah. Yeah, me and everybody else talked about it,
and we're just that's we don't likeit. But also minds of fan
Delver is a is a beginner.That's what's in the starter set or was
in the stars or I guess theyre Do they revamp it or do they
(23:15):
make a continuation of starter set whichthen became a starter kit or something like
that. I mean it's part ofthe starter kit. Yeah, but no,
but they just released they just didsomething new with it, with some
kind of like the Black Stove orsomething. I had Black Models. It's
the thing you run for new players. YEAHI equivalent of Keep on the Borderlands
(23:36):
or whatever. Right, Yeah,so I wonder if the d M was
also new and like it was like, yeah, you must you must know
a lot more about this stuff thanI do. Possibly, you know.
Wow, Yeah, this sounds greatto our conversation over text by the way,
so like we don't know, thatcould be like with some of my
friends, that could be like twotexts, right, it sounds like,
(23:59):
yeah, yeah, is to thingbecause some people can just write off the
cuff like like it's no big deal, and for other people that's you know,
that's a real that it requires realeffort to to do writing like that.
So but also like how long betweeneach text that you say, there's
two hours and two hours of text? Thing? I'm assuming that this was
a discord text channel. Okay,okay, because everything else was taking those
(24:22):
discords back and forth. Yeah,that's that's my interpretation. Yeah. So,
like I run a game that's anot D and D, but it's
a fantasy game, and one ofthe characters, through a confluence of circumstances,
is actually writing letters back and forthto the to one of the big
bads, right, you know,and and they're like playing this like little
(24:45):
cat and mouse like you know gamelike kind of teasing and taunting each other
in these letters back and forth andstuff, and you know, like are
they in love? Do they hateeach other? And maybe a little bit
of both kind of thing. Andit's super super fun to like engage with
that player that way. But thatplayer completely understands that, like during game
(25:06):
time, like they say, youknow, oh, I got another letter
from the big bat, and everyoneelse goes, oh, whoa cool,
And then we keep playing, rightthat that then doesn't nice for you from
of thing that takes ten minutes ofgame time for us to deal with the
fallout the aftermath. Can we justsort of assume it's a thing that's going
on because both of us find thata fun thing to do, you know,
(25:29):
outside of the context of the actualsession. Right, Yeah, so
it sounds like we were kind ofon this. Could have been the player
possibly overstepping you know what her ofthe pie is. Yeah, it might
have been a main character syndrome.Could be could have been the DM over
promising in that in that thread,or we're not being clear about what they
(25:52):
what they were committing to. Yeah, that's my first probably a little of
both my first impression. Now,now let's also lets let's let's step back
with podcasters for a second and rememberthat this story is written from the player's
perspective, so it could be couldbe any number of things. Really,
So you know, if this wasa story of d M regret and saying
and over promising, that could beone thing. If this was the DM
(26:15):
kind of you know, running thisby either other players or even like other
dms in their circle, I bounceideas off you guys all the time,
which all dms should. So DMshould be checking with each other and flat
out stealing from each other at everypossible chance, and say, we'll get
unlike stand up comics. Correct,what's the deal with my mother in law?
(26:37):
Is she made of airplane food.Let just get all the trips in.
But I will say that, nomatter what the circumstance actually was,
I do think the DM was theplayer and explanation, which sounds like she
did not provide. Yeah, itsounds well well, but there's also like,
just are you demanding an explanation inthe in the private chat, don't
(27:00):
in the middle of the game,or is that a little conversation that you
have afterwards, because those those aretwo different things too sure, and she
went into the voice chat, itwas like, hey, what's going on?
Yeah, yeah, so unclear ifshe left after the session or immediately
upon hearing that she wasn't going toget her away. And I'm generalizing based
(27:21):
on the user name Princess, butyeah, it can be a few things.
But what we can learn from thisis that if you if you need
to backtrack on something from your players, if you over promised, and now
you set yourself up for doing this, doing this voice and the character that
you didn't plan on and doesn't fitin your world, possibly you know,
just have a you know, havea second two hour chat with your player
(27:44):
list, and hey, I've donegoofed. Here's what I can do for
you. Yeah, I actually can'tdo a Boston accent. Body first,
anybody could do a box An accent. But yeah, this is just another
in a long line of poor communicationstories. But someone here either over asked
or over promised and uh and possiblya combination above. Yeah, yeah,
(28:07):
it could be most likely could besay it somewhere in the middle. If
we heard the story told from thethird party, we probably know a lot
more. But with with the informationwe have, we can at least learn
that, like you know, thethe Familiars, Uh, don't you know?
If you're if your game is forlike you know, some sort of
media like a podcast, then you'refamiliar. It gets to be super interesting
and your DM gets to have fullcontrol over how interesting that that that familiar
(28:30):
is. Currently, I'm listening toa nad pod campaign to which I kind
of glossed over when it was whenit was current. I'm going back and
listening to that now. And allthree of them have a little side character
that the DM is voicing, andhe's got three of them to juggle,
And first of all, they're allawesome. The season means an incredible DM.
But like you know, then that'sthat's part of the story. Sure,
(28:51):
that sounds like a nightmare to me. Just that's a g It's the
thing three weeks from now where there'sanother horror story that that that's posted by
Like, you know, I'm playinga warlock and our game broke up over
a fucking owl, classic owl stuff. Yeah, that's all right, I
(29:12):
got one left here. It's anotherlighthearted one, and I feel like we're
gonna like the surface level of thisone is that it's just a very funny
story, and there is layers tothis and there's some implications to this that
we can really kind of So theone I think it is, I actually
think I don't actually think it's allthat lighthearted because of some of the implications
(29:33):
of it. But well, theimplications themselves are not light hearted, but
the situation itself is kind of funny. All right, We're not going to
harm anybody, Like I said,the situation on surface level is just pretty
funny. Yeah. So this iscoming from a user dirty USB, and
the story is wizard makes a blindcharacter and then gets upset when he's blind.
