Episode 105: How To Create Your Own Monsters for D&D: An evening/morning with Rick of Vechel Fantasy

Brian Wiggins  0:02  
This is the hidden roles podcast

Brian Wiggins  0:07  
by dungeon masters for dungeon Master's. We are going to give you a peek on our side of the table. So you can see inside our notebooks and what we've been doing on our side of the screen. Now let me roll my warranty. Okay, check my table. And my guest this week is

Rick Vechel  0:30  
Hello, my name is Rick, can I run dungeons dragons and dungeon dragons for kids?

Brian Wiggins  0:33  
Now, fair warning. If you are a player in any of my games for in bricks, games, and you listen to this nice characters, you've got there be a shame if something happened to them. Alright, so my guest today is Rick, from natural ventures. Am I saying that right? Is it vessel vessel?

Rick Vechel  0:59  
Yeah, it's a Dutch name. So a vessel is

Rick Vechel  1:03  
that I think that's the best pronunciation of it. But that again, it this is really a Dutch name. So I don't really know me to mind if it is a new form overseas?

Brian Wiggins  1:14  
Well, I want to I want to try to get it right. So we're going to do the rapid fire version, or the rapid fire questions. Now. As we get into this, this is the getting to know you part. So we already said what your name is, Rick, what is we said the name of the game? Well, you run d&d games. Do you have like a you said d&d for kids. So what is that? Is that like? Do you have like a specific thing that you're running? Or? Oh, well,

Rick Vechel  1:41  
um, a few years back school asked me to work out something that would help kids to get more into reading. And the thing that got me into reading word games and computer games in the first part, like Final Fantasy, but later also dungeon dragons. So I just stripped d&d of most of its content. And I've recreated a game called the adventure Handbook, at least in Dutch, I'll do an on the book. And I've been using that to help kids get into reading and building their own stories for about two years now.

Brian Wiggins  2:12  
Oh, that's a very cool. So So you basically you took you took what that What? What's already existing and you just stripped it down and made it a little bit easier to their grade level or?

Rick Vechel  2:24  
No, the DND I started recirculation and that's, that's a bulk of a game. Yes, we already a fifth edition with it's a lot more easy to get into. But it's still a lot for kids, especially when you do have to do it in Dutch because I work with kids, kids ages six and up. So language barrier was one thing but also just the magnitude of the rules. So I went to the SRT, the open gaming part of the indie game, what is the essence of d&d and it comes down to three steps. A Game Master tells you what you're seeing or where you are. A player says, This is what I want to do. And a dice tells you if you succeed or miserably fail. And these three steps is just what I started building again to bring more child friendly version. Okay, but also as a stepping stone for the future geeks. Chris, let's be honest, if these kids become 13, and they have some more English knowledge, get the player's handbook get to playing there you go.

Brian Wiggins  3:19  
So there's not a there's not a translated version into Dutch.

Rick Vechel  3:25  
No, no, it never really, really, at least if I remember correctly, there was a translator, one of the second edition advanced dungeon dragons. But then again, I'm I was born in 1989. And I was too late for that version. So I have no active memory of that even existing.

Brian Wiggins  3:45  
I actually I find that shocking. I thought they would have done that. But, um, well, to that end, what was the first tabletop role playing game that you ever played?

Rick Vechel  3:55  
Um, I think it really wasn't d&d. There was I was 13 years old, a friend of mine came back from a convention with his dad. And his that was a great Warhammer fan. Okay, and he brought along the third edition starter box from dungeon dragons third edition. Anyway, and he came up with it. But this isn't a working thing. I don't like this. So he gave it to his son. He got a friend group of friends including me around a table, and we started playing d&d.

Brian Wiggins  4:25  
Okay, it was so is that that was that? Is that third edition for you? Or is that 3.0

Rick Vechel  4:29  
sortition. Okay, half year later, 3.5 came out. So then we switch to 3.5. We didn't have the book. So it was just oh, this new version will get these books.

