Latest / TPOD- TTRPGs in Taipei / Episode 6: GM Panel 1- Starting a new campaign

Transcript

Episode 6: GM Panel 1- Starting a new campaign · TPOD- TTRPGs in Taipei

• Cam: You're listening to WTPOD, the only home of rock and roll here in the western reaches. I've been your host Vorthak and we are about to finish up the countdown. Coming up next on WTPOD, we have a panel of experienced game masters talking about what it takes to start a campaign. Do you have what it takes? Maybe you should start that campaign you've been dreaming about for the last two years. But before we get there, let's listen to the number one song of the week. You know it, you love it. It's the Tomcats with Ochi Blue. Take it away. Yes, yes. Thank you very much for that introduction, Vorthak. this week, like you said, we've got a panel episode with a couple of GMs from the Taipei T T RPG English speaking Discord. It's a big mouthful, the name of the Discord channel. but we're gonna be talking about what it takes to start that game that you've been thinking about. What considerations do you have when you're starting a new campaign, what makes you want to start a new campaign, and what's sort of the process of getting it off the ground. We thought since it was the very first panel episode of T Pod, that it should be like sort of the very first thing that you'd want to do as a GM. So I know there's a lot of people out there that are trying to start a game, or a lot of people that that keep thinking, like, when the situation is right, I'll start this campaign that I really want to run. I I'll tell a story. I got into Shadow Dark and I knew that the Western Reaches setting was coming out, and I've been reading about like West March's gameplay, and I really, really wanted to try it. And I was like, Well, I'll wait, because you my son was. was about to be born and the Western Reaches books for Shadow Dark weren't out yet. the PDFs are just now coming out and it's been o like over a year now. And I kept thinking, okay, one day, one day I'll start this campaign and I I just decided like what am I waiting for? Like why would I wait to do this? so I just threw up a couple of posts on Taipei Reddit and found some players and and it's been going ever since and it's been like an awesome it's been maybe my favorite like role playing game that I've ever run. and I I still have fun with it. I still think about it. I still I I I like love talking to the players about it. It's been so much fun playing and I don't know what it was I was waiting for. Like did I need some external thing, did I need some book? Did I need my life to open up? No. I just needed to put some feelers out there and get some people together to roll some dice and I sort of am of the opinion, especially in a Westmarch's game like this, where it's like if you're running good adventures, if you're running like fun adventures, and you do it consistently and you sort of follow the rules, follow the procedures of the game, so that all the nobody's getting cheated, nobody is nobody feels like the game is unfair. Then the game will continue. There's like an inertia. There's a momentum to it. So it turns into this self sustaining chain reaction that People have fun, they're gonna want to keep playing and they're gonna want to invite their friends to play. And that's been one of the biggest takeaways I've had from this is just show up to the table and like play a fun game and everything else will sort of fall into place for making it work out, the people and the time and all that other stuff. so anyway, big thanks to Iona and Daniel for coming on to TPOD. it was a great conversation, had a ton of fun. as always, there's technical issues that I'm still trying to work out, so I'm sorry, haven't been doing this very long. I'm still working on making edits sound good and recording in a way that sounds nice, but every episode I try and do just a little better than the one before. So I hope it's easy to listen to and I hope that there's something of value to it. I think that there is a lot because these two specifically have started a ton of campaigns, finished a lot of campaigns, even here in in Taiwan, Taipei Tainan, where you know the player base isn't huge and we all have all these other things going on in our lives, these two have put together and ran long successful campaigns. So thanks for listening and yeah enjoy the talk. cam: today we're having a panel discussion about starting a new campaign. starting campaigns, what it takes to start a campaign, what sort of prep you do to start a campaign, and what possesses you, good lord, to start a new campaign of a role playing game. I'm joined again by Daniel Moore, who's already been on the show one time, and a new guest the show, Iona. let's hear Daniel say hello, tell everybody about yourself Daniel: Hello, my name is Daniel and I run games of various sorts in southern Taiwan and occasionally online when I've got a free moment myself and do bits of writing here and there for games as well and a bit of music on the side, again, when I've got free time that I carve out around chasing a toddler around the apartment. cam: And Iona, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and welcome to TPOD. Iona: I've been gaming since college and currently I'm in Taipei. trying to get my apartment put back together after having recently moved. probably in the in the Discord I'm probably the one known for trying to push Sword World more than anything else. So I think that's kind of become my shtick. cam: You are, but huh. I think I'm I'm gonna back Sword World. Have you tried Break? Iona: Brig, I haven't tried that one now. cam: Hm. It looks pretty cool and it it's it's not the same as Sword World. Obviously it doesn't have the same history as Sword World either, but I find it to be like cool, like Japanese fantasy themed, like Zelda Final Fantasy sort of so I I I'm intrigued by it, but haven't tried it myself. Iona: Yeah. cam: when you make a new campaign, say you're gonna start a new game, do you try and and reach out and pull players from your friends, from people you know like RPGs, or do you try and bring in new players every time? Is that is that something that you specifically think about? Daniel: my answer, definitely think, would be it actually depends, I think, on the game. If I'm trying out a new system, I think the funny part of me thinks that I usually end up actually yes pulling in players who probably never maybe they're in I would think they're interested in the theme but haven't necessarily played games like that before I remember a while ago I managed to have a little game club started up at the university here in Tainan and I think every there was four players and I think only out of the three only there was only Yeah, three who it was their very first time to ever play the TRPG. Yeah, cam: wow. Huh. Daniel: one of them who played D &D before. And I was starting, did the... sorry, Traveler. I was running cam: yeah. Daniel: Traveler and it was when the new Mongoose editions were coming out. I hadn't actually... Yeah, cam: Let's say you're playing Mongoose Traveller. Okay. Mm-hmm. Daniel: and I hadn't actually run that before. I don't know, was a funny part of it that made it, if we're all learning it together, kind of... cam: It'll go smoother, right? Daniel: I think in a funny way because we then maybe, I didn't have a fixed idea of what the game should be and they had no fixed ideas or even, I think that was maybe even a little bit before all of the stranger things made cam: Mm. Daniel: role-playing games. popular so I don't think they had much expectations of what it should be other than maybe you know watching a scene in Big Bang Theory or something so you know they had one idea of it and then running something like that so in a funny way I think I like pulling in new players and maybe making it tailoring go introducing people or even changing what I might run depending on what they would like and yeah maybe in a way to try to proselytize and get as many people playing as possible cam: Mm. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Daniel: Yeah, so, yeah, I... Again, it depends on the game. My Tuesday games, my weekday games have become like a game dev session where all the other players are also GMs. So we decided to, every Tuesday, we take turns to pick a game. We can either choose one of the other people to run a game. date we know they run well as a choice or we can choose a game to bring along. And so my choice today was my little mecha heartbreak thing I'm writing up. So it was basically a bit of a play test of varying success. But I think the conversation afterwards was more useful than maybe playing the game. getting ideas off them, bouncing ideas off everybody. cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: So, yeah, so situational. And like I said, was time being a new parent and time being pressed for a time. think grabbing any chance for playing or running a game is, I'll try to make the most of it, regardless of what it is. and right now, I think as well. where I am in Tainan. We don't have a big player base, unfortunately, for live games. One of the other big DMs in towns started up a... No, sorry, they just started a Pathfinder game. That's been the big draw because... cam: Ever popular. Yeah. Daniel: Yeah, and I think it's also... I think the Pathfinder video game kind of has had some success, you know, it's got some popularity. Yeah, it's kind of cam: Wrath of the Righteous, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, th it's a good game. I've played it. After I after Baldur's Gate I've played through that. Daniel: Yeah, cam: It's good. Daniel: I think there was a Chinese version translation done. I've seen it around, like people, there's some sort of local, a local scene around Pathfinder here. I've seen some of the books being translated into Chinese. So, and on the big, the big Taiwan, the biggest I think it is now, there's a Chinese language Discord channel for Taiwan. And I think, yeah, that's the Pathfinder. The Pathfinder gets the most posts, I think, every day in there. Even more now, I think, than the D &D. But the Swordworld has popped up on there, I saw recently. So maybe that's, yeah, Iona: nice. cam: That's good. Daniel: that'll be a good one, I think. cam: Mm. Iona, you're gonna have to practice your Chinese. And so, Iona, when you run games, do you try and bring in new players? Well, when's the last time you ran a game in person and and if so were you bringing in new people or or getting getting more old hands, as it were? Iona: I think I am kind of in the habit of I guess like looking at folks I already know, but ironically the the last two campaigns that I ran in person were actually you know running about a year ago now. were one was kind of half both of them were basically like well one of them I got the players off the Discord, the other one was some coworkers of mine. cam: nice. Yeah. Iona: came up to me of all things, because we were having a an office party and it just so it just so happened that I had a little stuffed little stuffy toy of owl bear and hang cam: Cute. Iona: hanging around. And so one of my coworkers came up and he's like, that's cute and I'm like it's like do you he kinda had that idea like he recognized what it was. I was like, y you know what this is and he's like First, he said it was like, it's that the owl from Harry Potter. I was like, nope, that's not what this is. Not at all. which that led to a couple of the couple of my co-workers getting together, and so we had a basically lunch break campaign, and all of them, brand new, and their familiarity with D D was through Stranger Things. To contrast with at the same time. I was running Fandelver and the Fandelver campaign is players that I picked up through Discord. And I would say probably fifty fifty, half and half, experienced players, new players. cam: I have to ask, how do you find new people or how do you find people that have played D and D but not Fandelver? Is sort of what I wanna know. Is it that this is like the most like first time player adventure there is, right? Iona: You know what's surprising, I think the group that I played with, I don't think any of them have actually run Fandelver, 'cause no one really knew what was going on. which did play to my cam: To be fair, the first time I played Fandelver was in Taiwan and I have been playing D for D and D for like fifteen years before then. But but now I think hasn't everybody played Fandelver? I'm sorry, go on. Iona: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's there's still people out because I don't think everyone not everyone gets into, you know, D and D the same way. And so there's always modules and campaigns out there that nobody's touch. I only very recently got played in a for example, like I've been playing for almost twenty for twenty years myself. And I only just recently this past year actually played a one shot in Ravenloft. I've never played in the Ravenloft setting before. cam: Hm. Well, it's almost Halloween, so I feel like every GM has got to run Ravenloft. But maybe there'll be nobody to play 'cause we'll all be trying to run it ourselves. Iona: Yeah. But but yeah, no, it's just I think for me it's I usually just see like who's out there throw something up. I'm happy with new players and like I said I've and of course I was running an online campaign for for Sword World that was everyone in that campaign, including myself. This is our first time looking at the material and this was using the fan translation. But so not really the obviously the official translation, the backer kit campaign hasn't even started yet, so that's not available. But the fan translation is really a work of love. So and give a shout out to all all the people who worked on that. But yeah, with the but yeah, bringing in new players. I'm always happy to bring in new players because you do get some there's I want to say like an there there's an randomness to not knowing what's going on. And I think a lot of new players will bring in novel ideas to situations and so I'm always open to that. cam: I think that's that's really well put. for somebody who's played a lot of games, you think like, all this is trodden ground. I know what my wizard is supposed to do. or the way Iona: Mm-hmm. cam: that you treat social interaction is we want the information from this guy, so we gotta do the thing we do in that case. So I I like the idea that new players bring new ideas into a game. The the last big game I started was my Shadow Dark game. And it was before I joined the Discord. So I just posted it all over like the Taiwan Reddit, the Taipei Reddit, and just like anywhere else I could put it in and it was like anybody who wants to play D and D at all. And I think I I ran two session well not session zeros, but level zero funnels. And I think the second one we had like fifteen people show up and I think six or seven people at the table and each of them were trying to run two characters at a time, so it was a clusterfuck. some of them had never played before and some of them had. so yeah, about half and half, right? Daniel: There's interesting talk. You say like, D &D has the lion's share, I guess, you know, the perception of RPGs. And I did think about the other day, actually, about this site, because I was thinking of running, doing a bit of a story game exercise with some of the uni students I have. I realized that D &D, it's, you know, for us who've all played games for a long time, maybe D &D seems... Maybe occasionally, almost in some iterations, quite a simple game. cam: It's pedestrian. Is that what you're trying to say? It's it's Daniel: Well, I was going to say it's actually not... I think it can be good at what it does, but it's maybe not... I wouldn't ever actually now choose it as the first game I would introduce a completely new player to RPGs with. Although I've done that before thinking, I'll do like a... maybe... did... You ran actually with my basic set... Sorry, the RULE CYCLOPEDIA edition from the 90s. I run, I used that with new players and it was okay. But then, yeah, afterwards I did think, actually, no, if I want to do fantasy for people who've, you know, just trying to get into the idea of role playing, I thought I've moved away from using D &D as the intro game now, I think. I usually now do something a bit more story game-esque, whether cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: it's something like Fate or even Dungeon World. I'll say I think I've had a lot more success getting people who are completely new to role-playing to have them acting out as a character and doing a funny voice much quicker in doing like a more rules, you know, more rules light, maybe narrative focus game than I have ever with D &D of kind of... cam: Mm-hmm. I I heard a a good point about about this very topic recently. Like if you ask a seasoned role player, like what do you like about this, Daniel: Hmm cam: they always say, it's the stories. It's the stories. But the Daniel: Hmm. cam: the mechanics of the game don't often lend themselves to stories and and like me as Daniel: Mm. cam: just some guy that likes these games, I don't really get like story arcs, character beats or anything like that. And so it's really hard for me to Daniel: Hmm. cam: play something like Pathfinder or D and D and put that in myself. I don't know, like, I've got a flaw. How do I use this flaw and how do I like work through it as a character? Where I think games that are more story focused, like let this happen more easily. is that is that something that you think is true? Iona: Yeah, I think one of the one of the things that I guess you say limitations of D and D is that it is built it was originally and the skeleton and the bones are still there, a war game. Daniel: yes, yeah. Iona: And so, you know, there is that more focus on Daniel: Yeah. Iona: so there I think that leads to that like heavier focus on combat. but yeah. But definitely like I have I do have a like collection of PDFs and things like that I'm trying to like get out. Like recently I got was it Legends in the Mist? Which it's basically they're it's like the fantasy version of Heroes in the Mist. And it is a lot more like hey, don't step on that. Sorry, I have a fat orange cat. cam: What's what's the publisher called there? then we have somebody in Taipei works for them, right? What is that place called? Iona: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget I forget his name. I've met him before, 'cause he's he's cam: Hmm. Iona: given me some Heroes in the Mist swag before. cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: yeah, Iona: so Daniel: was somebody at T-Pop, right? Who was talking about it. cam: Yeah, Omer. Omer is his name. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Daniel: That's right. Iona: But yeah, I don't have the physical version, I just have the e files, but that is one of those games that I've been wanting to get out there 'cause it does have a lot more like character driven rule set, character driven gameplay. Daniel: It was just funny you were talking about the Wargame birth of D &D because I've been going through all these old AD &D box sets and things that I've had and realizing that, yeah, can get seeing the progression from the stuff in late 70s, early 80s and into the mid 90s with AD &D second edition, how the game shifted. focus over time. Iona: yeah. Daniel: If anything, in a funny way, when it builds towards, it goes from emergent dungeon crawler with very minimal story in the actual expectation. think some of the GM advice or notes are kind of like, well, you come up with a motivation for this NPC yourself kind of idea cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: and then getting into the second edition stuff where there's pages and pages of read aloud text. The kind of thing I can imagine if I tried to do it at a table every player would be sucked out of the game instantly. I don't know if I could pull it off. But then the the gameplay elements are a lot more of what we guess are called railroading now. cam: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Daniel: It's funny how it has shifted a lot into what it is now. I haven't touched the D &D game for quite a while. I think I would use an adventure. cam: Hm. Well what what's so crazy is that D and D became like the go on. Daniel: No, I was just going to say I think I would use a D &D module idea for maybe the... Maybe a bit of brand recognition from players for some of the buy-in, but not the rules. Especially not for new players. cam: yeah, yeah. Yeah. Iona: Mm-hmm. cam: It's it's crazy that D and D became as popular as it did, I guess because of actual plays. So actual plays like let people who are just now coming into games Daniel: Yeah. cam: thinking, this is where you go to talk in a funny voice and and like tell these emotional and big stories, but but then you go and you play it and and it's often not so much like that, right? And i it's not that like emergent, Iona: Yeah. Daniel: Of course. cam: mind blowing story. It is more railroad y. but I'm gonna move us on a little bit. on this subject, Daniel: soon. cam: when you're preparing a new campaign, How do you prep for that? I know for for like the Daggerheart game I started running recently, I flipped through the book and I said, I really like this campaign frame. Does anybody want to play Daggerheart? And then I told them, We're playing this motherboard campaign frame. I liked it because just the art was evocative to me, but I had no story, I had no NPCs, I had no locations aside from like the few bones that are in the book. And in we've played three sessions now and every time I'm I'm basically prepping like a couple of rumors and putting like one or two more maps under my VTT and being like, okay, if I can use these maps today, then that will be good. And sometimes they go to other places, but that's okay. I I sort of roll with it. do you like to prep more or do you like to like pull it straight from some sort of source? Or how do you how do you prep a new campaign? Iona, you start with this. Iona: Yeah, recently like the the last few games that I've run, I've been bowling from modules. But I haven't been running them straight for the module. especially like Fandalver, for example, a lot of stuff like I do kind of look around, see what advice there is that exists out there. so this is true for Fandalver. my office campaign we ran whatch call it, I can't think of the name. Stormwreck Isle. And Mm. cam: Hm. A another good starter adventure, right? Iona: And the And then with Sword World I've been running there the core rule books come with scenarios and one of the expansion rule books is meant to follow immediately off of the first core rule book. and so I've been kind of following that. And I kinda look around, see what kind of advice there's out there, see what I can take in and edit myself. Stormwreck Isle, I probably did that I didn't really look into too much about that. I just I kind of mostly went on the fly because I needed to adjust for time, adjust for this. So a lot of that a lot of my planning was cam: yeah, in in like a one hour block a couple of times a week, yeah. Iona: Right. So like I kinda had to plan things around so I plan and adjust things around that. but Fandelver I had a lot of fun with because I kinda looked into a lot of people's suggestions and it was one where like I probably spent a lot of time sort of like mapping out possibilities. Which is probably the worst thing to do as a GM, just because like players will always find something you did not think about. cam: Yeah, if if you're doing some prep that doesn't show up at the table, that is like in a sense time wasted. Now I think I think prep is play. So like if I'm prepping for a game, it's because I think it's fun, right? so I I've I've never really wasted any prep in in an RPG, but sometimes I can prep stuff that just like doesn't get used. And and I I think that's that's maybe like the I try and minimize that, even if it is fun to me. Daniel, you're making a face. Tell me tell me what you think about this. Prepping prepping a new campaign. Daniel: No, I agree with every point. was just wincing when you said prepping, over-prepping for things that never occurs. I'm guilty of that a lot. cam: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Daniel: But you say it's part of it. That's my enjoyment cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: of it, is running a game. love to have reams and reams of backstory that never actually sees the table. At least I know that minor NPC's motivation, cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: the one time they buy an apple off the trader. I know why he sells apples. But cam: Yeah. Daniel: players don't need to know, nor do they care, but it's fine. yeah, of course. cam: Mm. Or or like his grandfather or whatever. You're just like, well, he's he you know, whatever. Yeah, we got apples. Daniel: I think I was always... I always thought a good GM should have the bi- put the heavy binder on the table before a game session and have an answer to everything. But now, 100 % no. cam: Well, for that purpose, I'm Iona: Yeah. cam: I'm trying, especially in my dagger heart game, to to like let there Daniel: Mmm. cam: be player fiat. So like we have a game where so so like Daniel: yes Iona: Okay. cam: in the in the campaign frame we're playing, they have to like take apart these these like mechanized robots, right? And I'm like, how what does it look like? What is it you know, what sort of shape is it? How do you reach inside of it? What sort of tools do you have? 'Cause I I I want them to imagine it just as much as I do, right? It's not it's not mine. It's not mine. And and in the the Shadow Dark game I run. with that I just like stapled together a couple of really popular modules. There's no story. There's just like there's some Caverns of Thracia is that way. Black Worm of Brandonsford is that way. You know, and and go whichever way you want to. But but like when it comes time to like ask what something looks like, what is this N P C act like? I really want to put some of that in the in the hands of the players, I think. I don't know, it Iona: Yeah. And I think like cam: mm Iona: Yeah, with Phandelver I think like my my main goal was being flexible and kind of like balancing that 'cause Phandelver if you read through it, can feel a little bit railroady. And a lot of these like introduction beginner campaigns kind of are. but like I let the players establish their relationship with the characters that existed, especially the sort of your point of contact character that Hires you for the campaign. But probably the one the one thing that I got as a piece of advice, and it's something that now I think about going forward, it's gonna sound funny, it's the magical teleporting dead dwarf. And cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: so basically it's it's more of so it's balancing that player agency while keeping plot hooks to keep them into the story. And so What I the one thing that I planned around, and reason why I kind of planned these different branches was where will the players find this dead dwarf? And that depended on what decision they made. Where did they choose to go? And so basically I kept my plot hooks flexible enough to follow the players. cam: This this is somewhere between quantum ogre, but also something I really agree with is like if there's rumors or secrets in the game or which like turn into plot hooks, I really want the players to get them. But I try and make them agnostic enough that it's like I don't know when I'm prepping