We're playing in a five player groupin college with a guy that wants
(29:55):
to make a blind wizard who reliedon their bird familiar for sight. Of
course you can see three you're familiar. However, he was also constantly telling
his bird to give other players thehelp action, essentially giving the martial characters
on demand advantage. DM said thatthe baddies were probably gonna start shooting at
the bird that's pissing them off.Wizard gets pissed and says the DM is
unfairly targeting him and that it's notfair for me if I'm just permanently blinded
(30:17):
for the rest of the fight.DM says that if the bird stops harassing
the batties, they'll stop targeting thebird. Wizard refuses, bird dies,
Wizard is blind for the rest ofthe encounter and sulks like a baby.
Maybe don't put your only pair ofeyes in horrible, terrible danger. I'm
like the top comment here, Wizardstop attacking my bird, but baddies will
stop attacking the bird if he stopsharassing us. Wizard, no baddies attack
(30:38):
bird. Wizard all shocked. Pakachyou face. So I'll take care of
the surface level stuff real quick andwe'll get to the implications here, because
I know where you're going to gowith this. The surface level stuff is
like, you know, you gaveyour your player, you gave your character
a disadvantage that's easily exploited, youmade a work around for it. You
(31:00):
try to to take advantage of yourworkaround and to stop working in your favor.
You know, no one's surprised thatthis ended up bad for you,
and you know it sucks that alot of your spells rely on a target
that you can see. I shouldhave thought about that. We play not
only in our games, but youknow, because I like a little more
learning tunes of my games, andI kind of got this from shows like
net Pod where they'll have silly things, you know, from the real world
(31:22):
anachronistically in their game. But thesecond that a player tries to make that
a combat advantage, suddenly that thing, that thing stops existing and stops working
how it's supposed to. You know. For example, the ukampan listening to
a player has a hot plate,and it's just supposed to be a joke
that when they make food while they'redoing the rest and stuff, they can
heat stuff up on the hot plate. But he even says to them,
(31:45):
if you try for one second touse the hot plate to heat someone's armor
up, you all of a suddendon't have a hot plate anymore. Yeah.
Yeah, And it seems like thatwhere like, okay, we gave
you familiars that you can have eyesso that you can play with this character
that that only sees through their familiarand character concept wise, not the worst
I've heard. Kind of cool actually, But then you try to take combat
(32:06):
advantage of that, and you know, now we get to treat that thing
as as it's part of combat.I do that we play are familiar as
too. People get attached to theirfamiliars and like, no, I want
to have a dog with me.Okay, I don't want to kill the
dog. I don't want to killthe dog. But if that dog is
now part of combat, kill thedog. That's if that dog is part
of combat. Things dying in combat. It's not a dog. It's not
a dog. It's not a bird. It's not a lizard, it's not
(32:29):
a dragon. It is a spiritthat takes that shape. But I named
it like a dog's Yeah, okay, so now it's a dog a dog,
it's a dog shaped spirit. Jim, I'm gonna I'm just gonna take
a very cursory overview of what theimplications of this are, and that is
role playing as a disability that youdo not have. Exactly, yes,
(32:52):
get gamifying disability. I have areal problem with that and would just would
just say no to that in thegame. So that is not to say
that you shouldn't play a character whois in some way handicapped or who is
you know, dealing with you know, some kind of like like like congenital
you know, physical handicaps or somethinglike that. You can absolutely do that,
(33:14):
but that should be role playing andit should be about the character.
You know, I hate to youknow, overcoming that that challenge in the
world, and it shouldn't have amechanical impact on what goes on in the
game. And just yeah, justreally to to to kind of turn that
and and man, nine times outof ten when a player comes to me
(33:40):
with saying that they want some kindof handicap like that, it's because they're
angling to be daredevil or something likethat, right, you know, they're
like, well, I'm blind,but I see through my familiar and my
familiar has dark vision, right,so that's it's like I have dark vision
now, and and like just thatyou just got to say no to that.
(34:02):
No, no, no, no. Yeah. And the other thing
to keep in mind is that whenyou are looking through the eyes and ears
of your familiar, you are blindand death right, Like, that is
not a thing you can do inthe middle of a fight. That's the
thing you do when you are likesitting down cross legged, guarded by your
friends. You cast your consciousness intoyour familiar so they can, you know
(34:28):
whatever, explore the next room orsomething like that. In the middle of
a fight, you're going to gethosed. If you're trying to do right,
you're exploiting something there. Yeah,I agree with that. And and
and just to you know, addto that too, is to what you
said, Jim right, if youif it's to make this character have more
(34:50):
depth, and it's a part ofthe role play and everything else, that
makes sense. But I hear thattoo. But but yeah, just to
try to like that, that's whatit seemed, was like, Oh,
I'm going to do that, andthen I'm going to be able to scam
the the you know, the familiarcan give them advantage. But I'm also
going to be you know, I'mgetting I'm getting my cake and I'm eating
(35:10):
it too. The type of things. And that's particularly that's a particularly and
like that's even worse than just likeplaying a handicap like in an insensitive or
stereotypical way. That's like actually tryingto kind of game. It's like very
cynical to try and to yeah,yeah, and and like I understand,
(35:30):
like because because my first thought waslike, well, you really you missed
out on something that's interesting to exploreif you will. Yeah, that's like,
oh I hadn't thought of the implicationsof that, And so at least
you learned something right, right,because you kind of went into it one
way and you're like, wow,being blind isn't easy. I'm not daredevil.
(35:53):
I learned something today, yeah,after school. But seriously, like
you like you really he did,Like that's in my brain. I'm like,
man, I hadn't even thought ofthat, Like, yeah, oh,
that's that's going to be interesting.How how am I going to get
out of this one? Like withinthe rules of the game, And yeah,
just the DM should have shut thatdown. Yeah. Now that that's
(36:16):
not to say there's no room forplaying around characters and disabilities. There's actually
there's actually a Hohld mechanics for forprosthetics and stuff like that. So it's
not like the games pretending they scenesdon't exist. Yeah, So like there's
the there's there's two parts of this. There's the insensitivity of thinking that someone
else's disability is a cool thing throughfor you to role play, and taking
(36:37):
it into a direction that is thatcan be problematic. There's no, there's
nothing in the story that says thatthey did that in any other way.
They just did this is this isjust purely combat thing, which is the
other set of problems here, wherelike, not only were you insensitive,
but you tried to cheese the rulesand now we're gonna yell at you.