Brian Wiggins  4:39  
Not. So yeah, I started with second edition. And I think I skipped I think I might have played a couple games in third edition and not even realized it but the more I hear about third edition, it's like man that seems to have gotten really bogged down with

Rick Vechel  4:58  
it's really gotten out of hand. With more than 500 books that you could choose from board, and you could think stacked very easily third edition so you could have an armor class over 70. level five. Every level eight and up wizard and cleric were just the ones that could change the world. And foreigners. Were only there for the HB, I guess. Oh, so it was really balanced if he gave sortition also this this ruling Gods super, super five hydro back in 50.

Unknown Speaker  5:36  
Yeah,

Rick Vechel  5:37  
you'll be annihilated.

Unknown Speaker  5:39  
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Brian Wiggins  5:40  
It should be a little bit of a challenge. I remember. I remember in second edition, they did have something with once you reached level 20. Like then it was becoming a quest for immortality. And they, you were trying to become a god. And there's a whole thing that you were supposed to do. And I just never got that far into it. Because it just seemed like so much.

Rick Vechel  6:03  
Yeah, but the scopes go really get a lot bigger than most campaigns run to level eight to 10 it doesn't get any higher than that anymore. Yeah. And that's a good thing.

Brian Wiggins  6:15  
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz Yeah, then then wait, because that then starts getting very overpowered. And it can become a little unwieldy. Actually, why keeps keep the game challenging for people? So is d&d your favorite? Or do you have another favorite system that you'd like to use?

Rick Vechel  6:31  
I've also played some Call of Cthulhu, and major ascension, as well as a few games that are very few of vampire masquerade. But d&d was my first and foremost love, and I stick to that for a lot. I also knew that one the best, so it was easy as you make sure that you can fully focus on that one. At least as a dungeon master. Yeah, player, I enjoy a lot of games. But I usually mostly enjoy the aesthetics of a game. I like the gritty bars. I like horror stuff. Okay. And d&d is not really a suitable game for that, at least, from a lot of theatres perspectives. Yeah. So if I can get into Call of Cthulhu game on there

Brian Wiggins  7:17  
I go. Okay. So how did you end up making the transition to being behind the screen from being a player to being the person running the game?

Rick Vechel  7:28  
The ambition to play more is to blame. Well, we are a group of friends. So it was like 13 or 14 years old. And I want to play more often, but you know, life got in the way people go to different schools and everything. So I just want to play more. And yeah, there's one thing you need to play and that's Dungeon Master players, but no dungeon masters like that. I'll do it. And I kind of rolled into that starting with age 15 I think okay, that age is where we started to Dungeon Master what a few very bad examples in the beginning. But I got a better longer wait, I hope

Brian Wiggins  8:03  
I listened. We I think, I think back to some of my first campaigns and God, they were terrible. You know, just not and just yeah, cuz you don't know. And we didn't have such good examples now that we had, you know, we didn't have you look at you. You can go on to YouTube. And you can find any number of people that are running fantastic games. Oh, these are good things back then. You just had to figure it out yourself. And Yep. Yeah. What is your favorite monster as a DM? What is your favorite monster? Doesn't have to be one that doesn't have to be one to throw it. I'm just talking to you just like hobgoblins hobgoblins. Why? hobgoblins?

Rick Vechel  8:45  
Because they're smart. Okay, a lot of people think of hobgoblins like just the bigger goblins and just below the orcs. But if you don't love the hobgoblins there's a lot of technical work there's a lot of knowledge amongst this race that nobody really seems to really care or know about. There's usually a campaign setting called kingdoms kalamar that centers a huge hobgoblin kingdom and I love that part. And I would love to surprise the players with it. And of course, it's a low level enemy and at least in its basic form, so you can also work with for example, degree generals or you can just make them level as the level of progress as party does. Those who keep keeps him talent challenging. So that's interesting something to work with.