it, who's gonna say this, where they're gonna find it. But it's like this piece of information will possibly be somewhere, right? If they open up a book and it says it, or they're talking to the blacksmith and he says it, it sounds like like the teleporting dead dwarf is is similar to that. And that that's like this is open enough that it could be sort of anywhere, but it does like point in this one direction. And it I think that's that's like a big thing for GMs is like if you have some information the players need, like make sure that it could be go it could go somewhere and that the the sign that it points is clear. Daniel: I've started, I've done it a few times now, using world building activities, like using the game Microscope to do a bit of cam: Microscope. Mm-hmm. Iona: yeah, I love that, yeah. Daniel: world prep. I'll do a bit of world prep with the players in Session 0, even just for 20 minutes. I've done that before, twice now, and it went really well to get a bit of sunk cost. Maybe it's a feeling with the players that, well, I've contributed to it. But just even getting them involved and letting everybody. Because I think it's also about that, especially how you imagine what's going on. Not everybody is maybe as a visual thinker as others, or even just our frame of visual reference is not always the same. So I can describe what I see in my head as detailed as I think. somebody else could still come up with a very different image and then interact with it based on their cam: Mm. Daniel: view of it. And it might not quite mesh with really the situation. Sometimes it gets in the way of the other player's decisions, if that makes sense. Maybe I didn't quite describe the river as being deeper than I had if players based on that. Regardless, think something like Microscope helps kind get everybody in the right thinking along the right lines. So you can kind of kind of shorthand describe a few things, especially in Microscope. Then if you're using sort of, yeah, if you shorthand genre details for describing it as Dune-esque or Star Trek-like, we can all reach the same page quicker. cam: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Daniel: So yeah, I like doing a bit of collaborative world building. I've started cam: That's actually the the very next thing I wanted to bring up is is that like after you Iona: Thank you. cam: have a campaign set up and and then you have a session zero, like is the session zero for you more about like character generation, and and like mm talking about safety tools or something, or is it more like taking a dip into the world and and setting the stage together? Daniel: Definitely getting cam: Daniel, yeah. Daniel: the... I think it's definitely built... I have a framework in mind and I'm not afraid to force that from the player saying, we're playing in this setting, but I've stopped prepping for everything and have fully committed to the random table and found that not only for cam: Yeah. Daniel: my... for myself definitely feels like I can easier get into a setting, especially if I find if there's like a splat book or a setting book that uses a lot of random table. mean, case in point, the book I was able to get off you, that's in space. It uses mostly random tables. cam: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Tons of good space tables. Daniel: Yeah, and it just, gives the setting, gets the setting idea across so beautifully. And then to the point where I know I can run it and I have my own ideas for how I'd run to run it by taking those tables and swapping a few of the entries out and putting my own in. And then I've cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: started thinking with the players, okay, getting what they say as they're spitting out ideas and then putting that, okay, that's going into that table and such. Yeah, and cam: Mm. Mm-hmm. Making your own random tables. Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Daniel: that helps. I find that in play. I would almost call it semi-improvised GMing now. The map is at least on the table, but everything else is just what they come up with. And if it's better than what my idea was, then we're going with their idea. I don't feel any cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: bad about that, of course, because I find that lot more enjoyable. that they are freewheeling with what I've given them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, 100%. cam: Hmm. No, it's a shared storytelling game. It's a collaborative storytelling experience. And and so yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, I Iona, what do you have to say about this? On on a session zero, what is sort of the what what do you do with it? What is the the target of it? Iona: Yeah, I think with I think part of it depends on the party that's gonna be in there. But 'cause I think with a more experienced party I guess it kinda depends, but I think session zero f like getting people used to the setting. if they have created characters beforehand, kind of like seeing what's been created and getting people to mesh them kinda kinda mesh them together. If not, then kind of like getting the players to sort of work together on Building the party. so cam: Hmm. I I think that that that's a good point is that that you want characters to like be proactive in playing the game, right? And and one way is to have them make goals for their character. This character wants to do something. Otherwise they're just waiting for like the halfling at the bar to come up and say, Hey, you know, I've got this dusty old cellar that I need you to go sweep or whatever. And so so to Iona: Yeah. cam: like to to have them make in the session zero, like be connected to the setting, I think gives opportunities for this. Iona: Right, that's like one of my Yeah, the one thing I've I've kind of like the one thing I've been getting into more is just that, I like I make it a point. When you create a character, why is your character here? Why does your character want to be here? and part of that is, you know, to kind of head off the you know, the the typical RPG horror story of the player who is the brooding loner who doesn't want to do anything, doesn't want to be here, hates everyone, hates everything. It's cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: like, okay, well, if your character doesn't want to be here, then throw that character away and create a new one who does want to be here. cam: Have yes, yes. Yeah. We are here to have fun. Why would you role play somebody that's not here to have a like to to be a part of this adventure? Iona: Hm. But otherwise, but yeah, I think like session zero is great for like you know, you're talking about like safety tools kind of was it what what's the term? It's something lines and veils, you know, like establishing that sort of stuff. But cam: Right, right. That's a good one. Mm-hmm. Iona: but also like like those are very important. Also like like if we're in the middle of campaign and and you're starting to feel uncomfortable, what is it that you can do to tell me that you need to stop? Take a break, we can establish that session zero as well. it's kinda funny, I I feel like I I had this discussion in another Discord and people talking about safety tools at the table and they're like, Well, you should have everything explained in session zero and that should be fine. there shouldn't be a reason to stop in the middle of the gameplay. I'm like, you are not cam: Mm. Iona: going to think about every situation at cam: Right. Iona: session zero. There has to be a way to s and the the example that I gave to this person in this discussion This is gonna be this is not an RPG thing, but the other the the other weekend I went th there was a mummy exhibition at the National History Museum. Really cool. And they actually had a few actual mummies in the display. Like all all wrapped up, nothing like you can't actually see anything. and it's one of those things like, yeah, that's a body, that's someone who lived two thousand, twenty five hundred, three thousand years ago. sitting in this glass case in front of me. And it's like not bothered at all. But then I saw the muff mummified puppy. And for some reason that bothered me. And like cam: Hm. Yeah, I I think I'd be bothered by that as well. Iona: It's like I don't know why it's like that's the thing. I think I don't know if it's just the shape or just thinking about it. It just like mmm the thought process in the back of the mind and just like, this is a little uncomfortable to look at. And so but it's like you know, and that's the thing, you know, you don't think you know, I go into the mummy museum, I'm gonna go see the mummies. Mummies are kinda cool, and then you know, like I said, and that's something that can happen. You don't think about every scenario, so there has to be a way to say, hey cam: Mm. Iona: Can we stop and take a break? cam: I think that that just needs to be set as is like I mean, that is obviously a safety tool, but something that could be said early on is like for always there's like a pause button, right? Or or a a a a fast forward button. when I've played Delta Green, which I think is is like can be really heavy sometimes, I always