Well, it seems like the GMmay have misunderstood the rules as well.
(37:00):
Yeah, well a little bit.Yeah, but then but then trying to
correct Yeah, sure, but youknow, and let's let's take the load
of let's go back to surface levelhere, where like you know, the
DM said, hey, if youkeep doing that, you're gonna have consequences,
and the player said, okay,I'm going to keep doing that.
Oh my god, consequences. Yeah. By the way, if your DM
says there's going to be consequences,get ready for consequences. Unless it's me,
(37:21):
then I just let you keep pokingpoking the dragon like an idiot for
one dice, six dandles every timepiece. I love you. Yeah,
I think you know. Like,like I said, there's nothing in the
story that that that that implies thatthe player was taking this to a problematic
place outside of cheasing the rules.But that is something absolutely consider if you're
going to be playing something that is, you know, not part of your
(37:44):
identity. I think that's I thinkthat's fair. And then cheating the rules,
you know, maybe just don't dothat and don't be surprised when the
DM does something that they say they'regoing to do. I'm gonna take your
bird away, and then it tookthe bird away. All right. So
that is some of the time RPGhorror stories for this month. I hope
we all learned something today, Yeah, something about ourselves and some about our
(38:06):
players. You better learned something,Nick, I learned the three dissect new
things today. Yeah. I'm gonnasend this episode to Nick and be like,
oh, we're not gonna talk trashbetter players, and then send it
to them. You Nick, you'rea muppet. I'm just happy that we
podcasted today that was yes too.After a couple of weeks of not making
(38:28):
it podcast it, Yeah, Ihad no regrets. I had a lot
of good barbecue in Austin. Sorry, sorry, not sorry, and I
got to do my little interview withfor DM TONI, which should have definitely
released my now So yeah, gocheck that out or we'll release next No,
no, that'll be up. Ithink by the time we do this
one, we're on it. Iguess. I suppose those are the options
I saw that show. So it'sall good, yes, all right,
(38:51):
So let's wrap this thing up.If you have a story that you want
us to cover, you send itto us at Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail
dot com. We can tell usa brief version of your story Hello Adventurers
Podcast dot com slash voice, andwe'd love to have you participate. Yeah,
that that's gonna do it for today. Jim, Joe, thank you
so much and thank you for listeningto you. Hello Adventures. We're your
host, Jason Portizo, Jim Crockerand Joe McCall producer, editor an engineer
(39:14):
Jason Portiso. Music by an experiorartwork by christ and Broderick. You can
reach out to us with any feedbackor suggestions by emailing Hello Adventures podcast at
gmail dot com. Hello Adventures isa JCP audio production. Goodbye, Adventurers.
It's bad bye if your name isNick,
Hello, Adventure the podcast for roleplayers and game master's up. Level up
your game. We are your dungeonmasters. I'm Jason Portizo, I'm Joe
McAll, and I'm Jim Crocker.And today we are going to do a
special extended edition because we're doing thisonce a week now and we're not gonna
do a little quick episodes, whichmeans we got to drag out content we're
(00:44):
normally we used to do what weused to do, one horror story,
be like, oh cool, that'sa nice little story, then talk about
it for a while and that wasit. We're gonna do a few horror
stories today and we're gonna talk aboutit and we're gonna about all of them
and that should fill the time thatwe need to fit. Yeah, so
deal with it, listener. Yeahhas podcast stuff, all right. So
I got a few stories picked outhere. These are all from Reddit's r
(01:06):
slash RPG horror stories and there's somethere's some fun ones in here. There's
a I got two that are thatare not only labeled as such, but
I agree they are lighthearted. AndI got to here that are a little
more Let's get into these type oftype of things so let's start off with
Philip. Let's start with with oneof the one of the light ones.
So this is from user ar CanisUltra and under our PG horror stories,
(01:32):
and the story is titled player can'tslash refuses to stop saying quote cast it,
and they say that's that's literally thewhole story. I played this with
this guy for years and every timehe used the past form of cast he
would say cast it. We correctedhim, Oh, I don't know,
(01:52):
dozens of times, but he hada really hard time learning things, mixed
with a stubborn heart. Don't getme wrong. Love the guy, and
it wasn't really that big a deal. It was more amusing than anything else.
Side note. When he started playing, his math skills were complete crap.
We also had to do the mathforum where I whether became keeping track
of hit points, adding an attackAC or damage breath. For a few
years. He can math faster thanmost of us. It really taught me
(02:13):
that if you want to be betterat math and increase your mental computational speed,
play D and D or any TETHRPG. Even though he became an expert
at math, he never did masterthe whole casted thing. Yeah, I
kind of twinge a little bit whensome when people say things that are just
like egregiously mispronounced. As much asI my personal character flaw is I forget
(02:38):
names the second I hear them,But when people like mispronounce somebody's name,
it just drives me nuts and thelimit. Yeah, let's talk about this.
So I don't want to I don'twant to sound like an early nineties
hack comedian because my mother in lawactually is awesome. But you know,
let's let's listen. I was aboutto say, but your mother in law
(02:58):
is an early ninety sec median thatwas that would have been a much better
uh uh. My mother in lawis Jerry's Ardwell, what's the deal with
high schoolers? So when it comesto names, she learns it the first
time and that's just how she's gonnasay it forever, and hopefully she got
(03:21):
it right the first time, becausethat's all you're gonna get. There's a
this little luncheon uh near her wherethe name is definitely Sonia, and she
goes there often and like loves tellingus how she how she wanted to go
see Sonja and uh, and Ijust have to kind of just deal with
it, because I've got another severalyears of listening to her say it lined
(03:43):
up in front of me. Souh yeah, it's uh, I feel
your pain. I don't know.Yeah, that's that's a let it go
thing. I think is is wherewe're at with that? And it's it
sounds like that's pretty much what they'rewhere. They're leaving it too. Yeah,
you get to correct them three timestimes, and if after the third
time it doesn't take, then yougot to decide whether you're going to live
(04:04):
with it or not, because it'snot going to take. After after three
tries, if they're still not doingit, then I've got it. I
have a D and D example actually, because I actually have a D and
D. Is it the same example? Joe? Is it? Is it
my son? No? Oh okay, well live one. That's my son?