Brian Wiggins  9:34  
Oh, that's that's a pretty that's pretty cool idea. So it almost sounds like something like um, what was that? The The Lord of the Rings Shadow of Mordor game where you had the Nemesis System where like, certain characters, some of the orcs would actually level up with you. Yeah, I like that

Rick Vechel  9:53  
part. Also, usually, I have a few players in my groups that are also dungeon masters or have very casually read the monster manual. So I usually do a lot of re skinning and re flavoring just to keep them on their toes, not just know that some of them, they know what they're fighting. And even they say they won't or they won't let that knowledge flow into the character. It will.

Unknown Speaker  10:16  
Yeah.

Rick Vechel  10:19  
So, so of my party now, what level nine is my current highest level level party? If they see hobgoblin they know that isn't a one D eight hobgoblin. Ah,

Brian Wiggins  10:29  
I like it.

Rick Vechel  10:31  
It keeps them on their toes. And I love playing with it, especially with the low level monsters.

Brian Wiggins  10:35  
That's a really that's a right there. That's a really great tip for people just to because that you always hear that how do you keep the game fresh? How do you keep your players challenged? Well, this Yeah, level up the low level monsters who says that only the characters are allowed to get stronger, you know? And true. I like that. And that's for people who for the folks that are deciding that they're going to peruse the monster manual. Do Do you ever do they? Do your players have the monster manual at the table? Or do they do you the the do they do you the courtesy of not looking it up while they're playing the game?

Rick Vechel  11:17  
They say they do. But I'm pretty sure that some of them are posing d&d beyond. So I'm pretty sure that most of them will tell me to my face that they have not looked it up. Hmm. But at least one of them's only says I've looked it up, and you're not doing it like the Muslim says. And he stopped saying that, because he now knows that I've always been trying to surprise her. For example, also, I can also use a Frost Giant, for example, when you make it with a dungeon master guide into a medium character, and that's a great magical hobgoblin. Oh,

Brian Wiggins  11:51  
that's a really good idea.

Rick Vechel  11:53  
That's the easiest part for any Dungeon Master here to easily make a new Monster because making a balanced monster is hard. Yeah. The dungeon masters from Wizard of Oz did a lot of trouble making all these monsters for you. So we scan them for a part and it works perfectly. Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  12:10  
Yeah, that way, you don't have to worry about, oh, it's got too many hit points, or it's doing way too much damage. It's just, yeah, I like it. I like it. That's a really good idea. Um, Alright, so let's. So now we're gonna talk a little bit, because we've already started to get a little peek behind your screen. Let's go a little bit deeper. So when you start a brand new game, whether actually, I'd be curious as to what you do with the kids as well. What do you do with your session? Zero? What do you do? Like? What are some of the questions that you ask of your players? What is the information you need? When you conduct your sessions? Zero, however, that looks in preparation for a new campaign.

Rick Vechel  12:52  
That depends on a few things. First of all, is the dungeon master if you're starting with we're going to play this campaign? Or guys, we have this world. And we're going to create an adventure together. Because if, if a player made a character with an enormous background story, and for example, he went to a very, very happy go lucky guy. And I'm going to play for example, strads game.

Unknown Speaker  13:16  
Hmm.

Rick Vechel  13:18  
There's no happy and strong

Unknown Speaker  13:19  
Yeah, there is no okay.

Rick Vechel  13:22  
So first of all, the first is to guess what are we going to do? Are we going to create a game surrounding your backstories? And then how are we going to make those or garments? Are we going to want to run this campaign? Sophie thunder, whatever. So that's, that's at least for the adult games and these games that I that I run? That's the first question. They especially also come with, okay, what what do you guys want to what kind of level for example, in high fantasy to low fantasy do you want? How technologically advanced you want to play? From sci fi to lower the rings? To what kind of game do you guys want what kind of feel on data we get start with that character creation part. So everyone gets an equal place at a table from the same perspective. That's at least what I really find important because we like to have that story shine. And a story shines easier when the parts that are in the story are feel natural into that one. Yeah. So that's mostly about how we run d&d games from that point, that again, if I run a strat, then usually there are some restrictions already in place. What can you pay? What can't you play? And honestly, guys, this your framework. Tell him what you got. And let's get this on. And if I want the new kids on the other hand, I have made usually I just start with what kind of hero Do you want to be? Okay, yeah, and I have a few small classes were dark for them, for example, the warrior, but I don't really care if it's soldier or a Viking or a knight. They have the same backbone. Yeah. But then again, Labor is the key word over there because also have a lot less armor and weapon options, at least not standard ones. For example, every axe, every sword does the same amount of damage. So it's very easy to do not optimize to just be like, this is a cool guy, this is what I'm going to play. Let's do this.

