From Player to Dungeon Master: Patrick's Story

This week on TableTalk Friday, Seth sits down with his longtime friend Patrick to talk about what it’s really like running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign after years of only being a player. They dive into the challenges of becoming a Dungeon Master for the first time, battling imposter syndrome, and making the tough transition from player to DM.

Along the way, Seth and Patrick share personal D&D stories, laugh about past adventures, and even throw in a few rants about Wizards of the Coast. Whether you’re a new DM, a seasoned player, or just love hearing real tabletop RPG experiences, this episode is packed with advice, humor, and friendship.

🎲 Topics Covered:

• How to go from player to Dungeon Master successfully
• Overcoming DM imposter syndrome
• Real D&D campaign stories and lessons learned
• Player vs. DM perspectives in tabletop RPGs
• Thoughts on Wizards of the Coast changes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of Table Talk Friday, a D&D podcast. I'm your host, Oswin Alemaker, and I just wanted to tell you about three boys who love to talk about D&D. If you like their style, you should follow them on any podcast service you prefer, and come back every Friday for a new episode. And without any further ado, back to the boys!

SPEAKER_04: 0:26

Welcome to Table Talk Friday, a D&D podcast where two best friends are sitting in two separate bedrooms. We used to be all in one bedroom, and now we're in two separate ones. My name is Matthew Seth Reed, used to be Seth Pittman. A lot's changed in a year and a half, and I'm here today with Patrick Fonjami. Patrick, why don't you introduce

SPEAKER_02: 0:42

yourself a little bit? Hi, everyone. Patrick, I'm best friend of Seth. I've known him for, I want to say...

SPEAKER_04: 0:50

17? 17 years?

SPEAKER_02: 0:52

Yeah, a majority of my life. I think I was 10 when we met. Now I'm 27. Yeah,

SPEAKER_04: 0:59

oh gosh. It's been a really long time. Yeah, Patrick's been a consistent player in our campaign since we went to the same college. Both got into D&D around the same time. And yeah, he's been playing in my campaigns for years and years and years. And now here we are. Finally, he's been the DM for us for the past, what, four or five months? Yeah, I believe what's going on about that time, yeah. Jesus Christ, dude. I mean, it's been crazy, because I got to experience you starting out as a player, very beginning, and now coming into, like, you're DMing a great campaign for us. I've been loving every bit of it so far. I'm glad. But yeah, right here at the beginning, I just want to do some catching up. This is our first episode back in quite a long time, and it's just you and me. We don't have Zach today. We don't have Drew today. It's just you and me. You know, everybody's busy. Oh, no.

SPEAKER_02: 1:52

Glad to be

SPEAKER_04: 1:53

here. Okay, so how's it going? What have you been up to lately? Do you have any life updates for me, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:59

Let's see life updates. So I guess I'm still I'm a music teacher. I teach at a place called School of Rock. The way I describe it. Yeah, the way I yeah, the way I describe it is if you've seen the movie School of Rock with Jack Black. It is a carbon copy of what I do every day. I basically just teach kids rock and roll music all day. It's pretty awesome. That's essentially been a part of my life for the past 40 years now. And if I'm not teaching, I'm playing D&D and I'm playing Magic the Gathering. Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:37

That's kind of

SPEAKER_02: 2:37

it.

SPEAKER_04: 2:38

Speaking of magic, it's very topical right now. I literally just went through on Archidekt and uploaded all my stuff before we got on here because I usually try to keep my decks up to date, but I got a little behind. I was like two entire decks behind. But I loved the Final Fantasy drop. I've been having a great time with it. I made a whole Cloud deck. I made a whole Noctis deck. I crushed with the Noctis deck at a store near me like last week. But what have you been doing with that lately? Because I know your experience with it is a lot more than mine. You've been playing for years and years more than me. So I want to know what you actually do when you play Magic now.

SPEAKER_02: 3:14

So, yeah, I'll just be the first to admit it. I'm a hater in the Magic community, but I like to say I'm a good hater. I'm not like a, you know, I'm not a meanie. You're talking about Universes Beyond? I'm talking about universes beyond. That includes the Final Fantasy sets, the Doctor Who sets, anything that is like an already existing IP. If it is turning into a magic card, me personally, I'm just... I'm not... I'm not for it. That being said, what I do recognize is that it will continue the game to not die. And that is one thing that it was... starting to turn into the game was slowly like you know going away in popularity and now with this big resurgence of oh my gosh we have cloud oh my gosh we have sonic the hedgehog it's a little out there for me i'll be honest i know no i know but but i guess i've i i'm happy i've got my two decks in fact i just i got a promo yesterday and of a new legendary that I've never gotten before, and I started doing some brewing this morning, and I might make a third deck. Because you said you're down to two now, right? Yeah, yeah. So my issue is the decks that I make, I like specific play styles, and I've tried almost every play style that there ever really can be, and I just don't have fun with it. like I do have it with my other two decks. So I've got my two decks. So I'm cool with just playing those. And if everyone wants to play their, you know, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog, Rick Grimes, you know, have contact. Great. Awesome. But yeah, but again, I hold that opinion to myself just because, again, I do not care what you play as long as we're playing Magic the Gathering. I just... I came into the game loving the medieval fantasy aspect of it, which is really what drew me to D&D, was this idea of these really cool artworks and this, I don't know, a game that I kind of understood.

SPEAKER_04: 5:40

Right, and like say for the Forgotten Realms set and the Baldur's Gate set, it makes total sense, right? Because it's fully fantasy, it's Wizards of the Coast, all of that. Makes sense, it feels in-universe. I agree with a lot of the Universes Beyond stuff. Like, I'm not going to play Spider-Man, I'm going to be honest. You know, I love Spider-Man, I love Marvel. This set is already like as expensive as the Final Fantasy one when it comes out. And as well as a lot of the mechanics in it are really cool, make a lot of sense. But I'm like, I really don't want... to have Venom hopping out against my wizard. Yeah. I mean, and that's not out of place in the Marvel Universe, right? You know, Doctor Strange versus these villains, but I'm not a big fan of all of that. But at the same time, a lot of the in-universe sets that have been coming out, too, I haven't been a fan of. I like some of the cards in Aether Drift. Lute the Pathfinder, big fan of him as a commander. But at the same time, not really into... Not really into the theming of Aether Drift altogether. Had a good time with Tarkir and then this, the space one, Edge of Eternities that's coming out. I'm like a little bit iffy on. I mean, I think sci-fi, very cool altogether. And the cards mechanics, very cool. I'm just a little magicked out. I just came back from Magic Con with my wife and one of my friends and one of my other friends. And that was so much fun. So yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of magicked out. I'm excited to play. I have nine decks. I have nine commander decks, and normally I'm like, all right, I'm going to take these four with me, and I end up playing two of them. See,

SPEAKER_02: 7:16

that's

SPEAKER_03: 7:16

my thing.

SPEAKER_02: 7:17

That's my thing. Whereas other people have all these decks, and they'll play it once every two months, and then it will inevitably get taken apart. and it will be used to either upgrade another deck or to go towards another new commander that kind of is like this other commander that you had, but it's new, so let's just move everything. So it's just this constant state of just retrying new things.

SPEAKER_04: 7:49

Yeah, and I know this is like a full-on D&D podcast, but Magic is Wizards of the Coast, and that's been pretty topical lately because I know Wizards is doing all of this specifically because they want to, like, Fortnite-ify... magic and they're kind of trying to as far as i'm hearing do the same thing with dnd they want to partner with people to make like setting books and stuff so that way they can you know make more money off of the property because the one dnd or like dnd 2024 books they didn't do that well they didn't sell that well why because it's kind of like 5e 5e has a lot of stuff for it. Most people who got into it, got into it with 5e and are used to 5e. And that's what I'm used to. I love playing 5e and I don't anticipate ever buying the new player's hand. I got, look at all these books. I got all these books back here. Like our system works good.

