Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 113 - Interview with Shane from Venture Forth

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

I was introduced to some of the wonderful members of the Venture Forth podcast a couple of months ago and I was taken aback by the quality of the podcast they produce and the extremely high quality role playing they consistently perform.  I knew I had to interview one of the cast members and Shane O'Loughlin was gracious enough to give me some time to talk about Venture Forth and conflict in a game world. I think you will find their podcast is a master class on staying in character and good role playing.  Check them out at: Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNl1hOaZiXruwLE8Ct1NNNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ventureforthdnd/?hl=en Twitter: https://twitter.com/ventureforthdnd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ventureforthdnd Listen to their audio-only podcast on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/venture-forth-a-d-d-podcast/id1554397630 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6kQvkZd5XwbaYSJzoYvxbS #ventureforthdnd #rpg #DungeonsandDragons #DnD

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. If you fail a dice roll, that does not mean your character is a big, dumb, stupid idiot. It means something in the world has conspired against them to ruin their day. And those things are what make for compelling storytelling. When you have a major failure as a character, it's the most fun you'll have digging yourself out. it's the most fun you'll have digging yourself out. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 113 of the Taking 20 podcast. If you thought in the cold open, that doesn't sound like Jeremy.

You're right. It's someone a lot smarter, better looking, and hell, more talented. Wait, why the hell isn't he doing this podcast? We have a very special guest on today's episode. If you're a regular listener of mine, you know that I hardly ever do interviews. I'm very selective about who I interview because I want the people I bring on the show to be interesting. Have perspectives on the table that you'll find valuable. I believe I found one such person in Shane O'Loughlin.

Shane's a cast member and CCO of the Ventureforth podcast. It's an RPG-based narrative podcast where DM Ethan Ralphs leads the adventures of Shrya, Olma, Flynn, and Shane's character, Kellek. Shane, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. That was a lovely introduction. Well, you're very welcome. Every now and then I can fake having a modicum of professionalism. So I guess to start off, tell me a little bit about yourself. I am an actor,

composer, sometimes filmmaker, and veteran nerd. I'm a big gaming enthusiast and a lover of fantasy. So you're composing for the podcast as well? I am. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's very exciting. Yeah. The old Arthur C. Clarke, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. People who can compose and create music out of nothing, to me, that's they're reaching into a hat and pulling out a rabbit. Congratulations. Here's a nice, beautiful musical piece. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it still seems like magic to me i relate to that the ventureforth podcast obviously has unique and creative music that kind of plays in the background of a lot of the scenes is that shared duties as far as uh composing that or is that all you that's all me wow all the music you hear on the show is generated

from me you you are slumming it coming on this podcast. Let me just tell you that right now, because I do not have one-tenth that level of talent. So I apologize in advance. You're doing great. So you mentioned that you're a geek and you love tabletop RPGs. How long have you been playing? So tabletop, not that long. I think about five or six playing um so tabletop not that long i think about uh five or six years

of proper tabletop experience i played a little bit when i was younger but nothing remarkable my my entryway into this stuff was uh the the game dragon strike which is kind of like a baby version of of the oh wow i have not heard that name in forever yeah that's a nice blast from the past yeah man i remember very well that that weird claymation-y VHS that came with it. Super fun game. So that was my entryway. And then I read all like the Forgotten Realms books. I was a big Dris Darden fan.

And so I experienced it through that. And it wasn't until more recently that I found people that ran games. Because it was just like a culture that like wasn't prevalent where I grew up I think the like D&D, DGRBG culture I think in in general it's probably grown a lot since then anyway um but yeah I when I finally did find people to play with it was very exciting. Which is which is amazing when you can find that group um yeah I played I played a little bit in college um I will admit, I think I'm a little grayer than you. And so I'll just be polite and say my teeth are a little longer.

And I played a little bit in college. Same kind of thing. I mean, just kind of dabbled. Battle Tech, Mech Warrior, a little bit of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, that kind of thing. So going way back to there. And the groups that I used to play with, it's one of those things where we all scattered to the four winds, and we all happened to way back to there and the group that i used to play with it's one of those things where we all scattered to the four winds and we all happened to move back to the same town not the town that we grew up in so you run into one and next thing you know it's like oh

my gosh we have got to game some more yeah that is that is a fated uh convenience happy accident and i will take it yeah you mentioned that you kind of started on like the baby version of Dungeons and Dragons. How did you get started? I mean, did you have somebody that you played with? I mean, I played with my brother. I played that with my brother. I have an older brother, five years older. And then he sort of like got more into music than fantasy and nerdy stuff. And I sort of stayed in the nerdy vein. So it wasn't until, uh, more recently, uh, that, uh, actually my wife's brother, uh, is a DM and he ran us through some Pathfinder stuff. Oh, awesome. This is awesome. And then when we moved

to Los Angeles, uh, we did a, a make a film in a day, like a 12 hour, um, uh, filmmaking sprint. Uh, and, um, two of the people we met during that, one was an actor and one was a photographer were both D and D nerds. And the photographer ran a homebrew that really just like blew my mind. Like it was the first time I'd done a proper homebrew and where it was like just a full on sandbox and where I really like worked hard on my character sheet beforehand and like wrote backstory stuff. And I,-on sandbox, and where I really worked hard on my character sheet beforehand and wrote backstory stuff.