And then I think I may haveheard repeated. I would love to
(04:25):
hear yours, okay, and Ithink exactly what you're talking about. Yeah,
and actually so so I know Isaid we're splitting hairs, but this
drove me insane. It's because it'smy son. Joe almost had one,
most kid. Yeah, it's thinkingabout it right now. And if you're
(04:46):
listening. I'm I'm sorry. Ilove you. He doesn't. His dad
doesn't show. He does not listento this does some lame show with his
dad on it. So yeah,so there is a spell. I think
it's a cleric spell, Druid cantripand Drewid cantrip, but I think I
think one of our players may havewhatever. So it's Chile, which is
(05:08):
a I think you mean, isa blunt weapon, the real thing that
Irish Scottish in origin. Yeah,but yeah, it's spelled funny as many
is. Anybody named Chavn can tellyou. They spell things funny over there.
(05:28):
The rules just don't count. It'spronounced, they don't, yeah or
c ronan right, So anyway,right, sortia And also what's the new
there's a movie and it's it's notanyway anyway, oh Salwen, Salwen,
So anyway, but I digress,I digress. It's Chile, Okay,
it's Chilely And he kept calling itChile Yep. He'd be like, I'm
(05:54):
gonna cast Chile, and I'm like, chile Lely, You're almost there,
but almost, like I was,like, it's Schilely, it's shalle Lee,
like like it was like nails ona chalkboard. Also, he was
a level to Druid at the time, which meant he cast it fourteenth time.
Yeah, every single, every single, every turn started with castle.
(06:18):
Now my break with it is thathe didn't say with an over the top
accent. I think I think that'sthe bigger, the bigger full pile here.
I just wanted him to finish theword I'm gonna cast Chile. You
cast what I cast? There yougo. It's oh, now I know
that spell. One of my localsthat the word silvery barbs kept getting them.
(06:41):
But yeah, that's no. WhatI was gonna say is, Joe,
do you think our players listen toours, to our show? Yes?
Okay, cool, so I don't. I don't care if he feels
called that or not. I swearto God if I hear him say I'm
gonna roll one D ten one moretime. The D the D in D
six or D ten or D eight. He fully pronounces that die every single
time. It's okay, I'm gonnado a hint for for a two die
(07:03):
six damage and I lose five minutesoff my life span every time he does
it. That's flitting hairs. Thatis not splitting hairs. That is splitting
sells off of my brain? Howmany how many dye six do you take
off of here? I take todie for psychic damage every time he says,
(07:25):
yeah, there you go. It'sfantastic. Maybe it is splitting hairs.
But but all that to say ourcanis ultra. I am on your
side, so I think, though, but cast it. I think we
can just chalk up to a colloquialism. I can't even say that word colloquialism.
There it is. Yeah, proudof you, Joe. So if
(07:46):
you have trouble saying colloquialism or worcechester, sure sauce, leave cast it alone.
And just if everyone else say ittoo. This is just in your
new word. Now it's like inklike eventually, it's just it's gonna become
part of our vernacular vernacular. Thankyou. That is exactly the word I
(08:13):
was, like vernicule, or justsubstitute a different word, you do.
Yeah, I throw the spell athim, toss it. I'm going to
toss a fireball in his direction,but that has a range of touch.
He's not throwing anything. He castit. Yeah, inflict wounds. I
invoke it. Yeah, I agree, this is AA This is properly flared
(08:33):
as lighthearted. Should you let itgo? Probably? Are you going to
have a heart attack over it?Also? Probably you should? You should
get down on your knees and thankyou that like this is what constitutes a
horror story your game. Yeah.If the Restor game is going this,
well, thank guy GaX that thatthis is as bad as it gets for
you. Yeah, so congratulations Slash. I'm so sorry. At least it's
(08:58):
not let son I should to diefor damage. All right, let's get
one that's a little more horrifying here. This is from a user Conngoid.
Also in RPG horror stories, mildspoilers for Cursustrod, and this one of
very mild spoilers. So if youcare so much about the extra vampire,
(09:18):
yes, skip ahead of skip aheadof skip ahead a little while. But
I don't think it's too too bad. Uh. Player joins campaign, grabs
a wish, and burns it,never to be seen again. The story
goes, So this isn't so mucha horror story as it is a WTF
moment. There are cursal Strata spoilers. My group was playing Curse of Strode
(09:41):
and we were level eight or sowhen a new player joins. In his
first session, we find the luckblade in Strad's castle, and the new
player just happened to be the onewho grabbed it. He was real pushy
with the loot, and the restof the party didn't argue, We're not
really a lot focused group, sowhatever, what do you focus on?
Story? I don't know if you'remean, our caster can not, but
(10:03):
as a not loot focused player,I get that a lot. We're not
really loot focus groups, so whatever. Anyways, we didn't know it was
a luck blade until he attunes toit, and then he learns it has
a wish on it and immediately wishesto be reunited at home with his dead
wife. The DM acquiesces, andthe character poofs away. The player,
(10:24):
happy as a clam, goes onand on about how he completed his character's
backstory he won and how satisfying itwas, and so the rest of the
party you felt like. The dudeshows up, plays for three hours,
Ninja loutes an amazing item, thendisappears. He didn't even play long enough
to tell anyone his character's backstory,so no one could share in his accomplishment.
(10:45):
And here's the kicker. The playernever showed up again. He just
played long enough to take the luckblade and dip out of the party.
WTF, all right, kids,that's how you win D and D he
won. He won. I lovethat he never shares the backstories of the
other players. Don't even know,like he was doing a speed run.
Yeah, it's like, wait whatdead wife? Yeah, the problem there
(11:07):
is not that player that that's aDM problem. That's a DM letting that
player do that problem. Shown upto a table that's mid like mid levels
without a backstory that that one isthen on Oh no, no, no,
so right in the middle of that, like like right when you were
reading it, we got the momentwhere the horror story kicked in. He
(11:28):
strong armed his way into the item. Nope, nope, okay, the
DM let him do it. Thatis where that horror story starts. You
can say, no, you could. You know, like, what a
wish is supposed to do is toand this is one of those things where
people get it in their head thata wish can do anything. I'm using
scare quotes here right, air quotesanything, And that is not what a
(11:50):
wish can do if you know,there's a whole text for what wish can
do and what it can't do,and text and and essentially what you can
do is you can kind of youknow, you can simulate a spell effect
up to ninth level right use itusing a wish, and it may be
a spell that already exists, itmay be something that's kind of roughly equivalent.
