Join @matthewmercer @mikemearls @mattcolville @skinnyghost and me in a second episode of our 5E Roundtable!
hello everyone welcome to another
roleplay presents of 5e roundtable
discussion I’m JP McDaniel the creative
role play and your host for it today
we’ve got the same lineup of guests that
we had from the first episode so we’ll
just kind of go around and introduce
everyone real quick Matthew Mercer the
critical role GM and popular voice actor
how’s it going mr. Mercer good but he be
back folks and amongst fancy company
thanks happy to have you here mr. Koval
GM and host of popular youtube series
running the game and also we’re just
gonna call you millionaire Matt from now
is that okay so I prefer the term king
of Kickstarter okay King up sorry I’m so
sorry you’re he recently started a
kickstart well two days ago it’s almost
at a million we’ll talk about that in
just a bit oh we’re just gonna mention
it yeah Adam Coble GM here role play and
rule 20 as well as the creator of the
award-winning dungeon world I think
that’s your the tagline that I know okay
the official the official name of the
game is Adam Coble’s award-winning
tabletop role-playing game dungeon world
featuring sage matura nice perfect
perfect and Mike morals the co-creator
of D&D 5th edition and the franchise
creative director you currently at the
wats the offices right now is that where
you’re located yes yes I am
so if it will cloud your environment we
have a very angry toddler at home
Wow probably get some angry toddlers at
wizards too we get started here though I
do want to visit with each of you for a
quick second mr. Mercer Congrats on
campaign – is that the official name
that you guys are calling it thank you
for now I guess until they decide what
their party name is I’ve been following
you guys on Twitter for a while and the
weirdest thing I’ve seen and I think the
weirdest thing for you guys is all these
billboards popping up across LA with
your name and cool
we finally this morning me Mercer
finally went and saw them in person so
it’s as a person whose group is an actor
coming to LA with you know bright eyes
like one day it’d be great to be on
these billboards I would never expect it
would be for D&D and then
that outfit so it’s been a very
wonderful surreal experience yeah if you
guys haven’t seen it I could check out
Matt’s Twitter I think today you posted
a photo of it so you can kind of see
yeah the billboards it it’s kind of
crazy to see that stuff here in LA right
now going wait what yeah where’s my
agent I need it right now one of them is
Pico right next to Sony’s Sony Pictures
and Fox and I’m just like all those he I
could have to drive down there and ADA
working she was some of them are trying
to figure it out and going we got to
have one of them has I think it’s like
[Music]
has it happened yet where where
someone’s tuned into the show that you
know haven’t been like hey I saw the
Billboard what what is this thing about
is have you had that conversation yet
we’ve had people who were like
peripherally or really unaware of
critical role in like the entertainment
industry that work online games or the
project said so I saw you on a billboard
what is this for and then have the great
conversation of like oh well it’s not a
television show or a well movie or a
series it’s um it’s her Dungeons &
Dragons game and that night brief live
yeah well you can yeah
does that awkward pause after them going
did he say what I think he just said
yeah yeah right it’s gotta be a head
spinner for sure but Congrats on like
you said all the success king of
Kickstarter saying that no it’s all so
long now Congrats on the Kickstarter did
your two days in and what like eight
hundred and fifty thousand I think is
what sorry I’m 829 to be I don’t I don’t
this is gonna sound like false hubris
but I know I don’t keep track of the
number people shouted at me but I don’t
go to the page I focus on focused on
getting the getting the everything ready
to make the book JP you think Scrooge
McDuck knows how many gold coins are in
his mighty vault
it’s crazy it’s crazy it’s a lot of
people are talking I see a lot of
conversation online about what this
means for the industry but really I
don’t know I’m not an expert on this yet
but I feel like what you’re seeing has a
lot more to do with YouTube than it does
with
and anything else that is rare indeed
certainly than it does with strongholds
and followers and there’s a lot more to
do with YouTube and building and
community building a community online
building and community on the Internet
and using YouTube as a platform to do
that I think our YouTube channel is
fantastic by which I mean the community
like the comments are great it’s not
what you expect from YouTube and I think
this is the result of that yeah for
those they don’t know that go to
Kickstarter and just search strongholds
and streaming and you’ll you’ll find it
there it’s all being linked in please if
people are checking to help you up
please give to it we want to make sure
we get that awesome tender stretch goal
we can get those back in the game he
knows advertising he’s got billboards
this fan has a billboard billboard he
knows what’s a billboard told me what to
do no other responsibilities there for
me to comport and say no please no
kender never come here so Cole are you
just waking up the past Amarna just be
like what the is my life like what
what is this weird thing yeah oh yeah he
slept okay
I slept like a rock the night of the
Kickstarter Xanax
but apart from that it’s been mostly
just you know trying to keep up with
engaging with the community I’ve seen
other Kickstarter’s succeed and then
sort of falter at once they fail but
falter because they had no plan for
engagement and so just constantly being
on reddit on the discord on the
Kickstarter page engaging with people
answering their questions making sure
they’re being heard and we have answers
and I’m incredibly lucky that I’ve got a
team of producers I take back every bad
thing I ever said about producers
because having people who are just like
I just love making lists like so here’s
here’s 300 entries of the most popular
questions people have asked and we need
to come up and answers for is it’s gonna
be making a huge boom so it’s I that
that’s what I think about right now
that’s where my mind is yeah well good
luck with the the continued success I’m
sure of the Kickstarter and we’re all
eagerly awaiting to see the the book I’m
sure that’s good most restful situation
when that and
oh god we got to do this now we actually
have to do I just really don’t know well
I mean a lot of the rules were already
written by the way so it’s the
playtesters to hopefully we get a good
team of play testers and get good
feedback and we’re able to produce a
book that the people who backed it like
that’s the goal don’t wanna let those
people down awesome awesome stuff mr.
Adam Coble it’s me Adam I think you GM a
game every single day now have you are
you seven days a week is that where
you’re at I mean you know if somebody
didn’t make me play the indeed three out
of eight days in the next eight days are
you ready I play a lot of I play a lot
of role-playing games on the internet
it’s true by the way I know I’m in a
position if Adam were interested at some
point in the future fly him down and yes
we play the dune board game why wants to
do it I do not under any obligation I’m
putting you on the spot right here but
gosh yes yes so for yeah for folks who
maybe don’t know the first thing that
the king of Kickstarter and I bonded
over was yon ancient yon ancient dune
board game which is both of our favorite
game board anyways so yeah I love it and
I will take any excuse to play it I
would love to if y’all happen that’s
gonna happen
nice nice wall we’ll all be looking
forward to that for sure I can’t wait to
see Adam and Koval opposite ends of a
board just pissed off at each other not
least mr. Mike morals we’re here to talk
to you d but I want to talk to you you
watched the overwatch League
we actually have you Ange tweets about
the overwatch League and I did not
expect that at all yeah no it’s been
great and you know I’m a little like I
missed yesterday yes I was busy all day
but man there’s like III just I know the
results that I don’t I mean it’s still
fun to watch matches it is I mean I
really I’m horrible to overwatch I’m
terrible but I really like playing it
yeah the and and and it’s fun to watch
people play it well and it’s really
interesting how the game for me whatever
reason it just it really Maps very well
to like a sport it’s really it’s
dramatic you know I love music as the
payload approaches the end and all that
stuff like it’s just yeah and especially
when you have a close match and it goes
to overtime like that to me it feels
like overtime
like it’s amazing yeah they yesterday
was kind of crazy was like 13 hours
yesterday straight I think oh yeah the
team that end up winning played 14
matches over 11 hours or something yes I
think yeah because they had to play they
had like a regular season match then
they had to play the intro match and
then they had to play the championship
match
yeah yeah it’s and you couldn’t know
what’s what I loved about that was you
couldn’t do that in non eSports right
you couldn’t ask someone like play three
soccer games in a day like that’d be
crazy yeah like people literally get
like horribly injured right right but
but it’s so it’s kind of nifty to play
with that you know and I know obviously
I’m sure it took a toll on the guys
playing but the but yeah I missed it I
was like I was so like and my I’m a big
Boston fans I’m a Boston sports guy but
the and the uprising I really like the
state that’s thing is it’s also been a
good storyline watching the uprising
start out everyone no one gave us a
chance preseason right who are these
guys nobody knows and then you can kind
of see the team start to gel and then I
leaned over the Spitfire and then
everything since then has just been and
like so close taking down Houston
yesterday who’s such aa but yeah so I’m
really enjoying it I he sounds like he’s
talking about a real sport yeah I would
say I would 100% I would fight you to
say that playing overwatch he sports a
real sports like buta living or even
like it is because when you’re watching
someone like play and and you realize a
lot of it I’ve always been a really big
sports fan and I think that there is
definitely a genius to knowing you know
being when you think about someone like
Michael Jordan when he’s bouncing a ball
and moving at full speed and jumping in
the air making madera adjustments like
that is genius like right that is
absolutely yeah and I said Williams was
a genius legit genius yeah so yeah I’ve
been I’ve been it’s great and it’s
actually it works out well cuz usually
later on the day is my have desk time at
work so I can fire up a web browser and
watch twitch well I’m finishing stuff up
so nice nice well we all are equally
eagerly looking forward to your
overwatch podcast talking about that so
let’s talk to Indy one of the major
components for really the second episode
was actually a Twitter conversation
between yourself Mike and Adam and the
conversation was primarily about you
know talking about tabletop RPG streams
and how if the cast is
miserable because of the endgame actions
whether it’s player death or bad rolls
or anything like that
the audience is most likely loving that
because it’s kind of everyone celebrates
the misery of the players on the in this
world of streaming but there’s also the
opposite where you know if the players
are just absolutely demolishing the
encounter or getting through the puzzles
whatever with ease the audience might be
kind of bored so the primary focus of
this roundtable kind of discuss and
focus on the idea of streaming games of
D&D and not the technical aspects if you
want to know how to set up xsplit don’t
watch this we’re not going to do stuff
like that but really you know the future
of the indie in this weird world of
streaming tabletop games and future
aspects of that and different aspects of
that so to start off with let’s talk
about PC death and kind of the tabletop
narrative and how that works in the
world of streaming I think one of the
most captivating aspects of D&D in
general is this idea that death means
something and it’s not you don’t just
press X to restart like if you die in
D&D save for a resurrect spell or
whatever you’re kind of you’re dead you
got to start over again
right if you die in dungeon dragons you
die Jack Jack laid it out we know how it
goes yeah so don’t it was hardcore it
was a hardcore Mike I want to start with
you and how do you and maybe by
extension was there the coast how do you
envision player death to be handled at
the table well you know it’s it’s not
something that we design-wise put a ton
of thought into I’ll be honest like
because it is one of those things that’s
very cultural and as far as like you
know at the table whatever table you’re
playing because it was when you look
over the history of the game very early
on in the 70s when Dini started there
was this very strong sense that like
winning Dungeons & Dragons was was
gaining loss and losing was dying right
like if you played in the campaign and
you had a fifth level fighter that meant
something that meant I am good at this
game
right like and it was a game that was
very binary and a lot of its results
right you if you fail the saving third
you died right if you got dropped to
zero hit points you were dead and so it
has transformed especially the 80s from
this marker of success
and play skill because very much the
game was yeah the play skill of DD was
like I know to like you know look under
the bed for a tress a treasure chest I
know and I opened the chest you know we
had a we had a moment like that recently
in a 5e game where one of the players
had played through caves of chaos they’d
played through keeping the borderlands
and one of the other players hadn’t and
the player who hadn’t was searching
through some some tents we were playing
to annihilation is intense and they were
like what is there just like gonna be a
cobra in here that’s gonna jump out and
bite me and the player who had played it
was like and I was like okay a cobra
yeah that happened in my game ward they
were in the swamp and someone fell off
the thing into the swamp and one of the
players said I hope there aren’t leeches
in there and I was like yeah but that’s
I mean that’s a paradigm shift like you
said ya know and it’s something it’s
really evolved and as the game went the
80s and 90s and this idea of rather than
it being this almost a very I mean it’s
it’s a cliche but it’s the wargaming
roots versus this more storytelling
direction the game went that death
became like I know right in my own
campaigns I try not to kill players
because it’s pay me ass right like I
have to kill players easier to kill more
tempted to kill a player than the
character the but you know when you’re
building a world then you have these
characters backstories and everything’s
tied together and then a character dies
and now you have to work the new
character in and it’s just you’re losing
a lot of that sort of narrative
coherence and the narrative weight you
build right it used to be oh you died
that means you suck so go back to first
level haha and now it’s like well why
would your new character like a your
four characters first level where 10th
level why the hell would we take you
into the dragon domain right that
doesn’t make any sense
what we have to figure it out right and
so there’s a very natural tendency we
won’t make a tenth level character right
you can you can see that that idea of
level as skill marker having almost been
completely erased
how most people play the game one of the
most frequently questioned free last
questions we get is how do I make a
character above first of all what’s so
right that’s the thing that I wonder
about that though is that the skill now
seems to have been replaced in a lot of
games with like you dying is not the
indicator of failure but ending up at
20th level with a suboptimal character
feels like more to like well why did you
take this ability or why’d it take that
level like there’s no synergy between
your abilities like I think there is
still that player skill but it’s shifted
into building the characters rather than
the play yeah yeah no I think it’s
definitely true you think in terms of
like skill with the system but I think
in a lot of ways now when people think
of player skill it’s almost more of the
soft skills like are you just are you a
fun person to play with like if you’re
playing the character who’s a you know
impulsive and greedy will you steal the
crown jewels and you have the chance
even though you know it’s gonna cause a
lot of trouble because that’s more fun
right before whatever the group’s
definition of fun is but you know in it
I think that that kind of carries a
little bit to streaming to where that’s
a little more fun to watch and I think
that’s just kind of a little bit of a
convergence that’s happened that the
Dungeons & Dragons of 15 years ago may
not have been very fun at all the stream
because it would have been a lot of
counting squares and you know I’ve been
figuring out your optimal power attack
back and yeah I got this bonus from the
bard and then the druid did this to me
and now I’ve got this bonus I’m plus
some yeah that’s why we started
streaming a critical role we’ve been
playing a pathfinder for years cuz two
point five and Pathfinder was what I
knew it was comfortable in and then when
for the addition to come out and kind of
the feedback had come in from the
community that it was a much more
streamlined when it came to you know
involving storytelling into the actual
mechanics and the combat wasn’t quite as
had reliant on floating you know
modifiers from so many sources that was
an easy choice for us for that reason
because whenever we were a home games
and we had to decide all the different
variable bonuses from different sources
and a given point in time it got to the
point where people started the player
sort of checking out of the actual
action and a man there the players
imagine of the players that’s super
interesting yeah I wonder about that
because I don’t I don’t feel like 5e is
more about those soft skills or like a
good role-playing than Pathfinder was
like that’s a that’s a lateral change
right the mechanics dropped away in
terms of complexity but I don’t think
there’s anything in 5e that rewards or
encourages that like be fun to play with
in a way that previous editions of D&D
didn’t it doesn’t mechanically so like a
lot of the mechanical shipper was wood
was 100 percent to make the game more
accessible I mean that’s the entire
story of if addiction was we know we
need to we need to start the player
acquisition engine it’s how you think of
it right we don’t have we hadn’t really
had new people coming in into pre tional
numbers since that I news padeen D yeah
and so that’s so it’s just just locked
which I’ll take right hey I like I’ll
take lock you’re right mike wants to
give me a lucky choice I’ll take it but
the I think in some ways it’s it’s going
to be interesting to the future BD
because at the time when we designed the
rules we did have a sense of the
community we wanted to build we did have
a sense of the tone we wanted to have
but it was we never felt we had enough
tactical control over the game and we
never really felt to be understood the
audience well enough to be that
prescribed in okay here’s really mapped
out how we want you to act because we
