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Benders & Brews: S2 - Episode 0 - Leveling Up & Growth · Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling

• 0:00
  Uh.
• 0:03
  Jasmine, oolong, green
• 0:06
  and white. Long ago, these four
• 0:08
  teas were skilfully brewed at the Blissful Brew.
• 0:12
  Then everything changed when the shop's
• 0:14
  popularity threatened its existence.
• 0:17
  All Mr. Okeron, the shop's owner and tea
• 0:20
  master, could do was to recruit four teenage
• 0:23
  orphans to learn his trade and staff his
• 0:25
  shop. A, uh, year has passed since the orphans were
• 0:28
  hired and although their skills have progressed, they
• 0:31
  still have a lot to learn before they can brew anything.
• 0:34
  But I believe that they have the potential to make the
• 0:37
  Blissful Brew the greatest tea shop in the
• 0:39
  world.
• 0:40
  Welcome everybody, back to another episode
• 0:43
  of Vendors and Brews. Uh, we're doing
• 0:46
  a little bit of a session zero season
• 0:49
  two kickoff to kind of jump
• 0:52
  into something that we kind of missed doing along the
• 0:54
  way, which is character, ah, growth, which is
• 0:57
  obviously a big part of Avatar Legends. That's how you essentially,
• 1:00
  quote unquote, level up during the game. Um, so we
• 1:03
  wanted to do kind of a little pre season
• 1:06
  two episode to discuss
• 1:08
  what growth each character has, kind of come
• 1:11
  across and discuss that and get that all
• 1:14
  put into our character. Um,
• 1:18
  mean we were just talking to um, Michaela,
• 1:21
  aka Mika about hers and it sounded
• 1:24
  like we had some ideas, so we can start with hers.
• 1:27
  Uh, Mika's growth question as the Rogue is did you
• 1:30
  get a friend to join in or approve
• 1:33
  of any of your bad habits?
• 1:36
  Um, my initial reaction was no,
• 1:39
  but.
• 1:39
  We all know that wasn't true.
• 1:41
  That's a lie. Well,
• 1:44
  because ah, I got the whole
• 1:47
  gang to go with me to the
• 1:50
  who was I?
• 1:51
  Uh, don't remember the family's name, I.
• 1:53
  Just remember the Butler family.
• 1:55
  Oh yeah, you broke into the Shifu family house. You got
• 1:58
  everybody into the Shifu family house.
• 2:00
  I did.
• 2:01
  I don't know if technically it counts, like per
• 2:04
  instance, I mean it was
• 2:06
  one situation, one quote, unquote bad
• 2:09
  habit of breaking in and you got everybody to do
• 2:12
  it. So I don't know, but whatever the
• 2:14
  case, uh, let me see were there any other
• 2:17
  situations where Mika did something?
• 2:20
  I mean that was definitely her highlight.
• 2:22
  For mean, she had lots of
• 2:24
  highlights.
• 2:26
  Fair point, fair point. Um, whatever the case,
• 2:29
  I mean assuming that we count it per
• 2:32
  instance, that would have meant that you tricked one, two,
• 2:35
  three people at least not tricked, you
• 2:38
  got three people to follow along with
• 2:41
  your trouble causing, um, technically
• 2:43
  your growth is four. But I do feel
• 2:46
  like by the end of seasons everybody should level
• 2:49
  up in a sense, per se. Um, and
• 2:52
  I'm sure there's something that we're probably forgetting.
• 2:56
  I don't know, I just really feel like there might have been one other instance.
• 3:00
  Maybe, uh, we kind of jokingly mentioned
• 3:02
  Chikra and how you kind of like
• 3:06
  in a weird sense tricked her that you
• 3:08
  were joining their group and I don't know, led her
• 3:11
  astray. So I mean, in a way.
• 3:13
  Yeah. And then Broccoli we pretended to
• 3:16
  be hot leaf people.
• 3:19
  Oh, that's true. That's true. You
• 3:20
  infiltrated hot leaf juice. So yeah, uh,
• 3:23
  that would be a.
