Latest / Sessions Canceled / Spicing Up Your Combat Objectives: Ep. 169

Transcript

Spicing Up Your Combat Objectives: Ep. 169 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:08
  Hey. Everybody.
• 0:15
  So the GM had this like big brained idea to play Shadow of
• 0:20
  the Colossus in D&D, and then he got really excited and he
• 0:23
  pitched to everyone. Everyone was super excited, but
• 0:26
  then he couldn't stop everybody from screaming aggro at the top
• 0:29
  of their lungs. Just any time he was trying to
• 0:32
  set the scene or read box text, he was just, or chuckle shits in
• 0:35
  the corner going aggro aggro. And you know, it just didn't,
• 0:39
  didn't really go very well. He just, he just got mad and
• 0:41
  gave up. Which sucks because I thought it
• 0:42
  was going to be a cool idea. I'm also one of those people
• 0:45
  though, so maybe I should have just shut my mouth and let the
• 0:47
  DM run a zoom. It's fine, worry about it.
• 0:50
  Session's cancelled I guess. This is not important, but I
• 0:52
  always want the horse's name to be Argo.
• 0:57
  Yes, I think I have it some several times mistaken it for
• 1:00
  Argo. It's aggro.
• 1:01
  It's aggro, but I don't like aggro as a name because aggro
• 1:05
  just thinks makes me think of Mmos and like it doesn't
• 1:08
  register as a name. Yeah, also right.
• 1:12
  You could make the very fair like assumption that he that the
• 1:16
  horse would be named after Argo, Odysseus's dog.
• 1:20
  But no, no it's not. It is not.
• 1:25
  So weird. Yeah.
• 1:27
  Also, all right, I've, I've seen a couple of clips of Odysseus in
• 1:31
  in Hades too, and he's my favorite.
• 1:33
  I love him so much. Everyone but that man.
• 1:36
  He's got all of he's got like such Jeff Bridges energy.
• 1:39
  Like I'm retired. It's time for me to kick my legs
• 1:41
  up and vibe. I'm just here for the vibes.
• 1:44
  Yeah. I was like, so Odysseus, how are
• 1:48
  you doing with all the whole, you know, end of the world's
• 1:50
  happening? He's like, you know, actually
• 1:52
  doing pretty good. 4O1K is doing pretty good.
• 1:54
  My Portfolio hasn't looked better actually.
• 1:56
  Melanoi being like, I'm having a bit of a problem with this
• 2:00
  enemy. How do I beat him?
• 2:01
  You're like, all right, so you got to exploit his left flank
• 2:04
  weakness. You can actually glitch him out
• 2:06
  if you get him to the edge of the screen and then you just
• 2:09
  double down on the date. He's really good at the frame
• 2:11
  date. He's like, weirdly like, 'cause
• 2:14
  The thing is, he's like the tactician where Achilles was
• 2:16
  like, well, good luck. Is that Grius?
• 2:18
  Odysseus is like, no, no, here's what you gotta do.
• 2:22
  That is, yo, that is so true. Every time Zachary's like, hey,
• 2:26
  Achilles, you want to help? And then he's just like, have
• 2:29
  you thought about getting good? And you're like, bro, not
• 2:33
  everyone is fucking invincible. He.
• 2:37
  No one is just that guy Achilles.
• 2:39
  Achilles would also kind of be like, I don't know, but I hope
• 2:43
  you're doing all right. Zachary's is like, I'm not,
• 2:46
  that's why I'm asking for help. Go ahead.
• 2:51
  It feels like everyone is, on the whole, a lot more helpful to
• 2:55
  Melanoma. Yes, they definitely are.
• 3:01
  That boy fighting for everything, He she, he
• 3:04
  definitely is first child first. He is, yes.
• 3:07
  Also side of rough he's. We were talking about we were
• 3:10
  talking about, I don't even remember what the context we
• 3:15
  were talking about. I don't know, hot ladies in
• 3:16
  Hades or something. And you know, I just, I just
• 3:20
  need to throw it out. I if Aries wasn't such or
• 3:23
  heiress, sorry if Heiress wasn't such a bitch she she'd be high
• 3:28
  on the list but God damn that. I love her design.
• 3:31
  I love her design, Tomboy. I'm here for chaos design.
• 3:34
  Such an asshole. I kind of love her though, like
• 3:38
  God. She's the worst.
• 3:42
  She also she also like passive aggressive hits on Melanoa and
• 3:44
  Melanoa is just like, I'm not here for this like all right,
• 3:49
  well. Is she is she a character that
• 3:53
  you can romance you, even do that you.
• 3:54
  Can give her nectar, but that doesn't necessarily mean
• 3:58
  anything because you could give like skelly nectar too.
• 4:01
  So like that doesn't. But yeah, I don't know.
• 4:05
  I don't know what happens when you Max about.
• 4:07
  I haven't maxed out anyone so no fucking clue.
• 4:12
  All romanceable character. Don't be spoiling saying oh
• 4:17
  that's not that many. Say nothing?
• 4:19
  Well, there's only what, 3IN Hades 1?
• 4:22
  That's true. OK.
• 4:23
  So it's when you get you get one more, you get one extra, OK.
• 4:30
  It's anybody it it's everybody that you see at the the
• 4:33
  Austroads camp. It's not like any Yeah.
• 4:35
  I know, but still won't say anything.
• 4:39
  I won't just assuming I'm going to say shit.
• 4:41
  I've gotten pretty good at not spoiling you.
• 4:43
  I'm not even necessarily talking about me.
• 4:45
  I'm also talking about somebody listening.
• 4:47
  That's fine. Anyway, we haven't.
• 4:50
  We haven't known each other in 10 years.
• 4:54
  We're coming up close, right? We're about 8 1/2 at this point.
• 4:58
  We met in spring of 2016 or 2017.
• 5:04
  I'm not good enough at math to dispute this at the moment, so
• 5:07
  I'll just take a word for. It it like 7 1/2 to 8 or close?
• 5:12
  Sure, hang on. You might be wondering, say,
• 5:15
  what the fuck was that open about?
• 5:16
  What are we talking about today? That's a great question, don't
• 5:18
  worry. But I got you homie.
• 5:19
  Not Hades 2. Not Hades 2 Why there are some
• 5:25
  things in in the Hades games that are kind of relevant to
• 5:27
  this, but it's fine me I was I was doing me a think right I was
• 5:33
  I was thinking especially after Fabula Ultima on Monday and with
• 5:41
  what is almost certainly the second hardest combat we've had
• 5:44
  to date behind us and what is likely to be the hardest coming
• 5:49
  soon. I kind of realized that we never
• 5:53
  talked about AAI think fundamental tool that GMs can
• 6:00
  utilize that is often underutilized by the majority
• 6:04
  and I, you know, it'd be a good time to talk about that right
• 6:07
  now. Wait and I'm saying.
• 6:09
  The last fight was the second hardest fight.
• 6:12
  I think So what? Was the hardest.
• 6:16
  The spider but the the Tana Trea Rex for sure.
• 6:22
  Maybe, I don't know. I'd have to think about that
• 6:24
  one. So like I, I'm, I was thinking
• 6:27
  of the hard fights. I didn't think we were going to
• 6:30
  lose fighting the Baron and once we regrouped, I was like, we
• 6:33
  definitely have the W now. Second time we fought him, we
• 6:36
  kind of caught him off guard and then pub stomped him.
• 6:38
  Yes, the Yorick would have destroyed us had I not gotten
• 6:46
  really lucky in the first fight. And then we had a lot more
• 6:49
  silver. All right, You'll Rick.
• 6:51
  You'll Rick. Also you the second fight was,
• 6:54
  you know, he was below your level at that point, like I
• 6:58
  didn't make him any stronger, so.
• 7:01
  Right, right. And I can't yeah, I mean, I like
• 7:05
  we of the big fights we've I think that's it.
• 7:07
  And those are the big all of the big fights we've done on the
• 7:09
  wolves. But.
• 7:11
  On the Wolves. I don't really count the wolves.
• 7:14
  It was like our first fight. Fair enough.
• 7:15
  I don't think it's. Yeah, I think the the Guardian
• 7:20
  of the Forest was our second most difficult fight.
• 7:23
  And much like the Rex, you made very effective use of secondary
• 7:31
  objectives and secondary mechanics in the fight, and that
• 7:34
  is what we're talking. About to be fair, I don't get
• 7:35
  credit on the Rex. I didn't make that step look
• 7:38
  fair enough. You still used it though.
• 7:40
  I used it, but that was in the game.
• 7:42
  That's from the Atlas of High Fantasy or the Atlas of Natural
• 7:44
  Fantasy, I mean. Before we really dive into this
• 7:49
  though, you know. Slap your mom.
• 7:51
  Maybe, Yeah, yeah, I mean that our, you know, support us on
• 7:56
  your podcast platform of choice and maybe take a look at our
• 7:59
  Kofi so we can get Brett a new a new bed.
• 8:02
  For what is a Kofi Isaiah? You have to explain what it is
• 8:05
  with people who don't know. Or you could just say donate and
• 8:10
  not explain it. That's easier.
• 8:13
  Yeah, well, Kofi is like a Patreon, but if you don't want
• 8:16
  to do like a little too. Complicated.
• 8:18
  It's just a donate button. That's the only thing it does.
• 8:21
  Just donate to the Kofi. The only thing it does?
• 8:25
  Do that so we can get our editor, Brett paid.
• 8:28
  We don't see a dime of it till Brett gets paid.
• 8:31
  And even then, it's till he gets paid well and he'd appreciate
• 8:35
  it. Brett, make a little, you know,
• 8:36
  do something, scream in the distance for us.
• 8:39
  Scream in the distance, just an echo from beyond the grave.
• 8:50
  I really hope he does something for that.
• 8:54
  Now to sort of set the scene for what I'm talking about here,
• 8:59
  because I'm sure a lot of people are like what the fuck are
• 9:01
  secondary mechanics and secondary objectives?
• 9:05
  In our most recent episode of the session of Fabulous Ultima,
• 9:08
  we were locked in combat with a giant guardian animal in the
• 9:11
  shape of a huge grizzly bear and a massive crystal stalagmite
• 9:14
  coming out of his back. Not in the shape of It was a Big
• 9:17
  Bear. Yeah, right.
• 9:18
  It was a giant grizzly bear, like 20 feet tall.
• 9:22
  Good times. Now we got to hit you with a
• 9:26
  little bit of context. In Fabulous Ultima, when you get
• 9:29
  yourself or an enemy down to half health, they are considered
• 9:32
  in crisis. When you enter crisis, several
• 9:35
  things can happen, and these secondary mechanics are not rare
• 9:38
  in the game. But the way that it was done, I
• 9:42
  think was really effective and it harkened back to some really
• 9:44
  fun like mechanics that you'd see in things like video.
• 9:47
  Game technically. I mean by default the all too
• 9:53
  many sentences are the ones by default.
• 9:56
  Crisis does not have any of its own mechanics.
• 9:58
  It's just when you enter half health or when you hit half
• 10:02
  health you are in crisis. It doesn't do anything by
• 10:05
  default, but many stat blocks in the game and other various
• 10:10
  abilities and stuff that players have will reference the crisis
• 10:15
  status basically. Yes, and upon dropping the
• 10:22
  Guardian of the Forest to its crisis state, the crystal on his
• 10:25
  back began to glow and the boss became way more dangerous.
• 10:30
  And that is typically what I, I don't really know what you call,
• 10:32
  I keep calling it enrage in my notes, but I don't think that's
• 10:34
  actually what an enragement. Is not what an enrage and an MMO
• 10:37
  is, if that's what you mean by that.
• 10:40
  Yes, that is what I was thinking.
• 10:41
  What would you call it? It's.
• 10:41
  Just a phase two. If you're MMO parlance, that
• 10:46
  would just be Phase 2. Well, so the reason why I don't
• 10:50
  think of it as a Phase 2 is that it's a.
• 10:51
  It can be. It's not a permanent thing.
• 10:54
  It's something you can deactivate.
• 10:56
  Yeah, in this scenario. You can turn it off.
• 10:57
  If this were a video game you probably wouldn't be able to
• 10:59
  turn. Or when you turned it off that
• 11:01
  would activate phase three. OK, so like it's a phase change.
• 11:07
  It's a new mechanic. It's not an an enrage.
• 11:10
  An enrage is just a timer. When you hit enrage, the fight
• 11:13
  is over no matter what. Oh, see, that's kind of what I
• 11:18
  thought though. Like it.
• 11:19
  It seemed like we were building to something with the thing on
• 11:22
  its back. No, it wasn't.
• 11:25
  It wasn't a timer. Oh, OK, Because I thought once
• 11:30
  it hit a certain point, we were just going to dock, just auto
• 11:33
  kill you or we were going to get no, that's I mean, that's what I
• 11:37
  thought. I feel like that's what a lot of
• 11:38
  us. Thought.
• 11:38
  No, no. It was basically just, it became
• 11:43
  a lot more dangerous and if you ignored it was basically to me
• 11:49
  skill checking against you guys to be like, are you paying
• 11:53
  enough attention to deal with this problem?
• 11:56
  Because if you don't deal with this problem, it's going to burn
• 11:59
  through your resources to the point where you will eventually
• 12:02
  just lose probably. Now granted, I was a little
• 12:07
  lenient on the damage. Evidently I should have gone a
• 12:10
  little harder on the damage it dealt.
• 12:11
  But you know, lesson learned. I'm still having a hard time
• 12:15
  considering in that in Fabula what is too much damage and what
• 12:18
  is not enough damage. No, I mean, I think you did
• 12:21
  quite good on the damage. I I think the issue that that.
• 12:23
  Well, I think the the end of turn effect should have been 20
• 12:27
  damage at least, not ten. No, I think that would have I
• 12:33
  because there was several times where we were knocked into
• 12:35
  single digits by the the that 10 damage.
• 12:38
  But there was at least once for me, even twice, there was never
• 12:40
  a point where anyone was in danger of going down from it,
• 12:45
  because it happened at the end of every round and you are
• 12:48
  always like in a safe distance at the end of the round.
• 12:54
  That's what I'm saying. We weren't like.
• 12:55
  No, you were. Once for me, I was in in single
• 12:57
  digits after that, and then twice for Fran.
• 12:59
  She was in not before though. Well, if it hit us, like if it
• 13:05
  hit us before we were in the single digits and we would have
• 13:09
  just lost. We can't get back up.