(12:11):
Like Raven Loft is really specific aboutthe fact that there are no magical
effects that let you leave that demiplane right without you solve the adventure.
And it's very easy for the DMto just say Nope, no, you
can't, Like I know it's awish, but you know, Strad's will
(12:33):
is the thing that you know holdsover everything here and you can't just you
can't just blow out of there anddo that. To my mind, that
feels like it's just an incredibly easything to just say no to sure,
And there's such a stigma, solike, I don't want to Realroad,
anybody, I don't want to,you know, it's like, no,
you can keep people from breaking yourgame. You can just say no,
(12:54):
you're not going to break my game. And that's not Railroad. Anybody railroading
anybody that that's protecting the autonomy andthe choices of all the other players at
the table. Is what's going onthere when you do that. At the
same time, if I may,this player told on themselves, you know,
and and good riddance in some ways, because like all I can think
(13:18):
is like, well, that's whatmy character would have done, and you
know, and at the very leastwhat the DM can do is say,
poof, they're gone, the swordremains behind, right, so that you
know, because also like like Ihate that there's a wish attached to that
thing, because the real use isthat you know, that's a great weapon
(13:43):
to use against the vampire, right, because it's not all the sunbeam effect
and all that kind of stuff andeverything, and the wish is almost incidental
to what's going on with it.Although you know, great Smith, if
you're put it like absolutely should thereshould be some table consensus about how you
use that and what goes on withit and stuff like that. But at
the very least, when they youknow, when they were gone, the
(14:07):
DM could have given the sword tothe rest of the party, right,
and I hope that they did.When it became clear that that guy was
just a was just there to troll. I'm really curious whether, man,
now, I really want to knowwhether that was like pure serendipity or whether
this guy was like, oh,you guys are playing STRAWD whereabout in the
(14:31):
castle? Are you just curious?You know, like that kind of thing,
whether he had some sense of whatwas going on and knew that they
were somewhere around there and like waskind of trolling them and doing it on
purpose and you know strange. Yeah, it feels like the player knew because
this is a published book everything.Oh yeah, yeah you can. We
(14:54):
talked about this last time where wherethe players were trying to speed run straw
and this might be just another speedrun thing. I'll look at the comments
here. A lot of people aresaying, like, yeah, strat speed
run. The guy ringers doing myfavorite ones that he wanted, he wanted
d and d H he is him. That's one of my favorite ones,
and of course the inevitable. Ialso choose this guy's dead wife, which
is a there's a couple other goodones here, but be Reunited with My
(15:18):
dead wife. A lightning hit bolthits you, It disintegrates, you missed
an opportunity to be a genie.You know. Actually, yeah, that
is one of the comments here reunitewith dead wife. The first finger on
the monkey's Paul furls he is nowsitting in his home with the corpse of
his wife. Yes, yeah,or neither, he said, I think
(15:41):
he should be staying in the coffinskeleton permanently. Yeah, there is a
couple of people bringing up let's seethe says the DM messed up the description
for that particular item says that wishingto leave Borrovia is one of the few
things that that particular item cannot do. Chang, there we go. I
hadn't remembered whether that was specific toit, Like, I don't think it
(16:03):
was in the original edition, butin five e if it specifically says that.
But but absolutely there. You know. The module is like, here's
all of the ways players may tryto, you know, shortcut getting to
the end to leave Borrovia. Noneof these will work. And I'm glad
that they called that out specifically forsure. Yes, yeah, so another
chilly one. Some of these trollstories are kind of funny, and that's
(16:25):
only our is funny. And ifa player, if a player shows up,
doesn't troll st poofs themselves out ofthe game and then disappears. You
just be like, hey, thatwas weird, right, and then just
and then just move on without them. And that's also a thing where there
is nothing wrong with stopping kind ofstepping out of character for a moment and
going Okay, that kind of sucked. I don't like that for you guys.
(16:45):
We're going to rewind the game backto the beginning of that session and
we're going to pretend that never happenedand replay with everybody that's being serious about
it, because that guy didn't workout now that it's just as adults.
And a couple of things worth noticingnoting here this this was an online game
on Roll twenty. The problem sorry, that's where the horror story the problem
(17:07):
players seem to be a friend ofa friend. Yeah, okay, we're
a friend of one of the otherplayers, and just like you know,
you know, vet your friends better. Yep, yep. But I'm just
going to add to the the otherthing. This is why I like some
magic items that you don't get everythingup front, that you have to like
awaken you know, and get doan awakened status through something or you know,
(17:30):
because giving them access so so earlyon, right, like you haven't
access to wish, probably a badidea. Yep, yeah, obviously it's
just following the module, No,I know which you know, these things
are play tested, right, everything'sperfect, right, and this is just
funny. This is where it comesto. Yeah again, like the modules
(17:52):
printed, it's already out there,but it is up to you to run
the game. So no one's disagreeingthat the young here, whether the player
was just trying to be a trollin the DM enabled it, No one's
disagreement with that. However, alot of people are agreeing that, like
story wise, this is awesome,Like the player just came in there,
kicked the door open, we blinkedthemselves out of existence and won the game.
(18:18):
So congratulations to that player. Areyour trophies in the mail? Hello
Adventurers, Thank you so much forlistening. If you enjoy the show,
the absolute best thing you can doto support us is to subscribe so you'll
be notified when new episodes are released. You can also leave us a review
five stars. Of course, thatwill help us get seen by more D
(18:38):
and D players and more than anythingelse, just tell your friends about us.
If you like what we're doing here, then there's a good chance that
your DM or your players will enjoyit too. And you don't need to
loop gold to do any of that. We appreciate your listening. Now back
to the show. All right,let's do another bad DM planning story.