• 3:24
  Good fourth one and sold the ingredient list.
• 3:27
  Awesome.
• 3:27
  Yeah.
• 3:28
  So yeah, I would say, yeah, you definitely
• 3:31
  got broccoli involved.
• 3:32
  I can play a rogue.
• 3:34
  There you go. Fair point. Fair point. All right,
• 3:37
  so you now have an option as your growth
• 3:40
  advancement, you have a couple of options in there. You can take a new
• 3:42
  move from your playbook, you can take a new move from
• 3:45
  somebody else's playbook. You can raise a
• 3:48
  stat by plus one to a maximum
• 3:51
  of plus two. You can shift your center
• 3:54
  one step, or you can unlock
• 3:57
  your moment of balance. And just to clarify, your moment of
• 4:00
  balance is going to be some moment where
• 4:03
  you essentially well, I can just
• 4:06
  read what your moment of balance says. It says you learned early on that
• 4:09
  you had to do what you needed to survive. And that
• 4:12
  sometimes meant, uh, you lost friends.
• 4:15
  Now you have a new balance. Rule breaking isn't something that just
• 4:18
  drives people away. It's something that you can use
• 4:20
  constructively with your friends. So you would tell
• 4:23
  me how you lead your companions
• 4:26
  to break all the rules and accomplish something
• 4:28
  incredible. It's a one time use,
• 4:31
  but it's big.
• 4:34
  So I'll let you think about it
• 4:37
  and figure out what of those options that you want to choose
• 4:40
  so you can see that they have boxes next to them except for the raise the
• 4:43
  stat. I think you only get that one once.
• 4:46
  Actually, no, you get that one as many times as you want.
• 4:49
  Um, but obviously you'd be sacrificing the
• 4:52
  other options there. But I'm going to let you think on that and then we'll jump
• 4:55
  over to Cameron while you think about it.
• 4:58
  So, Cameron, you're playing Bill, uh,
• 5:02
  Dore, who is the Guardian, and your question
• 5:04
  is, did you pursue a desire or
• 5:07
  a goal of your own that was outside of
• 5:10
  protecting others?
• 5:15
  Uh.
• 5:21
  Not that I can think of.
• 5:22
  I'm trying to think. I mean, a lot of it was
• 5:25
  driven for sure,
• 5:28
  uh, by the concept of
• 5:31
  helping others.
• 5:34
  Yeah, I can't think of anything because at the end of the
• 5:37
  day, everything that drove Bill door was regarding
• 5:40
  either protecting or helping his friends or
• 5:42
  protecting them or something that would help the shop in
• 5:45
  Mr. Okran. I don't think he ever
• 5:48
  did something for himself.
• 5:54
  I'm looking through the
• 5:57
  episode title, which.
• 5:58
  I guess means he never even grew.
• 6:00
  So, uh, he never grew at all.
• 6:04
  When did Bill ever do anything for himself?
• 6:09
  Exactly.
• 6:09
  See?
• 6:10
  Okay, so pretty clear.
• 6:12
  Bill, you made yourself a sandwich.
• 6:14
  Um oh, yeah, you did make yourself a sandwich. That's true. When
• 6:17
  you that's a good
• 6:19
  point.
• 6:20
  Yeah, but then, I mean, it was.
• 6:22
  Literally outside of the mission, like everybody else was trying to
• 6:25
  accomplish something and builder was just chilling in the kitchen,
• 6:28
  making a sandwich.
• 6:29
  You literally didn't check on anybody. You're just like, well, no,
• 6:32
  because after.
• 6:33
  The sandwich, then I proceeded to help Mika, uh,
• 6:36
  out of a situation. Wait, I didn't think I helped Mika. I think
• 6:39
  I literally just walked right past the dude while eating a
• 6:41
  sandwich.
• 6:42
  You literally walked in, made a sandwich, and walked out
• 6:45
  and just said, peace to the butler
• 6:48
  as you left and.
• 6:49
  Grabbed my Bow staff on the way out. I remember that.
• 6:51
  Yeah.
• 6:52
  I guess just one time.
• 6:53
  Yes.