• 13:12
  I don't think you were ever in that position.
• 13:16
  I think we were for sure. I'm almost positive if you
• 13:20
  weren't. I don't remember it play by
• 13:21
  play, but I'm almost positive you weren't because I distinctly
• 13:24
  remember thinking towards the end, oh this wasn't really
• 13:27
  enough damage to be threatening. Oh no, I disagree.
• 13:31
  I think, I think everybody on our side table disagree.
• 13:33
  I think that was. You ended the table at Max
• 13:35
  health well. Across the board that is right.
• 13:39
  So like we did, however, we burned pretty much the last of
• 13:44
  our resources for one final top up.
• 13:47
  It's not like that was an easily thing.
• 13:48
  That was an easy thing to do. Maybe.
• 13:52
  I think I I think the the square that we both have to circle is
• 13:56
  how swingy this game is. Well, no.
• 14:00
  How swingy PC health is not everything else.
• 14:04
  Yes, that's part of the game. Right, but it only applies to PC
• 14:07
  health. It doesn't apply to anything
• 14:09
  else really. It applies to PC health and
• 14:12
  health. Health and MP on the PC side of
• 14:14
  things swings up and down a lot. It doesn't.
• 14:17
  It doesn't apply anything else. I I think you have to account
• 14:21
  for the swinginess when saying like, oh, you guys didn't
• 14:23
  struggle. It's like, no, we really did or
• 14:24
  felt like we did. We just managed to, to combo
• 14:28
  enough stuff to push us back to full or like a final stretch
• 14:34
  maybe. I think you're doing pretty good
• 14:38
  about balancing things out. The game The game technically
• 14:41
  rules as written. I should have done more damage
• 14:44
  though you know that's fine because your your character is
• 14:50
  level 20 which technically means the average.
• 14:54
  Like the the game doesn't average the party level, it's
• 14:59
  just you take whoever is highest.
• 15:01
  So. Oh weird.
• 15:04
  By that logic it should have been more damaged than I did,
• 15:07
  but I elected not to as a test mostly.
• 15:15
  I, yeah, I don't know. I suppose I, I think you're
• 15:17
  doing fine. I don't necessarily think you
• 15:18
  had to bump it or you have to bump it going forward.
• 15:20
  I think like the steady increase that we've been facing feels
• 15:23
  challenging and fun. Sure.
• 15:31
  Now, OK, I kind of got off track, yes.
• 15:36
  So it entered its face to it's it's stronger mode with the the
• 15:40
  crystal beginning to glow. When we were taking more damage,
• 15:42
  the creature was harder to hit. There was a lot of passive
• 15:46
  damage coming in from us attacking the thing and just
• 15:48
  waiting for the turn ends. And in order to deactivate it,
• 15:51
  we as the players had to destroy that stalagmite while trying to
• 15:56
  maintain our ability to not be captured in the fucking Zabuza
• 16:00
  esque water style water prisons that the thing was throwing at
• 16:03
  us. Which effectively stole our like
• 16:05
  would steal our turns if we were.
• 16:08
  Shut your melee down and decrease your stats.
• 16:12
  Yeah, technically didn't steal your term, but nobody used any
• 16:14
  range attacks so. I here's the thing I have
• 16:18
  shuriken that are not that effective.
• 16:20
  Bran has shuriken that are not. I keep saying her name.
• 16:22
  Serath is using shuriken that are not that effective.
• 16:26
  Senna and Don have good range. Yes, but you can.
• 16:32
  You can't rely on Senna to put out damage.
• 16:34
  She kind of can't. I know she.
• 16:36
  Has to prioritize other things. I know.
• 16:41
  And I am very combat ineffective without my melee, so I pretty
• 16:51
  much had to do whatever I could to maintain that melee damage.
• 16:56
  I'm just saying you weren't totally shut down.
• 17:00
  I think we were effectively shut down, which is not to say like,
• 17:03
  oh, we didn't get to do anything.
• 17:04
  It was an effective shutdown. I think that's a very relevant
• 17:08
  part of like designing a combat is.
• 17:10
  I'll talk about this later actually, but the yeah, on top
• 17:18
  of all that, you know, Speaking of the zombies of water style
• 17:21
  prisons, there was so. Explain in case somebody's not a
• 17:25
  weeb. The bear had an ability to put
• 17:30
  the characters in a in a water bubble and they either had to
• 17:34
  they couldn't do, they couldn't make melee attacks, and their
• 17:37
  decks and mic attribute scores were were decreased.
• 17:42
  And if they wanted to free themselves from the bubble, they
• 17:45
  either had to take an action to free themselves or someone else
• 17:48
  had to take an action to free them.
• 17:52
  So it effectively ate up the turn if you wanted to get out of
• 17:55
  it. Yes.
• 17:58
  That's the that's the water bubble thing Isaiah is talking
• 18:01
  about. Just in case anyone here, Just
• 18:03
  in case anyone's not weeby enough to know what the hell
• 18:05
  Zabuzah is, or who the Hell's opposite.
• 18:08
  I feel like if they're watching us, they had to at least have
• 18:11
  watched Naruto. I don't think you should make
• 18:13
  that assumption. Except for, I think that one
• 18:16
  friend of Matt's who hates him I don't know if they listen to.
• 18:21
  Him, I don't know. But yes.
• 18:25
  Those water bubbles were, as we found out, a stage hazard or a,
• 18:29
  A, a stage that allowed the yeah, that allowed the bear to
• 18:35
  do that, providing it a chunk of its power.
• 18:39
  Which is to say, to be fair, the players could have turned it
• 18:41
  off. Yes, we could have turned it
• 18:43
  off. We did not, but we could have,
• 18:45
  as we found out. And as Josh said, Fabula does
• 18:51
  recommend adding these unique situational changes and conflict
• 18:54
  scenes. And a lot of it's like bigger
• 18:55
  step locks have them baked in. But I think there is a very in
• 19:01
  line between a game recommending it and giving it to you and a GM
• 19:05
  being cognizant enough to implement it, especially under
• 19:08
  like a stressful situation, you know?
• 19:10
  I mean. It's more than just how.
• 19:11
  Many times. Did you?
• 19:14
  How many times I what? Have you forgotten to do like a
• 19:17
  a layer action that you wanted to do?
• 19:19
  Or like you forgot to roll layer action or forgot to do a
• 19:21
  legendary action in D&D 'cause you're like I I'm got to keep
• 19:24
  track of so much shit at once. Yes, it is hard to remember.
• 19:26
  Those kinds of I mean I fucked up the bears some of the bears
• 19:28
  ability several times too right, right.
• 19:32
  I mean, the yeah, what Fabula tells you to do is to basically
• 19:37
  create unique bespoke mechanics within the bot, like within the
• 19:43
  the boss's stat block itself. Create unique mechanics that
• 19:48
  change how the flow of the fight can or should or could
• 19:53
  potentially go. Right which?
• 19:58
  If you want probably the most extreme version I've seen so far
• 20:04
  of that, I would have to. Look again.
• 20:08
  But the, oh, it's, it's tragedy. By far.
• 20:12
  I don't. I don't.
• 20:13
  Actually think it is. I was gonna say the Admiral dude
• 20:17
  in the techno fantasy book has an entire mechanic where once
• 20:21
  you get him, I don't remember if it's in crisis or it's like you
• 20:24
  destroy a ship or whatever. But basically you board his ship
• 20:28
  and then he hides in the cockpit and unleashes a monster.
• 20:34
  And then there's a whole sub mechanic around making your way
• 20:37
  through the ship while the monster is attacking you.
• 20:39
  And the Admiral can use his actions to like close bulkheads
• 20:43
  and like cut off escape routes. Like there's a dunk.
• 20:47
  Basically there's like a mini dungeon mechanic embedded in the
• 20:51
  boss. So.
• 20:56
  That one's probably the craziest I've looked at.
• 21:01
  If you, if you look at that, Admiral Cyron or Sirion.
• 21:05
  Sirion. I don't know how you suppose,
• 21:07
  Siri. I can't.
• 21:08
  I that every time I see him I see that fucking YouTube that.
• 21:12
  Whole. Like.
• 21:15
  That the whole. Mechanic with the bio engine
• 21:17
  thing that he has is crazy. Is it crazier?
• 21:23
  Though than than tragedy is whole like.
• 21:26
  Party wipe. And then like everyone, like the
• 21:28
  party has to be like, no, we're going to keep fighting.
• 21:30
  And then you get your health back.
• 21:31
  And then the whole map changes and there's like like, I don't
• 21:35
  remember everything. About the tragedy stat block.
• 21:38
  So like, maybe, I don't know, it's, it's kind of nuts.
• 21:45
  All the level 50 bosses in the atlases do insane shit.
• 21:51
  I mean, they have several pages dedicated to explain how to run
• 21:54
  them because they are so insanely complicated.
• 21:58
  So. Yeah, they also are like I think
• 22:04
  all of them are three phase bosses.
• 22:08
  They are, yeah. So like, yeah, they, yeah.
• 22:12
  Basically the point. Is is that you use the like
• 22:17
  rather than the game providing lots of different weird
• 22:20
  mechanics? The stat block itself.
• 22:24
  Incurs. These like crazy out there
• 22:27
  mechanics that you don't use, you know, during normal play or
• 22:32
  wouldn't come up during normal play.
• 22:35
  Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a weird.
• 22:39
  I mean. Like.
• 22:41
  It's a weird thing like. Obviously bosses having unique
• 22:44
  mechanics is not that weird in terms of RPG stuff, but the way
• 22:51
  that they do it in Fabula is like really pushing that idea to
• 22:55
  be like, extreme, yeah. It's it's.
• 22:59
  Yeah, it's really pushing it in a really good way and I think.
• 23:03
  The thing that I. The thesis really to this entire
• 23:07
  thing speaks to the importance of implementing these secondary
• 23:12
  mechanics in conflict scenes to achieve what is essentially a a
• 23:18
  or not to achieve. It is paramount for what I think
• 23:21
  is like a dynamic high energy fights and I think they should
• 23:24
  go past like big bosses. I think you know the I, I
• 23:28
  wouldn't consider the Guardian of the forest a boss fight,
• 23:30
  right? It was just a fight against a
• 23:31
  singular enemy. No, it was a boss fight would.
• 23:34
  You consider that a boss. Fight.
• 23:35
  I mean, it was a rank 5 champion, so like, yeah.
• 23:42
  Fair enough. I didn't, I didn't personally
• 23:44
  consider it a boss fight. It just kind of felt like, or if
• 23:47
  anything, it felt like an area boss, not like a boss boss.
• 23:49
  It wasn't, Yeah. Yeah, like it wasn't a villain,
• 23:52
  but it was like a roaming world boss fight kind of thing.
• 23:58
  Yeah, I definitely. Conceded it like when I was
• 24:01
  coming up with it, it was intended to be a big boss fight
• 24:04
  that went on for, you know, a while, which it did.
• 24:08
  It did, yes. Something else I would bring up,
• 24:11
  but yeah, the thesis, the thesis is essentially using these
• 24:14
  secondary mechanics will help you achieve a, a better
• 24:16
  experience, a more dynamic fight.
• 24:19
  And it it really keys into the the idea that you can provide
• 24:25
  interesting, nuanced. High.
• 24:29
  Energy conflict scenes in your games?
• 24:32
  They're pretty simple means I think.
• 24:37
  OK. I'm.
• 24:40
  Double. Checking the notes, there's a
• 24:41
  lot. There's so many notes.
• 24:42
  I wrote like 4 pages in. Yes, I saw that.
• 24:49
  Yeah, I mean I. Yeah, after the thesis.
• 24:51
  Yeah, I think. It might seem.
• 24:55
  Self-evident for people who have done this before, right?
• 24:59
  Long time GMs, career GMs. I think you might be listening to
• 25:02
  this and being like, yeah, no shit, but.
• 25:05
  I think it's. Worth reinforcing for a number
• 25:07
  of reasons. Firstly, I know for a fact that
• 25:10
  several of our listeners are about to prepare are currently
• 25:13
  preparing to run their first games in general or running a
• 25:16
  game and they haven't run in a really long time.
• 25:19
  Secondly. I think it's good to refresh
• 25:22
  long standing GMs on ways to spice up not only their large
• 25:24
  scale but more more mundane combats.
• 25:27
  And thirdly, think it serves as a warning to not overcomplicate
• 25:32
  your encounters to such a degree that it bogs down the natural
• 25:34
  pace of the game. I'm very guilty of doing this.
• 25:37
  I'm sure other people are as well, so worth bringing it up I
• 25:41
  think. Now, what are secondary
• 25:45
  objectives? As I am referring to them?
• 25:48
  Secondary objectives are, in essence, situational mechanics
• 25:52
  or events that GMs can interweave into combat slash
• 25:56
  conflict scenes. These mechanics can force
• 26:00
  players to rethink their strategy.
• 26:03
  You know, beyond. Just whacking the big bag of hit
• 26:06
  points until it dies. It also serves several, you
• 26:10
  know, other conventional purposes outside of basically
• 26:13
  just, you know, keeping the fight exciting.
• 26:16
  It's a really powerful tool that allows GMs to to maintain a
• 26:20
  measure of control over the pacing of combat and admittedly,
• 26:25
  keep your cool monster alive long enough to give the players
• 26:27
  a run for their money. And in my opinion at least, I,
• 26:31
  you know, I think they're incredibly underutilized and it
• 26:35
  solves a lot of problems for both the GMs and players.
• 26:41
  Yeah, and you might be. Asking what are some examples?
• 26:44
  Well, we brought two of them up already.
• 26:46
  Legendary and layer actions that you use in D&D are probably the
• 26:49
  most well known version of this mechanic in practice.
• 26:54
  You know, to those. Of you who do not play D and DI
• 26:56
  know it's kind of crazy, but I know a couple people don't.
• 27:01
  They are. Essentially just a a series of
• 27:05
  environmental and interrupting actions that are given to
• 27:09
  powerful monsters and D&D, and the purpose is to provoke a
• 27:12
  breakup of the status quo in the fight.
• 27:14
  You know, do extra damage here, force a character to move around
• 27:17
  there, force a status effects, so on so forth.
• 27:22
  You really are just trying to throw players off their game.
