April 12, 2021 • 21 mins
Two podcasters meet in a tavern...what the heck is Dungeons & Dragons anyway, and what is it like for women? Samantha has questions and Anney has answers. Roll for initiative!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told your production. I heart radio, so Annie, Yes,
I saw for today's Monday Mini, I was gonna do
this whole like big research thing, and then like, oh, yeah,
(00:26):
I gotta handle on this subject for sure, because you've
been talking to me about it for so long that
I was like, Okay, we're good. I'm just gonna put
some little facts in here, a little statistics. And then
as I was researching it, I realized, oh my goodness,
I actually don't know what anything about Dungeons and Dragons,
which is what we're going to talk about today. Because
I thought it would be fun for you to tell
(00:46):
us what's going on in your world of D and D. Right,
And I was like, you know what, and and for
Monday many, not only will we have the personal things
that's going on, we'll do a little statistics because I
don't know if we've done this. And then as I
was looking at things up, but I really, yeah, I
have no idea what this gaming in my head Dungeons
and Dragons meant, you know, there's a dragon maybe, And
(01:09):
so when we're going to costume doing magic possibly, yeah, no,
and for those who do love D n D, I'm
sorry that was not an insult. I really did not
realize what it all was. And I know you've done
a little bit about D and D before before I
came on, right, Yes, we talked about it briefly when
I had Tracy V. Wilson from stuff he missed in
(01:30):
History cross on the show and we did one on
tabletop gaming, and we talked about our experiences playing D
and D and and and like even with you, Samantha.
Back when we first started, we did our Trauma mini series,
we did those self care things at the end, and
mine was always Dungeons and Dragons based. But I would
love to cut of course, me being a NERD, I
(01:52):
would love to come back and do a whole episode
on Dungeons and Dragons. But Tracy and I talked about
how when the game was first of heloped women, characters
had these things called beauty points where you would use
your beauty to charm someone or I'm guessing not charmed someone,
depending on what your character, and just problematic things like that,
(02:15):
and I think some racist like tropes maybe in there.
This is an interesting world because you've got like dwarves
and elves and and they have like traits. But it's changed,
for sure, but back when it's I would love to
trace the evolution of that. Sure. Yeah, So, from what
I understand, this originally was geared towards men, essentially thinking
(02:36):
that they would be the ones that enjoyed enjoyed this,
but there wasn't overhaul and in the seventies of like, wait, wait, wait,
there's a lot of women who are really into this
as well. But we started seeing like, but if you're
a woman, you're gonna have to have these beauty points
and these in these in these. But the original creator
started by testing this out with his children when I
didn't know that, and it involved his son and his daughter,
(02:57):
as in fact, the daughter is the one who chose
the name and dragons. So I'm not really sure how
they veered from that to be like, let's make it
a little bit sexist. Yeah, okay. And of course the
early editions had help from other women creators like Gene
Wells and Kimp my Hand and Penny Williams and apparently
a lot lot more. But yet we still have that like,
(03:17):
m hmmm, you don't want to credit them for some reason, Okay,
And That's what I started realizing, Okay, I don't really
know this game as I'm trying to understand all of
these things, and I wanted to ask you, can you
give us the because what I read was there are
some already base characters, but of course it's grown bigger
(03:39):
and bigger into the storytelling and you create your own world.
But what is the basis of D n D Well,
let's begin. We'll talk about version five. There have been
several versions. I think the easiest way to explain it
is it is a role playing game where you have
(04:01):
a dungeon master or a game master who runs the game.
They are the ones that know the rules that tell
the story. So if if you were playing with me, Samantha,
I would be like, you enter a bar and you
hear buzzing of people talking and people are drunk, like
I would pay to picture for you, and you, as
(04:21):
a player, would decide I want to go up and
talk to the bartender and getting a bar fight or
you know, you would say what you want to do.
I would tell you, based on the rules of the game,
what whether or not you can do that, and what
will happen if you do. And that's largely determined by
rolling a D twenty dice and seeing if you succeed.
(04:44):
If you get a twenty good one very bad, you're
gonna lose that bar fight, Samantha, You're probably gonna lose,
lose all your money fall, and get your head stuck
in a buckets. Yes, yes you do, not a one
A very very bad. And so you create these characters.