• 6:53
  Okay. That's one.
• 6:55
  I can't think of any other.
• 6:57
  He's a strong, independent man. He, um, doesn't need no
• 6:59
  woman.
• 7:01
  It's not really independent, though, because all of his actions are based
• 7:03
  on other people. So it's the opposite of
• 7:06
  independent. Which is why sandwich,
• 7:09
  you didn't need.
• 7:09
  A woman in the kitchen doing it for you.
• 7:12
  I knew there was a butler.
• 7:16
  Um, I'm trying to think back to
• 7:20
  that was more Guo's idea, I guess, with the wine and
• 7:23
  the tea in the
• 7:25
  maze.
• 7:26
  I went left and he just went right.
• 7:28
  That's not really an individual choice, because I was looking
• 7:31
  for stuff in the maze.
• 7:33
  I suppose he was. Yeah. You were trying to find something.
• 7:36
  My goal is the maze, bring help. That's why I was in
• 7:39
  the true, that's true. Uh,
• 7:43
  even if you don't do this now,
• 7:46
  and you only got one out of the four, I
• 7:49
  feel like, given the fact that Mr.
• 7:51
  Okron is dead
• 7:54
  yeah. If you haven't watched Season,
• 8:00
  I hope they're not like, oh, they made two session zeros. I
• 8:02
  better listen to those first. Um,
• 8:06
  this feels like a late point to say, if you haven't listened
• 8:09
  to season one, be sure to listen to season one so you
• 8:12
  can find out how Mr. Okaron dies.
• 8:20
  Well, who any of us are, really.
• 8:22
  Yeah, that's true.
• 8:24
  Um, whatever the case, uh, I think that now that Mr.
• 8:26
  Okaron has passed on, I think
• 8:29
  it'll open up a lot more opportunity for
• 8:32
  Bill Dore to step outside of this idea
• 8:35
  of protecting other people and maybe focus
• 8:38
  on even if they might be maybe a
• 8:41
  darker concept of what Bill wants.
• 8:44
  There will be more of what Bill possibly wants.
• 8:47
  Uh, all right, well, whatever the case,
• 8:50
  we'll just have to come back to Bill door on growth
• 8:53
  and such and growth options. So, um, some of these
• 8:56
  are a bit tricky, I'm not going to lie. Um,
• 9:00
  Dave playing GuoHan,
• 9:03
  uh, you were playing the Adamant, and the Adamant's growth
• 9:05
  question is, did you seek support or guidance from
• 9:08
  others?
• 9:14
  I'd say yeah.
• 9:15
  Okay.
• 9:15
  Um, trying to think, when
• 9:19
  Guo was with Bill at
• 9:22
  the party true.
• 9:25
  Uh.
• 9:27
  Trying to figure out what to do to prepare, I asked
• 9:30
  him, what should we do? And he's just like,
• 9:33
  let's just get ready to serve some tea.
• 9:36
  Get some tea going.
• 9:38
  Um, I don't remember, though.
• 9:40
  No, I mean, I think you definitely.
• 9:43
  Especially even when you were doing something that was really,
• 9:45
  like, you forward, like, the wine, tea and stuff. I mean,
• 9:48
  you were turning to Bill and being like, we got to work together on,
• 9:51
  like, what are your thoughts? How can we get this
• 9:54
  moving, or how can we do this, uh,
• 9:56
  correctly? So I would definitely agree
• 9:59
  that that would be, uh, a situation
• 10:02
  that would fill this growth for sure. See, I'm
• 10:05
  trying to think again.
• 10:07
  I'm looking through the
• 10:10
  descriptions and stuff just to see the detail.
• 10:13
  A big moment where Guo sought the
• 10:16
  support from others was
• 10:18
  when he made an appeal,
• 10:21
  an emotional appeal to the neighborhood.
• 10:24
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:25
  Tried to get them to join in to save, uh, the
• 10:28
  tea shop.
• 10:28
  And he succeeded too, because they got, like, real worked up
• 10:31
  and everything. That was awesome. They did a
• 10:34
  stomp.