• 27:25
  You're also trying. To make the monster generally
• 27:27
  more dangerous. Because a big problem that 5E
• 27:29
  has is there is no distinction between random Gamuka guy and
• 27:34
  big boss monster. So everyone's the big boss
• 27:37
  monster still only gets one turn.
• 27:39
  So legendary and lair actions can add to their threatening
• 27:43
  this by making it so they're not just one turn.
• 27:46
  Yes, or they're not. Just like I said, making.
• 27:48
  Sure, stays alive long enough to do something cool.
• 27:52
  Yes, to not stand there and be a a punching bag.
• 27:56
  Yeah. And in reference to legendary
• 27:59
  and layer actions, their actual effectiveness notwithstanding.
• 28:02
  So I know some people are like, well, I don't like them and I
• 28:05
  would they want some people want the more reactions thing.
• 28:07
  Not really to talk about that, but I do firmly believe that
• 28:10
  legendary and layer actions are at the very least effective at
• 28:13
  forcing someone building a combat counter to think about
• 28:16
  the fight abstractly rather than just, this is a bag of hit
• 28:19
  points, right? I think everyone's had that boss
• 28:22
  fight where you're like, I'm just, what are we doing right
• 28:25
  now? You know what I mean?
• 28:27
  It's like the fight's been going on for four hours.
• 28:29
  Jimmy's on his fucking phone, he's not paying attention.
• 28:31
  I'm just kind of tired of missing.
• 28:34
  Everyone's had that, and it's frustrating as shit.
• 28:38
  And a good way to break that up is by being like, ah, yes,
• 28:43
  Jimmy, the wizard's going to cast his steel wind strike.
• 28:47
  Well no, the Dragon's going to breathe fire and now you have to
• 28:50
  think about how many spell slots you have left to pull that steel
• 28:52
  wind strike off. And they are not a perfect
• 28:59
  system. Like I said, I'm not really here
• 29:01
  to talk about the effectiveness, but I know for a fact they are
• 29:03
  not perfect. Legendary actions more often
• 29:06
  than not are just damage interrupts.
• 29:08
  Layer actions provide slightly more variety when you when it
• 29:12
  comes to like effect zones and area control, but you do kind of
• 29:17
  run into the issue that it is almost exclusively a boss level
• 29:19
  monster thing and it shouldn't be.
• 29:23
  I think it shouldn't be right? I it it should be a more
• 29:27
  universal thing, but it is a start.
• 29:32
  I think the problem too with the not to turn it into a fuck 5 E
• 29:37
  conversation as we often do, but I think a problem that 5 E has
• 29:41
  too is that the legendary and layer action mechanic.
• 29:47
  Doesn't. Necessarily scale the best so it
• 29:52
  ends up being only used on boss monsters because that's where
• 29:55
  people feel safe to do it and they're not sure how to apply it
• 29:59
  to like smaller Joe Joe schmoes. Right?
• 30:03
  Like you could probably have a cool little fight in the goblin
• 30:07
  camp where the goblins do a layer action, but how do you
• 30:10
  scale it down to work for level two or three PCs?
• 30:15
  Game doesn't make that clear, you know, so you.
• 30:18
  Know what's funny, I think when it comes to lower level stuff,
• 30:21
  this is where I will actually go back on my opinion And I think
• 30:25
  the action oriented design from Matt Colville works really well,
• 30:29
  right when he talked about it kind of is a layer option.
• 30:33
  It kind of. Is, but I think it's more
• 30:34
  effective on a small scale because you know, when you, when
• 30:39
  you think about the dragon, the fact that the dragon, you know,
• 30:41
  it's like, oh, it has to do this thing, it has to do this thing,
• 30:43
  it has to do the thing. I don't really like that there.
• 30:46
  I I think a level of what makes the dragon dangerous is that
• 30:50
  it's so strong. It can kind of do whatever it
• 30:52
  wants save for breathing fire every round.
• 30:56
  But a goblin? Booyah, especially at level like
• 30:58
  3 or whatever, you don't really need to have that much shit to
• 31:02
  deal with the players because the players don't have that much
• 31:04
  shit to deal with you, right? So having it do like a reinforce
• 31:09
  and then a war cry to buff the enemies and then like a group
• 31:12
  attack and then you can kind of keep doing that will keep things
• 31:15
  interesting, especially for low level players who are just
• 31:17
  trying to find something that they can do until you get like
• 31:21
  your subclass or maybe a little bit past that.
• 31:26
  I didn't actually bring. Up action oriented design in
• 31:28
  here. Maybe I should have what?
• 31:32
  What is your? Did you say you have a beef with
• 31:34
  action oriented design though? No.
• 31:37
  Well, I. I don't love action oriented
• 31:39
  design as a mechanic. And then we talked about this a
• 31:43
  couple episodes or not a couple, like a long time ago when we
• 31:45
  were talking about, I don't know, something on podcast, Matt
• 31:50
  Coville came up, I think. We were.
• 31:52
  No, Yeah, it was when we. Were talking about legendary
• 31:54
  actions in general and I was like I prefer legendary actions
• 31:57
  because. I have I like.
• 31:59
  The fact that I have options and I can sort of build around them
• 32:03
  the way that I want, especially if I'm designing a monster.
• 32:06
  What do you mean that you have? Options.
• 32:09
  With action oriented. Design.
• 32:10
  You don't necessarily have options.
• 32:12
  You have a rhythm that you follow right?
• 32:15
  On turn 1, the monster will do this thing.
• 32:18
  On turn 2 it will do this thing you don't have.
• 32:20
  To. That's just the recommended
• 32:23
  method of using it. I'm not sure I know.
• 32:27
  Enough about it to know how else I you could use.
• 32:30
  Well, it's effectively. Like an end of turn thing that
• 32:33
  the enemy does and there's a recommended order as like a kind
• 32:37
  of. This is the most logical order,
• 32:39
  but it's not a strict rule. Fair enough.
• 32:45
  I did not know that. Yeah, it's not.
• 32:48
  Like it's not that prescriptive really.
• 32:51
  Effectively it got turned into the malice mechanic and draw
• 32:55
  steel. Right where the.
• 32:58
  GM gets the like currency to spend to have like enemies do
• 33:03
  outside of their normal stat block type shit anyway.
• 33:11
  Yeah, I just. I was not a huge fan of action
• 33:13
  already designed to this. It was as it was described to me
• 33:16
  and I think. On lower level.
• 33:20
  I think the way that it was described to me, I think would
• 33:22
  be very effective. That's all I'm saying.
• 33:27
  Where was I? Right.
• 33:30
  On the far end. Of what you get from the layer
• 33:34
  actions, legendary actions, like a completely different ballpark,
• 33:37
  but still same sport is the Lancer Sitreps system.
• 33:42
  And I think this is an interesting to bring up
• 33:43
  interesting thing to bring up because it is kind of unique,
• 33:49
  right? Like the in Lancer, the
• 33:51
  secondary objective is just sort of the objective.
• 33:55
  It is the point of combat. There are almost no.
• 33:58
  Combats in Lancer that are about kill that guy.
• 34:01
  It's always control the objective I was going to.
• 34:06
  Say I, I, I, I don't know if you did, did did you?
• 34:09
  I don't know if you explained it.
• 34:10
  I just didn't hear you. But did you explain the point
• 34:12
  that the what you're saying when you say secondary objective is
• 34:14
  like something other than just beat them to death?
• 34:18
  Yes, I did say that. OK.
• 34:20
  I guess I just. Didn't hear all right.
• 34:22
  Anyway, yes, that's an important to reinforce it in.
• 34:24
  In case I didn't, I'm pretty sure I did.
• 34:26
  But when I say secondary objective, I mean or secondary
• 34:28
  mechanics, There are other things that you do in combat to
• 34:31
  keep things from just being whack it till it dies.
• 34:34
  Yeah, from just. Being a a bag of hit points type
• 34:37
  situation, yes. Yeah, OK.
• 34:39
  So. I definitely did say back if it
• 34:40
  went so a couple times, all right, OK.
• 34:42
  When it comes to. Lancer there are almost no no
• 34:45
  combat situations, sit reps as they are called that are just it
• 34:49
  the thing till it dies. The game is just flatly not
• 34:52
  built that way and I think a lot of games should learn from
• 34:57
  Lancers sitreps because despite the fact that they are not
• 35:01
  perfect and can be a little noodly, the fact that the game
• 35:04
  is more interested in interweaving the narrative
• 35:07
  directly into combat encounters. Is.
• 35:12
  Interesting and I think very effective especially.
• 35:15
  When? It's the combat turns into more
• 35:19
  than just or or. Yeah.
• 35:23
  When? When?
• 35:23
  It stops being. Let me kill.
• 35:27
  The wall in front of me so I can get to the next cutscene
• 35:30
  essentially. You know what I mean?
• 35:32
  Yeah, there are also the idle on fights in Lancer which I have
• 35:38
  not read in their entirety. I skimmed over them but
• 35:41
  essentially they act as these insane multi tiered clock hyper
• 35:47
  advanced skill checks. Kind of similar to Fabula
• 35:50
  Ultima, but you're doing them in real time as opposed to like
• 35:54
  over a prolonged period of time. Yeah, they're a little nuts.
• 35:59
  And they're I've read, like I said, I skimmed them and they
• 36:01
  weren't super clear. I hope we get some more
• 36:03
  clarification on them at some point, but this?
• 36:07
  This. Is not a base rule book thing.
• 36:11
  No it. Was supplement.
• 36:13
  Of some kind. Yes.
• 36:16
  The first The first official supplement book, the.
• 36:21
  Is it? No, no, it's yours for a
• 36:23
  wallflower. No time for a wallflower.
• 36:24
  It doesn't matter. The Wallflower expansion.
• 36:28
  Sure. It comes up there, you fight.
• 36:30
  Nylon OK do. You have any other?
• 36:36
  Examples that you want to bring up of.
• 36:38
  What, like games? You know that.
• 36:42
  Implement this kind of design. I mean, I think a lot of games
• 36:47
  recommend you do it this way. Does it actually happen?
• 36:53
  Like I think Dungeon World. Apocalypse World, well,
• 36:57
  Apocalypse World's a bad example because that game you don't even
• 36:59
  really necessarily fight that much.
• 37:03
  But like, I think Dungeon World tells you a similar advice, like
• 37:06
  don't just make it about fight the monster necessarily, you
• 37:09
  know? Try to work outside.
• 37:12
  The box a little bit. Cyberpunk games that tends to be
• 37:17
  like cyberpunk. The genre games, that tends to
• 37:19
  be a thing quite often, like a lot of games, definitely tell
• 37:27
  you to do that. Does the game.
• 37:30
  Actually give you the tools to do it successfully.
• 37:33
  I would say that varies. That's kind of what I'm asking.
• 37:38
  You do you know of any systems that that give you those tools?
• 37:41
  Anything that you thought was interesting?
• 37:44
  Interesting enough to like. To say like, Oh yes, this is a
• 37:46
  secondary objective kind of mechanic or system I can't point
• 37:50
  to. Anyone specific mechanic off the
• 37:52
  top of my head but Blades does it pretty well just in terms of
• 37:55
  the systems that blades. Has.
• 37:58
  True. I mean, I think.
• 38:00
  To a, it's a sort of a adjacent, but like, yeah, something like
• 38:04
  flashbacking flashbacks. Or just the way clocks work in
• 38:07
  blades. Or the idea that a fight in
• 38:11
  blades with. Like a fight in.
• 38:14
  Blades with just a random goon, like just a guy is probably
• 38:18
  going to be 1 roll, maybe 2, right?
• 38:22
  So you're not going to have prolonged combat scenes and
• 38:26
  Blades in the Dark that does. That's not what Blades does.
• 38:29
  So by necessity then, if you can't really do the prolonged
• 38:33
  combat scene, you're probably going to do effectively A
• 38:38
  secondary objective type scenario right?
• 38:41
  Where there will be guys to fight, but what you're actually
• 38:44
  trying to do is like steal the artifact out of the room or
• 38:47
  whatever. Yeah.
• 38:56
  Anything I mean. I think Daggerheart.
• 39:01
  Maybe mentions this, although I'd have to look again because I
• 39:06
  can't think of any specifics. I I'm blanking on specifics.
• 39:09
  I know a lot of games talk about it and a lot of games try to
• 39:13
  encourage people not to just make every fight a bag of hit
• 39:16
  points, but. It can be hard not.
• 39:19
  To especially in a game like DND where you're fighting, or like
• 39:22
  Pathfinder or or Fabula, you know, where you're fighting a
• 39:26
  lot. It is hard to not make every
• 39:28
  fight a bag or to not make a lot of fights a bag of hit points
• 39:30
  because you're just doing so God damn many of them.
• 39:32
  You can't come up with an interesting idea for every
• 39:34
  fucking fight. Actually.
• 39:38
  Draw steel we just that we just read gives us gave you in that
• 39:42
  in the like battle design section gave a big list of like
• 39:46
  different kinds of secondary objectives that you can have in
• 39:49
  your encounters. Oh, there we go.
• 39:53
  Yeah, yeah. Kind of.
• 39:53
  Like sitreps? I mean, maybe I don't remember
• 39:57
  exactly how Lancer describes the Sitreps thing or how that looks
• 40:00
  in the book, but yeah. But I do.
• 40:02
  I do remember Draw Steel mentioning it does one of the
• 40:05
  options it gives you is just fight the guys.
• 40:07
  But it does give you a big list of like other kinds of
• 40:09
  objectives and does generally say like don't.
• 40:12
  Do them actually actually draw Steel's probably a really good
• 40:16
  recent example, because Draw Steel very explicitly avoids the
• 40:21
  problem of getting XP just for fighting the guys, right?
• 40:25
  Because Draw Steel you get a victory for overcoming a
• 40:31
  challenge of any kind, right? So the game says it could be a
• 40:36
  direct fight, but it can also be a montage, or it can also be a
• 40:39
  negotiation, or it can be kind of a combination of those three
• 40:42
  things, you know, interchangeably.
• 40:44
  Or it could just be like a difficult.
• 40:47
  Like I'm pretty sure the game even says puzzles.
• 40:50
  You can get rewarded for victories if you overcome, like
• 40:53
  a difficult puzzle. No, it definitely says that.
• 40:55
  I remember reading it. Yeah.
• 40:56
  So Draw Steel is a good example of how you can encourage this
• 41:01
  kind of design by not by tying the reward structure to
• 41:07
  overcoming a challenge, not overcoming something specific.