think like pause and fast forward. I I'll I'll like give a list of lines and veils. I really like the list of lines and veils from lazy lazy DM. There's just there's like a website with a bunch of lines and veils. It's like we're not gonna talk about harming domestic animals. We're not gonna talk about beating children. We're not gonna talk about slavery. and so I think it's a good list of like lines and veils to start with. But then the idea is like if anything ever happens that like this is too heavy, there's just always you can always just pause the game or always fast forward through this scene. Daniel: I don't think so. It seems seamless so far. cam: okay. Okay. Good, good, okay. I d I didn't know if you were over there like sha waving your hands and screaming like hello you know, so Iona: Just to as we're getting back in, there was one other thing I wanted to bring up with session zero is the idea of a session zero point five. which is something that cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: Yes. Iona: was introduced. Something that was introduced to me that I integrated into Fandelver basically is the is having sort of a mini encounter or a mini scenario before session one to kind of get Especially I think this helps with new players as well, to kinda get them to get their feet wet and kind of play with their character. And it also gives players I think like a chance to be like, Hmm, maybe I want to change something before session one. cam: Would be good for if you wanted to change something. I I know as a player, if I went to a to a game session, it was just like making characters and talking about like the list of words we're not gonna be able to say at the table, which I wasn't gonna say those words, and just let me be clear. I Daniel: Hahaha cam: and and it's like I made my character and then it was like, Okay, go home, see you next week. I think I'd be disappointed. So I I like Daniel: Mmm. cam: the session zero point five, at least for for that very reason, just to not leave disappointed. Daniel, I think you said earlier Daniel: And... cam: that you ran that today, is that right? You ran a Daniel: Last week, I did a cam: last week, okay. Yeah. Daniel: character generation and prologue scene. The idea was just everyone gets the chance to roll dice once, just to get the idea of the system in mind and try to touch on each part of play. Even if it was only maybe, I think we did it for like 30 or 40 minutes. After everyone got a character, we did a prologue that wouldn't have any effect if we carried on and actually did the game proper, but it was just a little prologue scene that wouldn't necessarily have any repercussions later on, but everyone got the chance just to roll up each of the aspects of play and did a quick combat. then the thing, yeah, it was good to test out and see what... kind of went smoothly and what didn't and to think about why. Yeah, it was a good idea, I'd say. It went really well and definitely something I'm gonna try and do a lot more. cam: I think that the the Daggerheart campaign frames all have something like a first couple of scenes in them. And I really like that about about I don't know how much I like Daggerheart as a system, but the campaign frames are great and and they each have like a starting scene. And I I think that's a really good thing for a campaign. I Daniel: yeah. cam: I've never thought of that before. Iona: Yeah. cam: Like my you know, my my big Shadow Dark game. We had a we had the the level zero funnels and that was sort of the z you know, session zero, session zero point five. But it but without Daniel: Hmm, that's... cam: that I wouldn't really know Iona: Yeah. cam: how to how to do it. So so I think that might be worth prepping if you're gonna like run a new game, think like what is the what is the prologue? What what's the the cold open, Daniel: Thanks. cam: you know, before like the credits roll and everything on like a new TV show. Daniel: Yeah, I've been, it's something I've consciously been trying to do is be a bit more, even a bit more cinema film directory with my DMing and in terms of how I set things, even to verbally say, know, the camera pans in, because everyone cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: can kind of get, they can get what's happening, the visuals. think, you you're putting people people's mind in play and I don't know even just saying some of those phrases I always thought it would be the kind of thing that would take me out of a game but in a funny way I think it put everybody on focus and kind of snapped everyone's attention yes mm-hmm cam: Well, it if you can say the camera goes to this, it it does put the focus on on one thing and and yeah, it it is like it's like you were saying before about saying it's it's Dune esque or whatever, like about the setting. I you can just sort of skip a lot of a lot of beating Daniel: Yeah. cam: around the bush and get people to think about exactly the thing you're trying to think about. And and that's there's nothing wrong Daniel: Yeah, it a- cam: with that. As as long as it doesn't take people out. I think it's there's nothing wrong with it. Daniel: true. Especially personally, I always feel like I should have a thesaurus next to me. it was, I keep, use the same adjective three times in a row. Okay, I got it. Yeah. cam: You should try podcasting. I I never realized how much I say the word absolutely until I listen to myself talk for six hours. And I'm like, I I've got to learn at least two more words. Daniel: Yeah, yeah, well, it's yeah exactly I think that I took putting myself in that mindset of you know, I'm setting a scene visually Just without the screen I'm using kind of filmmaking language in a way Got me out of those verbal ruts. I was able to Expand my vocabulary a bit of terms because I'm just thin because I was personally thinking about the scene and being able to be a bit more specific. I'm not getting so flowery with how I was describing it. Be a bit more kind of script writer-y, if that makes sense. know, actually having an actual stage direction and description of what is occurring. Yeah, I've found that a lot more helpful. cam: I think that's that's how my NPCs have become. I'm like it's a old woman, she's in her hut, she comes out, and then I start talking as the old woman, like i instantly, and there's no more like no more set dressing, just Daniel: Mmm. cam: 'cause otherwise I would spend too long waffling. So I just I it's like if I cut to the N P C right away, then then like I'm gonna stop this, you know, trying to describe her house or whatever and we can get on. Daniel: Definitely. The session zero discussion around that, getting the players, everybody, all of us on the same page. I'd say that, that prologue scene, that 0.5 session can be really good for that. You could maybe test the waters a bit if you want to try out something new narratively, but also, especially if there's newer players there, could get. get them out of, if they know all this is just gonna be one and done and over, and kinda maybe sometimes you can kinda get some interesting reactions and actions from people where they might be otherwise a little bit more reserved, if they know it's not gonna have any lasting effects, they sometimes do something a bit more interesting that they might have otherwise done. Case in point, I think I'd say that we talked about previously at T-POP at the convention with having new completely new players to RPGs at the table and going from one session where they're a little bit quiet and then just because narratively they were now put into a different position, their character themselves in the space of two hours they'd gone from. We skipped the session zero and went straight into media res. cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: I think there's something to be said for that as well. using film language to, cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: you're dropping in the middle of the action scene because that's the best, how the best movies start, you're already in the middle of the story. Yeah, cam: With a bang. Mm-hmm. Daniel: literally with a bang, if not, it's, think as well, it's good to, it's kind of setting expectations as well, a good session zero, I think. You can make it part of the narrative if you're like sort of doing something like microscope or cam: Absolutely. Yeah. Daniel: Or doing a prologue scene, as you said. cam: One one thing I've done for my Shadow Dark game at my big West Marches game, and this is moving away from session zero some, is that I made like a list of truths, which is an idea I stole from from like the Shadow Dark GM book. so it's just like the you know, there's 10 things that that everybody Iona: Okay. cam: knows about the world. and this is in this has been really useful. A for the session zero, I can pass it out and say, like, this Iona: Yeah. cam: is the world that we live in. But I made like 30 copies of this. And anytime a new player comes to our game, I'm like, here. Read this, it takes you three minutes to read this and you're basically caught up, right? And and so when you have a game going, and it's been going for a while and you bring in a new player, say, like somebody asks, can I