• 10:37
  Yeah. So that's true. That's true.
• 10:40
  Okay, so I guess that would be an instance where I wouldn't count
• 10:43
  each individual. Like,
• 10:45
  Dave just fully leveled his character in
• 10:48
  one go because he encouraged a whole town of people to join
• 10:51
  in on a, um that
• 10:54
  because that's a good one. So definitely mark that down. Do you ever feel like there
• 10:57
  was an instance where you kind of got
• 11:00
  anything from Mr. Okeron
• 11:04
  that might have pushed Guo?
• 11:14
  I guess I can't really think of anything on
• 11:17
  top of that.
• 11:27
  Mhm,
• 11:30
  I.
• 11:30
  Don'T see too much, honestly. Doubles.
• 11:38
  That.
• 11:41
  Okay, so well, that's
• 11:44
  did we have how many did we get out of that? Did we
• 11:46
  get two. Okay, so we got two
• 11:49
  instances out of that.
• 11:50
  Does that mean it gets two growth points?
• 11:53
  Yes.
• 11:54
  Two of those boxes next to the growth options.
• 11:58
  All right. Finally, m,
• 12:01
  we're coming to Connor.
• 12:05
  Who is playing Brock Lee? Who
• 12:07
  is the Hammer? And your growth
• 12:10
  question is, did you make progress towards your
• 12:13
  goal against your adversary?
• 12:16
  Now, previously, if you
• 12:19
  listen to the prequel episodes, you would know that Brock Lee's
• 12:21
  adversary is Wang Long.
• 12:24
  That's sort of his long term adversary.
• 12:27
  But it does mention that, um, he
• 12:30
  does have the option to switch
• 12:32
  adversaries along the way, which makes sense. You're going
• 12:35
  to have long term and short term adversaries.
• 12:38
  Wang Long didn't make an appearance in season one outside of the prequel
• 12:41
  episodes. Um,
• 12:43
  so villains you would have had or
• 12:46
  adversaries you might have had during season one would have
• 12:49
  probably been the wild coyote boars
• 12:52
  and Madame Yang. Madame Yang.
• 12:55
  And those would probably be the big,
• 12:59
  uh, yeah, go ahead.
• 13:00
  I mean, I'd say I made a few advances.
• 13:04
  Know, taking them
• 13:06
  is, you know, sinking
• 13:09
  Madame Yang into the ground.
• 13:11
  That's a solid one.
• 13:11
  Shutting the lid.
• 13:12
  Yep. Um, nearly killing her.
• 13:16
  Well, then there's also Chikra when
• 13:19
  I incapacitated.
• 13:24
  Um, if you count that whole other
• 13:27
  scuffle with the wild coyote boars, I was the
• 13:30
  one who had to do the final negotiations with
• 13:33
  the last wild coyote boar.
• 13:35
  Right.
• 13:35
  Um, so that if you count those as two separate
• 13:38
  ones, I would say that's three.
• 13:39
  So that's a total of three. Yeah, that works.
• 13:42
  Do we count the rescue mission of
• 13:45
  Dilbert? When I went into the
• 13:47
  basement and rescued.
• 13:53
  Who was the adversary then? I don't know.
• 13:55
  Maybe it was Sebastian.
• 13:58
  So it does say that when you
• 14:01
  change your adversary
• 14:03
  um, let me see where it says you can change
• 14:06
  your adversary anytime you mark a condition
• 14:09
  M or at the end of each session.
• 14:12
  Okay.
• 14:12
  So I could definitely jump on the other
• 14:15
  two. Um, I don't know if I can see the
• 14:18
  Butler having given you reason to
• 14:22
  create him as an adversary. True.
• 14:25
  Um, but I definitely think those other three
• 14:27
  fit cool.
• 14:30
  Uh, does it have to be a direct
• 14:33
  attack against them? Because we could also
• 14:35
  consider launching the hot leaf juice
• 14:38
  people's tea into the maze. Would it
• 14:41
  be at least a hindrance to them?