(05:04):
You choose the race of like an elf, our human
or dwarf, and then the class which is like a
rogue or a thief character or major can do magic.
And then you roll for stats, and there are six
main stats, and there are things like charisma which did
yes used to be beauty points or sell old dexterity,
(05:27):
and constitution, and you determine on what you roll. That
determines if, like you're good being charismatic, if you're terrible
at being charismack, and then impacts yes, oh gosh, yes,
so you have kind of those base things. And then
there are worlds and maps and storylines that are already written.
(05:48):
So if I wanted to be a dungeon master, but
I didn't want to write a whole story, then I
can just get one of these and do it that way.
I of course like to make things really really complicated
for myself, so I homebrew as it's called, and that
means you write the entire story. So there is a base,
like there is something that you can just automatically use
(06:10):
or you can become creative, which is what I was
trying to figure out myself. It was like, what is
what's happening? And speaking of that, as you were talking
about dungeon masters or d m s, and obviously there's
been a whole I've I've noticed a Twitter back and
forth like it's a conversation and they're not arguing, but
more of a conversation about whether or not to change
the term masters. So a lot of people have talked
about using moderators and and then just doing the initials
(06:33):
the d M, the g M so and all of that.
That's a whole different level of conversation. But as I'm
reading and trying to figure out this scientific world of
dungeons and dragons that there's not too many women who
take on the d M or GM role. Can you
talk about that a little bit? Yeah, So for me,
(06:54):
when I first got into Dungeons and Dragons, I did
get into it because of Adu, and also because of
I thought it would help me figure out the ending
of this thing I was writing. If I had to
play as this character, what would she do? And also
help with the PTSD, which it's been said that it does.
But I the reason I put it off so long
was because I was afraid of the rules. It's there
(07:16):
are a lot of rules, and I thought it was
very technical. And if I start playing with people who
have already played, and a lot of them dudes like,
I'm just going to be scared the whole time to
do anything and I'm not going to do anything, which
I was. It was like that, not in terms of
people being mean to me at all, but it was
like that where I was just nervous that I was
going to screw up in heavy quotes, and it is
(07:38):
that kind of a It can be really vulnerable, especially
with the character I did, where you do have this
kind of close connection where it's like I felt so timid,
like well, she would do this, and unsure of just
how the rules work and not wanting to really screw up.
But I played for probably a year, and then it
(07:59):
became we didn't want the same person to have to
run the game again because it is a lot of work,
but no one else wanted to run it. I wanted
to keep playing, so I had to. If that was
the case, I had to do it. You had to
take up the mantle. I had to take up the mantle.
But I was extremely intimidated to do it. I will
say I had talked to friends about it and heard
(08:21):
about how being a woman and being a d M
they felt like they got called out more about like
rules knowledge and like are you sure I think I
can get away with it, you know, like kind of
being questioned. And these were friends of mine I was
playing with, so I wasn't really worried about that, although
and the heat of the game, people will be like,
are you know, get out that rule book right right?
(08:45):
And just because I had, I know the rule book
is huge. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm lucky that I play
with people who are pretty flexible unless it gets down
to it, then they want to know the rule but
you know, like you're more interested in the game moving
on smoothly than getting every real correctly. But I was,
you know, me Smith, I'm somebody who wants to get
those things correct. And then I started doubting myself so
(09:09):
I had to get over that, and I still get nervous,
Like I'm supposed to play tonight and I'm already nervous.
It's like hours away, just because you want people to
have a fun time, And then I will say something else.
I've never experienced this, but I have seen people experience
it or be afraid that they would. And I've been
(09:29):
afraid of it too, where you're as a woman worried
about sexists. It sounds so strange, but like basically being
treated misogynistically in a game, like your character being treated
that way. Um. So I've played with random people once
(09:50):
and it didn't happen, but I was nervous. They were
all guys, and I like, what if I'm the only
woman character in this game? What if they're like flirting
with me or like the male Dylan does something like
having that concern And I've heard of it happening, right, Um,
I could absolutely see that. Yeah, so that I've never
been afraid of that with the people I play with.
(10:12):
But somebody I did play with, she kind of had
I wouldn't call it a panic attack, but she removed
her character from a situation where we were all flirting
with like the guards and then she just was like, no,
I don't want to do this anymore. And I think
it's kind of that fear of like, what is this
going to escalate? To write? Yeah, yeah, so that's kind
(10:33):
of my in my experience. Yeah, I mean, and that's
that's what I'm just as I'm reading about why people
are pushing or who they are saying, and the fact
that there has to be justifications of saying literal articles.