SPEAKER_02: 8:46

No, I agree. So I also, I do have a library as well. I do have the Player's Handbook, the new Player's Handbook, and I think I have the new DMG. I haven't read the new DMG yet, but the Player's Handbook is just like... My take on it... Oh, sorry, you're going to see my cat. My cat is Vader. Yeah. Sorry. You're fine, you're fine. But one thing that I kept really just seeing was this new D&D 2024 is just they took 5e. And they were like, okay, we have some small minor things that we should have or want to put into D&D. But the problem is, it's hard to do that with already established 5e stuff. Right. So, I don't know. I just feel like it's a little bit... It's like 5e+, but...

SPEAKER_04: 9:47

It is. It really is. And I guess if you're really wanting to keep on the cutting edge of D&D stuff, it makes perfect sense to go in and get that. Keep updating your system. I do think a lot of the systems in 2024 are an improvement on the 5e systems. But with our group, who's been playing for, what, six, seven years together, longer than that maybe, we've been playing for this long together. I'm personally not interested in reading a whole nother book and being like, okay, everybody, we're doing what we were doing exactly, but changing these five things. And I need everybody to spend a hundred dollars to do it. Like,

SPEAKER_02: 10:27

yeah, go ahead. So I, I, I also DM with my, my coworkers at the school. And one of the first things I just, I told them, cause this was, this was right when 2024 was like coming out. I was like, okay, Whatever you see, just do not read into anything that just has the 2024 or 1 D&D. I was like, just look at 5E. It's just, it's going to be confusing. I haven't even gone through it all, but it's now, you're going to see that it's a new, it's the new standard of D&D. I'm like, we, the great thing about D&D and the great thing about this great game is that you can make it up as you go and you can set the rules yourself. So it's like, okay, we're using our, we're using our already established years worth of source material. We're good with just this.

SPEAKER_04: 11:25

Or like, for instance, some of the stuff, like for instance, in the spell jammer setting, when you said make up the rules as you go, when Zach was like, Hey, are we going to do the whole like gravity plane shifting thing when we get in like range of another celestial body? And I was like, no, no, I was like, no, we're not. You're not going to fly next to a ship and then everybody's falling into space. I'm not going to sit here and think about how that science works. We're going to say you have a gravity field and they have a gravity field. And in the middle, it swaps. And that way you can manipulate it how you feel. Like Mario Galaxy. That's how this is going to work. Exactly. So, yeah, not a huge fan of... of how Wizards has been doing everything. It feels very much like they're trying to cash grab everything. And I understand that in the trading card space, like we just talked about, because you can do it. Everyone's going to buy the cards. I've been lucky enough to pull cards that are expensive enough that I can trade for the ones I want. Like I was able to trade a really nice unit card for a lightning army of one card for like, and to pay an extra dollar. And I was like, this is good. It's like equivalent exchange here. So luckily in that space, I can, if I just want a card or two, I can do that. In the D&D space, I'm being expected to spend the price that I could pay for a full price game for these books that I read one fourth of. And then the rest I make up as I go. That's why I actually wanted to bring up with you how you feel about like all the critical role dagger heart stuff. I haven't gotten to talk to anybody about it. Not necessarily for us, like, you know, switching in our play group, just how you feel about it as

SPEAKER_02: 12:59

like a whole. So I'm going to be honest with you. I don't want to sound like old fashioned. I'm very like Wizards of the, if it is, it needs to be Wizards of the Coast sanctioned sources. Yeah. So I personally have not looked into any of the Critical Role stuff. When it comes to like stuff like that, in terms of like consuming D&D content, I learned early on that I try like watching Critical Role. Because everyone's like, oh my gosh, you play D&D? Watch Critical Role. I'm like, that's great, right? And then it just... I would always be watching and then I would always say to myself, I want to be in this campaign. I want to be... I need to be a part of it. And I'm like, it made it difficult to watch because I'm like, oh my gosh, all these decisions. I'm like RPing myself, yelling at my TV and it's just... So I haven't personally given that any look. I might. I might. It's always good to just see and try out new things. And

SPEAKER_04: 14:07

one of the things I wanted to mention on it is Daggerheart as a system is based around mostly theater. If you're thinking about Daggerheart, it's two D12s for the players, right? You roll it. You have one die that's a bad die. You have one die that's a good die. I'm going to dumb it down a lot because I haven't read all the mechanics. One die is a good die. One die is a bad die. you roll it, if you roll higher on the bad die, you add them together, see if you succeed the check in a bad way or a good way, and then you roll higher on the good die, good things happen, and see if you succeed the check with the numbers adding together. It's a little more complicated than the way I just explained it, but it's a little more simple as far as dice rolling and mechanics goes, But there's a lot of character building mechanics that are really cool and world building mechanics that kind of make it like a collaborative effort and less like all the stuff on the DM to throw everything together and then jump into this huge campaign. There's a little more, I want to say it's a little more share the love as far as the story goes. And like spotlight mechanics as far as like, hey, this person is the spotlight right now. Let them have their moment. Move on to the next person. This person's on the spotlight right now. So it seems cool. I would like to try it with like a little short, like a one off or like maybe a little three off or something like that. Try it out. See if we like it. But I still anticipate doing 5E for the foreseeable future. Yeah. Just because it's comfortable. It's comfortable. It's easy. We all know what to call at all times. When we have a consistent play group like this, I feel like that's the way you kind of have to bake it in is like, this is what we're used to. It's kind of like if you play Commander, right? With a group of four every week. Hey, these are our house rules. And when we all sit down, we all know 5e really quick. I can make a character in a few minutes that's going to fit our campaign. I could sit there and quickly be like, okay, I'll play this class, this subclass, this will be his name, he's got a backstory kind of based around this area, and then if I need to, I can make up the rest on the spot. Exactly. The hardest part will be like, okay, I need to make sure my voice is different than my other voice that I did. So yeah, I just wanted to get like a little temp check on you for that, see if you knew anything about it, because Dagger Arc seems like a really cool system, especially if you're just trying to mostly do storytelling, but... lighter on combat and stuff, but if you like tactical combat, which I think everybody at our table does, going into combat, thinking about spacing and exactly where you're going to aim the spell and making sure you're positioned in exactly the right place, I think all of us really like that Fire Emblem style combat that we're doing. Because I know I do. I really enjoy also having our storytelling, our RP, and our video game section where it's like, this four hours we are just... killing

SPEAKER_02: 16:52

yeah exactly i will say over the years i don't know retaining five like just like the knowledge of dnd has gotten a lot quicker like i will say there was like a period of time like maybe three years ago where i would spend an entire day making a character or like drew still does that yeah exactly and and there's something there again there's still days where i'm like oh, Christ, I do not have a character. And I'm like, oh, what do I do? And then I'm just like, okay. And then I go to think, and then something comes up, and I'm like, okay, I guess we're going with it. And then I trust myself. And then I always trust that my group will feed off of it. In fact, that's why I think the campaign is going so good, is because unironically, you guys are doing everything that I have hoped you guys were doing. Right. And it's just been paying off very well. And once again, my character lost their arm.

SPEAKER_04: 17:55

So... That did happen. That did happen. Unfortunately. I mean, we can go into talking about you DMing a little bit. Because, well, first I want to go back to when you were playing, right? Because I was with you for your first session of D&D as the DM. And then all the way up until now, where you're DMing me. Which, before this, I did not have that much fun playing. Like, playing, I mean. I had fun DMing. DMing was all I really liked to do because I enjoyed telling the story, reacting to you guys, kind of being in charge of entertainment for the night, right? Because that's really what it is. You as the DM throw the party. And so I was like, before, I really enjoyed just being the person who threw the party every time. Like, hey, we're playing it this time. I'm running it. I'm hosting. Prepare these couple of things. And, you know, for Descent into Avernus, Storm King's Thunder, and now me doing Spelljammer in our off time, like, That's what I like to do. But now, this is the first time in a while that I've enjoyed playing my character. I'm like, man, I'm ready for the next session. Because I enjoyed when Zach ran Curse of Strahd, of course. I enjoyed playing in those games, but I always preferred DMing. But I actually enjoy now sitting down for the game and being like, I'm hands off. I just get to have the story told to me. And I show up and react as Genesis, my cleric. So props to you because I'm very much enjoying the game so far. Thank you. So my question is, what was your first experience as a player and how did that lead to you wanting to DM?

