Not Another D&D Podcast - Behind the Screens: DM Advice Q&A

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

The Three DMs of the Two Crew gather to answer questions about running a game of D&D! Whether you're a newbie DM looking to build a likable NPC, or a Forever DM trying to balance four campaigns at once, this episode has got it all! So grab your dice and meet us... Behind the Screens. Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor LyonFor more DM Advice, subscribe to us on Patreon!And get tickets to our upcoming live shows HERE!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Yeah, well actually no this is That's you squeaking behind the screen with your little with your little shoes use on the basketball We're playing on a basketball court. You got to understand your shoes are squeaking behind the screen behind the screen of like the basketball Dude the back no, okay picture if you If you're acting like call those crazy right now, but you are Saying are you setting up a heart as it's understand okay? We're teeny little people okay? I got you on that a huge basketball court. Oh, no giant DM screen falls down on the basketball court and we squeak Behind it are we worried we're gonna get caught? Yeah, we're worried that we're gonna get caught sneak in behind. Are we trying to steal something?

We're trying to get it. Look at the DMs. No, it's because it's behind the screen. Whoa. Did we used to be big? Are we cursed? Did we speak? No, the DM is big because the DM is big in our minds.

Is this like a troll in the Oregon situation? Yes, exactly. Okay, we're the Oregon situation. Yes. Okay, we're the little doosers. Merit thing the most insane shit with like big exasperation. Stay on my level everybody. Are our shoes squeaking? Are we squeaking because we're so small? The shoes are squeaking and if you are very far away, we would squeak because we're so small. Okay, so let's get the intro clean.

Squeaky shoes. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I was just trying to give that squeaky shoe. Squeaky shoe feeling. Just wear it. Squeaky shoe on the ass. Yeah, pure rubber shoe. Anyway, so we are going to be doing another behind the screen.

It's sort of a hard side chat-esque. We're just answering your questions. And we thought- It's worth did a stream for the Patreon last month that was DM tips. Yeah. And questions and Merf really enjoyed it. So we said, let's do it.

Yeah, let's do it for the feed. It seems like people had a lot of questions about DMing. They liked the stream and we're like, hey, we don't have Jake and doing kind of a DM Q&A thing would kind of leave him out of it. But he's out of it in any way. So let's plow forward. Right.

All right, let's get the plows all yoked. It's just the 3DMs. Let's just the 3DMs. Three little DMs on a basketball court. Ah, this weekaky is the shoe. Squeaky is the shoe. Squeaky is the shoe. Okay, I've separated them all into different sections, but we're going to kick it off real

simple with a little section called prep talk, which is actually a play on pep talk. I realize that sounds really normal, but they they're gonna get way more batshit than that So I want you to set you up for the expectations I get it these titles not making sense. It's not meal prep TikTok Prept talk, okay This one just feels appropriate tray said I would love to know what you literally have behind the screen But I would love to know what you literally have behind the screen. Ooh. Wow.

They were asking more like, and how you keep track of all the strings and the story you make. But I also want to expand that to, what do you, like, what are you drinking back there? Do you have any little emotional support chach kees? What is literally behind your screen? I'll kick it off, please. Okay, so I've got, I've got my screen. I'll kick it off, please. Okay, so I've got my screen. I've got laptop. I've got notebook, actually.

I actually prefer to take quick notes on a notebook just because I use the laptop screen as a reference point for NPCs, what they know, things like that. That's sort of set in stone. My laptop is almost like a book. And then sometimes I'll use the book to look up things online. I forget, you know, much like you do with books.

I'll use it as a wrap. As a laptop. I'm losing the amount of time. The idea of you opening up a book like a laptop, like the other way around. And then just putting it on a laptop standing reading like a maniac. Wow, books are good for stuff other than appearing taller.

Yeah, yeah, laptop is kind of just a book unless I need to look something up that becomes a laptop again. Then I've got my notebook to keep track of initiative and things like that. Sometimes I'll have initiative sheets printed out that are blank, that'll be like one through one and then I'll put things You know, I'll just add in if somebody's got like a 24 or something I could just pencil that in I picked it up from you

And I love that. Yeah, that's an easy thing because I feel like it makes it way easier to write everything down Yeah, especially into tracking much NPCs and I'm gonna have a time much more inexperience And I have not ascended to that level and tracking an issue that is baffling to me. And that sounds like a wonderful hack. I also print out my monsters. So anyone that they are definitely gonna fight, like if we've just essentially left on a cliffhanger last episode and I know you're gonna fight people,

I'm sure have those people. But then also like KNPCs that are like allies or there could be like a misunderstanding or they might use an ability or something. I have them printed out as well. So I have them all printed out and oftentimes I'll roll damage for them. Nice. Yeah. I had a time just to make everything quicker. So because I think the fun part of rolling is like whether or not you get a nat 20 or whether or not you get a nat one and the damage like nobody needs to unless it's it's really fun to hear like the jangling

of like 10-D six or something like that, it might be that out. But if it's just like a fire giant's gonna hit you for like 3-D eight plus eight or something like that, it's like I don't need to do that math on camera on audio. I can do that ahead of time. So I've got written next to the weapon, the attack, the damages of several different attacks

that I cross them off as I use them. It's all random because I just go in order. I don't like pick a good one or something like that. So cross them off. So I've got those printed out stat sheets. I've got notebook for quick notes. I've got paper with printed out initiative order. I've got my laptop.

I've got a Nalgene full of water. I definitely have a coffee, I've got a bunch of dice and I think that's it. What about a picture of me? And then I've got a big picture of me and Emily on the web. It's so big, the frame is enormous. Yeah, I've got a picture of my beautiful bride. Can I ask you another question? So like what you're talking about is having a lot of resources prepared for combat. If we're in a town, do you ever have like a sketched out sort of map of what the town is like?

Yeah, so I think now that we're so deep in a theater of the mind at one point, I was drawing maps of everywhere. And now I will kind of do that, but they can be a little bit more crude. Like a literally just like draw big square. And then just be like, this section, this is kind of do that, but they can be a little bit more crude, like a literally just like draw big square, and they'll just be like, this section, this is kind of where the rich people live. And this section is kind of where the religious district is,

or this is where the market place is, or something like that. So I might have a paper that is a reference point to if people wanna go somewhere, or something like that, but also a lot of that stuff's in just in my notes. Okay, and call well, kicking it over to you. Of course. What's behind your screen? Mine is pretty much similar.

The only thing I will have is I like a table. I like having some tables paper-clipped up, whether it's like, you know, like random effects tables, or like if there's any sort of hazard that's going to be playing into an episode. A lot of times I have a key in PC. I like to have things paper-clipped up. I like to have a little gallery wall going on my paper clips, post-it notes. I got a lot of things pinned and placed just so. Which is great because I feel like I start that way and then I'm a very frantic

mover so they're all just getting knocked over to the opposite side as we go. One thing I like to do and I was gonna ask Murph about this, when I print my monsters, I put so much effort into this and it's so unnecessary, I like going to Photoshop, I'll crop them specifically so I can get all the information and try and squeeze as many onto one page as possible. What's your like, if you have a home brew monster, what are you doing to print a prison?