This is coming from Panda Priests andthe story is titled The Familiar we talked
(19:03):
about for two hours outside of sessionis actually just an owl. This was
maybe a year ago before Session fouror five of Minds of Fendelver. With
some randos online, my arcane trickstergot the spell find Familiar. I told
my DM I wanted to give myfamiliar personality and lore, and she seemed
excited and enthusiastic. We exchanged ideasfor about two hours over text about my
(19:27):
character summoning the spirit of his oldacting coach to come help the party.
I even told her about the ritualand the flavor I wanted to give it.
When it came time in the session, she YadA YadA away my ritual.
Then let me describe what the owllooked like. I told the owl
to introduce herself to the party,remembering how the DM told me overtext what
kind of voice she would use for, only to be told she can't talk
(19:48):
because she's just an owl. ThisDM had made a separate voice channel in
that discord server for one on oneconversations, so I asked her to talk
there. I asked her why shetotally changed the character we meet together and
agreed on, and she started yellingat me about how she can't put all
her focus on just one player.I just left, So it's kind of
(20:08):
happy ending. Yeah, that that'sjust you do. Mismatched expectations. Yeah,
very very clearly is what's going on. Have the DM saved her two
hours of grief and just just belike, hey, you have the familiar
is just going to do normal familiarstuff. I don't. I just don't
have the time or bandwidth to voiceanother you know, familiar character. Sounds
(20:33):
like fun, but it's just notgonna happen. Sounds like maybe the DM
had gotten in overhead though possibly orover their head, possibly that like they
wanted to do all that, andor maybe another player was like, wait,
you're doing all that like for them, like that's okay, here's my
idea for my familiar. Yeah,yeah, kind of a thing and they're
like, well, this is toomuch. But it just comes down to
(20:55):
probably communication and just because you haveto be able to say and have those
hard convers Hey, listen, Iknow that we spend a lot of time
talking about this, you know what, after I thought about it, I'm
just not going to be able todo that. You know, I'm not
going to have the bandwidth to doit, or you I just can't I
can't keep track of that too orwhatever it is. Yeah, And I
think it's also one of those thingswhere different people have different ideas about what
(21:21):
it means to have conversations like outsideof the session, and like like some
people have it in their heads thatwhat that means is that you're creating you
know, fodder and lore and allthis kind of stuff that that then is
going to get referred back to inthe session and it's going to enrich everything
and enhance it, you know,and other people, including I think a
(21:45):
lot of dms have the attitude towardsthat, like, well, the separate
discord server is for like that playerthat needs to get out of their system,
like the eight pages of backstory theyhave on their OWL familiar. That's
why I let them do that,right, because we don't want to do
that in game, right, Likeand and and if you're not real clear
(22:10):
about the nature of what that betweengame stuff is, that's one of those
places where I think those disagreements canhappen. Yeah, because that's like that
Druid or whatever wants to spend youknow, wants to have a fifteen minute
scene where their owl gets you know, has a conversation with every other character
(22:32):
and stuff like this, you know, and the characters are like, can
we just go into this cave please, because there's gold inside there and goblins
and balance. Yeah, that that'stough to balance for a you know,
for a DM. But but thatjust sounds like what happened there is that.
Yeah, it's you know, theykind to your a bone by having
that, you know, that extraneousdiscussion. But then when it came to
(22:52):
be game time, it's like,okay, we're not going to spend twenty
minutes doing this. Yeah I thoughtabout it, and like I'm not going
to do that. Yeah. Yeah, me and everybody else talked about it,
and we're just that's we don't likeit. But also minds of fan
Delver is a is a beginner.That's what's in the starter set or was
in the stars or I guess theyre Do they revamp it or do they
(23:15):
make a continuation of starter set whichthen became a starter kit or something like
that. I mean it's part ofthe starter kit. Yeah, but no,
but they just released they just didsomething new with it, with some
kind of like the Black Stove orsomething. I had Black Models. It's
the thing you run for new players. YEAHI equivalent of Keep on the Borderlands
(23:36):
or whatever. Right, Yeah,so I wonder if the d M was
also new and like it was like, yeah, you must you must know
a lot more about this stuff thanI do. Possibly, you know.
Wow, Yeah, this sounds greatto our conversation over text by the way,
so like we don't know, thatcould be like with some of my
friends, that could be like twotexts, right, it sounds like,
(23:59):
yeah, yeah, is to thingbecause some people can just write off the
cuff like like it's no big deal, and for other people that's you know,
that's a real that it requires realeffort to to do writing like that.
So but also like how long betweeneach text that you say, there's
two hours and two hours of text? Thing? I'm assuming that this was
a discord text channel. Okay,okay, because everything else was taking those
(24:22):
discords back and forth. Yeah,that's that's my interpretation. Yeah. So,
like I run a game that's anot D and D, but it's
a fantasy game, and one ofthe characters, through a confluence of circumstances,
is actually writing letters back and forthto the to one of the big
bads, right, you know,and and they're like playing this like little
(24:45):
cat and mouse like you know gamelike kind of teasing and taunting each other
in these letters back and forth andstuff, and you know, like are
they in love? Do they hateeach other? And maybe a little bit
of both kind of thing. Andit's super super fun to like engage with
that player that way. But thatplayer completely understands that, like during game
(25:06):
time, like they say, youknow, oh, I got another letter
from the big bat, and everyoneelse goes, oh, whoa cool,
And then we keep playing, rightthat that then doesn't nice for you from
of thing that takes ten minutes ofgame time for us to deal with the
fallout the aftermath. Can we justsort of assume it's a thing that's going
on because both of us find thata fun thing to do, you know,
(25:29):
outside of the context of the actualsession. Right, Yeah, so
it sounds like we were kind ofon this. Could have been the player
possibly overstepping you know what her ofthe pie is. Yeah, it might
have been a main character syndrome.Could be could have been the DM over
promising in that in that thread,or we're not being clear about what they
(25:52):
what they were committing to. Yeah, that's my first probably a little of
both my first impression. Now,now let's also lets let's let's step back
with podcasters for a second and rememberthat this story is written from the player's
perspective, so it could be couldbe any number of things. Really,
So you know, if this wasa story of d M regret and saying
and over promising, that could beone thing. If this was the DM
(26:15):
kind of you know, running thisby either other players or even like other
dms in their circle, I bounceideas off you guys all the time,
which all dms should. So DMshould be checking with each other and flat
out stealing from each other at everypossible chance, and say, we'll get
unlike stand up comics. Correct,what's the deal with my mother in law?