just didn’t really have a clear sense of
it well and okay well is that something
you know kind of on the topic of player
death or player character death gear
before Adam how are we are we at a point
kind of in the future of 5e where you’ll
have a footnote or a side role or
something like that for like here’s how
you could deal with death if you’re
planning on streaming this is that’s
something that you can envision in the
rules in the future yeah no I definitely
could because I think now thanks to
streaming and thanks to having much
bigger you know a really big active
community we can start talking about
these more meta topics with a bit more
confidence rather than just feeling like
we just don’t know what we’re saying
right we can be giving and especially
when you’re Gunder going so much change
in the game we didn’t want to start
delving into that and more meta
discussion and how to set rewards and
stuff it kind of had this like D&D has
existed for 40 years so we just kind of
you know streamline the game to get more
people to start playing then we’ll worry
about being more tactical about things
but yeah a lot of the stuff Adam talked
about like GE doesn’t really go out of
its way I mean the one thing I have
noticed is just with backgrounds just by
including these tables and including
like hey write this on your key down on
your character sheet it’s almost like
that
that was just a reminder people needed
and I think that has helped new players
a lot be 1%
yeah bit more like specific about their
character beyond just saying like lawful
neutral so that’s brilliant designs
because you guys made it so it’s a chart
right so that it’s it you can just
choose something but there’s also that
ocular like I’m just gonna cast the
bones and see what is my characters and
that inspires people and it is a huge
I’ve done I’ve introduced like you know
30 players to the game in my at work and
it makes them think about their
character in a way they never would have
before and they like it it’s fun it gets
them thinking about stuff they wouldn’t
thought of before you know that we have
a character in the in the the past of
court of swords folks might remember
percentage of truant or batur day nines
character he he made a character who
died like in the first combat that
kobold hit him with a scorching second
round of combat he was like well I guess
my guy died I got to make a new guy but
instead of making the character on
purpose he just said okay I’m just gonna
roll randomly for everything like every
possible thing I’ll roll my race my
class everything that’s him yeah and the
character was the character was really
interesting because of it and he was
suboptimal in a bunch of ways but his
buy-in was different right Sean was a
guest he knew he only had six sessions
he needed to play this character so the
character came out really poor that
freedom to just randomly roll I think
was present but I don’t know that people
would feel as comfortable in a game like
D&D doing that de facto at the beginning
if that was your your setup there are
games obviously that are built on that
you don’t get to make any choices around
character creation but I think there is
a certain like you said there’s a
certain irregular excitement about being
like why why is this character like this
like I rolled totally incongruous stuff
now it’s my job to figure that out and I
think GM’s know that you have to do that
all the time like why are there four
halfling merchants on the 17th level of
this dungeon I don’t know but the table
said they’re here so now I got to
justify it yeah yeah a large part of a
dungeon master or game mastering your
knowledge is justification it’s you
trying to find out what the rules
present before you the choices the
players make and the unexpected
scenarios and you just have to kind of
formulate how to weave these together
and so that as long as you’re
comfortable in that space it’s not
anything if you aren’t it’s a good
exercise
to take some of those random elements
every now and then and see how best you
can adjust that and incorporate into the
story and it may not be the most optimal
thing and aiming for a funny story in
the long run but I think that makes you
a stronger GM the more you practice you
know allowing those unexpected elements
and enshrines weave it in so I was just
gonna ask I’m curious about mics it’s
because you were talking about the
random tables do you think going back to
JB’s original point about character
death do you think like the table is the
background table is the more detailed
ones in like Susanna thar’s do you think
that takes away some of the pressure of
character death like if your character
die is a faster path to creating a new
character that actually has some
interesting background that you can play
do you think that reduces some of that
drag yeah III think it does and I think
also one of the things that when you
think in just in terms of game design is
making death more interesting you know
and how do you get DMS to embrace that
where because the thing is in a game in
most games you die the game ends right
if I’m playing a roguelike
I die I start over but in a group
cooperative game it’s a little strange
to be like okay so you’re knocked out
right like what do you so I think tables
like that and like one of the things
I’ve been kind of thinking about was you
know could you in our publish adventures
you do so do something along those lines
like here’s tables you can roll on to
make the character who’s joining the
campaign halfway through like especially
with another published game right you
can say which chapter are you in then
add this die roll to your array right so
yeah maybe it’s a bit more you know tomb
does that a little right there’s there’s
a section where once you reach the final
dungeon it’s a kind of go no-go
situation but if someone dies here are
10 excuses to put a new character in the
part yeah yeah I think an appoint to
kind of help because scared to death is
a very not only is it part of the the
underlying tension that helps the
players understand their choices have
you know consequences and that’s you
know this is a real challenge you’re
trying to go through even though you’re
not trying to kill your players
characters necessarily all the time you
need to have that real threat for a lot
of games for a lot of groups to feel
like it’s it’s a thrilling experience
what I’ve had previous campaigns where
players have died and what’s helped me
especially could say if it’s not a
really epic
you know you it’s cool if the player
like isn’t a huge boss fight against a
major building and trying and feeling
gets to finish them off and they like
that was a good death but if it’s like
cold number three wearing jump on me and
I almost died yeah
so some moments like that if you play
just by the rules you go to zero hit
points
you know def saving throws you’re dead
game over for your character
I’ve enjoyed even where it wouldn’t make
sense in the moment allowing those
players to play out a lengthy death
whether like even if they would have
been smashed maybe when the battle is
over they go back to his body and you
know as I perform like Bishop and aliens
is still there on the ground conscious
as he’s bleeding out and you give him
like a minute to say goodbye or tell
them what his final wishes you know I
could this is a secret I held and I
could never completely do it for me go
forward you know and kind of drive that
memory I find it as long as you give
players the opportunity to make the Deaf
meaningful even in a situation where it
might not be that lets them put it to
bed a little stronger I’m not sure they
got you know they got taken away from
them unfairly yeah the death is such a
weird sticky thing there’s kind of a
fine line right because fir’d when
you’re streaming a game you don’t want
the audience to start claiming plot
armor right that’s like the last thing
you want because you want to make sure
like you said the most important thing
is death they want to have this fear of
dying but the second that people start
saying like oh man he’s got plot oh man
there’s no way this guy’s ever going to
die ever just because of what just
happened so and then on the other side
you don’t want to make it too too
challenging where you have a death every
other show because then that sucks for
both the players and sometimes the
audience is into that for a death or two
but the second they have to or the third
or fourth time they have to learn a new
character it’s kind of just like oh god
here we go again you walk into and they
have they’re engaged with the old
character right exact age with a
character Mithen in a very very intense
way and you kill them off and now what
have you done to your audience
yeah well you you kind of surprised me
when you said that you don’t like
killing players at a table ice I expect
you to be the guy he’s like yeah you
died get out of here get off my
thing you’re not a fan of death at the
the table what you want to expand on
that a little bit in terms of why
perhaps mere Adam you is you he
oh yeah I’m Adam you’re cold oh if you
called me Coble then I would be very
confused yeah that’s good this is this
is all you buddy yeah we’re gonna last
name oh did I say that what did I say I
said I’m not a fan of killing what
you’re not I think it was a joke from
earlier I was not an actual joke I’ve
learned is that jokes are funny okay
laughs then no it wasn’t a joke no I
have no problem killing off characters
in fact I am one of my best friends and
now my dungeon master and my boss who
probably was thinking about firing me I
killed off his character in the middle
of a recent game and it was awful I
actually I guess I guess I guess no I I
if it’s if it’s there’s there’s good
death and there’s bad death yeah if
there’s death where everybody the table
understands that had to happen right
that’s that’s what that character would
do and often it’s best when it’s the
players decision right as you rub the
lamp the genie comes out and the demon
says if you don’t do this then I do that
and the player says I do not bargain and
in player knows in that moment that he’s
gonna die yeah and it feels like this is
what should have happened this is right
I remember my friend Jim Murphy were
talking about player death character
death type of character death in the old
game I like Mike Mike’s comments my
friend Jim talked about how like they
would often argue and I vaguely remember
this argue about how many deaths was the
right number of deaths for a given
campaign for a given character ha by the
time your fifth level how many times
should your characters have died because
otherwise it was too easy otherwise the
game wasn’t wasn’t realistic and
actually been taking notes I think a lot
of player death is about expectation
like if he was a dungeon master have
told your players ahead of time listen
you need to make two characters because
life is cheap in this world then that
vastly recolors their attitude toward
the game and their character and they’re
still gonna hate it when their character
dies but they’ve got this they’re
already got but that’s that’s right I
like I remember uh
Sam when when Scanlon I get the names
and the characters confused now because
it looks stupid comic yeah when when
Scanlon almost died and actually I think
he was dead and somebody brought him
back and he as an aside he said but I
was looking forward to my new guy I
already had an idea
right so that that that’s real that
happens and you know there I think if
they were Mechanics for heroic death
where the player was like oh crap things
didn’t go my way and now my I’m gonna
die and that sucks and you have all that
you know that grieving for this
character but if there were a mechanic
for well I’m a paladin or I’m an elf or
this is my background and I’m and I get
this way to die that is heroic and epic
and if you know like the retributive
strike you know from that old that’s
actually yeah really cool idea the idea
of a character’s gonna die but you get
one like a bad fit one final yeah way to
help your friend as as your exit that
can ensure or help them Mike actually
think anybody in this chat could do it
and probably mostly people watching but
if you give Mike thirty minutes he could
come up with conversation like the thing
the thing is is that we’re all having to
do this work because Dean D doesn’t care
like the system is like I don’t know you
die yeah well I mean because like Mike
said death is very how the players deal
with it is I think a very idiosyncratic
thing I’m not necessarily sure I would
want I mean we don’t know we haven’t
seen it I’m not sure I would want a
philosophy regarding things you have
them you have the mechanics of D&D and
you have the the setting by which I mean
not just the literal place your game is
set but like the tone and the feel of
that and you almost have to use that as
a filter for the mechanics to get to the
play of the game and it’ll it doesn’t
translate one to one the game will as it
passes through that screen it’ll change
and you get to a place where you’re like
okay cool so death by default is this
very neutral OneNote thing but because I
want the game to feel particularly
gritty then we’ll do it this way or I
wanted to feel more heroic then it ends
up this way and I think it’s okay like
the saying didi doesn’t care about it
doesn’t mean that it should it just
means that we have to do that work as as
game masters and as players I think also
there’s a I think we all understand this
but we haven’t talked about it there’s a
lot of ways for a team or a character
player to fail that doesn’t have
anything to do with death and I think
there’s this built-in assumption that
death is the price of failure right and
and and it is a difficult thing to deal
with at the table because of the
engagement of the player if we’re
talking my screaming and the audience
but they’re pretty similar uh my
characters dead now this is a problem to
solve I killed but but it’s not really
problem solved when you’re talking about
we failed to save the princess you know
we failed to restore the heir to the
throne especially if these are
characters I think we’re human beings
we’re monkeys we like looking and
thinking about other monkeys if it’s a
character in the game that you’ve
engaged with and now something bad
happens to that character the players
will feel like they failed oh yeah
totally
also there is a game back to something
Mike said before I apologize for going
on but like back in the day there was
save or die I had a character you know
like the devout bag of devouring back in
the day there was I put on this necklace
that I thought was a necklace of
fireball I made the mistake was that you
put it on in the first place for exactly
was that we didn’t wait till the next
day when we had identified and but my
point is save or die which is now
considered a terrible mechanic because
it is there was a reason for it though
and the reason was it was fun as hell
for everyone else oh yeah
for everyone else at the table it was it
sucked for you and you hated it but
everyone else has the shade in front
where they’re like let’s see what
happens so that notion of like the group
having fun in aggregate even though you
you’re down here but everyone else is up
ah that is a very communites I don’t
like that design but it’s very
interesting speaks I mean it speaks to
Jamie’s original point about how a
player can be or a group can be
miserable but if your goal is to make a
good show you can sometimes end up
fulfilling that goal and have the
players they’ll be like I am NOT having
fun but the audience super engaged
because I’ve had this happen where you
know because we’re doing this in this
sort of seven seconds off from live
environment where a player will be
discussing a terrible idea a player will
be like we should do this thing and the
players are all talking about it and I
will look at my camera and I would be
like god help me chat like they’re gonna
do it and you know this is not my fault
this is not on me and then they do the
bad thing and they all die and I’m like
that was me that was them they did this
and chat can buy into that
but I think it’s it’s that fleeting it’s
that fleeting high right where people
like huh yeah Tbk that was oh it’s fun
of the moment it sucks five minutes
afterwards yeah interesting that we’re
talking about you just said it there’s
the player are they having fun that can
be yes or no yeah and then there’s the
group are they engaged to having fun and
that can be yes while this is no that
what I was talking about cific and then
there’s the audience now now for some of
us I know that people in chat were like
there shouldn’t be an audience I get
that and God forbid I ever get to a
point my life where I’m making decisions
about the audience over the players
that’s crazy but I definitely think
there are mechanics in ways you can
improve the game play of the game for
the players that were also really
improved for the viewers yeah and that’s
that’s kind of where I’ve been thinking
about death and when we have that
discussion and think about the back of
my head and I think when we talk about
save or die we really see the
transformation that’s gone on death the
game has gone from being something is
very tactical what you did in the course
of the session was really important and
what you did from session on session was
just simply linking that tactical game
you might have long-term goals like
building a stronghold hey you know like
like when you’re covering out right
do you go ahead all the kick start at
the back right kickstarter.com slash
strong anyway
[Laughter]
the but I think what the big
transformation in the 80s and onward was
games becoming more strategic that and
strategic in the sense of my character
was is you know the wrongly accused
murder of the king and I will one day
prove my innocence but that’s gonna be
like after like 30 sessions because if
it’s after one session then you’re like
oh no I want people want that big payoff
and death kind of hasn’t changed right
now a lot of other things with the game
have shifted but the the idea of your
character dying hasn’t really changed
much at all it’s still very much a
tactical element I think that’s when you
see people get very disappointed is when
you have a very tactical death you sit
you fail that saving drew the ogre crits
you and then you couldn’t roll up of a
tent so now you’re dead I whereas when
you think of death and storytelling I
ever watching
Robotech back in the eighties remember
oh my god Zack we’re gonna say and
percent ROI was there oh my god yeah no
it wasn’t a win-win I think it was it
was ROI or Ben went when they make
they’re eating us their right to eat a
steak it’s like Oh scramble event go off
to fight and it goes running and then
the camera whatever the animation zooms
in on the steak and you’re like my
moment when Troy Fokker died in Robotech
and you’re like what yeah that was my
Game of Thrones mistake I think yeah I
don’t remember I remember he was one of
Rick’s buddies they’re like yeah they
were like the three musketeers and yeah
that guy’s not to interrupt the giant
robot let’s circle jerk giant robot soap
opera maybe maybe the thing to think
about is that we we don’t have like
success on one end of the scale and
death on the other because I definitely
feel like there have been times
especially in streaming where a
character dying feels like a narrative
success it’s like I died
boiling Marg yeah my sister instead you
have like misery and success right we’re
like failure is just your character
