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Delving Deeper: Unhelpful NPCs and Abilities Gone Wrong · Dissonant Whispers: A DnD Actual Play Podcast

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne and Delphine Landra.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: As ourselves.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Actually.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to be ourselves for a change.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Delving Deeper is our metagame series where we talk about our characters, our sessions, uh anything that is happening outside of game that our that our players are just wondering, or just generally asking each other, what the hells were you thinking?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes not a lot.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: We are currently on location.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are just finished Mount ViewCon-Con, which is a really fun little con here in Kimoda, and the highways behind us.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there's cars.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And motorcycles.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Motorcycles, apparently.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So don't mind the traffic.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Such as life.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the way it is.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It does seem to happen.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so, anyways, I wanted to talk about uh a couple things uh that were brought up in episodes six and seven or seven and eight?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Seven and eight.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Seven and eight.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh one of the things that we came across was unhelpful NPCs.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now that comes into play kind of before and after another factor, which um one of our characters momentarily kind of died, but not really.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it we had very unhelpful NPCs both before and afterwards.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was just completely surrounding this entire thing.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, as far as unhelpful NPCs, I'm talking about a king that was not leading his people, was not having any kind of disappointment.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's tied with bureaucracy.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, bureaucracy, yay.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But he wouldn't even, we at one point we asked, you know, hey, we need the help of this character in order to help out this character.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, what do you want me to do?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Order her?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like yes, yes, and at one point he's like he's like looked at my Delphine and was like, What, like, what would you do?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Well, I am loyal to my king and I would do as I was ordered.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: What good is a king if nobody will follow?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um, the the reason our care our our party mate kind of died, it has to do with um mechanics of uh an echo knight and a homebrewed uh item.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: When your ability is from your subclass mixed with a homebrewed item, and then you kind of try and push it to the limits, it doesn't always work.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so Drax, our Echo Knight, has the ability to make a sentient echo.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks to a pendant we found, an item we found.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And by putting some of his hit points into the echo, that echo is sentient.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thinks that he is that's how we get it here.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's favorite character is Mr.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Drax.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So Mr.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Drax goes trying to help this useless king, uh, their scout party, going and um checking out Silvery Moon to find out why they fell.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a portal to Silvery Moon because we found a Silvery Moon fell.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And but we're currently like on the other side of the continent.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're way in the far, far north because in the other side of the world, Silvery Moon's actually in the south, in our world.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of stuff happened, cities moved around.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Silvery moon is in our world, way at the south end of um the continent, and we are the way north.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he was trying to we we knew someone had to go have eyes on the problem.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want it to be any of our actual party members, so we decide.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're pretty sure he gets the echo, and because it's a sentient echo, he can he can tell us.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we didn't actually know if the echo could make it through the portal.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are you gonna do but try it?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: From him, it's pretty much like a supercharged familiar, yeah, because he can only follow instructions to a certain distance, but he can still move past that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so and our Drax can look through his eyes, like familiar, even from like the thousand feet away, I think is how it works.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he went through the the echo, went through the portal and he made it because this was a test.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can he actually get through the portal?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: He did successfully get through the portal, and so Drax wanted to swap at so that he was because that's another thing I think that the item can do is he can swap consciousness with it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, not just look through its eyes, but full consciousness swap.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the echo is in his body, he is in the echo's body.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: They do a full swap just as the portal is closing, and that was devastating for all of us involved.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we had to watch Drax's body with us, with Mr.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Drax's consciousness in it die, like go through death throes, and we were all like, oh my god, oh my god, heal him, heal him, save him, save him.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: All of our healing was not working, but doing throwing all of our spells at it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And our DM was having to make really all noises.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was very bad noises.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of really bad noises.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the real Drax in the Echo's body is stuck in Silvery Moon, unable to transfer back because now that portal is shut.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: That distance is too far, and he's stuck in this nine-hit point character in Mr.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Drax's glowing blue floating body.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all the way on the other side of the world.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to we need to bring him back.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: We we need to try and find somebody to open up the portal.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is there somebody to open up the portal?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it somebody that's willing to do so?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, Delphine can open the portal.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I did not yet have any ingredients to do so.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you didn't.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have the sigil yet.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you didn't have the sigil.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So technically you probably opened that one.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we there was there was one hag.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lowercase H, not capital hag.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lowercase H.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: She was an awful, awful woman.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she she is the witch of witches and bitches.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: She was the bitch.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: They were both bitches.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: She was the witch and the bitch.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I she was just awful.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I created standards.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just honestly, I can't stand them both.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were I don't know who I hate more.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't know who I hate more.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: This awful we keep meeting new people that you hate more.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just hate a lot of.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a lot of awful people out in the world.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all the world happened.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: The world happened.