SPEAKER_02: 19:32

Awesome. Yeah, so I guess my first experience as a player, I remember it vividly because I remember you just looking at me and you were like, absolutely not. Why would you? No. I don't remember what happened. No, so this was Storm King's Thunder. It might have been, like, the second session. And we had just got into Nightstone. Okay. And we discovered Eknon's... It was father or mother who was, like, smashed. But we found the other mother or father equivalent.

SPEAKER_04: 20:08

Yeah, so his mom was alive. His dad had died in the attack.

SPEAKER_02: 20:12

There we go. And so... I texted one of the other party members. I forgot who it was at the time. But I was like, wouldn't it be really funny if my character, Daedalus, just killed Eknon's mom? Yeah, okay, I remember this. And so I was like, that sounds like a great idea. I was like, this is D&D. I can do whatever I want. Let's just kill somebody. And so I was like, Seth, I have a question. And you're like, yeah, what's up? I'm like... All right. So I can't say it out loud because obviously Drew, Eknon's character is like sitting right next to me. So I'm like, I show him the text and he just, and again, he looks at me and he's like, no, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_04: 20:57

Because yeah, I think, I think when you were new, it was more like, we're just sitting down to have fun, right? Let's be funny. Let's do something chaotic. And you know, At the time, I had already DMed a 13 session camp, 11 to 13 session, somewhere in there, campaign for a different group. So I knew the basic do's and do nots of a story. And so I was like, I rarely say no, right? Like you ask me anything, you're like, hey, I'm making a character. I want to make this creative item. Can I do it? Very rarely am I going to say no. That was definitely one of the times where I was like, no, you'll make Eknon hate you. And then you'll get you'll have to get kicked out and make a new character. And then we're not going to enjoy playing because we're going to think you're going to do it again.

SPEAKER_02: 21:42

Yeah, no, I think so. I want to say for like the first half of Storm King's Thunder, it was really a lot of me truly just trying to figure out how to play the game. And it would always just be like the I remember the thing we would always joke about be like, hey, Patrick, check your character sheet for a second. Oh, wait, you've had this ability this entire time, and you haven't been using it. Like, I was... Daedalus was a War Mage, and he was the Arcane Reflection, or... Yeah, it was like, you get plus two AC as a

SPEAKER_04: 22:16

reaction when something's coming at

SPEAKER_02: 22:18

you. Yeah. Never used that. I remember that, too. I also remember I never once applied the proficiency bonus to the abilities. Oh, my God, yeah. So, like... For example, my Arcana was like, I want to say a plus two at level 15. I think at one point we were at that level. Or like 13. So it wasn't until the end of Storm Kings going into Avernus where I kind of had that shift where I was like, okay, I think I'm kind of understanding it. Now I kind of need to take it a little bit serious. And then we got into Avernus. Now Avernus, I like to say that I had a plan for Avernus, and the plan just absolutely failed. And just right off the rip. Describe your plan. Yeah, of course. So my character in this campaign was Varys. Like Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones, specifically, because at that point, I had just finished the series for the first time. Yeah. And I thought he was like the coolest character. So I was like, all right, that's it. I had

SPEAKER_04: 23:29

also just finished Game of Thrones. And you said, my character's name is Varys. And I was like, oh, so Game of Thrones. But you were a lizard folk.

SPEAKER_02: 23:37

I was a lizard folk. And I was a way of mercy monk. Very merciful. Very merciful monk. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, don't worry. He heals all the

SPEAKER_04: 23:47

time. Helping everyone out.

SPEAKER_02: 23:51

Yeah, so I want to say for... We did that campaign for, I want to say, like two and a half years,

SPEAKER_00: 23:58

right?

SPEAKER_02: 23:58

Yeah, it was almost three years, I think. It was

SPEAKER_04: 24:01

89

SPEAKER_02: 24:02

sessions over the course of like three years. 89 sessions. Okay, so over 89 sessions. So with the way of Mercy Monk, their big thing is that they can use their ki points to heal. And cure disease. And cure disease. In those 89 sessions, I might have done it, I want to say, five times on myself only. And there could be situations where, like, there would be party members who were at, like, two health. They were... Plenty. Disease. Plenty of health. They were... Yeah, or just, like, they were just... They were like, hey, let's quickly heal. Let's... Hey, Varys... Since monks get their ki back after a short rest, why don't you dump your ki into healing? Varus would go, nah, nah, let's not do that. And so it got to about the halfway point in Avernus where I think the switch finally clicked on and I was like, oh, I've been playing this game incorrectly this entire time. And so then it was, okay, well now I kind of need to play Varus a little bit better. So then I tried multiclassing with Varus and that Also didn't work out that well. But in the end, it was a good character. I think his ending was amazing. She sailed off with Captain Benny out to sea to find treasure and whatnot.

SPEAKER_04: 25:31

Yeah, I think Varys' whole thing at the beginning was like, hey, I gotta get revenge on these people, and then he, like, works on doing that, and then is like, oh, well, I mean, I know there are higher-ups in the city, but I'm gonna try to take over their villa and become a higher-up in the city, and then it was very clear, like, they were too high up to take over. And then you recruited some pirates, you sent them out to find stuff for you, we did a whole one-off around that, come back, and then... finish out Descent into Avernus very I loved Varys I thought he was a great character but yes you're correct it was very I could tell you had a plan at first where you're like you named him Varys you wanted to have all the secrets and stuff right and then none of that stuff came up

SPEAKER_02: 26:11

no and and to be fair I think it was me not writing a good backstory and it was still I was still thinking I had the wrong mindset with D&D and I was like I was thinking like oh, this is just going to be like an anime. I'm just going to be like anime, and we're going to be good. I'm going to roll some dice, maybe do a weird voice, and I'll be good.

SPEAKER_04: 26:31

Well, and to be fair, I do tend to describe a lot of things very anime-like when we play our games. So we do go there pretty often.

SPEAKER_02: 26:39

Oh, of course, but it was just this idea of, you see animes, and you see all these crazy fight scenes, you see these epic speeches. And just like this, just really just like a crazy experience. And you're like, I want to do that. And then it's, it's like, you know, over time you start realizing it's like, okay, let's, let's start benefiting the story. Let's start, let's make like a good character that can like benefit things like the party or, you know, maybe like leaning more into like a backstory. So thankfully you bought back spell jammer because the backstory that I have for that campaign is like, Very cool. Yeah. I believe he is a warlock, and I believe he's an animal. I'm using the Tome of Heroes sourcebook.

SPEAKER_04: 27:32

So I use a lot of third-party stuff, just for anybody listening. I use a lot of third-party stuff. I approve Kobold Press classes, which includes the Tome of Heroes and stuff like that. If you show it to me and you're like, I really want to play this, and I read over it, and I go, it doesn't seem broken, then I'll usually allow it at the table. especially when it comes to magic items and stuff. Classes can be a little iffy, but Tome of Heroes has a lot of these smoke powder classes and stuff like that. So I was like, I really want to include guns in space, so I'm going to do that. So I allowed those subclasses to be used. And I think it's really fun so far. Yeah. Yeah, as far as your new character, you were talking about the backstory and everything.