suffers no it’s like this has to deal
with bad the steak is getting us
there like I think like this is what do
you think about it that was satisfying
because it said now I as a viewer knew
someone was going to die that was part
of the narrative right it wasn’t about
success or failure it was just about
this characters arc and I think that’s
where I think actually pulling death I
mean you could still put death on the
success/failure line but but I think
defaulting to that is a mistake and I
think if you could find ways to make
death more strategic where you can have
that moment so I’ll just give you a very
brute-force mechanic you could say in
dd5 you you could say the rule is you
are once you fail a number of death
saves equal to half your con score
whatever you die and that’s across the
entire career of your character and you
can’t change that number ever so now
suddenly you have the been walking away
from mistake moment right like I only
have one more deaf L death safe to go
and that’s when the players know we’re
about to fight like the eight headed
dragon of the you know bro you just
ascended hardcore mode for dear
bennett diablo hardcore mode but that
gives you that moment right where you
know my character has won more I’m
walking up to die yeah I’m going off to
die right and now it’s strategic now
both deaths and the storytelling are
strategic okay so we behind them may be
worked on aligning those two things
right no III percent agree but I I think
there’s a way to make it more like when
I was pitching the idea of your
character having kind of a built-in
retributive strike like right I’m dying
this is it and but now I get to use this
super cool ability I was imagining it as
like a booby prize right it’s like well
sorry you died at least this memorable
thing happens but of course as soon as a
player sees I have this unique resource
I can only use when I die what happens
right right say no I will stand on the
bridge and I will hold the way you guys
go you run because I know I will get to
use my cool awesome ability and now this
isn’t a booby prize anymore now this is
a deeply narrative thing happening right
it’s your character’s final stand and
you were in charge of it and you you
took control of it was a proactive Pro a
anyway you get the idea
that’s well the trick with the trick or
the situation like that I’m trying to
forecast dramatic death though is that
you know you have one death save left
you leave that stake on the table you
walk outside you step in the pit trap a
spike goes through your head and you
died here arch-nemesis on the other side
the trap being like really really man I
tell you I used to work I worked on I
was lead writer on a game that deeply
proud of called evolved and it was
originally one monster it was one
monster versus four heroes but the way
was pitched to me was and the planet is
tough enough that it can win the
wildlife the wildlife is so and it
turned out that if you were running
through the jungle and you got ambushed
by the wildlife and you died the monster
player would see you in and no one was
happy right because the pit trap killed
the party right and they’re like wait
why not even the Dungeon Master’s not at
like I was looking forward to busting
out calor old vial what we’re gonna pit
trap what right so that you got to think
about that as a dungeon master are you
okay with the idea that this this this
thing this disco ball that you put in
they might kill your play might kill
this character yeah I want to bring it
up Mercer and I’ll go ahead and then I
have a question for you well I mean okay
great I was gonna say in the same degree
too and we touched on a little bit
last discussion but at a certain point
magic makes death difficult to stick by
the rules and then it makes it a very
binary experience by the way the rules
are written to when once you get access
to resurrection whether it be a player
character or even just having areas in
the world that’s available
I guess at the point where death is a
minor convenience which is great for a
lot of people that you know they don’t
want heavy death in their game and and
want to be just to slow you down type
and it feels like progress yeah yeah but
but also from a streaming standpoint
when the audiences are looking for the
type of drama and the players are
wanting to adhere to that the
possibility it can become a challenge
and so even even with a critical role
when we started streaming it we had
already gotten to a level where that was
a possibility and there have been
countless complaints about claims and
plot armor that it’s not hard enough and
like I get it that’s fine I’m doing my
best to make a good story and there’s a
very real possibility there is no
protection of the players we actually
implemented a system for a resurrection
to try and still build a possibility of
failure upon this success you know this
guilt travel thing you guys do but even
that wasn’t enough of the audience so
you have to keep in mind to a certain
degree to that as long as the players
are engaged with the death and there is
the possibility within the group’s
belief system that may still convey
itself but I think there need though
there should be discussion about ways to
make higher-level D&D you know still
have a sting a lasting sting after death
which is why would this thing that you
were talking earlier with like you know
a finite level of death saves you can
take before you go is a really cool
possibility or variations to that but
for but also degrees of failure beyond
death I think is a big way to know that
and that’s kind of what we’ve done with
our campaign and and is to make sure
that whenever a failure occurs or even
if a character comes back from the dead
the narrative experience is so visceral
that it changes the way they look at the
world and how they interact with things
so there are lasting consequences to
their story based on that even though
they still lived you know there is an
effect that it’s had on their experience
but for players that don’t that haven’t
had a lot of experience with the game or
you know look to the rules to show them
how to implement that I can see it being
a very very hard thing and a lot of
questions I see come from the community
or like how do I at the higher
make death meaningful when it’s so easy
to avoid yeah I think it would be
trivially easy for somebody somebody
like you in your game to say okay
resurrection
you’re your own ninth level cleric now
or whatever and you can resurrect people
but there’s a price your character comes
back different right and there’s to be a
chart you have to roll on I remember
back in the day you lost up there used
to used to lose a point of constitution
every time every game direction and even
that which is so so what it’s so just a
number on a character sheet what does it
mean it’s not a zero narrative notion
well not zero but you know what I mean
like it was still this thing that had
been marked off and you were like right
there was this notion of this ticking
clock as you lost unrepairable
Constitution but there’s also the notion
that if you resurrection is there but
the price could be I’m a different
person now or the price could be my god
requires me to go on a quest right
that’s the price and that can be a
deeply narrative thing yeah I mean
that’s probably anything there there are
new things in place for the new campaign
to make things a little more intense
with can’t wait like I came with you to
play testing for me have a nice deal I
want I want this from the Dungeon
Master’s guide I want this from like
printed material in the game to be like
you don’t have to watch 17 different
twitch DMS to learn that you can make
your own variations of this stuff like I
would love to see more aggressive advice
about like like mold lady Andy did this
where it was like here is a basic
framework for if you want to make up
your own rules everything has a 1 in 6
chance of succeeding right spiral out
from there I think that there’s just so
much anecdotal GM extends that that I
feel like disservice is the the people
who are just like I went into a store I
picked up the game and now I’m playing
it
I want the books to say that I wanted to
say like here are some different ways
you can do it here are some frameworks
for building your own rules I mean
something you said my gun you’re I was
saying I was watching that that talk
you’re doing with Bart Carroll something
you said was that your idea of what a
game designer is is very very low right
like there’s the bar for entry to game
design is very low and I want I want to
see more of that in the mechanics I want
the game to create new game designers
more readily because I feel like it’s
weird that we keep having to give people
permission to like make up their own
for D and E which seems insane to
me yeah you know it’s one of those
things where
you know looking back into fifth we we
weren’t we’re always worried about
getting to medal like I said earlier
because we didn’t know there is a weird
sweet spot right it’s not like the first
thing you want to learn because
generally if one of the worst things you
can tell if someone who’s learning
something is okay so you do this now you
can do whatever you want right because
they don’t know the universe yet but we
are looking at you know like what would
that look like it with the audience of
do you need growing so large you know
it’s it’s significant large significant
ly larger than it’s been since at least
like the late eighties is there now more
room for like the the trade paperback
book just on how to be a good deal or
here’s just you know a guide to the
mechanics it’s the annotated thing I
have my I have a show on Tuesdays at
1:00 Pacific you know a plug but the
where I’ve been designing subclasses
right showing people okay here is I’m
gonna make a subclass for the warlock so
I’m gonna walk you through the Warlock
class here’s how the pieces fit together
you know here’s how a subclass okay now
that I have the core class here’s where
the subclass fits in now go through and
build it out and that’s very
specifically so we can start capturing
some of that advice both for the
community and then for us as we think is
this something that that should be a
product should this be in an expansion
at some point you know we just did santa
fires like what’s the sequel to zenith
ours is there one what does it look
right elminster guide to making your own
ass role-playing game rules it might be
a hard to stream that can tell mr.
doesn’t care about your Terms of Service
Matic the question I had for you you
talked about high-level plan having
access to resurrection what not now that
you guys have started a new campaign and
you’re dealing with the the low levels
where numbers are more swinging let’s
say we’re player death is maybe more
common because you only have you know 15
20 hp or whatever is that something you
kind of hinted at it and I’m not gonna
ask you to divulge the entire thing that
might happen or may not happen on the
show but is that something that went in
to kind of starting
paying tuned like well we might actually
have a player die this time around we
need to be ready for yes yeah and that
well in the last campaign we had a lot
of conversations about it and thankfully
lucky rolls I mean even talons character
in the last game when he had died had
pretty much decided that he wasn’t gonna
come back even if they tried to
resurrect him he’s like my story’s done
he’s fulfilled his goal he’s he wouldn’t
come back and the player surprised him
with some their developments that drew
him back in but for this game when we
were making the characters I was very
clear I’m like guys you’re squishy and
you’re Republic might lose a few people
you know if before the first years done
in this campaign so be prepared for that
some stories might not finish you know
and and we’ll we’ll see where it goes
from there I don’t want it to detract
from the story but at the same time I
don’t want to do a disservice to the
game and the tension that is involved
both for our players in the audience the
players want that the players aren’t
like don’t kill my character like I mean
it would suck but at the same time it’s
thrilling and at least give me a good
death if it does happen which is kinda
what we were talking about earlier so so
yeah it’s been a very open discussion
and just like any table with your
players we before you start a game you
need to set the ground rules need to
discuss what they can expect out of the
story you’re trying to tell how hard is
it gonna be you know what are the
focuses is it roleplay versus mechanics
is it strategy versus storytelling you
know is it a blend of the two and part
of that was being very clear across the
table players and myself that death is a
very real possibility and if it happens
you know it’s gonna be sad but you use
it to your advantage to make the end of
that good story
pass on what you can to the players that
survived and then start thinking up what
would be an interesting and unique new
personality you know hi you know I can
completely agree you know high death
rate games it but who’s the players to
develop their backstory as they play
right right like don’t sit down I mean
obviously you can if you want to but
don’t sit down the write a three-page
backstory yet allow yourself to discover
what your players backstory is so that
by the time you’re a fifth level or
maybe third level and it’s way more
likely that you’re gonna live to see the
end of the campaign at that point you’ve
got a more elaborate backstory and that
is it’s okay to start playing by rolling
stats picking race and class and just
going for and not spending
not spending half an hour right on your
background if that’s your the juice for
you go ahead but you don’t have to do
that I don’t know where I don’t know
where we we i I want to blame white wolf
because I love blaming a wolffish I’m
with you I don’t know I don’t know how
we got to a place where there was this
expectation that a level 1 character
meant anything to the world like well
first I was born in this village like
shut up I don’t care about your village
don’t cover your father’s sword you were
a level 1 fighter come back and talk to
me about your backstory when you get to
level 5 it’s a it’s a big part of the
appeal though I think especially with
EEE these days like I have a theory that
one of the things that drives D&D is is
we’ve seen games in we talked about
eSports earlier games are becoming more
and more competitive and I think they’re
coming becoming more and more
skill-based but III think for a long
time people turn to games for that
feeling of like hey I’m important I
matter and I can play overwatch in now
no I do not matter maybe not in the
grand scheme of things but in the course
of that singular game that you’re
playing
you definitely matter with yeah I can I
can totally drag you my team done right
but with the but but I think there is a
sense now what role playing games are
filling is they are very much
non-competitive like it’s very much nine
right I have to be like I was describing
to someone this idea that when I play
overwatch I can play tracer I love
playing tracer it’s really fun but you
know I’m not that great at it but still
thought I thought we were friends single
conversation about overwatch though Matt
reminding us that he’s in the game oh so
so when I pick tracer what I’m saying is
I want to be this like super daring you
know test pilot can travel through time
and I want to weave through the enemy
team and usually what happens is I
blunder into getting headshot I go
flying off the map or whatever but in
D&D and a role-playing game I can just
say okay my character runs 20 feet and
jumps through the air and shoots at the
enemy guide then then I activate my
ability to travel back in time and then
you roll the die and if you miss you
miss because the die said you missed and
if you hit you hit because the die sent
you hit and you feel like great but it’s
not an indictment on you as a person or
your skill it’s just okay like that
worked or it didn’t and you know the
game is kind of designed to like well
it’s harder to succeed against you know
the tougher foe or things like that but
you really have it almost automatic wish
fulfillment like the game is not saying
okay and ordered like we very much want
you to feel like I want to play an
awesome Archer okay great pick fighter
who’s the class it’s good at fighting or
Ranger the class that’s good at shooting
bows then pick the things that make you
better being an archer and voila right
it’s not hidden it’s like just right
there the expectation is voila but even
with a +7 you can roll one two three all
day long and your idea of yourself as
badass backflipping Legolas style bowmen
can be totally undermined by the chaos
plateau right where you’re just like I’m
a great Ranger no you are not learning
the game right away I think that’s the
first time player says I’m gonna be the
badass and then they walk into the first
fight and roll like you said the one two
three and you realize you’re just an
idiot and then that becomes the
character a lot of time yeah you can’t
fire blow to hit anything to begin with
kind of greats that backstory to begin
with right and what you rose it’s not
your fault it’s just the dice right like
you’re kind of okay I accept the dice
sometimes they break my way against me
and that’s just but it doesn’t say
anything bad about me it is i mean dice
are there to take all the blame for when
things go wrong I think that’s that
speaks to what what the king of
Kickstarter was saying that I’m not
gonna stop about about how like your
backstory is defined through the first
few levels of play right you can start
with a character that you do not care
about and don’t build a bunch of
backstory for and by the time your level
3 or level 5 you’re like I have an
understanding of this character because
of the things that happen to them right
like I just stopped using my short boat
because I couldn’t hit with it and then
I got a crit the first time you use a
crossbow I’m a crossbow man now that
nothing no mechanical thing has changed
but because of that crit you can you can
use the dice to take your character in
another direction yeah yeah I want to
kind of transition to the both Matt and
then we’ll transition in the next topic
go ahead I was gonna say that also
depends on the kind of player I find in
my experience there are some players who
with
some sort of a hook of their own
personal creation they have a hard time
finding interest or at least finding
some sort of active agency in this story
no matter who’s running the game and
what they’re finding I’ve had many
friends of DM and had a player at the
table that they just add into the
session when all right that’s not for me
because there wasn’t something holding
him in there that they felt you know
they had invested in so I I agree I
think it’s in for a lot of players
efficient more experienced players it’s
a really really fun way to kind of see
where it takes you but for a lot of
people out there who are new to the game
and are coming in because of watching
streaming because they’re invested in
the story and the characters when they
want to start playing they might be more
the lines of well I want to make a
character with the story preset then my
excitement at going to the table every
same we have a session is to see how
much more of my adventure I can unveil
how much more I can make get closer to
this goal I had decided my I might have
before we started playing right I think
that’s that’s perfectly reasonable thing