I say, yes, women belong in D and D. You know,
stuff like that tells you, wait, who said they didn't? Okay,
there's a fight for this to even have to be
a conversation. And again, one of the things I talked
(10:56):
about with the d M uh and if it was
a minute, it parsus being a man the conversation was
like one of the benefits in having a female or
a woman to be the d M for this is
the fact that they're probably more likely to a anticipate
a lot more situations. As you've told me, this is
the one thing I know is that you have to
be ready for any and all possible situations that the
(11:18):
players are going to throw at you. A b as
well as the fact that you are a very creative storyteller,
and a lot of the times when it was just
all man, it was just all about mechanics and potaticalities
and instead of setting up a beautiful storyline. Um, and
that for a lot of Even though this is a
kind of a gendered conversation, but it has shown true
(11:39):
that women are more detail oriented in things like this
as well as willing to see a bigger story and
or a detailed story. And so that is a benefit
of having a woman to be the d M. Would
you agree with that? Yeah, in my in my experience,
for sure. And I I shuddered to think because our
big convenyce here Dragon Con. They have a whole floor
(12:02):
where you can play dungeons and dragons, And I just
feel like, what's going to happen if I ever decided
to d M that is, it's just gonna be dudes
attacking me for the rules. But the people I play
with are pretty balanced between men and women, And I
will say the thing that I've noticed anecdotally is that
women are more likely to recognize that it is a
(12:26):
game and there are rules and sometimes it's not worth
like questioning every single thing. Sometimes if you want the
story to move on, you have to just in the
back of your player brain be like, Okay, this is
a game, and if the if the dungeon master is saying,
here's this important flyer, I wouldn't do it that way.
(12:50):
But basically, if I'm drawing attention to certain things, you
should probably pay attention to those things instead of just
being like, I want to go that way, and then
I have to come up with thing completely different. That's
what I've noticed is like women are, they'll move it along, right.
And if if you're a good d M, which I
like to think I am, then that doesn't usually become
a problem. But you know, some players are just like, no,
(13:11):
I want to go do this, and okay, I think
that tells me that I don't need to be playing
dn D because I probably would be that player. No,
I can't tell me what to do I'm gonna do.
I think that I know you well enough, though I
could true my contrary and personality, you kind of already
know well. Thank you for answering me that, because, as
(13:32):
I said, I was trying to research it. I was like,
I really don't know anything about this. I just know
what Annie is doing, not the overall but speaking of
what Annie is doing, Annie, I need an update about
what's going on in your D and D world. I'm
going to try to keep this shirt because I could
go on and on it on. So the campaign I
(13:55):
was talking about when we first started our Trauma series,
where I tried to figure out the ending of that character,
I did think sure out how that story is. It's
very sad, of course, But after that, that was the
one I took and it was the first time I
ran a game. And that campaign just came to an
end a couple of months ago after three years. Three years,
(14:17):
I've had to figure out how to do it during Quarantine,
which involves like a two laptop setup and an overhead
camera and all this stuff, and it was really, I
have to say, it was really I felt seed in
a way. I wasn't sure I was ready to because
it was a very like upsetting storyline and I didn't
anticipate how I was like, do they think I'm like
(14:38):
messed up? Uh rpg huh, because they really investigated and
I was kind of hoping they wouldn't. But anyway, that
that's that's on me. The other one I'm doing I
started recently, so it's newer, and I have, of course
(15:02):
my poor cinnamon Roll, poor Prince cinnamon Roll has just
been kidnapped. In this world, it is a world of
very many Star Wars based puns, so many like snowby
one Canobi Shenanikins, which like imagine trying to keep a
straight face and perhaps to a voice when you're saying
(15:25):
these things. Uh. And I'm lucky that I play with
I play with really good friends of mine, and they
know me really well, so they try to get me
to say all the Star Wars puns. They'll try to
get their characters to get to the bottom of the
very intricate puns I've created. I still think, because we've
(15:45):
talked about this before, is you need to do a
Patriot because it involved savers co host Lauren as well
as a stuff they don't want you to know. Co
host Been is no old part of them too, remember no,
but he helps me write songs for it. Campaigns have
songs in it. I still think you need to do
like a live feed of or recording of you guys
(16:09):
playing at one point in time. I think people would
pay a little bit of money to see that we
actually talked about it we were going to try to
raise money for a charity. Funnily enough, this is you know,
always keep in mind if you're nervous, other people are
probably nervous too. Because they told me they were too
nervous at first to have it to play it and
have other people listen to it. But I bet they
(16:29):
would now now that they've played a little bit, they
got it. Yeah. They always do just the silliest thing
I think they can do, and twice they've completely broken
me as a dungeon master, where I just couldn't stop laughing.