join your game, or you go and you find a new player 'cause maybe somebody had to quit for some reason or another. How do you bring in a new character to a game Iona: Yeah. cam: with like an established story, an established setting, and established characters? I don't know what what do you think about this? Iona: Ooh. Trying to think I don't think I've had to deal with that situation too often, but I think finding a a way that's kind of appropriate to bring them in and kind of get them into kind of trust trying to get you know, trying to establish this sort of character to character trust as well, I think, is a big thing. Cause I think getting a player up to speed is probably not as big of a challenge because you can say, okay, this is kind of where we've been, this is where we are. I think like the few times when I've seen a new character introduced, like maybe one character dies off and another character comes in, it always seems to be I mean, you know, our players like to be ornary sometimes. but it's always the why should I trust you, stranger? You know? I think cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: that's the That's the one thing to I think I would try to 'cause you want you want people to like if a new player or just new character coming in, you want them to get in as smoothly as possible and keep the story rolling. But cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: but yeah, like I think something like what you're saying, like the truths, I think maybe having being to have a summary of like here's a story so far, maybe like this is where our characters are what brings you to this point. And I think like 'cause obviously like maybe having some backstory to bring them to that point would be a good idea, 'cause obviously their story has not been the core group's story so far. But yeah, I think like cam: Mm-hmm. but they are they are like people from the world. So so in a way it's really funny. Iona: yeah. cam: but because they belong there. And so sometimes they have to ask, what's this village like? What do people eat here? You know, do I know the the woman at the alchemy shop? But it's like, yes, you've lived here your whole life, you know, like you you you know that the goblins have been kidnapping princesses or whatever. So so I think I think in a way it it it should be natural for players to drop in, but it certainly doesn't feel that way, I think. Iona: Hm, yeah. yeah, no I think that's like that's that's one thing I I don't think I've ha had a toy with, so that's definitely an interesting question. but yeah I think like again like part of me is like I think more it's just how do I get the existing players to not like immediately try to kick the new guy out. cam: Mm. I know in the two games that that I've been running recently, I've had to deal with this problem well, not a problem, but this quite a lot. Like in the Daggerheart game today, we had a new player come in and and it was just like an N P C contact that the the PCs have dealt with a lot says, go pick up this person, a good, you know, an operator I know that would help on your journey. And so, you know, they get sent by an N P C to go meet this person and then, you know, introduction done, right? Iona: No. cam: In in in Shadow Dark, the the like main story conceit is that that they like live on a city in the frontier and like villagers or not villagers but but adventurers are always showing up to go and and like get their names writ in in red letters and and go make their money or whatever. So it's like anytime a new character shows up, it's like, yes, I'm also here to get rich and so you know easy peasy. Iona: Yeah, I think s Sword World kind of leans into that a bit. I think I Yeah. Yeah, cam: There's an adventurer's guild, right? Yeah. Iona: yeah, because it's it's the core gameplay is kind of s is circle is focused on the the Adventures Guild. so and there's an adventures guild in every city. If you're a member of one, you're a member of all kind of things. So and a lot of the the I don't want to say campaign. More the adventures. The adventures themselves. Cause th this is one thing like I I was here l listening to lately is like think of the campaign as a book and the adventures as the chapters kind of thing. The adventures cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: themselves, the g it's it wants shorter. So like you for Sword World you need to kind of plan around your adventures should take only one or two sessions to complete. because a lot of character progression is based around those sort of quick turnarounds. So the player should be able to finish the mission in within one or two sessions. So I think for that it's a lot easier to introduce a new character in. And from my understanding, like a lot of the gameplay historically for that system has been a lot of drop in, drop out play. And there is also something called the fellows system, where you can like turn your character into an NPC that other people can borrow for their parties. cam: that's co that's really cool. Iona: but I think in that case just the format of that system lets people join very easily because I can just say hey you need to do this job but you need one more person in your party. Hey there's that other adventurer over there who can help you out. cam: Mm. Iona: but I think like something like if I were to try to insert someone in the middle of Fandelver, for example, or if I was doing some other like kind of your typical D D campaign where it's just like one long adventure, that might be a little bit more difficult. Like, how do you get them into the story? But I think if you are doing like broken up adventures, then like like you said, yeah, your contact wants you to go over there. what's that was it Shadow Run, Mr. Smith? Your contact? cam: Mm. Iona: It's always Mr. Smith. Mr Smith tells you to go he that he's got someone else that he you need to link up with. So cam: Mm. Yeah, yeah, I I think that's it it's like reasonable and it you know, it makes sense and it's convenient. So Mr Smith sounds like a matrix reference. I don't know much about Shadowrun, but that makes me think of the Matrix. Iona: I mean Shadowrun is very I mean it it's it's the whole cyberpunk thing. I mean Shadowrun is I mean th th they're they're both based on the same genres and the same cam: Yeah. Iona: things and so but Shadowrun predates the Matrix series. So But it's so cam: I I suppose it does. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Iona: it's it's more Mr. Smith in the sense of your client is always anonymous. So who who do you work for? I work for Mr. Smith. cam: Mm. Iona: You know. not not Mr. Smith in the sense of agent th the agents and the matrix, but more of like just, you know, you're you're you're doing at best gray work. And cam: Mm. Iona: so the the less you know about who's employing you the better. cam: That makes sense. I think that that's how Delta Green is a lot too. It's just like the the organization reaches out to you or your handler. It's like who's that? Well, you're not supposed to know, you know. so I I guess since you were Iona: Mm. Daniel: Just some thought. cam: running like in the case of Fandelver or Stormrag Isle, you sort of have the end in mind for for a game, is that right? Like when you start a new campaign, do you have like a definite limit in mind for it? Iona: Hmm. Yeah, I think with with Phandelver and Stormwreck Isle those two have a definite end and definite conclusion. and so with those are like yeah, I am kind of planning around how the campaign leads to that conclusion. and so it's I usually don't get too detailed, like as we mentioned earlier, you know, you gotta get you have to have the player agency. Stormwreck Isle is a lot more railroady, so there's not really a lot of room for player agency, so I it's not the example I would want to use. But Phandelver on the other hand, I do think so. I think breaking that up into story beats, and kind of seeing like and using it not necessarily as this is the linear storyline, but more like y you'll get those like choose your own adventure books where you're like cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: Flipping through the pages back and forth. cam: A big fan as a little kid of that, yes. Iona: Yeah, try to treat it more like that, where I don't force the players to read the chapters in order, basically. cam: Mm mm. Iona: And actually in fact cam: That makes sense. Iona: with Fandelver with with that Fandelver campaign specifically, the players did end up actually skipping one of the main encounters. cam: Mm. Iona: Like just completely ignored it and went straight for the end. cam: Straight to Cragmaw Castle, is that right? Iona: the the drow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no the cam: The drow with the funny name. Mm-hmm. The spider, that's his name, right? But but he has a he has another name. we all had some sort of strange internet like connectivity issue and we all got kicked off at the same time and and took five minutes and now we're back. so I'm gonna ask, what's the first game that you ran? And what was the first like big time campaign that you ran? Daniel: the very first game I managed to run was basic D and I think I had a