And what he did, which was cool, he gave experience points for backstory. Ooh. Which is, for me, I like doing that anyway. So I was ready to... He stopped giving me experience because I did too much. Here's my 19-page backstory. Please read it all.

Yeah. I wish it was as short as 19 pages. Oh, wow. So that really opened my eyes to what a cathartic experience it could be and the sheer joy of it, honestly, um, outside of just the gaming element of it. So you mentioned previously you'd played Pathfinder kind of when you, when you ran across some people who played, uh, you currently, obviously you're playing Venture Forth, which releases once a week on Tuesdays.

Do you play any other games besides Venture Forth these days, or is that pretty much chewing up your time? Uh, it's the main, it's the main thing that chews up my time for sure. Uh, I do, i have a homebrew game that i run um uh me and uh russell who plays flynn on the podcast uh we our whole group our whole team uh when the clubhouse app came out we started a dnd club on clubhouse and through that russ created this um this savage isles universe was kind of a West Marches-style game. And he and I developed, like, did some of the world building together.

And so since then, that's kind of, we just honestly ran out of time. And so we haven't been able to maintain it as well. But people still play in that universe, in that club. And I took the world building Russ and I did, and I started running a homebrew game of my own. And we meet, like, once a month. But that's the other main game that I run but that's is that also 5e that's also 5e yeah but you know there's nothing wrong obviously you've got your main campaign that you that you're in but it is nice to kind of branch off a little bit every now and then kind of clear the pipes so to speak to get in a different type of character's mindset yeah

it's good it's good practice it also, what's nice about, like, I like that I get a chance to DM because it makes me more aware of, like, what Ethan has to go through and a little more sympathetic, you know? And so it gives me perspective. And also you get to see, like, what your players do in response to stuff.

And you go like, oh, okay. It's all very informative. Yeah. Absolutely. That's very true. Well, I'd like to transition over to talk about the podcast, if you don't mind. Great. Yeah.

Tell me about the Ventureforth podcast, just in your own words, how would you describe it? Man. So we are a bunch of performers. We are also friends. We wanted to tell an improvised, immersive, cohesive story while still having a good time and having some laughs along the way. That's sort of like how we started what we do with Adventure Forth. Amazing. Very good. Ethan is kind of your full-time DM. Is that correct? That's right. That's right. We, for a while, we in prep, we used to do like one shots and occasionally Russ would DM and I would DM. but Ethan's the one who most comfortably fits into that role in our team. And he likes it. Sure. He'll complain, but he likes it. Well, I hope so. He's behind the screen now and there's no coming back. You cannot escape.

No, no. But, uh, we mentioned earlier that you're the chief creative officer of venture forth. Um, what are the biggest challenges that you have in that role? A lot of it's just time management, because we have a group of really creative people who all have great ideas. And, you know, great ideas always require a lot of hours of work. So part of my job is to pick our battles and try and align everything that we're doing creatively with what our our sort of mission statement is around um telling our story and telling that story well and then uh the other aspect of that is you know i do i edit the show and i write the music for it and so i'm also sort of in charge of the tone and style of our of our show so for example uh ethan plays a Warforged character

by the name of Thaddeus. And Ethan was like, hey, I think it'd be really cool if we could put like a filter on the Warforged voice. And so like one of the negotiations I had to have was, because that's easy to do, right?

But it's like how much, how far do we push that? Because what I ended up doing, and I think this is successful um is is just a little bit so you can still hear ethan's voice and then you can hear a little bit of the filter and that way it's the same as if at the table uh ethan just put his voice through a filter so we can still tell that it's ethan speaking but we can hear this like extra element that gives us a little bit of that of that sauce a little bit of that immersion because that's

that's the line we thread is always like we we want it to feel really immersive, but we also want it to be true to the experience of playing the game, which is like, it's fun and it's improvised and it's messy, you know, and it's like, we're at the table. There's that component of it that's really important to us. Sure. And you mentioned that it's messy, but one thing that I noticed is that it seems to be edited very clean. I mean, very rarely do you hear a lot of ums, ums, ums, or anything like that. It looks like a lot of that gets, gets, you know, taken out of the, edited out of the, the final product. It really makes the, the conversation move along at a good speed. good speed. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, we, for what it's worth, I don't edit out that many ums and uhs. You know, we have, we've had a lot of practice and I mean, we do um and uh, but it's always in character. So it feels true and it feels organic. And so that's the, you know, uh, there is a line to walk there. I, I obviously do edit things and, and there's, um, there's stuff where it's just like, where we'll have to be like, wait, how old do dwarves get?