• 41:13
  True. And that is a really.
• 41:14
  Good point. Draw steel.
• 41:17
  Gives you the tools in in a similar way to the sitreps where
• 41:21
  you are forced to think abstracted, right?
• 41:24
  Because you have to think about how to give people the victories
• 41:27
  as opposed to I, you know, kills for XP.
• 41:30
  I think that does require a level of forced abstraction,
• 41:33
  which I think is a really good thing.
• 41:34
  Yes, I. Kind of wish Fabula had that
• 41:36
  actually a little bit, but you know, well, you know.
• 41:41
  Fabulous XP system is is, don't love it.
• 41:46
  I know you don't, but. I I kind of.
• 41:49
  It's it's. Almost a simplified system of
• 41:51
  the victories because it's it assumes that you should be
• 41:54
  getting XP for no matter what you're doing.
• 41:56
  Yeah, where, you know, I draw steel codifies it.
• 42:01
  I like the fabulous points. Equalling XP element.
• 42:06
  I like that part, but I don't like the XP for freezy at the
• 42:10
  end of it. Like I wish the fabulous points
• 42:13
  equal XP thing was expounded upon more.
• 42:17
  Right, I wish. Fabulous point.
• 42:19
  Fabulous points in general were expounded upon more in that
• 42:21
  game, actually, as we're playing it more.
• 42:27
  Why so? I.
• 42:29
  Don't think the game this is this is too much to get into
• 42:32
  right now, but like, I don't think the game gives them out
• 42:35
  reliably enough. I don't think the game
• 42:38
  necessarily gives you enough options to utilize them as much
• 42:42
  as I would like. I kind of wanted fabulous points
• 42:47
  to be closer to the hero or the hope and fear tokens in
• 42:53
  Daggerheart, and it's not. They're much more rare than
• 42:56
  that, and the primary way to reload Fabula points for your
• 43:02
  players is to use villains. But like, I don't want to have a
• 43:06
  villain every other session rocking up.
• 43:08
  That feels narratively bunk. So.
• 43:14
  Yeah. I mean you definitely.
• 43:15
  Have a point there, I think well you because.
• 43:19
  Do you? Consider.
• 43:20
  The fact that you get them no matter what for free.
• 43:24
  Every time. That you.
• 43:28
  Start. A session without one?
• 43:29
  Would you count that? That's good.
• 43:31
  But that doesn't come up that much.
• 43:36
  That hasn't happened. Very much.
• 43:39
  Getting one when there's none. Yeah, in our 20.
• 43:41
  Some odd sessions that happens very rarely.
• 43:45
  I think it happens more than you.
• 43:46
  Think I've been monitoring. Most of the times you guys have
• 43:50
  at least one. I also don't like.
• 43:55
  That you only get them on critical fails, because critical
• 43:57
  fails are very rare. True.
• 44:02
  True and like. The the game is because the role
• 44:06
  of critical failure roll, you have to roll, you know, double
• 44:10
  ones, which on like 2D8 or whatever is like less than 3% or
• 44:15
  something like that or it's not high, it's it's low and.
• 44:22
  I. I want it to be.
• 44:24
  It also is weird because. You know you could.
• 44:28
  Fail the roll and roll like a three for example, right, which
• 44:32
  is a you failed real bad, but you didn't critical fail.
• 44:37
  Yeah. So.
• 44:38
  I'm kind of like. I almost wish there was some
• 44:40
  kind of rule where it's like if you fail by a certain margin,
• 44:44
  like if you fail the the check by 10 or more, you get a
• 44:47
  fabulous point, not just critical fail.
• 44:51
  I almost feel like if. It's one of those things if if
• 44:53
  the the GM critically rolls against whoever, that person
• 44:58
  gets a fabula then. You could do it that way.
• 45:01
  Sure, yeah. It wouldn't, you know.
• 45:04
  It wouldn't fix the problem, but it would alleviate some of the
• 45:07
  issue I think. Maybe Larry said I too much to
• 45:14
  get into right now, but I'm I'm having thoughts and things
• 45:19
  right. Or was it in my notes?
• 45:23
  I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:26
  Forcing me able to. Think abstractly.
• 45:30
  I think on top. Of the forcing your your GM to
• 45:32
  think abstractly abstractly. I think one of the the greatest
• 45:38
  boons that a secondary objectives provide GMs is
• 45:42
  control over pacing. My greatest fucking weakness.
• 45:45
  Sorry I. I just I just checked the math
• 45:48
  real quick because I was curious to.
• 45:50
  To. Roll A2 on A on AD 10 and AD 8
• 45:54
  is a 1.25% chance. Damn, really low way.
• 46:00
  Lower than I thought, actually. Really low.
• 46:03
  So anyway. Weird, yeah.
• 46:08
  What was this thing? Oh yeah, These things provide
• 46:11
  you a level of control over pacing, which, as I said, is my
• 46:15
  worst enemy. Oh God, my brain.
• 46:21
  Just hurt what is wrong with me today?
• 46:26
  What I mean is that it I know it allows it God damn it.
• 46:32
  The control over pacing allows you to implement things like
• 46:35
  distractions and subversions, the shake of the system, and
• 46:39
  provide the GMO level of sway over the speed of the events.
• 46:42
  For example, in a similar situation to Josh's fight this
• 46:46
  week, the Guardian of Lakes boosted form, did more damage,
• 46:50
  took less damage for or took less damage from us, was harder
• 46:53
  to hit, and came with the myriad abilities that hindered us.
• 46:57
  On top of the. Bubble that effectively drawn
• 47:00
  out the fight, drained us of our resources and helped elevate the
• 47:04
  overall sort of experience of the fight to a much higher
• 47:07
  level. If it it.
• 47:09
  Let's put it this way, if it did not have those things, it had
• 47:12
  what, like 450 HP? Doubt.
• 47:16
  My character does. I think it had exactly.
• 47:18
  That actually. All right, so Goro.
• 47:21
  Does. In the first.
• 47:24
  Two rounds of combat. You do like 30 on.
• 47:27
  Average probably 30. On average plus 20 for the EI
• 47:31
  stance. No, no.
• 47:33
  And I'm just I'm saying you. Probably do a round between.
• 47:37
  Like it? Probably it.
• 47:37
  Probably averages out to like 30 every round.
• 47:41
  Yeah. If you just average.
• 47:42
  It all in the first two rounds of combat, assuming that I have
• 47:47
  my summon I'm doing about. 70 to 80.
• 47:51
  Points of damage. That's like 1/4.
• 47:55
  Of that creature's health. Yeah, just me.
• 47:59
  That's. Not counting anybody else.
• 48:01
  That's by design, though. It is by design.
• 48:04
  But without that right, without those, without the abilities
• 48:09
  that the bear had, including its second phase, we would have.
• 48:13
  Finished that. Fight in two hours tops.
• 48:17
  If it just had, even if it had the bubble, If it just had the
• 48:19
  melee attacks, the breath and the bubble, we.
• 48:22
  Probably would. Have killed it pretty quickly,
• 48:24
  but the fact that we created a secondary target with the
• 48:26
  crystal on its back, that was diverting our damage.
• 48:29
  The bubble diverted the damage farther.
• 48:31
  The debuff stopped us from rolling high enough to maintain
• 48:34
  the damage. All of those things come
• 48:36
  together to create the well-rounded boss.
• 48:39
  That was really fun. A.
• 48:44
  Similar situation that a lot of people talk about, we've brought
• 48:47
  it up on podcast too, is the like powerful party wide attack
• 48:50
  the the dragon breathing its fire and everyone and you know,
• 48:54
  you telling players, OK, it's charging up its breath or like
• 48:58
  it inhales heavily fire in its laser beam.
• 49:01
  Yeah. Forcing characters.
• 49:04
  To take defensive action and limiting their overall damage
• 49:07
  for the round gives the enemy time to breathe and recover.
• 49:10
  It gives the GMA modicum of breathing room to just be like
• 49:15
  OK wait, where do I go from here?
• 49:17
  How do I? What do I do?
• 49:18
  You know what I mean? Yes.
• 49:21
  All right, yawning. Now you're good.
• 49:27
  Yeah, actually, yeah. I mean it leaves.
• 49:29
  Yeah, it gives a momentary like a literal real life breath.
• 49:38
  Now we've talked about. How these tools are useful?
• 49:41
  We've talked about what they are and.
• 49:44
  We did mention. In the thesis that if you're not
• 49:47
  careful, they can go a bit too far and.
• 49:51
  That really is true. They can go too far.
• 49:53
  I've done it myself several times.
• 49:56
  It is incredibly easy. Once you're in the.
• 49:59
  Mindset of changing things up and throwing in new assets and
• 50:05
  and new ideas to just drastically overtune the fight
• 50:09
  to the point where it kind of becomes like a ridiculously
• 50:11
  overcomplicated slog. Yeah, also.
• 50:16
  Worth mentioning, yeah. Well, you.
• 50:20
  Finish your thought because you might be about to say what I was
• 50:22
  what I was thinking. Well.
• 50:24
  It's also. It's, you know, it's worth
• 50:25
  mentioning that not every fight has to be cool and epic.
• 50:30
  I mean, yeah, you know. Every fight is.
• 50:32
  Super complex, multi tier, multi phase.
• 50:35
  It kind of robs the players of the feeling of being strong
• 50:37
  badasses. Sometimes they just want a pub
• 50:40
  stomp to gobble and they should be allowed to do yeah there.
• 50:43
  There's kind of two routes most tabletop games will take, right?
• 50:47
  1 route. Is having monsters or stat
• 50:53
  blocks or enemies or whatever. You know, whatever that game
• 50:55
  uses. Having.
• 50:58
  Relatively simple options in the game that can be the random
• 51:04
  goons that you pump zomp into the dirt and then having the
• 51:07
  more complicated ones for the more important fights or the
• 51:10
  other route a lot of games take is.
• 51:13
  Less stat blocks. Less, less enemies because
• 51:16
  you're just supposed to not fight that often unless it is
• 51:19
  narratively significant, and then ergo the fights generally
• 51:23
  will teeter towards the more complicated because you're not
• 51:26
  doing it as often. Right.
• 51:29
  Fabulous. Kind of leans more in that
• 51:31
  second one where it's like you're not intended to be
• 51:32
  fighting as much, although not completely.
• 51:34
  Although I also feel. Like fabulous.
• 51:37
  Contradicts itself a little bit on that one, but.
• 51:44
  Yeah, you don't. Necessarily need to make every
• 51:46
  single one of them complicated, but if you have a game where
• 51:49
  it's not going to be a lot of fighting then there's probably
• 51:52
  going to be more complicated ones more often.
• 51:56
  So. It depends on the dial of.
• 52:00
  Combat, whatever. And the dial of how?
• 52:06
  The dial of what? Your game.
• 52:07
  Is focused on ultimately, right? Right.
• 52:11
  And to bounce off that, you know, GMs might ask themselves,
• 52:14
  how do I stop from going too far?
• 52:17
  The answer's. Complex, and to be honest, there
• 52:20
  really is no perfect right answer, but I think I did come
• 52:23
  up with some pretty interesting rules of thumb to follow for the
• 52:26
  most part. What I was going to.
• 52:30
  Hold on, wait, hold on, hold on. This, yeah.
• 52:41
  Oh damn it, what was I something about the overtuning and make it
• 52:45
  it's just too complicated. See the smooth brain?
• 52:47
  Overblowing it. I let you finish.
• 52:50
  Your thought and then now I can't come back to my, I don't
• 52:53
  know, whatever. Oh, well, we'll get back to that
• 52:55
  probably, yeah. Damn it, never mind.
• 53:03
  I thought I had it for a second there.
• 53:04
  I thought I had it for a second. I did not.
• 53:06
  I did not. Basic rules of thumb, if you're
• 53:10
  going to introduce reinforcements, less is always
• 53:13
  more. It is better to have more waves
• 53:17
  of less reinforcements than fewer waves of huge amounts of
• 53:22
  reinforcement. I would like flooding a boss
• 53:25
  room. With a bunch of 1,000,000 little
• 53:27
  goobers, that's really boring, but I would argue that the.
• 53:30
  Reinforcements thing doesn't even really fall under this
• 53:34
  completely what we're talking about, because ultimately the
• 53:38
  objective is to still just beat up the reinforcements.
• 53:43
  Right. You know.
• 53:44
  Like reinforcements don't upend the the objective of the scene
• 53:48
  very much. Unless it.
• 53:51
  Was kind. Of I mean they can I.
• 53:53
  Suppose it it depends, but generally they don't.
• 53:56
  Yeah, I mean, I was thinking. About it in the terms of the
• 53:59
  reinforcements will stop fighting if you kill the big
• 54:01
  bad, so you're you're distracting from fighting him.
• 54:06
  Yeah, you're still beating up the big bad though.
• 54:09
  Like you're, you're that core objective is unchanged, right?
• 54:13
  Like it doesn't. It doesn't upend it.
• 54:16
  That much? No, no, not that.
• 54:19
  Much it does upend it, that's kind of like that's why it was
• 54:21
  the first one. It was the lowest level, like
• 54:24
  Autumn Barrel 1. Fair enough.
• 54:28
  Past. Just basic reinforcements you
• 54:31
  get to things like DPS checks. I've used quite a bit of MMO
• 54:34
  slang in here. DPS checks.
• 54:37
  Are essentially just an event will occur where you have to
• 54:41
  deal enough damage to the boss to stop a thing from happening
• 54:44
  and it happening, and it might not necessarily count against
• 54:48
  the boss's overall health. The idea being you have to do a
• 54:52
  certain amount of damage before a certain round, a certain
• 54:54
  amount of time a certain objective is reached, in which
• 54:56
  case you're typically looking at an instant wipe.
• 55:00
  Yeah, I mean. ADPS check you know in an MMO is
• 55:04
  ultimately about can you? Are you paying enough attention
• 55:11
  and are you? Skilled enough?
• 55:14
  At playing the game that you can output enough damage to stop the
• 55:19
  bad thing from happening via timer.
• 55:21
  In a tabletop game, it's probably going to be a case of.
• 55:26
  Can you do enough? Damage to shut down the the end
• 55:31
  of round effect, or can you do enough damage to shut down the
• 55:34
  big debuff they're going to throw out, you know?
• 55:37
  The the. You it's probably not going to
• 55:40
  work. There's usually Adps.