Interesting, home brew monster, like what are you doing to like print a person? Interesting, home brew monster. Sometimes I'll just type up their stuff in like a word pad document. And often times I'll base them off. If I'm like, oh, this is a special fire giant or something like that, it's like, I'll give them base fire giant stats and then I'll be like, oh, maybe he's got two more strength or something.

Sometimes I'll write those up in word pad and sometimes I'll very sloppily just be like, here's a fire giant, I cross out 18 AC and write 20 AC and do it like that. And I also, when I print things out, I do, I don't use Photoshop, I just do, you can print out like layout style and do like six pages per piece of paper.

And then I just print out like if I've got like a bunch of minions or something, I'll just print them all out on one thing. Minions from minions from just Bickel will me of course. Yeah, feature them heavily in all of my campaign. I just copy paste into like a word document and then that kind of formats it. I always prioritize having a picture. So for me, obviously, way less experience.

I personally haven't DM'd any year. It was since whenever our last Hot Boy Summer thing was. But the thing I focus on the most with Hot Boy Summer thing was, but the thing I focused on the most with Hot Boy Summer because you guys are so agitated at all times, I have a stack of monsters because I know that truly any interaction could turn out to be a fight. But it ended up fighting, yeah. And so like, I also don't like to use my laptop because screens kind of give me a headache. So I print out all my notes

and then I also have a pile of monsters. And I also always make sure that I have a picture of the monster because I feel like then when you're describing the monster, you kind of just look at the picture and you're like, okay, this one is so good. I'm just describing it. So you don't really have to put too much

that sort of saves you prep time. Yeah, one thing I did recently, I got to run like a little like three-shot sci-fi campaign for some friends. And for this one, I went all out and I drew pictures of some of the characters. That's awesome. And I found it was really fun to like

have some paper clips in front of the DM screen. And whenever a new character came on, I would like flip them up so that everyone could like look at the new character. I think that's really smart. We get a lot of questions about like making theater of the mind combat, feel exciting, and one of my tips was going to be make sure everyone has a little mini of their character. Yeah. If it sounds so silly, but that really does kind of bring it to life and

having like little pictures, having everyone know what the bad guy that they're fighting looks like, having like a visual aid like that. Yeah, yeah, we'll say if you're- I'm going to bring it to life. You know, most people are not playing for a show. When you're doing a home game, it is fun to like slap down a map on the, not like a battle grid map, but just be like, this is the town you guys are in. Yeah, like putting that down, and that's just really fun for players.

And there's actually a lot of resources online that would be like you could just print out a little map of the town that they're in. And if they're fighting in the town square, you don't have to be putting their minis there, but everyone kind of has the idea. They might see a picture of a fountain on that little picture of the town and be like, oh, I want to try and do this thing on the fountain. Yeah, I'm going to steal an idea from my friend Raj, who is running a campaign for me right now. Just get a big orb, get a big orb that can change colors. Whoa, I'm putting in the middle of the table. Yeah, that's cool.

So if you're doing theater of the mind, it just makes, you can just change the mood real quick. Yeah. You can get music cute to it, get an orb. Yeah, get an orb. Get in, orb. I also would say like theater the mind's like if you're feeling like the battle is kind of like lagging a music change. A music change. I always play music. Like the next that like if you're like okay the battle is kind of lagging

because they are going to battles are going to like feel a little cumbersome at times. That's just the nature of up and down of life. But. Damn, that's so true. So true. I think you know. I mean, I feel like if it's like you feel the spirits flagging, you could just be like, next time it's the bad guys turn, do a music change and everyone will assume that some,

like it's getting kicked into higher here, even if it's not. Yeah. Definitely playing music is like one thing I really miss about home like we don't get to play many home games but it's so fun to put on a fun playlist. I was always putting on those final fantasy battle socks and stuff and it's really fun. And at least on like at least on Spotify there are so many just deans. Yeah, there's justlists that'll just be like playlist for battle whatever like people have put together Things that are like for sneak missions or for kind of whatever like you can find ambiance for whatever you need I really liked your question Emily about like a trinket or a knickknack or some sort of like

I wasn't sure if there's anything do you have anything? I don't have something But now I want something not like what would it be like what should I get back there picture? Really yeah, probably yeah also a picture of me and Merff on my on our wedding day It's not just that I need a picture of my of my bride Everyone needs a picture of my bride the picture of me and Merff on our wedding day is a potent magical item that gives you plus 2 to 3. Yeah Oh gosh, what are I doing in the situation? Remember the power of love, right?

OK, moving on for a little more pip-dock. Couple of sort of similar questions. Mike asks, I like the way they phrase this. They say, what is the process for designing the world for your adventure? Because I like that because sometimes the word world building feels heavy expectations to clump so Mike says what is the process for designing the world for your adventure. Zach Z says hello one and

all. I'd love to get some advice on world building and where you start as far as forming the playground you play and do you start in the landscape itself or do you focus on the history and build from there? And similarly related, Corbin L-Ritz, I have very little experience, DMing, and I was just wondering how you organize your notes and where do you start when lower building for your world? Mm-hmm. So we're kind of, I'm kind of, these are all sort of

in the vein of what's the first step. If you guys need a moment to think, I have like a real quick first off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah, let's go up the top of your head. I know that for Hot Boy Summer, the first time I did it, I knew I wanted it to be oceanic underwater. Yeah.

And there was an album, just I think the artist is seven fields of a felian, a felian or something. I can't remember the name. Oh, keep the ocean inside. It's all ambian and sounds very oceanic. So honestly, I just would listen to that to get me into the mood of thinking of watery words.

Wow. So sometimes it could be as simple as like, this album sounds like how I want my campaign to feel. That can be a good first step. That's also so easy to share with your players too. You'd be like, this is kind of the vibe I'm going. Oh, yeah.

Oh, true. I definitely never thought that would be you guys. You did not send that through, but we got- It also was completely out of line with how you guys put your characters. How we saw it. It was just helpful for me in terms of putting me in the space of, okay, what does it feel like to be underwater? What does it feel like to? I think that's a, I think that's really interesting.

I think I kind of take a similar approach, maybe less with like music and stuff, but I do start with whatever I actually want to play, like whatever actual kind of scenarios I want to run. Yeah, kind of almost starting with an idea of what I want to do in the micro and then almost build out from there. Like build out the macro by being like, these are the kind of sessions I want to run. Yeah, these are the kind of monsters I want to use. These are the kind of towns I want to have and everything.

So what does that mean about the larger continent? What does that mean about the gods? What does that mean about the overall vibe? That's really interesting advice because I read a lot of people saying they're building so much in the macro that they're having a difficult time coming back down to the micro. Right. And so it's interesting that your advice is like, no, start with the micro and let that inform the macro. Totally. I think I start yeah, start from the vibe.