Brian Wiggins  15:17  
So that's just to make a little bit easier for the kids.

Rick Vechel  15:20  
Not easier, but I want them to just go nuts in decade creativity, okay? No power building. If you're, you're eight years old, just go to just get playing, right. So I really wanted to get out of that analytics zone and more into just the creative fun part of the indie. Okay. So also, you can easily have a group, for example, with kids that has a soldier in it, and a ninja, and a knight and a Viking and a princess. And they together go on their most awesome stories. And I usually try to base my children's stories on children's literature. So they also if they love a story, for example, they can dive into it by reading a book.

Unknown Speaker  16:03  
Okay.

Rick Vechel  16:05  
That's cool. That's also the educational part of me that that runs these games.

Brian Wiggins  16:11  
So let me let me ask you this, because this is something that I've run into, when especially I have two groups that are brand new to d&d. One group we've played two or three times, maybe four times already. And the other group, I introduced them about a month ago to d&d for the very first time. And one of the challenges I always run into is when you get to the spellcasters. And just the sheer overload, even at level, one of the spells, how have you dealt with that with kids? Because if you're I mean, I understand what you're saying with the weapons. Yeah, it's like, oh, they're gonna optimize everything. But so do you do the same thing with the spell list? Do you really pare it down? Or how do you handle that?

Rick Vechel  16:50  
Well, if I, for example, do an introduction game, if it's for adults, teens or kids doesn't really matter. I usually, I already asked them. Okay, what kind of race do you think is cool? What kind of class Do you want to be in the class, for example, do you use a lucid chart is a flowchart thing. And I've just given that and I'll make sure they have their sheets. And if we start these games, I use color coded sheets, for example, red for attack information, yellow for abilities, and spells, blue for skills, and purple for hbn armor class. And I provide all the character sheets, what they need, also, the beginning, the first few spells, I usually don't pick out a few spells that give a little bit of a feel of the different possibilities. We have the firebolt, we have the major hand, we have the minor illusion, just to give them a few examples of what magic can do. Okay, and that's just so we can get the start going that they understand, okay, this is how the mechanics work. And now it's time to turn this character really into my own. And then we get to Bogota, and make our character version two. That's how I usually do okay, kids also with adults does really matter that in that regard, because we don't want people to just enjoy our first character needs to be something that they think Yeah, I'm that I'm cool. I think that's the most important part for me, at least as a dungeon master. Also, my first character, all man, a Dwarven, cleric, Morton, and I just saw him as a paladin, I just was constantly running into combat getting my ass kicked. I and my dice never really agree with that character. And his Warhammer was as good as knew if I hit three people in total, in all these adventures, I think that's a lot. But I still love that character. I love my Eric cleric. I really love him still, because it just was so enthusiastic about who I've created. And also when it comes to your first character, it's probably never the best that you've ever created. Because you're not sure what the rules are. Yeah, no works. Yeah. So the most important part is have fun. Have a cool one. So these never feel bummed by your character.