One was of this time where Ben's character tried to
talk to some fish. I was trying to get them
(16:50):
to go fishing because they needed fish for a meal,
and he tried to talk to He put his wet
in the water and tried to talk to the fish,
and I could not stop laughing. I was like, you
could just go fishing, which is not very good as
a d M, but I could stop laughing. And then
and the most recent one, no one will get this
because it's holiday Best Star Wars Holiday Special Base, But
(17:12):
I was trying to get them to realize that Mala
needs to break up with Chewbacca, and she needs to
go hook up with either Mando Orlando. However, they completely
misinterpreted the situation and they're trying to get her to
hook up with Wicket, who was the e walk then,
and I could not I was dying laughing because they
were like writing notes and pretending they were from the
(17:34):
other character. That's amazing, It was so funny. Yeah, and
then I do have a character based on your dogs
and made the Peaches. I had made a request just
to please to her in there to make a lot
of mischief because I feel that represents both me and
my dog. Yes, and so Peaches basically the plot line
(17:58):
is that they have to go to eight cities and
get something in every city, and so far they're they're
on their third. They're on the way to tattooing essentially,
so the fourth city, and Peaches has shown up in
everyone and by now, because Peach just does cause so
much trouble, Like in the first one, she was like,
I told those guys over there and where you were.
They looked really angry, but maybe they just and so
(18:20):
they had to go fight those dudes. By now they
like grown. Yeah, I was gonna say, she's she's gotten
a quiet of reputation. They've never been my dog, but
she's got a reputation, and which I say. I want
her to be a lovable dog and she doesn't mean
to cause these mischiefs, just she doesn't happen to be.
(18:41):
I did toy with the idea that she would be
the big bat at the end, but I've dismissed it. Yeah,
they have turned it into a verb. Peaches mcfuzzin something
something up. Yeah. Yeah, so that's about again. I could
go on and on the right. They forgot what was
in their bag of oh listen thing. Oh yeah. So
(19:07):
thank you for sharing them with me, because again I
was like, yeah, let's just do something fun because we're
pretty heavy duty with our stuff lately, and this was
a good way of talking about gaming. And as we're
coming towards in the pandemic, we know we're gonna do
a little more face to face stuff. And though this
is a face to face thing, this has been a
nice distraction I think for you and for others to
(19:28):
be able to do this over video conferencing on all that.
So I wanted to talk about it and follow up
again because I think people love hearing what's going on
in these may believe worlds that I know nothing about, obviously,
but yeah, and and obviously a world that I don't
know much about and involving such a huge I mean,
(19:50):
the D and D is probably one of the most
popular games of all time essentially, and it's it's able
to connect a lot of people, like you talk about
how people work, people who work there, some of their trauma.
You've talked about the fact that you know, maybe some
daddy issues need the thing and able to find the
ending to your characters whatever in books. This is an
(20:12):
amazing outlet, So thank you for shading that with us.
Thank you for letting me talk about it. Um. I
do think as we were having this discussion, I realized
that the four groups of people I know that played
D and D, all of them have had a female
dam So I think it is having a resurgence. And
I do think, I know we talked about it in
(20:33):
the Susan care episode with Bridget It does these skills
that have been traditionally seen as more like in the
realm of women. But I mean, even if you just
want to build up skills of like project planning and
reading people, this is for you. You can do it.
You can do it. Yes, I'm sure there will be
more updates in the future, but until then, listeners, If
(20:56):
you're playing d n d oh, tell us about your character.
If you're running a game, tell us about your experience.