You know, sometimes we'll have those kind of discussions and that gets cut out. But ultimately, yeah, I mean, that's part of what's special about Ventureforth is that we really care about that level of focus and that level of pacing and detail. Yeah, and it definitely shows in the final product that comes out. Even though when I first looked at it, you it, I was kind of expecting some of the other Let's Plays that I had heard, and when I looked at some of the episodes were 1 hour and 38 minutes or whatever, I went, oh my god. This is going to be an hour 38 of people making inside jokes around the table, and that's not what it is. It is very much, I mean,

the best way I can describe it, it almost feels like a theater production very tightly edited and formed thank you so much my my heart my heart is swelling with joy to hear you say that that is that is very much our goal well it definitely comes through it uh the the quality of you know one of one of the questions i'm going to ask you in a little bit is about staying in character. But the ability of you and your castmates to stay in character, to respond in character, is probably some of the best I've heard

of any Let's Play. I'm very, very impressed, and I wanted to make sure I pass on compliments to the entire crew. You guys are amazing at doing that. Thank you. That's very kind of you to say, and i will relay that but they will be thrilled so tell me about kelek um where'd the idea for kelek come from uh so kelek uh he's a half drow grave cleric um uh which isn't really part of part of our whole

focus is like that kind of stuff isn't that pivotal it's more about you know how do they fit into this narrative? But I mean, building these characters, it's always like a series of dominoes, right? So I started with, and this is very funny to our more experienced tabletop listeners. I was like, okay, we're doing this podcast. I will play the cleric because that's the unsexy class. Right. And I'll take that burden on. I'll be a heal bot.

I'll be a healer, you know, whatever. You know, naturally, like I'd never played a cleric before and clerics are actually like so cool and so fun and very sexy like they're a great class uh so that just happened to work out for me but so that was why i started with cleric and then of course um once i learned that ethan's world elbor um uh the homebrew world that our show takes place in, is set in this holy war. It's this crisis where the old gods have been usurped and there's these new gods now and they're not doing a great job. And so there's this big conflict and there's all of these really heavy themes that we're exploring. And there's all of these really heavy themes that we're exploring.

And so I thought, you know, I'm a cleric. Well, what better opportunity than to play somebody who's like smack in the middle of that conflict in every possible way, really. And so he is a cleric that was the most devout cleric of one of the old gods, Fimir. And our story begins where Calic has lost his power that Femir used to give to him. And so he's having this crisis of faith and he gets power elsewhere. Oh, wow. So, yeah, it's an interesting – he's this – I wanted – for me it was important for him to have this like sort of central dilemma that I could sort of explore throughout the story. Absolutely.

Especially with the loss of the god that – god or goddess that heipped that can you know throw a cleric into a tailspin next thing you know they're playing it as a fighter that's all you know because that's all they know right so how much of your personality is in kellick um so uh a decent amount i would say um kellick is a lot cooler than i am you know he's he He's a lot braver and stronger. He's a very powerful person. So that's definitely nothing like me. But I took elements of myself and amplified them. And that's how Kellick came to be.

So, you know, for example, he has a very strong sense of justice. For example, he has a very strong sense of justice. He has a sort of like stiffness and rigidity and like sort of curmudgeonly quality to him. And he's also, I guess, soft, soft hearted. He has a sort of a sort of inner kindness that's protected by this like grumpy shell. And those are all those are all things that I that I definitely am, that i have cranked uh to a higher number uh in the in the design of him and i think that's what a lot of us do is that when we start making characters we make them as as aspects of ourselves that we wish we could turn up to 11 i guess it would be rare for somebody to basically say okay i want to start with myself and make a shittier version of myself to play in this world you know

let's see what happens there oh look i'm shorter and weaker and fatter and uglier this is gonna be great yeah for sure i mean in some ways kellick is shittier than myself because he's he's way way less compromising than i right he's a much more stalwart kind of person so did you or your cast mates have any theater background or anything, uh, coming into this? Oh yeah. So we are, um, I think Ethan might be the only one of us who isn't, who isn't directly from a theater background. I know, um, uh, Ross, he plays Flynn. Uh, I don't, I think he doesn't have a degree in theater the way that, uh, both, uh, Cameron and Rebecca do. And I also have a theater degree, but, um, but all of us are actors uh with the exception of

ethan who i think you know from the podcast is pretty damn good actor so oh yeah i grew i grew up doing theater i started uh very young production of all my sons at uh university and i uh have done theater since i was a little kid i noticed that when i listened to you know those episodes of the podcast your your cast mates speak in character a large percentage of the time, a very large percentage of the time. How do you keep Kallax's personality consistent week over week? So keeping the character consistent is pretty, once you develop it, it's pretty easy, I find, anyway. And maybe that's just practice you know um but i think uh but as part of that is all the backstory stuff like when you and i don't think

you need to have you know pages and pages and pages uh doesn't hurt but you can uh but if you sort of like set up the the different dimensions this character could be. There's this old acting exercise called an adjective star, where you do a little five-pointed star, and you put an element of a personality on one corner of the star, like vengeful, right? Would be maybe one. And then on the other end of the star, you put something that's kind of the opposite, but also true, so compassionate. So Kellick is both vengeful and compassionate. And the idea being like within five minutes of knowing this person, you might see every element that's on that star.