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was our tagline today of our panel of uh how to make compelling DD characters was well, you start out, you know, all wholesome and idealistic, and then the world happens.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: As anyone living in our current world can attest.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then the world happened.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we need that on t-shirts.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the world happened.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was happy, and then the world happened.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, though, like there was so much rigor all around her trying to get us to the sun is now in the room.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The sun is moving.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she was trying to get us to clean her toilets.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was basically making it as impossible.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Clean my shop, do all these things, you can't use magic.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll consider doing it in the morning.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, and anything that we could do, there was there was um, she made it absolutely impossible for us to succeed to gain her help.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: She did not want to help us, and not all care, not all MPCs in any game is actually going to be helpful.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Think of Curse of Strahd if you guys have played that.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not all NPCs are going to help you.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: She's my DM.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want spoilers.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you I think you've noticed already.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've noticed um the den the citizens of Barovia are less than helpful.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, like different campaigns, I'm sure, have it come up a lot where you can't just automatically assume that an NPC is going to be helpful, is going to want to be helpful, or want to be helpful, or be able to be.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they don't care, sometimes they're not equipped with whatever you need, sometimes they just don't know.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Other times they're, you know, just staring at you dumbly and not answering your questions.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, hello, hello, are you awakened?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, we didn't we did not succeed in in in any way to get out of here.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we were all losing our woman help.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our temper and our patience.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I may or may not have attacked her in my impatience.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right, rightly so.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was a good use of shatter.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoyed it.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I attacked her shop and then I attacked her.
• 9:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and then I got surprised when she ran away from me.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I forgot that side effect.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You frightened her and then you followed her.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I used distant whispers.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you used distant whispers.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So then she had to run away from her.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: She had to run away from you, and then you chased her, so she had to keep running away because you were chasing her.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I loved that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot that side effect of the spell because I was just so mad that I wanted to argue.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we lost her.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I just I think it's fun to be playing.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like everything to be easy.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'd like some things to be easier, but I don't like it when everything is easy.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I like coming across NPCs that are not helpful.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So have you guys come across NPCs in your game that are either actively trying to hinder you or lying or unintentionally being wrong or just incapable?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just the oh, I'm sorry, that sucks.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And have there been any unintended consequences of things that you've tried to push the limits of your character for?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, either homebrew or when the rules as written that you're using go wrong.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those moments where your DM is like, are you sure you want to try that?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, you can try it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well okay.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do believe that at one point years ago, playing a ladies' game, I had uh I had you and the girls trying to exit a town that was being surrounded by orcs or something like that that were about to attack in your Is that when you guys found your boyfriend?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was that was the town, and you guys were all like, I'll just we'll just leave.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: The town can deal with it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But you're just gonna walk into the army that's about to attack.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: You think that you guys are gonna survive that?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: As though they could just, you know, walk out and they'll, you know, oh no, we're not a part of this.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Playing with ladies is hilarious when it's all ladies' games versus, you know, mixed group.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um example, right now, first of shot campaign with her as my DM.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're pretty.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna join a book club with the Hags.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm they haven't done anything to me yet, and they're pretty nice, pretty cool, and they got really excited when I had books to give them.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm pretty, I'm like, I we're all sitting there.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: We wait, we went there, we're like, yeah, we're gonna battle.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're all like you're being really nice and polite, and you're not like being threatening.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like it, I'm not a psychopath.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna just punch you in the face.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you haven't done anything.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't, we don't even know for sure that you're a hag, like we've been told.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you've really not done, you're just you seem like a real nice, like Midwestern mom.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I want to start a book club with you.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got multiple scenarios where things just don't quite go as planned.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now she was she was a helpful NPC.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: She was very helpful.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: She was telling you guys pies.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to start a fight with her.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I feel like it, it's like I felt I would be being rude by start picking a fight in that moment.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Have you guys ever come across NPCs that you guys are that you assume you're supposed to battle, but they're so polite that you feel like you're.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like you.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also, have you guys picked fights with people that you assume are bad guys and then they turn out to just be random NPCs?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: DMs, have you um introduced uh what was supposed to be a villain and and the party ends up adopting them as a buddy?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And now you have to uh either surprise them or just let it happen.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you're a good guy now, I guess.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they get better, or you just learn to love each other for your flaws.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's isn't that what happened with um Odie Boy?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blanking Well, Esik.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Esik, thank you.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't he supposed to be a villain and everybody just loved him so much that like they just said, no, you're our friend now.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, Matt Mars you have to be like, I okay, okay.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: This sun is doing.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: This sun is the worst.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, thank you guys for joining us for delving deeper.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we will talk to you again soon.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: On location as care our characters.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.