We would love to hear from you our emails, Stuff Media,
mom Stuff at I heart media dot com. You can
find us on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You
or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always
start a super producer, Christina, Thank you and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. Protection of
(21:16):
I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I Heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told your production. I heart radio, so Annie, Yes,
I saw for today's Monday Mini, I was gonna do
this whole like big research thing, and then like, oh, yeah,
(00:26):
I gotta handle on this subject for sure, because you've
been talking to me about it for so long that
I was like, Okay, we're good. I'm just gonna put
some little facts in here, a little statistics. And then
as I was researching it, I realized, oh my goodness,
I actually don't know what anything about Dungeons and Dragons,
which is what we're going to talk about today. Because
I thought it would be fun for you to tell
(00:46):
us what's going on in your world of D and D. Right,
And I was like, you know what, and and for
Monday many, not only will we have the personal things
that's going on, we'll do a little statistics because I
don't know if we've done this. And then as I
was looking at things up, but I really, yeah, I
have no idea what this gaming in my head Dungeons
and Dragons meant, you know, there's a dragon maybe, And
(01:09):
so when we're going to costume doing magic possibly, yeah, no,
and for those who do love D n D, I'm
sorry that was not an insult. I really did not
realize what it all was. And I know you've done
a little bit about D and D before before I
came on, right, Yes, we talked about it briefly when
I had Tracy V. Wilson from stuff he missed in
(01:30):
History cross on the show and we did one on
tabletop gaming, and we talked about our experiences playing D
and D and and and like even with you, Samantha.
Back when we first started, we did our Trauma mini series,
we did those self care things at the end, and
mine was always Dungeons and Dragons based. But I would
love to cut of course, me being a NERD, I
(01:52):
would love to come back and do a whole episode
on Dungeons and Dragons. But Tracy and I talked about
how when the game was first of heloped women, characters
had these things called beauty points where you would use
your beauty to charm someone or I'm guessing not charmed someone,
depending on what your character, and just problematic things like that,
(02:15):
and I think some racist like tropes maybe in there.
This is an interesting world because you've got like dwarves
and elves and and they have like traits. But it's changed,
for sure, but back when it's I would love to
trace the evolution of that. Sure. Yeah, So, from what
I understand, this originally was geared towards men, essentially thinking
(02:36):
that they would be the ones that enjoyed enjoyed this,
but there wasn't overhaul and in the seventies of like, wait, wait, wait,
there's a lot of women who are really into this
as well. But we started seeing like, but if you're
a woman, you're gonna have to have these beauty points
and these in these in these. But the original creator
started by testing this out with his children when I
didn't know that, and it involved his son and his daughter,
(02:57):
as in fact, the daughter is the one who chose
the name and dragons. So I'm not really sure how
they veered from that to be like, let's make it
a little bit sexist. Yeah, okay. And of course the
early editions had help from other women creators like Gene
Wells and Kimp my Hand and Penny Williams and apparently
a lot lot more. But yet we still have that like,
(03:17):
m hmmm, you don't want to credit them for some reason, Okay,
And That's what I started realizing, Okay, I don't really
know this game as I'm trying to understand all of
these things, and I wanted to ask you, can you
give us the because what I read was there are
some already base characters, but of course it's grown bigger
(03:39):
and bigger into the storytelling and you create your own world.
But what is the basis of D n D Well,
let's begin. We'll talk about version five. There have been
several versions. I think the easiest way to explain it
is it is a role playing game where you have
(04:01):
a dungeon master or a game master who runs the game.
They are the ones that know the rules that tell
the story. So if if you were playing with me, Samantha,
I would be like, you enter a bar and you
hear buzzing of people talking and people are drunk, like
I would pay to picture for you, and you, as
(04:21):
a player, would decide I want to go up and
talk to the bartender and getting a bar fight or
you know, you would say what you want to do.
I would tell you, based on the rules of the game,
what whether or not you can do that, and what
will happen if you do. And that's largely determined by
rolling a D twenty dice and seeing if you succeed.
(04:44):
If you get a twenty good one very bad, you're
gonna lose that bar fight, Samantha, You're probably gonna lose,
lose all your money fall, and get your head stuck
in a buckets. Yes, yes you do, not a one
A very very bad. And so you create these characters.
(05:04):
You choose the race of like an elf, our human
or dwarf, and then the class which is like a
rogue or a thief character or major can do magic.