(26:37):
Is she made of airplane food.Let just get all the trips in.
But I will say that, nomatter what the circumstance actually was,
I do think the DM was theplayer and explanation, which sounds like she
did not provide. Yeah, itsounds well well, but there's also like,
just are you demanding an explanation inthe in the private chat, don't
(27:00):
in the middle of the game,or is that a little conversation that you
have afterwards, because those those aretwo different things too sure, and she
went into the voice chat, itwas like, hey, what's going on?
Yeah, yeah, so unclear ifshe left after the session or immediately
upon hearing that she wasn't going toget her away. And I'm generalizing based
(27:21):
on the user name Princess, butyeah, it can be a few things.
But what we can learn from thisis that if you if you need
to backtrack on something from your players, if you over promised, and now
you set yourself up for doing this, doing this voice and the character that
you didn't plan on and doesn't fitin your world, possibly you know,
just have a you know, havea second two hour chat with your player
(27:44):
list, and hey, I've donegoofed. Here's what I can do for
you. Yeah, I actually can'tdo a Boston accent. Body first,
anybody could do a box An accent. But yeah, this is just another
in a long line of poor communicationstories. But someone here either over asked
or over promised and uh and possiblya combination above. Yeah, yeah,
(28:07):
it could be most likely could besay it somewhere in the middle. If
we heard the story told from thethird party, we probably know a lot
more. But with with the informationwe have, we can at least learn
that, like you know, thethe Familiars, Uh, don't you know?
If you're if your game is forlike you know, some sort of
media like a podcast, then you'refamiliar. It gets to be super interesting
and your DM gets to have fullcontrol over how interesting that that that familiar
(28:30):
is. Currently, I'm listening toa nad pod campaign to which I kind
of glossed over when it was whenit was current. I'm going back and
listening to that now. And allthree of them have a little side character
that the DM is voicing, andhe's got three of them to juggle,
And first of all, they're allawesome. The season means an incredible DM.
But like you know, then that'sthat's part of the story. Sure,
(28:51):
that sounds like a nightmare to me. Just that's a g It's the
thing three weeks from now where there'sanother horror story that that that's posted by
Like, you know, I'm playinga warlock and our game broke up over
a fucking owl, classic owl stuff. Yeah, that's all right, I
(29:12):
got one left here. It's anotherlighthearted one, and I feel like we're
gonna like the surface level of thisone is that it's just a very funny
story, and there is layers tothis and there's some implications to this that
we can really kind of So theone I think it is, I actually
think I don't actually think it's allthat lighthearted because of some of the implications
(29:33):
of it. But well, theimplications themselves are not light hearted, but
the situation itself is kind of funny. All right, We're not going to
harm anybody, Like I said,the situation on surface level is just pretty
funny. Yeah. So this iscoming from a user dirty USB, and
the story is wizard makes a blindcharacter and then gets upset when he's blind.
We're playing in a five player groupin college with a guy that wants
(29:55):
to make a blind wizard who reliedon their bird familiar for sight. Of
course you can see three you're familiar. However, he was also constantly telling
his bird to give other players thehelp action, essentially giving the martial characters
on demand advantage. DM said thatthe baddies were probably gonna start shooting at
the bird that's pissing them off.Wizard gets pissed and says the DM is
unfairly targeting him and that it's notfair for me if I'm just permanently blinded
(30:17):
for the rest of the fight.DM says that if the bird stops harassing
the batties, they'll stop targeting thebird. Wizard refuses, bird dies,
Wizard is blind for the rest ofthe encounter and sulks like a baby.
Maybe don't put your only pair ofeyes in horrible, terrible danger. I'm
like the top comment here, Wizardstop attacking my bird, but baddies will
stop attacking the bird if he stopsharassing us. Wizard, no baddies attack
(30:38):
bird. Wizard all shocked. Pakachyou face. So I'll take care of
the surface level stuff real quick andwe'll get to the implications here, because
I know where you're going to gowith this. The surface level stuff is
like, you know, you gaveyour your player, you gave your character
a disadvantage that's easily exploited, youmade a work around for it. You
(31:00):
try to to take advantage of yourworkaround and to stop working in your favor.
You know, no one's surprised thatthis ended up bad for you,
and you know it sucks that alot of your spells rely on a target
that you can see. I shouldhave thought about that. We play not
only in our games, but youknow, because I like a little more
learning tunes of my games, andI kind of got this from shows like
net Pod where they'll have silly things, you know, from the real world
(31:22):
anachronistically in their game. But thesecond that a player tries to make that
a combat advantage, suddenly that thing, that thing stops existing and stops working
how it's supposed to. You know. For example, the ukampan listening to
a player has a hot plate,and it's just supposed to be a joke
that when they make food while they'redoing the rest and stuff, they can
heat stuff up on the hot plate. But he even says to them,
(31:45):
if you try for one second touse the hot plate to heat someone's armor
up, you all of a suddendon't have a hot plate anymore. Yeah.
Yeah, And it seems like thatwhere like, okay, we gave
you familiars that you can have eyesso that you can play with this character
that that only sees through their familiarand character concept wise, not the worst
I've heard. Kind of cool actually, But then you try to take combat
(32:06):
advantage of that, and you know, now we get to treat that thing
as as it's part of combat.I do that we play are familiar as
too. People get attached to theirfamiliars and like, no, I want
to have a dog with me.Okay, I don't want to kill the
dog. I don't want to killthe dog. But if that dog is
now part of combat, kill thedog. That's if that dog is part
of combat. Things dying in combat. It's not a dog. It's not
a dog. It's not a bird. It's not a lizard, it's not
(32:29):
a dragon. It is a spiritthat takes that shape. But I named
it like a dog's Yeah, okay, so now it's a dog a dog,
it's a dog shaped spirit. Jim, I'm gonna I'm just gonna take
a very cursory overview of what theimplications of this are, and that is
role playing as a disability that youdo not have. Exactly, yes,
(32:52):
get gamifying disability. I have areal problem with that and would just would
just say no to that in thegame. So that is not to say
that you shouldn't play a character whois in some way handicapped or who is
you know, dealing with you know, some kind of like like like congenital
you know, physical handicaps or somethinglike that. You can absolutely do that,
(33:14):
but that should be role playing andit should be about the character.