Yeah, vibe is number one, honestly. Yeah. Yeah, like if you want to play like a high fantasy campaign with a lot of like airships or something like that, if you want to be, you know, like zipping around in space or like doing some sort of like smuggling in like a medieval setting, just like, kind of like lock in on one thing like that,

share that with your players. Even if you've got like, just like an image, like you're building kind of a Pinterest of like lock in on one thing like that, share that with your players. Even if you've got like just like an image, like you're building kind of a Pinterest board with your players, where like here's like the like image or like the video game or like the song that inspired this, share that and then start talking about characters while you're building like the encounters

and like the first session. Yeah. I always like to have like two docs going simultaneously. Like there's big brain doc and there's tiny brain doc. Yeah. Big brain doc is like the stuff that might never actually happen. It's like a timeline that's always shifting like big world events and like thousands of years of backstory.

It's the stuff that only comes out when somebody gets a net 20 on a history check. Yeah. Shit, shit, shit. Or someone asked a question that you're not expecting or something, it's just like, yeah, you're going through and there's, you know, like, cobalt hiding in some ruins, just like, what are the ruins? What God was this? And you're like, oh, no, oh, oh, god, I just wanted to cool, I just wanted to cool setting for this fight with the

cobalt. You know, it is, and this is like purely like tears of the Kingdom brain rot coming in. But it's like the big dock is like magma, and then the big dock is like magma, and then the small dock is like water. And like when you pour, it remains liquid and hot until one of your players pours water all over. And then it turns into a big chunk of igneous rock. Yeah, yeah, so it's like ever shifting

until a player makes it. Yeah, until a player like grabs some. Yeah, I think it's, I would bet that there are people who do this very successfully that start from maybe the macro and then get into the micro. I think it depends on your process, but I would definitely encourage you if you're, if you're writing in and you're struggling because you've started from the big picture stuff if you're like, oh, who are my gods? And what is the history of this world and And what is every single different culture and town that lives in this world?

Ultimately, that stuff isn't going to affect most of your sessions. Yeah, yeah. And it's easy to fall into that trap. Ultimately, you need to decide on kind of what level of technology your world is because that dictates how you're gonna run almost every session.

And then we were talking about vibe. It's just like, is this gonna be something that's like gothic? Is this something that's forer? Is this something that's high fantasy or whatever? It might be from being from a sketch and comedy background, but I do feel compelled towards genre-ass and... Totally, totally. Yeah, compelled towards genre-ass and...

Totally, totally. Yeah, I think genre is very important, and it's also helpful, because if you're sitting there and if you're just like, man, I don't know anything about my world. As soon as you decide, well, what if it was a steampunk world? You already start picturing how a town might look. Do you ever watch stuff that might inspire? Yes. Yeah, so I think I've said this on other... do you ever watch stuff that might inspire? Yes, yeah.

So I think I've said this on other, when we've done other hard sides and stuff like that, the reason I like doing, you know, final fantasy slash like World of Warcraft type worlds is that they are so loose with what kind of technology they allow and everything. It's just like, okay, yeah, this thing is sort of a computer. And, you know, if I watch something that sci-fi

that I'm inspired by or something like that, I can put an element of that in, even though a lot of the other stuff feels high fantasy. Like, if you're like me and you find yourself being inspired by things that are kind of vastly different, you can accommodate that by making your world open to all kinds of different things. So, I'm going to bring you back to Zach Zee's question. They say, do you start with the landscape itself?

How much do either of you consider landscape or flora or fauna when you're planning? It's also, I think it would be different for everyone. For me, it's like one of the first things. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. But I also think that, I also think that's not true for most people. I think what you're saying speaks to, like it's a good piece of advice.

It's like you're talking a lot about music and you love plants and you know a lot about all of that stuff. And I think like following the things that you're passionate about is always going to be more fun. So if you are one of those people that are like, the most fun thing about DMing for me is to build my pantheon. I love doing that type of thing.

Then you should do that. There's kind of no wrong way to do it. But if you're finding yourself frustrated, you should just do what's fun. But yeah, I would say for me, I think I get the landscape via picking the genre. Or, you know, and you'll see in the Bahumia campaigns, generally, it's kind of like town to town.

It all does feel like it's in the same world, but it is like slightly different genres each time. And that's just kind of what I'm feeling at the moment. I think it comes from from the video gaming background, which is what draws a lot of people into this, yeah. Which is that there's nothing better than when you go into a new area in a video game and the camera pans up,

and then you get that big ornate font with the name of the city, and then a little subtitle about what the city's whole deal is. Treno, the city of night. The ever rainy city, it's good shit. Yeah, that's so sick. Yeah, I think to, you know, people might feel that they don't want to be inspired by video games or something, that they want to be like, like, my world has integrity.

I only want to be inspired by myths and stuff. And I want this to be like a Tolkien world and stuff. And I think if the things that get you excited are things like video game worlds and stuff and things that maybe, you know, on the surface are a little bit more cartoonier or something, it's like there's no shame in that. That stuff's all cool and makes for really fun games. Those are, you know, their games. Since we're talking about cities, let's get to a little section I'm calling Nitty Gritty of the City! Yay!

Zach W says, I'm getting ready to start a new campaign with four players. First time really world building. So I'm wondering how much planning goes into cities and governments? Well, in the real world a lot. I think they mean for your to do a new camera. Right, yeah.

I guess like right off the bat, this is a situation where like until somebody pokes the hole, you don't have to start worrying about it. Yeah. What I think with cities and towns and stuff is you do have to kind of build, you kind of have to build out the greater area that your players are actually in. You probably, you don't need to build in the whole continent or whatever right away. But with a city or something,

somebody can be just like, I wanna go and I wanna go to the castle or something like that. You know what I mean? You kinda have to know the, it's helpful to know the basic, like, okay, like if they get rowdy, who's gonna throw them in jail? If they need to besiege the highest power in this town, who is the highest power in this town,

is it a king, is it a baron, is it a druidic hyrefin? Yeah, there's a lot of resources for this kind of stuff online, and one of the easiest ways to do it is just look up, just literally Google image search, D&D city map, and you will start seeing themes that pop up over and over again. You basically, you want some kind of like government buildings and things like that.

You want some kind of area for like religious worship and things like that. You probably want an area that's like the marketplace. You want an area that's gonna be like guards and the barracks and things like that. You want where people of different economic classes live, you want like an area where like the rich people are all living and stuff like that with like estates and everything and then maybe like more packets together houses where kind of your normal everyday folks are living in the city.

And I think that's like kind of the simplest way to start it. And in terms of layout, I think if you look at all these maps, you'll kind of see. That's a good advice to be like, just Google it and it will get your juices flowing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see things like over and over again that it just starts to click at a certain point where like,

this is kind of how these little fantasy cities tend to work. So Paul L. Similarly to that rights Hello wife worms and yawgany yawns, which I thought was really funny. Uh long-time listener, relatively new player my DM has recently expressed that he only DMs so that he can play because no one else wants to be in. But Mrs. being a PC, I want to try my hand at a few one shots. But I have no idea how to make a towner settlement feel real or lived in without over planning and creating dozens of background NPCs,

any advice would be appreciated. This wine's back around to just describing the landscape a little bit. Just like you just need one or two kind of nice, chunky details. Just like something that will like kind of catch in people's mental crawl and set this city apart. It's also always fun to give a city like,

hey, our city is built around ex-comers. You know, like our city is built around mining this resource. This is a magical or how does that turn into? What is the manufacturing of this or looks like? Who's controlling this or what are the repercussions of it? I'm glad you brought that up because that's something you should have brought up honestly with the last question

because that's honestly like one of the biggest things that helps make your city feel alive is like, why does this city exist? Why did they all gather here? Yeah, once you figure out essentially like one thing about it that helps make your city feel alive is like, why does this city exist? Why did they all gather here? Once you figure out essentially like one thing about it, that's special, you can then build out from there. Like if you're like, okay,

we're in the middle of a desert or something, and there's a magical city where there are wizards who create water. Yeah. And then you, first off, that instantly gives you images of, you know, waterfalls coming out of nowhere and everything. Very cool city. And then it also gives you fun stuff.