• 55:42
  Often the DPS check in in MMO is like auto death or basically
• 55:47
  death. So it's probably not going to be
• 55:49
  that necessarily the tabletop game, but the idea of.
• 55:53
  Can you output? Damage and coordinate well
• 55:55
  enough with your team to stop the big Oh no what the fuck
• 56:00
  button from getting slapped. Usually at the end of.
• 56:04
  The round, although not necessarily.
• 56:06
  It depends. Depends on how you in.
• 56:08
  A in a come up with it, yeah. In a tandem to this a phase two
• 56:13
  fight. The general rule of thumb.
• 56:16
  I use here is the less health the phase two starts with, the
• 56:21
  more mean you can be. Yeah, generally.
• 56:24
  I mean, that's true of almost any.
• 56:27
  You can apply that to a lot of like bosses and or situations
• 56:31
  and in general, because if they don't have that much help,
• 56:34
  they're probably not going to last very long.
• 56:35
  If they're not going to last very long, they got to get their
• 56:37
  mean shit out real fast, yeah? Or.
• 56:40
  Else they are going to get absolutely pub stomped.
• 56:42
  Yeah, you don't want. Otherwise they'll just.
• 56:44
  Be irrelevant. Like if the wizard only has 50
• 56:47
  health but he has like an attack that deals 300 damage, you
• 56:51
  better have him do that real quick.
• 56:55
  Because otherwise he'll. Just be some guy with a stick.
• 56:58
  Yeah, I mean I. Always feel like when you're
• 57:00
  doing something like a wizard. A wizard.
• 57:03
  I wouldn't be. Against like, you know, if we
• 57:05
  were fighting Vecna, I I know he can cast multiple spells around
• 57:10
  with the reactions, but like, yeah.
• 57:13
  You know, I always. Was like, oh, that's kind of
• 57:14
  cool. Actually I.
• 57:17
  Think the only thing that really.
• 57:18
  Annoyed me about Vecna was the the I can poke see with the
• 57:21
  sword with it with his dagger he gains like 70 hit points and
• 57:24
  then teleports across the room so you have to run after his
• 57:26
  ass. God I fucking hate that.
• 57:30
  Snap lock I let's. Start.
• 57:33
  Let's not start. No, I'm not.
• 57:34
  I'm not. I'm not going to do the thing,
• 57:36
  but I not do the thing. That stat block?
• 57:40
  Really. Upended the universe for a
• 57:41
  couple days I. Yes.
• 57:44
  No, there was, there was we, we had our own fucking embassy
• 57:47
  civil war in our Discord server. No people online.
• 57:50
  Too, It wasn't just us. Like people in general were
• 57:53
  fucking losing their God damn minds over that shit.
• 57:56
  And I was just like, all right, people, what a glorious.
• 58:01
  Time to be left. But what were you saying?
• 58:03
  Vechnik can. Cast multiple spells something
• 58:04
  something when you're doing Vechnik.
• 58:06
  Can cast multiple spells. I think that's pretty fun and
• 58:08
  fair. Because he's a cool wizard and
• 58:11
  without his bullshit healing mechanic the wizard he's going
• 58:14
  to die pretty quick. Yeah, let him cast.
• 58:17
  Fucking fire fireballs around. It's funny.
• 58:21
  It's funny. What's the what's the thing in
• 58:24
  Critical Role? He, he cast Meteor Swarm a
• 58:27
  second time and everyone's like, everyone went another ninth
• 58:29
  level spell and he went he's a goat.
• 58:31
  And they're like, yeah. And.
• 58:33
  Then he does it a third time and he's like, and now this is his
• 58:36
  last one. And they were like, oh, I was
• 58:37
  like, oh, oh, thank you. Thank you, Matt, that this is
• 58:40
  the last one. We already ate like 500 points
• 58:42
  of damage, but this is the last. What a what a weird.
• 58:45
  What a weird. Moment when you're thinking
• 58:47
  about balance in 5 E that they could eat 3 meteor swarms like
• 58:50
  that. Yes, because I.
• 58:52
  Feel like that's not intended but they were fine.
• 58:57
  For the most part, yeah, they were.
• 58:58
  Fine, yeah, they were like, that being said, Campaign 1 is really
• 59:01
  funny because they were so overtuned and a lot of the rules
• 59:05
  were not being used the way they're supposed to be used and
• 59:10
  they had a bunch of carryover items from Pathfinder that made
• 59:13
  them really strong that. Over to I mean they had quite a
• 59:16
  few magic items that kind of beefed them up for sure.
• 59:20
  I think the. The like cone of clarity that
• 59:23
  Scanlon had boosted his save DC by like 4 or five.
• 59:27
  It was like nuts. I.
• 59:30
  Don't remember. I mean, they definitely had like
• 59:33
  magic items that went a little too wacky.
• 59:35
  Woo Hoo. Probably because Matt was still
• 59:37
  in the somewhat Pathfinder brain when he conceived of a lot of
• 59:39
  them. It's but it wasn't.
• 59:43
  They weren't. They weren't.
• 59:45
  So. Drastically overboard that they
• 59:47
  were like ludicrously more. I mean, they were definitely
• 59:50
  more powerful than 20 level 20 PCs.
• 59:53
  Maybe should have been, but maybe not.
• 59:55
  I don't know. It's hard to say.
• 59:57
  There was also seven of them, so there's that.
• 1:00:00
  True. At 7:00 and their NPC buddy and
• 1:00:03
  their the guest player buddies, Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  Yeah. Yeah, they had a lot.
• 1:00:08
  They had a lot. Going on, I was always sad that.
• 1:00:11
  Vex didn't get. The grey The grey render as like
• 1:00:14
  a second pet. Did you not also?
• 1:00:18
  Think that's where that was going?
• 1:00:19
  No, but I could see it. Oh, I was.
• 1:00:22
  I always. Kind of was like, oh, it was the
• 1:00:24
  last, like, you know, the last Hunter's thing and she's going
• 1:00:28
  to get the giant angry hippopotamus dog.
• 1:00:33
  I didn't think of it but. I could see it.
• 1:00:35
  I love. Trinket, but he was not combat
• 1:00:37
  effective by the. That's because.
• 1:00:39
  Beastmaster is not combat effective, it's true.
• 1:00:43
  It's it's better now, but. Like, yeah.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah, I mean, I, I think on some.
• 1:00:47
  Level. There's no save in it well.
• 1:00:50
  You have to do some pretty heavy reworking to save it, and
• 1:00:53
  Wizards is not going to do it so.
• 1:00:56
  Wizards, as we've seen. Hates the wizard, hates the
• 1:00:58
  Ranger, so yeah. Basically, we're not going to
• 1:01:02
  shit on Wizards. We're not doing it at this.
• 1:01:04
  Point Wizards. Maybe just remove them from the
• 1:01:06
  game just to save us our sanity. Like I don't want you to remove
• 1:01:10
  it from the game, but maybe we're better off.
• 1:01:14
  I don't know. Yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Yes, yeah. I mean.
• 1:01:17
  It's tough when you want like you're like, oh, I want to play
• 1:01:20
  Beastmaster Ranger. OK, so play artificer and then
• 1:01:22
  multiclass into Ranger you. Don't even have to.
• 1:01:25
  Multiclass. You could just play Battlesmith.
• 1:01:28
  Artificer. Done.
• 1:01:31
  Oh well, yeah, because. They they, they don't have
• 1:01:33
  favoured foe or favoured terrain anymore.
• 1:01:35
  Is that way it's fine so. Yeah, you.
• 1:01:39
  Don't. Even.
• 1:01:40
  Really need to multi. Class.
• 1:01:45
  I hate this. He doesn't want to go home.
• 1:01:47
  It's true. Drake Warren Pretty solid
• 1:01:51
  though. I shake my.
• 1:01:53
  Fist at you, Drake the Wizards. Drake Warren.
• 1:01:56
  Significantly. More durable.
• 1:01:58
  This is OK. This is unrelated to anything
• 1:02:00
  but my dad has a new thing now whenever he gets mad where he'll
• 1:02:04
  just say Arthur fist and then he'll he'll like do the like the
• 1:02:09
  the Arthur meme where he's like got his first clenched and then
• 1:02:11
  he'll just point down at his first at his side.
• 1:02:15
  So like. We were.
• 1:02:17
  There we were hanging out the other day we were watching a
• 1:02:18
  movie he just settled in got the like covers on he was eating
• 1:02:22
  popcorn, he's having a good time.
• 1:02:24
  We were watching Inglourious Basterds and my step mom called
• 1:02:26
  him up from upstairs and he just did the like I lip face thing
• 1:02:30
  that I do and she goes are the 1st and I got off the.
• 1:02:36
  That's that's great. I like.
• 1:02:38
  That he just said it. That's yes.
• 1:02:41
  So that's. Been the jujo new joke between
• 1:02:43
  me and him in the house. Just saying the way I was.
• 1:02:45
  Like this was. Well, yeah.
• 1:02:46
  So like, for example, he was supposed to go to Bucky's and
• 1:02:49
  before he went to Indiana this week and he was supposed to get
• 1:02:52
  me some more of those honey roasted pecans because he ate
• 1:02:54
  half of them on our ride to Alabama.
• 1:02:55
  And then he didn't do that. And I was like, where's the
• 1:02:57
  pecans? And he just goes, I forgot.
• 1:03:00
  I just do. And I walk.
• 1:03:03
  Away, he just starts laughing. That's fair.
• 1:03:11
  Sorry, I just. I'm thinking.
• 1:03:15
  About wizard guys, but not the enemy, not the company.
• 1:03:19
  Yes. The the less health the enemy
• 1:03:23
  has when they do their cool face to demeanor you can be in a
• 1:03:26
  similar vein. When you're doing a.
• 1:03:29
  Party wide attack. And you're and you're.
• 1:03:33
  I'm not. Talking more than just like
• 1:03:34
  dragon. Well, to be honest, I do think
• 1:03:36
  that dragon breath in DND should come with a warning.
• 1:03:40
  And then you just. Like it doesn't do and The thing
• 1:03:42
  is, it's. Not that powerful in D&D, so,
• 1:03:46
  well, that's what I was going to.
• 1:03:47
  Say, make it stronger. Then give it a warning.
• 1:03:50
  Yeah, sure. Yes.
• 1:03:52
  I I think most. People say that.
• 1:03:53
  I don't think that's a controversial opinion to have.
• 1:04:00
  I know Matt Colville brought it up once.
• 1:04:02
  I'm pretty sure. I don't know if that's like a.
• 1:04:05
  Commonly accepted one. I know Jacob brought.
• 1:04:08
  It up once. That's doesn't.
• 1:04:11
  Surprise me. And I actually.
• 1:04:17
  Sorry, I do this in Lancer the like big party wide damage.
• 1:04:20
  We just did it for the giant spirit of Motherwell fight and I
• 1:04:23
  used what I'm like tentatively calling that I coined three
• 1:04:27
  hours ago the rule of thirds. Which is to say, I did this.
• 1:04:31
  But I didn't have a name for it. Essentially what I did in that
• 1:04:34
  fight is I took all of the players HP that they had on a
• 1:04:37
  single break bar right in Lancer your MEC has four health bars,
• 1:04:42
  OK? Or 4 stacks of health.
• 1:04:45
  I took an average of that. And then I.
• 1:04:49
  Separated that into 3. So I think the number I came out
• 1:04:52
  to was like 96 counting our guest player or 9896 somewhere
• 1:04:59
  in there like below 100 but above 90 and then when it was
• 1:05:04
  doing its big attack. I basically went.
• 1:05:07
  OK, well it's going to do 2/3 of their health.
• 1:05:11
  And like there will. Be like a you know it's going to
• 1:05:13
  do this thing. And the you can.
• 1:05:17
  The the reason why I chose thirds is that it's an easily
• 1:05:20
  dividable, easily stackable number and it's more than it's,
• 1:05:24
  it can be less than half or more than half and it's a good way of
• 1:05:27
  sort of gauging it. OK, I just did.
• 1:05:33
  It that way because it's easy to break up and you can you can
• 1:05:35
  slide it into a bunch of different things.
• 1:05:36
  For example, if you want the attack to be stronger, you do
• 1:05:40
  2/3 health. If you want it to be super
• 1:05:42
  strong, it does a full bar of health, but you have more time
• 1:05:46
  to react to it. You know what I mean?
• 1:05:48
  I OK. Yeah, I wasn't.
• 1:05:51
  I wasn't entirely following what you meant by it.
• 1:05:56
  Being less. Or more, but yeah, OK.
• 1:06:00
  Just like when. You you're saying when you're
• 1:06:02
  coming up with it before it, before you have enacted the
• 1:06:05
  thing, when you're coming up with the idea, you're roughly
• 1:06:08
  saying, all right, if it does XY and Z criteria, it can take out
• 1:06:14
  a third of health. If it does this XY and Z thing,
• 1:06:16
  it can take out 2/3 of health and so on and so forth.
• 1:06:19
  Yes, and the. The cool thing, right, is that
• 1:06:21
  it will affect it will affect players differently.
• 1:06:25
  The character who's got 30 health, if they lose 11 hit
• 1:06:29
  points, they're like, oh, that's not so bad for me.
• 1:06:31
  Yeah. The person with 14 health is
• 1:06:33
  like, Oh my God, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the the, the.
• 1:06:37
  Damage kind of scales in a fun way.
• 1:06:39
  This is one of those. Things to.
• 1:06:43
  Like what you what? You just said is one of those
• 1:06:45
  things where I think people tend to forget.
• 1:06:50
  I don't know. Maybe they don't tend to forget,
• 1:06:52
  but. People often.
• 1:06:55
  Design fights or like boss fights, especially when you're
• 1:07:00
  talking about DND and the like in such a fashion that they
• 1:07:06
  assume the they assume the statistical average.
• 1:07:15
  Is the best way I can. Put it.
• 1:07:16
  And what I mean by that is like, they'll go, well, I have a
• 1:07:20
  barbarian and I have a fighter and I have a wizard and I have a
• 1:07:24
  cleric. So I have 3 characters who are
• 1:07:27
  really beefy boys. So I can probably do XY and Z
• 1:07:31
  thing based on the statistical average of how much health those
• 1:07:34
  classes are generally going to have and what spells they're
• 1:07:37
  usually going to have and what kind of like capability or
• 1:07:40
  durability they'll have, right? They kind of just, they kind of
• 1:07:43
  have this like ephemeral across the board average.