module. I had Isle of Dread with the T Rex on the cover that I'd photocopied at work and very optimistically thought, this'll be amazing. I'm just I'm gonna run this. I've always wanted to it was a book I'd already as I'd always seen it ha on shelves and never played it. And I thought, I'll I'll I'll run that. And it went off the first session di I did not find enjoyable. I don't think the players did either. we weren't on the same page. I learned a lot from it. And then I said, okay, let's try it again. I mean this is going back maybe fift fifteen, twenty years, I'm trying to remember. the ins and outs, but I do remember vividly we managed to then after that we had a bit of a speed bump maybe the first two games and Iona: Thank Daniel: I sort of you know forgetting rules and things and then I managed to to reel it in a little bit and I think Iona: Thank Daniel: sticking to basic D it was a good choice. It was simple enough to run and I decided I'm not gonna run Isle of Dread as Iona: Thank Daniel: is because flipping through the book and reading out the entries was no fun for any of us. So I went pure stream of consciousness with it, using just the map and decided to do fantasy apocalypse now. cam: Mm-hmm. Daniel: and it went it went very well. and that's kind of in my that's been by cam: Your blueprint ever since. Mm-hmm. Daniel: that's been been a common thread through a lot of Yeah, a little bit of, you know, I have a grand plan of a huge cam mega campaign. I pick up a book that really you know, sticks with me and you know, a recent one I did was the traveler mega campaign Pirates of Drynex, which runs across like ten books on a very similar situation where I kinda started prepping it out as running it as is and thinking, Okay, you know, they they've already done all the hard work for me, I'm just gonna be, you know, the mouthpiece for the the story and and realizing the that cam: Mm. Daniel: Maybe it's not a a style of play that really suits me. I like I like to I like to be engaged, you know, myself Iona: . Daniel: if you know, I'm not the player. but you know, the Iona: . Daniel: the the fun of it is, you know, giving them things to to r run around in and destroy. So I figure if I'm if I'm running somebody else's story, I d yeah, it didn't it doesn't quite click with me necessarily so I like to I like to take a campaign, you know, even some of the big famous ones and and hack it up a bit and you know the leave some of the Easter eggs in there. Yeah, the the the overall idea of it is still intact. So if anybody's ever played those campaigns before, I feel like well I'm not I'm not spoiling any they they they can't spoil the other players necessarily 'cause I'm hoping to cam: Mm. 'Cause it's going to be just flavored like this, but maybe maybe different in how it twists out. Yeah. Daniel: Yeah, yeah. It's a framework for me and you know, it's always something. It's it's a crib from it. yeah. I I think that was yeah, so the first game yeah was was a basic D and D cam: Isle of Dread. Huh. Daniel: and went big started big with Isle of Dread. Yeah. the last the last big campaign I did was actually yeah, completely reskined into Stone Age settlement of keep on the cam: Ooh ooh, quite interesting. Daniel: borderlands. yeah, we Which which we did as sort of Stone Age Neolithic tribe moving into the early Bronze Age. So bronze weapons were magic weapons and they were stopping between between combat sessions for them to straighten out their swords on nearby stones was a good was a good flavorful moment. Yeah, it read really well. Yeah. Yeah. cam: I I like the sound of that. That's an OSR head. I I really I think that sounds great. Iona, what about you? First first game and first campaign. Iona: Yeah, the very first game, first campaign, same thing. It's cam: okay, okay. Iona: Iron Kingdoms for 3.5. For anyone who's not familiar, it's the role-playing game rule set for the War Machine slash Horde's tabletop war game. At the time it was in college, that was... because the first thing I got into when I got into college was not RPGs, but was actually 40k. And just through the gaming group I connected with folks and got into... So the first campaign actually that I've run was Iron Kingdoms for 3.5. That didn't go very well, that was probably a good lesson in not giving players too much money to start with. Because they will buy everything But Probably my first successful campaign funny enough is Was a three mission set for paranoia cam: I've never heard of paranoia. Iona: Really? That's a very classic. Daniel: That's great. Yeah. Iona: Yeah, the one or two little references I've made here about friend computer is from Paramiya. Daniel: Mm-hmm. Yes, I thought that's where it was. it's great. Yeah. It's kind of s satirical slapstick nineteen eighty four. cam: I may enjoy that. That sounds good. Iona: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I've heard Yeah, I've Daniel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Iona: heard some of the recent updates have moved from because it's a lot of Cold War paranoia like To kind of like give an idea of the setting so you're in this What is like our crop our cop I'm gonna mispronounce word our crop was our college II. Yes, or like so and Daniel: Arcology. Yes, yeah. Like a mega city, yeah. cam: Mm. Iona: Right totally enclosed Everything is run by a central AI that is the computer or friend computer. You control one of a set of six clones. Mutants are illegal. Everyone is a mutant. Secret societies are illegal. Everyone's a member of a secret society. Communists are the worst of the worst in terms of enemies. And there's always cam: My kind of party. Iona: going to be at least one communist in your party. And like the it's one of those things where like you do take kind of an inane sort of idea for a mission. So the players are troubleshooters and the joke is you find trouble and you shoot it. They but some of the missions that I've run are things like you need to go to the cafeteria hall and fix the coffee vending machine. And you just throw. You just throw whatever complications in front of the players that mess with things like their security clearance. there's only one entrance into this. So like, security clearance is based on the visible spectrum. So the players are red, which is the second lowest. And it could be something like, you come across the hallway, the hallway is painted white. So... that is the highest security clearance, so the players obviously cannot traverse that. But according to the computer's records, that hallway is painted black. And so you have to figure out a way to... And if you tell the computer that it's not painted black, he'll think that you are trying to sabotage things. So Daniel: Mm-hmm. Iona: you have to figure out a way to trick the computer into getting the hallway repainted. cam: I think I have to try this game. That that's all I can say. This sounds this sounds absolutely ridiculous. I was trying to to like list what it is. It's like, so it's it's it's like that Jim Carrey movie, what's it called? The Truman Show. And then it's like, no, it sounds more like like Yeah, it sounds like the Stanley Kubrick space movie, which now I can't Daniel: there's elements of yeah. cam: even think of what it's called. i but Then it it it just sounds like so many different things all mashed up into one. It sounds two thousand one is space odyssey, that's what I'm trying to say. It sounds like so many different things mixed up together. Iona: Mmm. cam: I'm thinking like, What in the world is this? This sounds it sounds Daniel: Yeah, okay. cam: crazy. Iona: But yeah, I did want to hit up something funny, because Daniel, you're talking about this Neolithic thing. I'm also currently working on creating my own sort of Neolithic setting. And that's been something where I've been going a bit more deep dive into it. So Daniel: Right. Iona: like doing the research and stuff that that's definitely one of those things where the thing I'm constantly running up against is that D &D is probably not the game system for this setting. Daniel: Hmm. I I yeah, I've I've it's a game I I keep I keep getting drawn back into doing a stone age setting games. I don't know. I've it's just something stuck with me. I even I even started getting I got a flitnapping set. I got so into it and started making arrowheads myself. Just I don't know, there's something about it, the the early tech it it you can kinda do so much with it that doesn't seem doesn't seem so obvious at first, but the last time I did actually a Stone Age one af before even the the the keep on the Borderlands one, we did we basic there was there's we did th from there was a Marvel comic like what if about all if all the superheroes were ha occurred in the Stone Age. So it's like you've got you know you've got s Captain America as like, you know, Captain cave up on the hill, and things like that. So and it I we basically ran it ran that to the superheroes in the Stone Age. but I went mythological with it. they were kinda you know, the it turns out they were they would actually going to be then the the precursors of our cultural heroes. So as the character who would potentially become Thor as like a storm wizard and Things