It's just like, well, what are the implications of that? Maybe there's a bunch of rich people that are hoarding the water. Like maybe there's an evil business that's not, that's damning all of the nearby rivers and it's not letting this magically-conjured water get to anybody else. They also kind of say like they want to make it feel real and lived in without over planning

and creating dozens of background NPCs. Because again, my experience is limited to Hot Boy Summer, but I know that one thing that I learned quick with Hot Boy Summer is that they will not talk to the NPCs that you expect. Yeah, true. But get fixated on, you know. So I feel like you are going to have to create dozens of background NPCs. However, you can have dozens of ways that those NPCs have access to the same information that you're trying to get to your PCs. Right.

Yeah, you could just build like six NPCs and then like give them names and like back stories and backgrounds as soon as they're needed. Like you have them kind of like have these like dummy NPCs waiting in the wings until somebody's like, I want to go to the magical water treatment plant. Yeah. And you're like, great. Gerard would have been at the Watten where ever they were going to go. Yeah.

Yeah, just have like plug and play NPCs essentially. Gerard is the mailman. He could be literally anywhere in this city. Yeah, like mailman's a good one. If you were supposed to have, you know, somebody in a cloak show up and be all serious and give them their quest, but when they show up at the bar, they're obsessed with the little goblin who's drinking too much or something. It's just like, you can just pivot and have the little goblin give them the quest. Yeah, I mean, you can... A drunken goblin could have overheard this gossip of much more powerful magic users and be really excited to share. Also, you don't have to worry too much about really over planning because when you're playing

a home game, it's like just take a moment and if things are like a little sloppy, it's everyone's just happy to play. And if you have information and you have like an adventure to give to the party, it doesn't really matter how well executed, like the voices for the character, or if the character has like a deep, deep, deep backstory. Yeah. Yeah. I think you don't, that's the kind of stuff that you don't need to open for. Yeah, again, like our other advice, look up town maps and stuff, find things that are kind of similar. Start small, don't build a full city, just build a little town, that also makes things way easier,

and then give it a little quirk, same with Bohemia season one. It was a fishing village, and why was it special? It has a trident that brings the fish to them. And it's that simple. Other than that, it's just a fishing village. Slap a quirk in there. It could be a simple, it's just like a weird glowy thing. Yeah, just weird glowy thing. I know never winter in the forgotten realm setting. I don't know too, too much about it, but I believe one of the things about it is that it never gets cold there.

It's literally never winter because there's like fire elementals or something under the ground. Just like a cool quirk that, you know, you could have not affect the city that much except that, you know, you go there and it's the middle of winter, but it's hot here. Just a fun little quirk.

Yeah. Next up, we got comb batters up. Okay. Comb batters up, okay. Comb batters up. Okay Okay, how batters up great not the other thing Okay, Camden asks as a DM. How do you handle multiple crits on your players? Sometimes my dice are rolling hot and I recall a session where I rolled three to four natt 20s against my players Well running cursive strad and I felt a session where I rolled three to four and that one is against my players, while running Curse of Stroud, and I felt morale dip way down.

How do you honor the dice and your players? I feel like maybe we disagree on this, but like after the first two crits, maybe you just start lying. Yeah, I would say one of the rare times that I would fudge my DICE's DM is if, I don't know if I, I guess if I like sat there crating over and over and over again in a way that seemed almost statistically impossible, then I might be like, this is no fun at all.

But another, another way to kind of get out of it where you can keep the fun going and keep it honest without having to fudge, which is what I do, and I learned this from Brennan, because Brennan does this, is when things get really dire, you can start rolling in front of the table. Oh! And then if there's a crit,

it's like there's that... Then morale isn't down. Then morale isn't down, because it's your gambling. Yeah. Yeah. It's excitement. So it's like, okay,

Strodd crit on the on the last turn. He's got this person grappled. He's gonna go for a bite. This is really bad. I'm gonna roll in front of the table. Yeah. That brings all the excitement versus if you're sitting there and you're being like,

uh, Strodd takes his claw attack. That's a crit. Uh, takes a second claw attack. That is also a crit. Yeah. Yeah. That's crit. Like that's no fun at all. And even though I'm sure your players trust you,

there might be some level of people being like, are you trying to fuck with us? Are you trying to make your friends know the bad? But I think it also, the dice becomes the villain then. And that's the two issues. It's like they're not, so if you're feeling like morale is dipping and like you're feeling like, oh my god, I'm letting down my players.

No, it was the dice. Yeah, the, the, that's really good advice. The rolling rolling in front of the table makes it so, you are no longer accountable for your dice. You know what I mean? Like I think maybe back when we first started, I might have been like, I've been creating too much.

I maybe I'll turn this 20 into a 19, but at this point, I'm all just, if I'm rolling too hot, or if I'm like this point, I'm all just, if I'm rolling too hot, or if I'm like, okay, I'm gonna roll for you guys, and on a one through a five, something bad's gonna happen, I roll that shit in front of the table. That way it's fun for all of us, and it feels truly random because it is,

versus just casually being created on sucks. It's not a problem. I haven't DMed enough to really experience this beyond with Hop-O-Summer, like the most recent one. I kept critting specifically on Mac. Yeah. And I definitely, it crossed my mind to lie. Yeah.

It was definitely like me being like, and even in retrospect, I'm like, maybe I should have fucking negated one of those grits because it was feeling me. Yeah. I think kind of after you crit the first or the second time, if you're rolling comically... But you're right, if I had started in,

like, I'm gonna roll everything, everything against Mac in front of the board, then it would have felt less bad. Yeah, I think another thing you do in situations like this, Murph, is like, we're like, the dice are just purely favoring the board, then it would have felt less bad. Yeah, I think another thing you do in situations like this, Murphy, is like, we're like, the dice are just purely favoring the DM. Is you'll like change your tactics? If it's a villain that's like smart enough to do this, you'll just have them like grab the person and point a knife at their neck and say like, I'm taking this person like,

if you all want to live, like you do what I say. Yeah, that's true. It's kind of like if your monsters are beating up your PCs, if it's somebody like straw, he might be smart enough to be like, I'm gonna let you guys live if this happens or if something, you know. Yeah, that's really good advice too. It's like, raise the stakes without just killing them by being like, I'm gonna take one of your players, I'm gonna turn one of your players into a vampire. I'm gonna, or just like go the full anime route and be like,

you're not worth my time. Yeah. I don't know that that would work. I'm imagining an entire table getting to their fight with straw and then it just ending with him saying, you're not worth my time. Actually, I've got somewhere else to be. This is, I was expecting a little more from being on.