Brian Wiggins  19:03  
Yeah. I like that. See, I might adapt some of this stuff. See, I every time I do this podcast, I've learned such cool ideas. This is so awesome. So what do you do to plan a session? Are you Are you someone who has like copious notes? Or are you pretty much flying by the seat of your pants? Are you somewhere in between? Like what's what's your planning process? What do you go into a session with

Rick Vechel  19:28  
it? Well, first of all, it depends on the party that I'm playing with. Right? Because some of them are just unhinged. That's the most kind way I can describe it. Now. Usually, for example, if I run a module, I just know Okay, this is the module and I'll pick up to Forgotten Realms or wiki and make sure to have some more information about the area. Because as always, it all depends on where to character want to go. I usually also I usually translated as there is a story But the cameras on you guys, and the world is constantly doing stuff. But the camera is following you guys. And it's up to you guys to see where the camera goes, you're gonna get information or just going low out to the north, not knowing what that might be. And I think a lot of dungeon master will now be like, yeah, I noticed just people. Yes, yeah. So again, depends on what party does. But I usually make sure that at least I know what the world is doing, what is what is going on in the world. I just have them play around in a world, that's what I usually try to do if it gets my preparation apart. So usually within depending on how my holiday level is, and how easily they can travel, I have at least 60 miles of information about the region ready, okay, with some random encounters as well, depending on the area, just to make sure that I always have something of my sleeve of if whatever they're going to do. Then I got if they're really into a dungeon, for example, there's just to make sure to know every corner of that dungeon, I can only be surprised by the amazing and batshit crazy ideas my players can come up with. And that's perfect. Yes. So that's usually my preparation part. No two worlds, no one's revolving in there. I just follow the PS around.

Brian Wiggins  21:19  
Okay, I like that, too. Yeah, I think one of the when I first got back into dming, about four years ago, I taken a lengthy break from doing any kind of ttrpg. And I weigh over planned the first session, and I was like, Alright, I'm going to plan for every possible thing that the players could decide to do with their character. So I know exactly how to react. Because like in my head, I was running it like a module, you know, where the modules that go, if they do this, that you have this, you have this little sound bite, or you have this sound bite. And sure enough, five minutes into the game. All of that got turned on its ear because they were they did the the one thing that I was I didn't plan for and I learned my lesson don't you can't plan for the players.

Rick Vechel  22:06  
Just always be on the way. And if you have a partner that really needs that part. Like for example, I have some PC gamers that are usually just they're more used to Skyrim For example, when a PC will tell them, this is what you got to do have fun with it. Yeah. Okay. That's one part of it. And some people actually thrive, thrive with that approach. Yeah. And yeah, sure if they need that, that's up to them, but especially the planning part. Even with the group that I'm streaming, now, every Tuesday, I run I run the wonders. I plan, I plan way too much for them. Even now. We're playing now in on stream session 50 this tomorrow. But we've been playing for at least a year before we got into the stream. And I still have stuff prepared for my first few sessions that they haven't figured out yet. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, I'll just make sure to put that in my folder of things that I might actually have can use somewhere somewhere else in the future. But it's also the more the fun part. Maybe also ask the question back. Are you a DM that? Over prepares, or one that has to take frantically a lot of notes after a session where you improvise to where you get a note after the session is my experience? Yeah,

Brian Wiggins  23:24  
I? That's a really good question. I'm trying to think about that now. So I kind of I kind of do both. So I don't really plan the session the same ways that I used to. So what I do now is I have a list of NPCs that I anticipate that they'll be based on what their actions have been, I have a list of NPCs that they might be interacting with. And they've if they've interacted with them before, I'll have some notes on them. And I basically write out like five scenes that I'll present them with. And usually they only get to like two or three of them. But basically written not even written but have like the 5x for them to go through in a session. Cool. And just a brief notes because I know that they could the second day in interact with that they could completely turn it on its ear. And you know, like you said, the batshit stuff they come up with it's like, well, I couldn't anticipate that. So I don't try to plan more than just what that is I'm in the new game, the new campaign I'm running. It's in a homebrew setting. So I've been doing a lot of writing on my end, but I'm just as like world building, but I'm finding that for me it's more just it's a fun writing exercise. And it's like you said the world is still moving around. The camera just happens to be on the on the characters. So yeah, I've got I've got a whole bunch of like notes of stuff that I know that they're probably never gonna see. I hope that I can reveal some of this stuff to them at some point. But for me, it's been more just about the Kind of like you said, understanding how the world works. So they. So when they encounter something that I wasn't expecting them to encounter, or at least have some background like, Oh, well, yeah, this is the way things work here. So this is probably what would happen. And most of the session is me. flying by the seat of my pants, trying to make it look like I knew what I was doing the entire time.