to want and to run a game for and in
fact I remember in the play test Mike
will correct me if I’m wrong you guys
described levels at least one and two as
being the apprentice levels right this
is this is like you’re you were
literally just a peasant a second ago
and so if you want that fourth edition
yes if you want that fourth edition
experience of your starting as a hero
start at their level there’s nothing I
mean apart from the fact that it’s not
immediately obvious how to do it there’s
nothing stopping you from starting at
third or fifth or in fact my campaign
that we’re gonna stream the chain of
mini rows the players start at fifth
level and they’re gonna they’re
encouraged to develop their own
backstories but you’re also gonna get to
watch them roll dice and generate their
character from scratch and that gives
them starting at higher level gives them
the opportunity to come up with a cool
badass backstory and be able to support
it with their character sheet yeah you
guys are kind of transitioned in the
next topic already without my help the
the levels of PCs and kind of the pacing
of encounters that I think one thing
that at least when it comes to streaming
definitely come to streaming just having
that number somewhere on the screen can
easily dictate DM says hey you see a
goblin in front of you the players know
and the audience knows their power level
is X here’s a goblin they can easily
take this goblin out but five seconds
later oh there’s a red dragon flying
over you run but they gotta get
out of here there’s no way they can
fight this right so with that said the
audience react the same way as the
players and they
want to see that red dragon over goblin
at the basic level but you can’t get to
that red dragon before you kill a
thousand goblins so there’s this weird
like tug that comes to what is the best
level when it comes to like streaming a
campaign is there a best level is there
an optimum level I kind of want to pose
that to Mike to start off with you know
what is that that best level range for
D&D what’s optimum so what we know from
looking at the odds from the research
we’ve done into the audience is that
people generally start at first level
and they played to somewhere from 5 to 7
then the campaign ends but typically
when the campaign ends within like a
week or two they have started a new
campaign at first level they’ll reach
about seventh level after about six
months then that campaign will end and
when we first got the neighbor like oh
my god everyone’s quitting we’re
hemorrhaging clarifiers it’s like no
people just keep starting over and over
again the big question is and we don’t
know I don’t know the answer right now
I’ll be here to see what everyone else
says in the panel is that people would
happily play to level 20 if they could
just find a dungeon master who’s stuck
around long enough to get them there
that whether it’s there especially the
audience got a lot younger we see a lot
more especially high school and college
age players they their schedules change
like they just can’t commit to something
that’s gonna be that long I also think
that realistically if someone’s to tell
you hey you should play D&D like oh cool
that sounds fun yeah and if you commit
to playing it Saturday I mean there was
the fourth edition Tomb of Horrors which
I actually quite liked and and would
still like to run where you could if you
wanted to in six to nine months take
characters from like fifth level to
eighteenth because it literally was like
here’s the tomb at this level and then
you skip you skip you could say here’s
chapter one of our campaign it goes from
third to seventh level and then we’re
gonna take a break and then we’re gonna
restart and advance the characters to
twelve level and say so what did you
guys Empire Strikes Back
write what happened between Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back you guys tell me
right well then in a very short period
of time we’ve gone from – yeah
that kind of stuff fits really well with
with streaming too because we expect
this episodic TV style seasonally cut
format of gameplay so you can be like
season one was everybody from level 1 to
3 and season 6 is everybody from level
18 to 20 and you can kind of skip the
middle bits because as long as you
actively choose to do recaps or stop and
say like alright this is the beginning
of season 6 let’s talk about what
happened you can you can do that I tend
to think of I tend to think of D&D like
a bit like listening to an album in that
the first three tracks of the album are
gonna get the most play it doesn’t
matter if they’re the best doesn’t
matter if it’s the most fun to be levels
one two and three that’s just the thing
people will will do the most and if you
want to get to you know when the levee
breaks you have to get through four
sticks and go in California right like
you you you have to get through that
unless you skip to it but the question I
guess becomes is it worth making people
get all the way there is it worth doing
all that play or do you think you can
have a decent game experience jumping in
at level 12 if you’ve never played D&D
before yeah I think if you’ve never
played twelfth is gonna be insane right
it’s gonna be so much stuff you’d
attract we’ve done I won’t say and it’s
rough putting people in at level three
and they’re just like yeah I do what I
can do what okay yeah yeah we had a lot
of guests throughout the last season
critical role who had never played the
indie before but with the campaign was
at level 12 level 15 or 16 and they came
on and so it was like trying to help
make a character based on their concept
that was simple enough and point out
like well these are your
bread-and-butter abilities just focus on
these type of thing and for the most
part it was a little confusing it wasn’t
as bad as I thought it would be but it
is a lot to throw at you and especially
if you’re if you’re gonna be playing
this ongoing you know your level
advancement assumes that you’re learning
your techniques and their synergies over
a period of time to jump six to ten
levels right it’s it’s preppy learning a
whole new character and that form a
streaming standpoint that can really
bogged down and slow down combat even
our players who are all actors and by no
means the most optimal strategic players
in the world you know have played all
the way up to level 20 and even they
were having a hard time remembering all
the things they could do and
should be multi classics and you’re
trying to figure out which might more of
a rogue this round I’m more of a paladin
what am i doing you know ain’t no he’s a
little unwieldy
no one’s chat Mercer so no one can be
chat we can all aspire to be yeah you
mentioned kind of the pacing of
encounters and I think that ties in to
the levels in terms of what’s optimum
you ran a campaign like you said from
what what did when critical role started
streaming up what was the starting level
for you guys doom it was around seven or
eight I think okay first start so you’ve
done seven two all the way to 1920 in
terms of like the pacing of that is it
and streaming it is it difficult to
always have a fight almost be like a set
piece rather than just like hey you’re
walking on the road here’s some goblins
or here’s an ox monster this is gonna be
an interesting discussion yeah Kovalev
had a few times I I grew up playing I’m
playing Final Fantasy so for me random
encounters I thought was part of the
role-playing game experience as I played
through the years I found that
occasionally doing random encounters you
know are things that weren’t tied to the
narrative necessarily could be fun for
players I found that the player
engagement was much stronger when the
when the battle had story implications
or was driving the narrative forward and
so for our game as you begin to stream
it if you look back at the early
episodes they were going it was a
classic dungeon crawler in the Underdark
they would encounter like a group of
ogres and things that a lot easier to do
at the lower levels higher level
creatures and the level abilities that
are around there tend to take more time
and so you begin to decide as a dungeon
master is it more worth it to have the
same number of battles before you get to
a boss encounter or do you want to just
focus on those you know handful of small
set-piece battles that feel more epic
for the players and in from a streaming
standpoint more interesting for the
audience as well yeah don’t even don’t
even get me started on the adventuring
day I did a poll I did a poll on Twitter
and that was kind of a I mean I’m sure
Mike remembers this or I just asked my
followers how many encounters do you
typically get through in an adventuring
day and in the tweet I said not a
session the between two
rests and like 60% of them the answer
was one one it’s always nothing
to do with online play that has nothing
to do with an audience that is that is
people in general Ike I think 1,700
people respond wasn’t like 20 people so
what seemed to me a statistically
significant number of people responded
saying and and by the way no one was
getting through like six or seven it was
like in the book these is eight I think
eight is that aid encountered six to
eight that yeah yeah right well
encounters in that group degree also
what encompassed you know skilled chat
like challenges of skill based
encounters we’re trying to break yeah
things that were outside of combat
encounters broken down into kind of this
amorphous thing but that’s also the
issue is when you’re reading the book
for the first time and it says eight
encounters a day you assume it means
well battle encounters because that
advice is in the how to take monsters
and building yeah that’s that’s maybe
why people think that yeah yeah but yeah
that’s definitely like there there has
to be some way to address not the action
economy but like basically the healing
and recovery economy when every battle
the players all can go supernova and you
know I think we all I have ideas for how
to address it I don’t know if they’re
gonna work we’ll see yeah it’s really
interesting because we see people most
players don’t really get beyond seventh
level in some ways you know I could
imagine us trying to really radically
redesign how high low how high levels
work and using that to flow back to how
how conceptualize the the account the
adventuring day and what that means at
one point in fourth edition development
we kind of had this idea there’s this
big argument there’s a huge Rao over
Encounters versus the day and should
everything reset at the end of every
fight and I never was a fan of like okay
at the end of the fight everything
resets because that to me felt like it
means every fight is the same volume
right there’s no change in the dynamic
it’s always all or nothing like the
fight had to either threatened to wipe
out the party or it wasn’t and there was
no middle ground and you had to really
work as a Dungeon Master to make the the
fights filled that yeah
where we ended up with Court of Swords
where was a deadly encounter long rest
deadly encounter long rest and it was
just that for the whole first 50
episodes yeah yeah and so on and what we
tried to it so in fourth edition we it
kind of it’s this idea I sort of
half-baked it never really got him
implemented but there was this idea of
like thinking how do you expand the
encounter to be bigger so that if you
were like you’re in a dungeon level it
the encounter is the entire level of the
dungeon and is there a way you can give
people a framework where the some danger
presented by that entire dungeon level
like can work out to essentially be kind
of like this giant battle so that if the
party draws aggro from everything in the
level like that can kind of work if
they’re smart and pick off one thing at
a time like that’s the smarter way to
play like and try to give DMS more
flexibility but it never 4/4 reaches
very weirds one of those things I’m play
tested very well but trying to translate
it into a system that other people could
run I mean that that’s right surgery
seems good to me like that’s how you
beat against the slavers right you just
run in a grow all the slavers in the
dungeon get them back to the entrance
and then just murder them there and then
you’re done and then you win Gen Con
somebody who has played competitive D&D
at tournaments and has won that point
when you consider that many encounters
per adventuring day it’s a lot of
responsibility on the dungeon master
trying me each of those small encounters
interesting enough with the players feel
like it’s still a worthwhile experience
otherwise you’re just throwing more hit
point bags at them just because the book
told you to and to make it seem like
they’re you’re expending their resources
in a meaningful way and I mean it’s
already a lot of pressure on the dungeon
master to prepare these games for their
friends and their players anyway so if
there is a way that we can continue
going forward to consider minimizing the
efforts or at least the pressure on the
dungeon master prepare so many unique
interesting encounters and they said
focus on the narrative bits and they the
set-piece battles and have ways that can
still expand player resources and still
make them feel like it’s a it’s a
challenge to get to these big battles
that would be a huge boon I think to
everyone playing the game because thing
is when you look when I think back to
doom playing doom back in the 90s like
you know that sort of style of
first-person shooter where I have my
health and there are a finite number of
health packs on this level
and if I screw up and use all the health
packs but still emit 1% health and still
have half the levels monsters running
around I screwed up I have to reload
yeah I’m done right food yeah so how can
you translate that to a tabletop game in
a way that and I think it’s doable to
matter like putting some time into it
but I think that might be a path forward
where where you’re thinking of it is
more of a flexible tool rather than
thinking of it as like this could be one
giant fight or this could be an entire
dungeons of balls worth of monsters or
you couldn’t break this up into like
whatever you’re traveling from point A
to point B and here are the four things
you have to deal with right here’s the
ambush and here’s the weird Oracle who
might attack you if you you anger her or
things like that and so and I actually
think at the end of the day that might
actually be a system that’s a lot easier
for especially beginning Dungeon
Master’s to understand because you’re
kind of telling them here’s your roster
like you know fill up your tank with
danger and then deploy that danger
across your map or whatever it is you’ve
got and now you’re good to go
yeah there are games that mechanically
do that right like I’m thinking of the
very short-lived Marvel heroic
role-playing game where the game would
build up doom cool and you can spend the
doom pool to be like normally this is
this is an encounter with like 10 Hydra
agents but I’m gonna spend two points of
my doom pool and it’s 10 Hydra agents
and I don’t know some sentinels because
whatever so you had a resource you had a
resource as a GM to be able to spend in
at the time you needed so if you were
like ok this is gonna be an easy
encounter it’s no big deal we’ll like
let them go through it I’m gonna keep
I’m gonna hold on to my doom pool but as
things get higher and you ramp up the
thing you’re spending your points to buy
those things and it wasn’t to giving the
GM permission to do that stuff it was
giving the GM a fuel tank to know how
much they had left exactly yeah
I was talking about guys man I think
that you know one thing I don’t know
what we were talking about is what is
the purpose of having multiple
encounters in an adventuring day you
know we’ve talked about and I really
like the idea and I think it’s kind of
natural I think we’ve seen Matt do it on
critical role the notion that a level of
a dungeon could be one battle right and
and and what he’ll do is he’ll say this
is kind of the the entrance of this
beginning middle and end and then that’s
it that’s the level of the dungeon
and I like that stuff I think you can
simplify it even more and make it more
dramatic and I think the players would
go for it but why do we have an
assumption that there should be multiple
encounters in adventuring day and is
there a way to make the game conform to
our expectation rather than changing our
expectations to conform to the game yeah
and one of the big barriers we have with
fifths specifically to trying to adopt a
different paradigm I use that and I’d
vent to like this we’re gonna synergize
our paradigm yeah and not and you meant
it like not in the major way either but
the child right now we have we have
short rest and long rest mechanics so
that actually is like a giant like you
would we’d have to be aware of that when
we’re so if we’re changing how to build
things that is like yeah the warlock
right yeah exactly
well it’s tough back in a short rest
there was a game and I’m gonna try this
by the way I’ve worked on this I’m gonna
try it for my next campaign so I think
people will get to see it succeed or
fail or somewhere in between more likely
where there was a game which I just
literally happened to have sitting next
to me that I actually quite liked the
Warhammer Fantasy roleplay from Fantasy
Flight maybe too many notes here Mozart
but it was still like they had this cool
thing of the party sheet and my idea of
how the party sheet would work was
different than their implementation but
I like the notion that here are the
rounds of combat right and so there’s
you get this sense that there’s a bound
on how long a battle can last thank God
all right something’s gonna happen
toward the end that’s gonna make it so
one game Windsor or the other team loses
but also I like that notion that you
could have the party sheets say like
listen if this is the second encounter
in the day then on turn three everybody
gets this thing right yeah I know like
action points system from fourth edition
on the 13 count of the day on the fourth
encounter and you would literally have
these things marked on the thing like
hey hey if week if we press on then that
means on the on you know on turn two in
the next battle we get to do this cool
thing and people would be like yeah and
then you would have you have this less
less of a sense of well we’ve been
fighting for 18 seconds now we need to
rest for 24 hours yeah it’s not a good
stamina ratio if you
I’ll see tomorrow in 4th edition I
literally watched what the what was said
in the players hamburger the DMS guide
happened at the table where the players
were like guys if we press on we get an
action point and I just feel like if I
think there are more interesting ways I
think there are more flavorful ways to
take that same mechanic and the point so
each each battle the players like hey
should we press on because if we do we
get cool thing like that shredder
because of what we’ve had to do for our
game a lot of times is I just had to
think of consequences for them not
pushing oh yeah every once again puts
more pressure Dungeon Master you have to
have a carrot and stick
exactly so if there’s a way that
implement something like that some sort
of benefit to get to the players wanting
to continue for that would be tremendous
anyway you see you see these kinds of
mechanisms represent in a bunch of
different ways in varying degrees of
success or like sometimes there are
systems that are like okay we’re gonna
count up and every round you get a
plus-one everybody gets a plus-one to