And a maestrad. Speaking of rolling S&DM under the section NPC legs. I've got Liz Not Liz writes for MIRTH specifically as a fellow DM cursed by dice-cris. Do you ever worry about or account for a badass antagonist or a cool ally NPC not being us intimidating or helpful as you all think as a world? Literally happens all the time. Getting wombs can be fun, but I sometimes worry. Encounters aren't challenging or scary enough for my players when the roles are consistently not in my favor.

Yeah, that's just kind of how it goes. That's why all of my characters are fucking goofballs. I remember specifically, I mean, I think he was always kind of a joke, but I did want him to be a little bit more of a badass. Was there was that character that bloodhunter Isaac in... Oh, yeah. ...older mour, where Fiya, or no, no, no, it was a Zirk and Hank were like briefly working with him

and you guys were pretty quickly just like, all right, dude. He just wasn't hitting enough, he just wasn't doing it out, and it's just like, I'm sorry, I can't roll good. It just doesn't, it's always the problem with like NPCs sometimes too, where like the players are like talking amongst themselves,

and then you'll kind of like forget that the NPC is there. Yeah, hey guys. Oh, right, where are you? So yeah, you can always just play it that way. Yeah, I think in general, you know, it's not a problem that an NPC, you know, isn't badass, it ends up just being funny, and you kind of don't want NPCs to be that badass NPC, you know, isn't badass, it ends up just being funny, and you kind of don't want NPCs to be that badass anyway, because you want the game to be about your player. Like, we're talking about with if he is super badass.

Yeah, just having like a spare die. Super badass NPCs showing up, unless they're just there specifically to sacrifice themselves. Aren't always very interesting. This episode of NADPOT has brought to you by Bird Dogs. They're a company that makes pants and shorts, so no matter where you fall and the age old battle between the two, you can rest assured that Bird Dogs has you covered. Now we all know when the legwear war begins and we're forced to choose a side, it's gonna be difficult. Luckily Bird Dogs has made the decision of which pants and shorts to buy a little easier. Bird Dogs stretchy khakis are designed to

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That's birddogs.com slash pop-off or promo code pop-off for a free Yeti-style Tumblr. You won't want to take your bird dogs off, we promise you. Okay, that's it for me, go team pants, and enjoy the show. Okay, well let's keep it on NPC legs for a little bit. We've got Brethren Blev writes, What's a Good Way to come up with interesting friendly NPCs? I'm good at the evil and gray morality characters, but my flat out good characters always fall flat in my game.

A flat out good NPC. I think like just somebody that either like has something to offer your party, somebody that like wants to help. Just like let them, let your party walk all over and a little bit of, yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. Much like we were talking about with like, building a town or a city or something,

like giving them like a funny quirk. Yeah, I'm like that. Like I'm trying to think of like the NPCs of years, Murph, that we've latched on to. It's mostly like, it's mostly like, the shitheadsersmurf that we've latched on to. It's mostly the last time a shitheads, honestly. Yeah, we do. I'm trying to think of like,

somebody like Jane, for instance, is maybe like a more traditional, like, good character than like a Pender Green, who's just an insane person. But like, but Jane has, Jane's quirks are that she's very, by the book in a funny way. Like she,

spoiler for end of campaign one, I would assume most people listen to this, I've heard campaign one. But when she and moonshine hook up, Gina writes her like, I think you know. Yeah. Like, I think like, you've landed on it. It's like, you have to find which flavor of pathetic they are.

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's something that, even the characters that are high status, there is like a low status thing about them or something like that. There's like a funny human thing about them. So I think an instinct could be just like, I want all of my good guys to be these righteous, awesome warriors and ultimately that's not very relatable or, you know. And even, I mean, you guys, I don't know how much your characters like him, but we all like characters like Ren and stuff that's just kind of a shithead.

So having, and you guys ended up having to work with him and stuff and it's fun. They do tend to be like the more fun NPCs to work with anyways. Yeah, people who maybe aren't, wouldn't be your friend, but you're on the same side in a specific conflict. You know what I mean? So if you have, even in eldermore,

there was a character that there was soation that was pretty similar to to Ren, but he was the nicer version, was just kind of completely oblivious to how much wealth he had and stuff. And all he cared about was Dressage. So he's just kind of, you know, kind of a strange dude, but ultimately was just like,

do you want to live in my house? That's okay. Yeah. Just like somebody pathetic with something to offer. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think, Carldon makes a good point. I was just like, you know, this isn't real life

where, you know, friendships aren't transactional, but in T&D, friendships with the NPCs are kind of transactional. Well, this is fun for me to hear you know, friendships aren't transactional, but in T&D, friendships with the NPCs are kind of transactional. Well, this is fun for me to hear because when I think of NPCs for Hot Boy Summer, I've never once tried to make a good one. All I'm ever trying to do is who will prod the group

to start fighting with each other? That's ultimately, like, they're, you know, we're all telling a story together. Yeah, yeah, NPCs are story props, just like characters are story props. And also say, like if you're looking to like make an NPC that you want your characters to interact with like for a long run, like make somebody that you like playing, make somebody that's comfortable for you to play,

and then like give them to your players and don't be afraid and don't be upset when they just like ruin your life. Also, you know, having a character that's like a bard at a tavern or something, give people bardic inspiration. Yeah. That's just helpful without being gay. Barred stealers. Yes. Without being gay breaking somebody that gives them

potions or something like that. Uh, battle masters who can give people an extra attack. Right. Right off the bat. Artifisters who might be able to tinker with their shit. Yeah, yeah. It's like if you want, I think more kind of Han Solo-esque characters are probably more fun to play and more fun

to meet than like a Luke Skywalker-esque character, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you're going into a town or something like that and some little like Goblin Dude or something has, I always keep saying little Goblin Dude's because I've got really. Really you have to do it with all the little boys.

I know. But if you have goblin era, if you have like a sneaky little dude that just like ran into a potion store and stole a bunch of potions and runs up and it's just like, cover for me, cover for me. And then you have to lie to a guard.

And then that little, that little dude for this now. The little dude gives you potions to be like, this is for covering for me. and then that little little little little little little little little little little little little little

little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little little Yeah, yeah, adoptable. Cowards are also really fun. It cowards are fun and you can do, because you can be an up-calored without being a bad guy. That's what I was gonna say.

You can have really good people with good intentions, but if they're scared, then the party gets to be like the heroes who are like, okay, okay, we're gonna help you out. Right. Yeah, you can be like, oh, I saw somebody kinda get dragged off into the woods and I don't know what to do about it.

You know, just, you can have people with flaws and even if they have flaws that might, typically, you know, when someone is shown as a coward in a TV show or something that usually make them also evil, but it's like, somebody could just be a coward and yeah, like I'm saying, like, they could just be scared. In a fantasy world, it's so easy to be a coward. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, I'm saying like they could just be scared to in a fantasy world. It's so easy to be a coward Okay, let's steer this NPC do

Towards murky or waters. I came up with that one on the fly. Thank you so much. Wow James F. writes I'm a a first time DM for a longer campaign, and I'm about to introduce a character who I want to inevitably betray my player. Oh! Do you have any advice how I could make this NPC especially lovable so it shatters him even harder? Whoa, interesting.