like that. I yeah, Stone Age settings I'm instantly in. It's I I I've I've tried to do a Stone Age thing in almost any every campaign as well I've done. I've even s I started a traveler campaign with them starting as Stone Age sort of they were settlers and c colonists who'd reverted it back to the Stone Age and so the you know, the the sky dragon coming out of the the sky coming down and picking them up and abducting them was then the PC party in the next session. It was the so I've I've I've done it a lot. So I'm you're the game you're writing on, I will be f hopeful I will be putting myself first in line for a for a a playtest or proofread. cam: Huh. But we'll all have to look forward to it. Now look, I I've gotta get one one last question for all Iona: Yeah. cam: of you or for both of you. I need one one single entry from your appendix in, your personal library that influences your your games and the way that you think about games or the types of fantasy that you like to pursue. we could start with Iona. You Daniel: Mm-hmm. cam: got one for us? Iona: so just like influence, like, I think like a lot of, I don't know, it's at... cam: You're all good. Iona: Sorry, I'm like that. As far as like, I guess literary stuff, like a lot of, Like with the Stone Age thing, a lot of that's been just... I've fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole recently of a lot of like human history, prehistory stuff, and a lot of that's just really interesting. I want to get into that. but no, guess like I've always kind of It's a little funny. I've never gotten into too many fantasy novels. I've always kind of been adjacent but I am kind of right in that time frame of like growing up where a lot of a lot of like Japanese media like manga and anime was being was finally being like officially translated into English and so I think there's like a lot of that which kind of influences but yeah i've been a fan of like cam: Mm-hmm. Iona: like the lord of the rings movies those were always fun i've actually been reading a lot more recently though not not it hasn't been stuff too heavy i'm sure some folks will probably be like that's kind of funny like cam: It's okay. Mm-hmm. Iona: there's like well like cam: Yeah. Iona: It's kind of like light kind of romanticy adjacent stuff. I've just like I finished recently finished up cam: Mm. Iona: the Legends and Lattes trilogy, which that's kind of like if you want something cozy and fantasy adjacent that's there. cam: We say legends of lattes. legends and lattes, okay. Daniel: Mm. Iona: Legends and Lattes. And so the first book starts Daniel: great. Iona: out, it's the main character is she basically quits her party. and opens up a coffee shop. Daniel: Mm. Iona: And so, which it's kind of fun how the author kind of plays with that. Like that's a Gnomes machine. The Gnomes have figured out how to create a espresso machine. So. cam: That's no mis engineering for ya. Yeah, th I think the very first the Daniel: Ha ha ha. cam: very first person that came on Teapod, like Michelle, Iona: Yeah. cam: she likes to write romanticy. I think that's right. So I I've heard a lot about this recently. I don't know. It it it seems like a cozy thing. Yeah. Iona: Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, it's like kind of cozy and light to say because like sometimes my like what I do for a living is I do in like a lot of technical writing. So like, at the end of the day, I'm more on the mentally exhausted side. And especially lately, like, I don't want to name where I work or anything like that. But just we've had a big Project which has been getting pushed around and that's been cam: Mm. Iona: eating up a lot of brain power but yeah, as far as like inspirations, it's kind of like I look around and see what's there and I think I hate to give like what sounds like I'm not answer but just the sort of like accumulate this sort of media that's around me but in terms but if but I would say one YouTuber who's been giving a lot of good advice, think, if people are going to look, is Ginny D. A lot of Daniel: yes, yeah. Iona: the advice that she's put out recently has sounded really good and stuff that I cam: Mm. Iona: want to try and implement as a GM. But yeah, it's... I don't think I have like one solid source. I can't just say, read this blog. cam: yeah, of of course not. That that's why it's a hard question. That's why it's a hard question. Yeah. I mean y you Daniel: Ha cam: know, in a way you're Daniel: ha ha. cam: sort of shaped by everything you ever have taken in, so Iona: Mmm. cam: you can't say, I'm this one thing. It's like I'm this one drop of rain in the rainstorm. No, no, that is there's a whole rainstorm out there. okay. Daniel, why don't you give us this this one or a couple, you know? Appendix N. Appendix Daniel: I yeah, I a funny talk when you're talking about fantasy. I had this very discussion with somebody today who's actually one of the a player and fellow GM here in Tainan. It's a very small group of us. so we're quite close net and this is also this is a constant discussion, you know put plundering each other's, you know, minds for for new things to read or get ideas from. And then Playing in that person's game and realizing, yeah, they just encrypt it from that. Thanks. but not in a bad way. That's great, actually. I love it. But but we were talking about fantasy books. I think I don't know, it's funny we both we're both you know, love the genre and love playing fantasy games. And in a funny way I th we we both realized we've we've moved away from reading fantasy. We w we were just talking about 'cause I've got some Dragon Shell Dragonlance mo box sets on the shelf there and he saw them and ta started talking about the the books and I I realised, yeah, I've got a copy of the book and hadn't read it for a very, very long time and definitely my obviously my tastes have changed and I find myself going back to things that I was always a bit intimidated by or know, like seeing my dad read them. si particularly sci-fi, I think, was something. I always loved the idea of reading hard sci-fi and things like that. But actually then picking it up always found something a bit maybe l lighter to read, kind of in a similar fashion to what what you just said. But yeah, I've gone back to a lot of new wave sci-fi seventies work. big one, Michael Moorcock. I mean he's been big fixture of a lot of what I like to read. You know, it kind of prefigured the whole Warhammer chaos and order conflicts and the the the what's it the the six spoke sort of wheel of chaos and a lot of iconography comes from him. It that's was cribbed Iona: Yeah. Daniel: directly into Warhammer. but if I had to pick an Ur text that inf it has influenced and still influences all my games and Probably the flavor of the games I like to play in and run is the two thousand AD this the sort of British comic magazine. it's where Judge Iona: Hmm. Daniel: Dread came from. I kinda Iona: yeah, that's That's a lot of heavy Daniel: Yeah. Iona: 80s satire, yeah. Daniel: Yeah, exactly. I think you know and also then yeah, a bit of a bit of heavy metal magazine goes in there. I think my visual cues come from a mi a mixture of some of the the best artists who were in there, like Mobius and Philippe Joule. A lot of I think yeah, a lot of French Belgian visuals and then the writing is that kind of l early nineties. satirical British comic writers of kinda got a mishmash of them of these psychedelic prog rock cam: He Daniel: colours swirling in my head, with then people making constant references to punk bands and new wave musicians. and so I figured I no, I I just lean into it now and name all of my MPCs after musicians and things like that and I start cam: All my favorite D and D characters have been named after my favorite musicians. So that that's yeah. Daniel: Yeah. cam: Yeah. I've played like five Jerry Garcias. Just just like re Yeah. Sorry. Don't tell don't tell my old DMs, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, huh. Mm Gary Yeah, Gary Garcia the half orc with with only one arm or something. Yeah, that that's him. Daniel: Yeah, yes, exact yeah. unused But you fan the fantasy version, the the Gary Jar Gary Jarcia. Yeah. Iona: that. cam: Well anyway, that's about all the time we got. I gotta do a dish or two before I go to bed and it's already pretty late. But thank the two of you for coming on and having this conversation. It's it's been a ton of fun. And I I hope we can continue it sometime soon. Daniel: Thank you. cam: Yeah, yeah. I Iona, Daniel, yeah, I'll see you next time and thank Daniel: That was fantastic. Thank you. Iona: Thanks. cam: you for listening. Bye bye. not kicked yet. Cam: Thank you one more time for those two coming on to TPOD and having that conversation. It was a lot of fun. Stay tuned to TPOD. If you haven't already, subscribe on your podcast app of choice. Or if you watch on YouTube, press subscribe on YouTube. And you can always visit us at tpop.run, W W W dot T P O P dot R U N. That's the home of not only TPOD, but T-POP, the convention, and we're already planning 2027, so we've got news coming out on that pretty soon. I hope But anyway, yeah, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. Cheers, bye-bye.