• 1:07:48
  But really, what? You actually is better is you
• 1:07:50
  want to design based on the average for your group.
• 1:07:55
  That is in front. Of you and don't assume a like
• 1:07:59
  statistical no humans involved average because that is not a
• 1:08:04
  reliable number for a lot. Of.
• 1:08:07
  Reasons but. First and foremost.
• 1:08:10
  You know your players could be doing something weird, right?
• 1:08:14
  Like you may have given them magic items that put them way
• 1:08:17
  outside of the health curve or way below the health curve for
• 1:08:20
  some reason. Like you gave the barbarian a
• 1:08:21
  sword of deathly smacking that drops his health by 50 points,
• 1:08:25
  but he does a lot more damage. And you forgot about that or you
• 1:08:28
  weren't thinking about it when you were designing the boss
• 1:08:30
  fight. And then you drop your barbarian
• 1:08:32
  in one turn. You're like, he should have more
• 1:08:33
  help to that. And he's like, but you gave me
• 1:08:35
  the sword of deathly smacking. You're like, oh, I did do that.
• 1:08:37
  You know, like design around your party average, which is,
• 1:08:44
  you know, effectively what you were just talking about.
• 1:08:48
  And if you. Design around what your party
• 1:08:51
  has going on currently right now.
• 1:08:54
  You can kind. Of be.
• 1:08:57
  You can be. Meaner sort of in like you can
• 1:09:02
  make it seem like you're being meaner by targeting your
• 1:09:06
  players, when in actuality you have thought about it and you're
• 1:09:10
  not actually being meaner, but it appears like you're being
• 1:09:13
  meaner because you're targeting specific things about their
• 1:09:16
  characters. This is something that Fabio
• 1:09:18
  Ultima makes a big deal about, where it very specifically.
• 1:09:24
  The game. But also people online will very
• 1:09:27
  specifically. Actually Emmanuel may have even
• 1:09:28
  said this when we were talking to him.
• 1:09:30
  You have to design every fight based on what you currently have
• 1:09:33
  in front of you party wise and every little fight is a little
• 1:09:37
  GM home brew moment because if you try to just design in a
• 1:09:42
  little bubble good chance you will just absolutely pub stomp
• 1:09:45
  the shit out of your out of your players or completely.
• 1:09:49
  Miss the? Mark and they will destroy the
• 1:09:50
  dog shit out of your enemies. Yeah.
• 1:09:53
  I mean, I think yeah, I I the the really off base one is kind
• 1:09:59
  of the one that's always the most.
• 1:10:02
  Evidence on. Both sides of the table, right?
• 1:10:04
  It's like, Oh yes, I made this super cool wizard, but he has a
• 1:10:08
  really low, like arcana, so they can dispel him easily.
• 1:10:13
  And then you go and the players go, wait, none of us have a
• 1:10:16
  magic. Yeah.
• 1:10:18
  Right, it's that kind of. Problem.
• 1:10:20
  Or or. You know, to use Fabula, you
• 1:10:23
  make it so that the enemy can put the enraged status effect on
• 1:10:27
  the players and it's permanent and all of your players are
• 1:10:32
  really reliant on what is it now, blanking out what enrage
• 1:10:38
  actually debuffs hold on, Dex and my Yeah, OK, yeah, no dex
• 1:10:44
  and Insight. So it's like oh all of my
• 1:10:46
  players use Dex and Insight and I gave them the enrage debuff
• 1:10:50
  and they are unable to clear it in this fight.
• 1:10:54
  Now they are just. Significantly on the back foot
• 1:10:57
  with no way to respond because whatever weird combination of
• 1:11:00
  classes they happen to have, they just can't answer that
• 1:11:04
  problem right. And then yeah, you're like, Oh
• 1:11:10
  well. Or like if you design a fight
• 1:11:12
  where it's like, oh, I want my players to use a ritual to like
• 1:11:15
  shut down this ability, and then none of the players have rituals
• 1:11:20
  because they didn't choose any classes with rituals, which is
• 1:11:23
  unlikely but not impossible. Right, so.
• 1:11:27
  Like. That kind of a.
• 1:11:30
  Thing. It's yeah, it's the.
• 1:11:32
  Same. It's yeah, it's something to be
• 1:11:35
  cognizant of. And some games make a point of
• 1:11:40
  it and mention it more, and some games don't.
• 1:11:43
  And I feel like DNDDND is pretty good where the way they design
• 1:11:50
  most 5 E monsters, you can kind of get away with almost any
• 1:11:53
  party composition and they'll be able to do something.
• 1:11:57
  But what that does also end up meaning is that a lot of DND 5 E
• 1:12:00
  monsters are a little more boring than they could be,
• 1:12:03
  right? Because they designed them to be
• 1:12:06
  a little more generic, ergo they're not as interesting as
• 1:12:10
  they potentially could be if they designed them to be a
• 1:12:13
  little more specific. But as we've mentioned many
• 1:12:17
  times with 5 E, their general philosophy is to make it as
• 1:12:20
  generic as possible so it can apply to as many tables as
• 1:12:22
  possible. Right?
• 1:12:23
  Like that's just kind of how they do that.
• 1:12:25
  So yeah. But like, you know, imagine if
• 1:12:29
  you will a monster with like a really.
• 1:12:34
  I don't know. The monster has a 60 foot anti
• 1:12:37
  magic aura right? And the.
• 1:12:41
  The book specifically says. If you have.
• 1:12:45
  A a double cleric wizard druid party, or you know if you have
• 1:12:52
  if you basically the book give you a warning of if you don't
• 1:12:55
  have any marshals who can who can reliably deal with this
• 1:13:00
  thing, don't throw this thing at your party.
• 1:13:03
  Right? It assumes that they will have a
• 1:13:04
  way to deal with the fact that they do not have spells.
• 1:13:07
  But if you throw this at the quadruple wizard party, they are
• 1:13:10
  fucked. You know that would be cool, but
• 1:13:15
  5E doesn't do that. Right, whereas.
• 1:13:18
  Fabula basically does do that by telling you design every fight
• 1:13:23
  with your party comp in mind. Agreed.
• 1:13:27
  Yeah, and. All that to come back to your 1
• 1:13:30
  thirds thing is essentially doing that.
• 1:13:34
  It's a more. Simplified idea, right?
• 1:13:36
  You're just dealing with like health values, which is not too
• 1:13:38
  complicated, but it is in that it is effectively heading in
• 1:13:42
  that direction, yeah. In the case of actually bouncing
• 1:13:49
  off to keeping your your party composition in mind, the last
• 1:13:52
  piece of advice I have for not making things too complicated is
• 1:13:55
  when you're doing objective based missions, kind of like sit
• 1:13:58
  reps Things like capturing points or forcing skill checks.
• 1:14:03
  Do not spread your. Numbers too thin.
• 1:14:05
  I have a party of five, so whenever I do stuff like this I
• 1:14:09
  use two or three objectives and let the other players run
• 1:14:12
  defence because I know that not every one of my players wants to
• 1:14:17
  do objective stuff. Some of my players just want
• 1:14:21
  numba go bigger, so just let them do it well.
• 1:14:26
  Essentially. Also.
• 1:14:28
  Just for the sake of your sanity, everyone's sanity,
• 1:14:34
  having a situation where. You put.
• 1:14:38
  You know, I don't know 5 weird crazy secondary objective type
• 1:14:45
  mechanics in a fight. Like at a certain point it
• 1:14:48
  becomes so difficult to. Manage.
• 1:14:55
  Like you're going to forget things on the GM side right?
• 1:14:59
  Because you have 5 different weird mechanics that are
• 1:15:02
  probably like cross interacting with each other or are or are
• 1:15:06
  reacting to a specific player or whatever.
• 1:15:08
  So you're going to forget because your brain is going to
• 1:15:10
  get all jumbled between all of them and then your players are
• 1:15:13
  going to get confused as to how to deal with what, which one
• 1:15:16
  when. And then So they're probably
• 1:15:18
  going to have between every turn, 10 minute arguments about
• 1:15:21
  what they should do next. Because do we deal with this
• 1:15:23
  problem or this problem? And it's not clear which one is
• 1:15:26
  the easiest to deal with, right? So yeah, you just don't want to
• 1:15:29
  over bloat the situation. Because it will just.
• 1:15:33
  Turn into a confusing mess, especially because you're not
• 1:15:36
  dealing with. You're not playing a video.
• 1:15:40
  Game, you know, the video game can track all of those
• 1:15:42
  objectives. You as the GM, have to do all
• 1:15:47
  that yourself, so that can very quickly turn into chaos.
• 1:15:53
  Although, as I say that hilariously.
• 1:15:57
  Even in a video. Game if you end up in a
• 1:15:59
  situation where there are too many mechanics going on around
• 1:16:03
  the fight that aren't just fighting the the monster or
• 1:16:05
  whatever. You can get overwhelmed.
• 1:16:08
  In the video game too, as a player like so it could still.
• 1:16:12
  Yeah. You only need two or three.
• 1:16:15
  Maybe even just you. Might only need just one a lot
• 1:16:18
  of the time because ultimately. The point is, is that.
• 1:16:22
  You need to split attention and play.
• 1:16:25
  Players have to make a. Choice right The the the the the
• 1:16:30
  the the core goal of having. A secondary.
• 1:16:35
  Objective that is not just hit the monster is that the players
• 1:16:38
  have to make a decision about what to do right?
• 1:16:43
  So going with the bear, the guardian of the Gullet Wood
• 1:16:46
  situation, the Big Bear. You guys as players.
• 1:16:50
  Had to decide keep hitting the bear or destroy the pylon of his
• 1:16:57
  back to turn off the crazy storm effect.
• 1:17:01
  You could have ignored if you were feeling ballsy and you're
• 1:17:05
  like, I think, you know, someone was like, I think we could do
• 1:17:07
  enough damage. You could have ignored the
• 1:17:09
  stalagmite sticking out of his back and just let the storm go
• 1:17:12
  and fight him until he went down.
• 1:17:13
  Right? It wasn't like he was immune to
• 1:17:14
  damage or anything. But you chose not to because
• 1:17:20
  you're like, you decide, you know, as a group, you're like,
• 1:17:23
  we don't think we can reliably take this battering.
• 1:17:27
  So we have to try. And turn this off, otherwise
• 1:17:29
  we're not going to make it. And the thing?
• 1:17:32
  That fully convinced it was. ADPS check.
• 1:17:35
  OK, well, for you. In particular, yeah, OK, I, I,
• 1:17:37
  I'm not entirely clear on why you came to that conclusion, but
• 1:17:40
  fair enough. I I think it was.
• 1:17:43
  Because at one point you described the storm flaring up.
• 1:17:50
  I like. It.
• 1:17:51
  Like the storm got bigger when when we hit crisis and then at
• 1:17:54
  one point I think the storm did not get bigger, did it not?
• 1:17:59
  No, the storm was. Non existent and then when he
• 1:18:01
  hit crisis he turned it on. OK.
• 1:18:07
  I feel like there you said something at one point my brain
• 1:18:09
  took that as, oh, it's getting more severe.
• 1:18:14
  I don't know because. I first.
• 1:18:16
  Round I was like, oh, it's phase two or it's like a stronger
• 1:18:19
  form. And then at the end of turn one
• 1:18:23
  I was like, oh, maybe this is going to get worse.
• 1:18:25
  Then I was like, well, I know what I must do.
• 1:18:30
  OK, well. I I'm not sure how you.
• 1:18:34
  Came to that. Misinterpretation of what I was
• 1:18:36
  trying to tell you. But either way, the point is the
• 1:18:40
  the the decision has to be made in some fashion and the decision
• 1:18:45
  is what makes thing in makes things interesting is what I'm
• 1:18:48
  getting at, because as we said, what maybe last episode not that
• 1:18:56
  long ago. The thing that.
• 1:19:00
  Makes a fight boring a lot of the time is.
• 1:19:04
  Just the same thing. Happening over and over again,
• 1:19:06
  right? Nothing changing.
• 1:19:08
  And if there's no, there's no, there's no.
• 1:19:13
  If there's no extra secondary choices to be made, then you're
• 1:19:19
  relying on the players making choices about like their loadout
• 1:19:23
  and what they can do with their kit.
• 1:19:27
  But. Generally.
• 1:19:29
  The players are going to fall into the same couple of like the
• 1:19:33
  same few options with their kit, especially if the fight is going
• 1:19:36
  relatively well for them. There's no reason to deviate
• 1:19:39
  Like, you know, in a video gamey context.
• 1:19:44
  You know, if you're playing Final Fantasy, I'm not going to
• 1:19:47
  have Yuna burn a bunch of spells and use up her MP on these
• 1:19:50
  random goober guys when I could just hit them to death with
• 1:19:54
  Titus, Orin and Waka. So I'm just going to hit them to
• 1:19:56
  death, right? I'm going to conserve my MP for
• 1:19:58
  something more important. It's the same kind of idea.
• 1:20:02
  So the secondary objective is an external choice that has to be
• 1:20:06
  made beyond the player's kit. Obviously it interacts with the
• 1:20:10
  player's kit, but it's beyond the player's kit and.
• 1:20:13
  So the thing that. That's that's really where it
• 1:20:15
  gets interesting. So if going back to the too many
• 1:20:19
  choices point. If you have.
• 1:20:23
  Four or five secondary objectives.
• 1:20:26
  Now you've gone from a couple of choices that makes things
• 1:20:28
  interesting to so many choices that you have analysis
• 1:20:32
  paralysis. You've added so many choices.
• 1:20:34
  The players are not going to know what to choose, and then
• 1:20:35
  they're going to like give up or get frustrated or just be like,
• 1:20:39
  roll a die and pick one randomly.
• 1:20:41
  You know what I mean? Because.
• 1:20:44
  Yeah, analysis paralysis is a real thing, right?
• 1:20:47
  You can only do. So many you can only think of
• 1:20:53
  so. Many possible things.
• 1:20:54
  It's, it's The Walking into the liquor store and knowing that
• 1:20:58
  you, you know, going down to look for some wine, but not
• 1:21:01
  knowing what kind of wine you want and then losing your mind
• 1:21:03
  because there's aisles and aisles of bottles and you don't
• 1:21:06
  know what any of this shit is, right?