And then you roll for stats, and there are six
main stats, and there are things like charisma which did
yes used to be beauty points or sell old dexterity,
(05:27):
and constitution, and you determine on what you roll. That
determines if, like you're good being charismatic, if you're terrible
at being charismack, and then impacts yes, oh gosh, yes,
so you have kind of those base things. And then
there are worlds and maps and storylines that are already written.
(05:48):
So if I wanted to be a dungeon master, but
I didn't want to write a whole story, then I
can just get one of these and do it that way.
I of course like to make things really really complicated
for myself, so I homebrew as it's called, and that
means you write the entire story. So there is a base,
like there is something that you can just automatically use
(06:10):
or you can become creative, which is what I was
trying to figure out myself. It was like, what is
what's happening? And speaking of that, as you were talking
about dungeon masters or d m s, and obviously there's
been a whole I've I've noticed a Twitter back and
forth like it's a conversation and they're not arguing, but
more of a conversation about whether or not to change
the term masters. So a lot of people have talked
about using moderators and and then just doing the initials
(06:33):
the d M, the g M so and all of that.
That's a whole different level of conversation. But as I'm
reading and trying to figure out this scientific world of
dungeons and dragons that there's not too many women who
take on the d M or GM role. Can you
talk about that a little bit? Yeah, So for me,
(06:54):
when I first got into Dungeons and Dragons, I did
get into it because of Adu, and also because of
I thought it would help me figure out the ending
of this thing I was writing. If I had to
play as this character, what would she do? And also
help with the PTSD, which it's been said that it does.
But I the reason I put it off so long
was because I was afraid of the rules. It's there
(07:16):
are a lot of rules, and I thought it was
very technical. And if I start playing with people who
have already played, and a lot of them dudes like,
I'm just going to be scared the whole time to
do anything and I'm not going to do anything, which
I was. It was like that, not in terms of
people being mean to me at all, but it was
like that where I was just nervous that I was
going to screw up in heavy quotes, and it is
(07:38):
that kind of a It can be really vulnerable, especially
with the character I did, where you do have this
kind of close connection where it's like I felt so timid,
like well, she would do this, and unsure of just
how the rules work and not wanting to really screw up.
But I played for probably a year, and then it
(07:59):
became we didn't want the same person to have to
run the game again because it is a lot of work,
but no one else wanted to run it. I wanted
to keep playing, so I had to. If that was
the case, I had to do it. You had to
take up the mantle. I had to take up the mantle.
But I was extremely intimidated to do it. I will
say I had talked to friends about it and heard
(08:21):
about how being a woman and being a d M
they felt like they got called out more about like
rules knowledge and like are you sure I think I
can get away with it, you know, like kind of
being questioned. And these were friends of mine I was
playing with, so I wasn't really worried about that, although
and the heat of the game, people will be like,
are you know, get out that rule book right right?
(08:45):
And just because I had, I know the rule book
is huge. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm lucky that I play
with people who are pretty flexible unless it gets down
to it, then they want to know the rule but
you know, like you're more interested in the game moving
on smoothly than getting every real correctly. But I was,
you know, me Smith, I'm somebody who wants to get
those things correct. And then I started doubting myself so
(09:09):
I had to get over that, and I still get nervous,
Like I'm supposed to play tonight and I'm already nervous.
It's like hours away, just because you want people to
have a fun time, And then I will say something else.
I've never experienced this, but I have seen people experience
it or be afraid that they would. And I've been
(09:29):
afraid of it too, where you're as a woman worried
about sexists. It sounds so strange, but like basically being
treated misogynistically in a game, like your character being treated
that way. Um. So I've played with random people once
(09:50):
and it didn't happen, but I was nervous. They were
all guys, and I like, what if I'm the only
woman character in this game? What if they're like flirting
with me or like the male Dylan does something like
having that concern And I've heard of it happening, right, Um,
I could absolutely see that. Yeah, so that I've never
been afraid of that with the people I play with.
(10:12):
But somebody I did play with, she kind of had
I wouldn't call it a panic attack, but she removed
her character from a situation where we were all flirting
with like the guards and then she just was like, no,
I don't want to do this anymore. And I think
it's kind of that fear of like, what is this
going to escalate? To write? Yeah, yeah, so that's kind
(10:33):
of my in my experience. Yeah, I mean, and that's
that's what I'm just as I'm reading about why people
are pushing or who they are saying, and the fact
that there has to be justifications of saying literal articles.