Rick Vechel  25:29  
I fully empathize with that part. So yeah, exactly that I'm usually depending on the campaign. One, it really gives them a place of freedom of this is your sandbox, going on an adventure, and afterwards logic, and that's also my dm, shutting off protocol, just to make sure all the notes are organized. So I can, so I won't forget the details in the next session. Yep. So probably forget an embassy or two, they'll just happen just to make sure that I have everything lined up for next sessions. But also just to get my game out of the head out of the game afterwards. So that you can read a free before ritual.

Brian Wiggins  26:03  
Yeah, we I started doing a write up after the games kind of like, depending on my level of energy, either as a full like short story, kind of making a third person narrative, or at least some notes that I post, we, I started a subreddit for our game and have we have a wiki on there. And I've been putting those notes on there, so they can refer to it as well. And I'm also doing it because in our last campaign, I went nuts with the NPCs. And we had way too many not not to the point where the game wasn't fun, but I never got a chance to really develop many of them, there's one that I get, it did get a little bit of a chance to develop. But that was on me, because I wasn't keeping good enough track like that. And where I could have brought one back to play a similar role. I constantly brought someone new and said, Oh, this character, this character disc, and it, it got a little unwieldy. So I'm using that as a way of kind of fencing myself in as well, to kind of edit myself. So that way, we can focus more on what they want to do with the game as opposed to trying to keep track of, you know, a Tolstoy novel of characters. So

Rick Vechel  27:15  
yeah, exactly.

Brian Wiggins  27:19  
So I don't I didn't put the this question to you before in the notes that I sent you. But I do have a question for you. How do you deal? And I asked this, specifically, because you have games that you run with kids? How do you deal with character death?

Rick Vechel  27:36  
Um, that's always a fun part. Well, in my games, this is always a serious possibility. And even if it comes to the indie parts, but that's also that's also the degree hordeum inside me that is like that is that no risk no reward. So if you're on an adventure, and it's just like the Pokemon franchise, for example, you just walk around, if you fail, you just lose some money and you're back on your feet. Right? Then I'm probably not ready for you. That is a possibility. And it always should be because that also creates a tension on the table and also that you as a group work together to preserve all your characters your party or your bond your your team. I have that does happen in my tables, but there's always a part that they can see if they can just resurrect somebody, right? Starting from level three and higher are usually have one MVC that they get to know that could help them indicate if something goes wrong. Then again, it's up to players to keep that that MVC on their friendly side. Good idea. I've had groups as we're just trying to rob this, in this case, the the Trinity that this guy worked for. That didn't end well. Boys, especially Ronaldo, five, six, they get their resurrection spells. And then it's up to them to just make the decision how to approach things. But if it was prayer death, I usually also make some room or the some part in the story, even if, if they're in overwhelmed by monsters is always a little bit of room to make sure that someone has an passing end to their character. Hmm. You have to you have to throw him off a cliff and you can bury them somewhere or if you want to give him a Viking funeral in his small rowboat. There's always a small opportunity to please give them a fishing Farewell, right. What did end for kids I'm a lot more lenient. Bless the kids. Yeah. And with kids, Andrew, if one of them survived the adventure, you can always bring back his his partners. And that's a fun thing. Because if for up, I have four kids playing, and three of them have their characters killed, and one is still on his feet. Everyone is cheering them on every story. If you die, we all die, you can do this. And they start helping and it really helps with the bond with the nice kids. Yeah, it also helps him with the approaches. As a dungeon master, this is more often, not sure every kid will immediately turn to this one. But I work with these kids too. So make them also enthusiastic. But wait a second, if one of you survives, you all survive. Hmm. So if he now lives, you're all good. Help them out somewhat. And then they'll just fly off the hinge. And even if, for example, they don't care, whatever objective they had to follow, or, and he just ran away, for example, he still got away and he still could go back to retrieve his allies. Bring them back. Yeah, try again with friends. And then again, every character every player then gets to gets a vote if he wants to be a new character or try to work with the old one again. Okay. And both are fine press. Yeah. Sometimes just getting out whether you're an idiot this week. And then two weeks later, I like pirates more. Yeah. And a week later. I've seen some show. I want to be a Viking. I usually that's fixed. We're just you put on all the hat and you're a Viking. Yep. You learned how to sail the ship. You're good. But sometimes kids are like, No, I want to play with a mate for a long time. I'm gonna image this time. sure that we give farewell to the other adventure. We reserve a small time slot for that as well. Yep. And then you start with a new character that has to introduce himself to the party like hello. So fireballs