their attack and yeah yeah and that just
feels that kind of thing just feels like
okay like by the time you’re around six
you’re killing everything in one hit
it’s just because we’re all bored of
this and we’re gonna move on it doesn’t
escalate the fiction it just sorta makes
it go away quickly but there certainly
needs to be a balance somewhere between
the fictional stuff the like if you
don’t finish this fight in six rounds
then you know the the train runs over
the goblin princess super pulp that’s
India yeah that’s a classic polish which
D&D is built the skeleton of D&D is pulp
fantasy it’s yeah oh yeah that kind of
stuff so yeah perfectly an perfectly
perfect Ludo narrative harmony yeah and
that was some of the stuff in 1.40 we’re
talking with this idea like you know how
can you structure the encounters they’re
more interesting as more dramatic we had
a lot of ideas built in like these never
got implemented but we had concepts like
you know the more you cast a spell the
better better you get at it during the
course of a day right so if I start Ken
if I’m a fire mage and I’m channeling
fire then I start getting this halo
effect that starts building up and so
now I from miking access I can’t access
my higher level stuff until I use my
lower level stuff like I know you’re not
the person who acts – that idea was the
coast no no
no egos that’s a great idea we just
didn’t have now that was robbed pain so
I had a lot of that stuff and I’ve ever
worked with him on it and he had a lot
of really funky ideas to recharge that’s
we call them the recharge mechanics yeah
but it just we ran out of runway I mean
that’s kind of the story of for eating a
lot of ways is running out of runway as
you’re trying to get the plane up in the
air so but but it’s still something I
think about sometimes like you know what
the warlock would it be cool to say okay
if you read as you reap souls for your
master then your masters please so
that’s when you start yes it would be
cool 5yz extensible enough to be able to
to survive that kind of I mean we’re
looking look at the DMS guild right like
people are making things that show that
they have a clear understanding of how
5e works it’s a framework you can build
things onto but if you’re not aware of
the DMS guild if you’re not at that
level there is still like this kind of
vast empty space we’re like well why
doesn’t the game already do this and for
me that the thing is getting people from
the here’s the core books and here’s the
advance like you’re making your own
and selling it on the Internet it’s that
middle space that I want to see the
bridge yeah yeah yeah and you know by
the way this is literally I’m thinking
about this for my players in my next
game while we’re talking you don’t have
to solve the game you only have to solve
your players so if mike says something
like hey wouldn’t it be cool if the fire
mages stuff gets blah blah blah you
don’t have to sit there and come up with
that’s cool how would that work for
every class and every specialty just do
it for your characters right right ad
hoc it as you go right yeah and and the
players that will help you they will
have they will help you they will love
that idea you don’t have to solve the
whole you don’t to solve the players
handbook you only have to solve the
characters of the table yeah like for
Travis’s character the new campaign is a
warlock and based on these kind of a set
piece battle you know smaller encounter
numbers we’ve seen in the previous
campaign that was a worry I had and we
had this conversation Covell of my place
where you know oh I don’t want him to
feel shafted we had a short rest
mechanic not being as effective if this
is how many encounters are running on an
adventuring day so like I’m toying with
a few ideas in the campaign to have like
a trade-off where the ability where you
can you know use an action to sacrifice
hit dice equal to his level to get a
spell slot back and ways to kind of you
know balance it a little bit just a
tailored to dice character I love
yeah I like I’ll be seeing more cool
ways to sacrifice it dies yeah so I’m
twenty mechanics there but mostly how it
plays out but I think like you said
tailoring to the player is an easy way
to begin that Trek yeah we’re not having
to worry about an across-the-board
release to a community and hope
everybody’s happy with it or not you
know shooting on you ready for your
design yeah just the person at the table
yeah and you know that and if they’re
happy then usually the group will be
that comes at the end of the campaign
when they sell the rule book right right
the fact that people can monetize their
campaign right now means we we are in
some kind of paradise I mean we’ve come
with hats off to Wizards of coast for
doing the kind of valve esque very steam
like Dungeon Master’s guild I’m super
happy that they do these come poll we’ve
come full circle right cuz that’s how
Dean D was Oh Dean right like like Gary
and Dave made the game and then
everybody’s like thank you Gary thank
you Dave here’s my better version of
your stupid game I call it crunch and
it’s a dollar for my zine and I’ll send
it to you from my basement and there was
no there was no industry it was just
people making a people for Andy yeah
yeah and it worked be a vengeance yeah
do you think anyway the idea to kind of
expand on that a little bit the idea of
if you’re going to stream a show taking
risk like Matt was just describing in
terms of adding things or both Matt’s
were describing adding things to the
characters that’s only specific to your
campaign that might not work for the
larger audience but it works for the
show do you think that’s something that
more streams should take into account to
make them unique and stand out to other
campaigns where it’s not just like
here’s another campaign at level three
we’re gonna go into this dungeon and
fight some colds it’s it’s here’s a
wizard that like Colville was saying
that you know has fire coming around his
head the more he casts fire spells etc
said are like should should they try to
be unique in that sense I design and
design in public is terrifying right
look if you if you’re like alright let’s
say say I’m like I have a player and
they’re like I kind of like I like some
of these classes but they I don’t like
all of them
and I would like to play something
that’s kind of like this but there isn’t
one of those in the in the game and you
was did you like okay cool well I’m
gonna do this thing and we’re gonna make
this class for you we’re gonna play it
you have to endure every single episode
people in the audience being like this
class is unbalanced you’re an idiot you
don’t know how to design you don’t
understand fifth edition why did you do
this just play a ranger just play a
warlock just play a fight or whatever
there you’re gonna get that feedback
whether you ask for it or not it’s like
it’s like Steam greenlight right this is
the like it’s not done so every day is a
play test and people some people really
like watching play test some people love
tuning into a thing before it’s done
without being able to see like what is
this class gonna be like when it’s
finished but you have to accept that
mostly you will keep it up
people will notice and hate it and it
takes work to do that play testing in
secret is much safer than playing in
front of a thousand people I’m gonna say
something I might by the time I’m done
with this paragraph I may have talked
myself out of it
but I think I think that there is
something virtuous about running a game
in front of people on stream and busting
out your own experimental house rules
because you’re showing everyone this is
how it works bro this is it is all about
it’s all about trying and failing okay
so about it’s baseball
it’s not basketball it’s about if you if
you get a hit one out of every three
times a bat you’re one of the greatest
players that’s ever lived right that’s
its get up and give it a shot I part of
me thinks that it is virtuous to try
that and if that means listen if those
people are complaining at all the whole
time they’re engaged they’re complaining
and they’re that’s that’s their level of
engagement is and I have people every
video I upload somebody goes I really
hate the way you you talk so fast and
I’m like I’m pretty I just respond I go
I’m pretty happy with the way the video
in 99% of feedback I never sent of
feedback is I would have done it
differently phrased as you die
correct but that’s those people that are
kind of shouting out into the into the
cave and all you hear is their echo is
coming back that those people that’s
their level of engagement and it’s up to
you as the person streaming I guess this
is we’re getting to like streaming
advice which by the way I am NOT the
expert on I’m only stream like 20 or 30
hours it’s it’s up to you to figure out
how
I gonna survive as a human being with
you no bleeding on the keyboard in front
of people and then being criticized it’s
up to you to figure out where you draw
the line in engaging with your audience
what yeah what’s it I think I think it’s
also the audience to you right like I
know from my experience this isn’t
streaming but with panels it shows like
Gen Con wherever that there is
definitely like a if we were of a panel
and tell you the next product we get a
billion people to show up if we do a
panel and it’s like we’re gonna give you
advice on how to be a good DM we get a
bunch of people showing up when you do
something it’s more like here’s like the
tech the technical side of game design
you get a smaller audience now it’s an
engaged audience right but it is smaller
right I think there are a lot of people
so it really depends if the audience is
showing up for like I want to watch a
cool story and the mechanics start to
get in the way like where it is like it
is about the class that’s not
functioning or that’s too good yeah
there is I have found that the people
who care about mechanics really care but
it is a subset it’s maybe like Twitter
side of the people you know I thought
about the number of people you might be
alienating with your noodley nonsense
right because they showed up for the
characters in the drama over the course
of this discussion I’ve realized that it
might be in the best interest if you are
going to stream to just do the most
basic thing because more people are
gonna be able to relate that because
they’re playing the most basic thing
themselves yeah I mean that’s that’s
that that does sound like good advice to
me but I know that for me I can’t I
can’t raise it I’m not gonna curtail my
own game designer proclivities sure and
I’m gonna be busting stuff out and we’re
gonna see it fail wise from from a
perspective of like marketing your
stream as a as a product to be consumed
the differentiation between you and
what’s in the players handbook can be a
draw for the audience right like if you
if you can say my campaign setting is
really different and these are the ways
in which it’s different or I’ve changed
some classes or we’ve thrown out
alignment we’re using this other thing
or I’m doing a different XP system there
is a subset of the audience who will
tune in to be like oh this is really
interesting how maybe I can do this
maybe this is a different thing that I
could implement and keep this it does
require that you you have an idea of
what that’s going to be and are willing
to yeah that’s true through it as you
build it a non-trivial amount of every
stream ever has been people arguing
about the rules and looking things up
right so that’s that’s
that’s that’s part and parcel of of D&D
there’s no way around it it can be
minimized but if you’re gonna be if
you’re gonna be sitting around argue
about the rules anyway isn’t it more
interesting to be talking about your
rules that you made up than it is the
ones that everybody already kind of
knows yeah well I think I think it’s
also tootin that not worrying I mean
obviously if you if you were if you’re
relying on the audience size of your
stream for your income then this is a
different discussion or just how you
want to look at it but I know sometimes
it is easy just look at well how can I
maximize the number of people watching
and build from there like in the
tabletop role-playing game space that is
something that has always been weird to
me coming into the industry in the late
90s there was I don’t know how many
times I’ve heard people say things like
well I was going to design a
science-fiction game but people told me
that those don’t sell so I didn’t kind
it’s like but like you’re just like
you’re like a saw Fringe why you doing
this just for fun right like yeah like
why do you care right it was a mistake
for you to think that anything was gonna
sell so do what you want you’re saying
like a 500 copies versus a thousand like
you know and now maybe but it’s just one
of those things that has always been
interesting to me like you know I think
there is a culture and role playing
games that is really worried about like
did you how big was the event at Gen Con
like how big was your booth like how
many people showed up and it I think it
gets this weird it’s not commercialism
it’s almost more like but the prestige
of it and you know it’s something that I
think has hurt the development of
role-playing games because we do have to
kind understand that like you’re gonna
get a lot of people to buy a game and
just to consume it versus want to
understand why it’s designed the way it
is sure and that it’s okay that we don’t
it doesn’t always have to be about
maximizing that that number that’s yeah
that’s what’s that’s not so great about
this sort of small pressed game design
space is that it at this point doing a
game that you only sell a hundred copies
of and then you leave it up behind and
move on to your next thing isn’t going
to bankrupt you right like you can run a
small Kickstarter you can do the thing
you can be like here’s my weird game of
this one weird thing that this game does
it’s an experiment some people like it
you move on you do another thing the
it’s not the like you have to work on it
for 10 years buy 10,000 copies of it
from a printer by the booth of Gen Con
sell 100 copies and then just like cry
into your beer for the rest of your life
we’re not in that space anymore like
exploited spray and experimentation
across the board is so much easier now
yeah yeah it’s one thing I think that
has really held role-playing games back
for a long time I think is changing but
for ages it was well you know you think
of if you wanted to write a novel you
just wrote it right and if you wanted to
publish a role if you want to make a
role-playing game it’s like well you’ve
got to write it you’ve got to get the
gen con’ booth you’ve got a print if you
have to get the art like the barriers to
entry were we’re kind of crazy you’re
right and it’s and I think there’s still
perceptions of those but I thinking that
is something that’s especially the new
audience coming in I think that’s really
changing I want to go back to something
he said when we were talking about rules
because I might not ever get a chance to
ask this question again
how much do you see Merle’s it Wizards
people asking questions or arguing with
rules because of what happened on shows
that were streamed is that like an
everyday occurrence where something
happens like well so-and-so did this on
their stream and they’re obviously wrong
you verify no we actually don’t see much
of that like I know personally myself I
have anyone asked me about hey this
happened in the stream know what might
be happening and we are a little bit
aware of this I might just get asked a
question like and we Crawford I
definitely know this because they will
definitely do like ask mom and ask dad
kind of like hey you know so we’ll we’ll
have people like often if they’re doing
it if they’re trying to prove that
they’re right they don’t want us to know
it’s part of an argument but it is
usually the most common cases they will
ask Crawford a question I mean yes and
then ask the other person and then go
well Jeremy said this there are four
core rulebooks for DNA now right there’s
the players handbook there’s the monster
manual there’s the Dungeon Master’s
guide and there’s Jeremy Crawford’s
Twitter account and that’s just that’s
where all the rules come from yep how
much for good or ill expand a little bit
how much internally are you guys seeing
what happens on other streams or I guess
the basis question is do you guys watch
streams to see what should be done about
the game for future updates or anything
like that
oh yeah no because we at me we’ve got
our own
we run right now and that might be a
slate expanding it definitely does
because this goes back to when we made v
we were really aiming it at new players
and the play test was all about hey
existing players are we gonna piss you
off and luckily with the answer was the
opposite yeah this is great but and I
think we kind of time to touched on this
earlier we are now really starting to
understand the culture around the game
and I think in a theoretical 6th edition
or the next book that looks kind of like
you know the rules expansion you would
see more stuff that is almost you know
in that meta mechanic here’s how to make
your game function better here’s how to
think of things in a way that might be
clearer and easier and make the game
smoother for you as opposed to just like
here Mechanics for our ships you know or
like here’s 20 new prestige whatever
pursue special subclasses things like
yeah because I think like that that was
actually the point which I knew the
audience had really changed with when we
tried to play test Presley’s classes and
people overwhelmingly hated them and it
was fascinating right coming in from
third you like no way right people love
these things and overwhelming like and
we got so many comments people were just
like why are you adding this to the game
it makes no sense like I choose my class
I choose my race then at some point I
choose my subclass then I’m done like
why would I then make another class
choice yeah it’s weird
and first of all you figure out what
prestige class you’re gonna be at a teen
level then every time you get a level
you’re not making any decisions at all
because you made them all at first level
I mean well first and it’s so it was
interesting to see that the culture of
the game that’s why I knew like we had
definitely changed things like there was
a sea change like because just we saw so
little support for the concept and again
just a lot of baffled again now people
have been with the game since third
we’re like hey this is great
why are you gonna implement it and I
think it was like only like 30-something
percent positive now keep in mind for us
like 50 percent positive is like oh
that’s that’s not good right like we’d
have a lot of people most players aren’t
like hyper analyzing their rules look
that sounds cool they just check yes I
like it but I mean we we we calibrate
them you know for like a hard
but the but yeah seeing that but the
percentage that low was just I think
it’s the single worst rated thing we’ve
ever play tested to be a subset of fans
and I’ve seen this that that feel like
fifth edition is a step backwards that
complexity is good more complexity is
better and that any attempt to
incorporate new players by reduction of
complexity is like a mistake that you’re
betraying the core foundations of what D
D is so by the time we get to like
twelfth edition it’s gonna be traveler
and no one will be able to flip it
anymore what can we just jump straight
to that that’s an interesting point I