I say, yes, women belong in D and D. You know,
stuff like that tells you, wait, who said they didn't? Okay,
there's a fight for this to even have to be
a conversation. And again, one of the things I talked
(10:56):
about with the d M uh and if it was
a minute, it parsus being a man the conversation was
like one of the benefits in having a female or
a woman to be the d M for this is
the fact that they're probably more likely to a anticipate
a lot more situations. As you've told me, this is
the one thing I know is that you have to
be ready for any and all possible situations that the
(11:18):
players are going to throw at you. A b as
well as the fact that you are a very creative storyteller,
and a lot of the times when it was just
all man, it was just all about mechanics and potaticalities
and instead of setting up a beautiful storyline. Um, and
that for a lot of Even though this is a
kind of a gendered conversation, but it has shown true
(11:39):
that women are more detail oriented in things like this
as well as willing to see a bigger story and
or a detailed story. And so that is a benefit
of having a woman to be the d M. Would
you agree with that? Yeah, in my in my experience,
for sure. And I I shuddered to think because our
big convenyce here Dragon Con. They have a whole floor
(12:02):
where you can play dungeons and dragons, And I just
feel like, what's going to happen if I ever decided
to d M that is, it's just gonna be dudes
attacking me for the rules. But the people I play
with are pretty balanced between men and women, And I
will say the thing that I've noticed anecdotally is that
women are more likely to recognize that it is a
(12:26):
game and there are rules and sometimes it's not worth
like questioning every single thing. Sometimes if you want the
story to move on, you have to just in the
back of your player brain be like, Okay, this is
a game, and if the if the dungeon master is saying,
here's this important flyer, I wouldn't do it that way.
(12:50):
But basically, if I'm drawing attention to certain things, you
should probably pay attention to those things instead of just
being like, I want to go that way, and then
I have to come up with thing completely different. That's
what I've noticed is like women are, they'll move it along, right.
And if if you're a good d M, which I
like to think I am, then that doesn't usually become
a problem. But you know, some players are just like, no,
(13:11):
I want to go do this, and okay, I think
that tells me that I don't need to be playing
dn D because I probably would be that player. No,
I can't tell me what to do I'm gonna do.
I think that I know you well enough, though I
could true my contrary and personality, you kind of already
know well. Thank you for answering me that, because, as
(13:32):
I said, I was trying to research it. I was like,
I really don't know anything about this. I just know
what Annie is doing, not the overall but speaking of
what Annie is doing, Annie, I need an update about
what's going on in your D and D world. I'm
going to try to keep this shirt because I could
go on and on it on. So the campaign I
(13:55):
was talking about when we first started our Trauma series,
where I tried to figure out the ending of that character,
I did think sure out how that story is. It's
very sad, of course, But after that, that was the
one I took and it was the first time I
ran a game. And that campaign just came to an
end a couple of months ago after three years. Three years,
(14:17):
I've had to figure out how to do it during Quarantine,
which involves like a two laptop setup and an overhead
camera and all this stuff, and it was really, I
have to say, it was really I felt seed in
a way. I wasn't sure I was ready to because
it was a very like upsetting storyline and I didn't
anticipate how I was like, do they think I'm like
(14:38):
messed up? Uh rpg huh, because they really investigated and
I was kind of hoping they wouldn't. But anyway, that
that's that's on me. The other one I'm doing I
started recently, so it's newer, and I have, of course
(15:02):
my poor cinnamon Roll, poor Prince cinnamon Roll has just
been kidnapped. In this world, it is a world of
very many Star Wars based puns, so many like snowby
one Canobi Shenanikins, which like imagine trying to keep a
straight face and perhaps to a voice when you're saying
(15:25):
these things. Uh. And I'm lucky that I play with
I play with really good friends of mine, and they
know me really well, so they try to get me
to say all the Star Wars puns. They'll try to
get their characters to get to the bottom of the
very intricate puns I've created. I still think, because we've
(15:45):
talked about this before, is you need to do a
Patriot because it involved savers co host Lauren as well
as a stuff they don't want you to know. Co
host Been is no old part of them too, remember no,
but he helps me write songs for it. Campaigns have
songs in it. I still think you need to do
like a live feed of or recording of you guys
(16:09):
playing at one point in time. I think people would
pay a little bit of money to see that we
actually talked about it we were going to try to
raise money for a charity. Funnily enough, this is you know,
always keep in mind if you're nervous, other people are
probably nervous too. Because they told me they were too
nervous at first to have it to play it and
have other people listen to it. But I bet they
(16:29):
would now now that they've played a little bit, they
got it. Yeah. They always do just the silliest thing
I think they can do, and twice they've completely broken
me as a dungeon master, where I just couldn't stop laughing.