I'm trying to think of who I've had betray the party, and number one is Galad, and he's not very lovable at all. Interesting. I'm trying to think of who I've had betrayed the party. And number one is Galad, and he's not very lovable at all. Yeah, well, it's tight to someone's back story. Yeah, that's it. That was really good. Yeah, it's tight to people's back stories are good. This all kind of loops around to the previous thing,

or it's just like if the NPC is like super helpful, like literally if they just, because Galad gave me a sword, so it's not that true. Yeah, that's right. I like this guy. Like literally if they just, because glad gave me a sword. So it was like, that's true. I like this guy. Many mentors are always really good for betraying. If someone comes along with a piece of advice or tutelage that one of the characters has been looking for.

Right. I think helping the, I mean, much like what we were just talking about of just like how to make a likable NPC. Ultimately, this is the same thing you want to do is you want to make a likable NPC. And for instance, you could have it be completely unexpected. So you have the coward who's like,

someone was killed, someone was killed at the bar, man. And then you find out that that dude was the murderer later. You know what I mean? So you can flip it, you can have someone who is super low status that then turns out that they were pulling the strings all along, that's an option. Another way to sort of hide the fact that somebody is going to betray the party later

is to have them be helpful. If they're giving party inspirations, if they give somebody a weapon or an upgrade or something like that, that's ultimately going to be more of a smokescreen. Oh, you're so right. That's gonna be more of a smokescreen than just being like, they're good, they're good guys.

Look at this paladin, he's good. That's not helpful. There's also like so many ways to like phrase, NPCs backstory that make it sound really sympathetic. Yeah. So it's really taking like what's the actual bad thing they're planning on doing. Now how do I write that in a way that makes them seem like the victim?

You know? Or they could, I mean, they could fully have a sympathetic backstory and just their way of solving their problems is against whatever the party is going for. You know what I mean? It's just they've lost everything and they're not going to lose anything else. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's just like I must protect this town or something like that.

But picture that in a goblin voice. Yeah. I'm not going to lose anything else. Yeah. Sally, I stole everything from you guys. I trolled so long my bananas. No, it's just the more of my bananas. It's time to come back. come back. Come batters up.

We've got that's good. Come batters up. Okay, okay, we're gonna fire through. Han asks, hello, I've been DMing for a while, my party is getting up in the levels and one thing I'm always trying to figure out in regards to encounter balance, how often should I be knocking people unconscious? I feel like knocking players out makes encounters feel more urgent and can lead to some really cool character moments, but I also don't want to constantly be playing whack-a-mole and

demoralize my party by constantly having someone down or take the stakes away from someone being at zero and making death saves. Totally. Yeah. I think there's like multiple ways to make someone unconscious and by that I mean take them out of the battle without like physically knocking them out. Okay. You know, it's the classic like Spider-Man thing where it's just like, ah, there's a burning building over there, but this train is derailing over here. Which when you choose Spider-Man, yeah, yeah, I get more options. Yeah, I think, I mean, we've talked about this

and our show has evolved to a lot of our combats. If they end up being a mortal combat where people are trying to kill each other or something like that, There usually is another objective. You know what I mean? It's just like we're trying to get beyond this castle wall or something like that. So then fighting is just a byproduct of you got caught

while you were trying to climb the wall. And that makes it so the stakes aren't just that everyone's trying to knock each other out. The stakes are whether or not you're found. You know what I mean? And that that fight can be interesting. You know, a bunch of higher level characters that are just a bunch of a couple of guards and knights because during

the fight some of those knights are doing dash actions to run to go blow a horn to bring more people like that. You know what I mean? So there's tension there without it having to be like, okay, I need to do 200 damage to this barbarian to finally get him down when he's raging. I think that's a great call, is that like making an objective that is external from the HP of the characters is a way to have stakes and like that feel as urgent as someone getting knocked out.

Yeah, just in a lot of our recent combats and I won't spoil campaign three because that's a little fresher, but like, you know, we recently had a thing where you guys were being chased. Before that, there was a thing where you guys were chasing somebody. And then before that, you know, there was like a- Especially with Saul as a monk.

Oh yeah. It's so fun. It's a great way to... Then there's an encounter where somebody's trying to steal something from you guys. Then there's before that, there's a boss fight. And that's the one where people are getting knocked out. But before that, it was a sneak mission.

And it was trying to get in and everything. Yeah. God, I love a sneak mission. Yes, sneak missions. Probably my favorite part of the game. Yeah, I think my favorite part is gonna sneak mission goes wrong. Yeah, I think my favorite part is gonna sneak mission goes wrong Yeah, I mean that's yeah Parker writes how do I elevate my descriptions? I constantly feel like I have absolutely no detail for my setting or for my

Combat oh interesting well you got to be careful with your descriptions because your players will instantly latch on to one thing What do you mean he's got a little hat? I said, Helm, I said Helm. I said Helm. I said Helm, you fucking dickheads. I said Helm, I swear. I want to try and steal the helm. Okay, fine, he's got a hat on it in the helm.

I have a plus 12 to slide a hand. Okay. Yeah, I would say if you're struggling with descriptions and stuff, definitely right up ahead of time what the characters look like, or like Emma saying before, or like called to her was saying we were like,

draws the characters and stuff like that. I would, you know, if you're not a great artist, print out monster so that you can kind of look at them and describe them, it's kind of that simple. Yeah, so then you can kind of, like you're not having to contour the image in your head and then describe it. If you have a little picture,

then you can kind of just work from that. Yeah, I think there's also like, don't be ashamed of like just having a PowerPoint presentation where you're like, this is kind of what work from that. Yeah. I think there's also like, don't be ashamed of like, just having a PowerPoint presentation where you're like, this is kind of what I was thinking this character looks like. Or like, this is kind of what I think this location looks like. And you throw up like kind of a reference picture or something like that. There's also a lot of monsters include a description.

Yeah. And then like, I would say, use those adjectives liberally. Yeah. They're there to take something off your plate. Yeah, and I think just in terms of making combat sound a little bit more like interesting or something like that. Once you thought about it for a little bit,

you start to get the hang of it, where it's like instead of just being like, okay, you attack and you miss, or you attack and they block it or something like that, it's just like, yeah, you go and you swing your sword forward and they do kind of a backwards hand spring and jump back. And you say something like that for a character that's like a monk or if it's a big character like a giant, then you show their strength.

You say like, you go, you swing your sword and you see he catches it in his gauntlets. That sparks as soon as it hits. Yeah. This can also be a conversation. You can ask your player like, okay, like, what does that look like? What does that look like? Oh, that's good advice as well. That's excellent advice, because then that doesn't put all the improv on you.

You're like, what does that look like as you swing your sword at this person? Yeah. D&D is all about getting that yes, dude moment. Yeah. You're like, your player describes something you're like, yes, dude, that is absolutely what happens. Yeah. You really get an amped and like going back and forth and getting each other hyped up. Yeah. I think that's fantastic advice because a lot of times. And also, you'll be guaranteeing that you're doing exactly what the player is excited about.