Oh, that's neat. And so, and of course the top one doesn't get an opposite, but it's just sort of a way of like sort of separating the character into these kind of like dynamic elements. So doing things like that, doing sort of character exercises helps you sort of establish those things. And then once you've got that sort of built in, you start to find yourself in a physicality when you're playing the character. It becomes pretty, pretty second nature.

that at the time I despised the man because he made us do these exercises over and over and over and over again. But now I'm very thankful because when I think of doing, for example, a very feminine character, everything is in and close and everything kind of just is not as expressive if you're being somebody demure

or polite or shy or something like that. And so I'm thankful to him now. If I could go back in time 15 years, I would basically say, Jeremy, shut up and listen to this man he knows what he's talking about that star exercise is very interesting it's not something that one that I'd heard before that's very interesting it's it's a fun thing to examine it also you also just end up looking at the sources for a long time which is fun just like there's a lot of different words so you had some people

with theater backgrounds you know people who were very good actors. What made you guys want to start a live play podcast? That's a really good question. We, I think for me, it was this, I was the progenitor of this thing, I guess, ultimately. Because I had met Russ and we had played together. And then later Russ introduced me to Ethan and we played like the very first prototype of Elbor of Ethan's world. And at the time I was like, you know,

I had discovered D&D and TTRBGs in general and how, how sort of like honestly like a life-saving the practice of these things can be, how, how, how truly cathartic and communal and fun it was to play. And then, of course, I found out soon after there were these shows. People were performing D&D and putting it out into the world. And I thought, that is an amazing place to do all the things that i love like i get to be a super nerd i get to be uh a gamer and like you know roll die and get critical hits uh and i also get to like perform as an actor and write as a creative person and have this community that is so like vibrant and

and kind uh around me so it was this uh so I saw that as the opportunity and I really felt driven to do that, to step into that field in that way. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I think it's paid off because the quality of this podcast, I mean, is above just about every other peer podcast that you have out there. So that's one of the reasons why I want to make sure, you know, people listen to my podcast. Obviously it's a little bit different because I'm coming at it from a nerdy aspect, but I'm trying to draw people into the hobby. That's my goal. If one person listens to one of my episodes and says, you know what, maybe I could try to be a DM. That's what I'm going for. That's all I'm going for. Obviously, you're gaming for a podcast. How is gaming for a podcast that's being recorded different than

gaming with just your friends around the table uh it's a lot it's a lot harder uh but it is but it it's very rewarding as well i'll say um because obviously uh when you're playing with your friends if you forget uh an element of your backstory and then later on you remember it it's much easier to like put it back in when you're with your friends because you're just like hey actually i forgot about this can i go back and you know whatever right there's a lot more sort of leniency on that whereas the show like it has to have for us anyway we're we're sticklers a certain integrity there's there's a um our show is important we take it really Uh, and so there is a little bit

of pressure to be like, okay, let me make sure I remember everything about my character, uh, so that I react appropriately in this moment. Uh, and so that we can like maintain the through line of this story. Um, that said, I have gone back and played more casual games and like, I, I prefer our, uh, the way we play our podcast. It's such a sort of galvanizing experience. It's higher pressure, but it ends up in these really sort of profound, satisfying moments. Now, here's the question that I'm dying to know the answer to. Where do you want Ventureforth to go in the future? Man.

As a podcast, as a company, however you want to answer that. What are the various things like everything, you know, that's like, that's a, there's a, the sky is the limit is kind of where we come from with that. Um, uh, we, I believe very much in the style of our show and that we have a story to tell. And so to me, the, uh, that's everything like, like venture forth. The podcast is our, is our like sole focus, you know? And so I really want,

I, that will not change. You know, I want, uh, that vessel to be the, the flagship of whatever we do in the future. Um,

that said, I would love to see these characters appear in other mediums like games and animation. I would love to see an elbor source book you know i would love to develop uh all kinds of cool things within uh this community this really cool tjpg community around this this thing that is so important to us so meaningful to us and that's and it's amazing i mean one of the things that i'm a big believer in is that just because others reach the goal that you want to reach before you do doesn't take away your ability to do so.

So, I mean, yeah, you see the critical roles and they've got, as of the time we're recording, they're about to release an animated series, which I think every one of us that plays would give a right arm to have something like that. And, and what, what's more common, right? Then like something happens in a game and you're like, I could just see it in my head. Like even your most, uh, uh,

sort of mundane game, uh, where people don't even know the rules very well. And you're all just kind of like still cinematic moments will happen. And you're like, this could be a movie. Like, so that is,

uh, I think there's, um, uh, a beauty to that. And, um, and I, yeah, I agree. I think in my life, you know, just to sort of speak to it, I have often been one to say, oh, I'd really love to do this kind of thing.