One was of this time where Ben's character tried to
talk to some fish. I was trying to get them
(16:50):
to go fishing because they needed fish for a meal,
and he tried to talk to He put his wet
in the water and tried to talk to the fish,
and I could not stop laughing. I was like, you
could just go fishing, which is not very good as
a d M, but I could stop laughing. And then
and the most recent one, no one will get this
because it's holiday Best Star Wars Holiday Special Base, But
(17:12):
I was trying to get them to realize that Mala
needs to break up with Chewbacca, and she needs to
go hook up with either Mando Orlando. However, they completely
misinterpreted the situation and they're trying to get her to
hook up with Wicket, who was the e walk then,
and I could not I was dying laughing because they
were like writing notes and pretending they were from the
(17:34):
other character. That's amazing, It was so funny. Yeah, and
then I do have a character based on your dogs
and made the Peaches. I had made a request just
to please to her in there to make a lot
of mischief because I feel that represents both me and
my dog. Yes, and so Peaches basically the plot line
(17:58):
is that they have to go to eight cities and
get something in every city, and so far they're they're
on their third. They're on the way to tattooing essentially,
so the fourth city, and Peaches has shown up in
everyone and by now, because Peach just does cause so
much trouble, Like in the first one, she was like,
I told those guys over there and where you were.
They looked really angry, but maybe they just and so
(18:20):
they had to go fight those dudes. By now they
like grown. Yeah, I was gonna say, she's she's gotten
a quiet of reputation. They've never been my dog, but
she's got a reputation, and which I say. I want
her to be a lovable dog and she doesn't mean
to cause these mischiefs, just she doesn't happen to be.
(18:41):
I did toy with the idea that she would be
the big bat at the end, but I've dismissed it. Yeah,
they have turned it into a verb. Peaches mcfuzzin something
something up. Yeah. Yeah, so that's about again. I could
go on and on the right. They forgot what was
in their bag of oh listen thing. Oh yeah. So
(19:07):
thank you for sharing them with me, because again I
was like, yeah, let's just do something fun because we're
pretty heavy duty with our stuff lately, and this was
a good way of talking about gaming. And as we're
coming towards in the pandemic, we know we're gonna do
a little more face to face stuff. And though this
is a face to face thing, this has been a
nice distraction I think for you and for others to
(19:28):
be able to do this over video conferencing on all that.
So I wanted to talk about it and follow up
again because I think people love hearing what's going on
in these may believe worlds that I know nothing about, obviously,
but yeah, and and obviously a world that I don't
know much about and involving such a huge I mean,
(19:50):
the D and D is probably one of the most
popular games of all time essentially, and it's it's able
to connect a lot of people, like you talk about
how people work, people who work there, some of their trauma.
You've talked about the fact that you know, maybe some
daddy issues need the thing and able to find the
ending to your characters whatever in books. This is an
(20:12):
amazing outlet, So thank you for shading that with us.
Thank you for letting me talk about it. Um. I
do think as we were having this discussion, I realized
that the four groups of people I know that played
D and D, all of them have had a female
dam So I think it is having a resurgence. And
I do think, I know we talked about it in
(20:33):
the Susan care episode with Bridget It does these skills
that have been traditionally seen as more like in the
realm of women. But I mean, even if you just
want to build up skills of like project planning and
reading people, this is for you. You can do it.
You can do it. Yes, I'm sure there will be
more updates in the future, but until then, listeners, If
(20:56):
you're playing d n d oh, tell us about your character.
If you're running a game, tell us about your experience.
We would love to hear from you our emails, Stuff Media,
mom Stuff at I heart media dot com. You can
find us on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You
or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always
start a super producer, Christina, Thank you and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. Protection of
(21:16):
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