wonder I wonder if like it’s funny
because D and D 5 is already it’s a
pretty complex game like if you don’t
assume everything about D and Eve you’re
just like I like playing minecraft it’s
like this is super crazy complex I
wonder if there’s not a way to kind of
or even reason to introduce a concept of
prestige classes back into the game
somehow because I definitely love that
idea that um you know there’s lots of
eldritch Knights out there but I’m maybe
the only boy this is the thing that I
think is interesting about the the DMS
guild and the idea generally of having
like an SR D or opening your game up to
group development is that the first
thing that any community will do when
you open your game up to being developed
is they will ruin it in every way you
actively chose not to ruin it when you
made you in the first place yeah all
those things that you’re like this is
gonna be a terrible idea let’s cut it
that’ll be the first thing someone in
the community will make right but that
that’s why we do that right so that the
core development of the game can
continue you can continue to creative
directed in the way you want and if
people really want perceived classes
someone can make the PDF introduces them
and they can make X amount of money
where X is the number of people that
want to buy that but the game itself can
retain a like a purity of vision in the
sense of like this is still the D&D that
that is the core set of the rules I have
a question for Matt do you ever when
you’re working with your players on
their characters and you’re listening to
all the kind of stuff they want to do
and you’re thinking about how to do it
do you ever consciously decide you know
what I’m gonna try to find a way to do
this just with the players handbook
because even though I’m at
could come up with some cool thing I
don’t want to deal with the people
watching or do you just say no screw
that I’m gonna like 100 let’s go this is
great no no III generally just one cuz
primarily we’re still playing the game
for ourselves and then everyone’s a
challenge you know the players enjoyment
I think is what will engage an audience
more than anything as long as we’re
happy as players ultimately doesn’t
matter if you couldn’t cocked some crazy
what a prestige classes are you know for
Liam’s guard for Caleb if Liam thinks
this is awesome then first of all who
cares what the audience things at that
point but I will tell me I don’t they a
whole bunch of them will like it right
because Liam is engaged with it and he’s
excited by it yeah well like for
instance the blood hunter I never set
out to design anything I’m not a game
designer by trade at any means but I we
ran a one-shot for Vin Diesel for this
one / promo for his witch hunter movie
and like can you make him his witch
hunter character it’s like I guess and I
threw something together haphazardly for
him and then it was this overwhelming
community request of like can you
release the rules for whatever he played
I’m like you aren’t any class the
community wants to see easels class I
don’t have one so I guess I’ll cobble
something together but I don’t want to
call it common comments I get in my
videos is when I talk about something I
do at my table people are like that
sounds cool how do you do that yeah I’m
like I don’t I just told you how I did
it that was it that was the whole thing
there was no there’s not a secret tome
where I’ve got that’s you saw the whole
thing just you know there’s not you you
believe in yourself you can do it just
make it up as you go you can see like
when I started the class it was awful it
was I was still learning I was still
learning the balance in the end the the
design of the game and like every
iteration was me releasing it publicly
being lambasted and set on fire and
going okay I see what I did wrong thank
you for the intense feedback but the
feedback nevertheless and you know it’s
just I’ve learned a lot as I progress
and that’s how all any of us do you
start and you create something that
sounds like it’s fun and interesting and
and unique to your game and then you try
it out and it will succeed in some ways
it’ll fail in others and you’ve updated
and learn from that you know and that’s
it’s a scary thing to throw things out
there like you said earlier you know
play test
thing live like that can be a very scary
thing but if it’s something you want to
do and you’re passionate about then I
think that’s more important than being
conscious about the audience because
that’s what the audience the audience is
there because they want to see people
engaged there when I see you as a
Dungeon Master having this cool idea and
get excited and then if the players are
excited by it then you want that that’s
that’s victory I’m gonna read this
comment from twitch ad it says way to
throw Vin Diesel under the bus mat in a
battle between Vin Diesel and bus I know
who I’m putting my money on so to jump
over we’re kinda all over the place
because there’s so much to talk about
but I do want to hit on the point of you
know experience in how it shapes play
and Matt I think you’re very and Adam we
switched quarter swords to be narrative
style but I want to talk on in the
aspect of streaming do you both agree
that narrative style is the best way or
the way that you’re playing right now on
your streams respectively for D&D in in
my in my experience there’s there’s in
in regards to like do you play the game
as much like it is written ignoring the
fact that you have an audience to cater
to there’s basically two ways to split
it or there’s the people who want the
game as it is and there’s people who
want the characters and the game is
secondary and if you tried to do a show
that was up your primary business source
it was a primary source of your income
you try to do a show that was just we’re
playing by the rules we don’t care what
chat likes or doesn’t like we’re gonna
play as if they weren’t here you would
not be able to succeed like there are
people who are like that but the
audience size is not enough to be
successful I think that most people tune
in to watch the characters do things and
to get attached to the characters and
the rules are there to add drama and add
chaos and move the narrative in
different directions but mostly people
are there because they like the the
characters first and foremost yeah I
mean that quart of swords was that
experiment for us to be like we’re just
doing we’re just doing the thing and
we’re only going to play by the rules
and it’s gonna be hard mode D&D and
characters die all the time and we saw
like the the feedback
was there were some people who are like
yes this is great I love it keep playing
the indie and hardcore mode but more
than two-thirds of the audience were
like I’m getting fatigued like I’m
getting tired I need to attach to the
characters and you can’t you can’t keep
taking them away from me at random like
this or I’m gonna stop watching
I want Mercer to answer this but we’re
going to Colville afterwards because his
facial expressions are too good not to
give an answer works for us now we’re
talking like mechanics of experience and
character advancement yeah yeah just
like in terms of narrative style versus
combat right I I am it depends on the
table really I find experience was very
important for a lot of my gaming years
when you had players at the table that
felt that experience points were a
quantitative way of showing that they
were doing good it was course they have
succeeded yes yeah it’s a scoreboard and
and also to make sure that there wasn’t
an unfair unbalance if a player couldn’t
be there at the table there was a kind
of a there was as much of a congealed
unit especially when a game started
unless your group of friends and you’re
all like excited to be there and help
each other out it wasn’t a huge deal but
if you had people from different walks
of life and different groups coming
together to be kind of a shitty thing
we’d be like hey how come we’re at the
same level he’s been gone for three
weeks it’s you know that would
come up a lot I find the whole fair it’s
not fair game was in the air stuff
exactly I find that that that is less of
an issue the older you get and the more
the kind of the community matures a bit
as a whole and for me I started our last
campaign was experience-based and I have
I have I still had this huge excel chart
that it’s just a nightmarish anomaly
over five years of our campaign ripe an
individual character experience and like
you know who got better bits for
character moments and I was keeping
track of every campaign and it was just
so much bookkeeping for a for a party
and a group of friends that I realized
didn’t care and so with the new campaign
I was like can we just do away with the
experience points and make it a
narrative based level advancement anyway
that’s an option yes yes okay let’s do
that and I mean we’re trying it out now
for the first time and I’m already
loving it so I think I think it’s a
great way to do it but you have to
ensure that the table is excited for it
and won’t consider that a point of
contention it’s it’s really important to
remember to the that there’s a secondary
for
you know you and I form an eye talking
about streaming games there’s a
secondary player incentive right like if
you’re playing at your table you have
like the group is having fun and you’re
getting experience points as like
explicit and implicit kind of rewards
but there’s also the like is the
audience digging what we’re doing and
that in a lot of ways can override like
do we care about experience because if
if I’m in a campaign and I’m like no I
love experience points because they let
me know I’m winning at D&D and I’m
winning harder and faster than everyone
else I’m playing with but if I’m
streaming that game that’s secondary to
am I making my character in a way that
people like to watch right am I getting
people to view are they tuning in are
they telling me like your characters
awesome or they making fan are they
doing the thing because that’s a bigger
priority for a stream than like winning
D&E so there is there is that additional
thing that most people won’t get that
won’t happen in most campaigns mr. king
a Kickstarter you’re doing a show pretty
soon because the king of Kickstarter are
you gonna do things that Kickstarter was
for us yeah getting studio space so we
could stream our next game exactly are
you gonna go narrative we gotta go
combat you can try to mix it were you
well I definitely think we’re gonna use
milestone XP if that’s what you’re
talking about right yeah I’m old enough
yeah I’m old enough that I remember when
not only did you get XP for clean
monsters you also got XP for gold
yeah and when I posted that on Twitter
or my subreddit people’s many people
literally didn’t understand what I meant
they thought like you spent you spent
your gold shop and you just got a
thousand XP I mean split with the party
and you up and you got the gold pieces
there was no so I and that I’m a big
believer and I think this may be a
philosophical difference between me and
a lot of other modern Dungeon Master’s
is I’m a big believer in if you have six
players there’s a good chance you have
six different motivations why are the
why are those people there it’s very
like running a company all your
employees are there for different
reasons no two employees are created
equal it’s up to you is the folk the
person behind the screen to understand
why is this person here why is this
person here my player Lars likes getting
XP he’s the guy at the end of this like
we killed these monsters how much are
they worth
it’s not my place to tell him that is
that is a primitive way to think you
should be more enlightened you should be
caring only about advancing the story
this gets
back to the whole adventuring day thing
I come from an era where you measured
your progress I think we talked about
this last dream and how many rooms you
made it through right but I don’t think
that way anymore I still have some of
that in me I still now think more in
terms of of what did we achieve we found
something out right we we stopped
something from happening all right we
may be advanced the narrative somewhat I
also so I think that player players it
should be okay if the the choose for you
is we threw the ring in a Mount Doom we
saved the world a plus or I found a lot
of gold and just we fought a dragon and
got a whole bunch of gold a plus those
are both totally valid as far as I’m
concerned I also remember playing I
played champions I ran a Champions game
every week for three years and you only
ever got like one experience point in a
given session because that’s how their
XP work and you spent it and after a
little while I just stopped giving XP
and no one noticed and that’s the il-6
that’s the el6 style of play right you
hit six level in D&D is a very third
edition kind of old-school way of
playing you hit six level and that’s it
that’s that’s Dan lock-in you’re locked
in at that point and people like that a
lot of people like that so there are a
lot of options I do plan on using
milestone XP and I’ll tell you why
because I don’t I don’t got time I did
my time in the third edition time I did
my time with spreadsheets where I’m like
okay this character is it’s just crazy
if you’ve never played third edition
Craig is third level and Dave is fourth
level that means these Craig got more xp
for these goals even though they’re both
in the same but he was lower level than
Dave so that means he was fighting
tougher tougher goals so he got you had
to do all this math and Ferg
I don’t know man like five or eight
years or however long that game lasted I
did that every week didn’t even think
about it it was awful it was literally
like we had to bust out the hole it was
bad to crowdsource it the players had to
all help and we all had our calculators
out and stuff like that but we took it
for granted we didn’t even consider it
and I am like I’m too old for that now
all of that is about buy-in at the
beginning of the campaign because if you
don’t have that conversation to go with
your metaphor from before the you end up
with a group where Frodo wants milestone
xp for throwing the ring into Mount Doom
Sam wants xp for expressing his
characters beliefs about Frodo
and Boromir wants to know how much XP
Sauron is worth but you can have you can
have that conversation at the beginning
to be like these are the things that you
will be rewarded for in play is
everybody okay with that and if if
Boromir is like no I want xp for every
goddamn mark I kill either Boromir needs
to get on board or you can be like cool
Boromir you get shot to death thanks for
playing
that’s Faramir you’re on board yeah
Tolkien talks about that session in the
making so the yeah I think that there’s
fewer things that we can do as Dungeon
Master’s to make our lives happier I
make our players happier than set
expectations at the beginning and if you
tell your players what you’re up to
ahead of time hey I got this crazy idea
they will get excited that you respected
them enough to bring them into the
process and they will play along with
your crazy ideas even if it’s not the
thing that they were hoping for
initially yeah mic hearing all this and
kind of I would make maybe it’s too much
in saying this but with the rise of kind
of milestone XP thanks to streaming is
it something that you guys will weigh
heavily in the next book or next update
etc where you put it right next to kind
of combat XP or will combat XP kind of
always be the the main focus for the
rule book as it work it is a really
interesting question and I would not be
surprised if like in a theoretical 6th
edition or even in some update that the
sort of quest XP you know like hey if
you click if you rescue this guy like
you can imagine from the starter set
there’s the adventure where begins
you’re you’re heading to to town and
this guy gets kidnapped get to a rescue
em if the bender just said it might even
say this I can’t remember haven’t looked
at it in a while like okay if the
players rescue the guy and escape the
caves they are now second level like
just that straightforward but you know
it’s funny hearing all this I’m kind of
like having said contrarian note rising
give me like my next campaign would I
want to run I had this entire thing not
figured out I want to run a campaign
where it’s like okay every week you guys
get like two to four hours to play and
every week the dungeon levels up so if
you guys don’t get enough stuff done to
level up your characters you’re just
hosed you’re gonna fall of it
every game everyone yeah yeah I just do
that right every game every game I run
is the clock is always ticking and if
the players don’t proactively try to
stop the bad guys that means those bad
guys are leveling up and getting better
yeah so I love I love that as a table
focused thing like I think people love
darkest dungeon they love torchbearer
yeah there are games that are like be
good or die right and you it goes back
while we’re talking before about player
skill like you get better at clearing
the dungeon faster getting further on
any given session you know pushing one
or two more rooms before you go back to
town but speaking from experience I
don’t know that that for us like that
doesn’t work for a stream yeah yeah
because the let’s do it again next week
the audience starts to suffer yeah the
audience starts to suffer when they fail
because it I think that people want that
to be the consequence they want it to be
brutal they want it to be like if you
die you die and everything is gritty and
horrible but they forget they forget is
it like cool alright well you’re gonna
be first level six or seven times while
you learn this no like oh this room
again more kobolds it’s like okay but
that’s the structure of play so it’s
yeah I think it can be really really fun
for sure the idea of like fronts or
clocks advancing as you play but but if
you’re trying to make it an art form to
be consumed by non players you you have
to be very careful about how to pace
that yeah I will say that we’re in
reference to the earlier stuff about the
difference between the player who wants
XP for monsters and the player who wants
to throw the ring in the Mount Doom I
think you can make Boromir happy if at
the end of that session you say okay you
guys killed all the goblins so you get
this extra quest XP right and that way
he feels like oh great actually does
does he really need to keep track of
every individual goblin I bet not I bet
he would be happy with that little like
you did you you didn’t let any goblins
get away here yeah the solution the
solution we found to that problem in
court of swords was turning milestones
over to the players so the players come
up with goals for their character they
say I want to kill all the goblins
doesn’t want to steal the ring from
Frodo and I want to go back to my home a
hero right and the GM assigns like I
will assign a value to those be like all
right so killing all the goblins
probably a medium goal still
ring from Frodo is gonna be hard and
ever returning home at all is gonna be
deadly but if you pull it off you get a
bunch of experience instead of the the
GM a screwing or obfuscating those goals
and being like oh you did a goal check
you just turn it over to the players and
the players will tell you what they want
to do so that in the next in the next
session you can yeah in the next session
I can build I can say like if JPS
character wants to learn about a certain
NPC I know that’s a flag that JP is
waving saying please include this NPC
more so that I can interact with them