SPEAKER_02: 28:11

Yeah, so I put myself on the spot here trying to remember a backstory. So I do know that he is an animal patron warlock. And the one thing that I wanted to really encapsulate was I wanted to have like a Minsc and Boo type character, but not obviously Minsc and Boo. So what I what I created was I created this like gentleman like dude. They're like like a very like spiffy scholar man. And eventually, I will get a little space hamster companion that will also be like a spiffy lad as well. And we're kind of, I believe we're researchers, and I believe we are just documenting events in space, I want to say. And it's like, I believe my motivation was... I was just going to document the voyage, I want to say. I

SPEAKER_04: 29:06

mean, you guys are... You're on enough of a voyage right now. You're in uncharted territory for the Rock of Brawl. So it's good to have your characters there for them. So, yeah, no. As a player, I've had a very pleasant experience having you around. I always thought it was funny how much chaos you and Sean both brought to the table because having both of you there all the time would make a lot of chaos happen. While I find that... Drew and Zach tend to build heavier relationships, make everybody at the table feel something. You and Sean always would bring about, you would always go somewhere that I never pictured the session going, and it would always make it better than what I had pictured in my head. So that was always fun. I wanted to bring up the one joke we always used to make every time something would come up, and you wouldn't know what it was, and we'd be like, don't worry, guys, he's new. He's new. He's never played before. He's new. This is his first session.

SPEAKER_02: 30:03

Yeah, we were like three years into, we were like year two into Avernus. We had played Storm King's Thunder and it's like, Patrick, you can't cast a cantrip after you've casted hate. Guys, sorry. I'm very new. I haven't done it before. The big one in Storm King's Thunder was casting Dimension Door and then wanting to Firebolt after. Yeah. I would like consistently... It works in Baldur's Gate, to be fair. It does. It does. Another thing that I always would do was I would dimension door maybe 30 feet straight across. Yeah, that would happen. That would happen a lot. I don't know. I just think as sort of like as the years go by, I kind of just... I learned a lot from you guys and I kind of just... I wanted to... like really take this game seriously. So I just, just dove in. Yeah. I just wanted, I just consumed everything. And I was like, I'm going to know how to play this game because I was like, I am not going to be the hindrance in the party. And so I don't know. I, I, I now I'm like, you know, spent hundreds of bucks on books and, you know, dice and everything. But I, I love this game and I, I, I, It's awesome. Anytime anyone mentions D&D at the school, I'm always like, do it. And they're always like, Patrick, how are you able to play D&D? I'm like, well, listen. I'm like, I tell everyone, the hardest thing to play about playing D&D is finding a group and then a time that works for everybody. Because I'm like, listen, I've got a friend who's in the army and I've got a friend who's in EMT. I was like, and somehow we make that work? I'm like... I'm like, listen, there are some times where we'll miss like a month, but we'll come back. And it's like, we never, we never missed that time.

SPEAKER_04: 32:04

Yeah. And it's, it's never like wherever, like we're never close to canceling a campaign, right? Like I was on a hiatus for over a year, like almost a year and a half, or like, I didn't come to anything. And, you know, I would show up for a one-off every now and then I would run something every now and then, but like, I was gone for the better part of two years almost. And yet I jumped back in and it's like, I was never gone. So, and I expect that it will happen to someone else too. Like maybe Sean will start his whole EMT thing and get really busy and not be able to make it for a while. And he'll be able to jump back in like it's nothing. Maybe Zach will move all the way across the country and something will come up and he'll have to take a backseat for a while. I expect that those things are going to happen to everybody. You know, I'm glad that, you know, I know everybody was skeptical when I came back, right? Like, I don't know if he's really going to be able to make time or anything for it.

SPEAKER_02: 32:52

There was definitely... There was a period of maybe two or three weeks where I think you were texting more consistently. Because there were times where we would get a singular text once a month. Yeah. But then the text started turning into three a week. And then nearly daily, we're like, okay, is he in? Because at this point, we were in our Theros campaign that Sean had ran during this kind of period where you were gone.

UNKNOWN: 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:25

And we all were like, wait, so is Seth going to join Theros? Like, we all were convinced that you were going to join Theros.

SPEAKER_04: 33:31

I was pretty close, too. And then it turned out I still was very stressed out and ready to jump off a building. I was like, I was still so stressed that I was like, I don't think I can. I don't think I can join in on a D&D campaign right now. I'm too much. Because it did become, when I was in training, like, getting... I needed to not be on base on the weekends. Like I needed to leave. I needed to not be here because I needed to be somewhere else. And so I would go, that's when I got into Magic, right? I went and I went and I played Magic at a store off base. Or I would go, we would drive all the way to Tucson when I was in Arizona and go to go play Magic at the malls there. Zach came out for a business thing one time and we went out to a store there and I taught Zach how to play Magic. So that became a big hobby while I was there. Some days I would just be like, I would be in my room when you guys were playing, but I'd be like, I can't speak to anybody. I can't do it. And so I would sit there on my Steam Deck or something and I would just play. And then at the same time, you know, I'm a married man now. I did find that there were times when I was not stressed and I was free that I was like, okay, when we weren't married yet and stuff, or even when we were, where I'd be like, I need to call and talk to my wife today. so that way we can make sure our relationship is still solid. And that was something I told Zach when I was texting him. I was like, dude, I have time today to play, but I'd rather spend it with her because we were long distance for over a year. A year and one day. We were long distance. Wow. So... Yeah, those things ended up taking precedent over D&D, but then once I got here and we lived together and everything, it turned out like, hey, I can spare four or five hours once a week. And it ended up being a lot better because I was genuinely like, am I not going to be able to play D&D ever again? And luckily it turned into me being able to play with this campaign. And now I'm comfortable to the point where I'm like, I can start the podcast up. I can probably DM again, hopefully, whenever... whenever we get there. But okay, one big thing for me with you is I wanted to ask where your DMing journey started because it didn't start with us.

SPEAKER_02: 35:44

So no, it did not. So it originally started around like two and a half years ago when my coworkers just all put me in a group chat and they were like, hey, we heard you play D&D. We all decided preemptively we want to play D&D. Can you teach us? And at this time, I was... I had always... I had this... I had this campaign that I had been writing for a while since the end of Storm King's Thunder. And it was essentially a follow-up to where I ended Daleth's story. And I had always... And I had just been writing that. I had just been, you know, adding to it every now and then, just... slowly cultivating it over time. And when they asked me, my first thought was, it's like, do I, I was like, okay. It's like, do I think about it? I'm like, okay. So I have never DM'd. The story isn't technically done, but what I have could, you know, cover a big portion. And these are all like a hundred percent new players who are I know for a fact, do not treat it with the same level as my other group. So I'm like, I'm like, okay, okay. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, sure. I'm like, yes. So I, so we go in, I teach them all. This is a campaign of seven people, which is a lot too many, too many. That's not a lot. It's not an understanding. It's too many. I've, I've done it before. Yeah. Yeah. It was very hard. But the big thing that, I did with them is I really had to dumb down a lot of the rules because I was also, that was what I called my learning campaign because I had always wanted to DM something with you guys. I just was like, I know the caliber of you, Zach and Sean and Drew. And I was like, yeah, I at least want to, you know, know what I'm doing so that I'm not like stumbling every like five seconds going like, Maybe do this or maybe do that.

SPEAKER_04: 38:05

So... When you say caliber, what were you thinking at the time? As far as... You felt like you had to live up to something? Is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_02: 38:14

No, so it was... I had seen... I had been in part of two campaigns, dozens of one-offs, and to my magic, they were all amazing. And I was like... Well, I really want to make sure that my thing is amazing. So I was like, I kind of wanted to test drive it first to kind of see how I did. And then if it went well, I was going to bring it forward to you guys, essentially. It was mainly, do I know the rules of DMing? It was mainly that. So I wouldn't have to always go like, hey guys, what does this mean? Hey guys, what does this mean? So, so I did that campaign with them. We did, it took about two years to finish. It was a majority, a heavy RP based campaign. And it really, the one thing that I really wanted to, that they were kind of not a big fan, big, they were not really vibing with was like RPing and, And like pushing like a story or doing things like, like, let's say a character has a question for another character. They would ask me and I would go ask them in character. I'm like, if you have the question, I don't have the answer. What if they have the answer? Maybe their character could role play it. And then they're like, oh yeah, yeah. And then it's like very like, it's very, you know, like, hey, where are you from? I'm from the mountains. Okay, bye. And then it's like... That's wild. And then that's all. And it's like there's so many layers. There was... So there was this big story moment that they just completely skipped over because they did not want to walk down a hallway.