Brian Wiggins  31:49  
I light things on fire. Hello, welcome. Yeah, at some of I've, I've told all of my groups that I am never going to put you into a situation that is going to purposefully end in a TPK I want them to have that trust in me that yes, I'm going to put you in situations where your characters could die. And if you decide that you're going to do really stupid things. I can't help it if there's a TPK if you're on level one players and you decide to pick a fight with the adult Red Dragon I you know, it's like so there is there is that but I always try to tell them I'm never gonna say as a dungeon master your level one players go fight the the adult, the ancient Red Dragon. You know that that's that's that's not me. being fair. But yeah, and that's that's been a, I always try to make sure they understand that. And I said if your character dies, let's talk. Yeah. Is it like you said is it? Is it resurrection? Is it a quest to go retrieve their soul from the underworld? Or is it roll a new character? It's a whole that in and of itself can be an adventure. So? Yeah.

Rick Vechel  33:08  
Yeah. It's funny. Tbk is are always the difficulties if difficulties arise. Usually those happen because players didn't plan anything. And just went for Leroy Jenkins. Yeah, yeah. Or when the dice really screwed them over? Yeah, yeah. I've never been in a situation where a TPK occurs in a firefight. Right. And that's maybe the suffering also recommend to all my players running is a viable option. Even enemies that have for example, the goblins in dungeon dragons. They even have an ability for us called nimble escape. Hmm. goblins don't want to die. No, nobody wants to die. So when things get dire, these goblins will bolt the hell out of here. Yeah. If one of them dies in just a single blue, the rest will probably not be on are bound to help is like, Oh, I gotta go. I'm out. I'm out. So also a lot of that's fair enough. A lot of groups get frustrated by that. But also my enemies run. Sometimes it's triggered traps on their way out just to give a fun Chase. But I quite have a lot of enemies it just like, I don't want to die. Yeah. And especially in the time where we grew up with a lot of computer games. Were running away is never an option. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Every monster is in the 2000 dungeon siege, or now in a world of warcraft. No money runs. Yeah, a very weird thing to experience especially when I tried to bring my more realistic games to the table. Yeah, he should run. He's running away. He can run away. Sure he can. He has movement. He has dash here.

Brian Wiggins  34:58  
He has legs. He has legs. They work.

Rick Vechel  35:01  
Exactly. That's a fair. You have a bowl of fun. Yeah, it's still get them. There's only a very rare opportunity where I get to use a particular spell to just give the middle finger and boom. Well, that's a very rare occurrence. But then again, it's always an always an option. And it's Yeah, and I do understand that a lot of new players, at least in my experience, and if you see some characters, you just know This is Captain America or our barn aren't anime character on No. Because as I'm not sure that a lot of people get the real introduction to d&d. I think that a lot of new players, and that's also a perfectly valid place, of course, but they're really going that like, I'm the hero, I shouldn't be able to die, or whatever I do is going to be great. Yeah. And especially with the new five e players, I see those more often. And it's always a fun little challenge to bring them back to some to d&d. And then again, you have a lot of roleplay servers that don't that we do have that hero approach for example. But that's also a good thing to also give to new players, especially when for ISO for example, see them for one shot nine. So 40 reduction in sessions as Okay, talk to you about this feature new Dungeon Master. What kind of game you want to run with that in your session zero also as a player. Just ask the DM Okay, how's this gonna go? Because I would love to play a valiant hero that just kicks ass all the time. Hopefully never dies. So how. How hard are games? Yeah. If you would ask me or a barber says, if that's your approach, then please don't come to a campaign on my table. Have a good time. Yeah. put you through through the needle. Yeah. So the either needle time and time again. It will be hard. And for example, I have a group and when we started with a security said, We'd like to do a story like Lord of the Rings. Grand awesome. Oh, cool. Those are 1200 pages and books and websites need to read now cool. Fun. But along the way, they were like no, we we were kind of referring to the movie part. And not the books part because we now get a lot of now.