I'd love to make this kind of movie or do this kind of performance or write this kind of song even, you know? Oh, but somebody's already done that. So I won't do that. I got to find something that's just my own. song even you know oh but somebody's already done that so i won't do that i got to find something that's just my own and and i think there's more degrees uh of originality to that than i had presupposed and that's that's our model venture forth as well as like we're not the same as critical role we can occupy a different space uh at the same table and uh i think there's there's

room for everyone at the proverbial table in that way. And that's fantastic because there's so many home games that a lot of times people who want to start a home game, some players who've never played before, they expect every single game to be like Critical Role

or to be like Glass Cannon or Dice Camera Action or Relics and Rarities or whatever and every single game is is its own niche that you have to carve out yeah and yeah we would all love to have the success that critical role would but you know what that looks like or venture forth like you mentioned it could be a source book it could be an entire series of adventures that gets published it could be spin-off podcasts it could be in one of a number of things that could be an entire series of adventures that gets published. It could be spin-off podcasts. It could be any one of a number of things that could be

part of a Ventureforth empire going forward. Where can listeners find the podcast, by the way? We are everywhere you get your podcasts. Ventureforth colon a D&D podcast. D ampersand D. We're also Ventureforth D&D

on all social media, if you type us in you we should come up i think we've we've navigated that well enough that ventureforth d and d will bring us up wherever you look yeah you didn't do something stupid like i did which is name yours taking 20 and then i get about five episodes in and realize that oh there's a whole other channel also named taking 20 just without the word podcast in it so oh man well i mean that's just 2022 right that's just 2022 right that's just where we are yeah you know what are you gonna do modern era yeah well there's there's another venture forth podcast i think it might be about uh camping or something

people start listening to this like they're not in character at all this is yeah should if somebody wanted to listen to the podcast do you feel like they need to go back and start with episode one or can they pick up pretty close to where they are now? What, what advice would you give to P to brand new listeners? I think it depends on what kind of person you are. I think, uh, uh, if you are like me, you probably want to start from episode one because you have FOMO and you're like, I don't want to miss any little scrap of information that might pay off in the future um because you're a maniac like me uh but uh i think if you wanted you could probably pop in at the at the most recent

episode and you would be able to catch up pretty quickly we take pains to make sure that the story is very clear and that we are very descriptive and so you don't get lost in in the location or the tone of what's going on uh and also, if you would like the middle ground, every 10 episodes, I make a recap. It's like part clip show, part narration to sort of keep the through line of the show prevalent. So I make them every 10 episodes, so you can listen to Harkenback 1 through 4

and then start on episode 41 if you want it. Gotcha. Well, I can tell you that when Ethan first reached out to me and the very first episode I listened to was episode 37, and it took me maybe half an hour to figure out, okay, here's who the characters are, this is the quest that they're on, this is what they're doing and where they are.

Looking at the map of Elbor, for example, that's published out there, it was very easy to figure out, oh, this is where they are on the continent and this is where they're, okay, I got it. Nice, yeah. The resources that you guys provide do allow you to catch up very, very quickly, even if you wind up missing some episodes along the way. That's our goal, but it's great to have that affirmed.

Well, I can affirm it, definitely. Thank you. Well, there's three topics I want to talk about if you have the time. One of the questions I would have is advice for new players and DMS. And that's kind of the focus of, of my entire podcast. What piece of advice do you wish you'd had before you ever started playing RPGs? This may seem a little basic, but it's one of our sort of founding principles in venture forth. Um, I need to be constantly reminded of it is lean into failure is that it's like TTR

PGs are not about winning uh they are about storytelling and if you fail a dice roll that does not mean your character is a big dumb stupid idiot it means something in the world has conspired against them to ruin their day right and those things are what make for compelling storytelling when you you have a major failure as a character, it's the most fun you'll have digging yourself out. So I think that is to have that pressed upon early on is a good thing. I think so. One of my favorite shirts that my wife bought me a few years ago, it's a giant picture of a D20 with a natural one up and it says bad rolls make good stories. Nice. Yeah.

And it's something that I've really embraced because we've gamed with people where they fudge the die rolls. You know, they don't want to fail. They don't want to have that natural one. They don't want to fail a skill check or an attack roll or whatever. Just because you roll a natural one or you fail a lock pick or, you know, a disabled device or whatever your game system uses, that doesn't mean you're an incompetent moron. It just means that the circumstances around them trying to do that just weren't conducive to success. It's one of the most profound insights that I think dice-rolling RPGs have,

which is that you can have, in real life, right? Let's say I'm a way better guitarist than I actually am, and I've spent my whole life dedicated to the craft of guitar playing. That does not mean when I go to play my gig that it won't be cold outside and I won't break a string or the guitar tech won't have set up the PA correctly or all these other factors that can contribute to you messing up your, your strum pattern or your, whatever your, uh, uh, your technique that you're, that you are really, really good at. There are so many other factors than just being good at something.

And I think that's like, that's sort of a beautiful thing to, to have, to be reminded of. Um, and so I've, I've always enjoyed that element of rolling a natural one. And you're exactly right. And don't get me wrong. I mean, it that element of rolling a natural one. And you're exactly right. And don't get me wrong. I mean, it's an amazing moment around the table. Well, back when we used to game in person. These days it's on Foundry or Roll20 or whatever online tabletop we use.