SPEAKER_04: 40:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 40:18

They essentially... I basically was like, all right, guys... You see this hallway before you. It just leads down and they have an ascending stairwell. And basically at the top of the stairwell was going to be this like essentially like a control room that had a bunch of like levers that would open a bunch of doors. And they essentially were like, no, we kind of want to just leave this spot and we just never want to come back here. Yeah, I'm not really feeling this place anymore. Yeah. And they did a lot of that. It was a lot of they liked it. Essentially, if I had like a presented an idea, they were like, oh, we are going left field with it all the way. And one thing I will say that to their credit, it really helped force me to act on my feet. Because genuinely, I would not know what they would think of. But as a DM, I also wanted to be like, I also don't like saying no. My thing is, if you can justify it to me, if you can justify it, cool.

SPEAKER_04: 41:27

I mean, that's exactly how I treat it too. If it makes logical sense, I'll give an example. One time, our friend Lanky Eric, he once told me he was going to turn into a cat and that he was going to jump up to a window. And I said, the window's 15 feet up. And he goes, cats can jump really high.

UNKNOWN: 41:46

Really high.

SPEAKER_04: 41:46

And I said, cats can't jump 15 feet. He goes, cats can jump from like the ground on top of a fridge. And I said, fridge isn't 15 feet high. And so I looked, he, and he looks up and shows me a video of a cat jumping on top of a fridge. And I go, like Eric, the fridge, I was like average height of fridge, six feet. And I was like, you can't jump up to a 15 foot window. If you make a really good check, like athletics check, I'll say that you can run up and find enough like claw holds to make it up there, but you're not verting. 15 feet, and he rolled a nat 1, and I went, you don't make it to the

SPEAKER_02: 42:21

window. Yeah, seeing that, I have another example. So when we would do combat, they were of the belief of, if I slashed with a sword, a body part should come off. Yeah, so, like, for example, anytime someone was wielding a sword... without hesitation, I'm going to attack his neck to cut off his head. And I would always say, you can try to do that. I'll tell him, just point blank, you need a nat 20. I was like, if you get a nat 20, that can happen. Other than that, you won't be able to cut the head off. And it would be head, arm, leg, ear, literally anything. There was like... but it's sword combat. I'm like, yeah, right. But it's like, but you don't get

SPEAKER_04: 43:15

it. Every time you hit with the sword, you don't direct hit them. Like you move, like this person moves a little bit and it slashes them and they get a little Nick in their armor that they're wearing. Like even like sometimes you can even count a hit, like a slashing damage hits their leather and breaks into it and hits like the bludgeoning, like from the leather hitting their arm does damage, but maybe they don't even go all the way through the leather.

SPEAKER_02: 43:36

Exactly.

UNKNOWN: 43:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 43:38

So there was a lot of that stuff too. But again, it would always be, okay, you have to make the roll. Or they would ask something like a weird request. I'd be like, you can. I have a number in my head. Let's see if you can get that number. And then they would roll and I would go, unfortunately, that was not the number. And then they're like, oh, dang it. And then they'd think of something else. And then they just it just gets totally the tone changes. Everything changes off of that one reaction. So I was very happy. And I was very determined that once I finished that campaign, I was like, OK. Clearly, I don't want to do this Dayleth follow up campaign just because I was like, I just. Another time.

SPEAKER_04: 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:35

Another time. So then I was like, okay, I think I can trust myself enough to where I can maybe put something together. And I think it could be good with our group. And so then that's when I started thinking about this current campaign.

SPEAKER_04: 44:51

And where did you get the basis? Because so we canonically say, you know, it all takes place in the same forgotten realms, but our forgotten realms, because so much has happened in it. And so you made up a city, you made up this whole little area, which is very wonderful. I like living in it. Where did you get all the ideas from? And give us a little rundown

SPEAKER_02: 45:11

of what it's all about. Yeah, of course. So the working title for the campaign is called The Lost Citadel. I saw a sourcebook at a game store, and I kind of like the name, The Lost Citadel. So the campaign has no mentioning of a citadel. In fact, I don't think the Horde Citadel did not come up in the campaign. But basically, so the first thing I wanted to decide was, do I want to do, like, a large-scale campaign, or do I want to, like, short-scale it and, like, kind of make everything more like a Curse of Strahd feel versus, like, a Storm King Thunder feel where we were going to, like, city, city, you know, realms upon realms. And so... Kind of like the first kind of ideas that I got. So the idea, sort of the base of the story, you all are residents of this mega city called Sindraluna. And in this city, it is occupied by predominantly followers of the goddess Saluna, who is, her whole deal is the moon. So she's known as the moon maiden. And you slowly... go on these small little quests, and eventually the party has found a weird, magical purple plant. And they have been figuring out what the cause of this plant is, and sort of what the plant does. And... I don't know, it's really... Needless to say,

SPEAKER_04: 46:51

from what I'm getting so far, being a player in the campaign... People are turning into zombies from these plants. Kind of sucks. Happened to me. Lost an arm because of it because I got a little too... I can overpower this type deal. And all of our characters are worshippers of Saluna. And we're trying to get to the bottom of what the heck is this? Where does it come from? Who is this goddess that's trying to corrupt us? And how do we fix it? Yes. And not only that, but there's an upper city and then there's like an underground city called Azure Alley that's also... like just as big as the upper part of the city and we spent a majority of the campaign in that under city area yeah so far and it's been awesome down there like that's been that's been the coolest part is since we got underground because i thought we were going to walk in it was going to be like the the under mountain where we had to like fight every five seconds no we walk in and it's like we're walking around we're talking to high highfalutin individuals we're talking to characters from our old campaigns that you, so I know one of your big things for the campaign was your old characters all like have something to do with this place.

SPEAKER_03: 47:59

Yeah. And so they

SPEAKER_04: 48:00

keep circling back around where I'm like, we know this person, we do know this person. Oh my God, how did he get here? Why did he get here? And then it'll like slowly get revealed to us. And we're like, that's why they're here. That's what's going on.

SPEAKER_03: 48:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 48:13

So I've really enjoyed that, having those little Easter eggs dropped at us. But then you also have your three factions that are underneath in Azure Alley, who also, like, we have been a big player in deciding who is in power down here, which was also a lot of fun. And now we're about to wrap up this first arc we're going into where we're going back up to the top to stop this, like, blight from taking over the

SPEAKER_02: 48:37

city. Yes. So to kind of just keep continuing on with... with sort of how the city was set up. One thing that I wanted to do was tell a story. And it was just this story of this idea that not everything is as it seems. So right in the beginning of the campaign, you're introduced to Sindraluna. It's a beautiful utopia for Saluna followers. Predominantly, everyone there follows Saluna. And it's very nice. Everything that you would ever need is in this city, so you don't really need a lead. So it's essentially a utopia. And as they've gone through each session, they're kind of slowly starting to learn that Sindra Luna, at its start, has kind of got some weird undertones to it. In fact, Seth, you unfortunately missed the one-off, the Naeritha one-off.

SPEAKER_04: 49:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 49:41

That kind of detailed some backstory lore for the construction of Syndra Luna.

SPEAKER_04: 49:47

Yeah. Which we'll delve into that, like, for our next session, right? I'll probably learn about what actually happened there. Yeah, and I thought a really cool thing, since we're all Seluna followers, was, like, my character's a cleric of Seluna. We all talk about her all the time. We're all, like... very diehard worshipers yet at the same time our characters as opposed to a lot of the ones up top are willing to help the people who don't worship saluna while the ones up top are very much like uh there's word of this undercity kind of thing where people are exiled to but nobody talks about it nobody acknowledges it like those people just don't belong up here which has been a a big crazy thing for us where we're down here, we're meeting people. We're like, these people are just like us. Like these people are like, a lot of them are good people. And so that's, that's been a big awakening where we're all like, oh, it's for the moon made and it's for this, but we don't go further into that. We're just like, yep, that's why it's happening. So I'm excited to figure out what happens with that along the way. If anybody falls out of the religion or if anybody like changes how they feel about these kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02: 50:53

Oh, so we might, uh, tomorrow in our session. Me and Drew have been texting. If you remember, Omarion, the guy who was essentially after Shaw, Drew's character, this entire first arc of the campaign, came up to Shaw and was like, listen, I don't know what I just saw, but Saluna is not going to be... You need more than just Saluna. Right. Use my power. I have the power of Baal, the god of murder. You know, kill me, be a follower of Baal, and you can really take out this ancient evil. And so Drew is very worried about this. But I've assured him, I'm like, listen, it's all good. We're not murder hoboing anybody. Everything will be revealed. But actually, there's one thing that I'm actually a little salty about. I was... certain that someone wasn't going to follow Saluna for this exact moment. It just so happened that Drew got selected to be the non-Saluna follower.