You know, I hate to youknow, overcoming that that challenge in the
world, and it shouldn't have amechanical impact on what goes on in the
game. And just yeah, justreally to to to kind of turn that
and and man, nine times outof ten when a player comes to me
(33:40):
with saying that they want some kindof handicap like that, it's because they're
angling to be daredevil or something likethat, right, you know, they're
like, well, I'm blind,but I see through my familiar and my
familiar has dark vision, right,so that's it's like I have dark vision
now, and and like just thatyou just got to say no to that.
(34:02):
No, no, no, no. Yeah. And the other thing
to keep in mind is that whenyou are looking through the eyes and ears
of your familiar, you are blindand death right, Like, that is
not a thing you can do inthe middle of a fight. That's the
thing you do when you are likesitting down cross legged, guarded by your
friends. You cast your consciousness intoyour familiar so they can, you know
(34:28):
whatever, explore the next room orsomething like that. In the middle of
a fight, you're going to gethosed. If you're trying to do right,
you're exploiting something there. Yeah,I agree with that. And and
and just to you know, addto that too, is to what you
said, Jim right, if youif it's to make this character have more
(34:50):
depth, and it's a part ofthe role play and everything else, that
makes sense. But I hear thattoo. But but yeah, just to
try to like that, that's whatit seemed, was like, Oh,
I'm going to do that, andthen I'm going to be able to scam
the the you know, the familiarcan give them advantage. But I'm also
going to be you know, I'mgetting I'm getting my cake and I'm eating
(35:10):
it too. The type of things. And that's particularly that's a particularly and
like that's even worse than just likeplaying a handicap like in an insensitive or
stereotypical way. That's like actually tryingto kind of game. It's like very
cynical to try and to yeah,yeah, and and like I understand,
(35:30):
like because because my first thought waslike, well, you really you missed
out on something that's interesting to exploreif you will. Yeah, that's like,
oh I hadn't thought of the implicationsof that, And so at least
you learned something right, right,because you kind of went into it one
way and you're like, wow,being blind isn't easy. I'm not daredevil.
(35:53):
I learned something today, yeah,after school. But seriously, like
you like you really he did,Like that's in my brain. I'm like,
man, I hadn't even thought ofthat, Like, yeah, oh,
that's that's going to be interesting.How how am I going to get
out of this one? Like withinthe rules of the game, And yeah,
just the DM should have shut thatdown. Yeah. Now that that's
(36:16):
not to say there's no room forplaying around characters and disabilities. There's actually
there's actually a Hohld mechanics for forprosthetics and stuff like that. So it's
not like the games pretending they scenesdon't exist. Yeah, So like there's
the there's there's two parts of this. There's the insensitivity of thinking that someone
else's disability is a cool thing throughfor you to role play, and taking
(36:37):
it into a direction that is thatcan be problematic. There's no, there's
nothing in the story that says thatthey did that in any other way.
They just did this is this isjust purely combat thing, which is the
other set of problems here, wherelike, not only were you insensitive,
but you tried to cheese the rulesand now we're gonna yell at you.
Well, it seems like the GMmay have misunderstood the rules as well.
(37:00):
Yeah, well a little bit.Yeah, but then but then trying to
correct Yeah, sure, but youknow, and let's let's take the load
of let's go back to surface levelhere, where like you know, the
DM said, hey, if youkeep doing that, you're gonna have consequences,
and the player said, okay,I'm going to keep doing that.
Oh my god, consequences. Yeah. By the way, if your DM
says there's going to be consequences,get ready for consequences. Unless it's me,
(37:21):
then I just let you keep pokingpoking the dragon like an idiot for
one dice, six dandles every timepiece. I love you. Yeah,
I think you know. Like,like I said, there's nothing in the
story that that that that implies thatthe player was taking this to a problematic
place outside of cheasing the rules.But that is something absolutely consider if you're
going to be playing something that is, you know, not part of your
(37:44):
identity. I think that's I thinkthat's fair. And then cheating the rules,
you know, maybe just don't dothat and don't be surprised when the
DM does something that they say they'regoing to do. I'm gonna take your
bird away, and then it tookthe bird away. All right. So
that is some of the time RPGhorror stories for this month. I hope
we all learned something today, Yeah, something about ourselves and some about our
(38:06):
players. You better learned something,Nick, I learned the three dissect new
things today. Yeah. I'm gonnasend this episode to Nick and be like,
oh, we're not gonna talk trashbetter players, and then send it
to them. You Nick, you'rea muppet. I'm just happy that we
podcasted today that was yes too.After a couple of weeks of not making
(38:28):
it podcast it, Yeah, Ihad no regrets. I had a lot
of good barbecue in Austin. Sorry, sorry, not sorry, and I
got to do my little interview withfor DM TONI, which should have definitely
released my now So yeah, gocheck that out or we'll release next No,
no, that'll be up. Ithink by the time we do this
one, we're on it. Iguess. I suppose those are the options
I saw that show. So it'sall good, yes, all right,
(38:51):
So let's wrap this thing up.If you have a story that you want
us to cover, you send itto us at Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail
dot com. We can tell usa brief version of your story Hello Adventurers
Podcast dot com slash voice, andwe'd love to have you participate. Yeah,
that that's gonna do it for today. Jim, Joe, thank you
so much and thank you for listeningto you. Hello Adventures. We're your
host, Jason Portizo, Jim Crockerand Joe McCall producer, editor an engineer
(39:14):
Jason Portiso. Music by an experiorartwork by christ and Broderick. You can
reach out to us with any feedbackor suggestions by emailing Hello Adventures podcast at
gmail dot com. Hello Adventures isa JCP audio production. Goodbye, Adventurers.
It's bad bye if your name isNick,
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