Yeah. Also, there's something almost, I don't know, it sounds almost like medical or something. It's when people are just saying things that they're reading from like their stat sheet. If somebody's just like, I use the dash action and then I'm going to grapple them. It's just like very kind of boring and even just changing a couple words.

Instead of saying, you dash after him and grapple him, if you say you run down the hall and tackle him, that's just more interesting. Yeah, oh, that's interesting. So just pick it out of D&D speak, essentially. This is kind of related to, I read this question, but I did not flag it, so forgive me to the submitter. They were saying, when I'm in combat I'm very very focused and I'm

having a hard time role playing within the combat the DM was asking that question yeah I mean yeah it's just tough it is tough and I would I would definitely suggest you know we were talking about before if you're prepped ahead of time if you've got your initiative sheet, I even roll initiative for characters ahead of time, often. Really? Yeah, so they're already on the stat sheet. Yeah. If you know that they're gonna get into this fight.

You mean like monsters or? Yeah, yeah, so I'll have them already printed out. And then if you've got all of your monsters printed out, if you've got your sheet already filled out for initiative, if you've got the damage for all your characters already down, that leaves everything open. Would you say that reviewing a monster's abilities ahead of time would help you roleplay more so that you're not having to read them on the fly?

Obviously, that would be an ideal situation and there's gonna be a lot of times when you're just whipping a monster out. But do you ever do you ever do that? Do you ever like be like, okay, I'm about to have a session. Last minute, I'm gonna like review what this monster can do. Yes, definitely.

I think knowing your monster as well is helpful. But then also just taking a moment, I think sometimes people get caught up in the fact that, you know, around is supposed to only be six seconds or something like that. But that's just getting too much into the weeds. Ultimately, when it comes to a character's turn or an NPC's turn or a monster's turn, take a beat and feel free to roleplay in that moment. Yeah. Like we've talked about if your BBEG is going to give a speech or something, do it in initiative and have it,

it's like at initiative 17, you see the death night begins walking towards you and sort of swinging his sword as he gives this speech or something like that. I also think you can take more of a pickup basketball approach and just be kind of like shit talking in character. Yeah, that's true. It does it downbow.

Just like kind of like chat with your players. You know, in the same way, it doesn't have to be purely story driven. Just kind of like, you know, egg them on, shit talk them a little bit like in the persona of a villain. Yeah. And just like see if that'll,

because that'll keep everybody talking. That'll keep the action moving while everyone's like looking at their spells and stuff like that. It's gonna be a lot of like gaps and pauses. So like, you don't fill it. Yeah. That's great.

Yeah. I also think, yeah, compartmentalizing stuff makes it a lot easier to stay organized. So if you're feeling overwhelmed while you're in a fight and you're like, I'm not doing much role play, it's like leave it till their turn. And then when it's their turn, be like, what is this character thinking?

What are they doing? And that might make it a little bit easier. If just like, I'm not gonna worry about this fire giant until we get to him in the initiative order. And then that happens, he'll say something. You know what I always like to, and because the Parker was asking about like, elevating descriptions

in combat, I think that when it's okay, you know, called, well, it's your turn, giving a little bit of a description to put them into that moment, being like, you're standing here, two people are down, you're covered in blood. I think anytime that you describe like, for me as a player, anytime you describe, like, smells or tactile sensations, I feel like that is very evocative for me. So I think that, like, sometimes when you're like, thinking about describing visuals, that can be limiting

whereas if you start to be like, okay, the stench of this sulfurous, infernal fireball is stinging your nose. The flame flickers off of his tiny hat. Yeah, also the smell of tiny hats burning. Yeah, the smoke from all the burning tiny hats stings your eyes. Oh my tiny hats. Stains your eyes. No, my tiny hats. Oh, my tiny hats.

We are running out of time, but we have so many more questions. So I'm going to try and do two quick ones. Cool. Okay. This is from a section called Trying to Itemize. Please advise. Cool. Carly C writes, how do you dull out cursed items without feeling like a Jackwagon?

They're fun and interesting story-wise, but of course it can seem like handing them to a PC is less than a gift. Do you discuss it beforehand or hope it goes somewhat well? You know, I think that we did one in campaign three, and I think you just... You make them an offer they can't refuse. It should have some big upside or it's something that's you know a character could take along with them and then it's something that could help them in a in a bind. You know what I mean? I think Carly is maybe even asking like is it okay to give them a cursed item that they don't know is cursed?

Definitely. So, listen, you know what, there's an investigation check for a reason. Yeah. Yeah, I think they can, if people want to investigate it or something like that, maybe they can find it out, but it's okay if people are just like,

yeah, I see a bunch of treasure and I scoop it up, it's definitely okay to have something in there that is, you know what I, maybe here's what I would suggest. I would have a cursed item have bigger implication in the story, or like a bigger impact on the story. If you just put something like, there's an item that's called like a bag of devouring, that's like the opposite of a bag of holding

that just eats everything that you put in the bag. Yeah, that's not very fun. If you guys are just like, I look in my bag, all of it's gone, the bag was cursed. It ate all your shit and you're just like, okay, I'm supposed to be like this. Yeah, yeah. But if a rogue gets like a cool dagger

and then later on, you find out that it was cursed by the God that the main evil paladin is working for, that feels a lot cooler and that's like a fun thing for a villain to hold over their head. So I would tie it into the main story, and as long as it feels like a fun story beat, I think it's cool. Based on what you said, it also makes me think that cursed items are more satisfying,

even if it's not tying to the main story, if it's a true reflection of the place they found it. Yes. Like if you're in an arch phase bed chambers, and you steal it from them. And you steal something like, well, there's fame, magic there. If you're in a necromancer's garden, well, you know, the plants here might have some tricky profits to them. Right.

Yes. And as you said that, I got Octopus's Garden in my head, but necromancer's garden. The necromancer's garden. That was the first draft. That was the first draft. Trying to write it right now. It's not.

Can I have a read? Yeah. That's good. It's not. Can't have a read, yeah. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, that's great. Yeah, I think like purely just like making it something that they need to help their friends and help the story along.

And there's no other way to succeed. Just like wedge them between a rock and a hard place with the big head. Yeah, that's the only way out. I feel like if you're gonna give just a straight up cursed item, then it should be there. For character growth, for a character who is perhaps being a bit too liberal with stealing things, right? Yeah, I feel like you should, with cursed items,

you should go really small or big. You know what I mean? There shouldn't be anything in the middle. If it's just a funny cursed item that is just like, a thing that fills with ale, but the ale tastes like shit or something like that. That's fine and that's just funny. Yeah.

And, or you do something silly, or you do something big where it ties into the main story, or it opens up a new story track where it's like, yeah, you've got this archfay that's mad at you or something like that. That's all really cool, and that gives characters room for character growth versus, you know, the bag of devouring eats your plus one sword.

She's like, okay. Yeah, and you just randomly got that bag in like nowhere important. Right, and it even makes sense that it would be there. I think like one of the most basic cursed items, there's like a living suit of armor in the DM's guide that's like if you put it on, you can't take it off and it is kind of just like eating away at you.