SPEAKER_04: 52:05

It ended up being a meme of like, we're all Saluna followers. No one can change their mind. We're all Saluna followers. We've all decided... So that was, it ended up going that way. And I'm, I'm satisfied with how everything's going so far. Excited for where like the next arcs that lead to, how do you feel being the DM so far for our group? You know, like you said, everybody except you and Chase have DM for the group so far. Right. So yeah, now it's only Chase who hasn't DM for the group. So you coming in as the fifth person, the fifth DM for our, you know, six player group. How do you feel? So,

SPEAKER_02: 52:45

I will say I do. I think I have a groove now. I was like maybe like the first three. I was like I was like so a little like a little shaky. Now that I I know my plan. I do my writing. I do all my planning. Like I have everything sort of set ready to go so that I can just go. I can look and go. All right, we're doing this today. This is happening and I can do it. The one thing that I will never be prepared for is when... It was my first, like, oh-no moment. It was when you Zone of Truthed the Veen way early into the campaign.

SPEAKER_04: 53:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 53:30

So, to give some context, this is, like, maybe session three.

SPEAKER_04: 53:36

Yeah, this was my second session playing Jean.

SPEAKER_02: 53:40

Yes. Yes. And so, basically... In Cinder Luna, there is the king, there is the archsage, and then there is the guy, there's the archmage, and then there's the guy who is sort of over the marketing district or sort of in charge of all commerce. That guy's name is Bavine. And so the intended route for this campaign was you guys were not supposed to discover Azure Alley for like another maybe five sessions.

UNKNOWN: 54:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 54:15

Like Baveen was not even the way to get to Azure Alley. In fact, you guys were supposed, the way that I had set, you guys were going to help out a lot of the Cinderella folks and sort of build a bond with them. And then slowly you guys learn about Azure Alley helping out small, those like these like small businesses in Cinderella. And then eventually one guy, one shopkeep leads you to his basement and then he gets you to Azure Alley. But in session three, Jim was like, hmm,

SPEAKER_04: 54:48

you know what? So I'll give my justification. We, after a while, had found that this guy is suspicious in some way. Once we found out, we walked into a store where people were robbing weapons, or like smuggling weapons, and we saw the symbol we were looking for on one of them, like of this cult or sect of people from the underground. And so we were like, these are the guys, let's go. We go in, we talk to them, combat starts, we end up beating a lot of them. And we find Baveen there is one of these guys. And we're like, why are you here, man? What are you doing with these guys? One of our guys who has really high strength catches him. And then I was like, or I think I instructed, I was like, grab hold of him. They grab him. And then I zone of truth. And I'm like, time to interrogate, baby. And I asked all the questions in the book. I'm basically like, all right, let's start from the top. Who are you? What happened? Why are you here? Who's in charge of this? What is this? Describe this to me. What else do they know? All the way down the list. And luckily, Patrick played along with the whole thing. He gave us all the information. And right after that, we found out how to get into Azure Alley and got there way before we were supposed to.

SPEAKER_02: 56:07

Yeah, it... it was in that moment where I was like, well, this is, this is my one example of things going awry. And I was like, okay. I was like, well, this doesn't really affect anything. I guess this just ups the timeline a little bit. I was like, all right, cool. I guess, I guess we're going, I guess we're doing it. And so then I was like, and so then it kind of, it made me feel a little bit better where I was like, I had this, all this planned content that I will never use now. I'm like, I'm glad I had that, but I'm also glad that I had the backup just in case. But I have to say, I do like how the events have transpired the way they've transpired. It feels a lot more natural than the direction I wanted to take it. Right. So...

SPEAKER_04: 56:58

Yeah, no, I'm... I thought it was fun the way it ended up going, and I think big things is this was one of my first characters jumping back in, right? I made Gene, like, he's this prodigy, right? He... He feels clerical magic. He doesn't pray for it. He doesn't, like, think about it too hard. He's just like, no, I believe in Saluna. I've never spoken to her. I just have this ability through my faith to do these things, and I don't think about it too hard. So, like, he was always told to do all these studies and practices of clerical magic, but he never thought he had to because it always just happened. And so he's not very serious about that kind of stuff. And so in these moments, you know, his instincts come out. He starts doing it. He's like, all right, tell me the truth. Boom, it happens. And this is part of, like, we described this in some episodes earlier on in the podcast. The two-person campaign Drew and I did with Zach, like, right at the beginning of COVID. We were all in Eberron, and we were playing two Warforged investigators. And I was the main, like, investigator, Agent 99 of Warforged. And Zach had to deal with that every session where it's only two of us. So we are, the spotlight is on us all the time. And we had like a Han Solo, Chewbacca relationship. So he would like stumble across things. It would be like, oh my God, I found something. And then Agent 99 is like, okay, no problem. I figured it out. You know, stuff like that. And in those sessions, there were so many times whenever we would question someone for so long. And Zach would, you could tell Zach was like, I've given you everything I know. And this was another one of those times where I was like, zone of truth is down. You have to tell me everything.

SPEAKER_02: 58:41

Yeah. And honestly, I was like, I mean, that's what the spell does. I have to abide what the spell does. And again, I think it's really cool because I think it got you a better understanding of how Azure Alley worked based on and and and how it kind of worked with cinderella

SPEAKER_03: 59:03

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 59:03

it kind of made the your your introduction to the uh that guilds the weapons guilds uh the cackling glaive leader gerard made it a little bit more smoother i would say and then just like with all the other backstory stuff that happened in the underground it kind of just it made more sense with the flow right i wanted to do things

SPEAKER_04: 59:25

I think it worked out greatly and like as far as for what I would say for New newer DMS or someone who's been playing for a long time and wants to try it out for their group like These types of things where something comes up and instead of being like I don't have anything planned for that No, you can't do that or like trying to lie your way through it I think that going with the flow like Patrick did and just saying something and You know, even if in your head you can justify, he really doesn't know that much, he just does this, and changing your story a little bit to make it fit, or like, just go with the flow, roll with the punches, because when a player does something like that, like when I did that, I felt like, I did it. This was the whole purpose. This is why I took this spell, right? Like, this spell only has one purpose, and it's exactly what we're doing right here. So, yeah, moments like that, roll with those punches. Or... You, Patrick, now that you've been doing this, what, we're on session 13 or 14? I

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:28

believe

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:28

so. Something like that? Yeah. So how are you feeling so far, and what do you think you do as a DM that's, like, different from what the rest of us have done? Because, you know, you've seen a bunch of other DMs DM for you. Yeah, of