• 1:21:08
  It's that whole problem. So yes, keep it to two or three
• 1:21:14
  objectives. Even 3 might be a bit much to be
• 1:21:18
  honest. Yes, I mean in a group.
• 1:21:20
  Of five three you can be a bit much I.
• 1:21:23
  My my reasoning. For it, right?
• 1:21:25
  For keeping the number thin other than just letting players
• 1:21:28
  be unga if they want to be unga is that it gives.
• 1:21:31
  Players. Who are not combat effective,
• 1:21:34
  right? If you have a character who's
• 1:21:35
  the talker of the group or the healer characters who are not
• 1:21:39
  actively participating in combat as much as they are reacting to
• 1:21:42
  combat and using what skills they do have to be effective, it
• 1:21:46
  gives them something to actively do.
• 1:21:49
  Depending on what the secondary objective is, yeah, it can that
• 1:21:53
  definitely like the that can definitely vary game by game, I
• 1:21:56
  would say, but yeah. Yeah, well, like so for.
• 1:22:00
  Example in in the fight with the Baron right?
• 1:22:02
  Like let's say one of our players was only an orator.
• 1:22:08
  The whole situation. With the Baron would have been
• 1:22:10
  really good for them, but. If they were.
• 1:22:13
  Fighting the night with us real bad, you know?
• 1:22:19
  I kind of get not perhaps not the best example because of the
• 1:22:22
  way fabulous classes work, but I I get what you're saying.
• 1:22:25
  You can't really. You can't make a character who's
• 1:22:28
  just like fighting useless really in in Fabulous, you'll
• 1:22:32
  you might not be the hit stuff person in Fabulous, but you're
• 1:22:36
  going to be useful in some fashion.
• 1:22:40
  Right, like you can't. Really, there's maybe, I guess
• 1:22:45
  there's you say Orator has. Basically nothing that's like
• 1:22:48
  it's got well orator has debuffs.
• 1:22:50
  Not much that's that's. What?
• 1:22:52
  You're a little bit that's what your objective would become
• 1:22:55
  right? In fights, your if your main
• 1:22:57
  thing is orator, you're you're the Debuffy or Buffy debuffing
• 1:23:01
  the bad guys and helping your teammates person right.
• 1:23:05
  I suppose if you did like orator merchant.
• 1:23:11
  Like. Wayfarer.
• 1:23:13
  Yeah. Then you might be pushing it to
• 1:23:16
  the point of like, you're kind of useless in combat, although
• 1:23:19
  you still have. Your.
• 1:23:22
  Weapon and can still hit things ultimately right like you're not
• 1:23:26
  you can still you can still attack and because of the way
• 1:23:28
  stats work and fabula you're you're hitting thing ability is
• 1:23:33
  likely to still be effective. As opposed to.
• 1:23:37
  A game like Worlds Without Number where you can have a
• 1:23:40
  character who doesn't have any combat specific abilities and is
• 1:23:44
  bad at hitting things and doesn't have an effective weapon
• 1:23:48
  Right like. In that game.
• 1:23:50
  You could be in a scenario where if it's just a straight smack
• 1:23:54
  the enemy situation, you're having a bad time.
• 1:23:59
  'Cause you can make a. Magic user in that game and
• 1:24:01
  effectively have, you know, you're like a Magic user and you
• 1:24:05
  have a bow, but your shoot skill is bad and your decks is bad and
• 1:24:10
  your spells are not combat heavy, mostly because there's
• 1:24:13
  not that many combat heavy spells in that game.
• 1:24:16
  Yeah. Then you get into fights and
• 1:24:17
  you're like, oh fuck. So yeah, Lancer, I can't imagine
• 1:24:25
  though has that problem. I imagine everyone's pretty
• 1:24:28
  decently effective at fighting in Lancer no matter what.
• 1:24:33
  Yes, yes, right, 'cause. Everyone is a.
• 1:24:36
  Everyone has big roboting. It's yeah.
• 1:24:41
  It it's kind of a weird thing, right?
• 1:24:43
  If you're playing like you are only playing.
• 1:24:48
  Mechs. As they are built like as they
• 1:24:50
  are given to you, you might not be that effective in combat.
• 1:24:54
  Like the Lancaster is good at like helping people reload and
• 1:24:59
  like getting people out of bad situations, but it by itself is
• 1:25:02
  not good at fighting. No, but that's still.
• 1:25:04
  Effective. That's still effective in combat
• 1:25:06
  because you're helping everybody else in the fight, you know
• 1:25:09
  you're not useless. True, yeah.
• 1:25:12
  Right, like you're still. Doing something you're just not
• 1:25:14
  necessarily directly contributing to damage, because
• 1:25:17
  that's the other thing too, right?
• 1:25:18
  Effective in combat doesn't have to mean I do damage, right?
• 1:25:24
  I think that's what a lot of people assume, But it doesn't
• 1:25:26
  have to work that way. In fact, I think 5 E assumes
• 1:25:30
  that as a game when it doesn't necessarily have to.
• 1:25:34
  But that's because 5 E was trying to avoid the Holy Trinity
• 1:25:37
  as a concept and didn't really want to have the like someone
• 1:25:40
  has to play a healer problem. But yeah, effective in combat
• 1:25:46
  does not have to mean just the guy who hit good.
• 1:25:50
  But this also. Goes back to that problem of
• 1:25:52
  everybody wants to be the person who does damage and not a lot of
• 1:25:55
  people are willing to be the person who's helpful in combat
• 1:25:59
  in different ways or supports E ways right?
• 1:26:01
  Like a lot of people don't like doing that, which is.
• 1:26:07
  I don't know I've. Always found weird to me, like
• 1:26:11
  as long as you're contributing something, why are you mad that
• 1:26:14
  you're not? Like you might.
• 1:26:17
  Not be the damaged person, but if you're the person that keeps
• 1:26:19
  everyone alive every turn, like you're still effective, you
• 1:26:22
  know? It's the mind space.
• 1:26:25
  It really. Yeah, I.
• 1:26:28
  Yeah, I guess. I don't know, it's very weird.
• 1:26:30
  Like I like. I can't play purely support
• 1:26:33
  characters. I just can't.
• 1:26:36
  Can't or have you just. Chosen never to do so and have
• 1:26:39
  never really tried that hard. No, I've played.
• 1:26:42
  Like, so I've done support characters playing like, you
• 1:26:45
  know, when I have to do that thing where I'm playing three
• 1:26:46
  people's characters at the same time because people are absent,
• 1:26:49
  Well, that's a bad example. Because you're playing somebody.
• 1:26:52
  Else's character, for starters, and you're playing not entirely
• 1:26:55
  focused on one character. I suppose, but.
• 1:26:59
  Yeah, even then, like. I don't know like.
• 1:27:05
  I the closest I was going to get to playing a non combat
• 1:27:08
  character was when we were doing vampire because Orador not
• 1:27:12
  really built for combat and I did not build Nico to be built
• 1:27:16
  for combat as much as I built him to be a sassy mouth.
• 1:27:19
  You can't. I.
• 1:27:22
  Most characters. Are going to be non combatty in
• 1:27:24
  that game honestly. It's actually.
• 1:27:28
  Vampire Vampire the Masquerade, at least 5 E 5th edition of that
• 1:27:32
  game as far as I can tell has the opposite thing where most
• 1:27:36
  characters are going to be not fighting people and you have to
• 1:27:38
  go out of your way to make a fighty guy.
• 1:27:43
  It's really dependent on your clan.
• 1:27:45
  Depends on what you're, but not that many.
• 1:27:47
  Of most, a lot of the clans are not fighting people.
• 1:27:51
  Right. They're like.
• 1:27:51
  Manipulators. Or they're like.
• 1:27:56
  They're. They're much more focused on.
• 1:27:59
  Messing with. Things a lot of the clans are
• 1:28:03
  not just straight up brawler. I mean arguably the only the
• 1:28:06
  Bruja are really the straight up brawler people and like maybe
• 1:28:10
  the Grendel Grendel, whatever they're called Ruhan.
• 1:28:13
  Gangrel. Yeah, Gangrel, most of the other
• 1:28:17
  ones. Are not like the fucking what is
• 1:28:19
  it the is it the not the Malkavians?
• 1:28:23
  One of the clans are. Basically the like, stealth
• 1:28:25
  assassins, right? Like, yeah.
• 1:28:30
  Malkimian. Sort of, kind of.
• 1:28:33
  Either way, the point of point are we getting at is like in
• 1:28:35
  that particular game it it makes sense because.
• 1:28:39
  It's the opposite. Of five E you're not.
• 1:28:41
  You're assuming you're not making a directly fighty person
• 1:28:44
  because the. Game is not.
• 1:28:45
  Directly fighty in that way and then you're going out of your
• 1:28:48
  way. Or Apocalypse World is like that
• 1:28:50
  too. Most of the playbooks are like
• 1:28:53
  they can, they are capable of fighting, but they're not
• 1:28:55
  particular amazing at it right? Only one or two of them are like
• 1:29:00
  I'm the guy who fucks people up right?
• 1:29:02
  Like the battle babe and the gun lugger are the 2 main ones that
• 1:29:05
  are like I fuck people up type playbooks.
• 1:29:09
  The other ones by default really not.
• 1:29:11
  Some of them are like, you actively want to avoid it, like
• 1:29:14
  you suck ass at it, you know so. I think the.
• 1:29:19
  Idea of I can't play the support character?
• 1:29:21
  I think it really heavily depends on the game.
• 1:29:22
  I think there are games where you, I think if you played a
• 1:29:25
  supporter character, like a supporting caster character in
• 1:29:28
  Fabula, I don't think it would you would dislike it as much as
• 1:29:30
  if you tried to do it in like 5. EI just wanted.
• 1:29:35
  I mean, you know, 5E is one example, but yeah.
• 1:29:40
  Potentially, I think I. Just.
• 1:29:42
  I am inclined. To play the DPS characters, I
• 1:29:45
  think that's just kind of my my lot in life, I know, but.
• 1:29:47
  You should go out of your way and look for a game that will
• 1:29:50
  give you the option to do something different and then
• 1:29:52
  actively try to do it. To see, you know.
• 1:29:56
  'Cause again, if you're like, I'm going to play the supporting
• 1:29:59
  guy in 5th edition, it's like, OK, you can to a point, but the
• 1:30:03
  game doesn't give you that many. It's not that satisfying in 5th
• 1:30:07
  edition 'cause there's not that many tools to be the supporting
• 1:30:10
  guy. You know, like it's kind of hard
• 1:30:11
  to do so because of what you're limited on whereas in Fabula,
• 1:30:18
  right? Excuse me?
• 1:30:24
  In Fabula, we have a character who is explicitly our healer
• 1:30:27
  person, and she's having a great time because the game gives her
• 1:30:30
  lots of different tools to make it really satisfying to be the
• 1:30:34
  healer person you know she has. Lots of.
• 1:30:39
  Different ways to administer the healing, cure the cure, the
• 1:30:43
  status effects. And also she's not just doing
• 1:30:47
  the same method of support every round, right?
• 1:30:52
  It's not just I have a good heal spell and that's what I do every
• 1:30:56
  time, right? She has different options to do
• 1:30:59
  the supporting, right? All the different.
• 1:31:00
  I mean, she's playing a florist. So for her in particular, she
• 1:31:03
  has all the the different plants.
• 1:31:06
  And she can like rotate. Them out and change what kind of
• 1:31:09
  assistance right on turn one she can plant the the one that lets
• 1:31:12
  her scan the enemy and then on turn 2 she can plant the one
• 1:31:15
  that does like the healing and the debuff clearing and then on
• 1:31:18
  turn 3 she could swap it out for one that like increases
• 1:31:20
  somebody's damage or something you know so it's like it gives
• 1:31:23
  you tools to do it so it's more satisfying because it's not
• 1:31:27
  just. I throw out an.
• 1:31:30
  Occasional heal or whatever and like in 5 E like 'cause I
• 1:31:34
  actually kind of tried to go support with zig zags and I
• 1:31:38
  learned pretty. Quickly.
• 1:31:39
  I was like, all right, well, I can't make this my only shtick
• 1:31:42
  'cause there's just not enough spells that are like that in 5
• 1:31:45
  E, you know what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:31:47
  Yeah, so it. Ends up being not that
• 1:31:48
  satisfying. I'm not just going to cast the
• 1:31:50
  same spell every goddamn turn. Like that's cheeks.
• 1:31:55
  So I I. Did find fun playing Django and
• 1:31:59
  being a tank, yeah. Which is like similar kind of
• 1:32:02
  thing. Yeah, well, so I think with.
• 1:32:04
  That it was the I think I have to be frontline is is what I've
• 1:32:08
  learned is that I'm not a huge fan of playing backline.
• 1:32:13
  Again, though, I don't know that.
• 1:32:13
  You've tried a game that really makes it satisfying I.
• 1:32:17
  Might not like. Like Monster Hearts might be a
• 1:32:18
  good thing, but I'm probably going to play Du Lahan which is
• 1:32:21
  not not a combat character. Well, Monster Hearts is.
• 1:32:25
  It's hard to beat those. Monster Hearts is an incredibly
• 1:32:27
  weird example. It's not.
• 1:32:33
  Yeah. It's like Monster is just weird.
• 1:32:35
  I I don't know. I can't compare it.
• 1:32:37
  I don't know if we can compare it in that way.
• 1:32:38
  You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:32:40
  No, it's true like. Actually, you know, it's.
• 1:32:46
  Funny, a game that is in the DND vibe but I have heard is better
• 1:32:51
  about this is actually Pathfinder.
• 1:32:52
  I've heard a lot of people say it's can be quite fun to play a
• 1:32:55
  support character in Pathfinder because at least some of the
• 1:33:00
  reason is because a lot of the wacky woo Hoo woo Hoo.
• 1:33:03
  Spells. That Pathfinder provides.
• 1:33:09
  So you know. Again, I would say just look to
• 1:33:12
  and also try it in video games too, right?
• 1:33:16
  Like. It's not something.
• 1:33:19
  I don't think you should ever write off any role like I don't
• 1:33:22
  usually. I'll give you a great example.
• 1:33:24
  I don't. This is a long tangent we're
• 1:33:25
  going, but whatever. I don't usually play.
• 1:33:28
  The support. Person in like Mmos right?
• 1:33:33
  I'll play like damage caster or like tank guy or like maybe I'll
• 1:33:39
  play physical damage guy but not usually.