that’s interesting because I my I put
put a big doctor in front of my players
I think its bits online somewhere and
said hey these are the campaigns I’m
interested in running next what do you
guys want to play and they picked the
black company game they picked the
mercenary company game and I told them
explicitly the hook in order to enjoy
this you’re gonna have to want you have
to buy into the idea that you care about
fulfilling the contract in those days
the black company was in service – right
and that notion that we do what we say
we will do no matter what our team
literally signs a contract to do that
well there is your milestone stuff
okay guys this is you’re gonna if you
complete this you’re gonna get this feat
you’re gonna get this that near thing
you’re gonna get these mechanical and
narrative rewards and tie it all into
the characters and the team and the
decisions they make of players because
then when they look at a given contract
they’re gonna be like there are good
rewards here but we’re all gonna die all
right right and that’s a great narrative
great player choice dramatic player
agency all that good stuff yeah I’m sure
the final topic and Walt spend too much
time on this but the idea of you know
skills in a game fluidity element that
is to expand on that better players are
just gonna play faster and it’s more fun
to watch because they’re not fumbling on
their rules and I think we’ve
experienced this on court of swords Matt
you’re kind of going through this right
now with everyone playing new characters
for the first time and seeing how those
skills work is it does it but who’ve
someone who’s going to stream their game
to know their character inside and out
or is it better to learn alongside with
the audience so that the audience also
knows what’s available like where do you
guys sit on that I I personally feel it
depends on the type of audience you’re
trying to draw in because I mean most of
my players
the last campaign was their first time
playing role-playing game ever and they
we messed up rules all the time
you know as much as you know keepeth got
for you know not keeping track of
all the druid spells and all druid forms
at all times grog who is a barbarian
forgot his extra rage damage often you
know like it sometimes happens when
you’re caught up in the moment you
forget things and some people would
complain and be frustrated and angry
that there are suboptimal players but
we’ve got a larger response people
saying it made me feel better to know
that even on this level you can make
mistakes and it’s okay or I’ve done that
too and it helped and though and
acknowledging that we were forgetting
things are that we were making mistakes
help them remember those rules for their
own game better so I don’t know it can
it can depend if you really want to draw
a really hardcore audience that loves
watching optimal tactical everyone’s
great player gameplay that could be a
very important focus for you for our
particular stream in our game we’re more
narrative focused we’re more we don’t
wanna spend too much time reading
through a rulebook remember exactly how
something works and if it’s taking a
while we’ll just make a snap decision
based on what makes sense in the moment
and move forward right so I think it
really depends on the type of audience
you’re trying to draw in what type of
viewer you’re trying to appease and what
kind of thing is fun for your players
you know if your players really enjoy
being super tactical then definitely
cater to that but if they’re more
interested in character dynamics and
being silly and getting in bar fights
and lighting things on fire then maybe
it’s not something you need to focus on
too much right koval you were shaking
your head as I said the question which
where do you fall on that I mean I’m I’m
on the record as saying it is and I
believe this very strongly and of course
because I believe it very strongly I
immediately start thinking of exceptions
the it is the players job to know their
sure yeah there is no virtue and
ignorance however people are people and
there is there is definitely a virtue in
presenting the game as being a thing
that human beings do and human beings
screw up all the time and in fact I
don’t even really I said this about Matt
I was on the record I went on the
critical role subreddit and I was like
listen y’all because people were giving
Matt I don’t even remember what it was
about but I was like I watched that
whole thing happened live and I don’t
think anything that did was a mistake
because not forgetting a rule is not a
missed
the only mistake is if Matt thinks oh I
knew how that works I screwed it up
that’s a mistake and only Matt knows
what forgetting a rule is just a thing
that happens misinterpreting something
is a it’s it’s the game is too complex
Friday this is item I was one of the
designers on the dude and collectible
card game it was impossible to hold that
entire game in your head at once period
no one could do it right so you were
always gonna have to be looking up the
rules and misinterpreting things that
was a human thing to do so the notion
that maybe maybe it’s maybe it’s okay
which is just a hypothetical I realized
that the notion that maybe it’s a good
thing for players to be kind of tabula
rasa and figure things out as they go
because then the audience is learning
with them I think it’s the players job
to know their and they are it’s
it’s it’s just respect for the other
players it’s your turn what are you
gonna do I’m gonna cast the spell okay
do you know what that spell does no what
right that’s right that’s that’s now
that is disrespecting the other people
the table but the same token happens all
the time isn’t really anything you can
do about it other than just be mindful
that’s all mindfulness and having
empathy with the players and realizing
nobody’s perfect and and thank God I
think there it should be stated that the
only people that can be somewhat upset
might be a harsh word but upset that the
player doesn’t remember their stuff is
the people at the table people watching
it
don’t hound that person for not
knowing that’s the worst thing in the
world it’s really bad yeah if you want
if you want something that doesn’t have
moments like that go watch all of
Netflix sure yeah but you if what you
want is you want to see people playing
D&D then that means what you want is you
want to see people for getting rules and
misinterpreting things yeah because that
is it is built into the nature of this
is a really really
I remember when Wizards of the coast had
incredibly ambitious plans for express
expanding the category and there was
gonna be that and in fact I think Mike
will correct me the most successful
world playing game in history is the
Pokemon jr. adventure game they sold
like 6 million units like some right and
they had broken down they have broken
down they have hired a psychologist
child psychologist to understand at what
age do kids understand the different
levels of role-playing games because we
want to make a game for six-year-olds
well ok six-year-olds don’t understand
character permanence or they do
understand character per minutes but
they don’t understand the polyhedral
will make a game for them but guess what
not the Pokemon jr. adventure game it’s
up at the other end of the chart it is
the most complex game for the oldest
gamers if that’s what you want to watch
then you’re watching a whole bunch of
people sitting around failing to read
the last sentence of the spell it
explained everything and would have
saved us from arguing for the last
happening yeah I mean I think there’s a
difference between like I absolutely
agree that if you come to the table in
the first session and you don’t know how
to play your character it’s everyone’s
responsibility to kind of like help you
get there right and if 10 episodes later
you’re still forgetting the same rules
like fix fix your yeah it’s funny
once but like get it under control
you’ll get to a point where no matter
how much skill all the players have D&D
exists in the contextual intersection of
rules and that’s where it gets
complicated because you’ll stop having
people feedback about you forgot the
rule or you you did it wrong and more
like you did it in a contextual way that
I wouldn’t have or I interpret these
things intersecting and that’s when
people start screaming Crawford right
because they’re like we need we need
rules as intended not rules as written
anymore and I think you’ll never get out
of that ever like that no no group that
was passed at that place in fact I
referred I have a third term that I use
and that’s the rules as played the thing
that happens at the table and to me
that’s really the only thing that
matters is the thing that’s happening at
the table and happily I’ve cultivated a
team of players that feel the same way
so we talk about what we think is
reasonable we don’t talk about what we
think Jeremy Crawford intended and when
we all agree on what what makes sense
and if they perceive me as being
primarily worried about what makes sense
based on the accumulation the
sociological accumulation of decisions
we’ve been making all the way right and
that shared that shared communal
understanding of what we all tend to
agree on makes sense and is fair then
then all the players are happy and
that’s what matters is the rules as play
not necessarily the rules as written or
even as intended I’ve gotten to a point
where I don’t care what the rules is
intended were because if you didn’t
write a rule that I can interpret
here’s the thing this is dream matter
completely agree rules as intended rules
as written if you as a dungeon master
screw up guess what you you can’t go get
Jeremy Crawford Mike Merle’s and say
could you come to my table and explain
how it’s really your fault no it’s on
you it’s on you so you better own it you
better own that stuff and you better say
out of the gate it’s my game not Mike
Moses game right yeah because he’s not
there to defend the decisions that were
made in design or that you made you are
and so you might as well just say listen
is my game we’re gonna work it out yeah
yeah I will say also carrying into the
to the streaming element to there is a
very real anxiety that comes from
knowing that every decision you make in
the game is going to be picked apart by
an audience oh yeah that’s why for that
version and and it’s and it’s it’s real
for the players on all scales and I’ve
talked with many people in many
different role playing game streams too
you can make a mistake once and then get
a day lusion people letting you know you
made a mistake that then gets in your
head is the next time you play you’re so
worried about not making that mistake
drink another mistake yeah that’s two
reasons the audience is coming on you
and it’s just this kind of this mounting
thing that even as you tried to ignore
it it’s still present and you know we’re
trying to work through as we go forward
to because it’s it’s led does a lot of
like negative feedback in some elements
and some players have been down on
themselves about it but it’s just
unfortunately part of the nature of
putting something in publics it’s is you
have to go that’s part of it when
they’re criticizing your friends that’s
the thing that kills you know I love it
you’re not giving me you it kills
you to do when they are criticizing your
friends I’ll tell you this I feel as
though this is a ridiculous thing to say
but I feel as though there is a
technological solution to this I think
if there was a low latency streaming
service if I could just turn to chat and
go hey how does this work oh yeah right
we do that sometimes right yeah if that
were possible instead of having to wait
14 seconds basically right second
yeah I would love the idea to
crowdsource a lot of this stuff because
the the the crowd is wise yeah well
watching know the rules if I could just
literally say how does this work
and just wait the living index great you
can’t do that you have to sit there and
wait and that’s in terminal from a
stream from a stream your perspective
and from a stream where we have chat up
and available because it’s all like we
don’t have a studio we’re doing it on
our on our computers chat our chat knows
that if they if we’ve messed up a rule
or they have an alternate interpretation
of a rule they can give us a page number
because without a page number I’m not
even gonna look at it you can give us a
page number but they have to know that
whatever they are trying to help us fix
will not be applied now it’s not for
today you’re like just case you never
want to screw it up again here’s the
actual rule but for today we’re done
it’s it’s in the it’s in stone
everyone’s experience with this will be
different but my personal experience in
wargaming is that coming to wargaming
from role playing but I was raised on
role playing and then gotten to
wargaming in the 90s I discovered that
what we did at the table was unusual we
argued all the time about everything and
the wargaming all the people I was
playing with was like well you think it
works this way I think we’re just like
let’s roll a die and see and that’ll be
what decides it and we’ll look it up
after the game because you know we’re at
a game store time is precious and there
all these pressures here at this
tournament here at this game convention
I was like this is crazy these guys
these guys have this stuff work that
didn’t mean people didn’t argue about
stuff they did but that notion of like
figure it out after this thing is this
this session let’s just roll a die and
see who believes what and move on if
there’s not a judge nearby I was like
wow that’s great and so that became a
big part of my DMing style was all like
look I’m gonna make this ruling now but
just be aware that I’m gonna go look it
up afterwards and it may change and/or
you know I’m an error in favor of the
player now because I don’t know the
answer and I don’t have time to look it
up but I will figure it out afterwards
just be aware that your guess is it may
change okay so it’s so hard when the its
you have to make a call that’s not in
favor of the player or the GM but in
favor of like what seems to be the most
narrative ly interesting thing in the
moment right like there are moments
where it’s like okay well you you’ve
made this move and you rolled and you
failed and now your character is dead
yeah there is some debate about that
because the stakes are so high and then
having to roll that back can be very
deflating right where you kind of want
to lean into like okay the most
interesting thing to have happen here is
you died so we’re gonna stick with that
and there’s there is a stakes question
there
I seem to recall mr. Mercer in the final
battle with Vecna someone did something
and you went down a road and then they
found out that’s not how it worked
and you were like I’m sorry man you
should have ever thought your stuff
worked
I don’t do you remember that am I am I
remember this specific moment that’s
happened a few times and they came to a
point when the stakes are super high
like for instance the first time they
encountered a vecna there was there was
a disintegrate spell that was supposed
to disintegrate a character and I began
describing like the moment of them like
just turning to ash and dust this might
be when I was whimpering yeah and they
were like oh wait no this this actually
would have circumvented it and so I went
and that is the vision you had right
before you have suddenly shot to reality
and dodge just in time so that’s very
clever I was really angry once at a
player because of that and I was like I
sympathize with you so much right now
because you know like actually this
happens all the time the the tension
that you’re trying to build is a group
of people telling a story versus the
game’s mechanics occasionally butting in
I think it happens to everybody we had a
situation in court of stories where I I
described the the during the short rest
when the creators had a nap and I was
like you you wake from a dream of like
your home city you know drowning and
everyone dying in this cataclysmic thing
another player chimed in was like also
everybody gets sixteen hit points I was
like yes okay like that’s true also that
happens but like we were having a moment
here so you know and that’s that’s the
group you you have to you have to build
those things generally by the rule that
there’s a very small kind of amorphous
time window to retcon any events that
have just taken place yeah if they
managed to catch me in a rules change
you know within a very short period of
time and I can narrative lis roll it
back a bit and still like keep the story
flowing then I may allow it if and again
since you’re talking about they all of a
sudden remember something that would
have changed it a minute and a half two
minutes ago we’ve already moved on to
two different other player turns didn’t
know it that one’s your responsibility
to recall that and we’re moving forward
with how it played out I’m sorry I think
the phrase my friends and I use is
friendly game this is a friendly game
and the answer is well has anyone else
gone and
thing else happened in the game that
there’s a die roll or a player choice
because if no if all this happen is
narrative repercussions and we can
rewind those but the branching tree of
how did this how would this have
happened the flowchart week that that
we’re not going to spend our time
undoing people’s actions and exactly
yeah yeah the final thing I want to ask
and this is purely for Mike I will ask
the other three of you how you use it
but the is information for the most
possible but yeah those things where
it’s exact like we were trying to kind
of like mess with how people play the
game and it’s why we even say the dmg
like oh you don’t have to use this we
don’t want it right but it is like the
single most well here’s the thing I
think we put them in because we thought
okay we have these tables for your
background you know your your bond your
trait your flaw and here’s here’s the
thing you get for using those and I
think what we’ve generally seen is
people use them without needing the
mechanical room board that yeah that
they generally like oh cool I’m not my
character is being hunted by bounty
hunters and I’ve betrayed this person
and okay that’s cool like I just want to
play that like that having that as any
characters its own reward I don’t then
need inspiration to get me to keep
actually doing that because in a way
it’s probably kind of runs counter to a
lot of our design where we’re like hey
we want to really think of the audience
this game is building we probably don’t
want an audience where people have to be
like hey need to like portray a fun
character you need to really keep
getting the canonical rewards like I get
like that why you’d want to do that but
I think for D&D we didn’t really need to
do that so I think most groups just they
read it they just forget to use it I
don’t think I’ve ever hadn’t seen and
and all the D&D I’ve played and slash
watched I’ve never seen a player say hey
can I get inspiration for that yeah yeah
because the point stands yeah yeah I’ve
had it happen but usually it’s just to
give me I mean I believe
mechanically in the idea of inspiration
I believe in the idea of rewarding the
players for doing things that are in
character the problem and I think I
don’t know if I speak for everybody but
the problem I have is I have no idea
what the hell’s going on with your
background man like I got six players I
got C players and that’s three different
it’s all
bond and a flaw and that kind of stuff
and what I’ve no time for that