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:45

course. So I think my biggest thing, and I... I slowly realized that I, whenever I come up with an idea or whenever I think of something, it immediately gets written down in my, and I have this massive document just of notes. Yeah. And what I kind of like with doing with that, like I'll use the backstories as an example, because those are probably like the first iteration of it. So when I got everyone's backstories, my first thing that I really wanted to do was I wanted to incorporate the backstories within the campaign. Because I don't know, I just... I feel like that's just, again, it's just extra content that you can just add to make your campaign so much... You can just add more substance and structure, just adding more into that backstory. And so... It would always be, I would read like a sentence. I'll use Zach's character, Vonan, as an example. So I think Zach's backstory read like, he's like a bear totem, Barb, and like a moon druid. And he mentioned something about he utilized the bear as his way of worshipping Saluna. And just without hesitation, I just typed down Zach will become a bear by the end of this campaign. Or like. Drew, for example, drew with Drew's backstory, I was like, OK, so Drew seems kind of like this, like good guy. And it's like, OK, what would happen if someone was trying to just go after one person the entire time? And so then I was like, okay, Drew is going to get messed with by someone. That's his backstory. And then I parentheses go into depth at a later time. Yeah. And kind of what I, what I, what I do is, I don't know. I'll think of just like a, like a vague statement. And then I'll, I'll just take some time and just, I'll just continually build off of that. I'll, I'll take my, I'll take just like small influences and, The big influence that I always want to give credit to Sean for is the use of gods. So Sean did a Theros campaign when Seth was gone for that year and a half, two years. And I really fell in love with the idea that the character itself, if they followed a god in Theros, their personality... Their whole demeanor, all their motivations are to please and honor this God. And so my thought was, okay, well, that's already a kind of a cool idea. What would happen if hundreds of thousands of people all were just really psyched about this one singular God? And then I was like, okay, well, then what about another God? And so then I started thinking about other like, okay, Who does like Saluna like align with who are, who does she not align with? And then it really starts like thinking, then I can really start to like delve into what I want to do.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:15

Hey, props to you for not immediately going to, Oh, Saluna, we'll just make Char the villain, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:21

Yeah, no. Yeah. So, and that's another thing when it comes to, when it came to like writing this campaign, um, I don't know how you do it, but for me, before I did anything, I sort of wrote out my, like what I would, what I call my big session moments. So I have like my session one. I had like the, it's like a flow map

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:47

of where you want the campaign to go.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:48

Yeah. I basically have, I have my flow map. And then with that flow map, I would then go, okay, so we have this, how do we get from point A to point B? And how do we trickle it in with this already established kind of idea? And then with all of that, I then just would slowly just build it over time. I started writing this in like January. And it's been just like a slow, slow progression. Another thing that I've really liked doing is just the idea of... like giving the players something that like will be meaningful within the campaign or like something that like will directly affect them in like a meaningful way. So for example, with Zach's character Vaughn and turning into a bear, my whole thought process was, well, okay, well, obviously this guy worships Saluna in a different way. And, but I was like, okay, so obviously I'm going to give them all these great powers, but then I get to thinking what could be some like drawbacks to being a massive bear. So then it kind of had me, I don't know, just really just kind of selecting like what I wanted to do. But yeah. trying to think of any other I

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:26

mean I understand what you're saying so like when you come when it goes to planning for you you know correct me if I'm wrong you kind of had your story beats in mind and then it came down to planning the individual session on how you would get from A to B

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:40

yeah

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:41

like for me big thing was when I came to planning the campaign I knew the beginning and how I wanted it to end and then every session would just flow together until we arrived here because I really like for you guys to have as much agency as possible because So I would try not to plan more than two or three sessions ahead based on the story we're at. So for instance, in Descent into Avernus, we ran with the book up until the end of that campaign. And then I wrote the next like 10 levels worth of content. And when it came to planning those, I was like, okay, the players have finished Descent into Avernus. They went with the redemption route for Zariel. She has been fully redeemed. And now that has angered Asmodeus. So now Asmodeus is mad at the players. He's going to start sending people and maybe even paying visits himself to them on the material plane. All the players are like, adventure's over. We split up, we go do our own things. Everybody split up to go do their own things, right? And then everybody got paid a visit at some point by some aspect of Asmodeus to which all the players contact each other. Hey, is this happening to you? It is. Let's solve this problem. Let's take care of it ourselves. Take it into our hands. We're going to descend into Nessus, into the ninth layer. So you guys dove through all the layers, and all I knew was, at the end of this, their plan is to kill Asmodeus. That's the plan. That's the end goal. But I did not have each layer written out. I only had what was written in the Dungeon Master's Guide and what's on the wiki written. for each layer. Some of the layers only had like this much description of text to show me what to write, right? And so I would just make stuff up. I'd be like, okay, these first few layers, which I feel like are very fleshed out in Forgotten Realms lore, first few layers, a little bit longer, couple sessions each in each one. But then as this is happening, hell is what you make of it depending on who's in charge. I was thinking... Asmodeus at this point is like, bring them down here. I'll take care of them myself. So it got progressively shorter time in each layer until you were spending in those last like two, you spent like one or two sessions in each one. And then you were there and it was time and it was like game time. Yeah. But I wasn't like planning that as we went. I was planning session to session, layer to layer of like, this is what they have to do to get out of this one. And it never ended up being like a... I don't plan the whole story as it's probably going to go. I plan it like based on whatever you guys are up to, whatever you guys are doing. So it's a little bit different, I think, but still same end result. I feel like you do a great job of the storytelling so far because you have very firm ideas of what you would like to portray to us. Like you usually do a really good job of like, This big lore bit, I want you guys to discover. And you don't let us linger for too long. I'm privy to letting you guys RP as long as you want. You guys stay in this one place the whole session if you want and enjoy your time. But I feel like you've done a pretty solid job of like, okay, well, while you guys are walking to your next destination, or like, okay, you guys are already here. I assume you guys are leaving. So you guys are already here. You're going to go... jump into the next story beat. So it does seem like you're kind of on us a lot to keep going, which I don't think is a bad thing because we're all on such strict time schedules that you're able to fit the session in like a three hour time span.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:26

Yeah. So that was another thing is because I will admit I am the person that will look at a wall in the game and I'll go, hmm, it's a wall. We go over the wall. We cannot go over the wall. Okay. Can we go around the wall? You cannot go around the wall. Okay. It's like two minutes later. I have an idea. What's the idea? Let's go over the wall. Now we'll see. We can't go over the wall. We casted a spell and then it turns into this like 20 minute discussion on, do we waste a second level misty step to go over a 30 foot wall? And I just remember, I was like, I, because again, I love the story. I'm like, this to me doesn't necessarily drive a story. There are obviously some parts that can do that. But I'm like, if we're, if we're, if the, if something like a wall is inaccessible, let's move on. Like, let's, let's, let's, let's keep moving. Let's keep moving.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:29

Yeah. And, and again, Another thing is I want to intentionally have you guys continually question everything that I presented to you guys. So it's not as, like, a RP thing, but as, like, a personally, like, your character. Like, how would they react in this situation? Or, like, when we discovered your first two... clerics in Azure Alley who were, like, the first, like, flower zombie things. We really didn't stay too long with those guys. We kind of were just, like, we observed them, you know, we kind of sussed some stuff out, and then we kind of left. But what I really wanted to kind of see, like, what you guys' thought process was were, like, you know, how'd they get down here, you know, or just a lot of just open and shut questions just so that eventually everything goes and everyone goes, Oh, oh. Yeah. Oh. Like, so in our previous session, we had a one-off. So the way that I kind of set up this campaign, in a sense, it's a sort of small-ish scaled campaign. I really wanted to give sort of like some like history and backstory using that same setting. And so in this session... You essentially are going through the first couple of weeks of the construction of this massive city. And I intentionally ended it on the third week, essentially. Where I was like, okay, the third week's happened. This big thing happened. That's where we're going to end it. And the guys were like, did you mean to do that? They're like, what the heck? We kind of just... Like, what was the point? And I'm like, listen, don't worry. I understand. It does not make sense now. But I was like, trust me. You'll understand later. And that's all I'm... I know when it's going to happen. Because I know... I feel like I will know what each person is going to go, oh. Like, oh, that... That makes sense. I feel like I'm known now where everyone's going to make that realization. That's cool. I like that. That's what I love as a storyteller is keeping everybody in the dark until it's just that one, like,