• 1:33:43
  And I very rarely play like support or healer type positions
• 1:33:47
  in an MMO. However, I love playing support
• 1:33:51
  and I main support in Mobus. Like I.
• 1:33:55
  Played tank support in League of Legends as my primary role like
• 1:34:01
  all the time and for whatever reason the structure.
• 1:34:08
  And I'd have to think. About why in in a MOBA it feels
• 1:34:10
  more satisfying, but the structure of how support works
• 1:34:16
  in a MOBA. Felt a lot.
• 1:34:19
  Better than it felt in like an MMO.
• 1:34:24
  So I think it heavily. Depends on how the game feels
• 1:34:28
  and. You know that's.
• 1:34:31
  No different when you're talking tabletop.
• 1:34:35
  True enough 'cause. I I actually distinctly.
• 1:34:40
  Remember avoiding playing support in league 'cause I
• 1:34:45
  thought it would be really boring and because I thought
• 1:34:48
  that. It wouldn't be very.
• 1:34:51
  Satisfying, but. I don't know.
• 1:34:57
  Something about getting that sweet stun combo off and then
• 1:35:01
  your a your AD carry just don't get on the bottom lane.
• 1:35:04
  It just gets the jimmies going for some reason.
• 1:35:09
  Conversely, actually, it's been a lot of words.
• 1:35:11
  To me, like stunning. The enemy and having the person
• 1:35:16
  that you're supporting get a bunch of kills.
• 1:35:19
  To then make them. Really strong later down the
• 1:35:22
  road. Conversely.
• 1:35:25
  However. Though I didn't like playing
• 1:35:27
  support as much in Dota, I found support to be less satisfying in
• 1:35:31
  Dota so. Structure of mechanics.
• 1:35:34
  Can make a big difference and I'm not going to get into the
• 1:35:36
  particulars of why I found it less less fun in Dota because
• 1:35:39
  it's hyper specific MOBA stuff. So we don't need to go.
• 1:35:44
  Down that rabbit hole, but just take my word for.
• 1:35:48
  It gotcha has to do with how. Minions work and creeps and and
• 1:35:52
  economy of the games and all the shit.
• 1:35:59
  Anyway, the how do we get here talking about support
• 1:36:03
  characters? Giving your support.
• 1:36:07
  Characters, things to do that's not just punching.
• 1:36:09
  Oh, stuff to do, yeah. Well, you know another good
• 1:36:12
  thing to that you can do. That isn't.
• 1:36:16
  Quite a secondary objective to give your support players
• 1:36:20
  something to do but having the enemy throw out.
• 1:36:26
  Debuffs or. Or problems that the support
• 1:36:29
  character has tools to deal with is always a good one, right?
• 1:36:35
  If you know that. One of the characters has the
• 1:36:37
  ability to remove, you know. The poison.
• 1:36:41
  Condition to use it 5 E parlance, then throwing enemies
• 1:36:45
  at the players that do a lot of poisoning can be satisfying for
• 1:36:49
  that player. Right, which I.
• 1:36:52
  Guess goes back to my that point about designing the encounter
• 1:36:55
  for your group specifically, yeah.
• 1:37:01
  Or perhaps the secondary objective is.
• 1:37:05
  To actually. To put it in that direction,
• 1:37:08
  maybe you make a secondary objective where you're like
• 1:37:10
  protecting. Civilians or.
• 1:37:13
  Something to that effect and the healer character has to heal
• 1:37:17
  debuffs or something. You know, clear the poison off
• 1:37:20
  of the civilians as opposed to the other players.
• 1:37:25
  Which I would imagine. If you're the kind of player
• 1:37:27
  who's like, I'm going to play the goodly cleric who, you know,
• 1:37:32
  protects and protects and helps people who are ill, that would
• 1:37:36
  feel very satisfying in a narrative perspective if you got
• 1:37:41
  into a fight and that was like one of your main things that you
• 1:37:43
  were doing. And if you know.
• 1:37:51
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:37:53
  Give him. Give him stuff to do.
• 1:37:56
  To make it. That that actually is probably.
• 1:37:59
  Now that I'm thinking about it, that's probably even a more
• 1:38:02
  important element. Well, maybe I shouldn't say.
• 1:38:06
  More important, that's probably another element to the idea of
• 1:38:09
  the secondary objective that might go a little overlooked is
• 1:38:14
  the. Secondary.
• 1:38:15
  Objective, having narrative gratification to it, right?
• 1:38:20
  Because, you know, that's that's what makes Lancer.
• 1:38:22
  So good. How do you mean the the sitreps?
• 1:38:26
  Are designed to have that narrative gratification, right?
• 1:38:29
  You're not just killing the guy, you're stealing the data.
• 1:38:33
  You're helping the escape ship will take off.
• 1:38:37
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, I'm, I'm even
• 1:38:45
  saying, I mean that. That feeds into.
• 1:38:50
  Kind of what I meant in that it's the idea of if the
• 1:38:53
  character. The player makes a.
• 1:38:56
  Character who narratively is about a thing, and then the
• 1:39:00
  secondary objective fuels back into that.
• 1:39:04
  It's like, yes, it's satisfying because you saved the ship, but
• 1:39:07
  it's also narratively satisfying because now your character can
• 1:39:11
  go to the people you saved and talk to them and like reinforce
• 1:39:16
  your concept, right? Always reinforcing your
• 1:39:19
  character concept. Because at the end of the day,
• 1:39:26
  the fight big monster thing is fine, but everyone's doing that
• 1:39:30
  in roughly equal amounts, right? If you have your character to go
• 1:39:38
  with Lancer. If you have a character who's a
• 1:39:40
  mechanic. You know they have.
• 1:39:43
  Their robot and fight big monster is fine and they beat
• 1:39:46
  the enemy or whatever. But if they have a mission where
• 1:39:49
  they specifically repaired the escape pods that got all the
• 1:39:53
  civilians out of there and then afterward they get back to their
• 1:39:57
  commander and he's like oh it's a good thing you fucking
• 1:40:00
  repaired those escape pods or all those people would have been
• 1:40:02
  completely screwed. Like that has like a whole new
• 1:40:04
  level of satisfaction that goes on past just the fight.
• 1:40:09
  Right, it has. It has like knock on.
• 1:40:12
  Narrative satisfaction. Yes, which?
• 1:40:15
  Is not provides a gravitas. If you will, yeah.
• 1:40:19
  Gratification and a gravitas and and.
• 1:40:23
  I keep using the word. Satisfaction.
• 1:40:25
  But like, yeah. Because.
• 1:40:28
  The the damn it. Train of thought, train of
• 1:40:36
  thought. No.
• 1:40:37
  Come back. No.
• 1:40:39
  Nope. Sorry, we both we're both hit
• 1:40:40
  with the smooth brain today. It's too late.
• 1:40:43
  Let it wash over you. But yes, it's.
• 1:40:47
  Not, oh, it's not a mechanical right.
• 1:40:49
  Do that kind of that kind of thing I just mentioned is less
• 1:40:53
  mechanically focused, right, Because a lot of what we've been
• 1:40:55
  mentioning with the secondary objective is, is how they're
• 1:40:58
  interesting in a mechanical fashion.
• 1:41:01
  It's also worth. Noting that they can be
• 1:41:03
  interesting in a narrative fashion.
• 1:41:06
  And. Best case scenario is always
• 1:41:10
  going to be. I I think.
• 1:41:14
  In in every tabletop game, I think this is a safe bet for me
• 1:41:17
  to say. I think I can say this pretty
• 1:41:18
  firmly. Is always going to.
• 1:41:20
  Be the players are mechanically satisfied because they got to do
• 1:41:25
  XY or Z cool thing, use cool ability, whatever, but then also
• 1:41:29
  narratively satisfied after the mechanics at like resolve the
• 1:41:34
  mechanical satisfaction and then have the narrative satisfaction
• 1:41:37
  follow it. That's always the best case
• 1:41:40
  scenario. You know.
• 1:41:42
  If you get to cool, pull off your cool, make your cool sword
• 1:41:47
  combo technique or whatever against the army of skeletons.
• 1:41:52
  That's all well and good and you kill the skeletons and then
• 1:41:55
  you're done. But you know.
• 1:41:58
  They're just skeleton. Guys, So nothing major happens.
• 1:42:01
  That's fine. If you get into a fight with the
• 1:42:03
  big boss guy and you pull off your sick, your sick sword combo
• 1:42:06
  thing and the boss is is also a swordsman and he's so impressed
• 1:42:10
  by how much you just beat the dog shit out of him.
• 1:42:12
  And then at the end of the fight you can taunt and be like, yeah,
• 1:42:15
  bitch, I'm a better swordsman to you.
• 1:42:17
  That's way better, you know, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:42:22
  The talk shit. Is you know the talk.
• 1:42:26
  Shit adds a lot. Yeah, we.
• 1:42:32
  Did a pretty good job drawing this out, so don't.
• 1:42:35
  Don't phrase it. That way.
• 1:42:38
  No, I mean like I was. Afraid that we weren't going to
• 1:42:39
  hit like. Drawing it out sounds bad.
• 1:42:42
  We added. Content.
• 1:42:45
  Added. Yeah, sure.
• 1:42:46
  We we added necessary context. Yeah, fair enough.
• 1:42:53
  Yeah, let's bring a show. Ahead.
• 1:42:56
  Hopefully to our friends who are going to be running things for
• 1:42:59
  the first time, well, one of them is running monster hearts,
• 1:43:02
  so maybe this won't affect you that much, but it might it it
• 1:43:07
  The funny thing. Well, with boss or the game like
• 1:43:08
  boss hearts it it can, you're just going to have to it's not
• 1:43:12
  going to look the same, right, Because mostly what we're
• 1:43:18
  talking about is. Adding.
• 1:43:21
  Objectives to a fight scenario or a high action scenario, which
• 1:43:28
  is not going to apply to monster hearts, but the idea of
• 1:43:31
  secondary objectives can apply to monster hearts that they're
• 1:43:35
  just going to look like, you know, instead of in the middle
• 1:43:40
  of the fight. We also have to secure the
• 1:43:42
  artifact. It's going to be in the middle
• 1:43:45
  of this argument with my boyfriend.
• 1:43:46
  I have to also make sure my mom doesn't know that I snuck out
• 1:43:50
  tonight, right. Like it's that's true.
• 1:43:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's.
• 1:43:52
  Still there? It's.
• 1:43:53
  Just going to look very different.
• 1:43:54
  And you might it's not pick up on it right away if you're not
• 1:43:58
  thinking about it. It's it's recontextualized.
• 1:44:01
  Yes, it's very. Recontextualized, yeah.
• 1:44:07
  But that's, you know, that's why it's good to run other kinds of
• 1:44:12
  games. So you could do that
• 1:44:14
  recontextualizing, right? Like that's one of the ways,
• 1:44:19
  that's one of the ways you work that muscle.
• 1:44:23
  I I almost want. To start doing some like to have
• 1:44:25
  both of our new our new GMs come.
• 1:44:30
  On and and. Talk.
• 1:44:32
  Well, don't, don't, don't pressure anyone yet.
• 1:44:37
  No, no. Well.
• 1:44:37
  So we we already have we already have one.
• 1:44:39
  Yes, Moon said she would do it. Fair enough.
• 1:44:41
  When she finishes the the Kane one shots.
• 1:44:43
  Fair enough, Sarah. Might do it.
• 1:44:46
  Because I'm super in, I'm super well the first time she's.
• 1:44:48
  Going to hear it is probably when she hears this so.
• 1:44:51
  True. Well, because it's like, you
• 1:44:53
  know. Moon has run things.
• 1:44:55
  Before she's run 5 E, before he's not super comfortable
• 1:44:59
  running, but I'm pretty sure it's the first time Sarah is
• 1:45:02
  running anything and she's starting with a PBTA and monster
• 1:45:06
  hearts of all PBT. That's actually really so I
• 1:45:10
  didn't even consider that. Right.
• 1:45:12
  So like. That's, that's interesting as
• 1:45:14
  fuck. I kind of want to know what
• 1:45:15
  that's like, Monster. Hearts as a first game?
• 1:45:19
  I don't know if it is her. First game for sure, but that's
• 1:45:22
  crazy if that's true. Well, so yeah, it's not.
• 1:45:26
  The first game, she's clearly not the one she's played, but it
• 1:45:28
  is definitely the first game she's run.
• 1:45:30
  OK. That's wild, I actually didn't
• 1:45:33
  consider that. Couldn't even I.
• 1:45:36
  Couldn't even imagine. There's a part of me sometimes
• 1:45:39
  that wishes the first thing I ran wasn't D&D just to know.
• 1:45:42
  But you can't. You know you can't undo what has
• 1:45:46
  been done. Although to be fair, I.
• 1:45:49
  Run. I ran such a fuck busted version
• 1:45:51
  of 4 E it almost doesn't count anyway so I could really say my
• 1:45:54
  first true genuine running attempt was probably Dungeon
• 1:45:58
  World, but yeah. Yeah, I mean I, I.
• 1:46:02
  Almost say like yes you did run 54 E 1st.
• 1:46:07
  But I kind of didn't like you. Kind of didn't, yeah.
• 1:46:10
  So I would probably say Dungeon World is probably your first run
• 1:46:13
  which is different. Yeah.
• 1:46:16
  But not as. Not as different as Monster
• 1:46:18
  hearts, though. Not as different as.
• 1:46:19
  Monster hearts, Yeah, not as different as monster hearts.
• 1:46:25
  All right, close. This out.
• 1:46:27
  All right. To our listeners.
• 1:46:32
  Please try these, you know, hopefully they were helpful to
• 1:46:35
  you and let us know in the comments below if any of them
• 1:46:38
  worked or if you have any ideas for interesting secondary
• 1:46:40
  objectives or if you've played a game that has some interesting
• 1:46:43
  ideas for secondary objectives. And follow us on in a social
• 1:46:48
  media, don't particularly care which, but one of them.
• 1:46:51
  We just hit 100. I would like to go farther, even
• 1:46:54
  further beyond. They are in the description.
• 1:46:58
  Yes. And yeah, that's been us.
• 1:47:04
  I leave you to Josh. Next two weeks and then I think
• 1:47:08
  we're going to have moon. If all things go according to
• 1:47:10
  plan, that'll be my turn again. See you.