I mean I mean it makes me feel it often
makes me feel like if I were a better
Dungeon Master I would know those things
but you can only beat yourself up over
that something so much before you got
them like move on but what I’m what I
what I discovered in prepping from the
next game was and this is probably
unique to my game is that I don’t this
to sound like as a plug the next name I
apologize the the players because
they’re members of a mercenary company
they have ranks or job titles like
there’s a standard-bearer and they’re
gonna get and there’s more of those than
there are players and so there’s gonna
be some left over and the players are
gonna choose and I’m gonna know which
ones they choose and I designed
mechanics for them and so if it’s sort
of like I’m complicit in their backstory
so I’m gonna know you’re the
standard-bearer if you do something that
is part of that kind of title and is in
line with your character here’s
inspiration and it’s not gonna be so
much about me remembering these somewhat
obscure decisions you made six months
ago it’s gonna be a big part of your
character yeah I when we first started
streaming the game II moved over to
fifth edition from from Pathfinder
inspiration was something we were trying
to incorporate because it was we just
learned the rules and it was in the rule
book like cool and the first few
episodes you watch the caves and you’ll
get inspiration but we also confused it
with Bartok inspiration which was a bard
so instead of being advantage we may not
like it these sticks you had to roll and
then it then it just come to the point I
was like well I feel like the bard
should be the one who’s gonna be
inspiration and I found that in to still
reward those moments of character
intrigue instead of just giving them
inspiration we would I would adjust DC’s
on certain challenges that were in front
of them and if they succeeded or they
were being really cool about a moment I
would lower the DC in my head for what
they wanted to accomplish they really
messed up I’d raised the DC and so yeah
it was just it was a cool idea that
narrative leaf or the way we were
playing even when we tried to utilize it
eventually just like a like a vestigial
twin it just kind of fell off you know
it didn’t yeah didn’t find necessity in
our game and went away I think it’s
somebody common if you want to do a
little gamey archeology on fifth you can
tell the mechanics we weren’t sure about
by the number of other mechanics that
lean on them so there’s there are very
few if any things that use hit dice
because we weren’t really sure at the
end of the day
people really want to use well and now
I’d be something where we would delve
more into inspirations another good
example of there is nothing in the game
that requires you to use it like you can
just totally forget to use it and
everything else functions fine I find
the trouble with inspiration is that I
just want to give it out all the time
because as written I’m like you open
your mouth
good good job like is there a
group like you you talk to your
character’s voice or you like you did
you did a thing that is above just like
being yourself pretending to be the
character I like I wonder if there are
groups where people need that like I
don’t know what do I do and you’re like
you’ll get inspiration if you like
talking a funny voice certainly kind of
like never been a problem with not
knowing when to give it out it’s just
being like I guess you have everybody
have inspiration have it again no you
already have it have another one like it
III see the useful carrot for groups
that have want to engage or are more
mechanically focused and like more
tactical exact you know combat censured
players and you want to get them more
invested in the story and their
characters you know role-playing
elements it is a carrot you can dangle
to give them an option to do so and I
see that that can be important with some
groups yes they finally something but in
a theoretical space yeah I mean I was
just gonna say that as a person who
likes to win at Dungeons and Dragons
like I like to get XP I like to beat
encounters I like to be challenged by
the DM and do the thing every time
every time I get into that situation I’m
like cool well before I make this role
how do I get inspiration right how can I
charge up and then dive into that thing
because if I go into an important role
without inspiration I up and the
way to get inspiration is to just do a
little thing where I mean character and
for me that’s like it’s tough because
then it becomes looking at the GM like
was that enough you want more you want
me to do some more Shakespearean
worship all right here we go
I’m not trying to open the door
Shakespearean worship yeah I’m not I’m
not trying to open the door till you
give me that inspiration I think it’s
tricky because definitely you don’t want
to I mean this is on a group a group
basis but you don’t want to imply that
there is a virtue to speaking character
or virtue to role play because of the
players that aren’t huge didn’t that
feel like wait why is that and I’ve seen
that happen in my game although that
wasn’t probably when we were younger is
that players who were rewarded by the DM
for role playing
there was definitely the players who
just weren’t interested in talking in
character and doing that kind stuff but
we’re still having fun and still
contributing they’ve they got resentful
and I one of the things I felt like I
learned as I did this was again players
are there for different reasons and so
in general I think that inspiration can
work in its the it’s rewarding people
for doing something cool as opposed to
punishing them for not doing it right
which is always good design but yeah I
think it be careful that you’re not
ending up like just always showering
those one or two players with
inspiration because they’re playing the
way you wished everybody played but yes
you should but that’s not that’s not it
should be okay two people play
differently the fundamental problem with
it is that it’s it’s supremely Fiat
based it’s like did you amuse the GM for
a second cards against humanity’ yeah
yes thank you most so here you win yeah
yeah so it’s I mean it’s it’s very tough
there are systems that I think allow for
rewarding players playing their
characters in a meaningful way I think
there are definitely reward systems that
plug in in a in a way but I’ve always
felt like like you know like what Matt
was saying that it feels vestigial it’s
like well you’re all role playing all
the time so everybody just has advantage
all the time you may have Lenny joke
here you go have some inspiration yeah
yeah it’s a dog treat RP here you go
buddy yeah I just feels weird well last
time I did this was was October and you
guys were just getting ready to release
Santa thar Mike and now we’re here in
February and you guys are getting ready
to release another book is that first
off what’s the new book and then I want
to ask is that the the normal schedule
of releasing things because so the yeah
the book is a morning kittens to mofos
it’s a book it’s a combination it’s a
bit like bulldoze guide monsters and
that it’s a combination of a bestiary so
lots of new creatures mainly creatures
above CR 10 so really going for more
powerful creatures so it’s I think it’s
a half the creatures are above challenge
ten and half are below and then the
front half of the book goes into the
lore of things like the blood war the
war between the elves in the drow the
sort of like cosmic conflicts of D&D and
Morden cannons not know it’s on them see
mourning canes basic stick is he
believes that every big conflict has to
be held in careful balance so that no
one powerful group overruns the the
cosmos of dandy and so now as far as
whether surprise regular schedule we’re
we’re kind of commitment events
yeah no it is actually it’s a bit of a
change usually this time of year we’re
doing an adventure but I think one of
the things we want to do is we don’t
want to become completely chaotic but we
also don’t want to become too
predictable so we do yeah we want to
become we want to keep people on not you
know it’s a it’s a fine line to walk but
we want to be always surprising but not
so surprising that it doesn’t make sense
so I wouldn’t be surprised if you see
that we mess around our schedule some
more gamers especially because gamers
are definitely pattern forming creatures
they want to find the template and then
apply it alright so we are very much not
adhering some templates I am myself
people at work tell me I’m very chaotic
so I guess I just had that’s just what
and I’m just owning it that’s just what
I am so the so I would not try to think
that just because we did something one
year that that’s the correct plan for
the next year we are we’re always
evolving so so we’ll see what we do next
year it should be interesting so I have
smart reacting to what people are doing
yeah that’s a lot of it – yeah yeah I’m
gonna pry there if you had your way
tomorrow you can make a new book appear
out of thin air what’s in it I got a
prize out
as your lawyer no I know exactly what I
want cuz I’ve been I’ve been messing
around this myself I would just really I
don’t remember the fourth edition book
dungeon delve oh god I would love to do
that book 4/5 it basically like well I
mean keep in mind there’s nothing in
that book that a third party couldn’t do
and put it on the damn skill exactly so
there so a but but that would be oh yeah
I love that book that book is so useful
I also like that you know the book of
challenges from 3rd edition yeah similar
thing yeah yeah but if you’re not if you
if you haven’t seen those books
basically a dungeon delve had 20 short
adventures in it they’re all just quick
little dungeons you could run in an
evening and what was great about it was
and I did there’s a ton of time during
the the fourth edition era we would just
a little you know weird there’s five of
us here let’s play some D and E so just
get on the character builder make v
little characters and the dam would pull
out the fifth level Dell then we would
just play there was one for each level
that was the thing is yeah we’re level
you rat or whatever you want to play out
tonight 12th level that’s fine there’s a
twelfth whole dungeon delve yeah it was
great yeah so yeah you heard of here
first of the next expansion for everyone
here what do you guys want Wizards to
make for the next book what would you
guys want to expend be it a new it’s a
monster manual be it items be it player
advancement be it how to stream D&D
whatever you want I want to be I just
want to be surprised
look I just I don’t I don’t want to be
able to predict like that that’s the
thing for me like I’ve been playing D&D
for 25 years now and I have seen lots of
D and E supplements come and go I’ve
made a dungeon crawl role-playing game I
would way rather that the professionals
at Wizards of the coast released a book
and I was like huh I would not have
expected that instead of like a thing
that I’m like yeah good I’m glad that
that’s because anything that I want
badly enough to expect someone else to
design I should stop being lazy and
designer myself so instead I would I
would like to be Steve Jobs didn’t be
like you didn’t know you want this you
want this now and be like oh you know
what you’re right I do want that
to make an iPhone Mike get on that yes I
er Joanie Ives it’ll be fine he’s
cheating he’s not doing anything right
now
Mercer Colville you guys got an answer
oh man I mean just for personal
preference I would love to see some
other settings open up classic settings
revisited I love Forgotten Realms don’t
get me wrong another huge fan of what
you guys have done with it
but I mean I adore Planescape I want to
see more cut you know more plain
interaction overlapping I want to see
signal I want to see in any way even
when Perkins brought it in to the recent
game I’m like oh yes more of that please
you know sent that made me excited so
more more other settings dark Sun things
that the show players that not every D&D
world has to be Forgotten Realms because
they’re a lot people are coming to the
game now and are watching all the
streams that you guys are doing on there
for the most part a lot of it is just
Forgotten Realms and that’s really cool
and I notice I try to keep it chords a
good way to introduce them to that but I
think it also be a cool time to start
showing people that there are many
different ways that you can build a
world around this system that have very
vastly different thematic elements and
high magic low magic you know I’d like
to see some more than its it’s the it’s
the cool thing I agree completely like I
love all of those kind of like grid
settings but I’m having a super strange
experience running tomb where like I
grew up on the very pulpy like RA
Salvatore a Drizzt like I know I’ve gone
back and tried to read it now and not
enjoyed it as much as I did when I was 9
but playing – okay playing to
annihilation to me like it’s our
December I’m so excited like being able
to tap back into that that like preteen
excitement about a setting that feels so
like like visceral and real to me has
been very strange because I’m a super
cynical dude I’m just like mmm Forgotten
Realms that’s for dorks but I’m loving
I’m loving it so much and it’s it’s
super cool to think that other people
will have that experience as their
settings might be like revived I was
happy to see fourth edition was doing
dark Sun I know other people were I
loved I played on my friend Jordan ran
the dark Sun game and I got to play a
Defiler warlock and it was one of my
favorite characters of all time I love
dark Sun yeah Kovu dark so soon I mean
they can’t say strongholds and fall
know that I did the Adam Coble thing I’m
making the book that I wish yeah that’s
the beauty of the idea okay so I’ve got
to have a stock answer that I use when
people have asked me this and I don’t
wanna cheat and give people something
they’ve heard before so I’m gonna give
two answers one is the stock answer is I
would like to see wizard the coast Mike
clever your cover your ears I think
they’ve done a bad job with leveraging
the power of their adventures although
it may just be that I don’t know the
adventure is well enough I have bought
all of them and read all them but I
haven’t run any of them yet so it could
be wrong but I would like to see for
instance the big city campaign here its
water deep the source book for water
deep and it’s also the campaign that
shows you how D&D can be an exclusively
urban game right okay great that’s that
adventure that’s 2018-2019 is the heck
scroll game oh dude tomb is the tomb is
that you have to lay it’s zoom is so
good and it it brings back all of that
like hex by hex what is it raining today
that matters like navigating rations
understand the principle though right is
that like each each adventure should be
showing people that D&D and to a tomb
really doesn’t do that
that DD can be very different than the
things we’ve seen before
so that’s one answer but the other
answer is I really really like to
dragonomicon right and that was a great
that was a great example of like anybody
could have made this book there was
nothing in the dragonomicon that a third
party company could’ve done but nobody
would have done it as well as was as the
coast it doesn’t have to be the
dragonomicon but something like that
where you pick a pick this hallmark of
D&D dragons and you just do a whole book
on them and get new player options and
new dungeon master options and it seems
really boutique right it seems ultra
specific but the game it’s got dungeon
dragons in the name of the game right is
something that I think a lot of people
would like to see doesn’t like I said
doesn’t have to be dragons but that the
quality of design and writing and
production that book I was a big fan of
so yeah something like that
alright got 2018-2019 planned for you
let us know when you get to 2020 nice
you got it
alright that’s gonna do it for the show
we went a little bit over
time so I appreciate everyone allowing
us to do that here on the panel let’s do
some shout outs though to wrap
everything up
Adam model why don’t we start with you
and then the others can you can lead by
example here yeah sounds good yeah so
I’m Adam Koval you can find me on twitch
twitch TV slash Adam Coble or on Twitter
that’s gonna go says JP mentioned the
top of the show I am the co-creator of
award-winning tabletop role-playing game
dungeon world and you can find me
running role-playing games right here on
ma JP and over at twitch.tv slash roll20
app where I’m currently running through
tomb of annihilation and I didn’t know I
was gonna love it I thought I was gonna
hate it but it’s really really fun so if
you want to see a hex crawl and and like
like the kind of starter was saying
definitely check that out
all my schedule stuff can be found over
on on Twitter so that’s me
what we’re gonna ask Covell be I don’t
you know I’m I I’m not good at that I’m
not I’m not important yeah be rabid
kickstarter.com the Kickstarter thing is
I don’t the Kickstarter is doing fine
this is okay it doesn’t need it doesn’t
need to be it’s it’s we’re gonna do all
the things we said we’re gonna set out
to do you know how about how about go to
comiXology and check out the critical
role comic because that is something I
am intensely proud of it’s something
that is some of my favorite writing that
I’ve ever done and it’s something that
I’ve collaborated with mr. Mercer on so
the it’s and it’s just a blast we got
two issues to go and I people accused me
of Scanlon being my favorite character
but I gave grog with the most epic
moment in the whole comic so stay tuned
nice nice some teasers I like it
mr. Mercer some shoutouts yeah you can
find me Thursdays at 7 p.m. Pacific on
geek and sundry’s twitch did dungeon
mastering for our show critical role
check out the comics that are amazing
I’m Koval is been writing it’s been a
lot of fun to work on that I think
that’s that’s but I don’t I’m bad at
this too what what game this week are
you voice acting in what
no question if you’re if you’ve been
playing monster hunter world you can
hear me then as the field team leader
and the hunt I’m so you’ll be really
annoyed with me Mike morals do some
shoutouts please alright so yeah you can
find me I’m on Twitter and Mike Murrells
just dolls both words squish together
and I’m also I have the Mike morels
happy fun hour 1 p.m. Pacific at a
twitch.tv slash D nd the game I gave you
my own little show so I spend an hour a
week building a new subclass for
different classes in D&D and so that’s
we’re starting maybe a little edge I get
the monster to magic item in spells but
a lot of folks on my summer and have
watched that and they speak very highly
of it so I encourage people check that
yeah it’s also yeah I will say go watch
it it’s great what time is it on one
more time just so everyone hears it is
Tuesdays 1 p.m. Pacific time ok that’s
for Eastern
I think yep never math on stream that’s
rule number one that’s gonna do it
though for this round table thinks I
want so much for watching thank you guys
for joining us here on this Sunday
afternoon / evening and we will see you
guys potentially next time we’re out
yeah
https://t.co/QsBSAn6Uol

— JP (@itmeJP) February 12, 2018

Hey I thought this went pretty well!https://t.co/ft6M1HsDnZ

— Matthew Colville (@mattcolville) February 12, 2018

We’re going live in about an hour. https://t.co/LQVfFkZ4KZ pic.twitter.com/fZcUNxJCgD

— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) February 11, 2018