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:04

oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:07

No, I like that. Well, you're doing a great job so far. I'm enjoying playing in the campaign. I'm also still enjoying DMing. I think that a lot of these... elements that you've talked about, like it makes a lot of sense how you got there. And I do think it's a lot different than what a lot of us do. Like when it comes to Drew, right? He plans one session for the whole year. He spends months thinking about the one session he's going to run. And you can tell when we arrive at that session, that this is an event. We make it an annual event to do these Christmas one-offs that he's been planning. And I still remember each one vividly, you know? For me, I am the lazy DM. I can DM every single week without fail, without getting tired, right? And that's because I don't put too much thought into it. I have the story planned out, but I really let you guys write that story for me and I guide you to the right spots. Right. So I don't stress about it too much. Like I typically don't prepare the session until the day the session is supposed to happen. And I don't think about it beforehand because I don't want to stress myself out and not want to play D&D. It's like, okay, I know I'm doing this on Saturday. Saturday morning, I'll get everything ready. I think Sean plans a whole lot for a while leading up to it. And then you jump in and it's all very well fleshed out. It's all very well thought through for the entire time. And I haven't gotten to play for him. Like, admittedly, I didn't get to play in Theros. So I can't give you more criticism on exactly his style. But I do know from the sessions I have played for him, he is very thorough when it comes to telling the story. He knows his characters. Yes,

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:53

that does ring true in the Theros campaign. Yeah. It got to the point where you could really feel that we were in Theros and what we were doing was deeply impacting the world we were in. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:09

And then... For you, I always constantly feel like you have a tree dangled in front of me. You always have something like sitting there where I'm like, I need that. I need it. And so that's been a really fun thing so far where I'm like, okay, well, I want to play the next session because I need to know what's going to happen next.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:30

Yeah, I will say for just for the, I guess the audience, Seth and Sean are Their whole, so right now in act one, Drew, Sean, Drew, Chase, and Zach are getting their kind of, their kind of spotlight moment. Sean and Seth are going to be very integral in act two.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:56

Yeah, it's exciting. I'm excited to learn that kind of stuff. I complain every session because everybody's getting like cool powers and stuff. And I go, DM, no one has given me the power to turn into a super Saiyan yet. When is this going to happen?

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:07

Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:11

I know. I

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:15

think it's funny. Because Sean still has more stories he wants to tell. I know you still want you want to go through this whole thing. And then I have another like three year campaign to DM. And that's before Spelljammer is done. Spelljammer is not even barely started. Oh,

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:52

I know. Listen, I'm glad we have content. There was a point in time where we kind of really didn't have a lot going. We just had like an occasional like one off. That was when I first left, right? Yeah, it was around there. And then we would do like, like, I think Zach would do something, Sean would do something, Drew would do something, but it would always just, I don't know. It's always nice to have something. I like that we've finally reached that point where we can go, we can finally say, Well, we have essentially the next 10 years on lock, if need be.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:29

I feel like we're going to have to have a rotation. Like, you're going to finish your arc, then I'm going to do an arc, and then Sean's going to do his, and then we're going to loop back around or something. Which I think is cool. I think it would be awesome. Or, likewise, what I'm trying to do is spell jammer right now, which I think a lot of people could bring into it. Like, I used to be the forever DM. If I wasn't there that week, no one was playing. Like, that used to be how it was, right? And

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:53

it was unfortunate.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:55

And now, what I'm doing with Spelljammer is I've designed it as a space odyssey that is episodic. So, like, you guys are going on this space adventure, and if two people aren't there that week, they can stay on the ship while the other three dock and go on the adventure. And I'm glad we're doing that because that means I can get more sessions of it in on weeks that we're not playing. I can be like, hey, if we can play this weekend, or if, like, nobody can play this weekend, I'll run Spelljammer. So that's nice. I would like not to be missing more than two players, though, because I feel like the vibes get off. Then if it's only two of you guys, if at least three of you guys are going on the journey, it makes a little more sense.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:35

My thing is I always need three. I need at least three.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:39

So anything else as far as your campaign goes? Any thoughts on DM styles? Any last-minute advice to give to anybody who might have been playing for years but not jumped into DMing yet?

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:53

Yeah, if you are a new player, truly, all you need is a singular idea. This whole campaign essentially came to my mind when I saw the character Marluxia from Kingdom Hearts 2, and my thought process was, okay, this guy has a deep voice, he carries a scythe, and his deal is flowers. I was like, Since when are flowers like that cool? It was this idea of something really beautiful could also be deadly. So don't be afraid. If you're like, if you're like afraid of like, I'm not, I'm not sure if this idea is good enough. It is. It is. It's, it's, it's always, you got to get past that first hurdle of, am I going to be able to do this? Because nine times out of 10, you're, if you go in with confidence and, nine times out of 10, your players will see that confidence and they'll feed off of you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:52

Yeah. And

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:53

I think imposter

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:54

syndrome is the one, the one thing I would say is like a lot of times you, you have had, you've had the same DM for a few years and you think I can't do better than them. You don't have to do better than them. You, you'll probably have your own thing for like, like we just described the, the four DMS that we, we had in our other, we've had all have extremely different play styles. I didn't even go over Zach's play style where like, I feel like Zach, his huge strong point is just his characters feel so real. Like, his voices and the way he portrays his characters, they feel like real people. Like, I feel like mine don't always feel real, they feel like fun anime characters. Like, that's how a lot of my DM style comes from, because I like anime and fantasy storytelling. And yeah, Zach's characters, they're real people.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:44

And that's because he's got a lot of he's got a lot of acting training.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:48

Yeah, I there are some characters that Zach does and I'm like, God, I wish I could do that voice. Exactly. Oh, that's and that's another thing. New DMs do not be like deterred if you if you can do a bunch of crazy voices. It is OK. Yeah, it's yeah, it's not a big deal. Honestly, a good way to practice one that I like doing is doing things that, like, you know you can control. So, like, let's say your character has, like, it's, like, more, like, feminine sounding in your male DM. You could, you know, hold your nose. Hello there. My name is... And you've already changed your voice without even really having to do anything. Or, like, or even doing stuff that, like... Like, describing, like, a muffled sound. You could be like...

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:41

We haven't even

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:41

said that Sean's character holds a cup up to his mouth like this when he talks. Yeah, exactly. That's his whole voice. It's his normal voice, but he holds a cup up to his mouth and does a more higher-pitched thing. And it's really funny.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:57

Again, yeah, so when it comes to, like, that, like, creating a character and, like, creating this, like, potential... you know, three year project, don't be like, don't feel like you have to like make the most overpowered character right off the rip because it's, it's always going to be that slow grind and it's always more fun. Just enjoying the process as you go. Do not be afraid to try new things. I think that's good advice. I think that's good.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:29

All right. Now, I don't know if you know how we close out the show in the past, but I'm going to have to ask a favor from you. Typically, you know, I'll say a little blurb. I'll, you know, give shout outs to our Patreon, to the YouTube channels, all the links and stuff like that. And then I'll say a specific character's name and I'll have them do an outro. So like in the past, for example, and this is for all new listeners, you know, get used to this. I'd be like, all right, and now let's have Asmodeus take us out. And then Zach will jump in as Asmodeus and say some dumb shit and we'll end the show. Okay. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to have you improv for me. Okay. So thank you guys so much for watching, for listening to Table Talk Friday. We're watching it because we have a little bit of video. Now we're putting up on YouTube and in the Patreon. You can find that Patreon over at patreon.com slash Table Talk Friday, or you can just subscribe over on youtube.com slash Table Talk Friday. All of your podcasting apps, Spotify, YouTube music, Apple podcasts. You can find us all of those places. But for now, I'm going to have to ask for Daleth to take us out.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:36

Okay. Oh, man. What a time. What a memory. I truly have enjoyed my experience here at the Table Talk podcast. Let me tell you, I do it again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I do need to go burn a house down. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:58

Thank you for listening to Table Talk Friday. For more information, advice, questions, comments, and concerns, you can email the boys at tabletalkfriday at gmail.com. And if you'd like to tell your own stories, why don't you hit them up there? Send an inquiry or something, a sending spell. Thank you very much for listening and please follow and come back next week. Goodbye. Bye-bye.