Somebody rolls a natural one in a critical moment. It's a dramatic, fantastic, oh, everybody's like, oh, what are we going to do now kind of thing. Yeah. It creates a mountain in front of you like and that and that's so exciting so ethan's been your dm for the for venture forth how would you describe ethan's dm style and i can hear ethan squirming in his chair as I'm asking this and as a follow-up to that what lessons do you think new DMs can take from the way Ethan DMs man yeah that's a good question I think Ethan is an amazing model if you're just starting to DM because I think uh and I think this is a cool uh thing honestly I think there is a mythos now probably mostly due to critical role but you know uh and and also um i think role 20 um these things i'll i'll create this sort of

mythology where like dms are these like magnificent wizards who create immaculate landscapes and have extensive vocabularies and uh they create this winding world that you'd experience as a player. Right. I think that's really cool and exciting and I really enjoy it. But I think Ethan does something that is not that, that is equally awesome. And that is more that Ethan would rather you take ownership of it and make something that's your own. Like if I were to go to Ethan and say, hey, this place on the map here, this town over here, do you think it would be possible for there to be a shop there where this character from my backstory sells their wares? Ethan would not hesitate for a moment to put that in. There's a 99.9% chance that he would be comfortable implementing that.

Or even, let's say, Kellek is a cleric, right? And I have an idea about the goddess uh famir ethan's gonna work with me on that there's not gonna be like no that this is how famir is and this is how you have to like this you'll have to now reconcile that as a player that's not how it works when we swing our swords most of the time we decide how we swing it what our approach is with an attack when we cast our spells, we describe how they appear. And so those things are really satisfying as a player to get that kind of ownership. Ethan is not a grand wizard, but almost like a coach who's just like, let's go out and get them, guys.

Like there's a much more kind of egalitarian aspect to it. And I think for new DMs, it's a good thing to witness because you don't have to know everything. You just have to be like a collaborator. That's it. Like you just have to kind of have fun ideas and be open to alternate perspectives. There was a time when I thought I had to have all the details. You know, everything, everywhere they could go and who works in this shop and how many people are in this particular inn and that kind of thing. and how many people are in this particular inn and that kind of thing.

These days, when, for example, one of the groups that I'm DMing, we're running Pathfinder First Edition, we're going Skull and Shackles. And so they enter a new inn or town or what have you, and they say, oh, is there somebody here who can sell horses? They sure do. What do they look like? And let them tell me, oh, her name is Tina, and she's a half elf and she's about five foot three and and that kind of thing it's like you know keep keep it going yeah tell me tell me what tell me about tina yeah yeah that sounded dirty when i said it that way and i didn't really mean it tell me about tina more about tina

sorry oh wow that went a direction I was not anticipating. The other thing is you mentioned that Ethan takes suggestions about what's in certain towns and what's in certain areas. In the episode that I literally listened to less than an hour ago. Wow. You guys mentioned that you wanted a, oh, I'm looking for a place to buy like a leather cloak. And he goes, yep, there's one right across the street yeah that's great dming because it's one of those things where okay suppose he wrote it out where yeah it's a block down and you make a left and and what what does that gain you absolutely nothing what purpose does it serve yeah yeah

besides like some kind of integrity that the dm thinks they need to have in their in their universe and it's like but why what you know yeah i mean that's that's a great tip for dms out there give your players a voice let them help you design your world so that way the burden's not all on you so that's that's what ethan gets out of it is that he's got four other people that can help design his towns and continents and governments and everything else. One of the things that I've mentioned that I'm very, very impressed by is you and your cast members' ability to get in character, stay in character, and bringing a voice or affectation to the table. What advice would you give new players who are nervous about doing that? Because so many people think, oh, well, I'm going to try to do a Scottish accent and it's going to suck. Yeah. I mean, that's a real fear. I completely relate to that.

You know, like I do, I do an Irish accent on, on venture fourth and that was a huge, you know, I was up late the night before, uh, practicing trying to make sure I would get, I would get it. Okay. And you know, if you listen to the show from episode one to episode 42, it changes a little bit because I get a little more comfortable with it. I think the thing that gives me comfort and that may help others is that dialects, real dialects are inconsistent. Any person, if you ask them to say the same word a number of times that pronunciation will change it also is very context dependent um it depends on who they're talking to and so all those things are mean that you have room okay to experiment and to uh to find that character's voice you know so nobody so if anybody

especially i mean we're in literally a fantasy world where you can throw a fireball out of your hand why can't you have an accent that doesn't quite sound scottish that's a good point so so so it's your character i think you i think go go for broke not to take this down vulgar road but that same improv teacher that i that i talked to you about earlier one of the things he talked about was when you get up get up on stage especially and you have to do an accent or an affectation that's not your own it's natural to get in your own head and start getting worried about it and that kind of thing and he said the phrase and the three words fuck your fear yes your scottish accent is going to suck but sitting two seats over is somebody trying to do a slightly middle eastern accent and it's really not working so it's okay yeah yeah i mean we're we're there you know