If you present that as just a suit of armor that you can't ever take off and it just kind of sucks, that's bad and that sucks, but if there's like a demon inside of it, that's like, I will consume you. That becomes cool. Yeah, yeah. You've got em' rules.

Yeah. Okay, great. Let's finish it off with praise and mistakes, miles, right? To the respected DMs of NADPOT, I am a long time forever DM, who currently runs four campaigns on an... Yes, I have run these four campaigns, each anywhere from two to five years long,

set in a homebrew high fantasy setting with encroaching eldritch threats. I have each party at different continents and set to handle various invading threats from the outer planes. I will, however, be having a number of these individuals over this summer from a graduation celebration of sorts and from undergrad. Should I or slash how would you suggest bringing them together to play

a canon one shot of sorts considering that all of them are a varying levels age groups and experience levels. I wait any wisdom and guidance that you may provide lots of love miles. Yeah. The level thing is tough because we talked about this on the most recent D&D court is not this exact thing happened, but somebody brought a friend to another one of their games and the other player was like a way higher level. Yeah. And that's always tough, So I would definitely encourage you to make sure that whatever the goal is of the session,

A, there's not going to be PVP. You don't want the high level players to just pick on the lower level players. And maybe if it's not a traditional fight, right? Because in a traditional fight, the varying levels are going to be really, really obvious. Oh, you do so much damage, and I'm a little bit. Yeah, you could also, I don't know how much you want this to impact the entire world. It's a canon event. A canon one shot of so many.

Okay, so maybe you have, I feel like I think back to the watcher in campaign one. You've got a rogue god or something that maybe draws them into a dimmi plane to like feast on them or something like that. So like maybe some people are leveled up, maybe some people are leveled down to get like more of like a mixture. Like and it's like, oh, it's kind of like a one time event in this special space. I'm thinking of like a cue from Star Trek, like a mischief is God trying to like use their power for their own. Like to shift the cosmic balance.

I wonder about a little heist. Yeah. A little heist feels like a way to get people of different levels involved without the disparity of levels being so obvious. It also feels fun that like everyone had to dispatch someone to like, there's one item. It's not like, it's not a magic item

that someone's gonna wear. It's like an item that they have to keep out of someone's hands, right? Yeah. So it's like a little heist that they all go on together. Extra-alotions 11. Yeah, that feels like it could be a good way to struggle age range, different age ranges and levels and. Yeah, I think catering it to like the lower level party,

maybe doing an encounter that plays to their strengths. So like I'm saying, like there's a rogue in the party, or if there's a bard in a rogue or something like that, reward that kind of play, maybe more than if the other party has a level 12 barbarian. It's just like the level 12 barbarian will figure out a way to fucking help. They're just strong as hell.

They'll do it. In general, heist, it's like there will be a little bit of combat. There's going to be a chance to sling, but it's never expected, like, oh, we're gonna go through like, enter like huge combat for that. Yeah, yeah, I'm picturing like a three-ring circus style thing where you've got like, you know, people at the front gate battling, and then you've got people like working on

like, hacking the security system, you've got multiple grids going. Yeah, that's a good idea too of splitting the party or taking this huge group and bringing them all together, but I think having different objectives that need to be done at the same time is a really fun way to handle that. Even if you didn't wanna do heist,

even infiltrating some sort of gathering, it feels like everyone can find a way to infiltrate and be like a little bit working together. I would even work in a mechanic that's like, hey, these two rituals or something are happening at the same time. Oh yeah. So, you know, there's, I don't know, like level eight party in a level 14 party or something.

And the level 14 wizards just like, cool, I'm just gonna teleport over to the other thing. It's like you already have a mechanic in place, maybe that's like cool. If you try to do both things, you get a level of exhaustion or something. I take a moment to think of something more elegant than that solution, but like essentially punishing players if they try to really multitask, to make it so that the lower level players do have something to do. So people, higher level can't just go one shot,

the easier ritual. And there is a spell. I took it for court of fame flowers that basically makes it so that everyone can be talking to each other. So if you have a heist and you're putting the lower levels in like maybe an easier area and the higher levels in a harder area.

It's a spell, I'm gonna look it up right now. Or maybe you even have it that it's literally a mission where the higher level party needs to protect the lower level party, but it's someone in the, you know, it's almost like Lord of the Rings. It's almost like literally Frodo's the only one that can hold the one ring. Oh, that's where it's at.

And it's a higher level. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Frodo's the one that's got to get to Mount Doom. So it's like, maybe you do that. Maybe the lower level party gets some kind of cursed item or only that person is able to finish whatever job it is. And that puts the higher level characters in a place where they're like, okay, well,

we've got to get this, you know, level seven rogue into this fire giant encampment. How are we going to do that? And then everyone gets to solve the problem together. The spell is called telepathic bond. It's a fifth level wizard ritual spell. So you could always have an NPC being like, I'm giving this to you guys. Yeah. And so that then there's still role play throughout because everyone's essentially got an earpiece to talk to each other. Yeah, that's so good.

Also, if you're a part of this party and you're going to this event, you need to be buying so many cakes and pizzas for your friend who's putting this together. I know, this is a heroic event. This is so fun, Miles, and I think that everyone's gonna freaking love it. And it's also gonna be really interesting.

I would give them some time to share information with each other because it's probably gonna blow their minds to be like, oh, you're from this part of the world and that's happening there. We're having this, this is going on where we are. That sounds truly so fun. It sounds very sick, it sounds super fun. Yeah. Set aside the evening, this is gonna be a long one.

Yeah, this is gonna be an awesome one. This is super rad. Yeah. I would definitely The biggest thing is definitely just make sure the lower level parties are important. Yeah, yeah, that's like kind of a big thing Okay, and with that we're gonna wrap this one up, but we've got a lot more questions A lot more questions a lot of good ones too. We're not closing the screen We're not closing the screen. You can still squeak behind if you're over our patreon We'll be in the squeak

You can head on over and check out more behind the squeaks over at patreon.com slash napa that's any ddp. Oh, D don't say yeah Please don't do it. Please don't do it. That's terrible terrible terrible stuff Anyway, we've got some stuff to plug. We've got a bunch of live shows. So you head on over to nadpod.com slash live to get tickets. We are going on tour September, October, November. So check us out in the fall. Be on the lookout for that. In the meantime, anybody else have anything they'd like to plug? I would like to plug or shout out Robert, who sent the old kingdom by Garthnik's box set to our PO box. I've been reading Sabriel. I'm assuming that's how you pronounce it. That's

how I've been pronouncing it in my head and I'm loving it. It's great. That's right. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. Yeah. I I would love to plug my friend Raj, who I mentioned before, who's been DMing a little limited series for me. He's on Instagram and he does really fun art and comics. You can find him at Raj, Brugamin on Instagram. That's Brugamin with two Gs and two in's. And he DMs with an orb.

He does have, yeah, he's the orb DM. That's very cool. If you go on TikTok, he's at the orb DM. Ha ha ha ha. And with that, we're gonna wrap this one up. You can follow us on social media that we're mirror man I use, at T.H. Murf Sme, at called these call-doll and at e-actors Emily

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