• 14:43
  I would suppose it says progress towards your
• 14:46
  goal against your adversary. And your goal
• 14:49
  was to kind of upstage yeah. Ruin
• 14:52
  their situation.
• 14:53
  And then there was also when I shattered
• 14:56
  their glasses.
• 14:57
  Right. I would say the whole
• 15:00
  party thing is like yeah, the whole party thing is one.
• 15:02
  Yeah.
• 15:03
  So I could see that. And then that would hit your
• 15:05
  four, which could push you to one of your
• 15:08
  advancements.
• 15:11
  All right, so while you decide on that, I'll jump back over
• 15:14
  to Michaela. Michaela, which one did you
• 15:17
  pick?
• 15:20
  Um.
• 15:27
  Where'S your book at?
• 15:29
  It's in the other room.
• 15:33
  We're going to need that to look at other playbooks if that's what people want
• 15:36
  to do.
• 15:37
  Oh, yeah, that's true. You'll want both books. Washingtons
• 15:40
  as well. Washington.
• 15:41
  Washingtons.
• 15:44
  So how do we learn new fighting techniques?
• 15:47
  Yeah, you don't.
• 15:49
  Ah.
• 15:49
  Those will be done through
• 15:52
  in game
• 15:54
  discovery. So you might
• 15:57
  find scrolls or a teacher
• 16:00
  that you could work with and spend time
• 16:03
  learning to gain new techniques.
• 16:06
  And then to advance in the ones that we already
• 16:09
  know.
• 16:09
  Right. Uh, I think same situation.
• 16:12
  Yeah.
• 16:12
  Got. Uh, you.
• 16:18
  In my case, when I had four, does that mean I can choose two of them that
• 16:21
  have two little boxes next to them, or does.
• 16:23
  That mean that I have to go.
• 16:25
  Through it fully twice and do it once?
• 16:28
  Yeah.
• 16:29
  Okay.
• 16:39
  I'm going to do
• 16:44
  take a move from my playbook.
• 16:47
  Okay.
• 16:48
  So one of those moves on the first
• 16:50
  page. There's all the different options there. Which ones did
• 16:53
  you take originally? Just
• 16:56
  so I remember?
• 16:57
  Um, I got to choose two.
• 16:59
  Right.
• 16:59
  So my original ones were Roguish
• 17:02
  charm.
• 17:03
  Okay.
• 17:03
  And is that the best you got?
• 17:05
  Got it. Okay. And then which one are you going to choose
• 17:08
  now?
• 17:09
  Slippery eel hand.
• 17:10
  Slippery eel hand. All right,
• 17:14
  that sounds great. So now
• 17:17
  that you've picked that out, uh, we
• 17:19
  will probably possibly see that come into
• 17:22
  play in season two. Connor,
• 17:25
  jumping over to you. Yeah. What's
• 17:28
  looking through those options. What were you thinking of taking?
• 17:31
  Um, I was thinking of raising stats.
• 17:34
  Okay.
• 17:34
  And so if I got all four, does that just mean I can only do it
• 17:37
  once, though?
• 17:38
  You can do it as many times as you want. Uh, once you
• 17:41
  reach your four growth, you can go up there and raise the stat. The
• 17:44
  only limitation is that any
• 17:47
  stat can only be at, uh, a plus two.
• 17:50
  Yes, Connor.
• 17:51
  So I can raise multiple
• 17:54
  answer to.
• 17:55
  Your question is just you get one.
• 17:56
  Okay.
• 17:56
  So I get one.
• 17:57
  Yeah. All right.
• 17:58
  So I am adding one to passion. So I'm
• 18:01
  now plus two.
• 18:01
  Passion. Nice.
• 18:09
  It all right. And with that being
• 18:12
  done, um, we're going
• 18:15
  to close out session
• 18:17
  zero there. Um, be sure to check out
• 18:20
  season two as we'll be actually looking
• 18:23
  at these characters and seeing where they go from here with
• 18:26
  their newfound skills or seeing their growth along
• 18:29
  the way. So we will see you guys in episode one of
• 18:32
  season two.
• 18:33
  Thank you so much for listening to our show. Of course,
• 18:36
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