presumably you're playing this game to experience something new you know and so why why not take a risk well there's one uh one other topic that i wanted to talk about which i had been uh shooting some emails back and forth with uh with your dm and one of the things that he mentioned was he thought would be a good topic for us to talk about is this concept of conflict within a game character character conflict whether that comes from differing alignments or tasks or purposes or goals or whatever what sort of in-world conflict has kellick had during the venture forth podcast man so much okay we you know um we're big believers in uh conflict being a huge

part of a good story i mean that it sounds silly me saying it out loud because it's just it's such a clear it's so obvious right but i think there can be a symptom in ttrpgs of uh after the first couple sessions your party becoming this like kind of conglomerate mind where it's just like, well, we kind of, we kind of ironed all that stuff out and now we just all agree all the time. Right. And so we, as part of our sort of creed, conflict is, is important to us. And we try to maintain those boundaries and try to explore, okay, where, where do these

characters fall in this thing? And so we have a lot of like inner party conflict um uh we i we don't really do a lot of alignment discussion because i think those are good uh like when you're building a character if you're looking at alignment that's a good like demulation of like oh here's a kind of person i could be okay the reality is alignment's going to shift as the game goes on anyway and it's it's kind of going to be gray area more or less um so that said kellick is this like very very sort of he he might even be lawful good you know he's that kind of he's it's very important to him to help people and to to stop evil and he has he has a pretty sophisticated view of the world and that's driven by this kind of simplistic moral imperative and so that results in a lot of really complex uh conversations uh that are that get really

stressful really really fast uh and a lot of that revolves around too um our game is a world where the gods are real and present in a very tangible way. You know, you can call upon them, their power, and it appears in your hand and visibly, you know? And so then the sort of old Epicurus quote of like, whence cometh evil?

Uh, when we have these all powerful gods is very salient. And that's a major question of Kellogg as more and more of this world is revealed. And we see all of this sort of sadness everywhere and there's this disparity between populations. So that's a huge element too. There's sort of a global conflict in Kellek's mind. Yeah, I kind of started on the character-character conflict, but conflict between character and aspects of the world. You know, you mentioned, you know,

the gods are dead. That's huge. Have you ever read the Dragonlance series? Oh, I haven't. I will confess. My brother and sister were big fans. No worries. There's actually an event that happens 350 years before the start of the first book where all the clerics are taken out of the land, gone, none. And clerics of false gods rise up. And so it would create a tremendous amount of conflict for these new gods to be trying to establish their domains, to try to establish their worshippers, if you will. I can see where that would, especially as a cleric, that would create a huge amount of potential plot conflict there. Yeah. Yeah.

conflict there yeah yeah i mean and it's all um emphasized by this sort of war that's taking place uh because on one hand the old gods are dead like actually or at least displaced it's you know we haven't found their corpses so to speak uh so the evidence is hey if you guys want access to you know power that can heal wounds and cure disease and all these things, like you guys should probably convert to the new gods. But if that's a point, if that's actually causing this huge war and creating all this death everywhere and chaos, then maybe it's better off that they don't. So there's this whole other degree of it that it's really interesting. It's very fun to explore. That is, that is very, very interesting, especially i think conflict you know whether you're talking character character conflict or character world conflict really drives those interesting dramatic moments i mean you mentioned kind of players but our

characters becoming a hive mind it is very very tempting to basically make your character just this amalgam of everyone else where we all just kind of become this slurry of gray as we're all kind of blended together. No, I think it is good to have differences, conflicts, disagreements. The way that we sort of facilitate that, I mean, part of it is just our design. Our characters are very well structured,

so everybody kind of knows what their personality is, and we have these very clear differences. One of our characters is a little girl who has insane power she's a sorcerer she's she's just got this uncontrolled power that it can can become very dangerous and the morality of like handling a child who is like an atom bomb uh it can become this huge conflict of like how much do you, who bears the responsibility for the destruction caused, you know, and that.

And my favorite episode of our show, at least in the early phases of it, is I think the 18th episode where we first really come face to face with the war and we all sort of take part in this big battle. But only two of our players

actually ever draw blood. The rest of us are going around. In my case, Kellek, he was just trying to disable things, right? It was just like casting Bane and trying to like prevent people from hitting each other, like doing whatever spells I had at my disposal to prevent harm from either side. And then Rebecca's character, Ol olma went and found a burned down building and pulled a body from it and so there is all of this stuff happening in initiative that wasn't combat necessarily and then we had this you know lofty discussion afterward where

we all had to be like hey we're actually you know in dnd it's part of it is a power fantasy you're playing a character that has a lot of capacity to impact the world you know and dnd it's part of it is a power fantasy you're playing a character that has a lot of capacity to impact the world you know and so our characters had to take a moment to be like we can affect this war and like what we did today will matter in the future and like we need to consider what that means right and i think that's you know a salient point of conflict and a fun discussion it was really it was really really fun we also have we have somebody who like grew up in one region and so he's very like attached he's like whatever that region believes i'm gonna go with that like those the other people are the enemy so why wouldn't i fight the enemy like and so it's like oh that's that's spicy stuff that's what's i don't know we

really enjoy that that's good role playing and one of the things I think that is a challenge for a lot of people who are not as well-versed in acting is separating character-character conflict and player-player conflict. Have you ever had to deal with, not necessarily Adventure 4th, but any other games that you've played, have you ever had to deal with conflict between players, not characters?

Absolutely. Especially if you're really committed in your role-playing, it's kind of bound to happen. And it also, it matters, in some of the stuff we've done Venture Forth, some of our sort of rules that we play by are built to protect ourselves from that kind of thing, because it is something you can fall into because tensions are high. You know, the stakes are high. It's pretty meaningful stuff. And so we really get into it sometimes. And so one of my very first games with Rebecca, like literally when we first started playing D&D together, I caught lycanthropy. And her character was like pinning me down to get it cured. And I was like, I don't know, maybe I want lycanthropy.

I don't know what it is yet. So we had this huge fight about it where she beat me on the strength check. And so I had to get cured. And I was like so upset. And, you know, we sort of just like talked about it. And part of what we do in Venture Forth now is we have little systems built in that we touch base on those things and say, you know, let's say we just had a big conflict on the show. We had like a 10-minute fight amongst the team about whatever subject is going on. We'll make physical gestures.

I'll give Russ a pat on the shoulder or I'll squeeze Rebecca's hand. Just little gestures to be like, I'm here to support you as a player. I'm fighting you as a character. We're all in this together. Or when we take a break, we go like, hey, I love you guys. Just so you know. We do those things, these little ways of touching base so that the conflicts don't escalate out of good uh the world we're in that's that's a great tip too as far as making sure that you do have those

player player interactions that are so distinct if your characters are disagreeing the example i always think of from my past is um my brother-in-law plays in he and I have played in a number of games together. I don't know why, and I'm sure a psychiatrist would peel the layers off this onion and would have a field day, but he and I get along really well. Our characters never do. We are always at each other's throats.

We always hate each other. We always basically have completely different worldviews. Wow. But it's so much fun to role play because he'll be a barbarian i'll be a sorcerer we'll have completely different you know views of the world he threatens me with a great act he's like do you really want to go here i mean i'm yeah yeah okay if you really want to go there that's fine i'll dimension door just kind

of keep fireballing until you die i mean that's if we want to go there let's go there but uh as soon as that little scene ends or whatever, we kind of get together. We make sure we laugh. We tell jokes. We do something like that so we can kind of break that tension

so hopefully it doesn't bleed over into player-player conflict. Because unfortunately, I have seen that happen in games where character disagreement led to player disagreement and invariably, maybe even the group

breaking up. I saw that happen in a GURPS game a thousand years ago. Oh man, yeah. Those are the main questions that I had. Do you have any parting thoughts on Ventureforth, live play podcasting, conflict? I guess I would just say conflict. It's been a more recent pursuit for me personally. I'm somebody who's averse to conflict and I think it's a cool way to explore it, honestly, through role-playing. But it's something I'm exploring in my day-to-day life as well. And also with Venture Forth, we're a team of people. And we all have, just like our party, we all have different ideas on the best way to approach things. And so we don't fight, really.

But we do have conflict and disagreements and stuff we have to work out. But we do have conflict and disagreements and stuff we have to work out. And I think it's important to be said that there is a line between hitting the eject button and just saying, I'm not going to have conflict, so I'm just going to back out of here. Or I'll just give up my perspective and just let other people do whatever they want. And dominating and bulldozing everyone. There is a line to walk. And that's difficult to do. But you can do it.

That's something I am learning. Like I've literally only just learned that that is a thing you can do. And I think I would just encourage people to do that. And why not do it in D&D? Of course, I think I just thought about is my wife doesn't play a lot of RPGs. So very rarely does she get involved. My son is now getting to the age where he can. Awesome. But what I was thinking about you and your wife having in-game

conflict, I can kind of see everybody looking around the table going, is this a real... Is this born out of something, or is this just their characters? Everybody play along. I can't speak to whether or not that happens. It doesn't seem like it does, but that very well could be the undertone.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate, Shane, you taking time. I know you're busy. This is your dinner time. I greatly appreciate you taking a little bit of time and answering some questions and coming on the show. I'm so grateful. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Your questions are very insightful. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to it. Uh, it's, it's, it, your questions are very insightful and I'm, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to talk. Well, thank you very much. Um, venture forth releases every Tuesday and can be found where fine podcasts are available. iTunes,

Spotify, YouTube, and on social media, venture forth D and D on Instagram and Twitter. Shane, it has been a privilege and a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks so much. If you'd like what you've heard,

please spread the word about this podcast and give Ventureforth a listen. I think you and your players will learn a lot about role-playing and will be treated to a great story to boot. Please tune in next week when I'll continue the lore series, and I'll probably fanboy a little bit

over one of my favorite pieces of Dungeons & Dragons lore, the Cataclysm of Kryn. Before I go, I want to thank our sponsor, Airplanes. It's dangerous to tell airplane jokes because they really, really need to land. This has been a supersized episode of the Taking20 Podcast, Episode 113, Interview with Shane from VentureForth. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.

The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube media production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.