Unknown Speaker  37:30  
It's very hard. Yeah.

Rick Vechel  37:33  
We can't carry objects. That easy. There's a lot at stake. Oh, we don't like this. Ah, please tell me next time that you want to play the movie version? of them. Were very happy with the entire book approach news. We're below the rings fans. Yes. even helped me with my preparation. If I asked him questions about certain areas, they would give me everything they knew. Yes. Amazing. But if he wasn't really no, I really mean the children's version. Every episode ends with a victory and then we and then we're off the next one. Yeah. Okay. That's hard. Okay. That was to see how we can mix this. So for example, now we agreed upon that release, going to finish the story arc and then see, okay, what will be the new approach where everyone can feel validated in their previous story? And if that's means that some of them would leave the table, that's okay. Yeah. Most important part is that you play your game at a

Brian Wiggins  38:28  
Yeah, yeah. Everyone should be having fun at the table. And exactly first most important part if you're not having fun, what's the point? Yeah, exactly. What's the point? So I so I'm thinking of like, the cartoons that I grew up with, and there's your about me, you're about 10 years younger than me so there's probably you know, there's some overlap there cuz I'm still watching cartoons well into the 90s. I don't watch cartoons now. Who am I kidding? Exactly. I never stopped. But it was always the formula was good guys, when at the end, and the bad guys are in retreat, saying I'll get you next time. You know, that was always the that was always the story. He man GI Joe thundercats. All of them. They were all good guys, when in the end, the story the story is tied up. And the bad guys always fail at their stuff. And if you look at a lot of the animation now even animation that you can say is directly not and maybe aimed at kids, but it's kid friendly. And I'm thinking specifically of Voltron. That was on Netflix and the Shira series. It did not every episode did not end with the heroes victory, because the only one they're doing serialized storytelling, which is drastically different than the episodic storytelling of the 80s and 90s. But it was okay for the bad guys to win. Because I think See

Rick Vechel  39:53  
also new women Sorry, just to put into the same story. Yeah, we have the old he-man. Yeah. Very fun to watch and rewatching Right now that was shocking. Yeah. And then there's a new email like, Oh, wait, hold on.

Brian Wiggins  40:06  
Oh, yeah, display anything. Yeah, no spoilers, but I know exactly what you're talking about. And it's like, wow, I did not see that coming. Well, I

Rick Vechel  40:13  
kind of talked to my cornflakes. Oh, yeah.

Brian Wiggins  40:16  
Yeah, that was i think that i think there's, I think that's good. Because, one, I think it's just good storytelling, but it makes the villains that much more. I don't wanna say realistic, but that much more of a actual enemy and actual nemesis. If you know, hey, they might win. There was never any worry that Cobra Commander was going to suddenly succeed in his plans at the end of any GI Joe episode. There was no worries about that, because every episode ended with him in defeat. But if you were to do that series Now, the way some people are telling the stories, oh, wait, now he's a much more men. He's a bigger menace, because Wow, he actually is being successful. So,

Rick Vechel  40:58  
of course, we're also in a different time for now. For example, we can just we can binge watched a new EBS. So we have the episodic approach of force that will for example, everyday at school, I I bite my ass home. Yeah. I was like, okay, four o'clock bookmark. Yep. Out of those chapters every day to see a new episode where ash kicked a king rocket teams ask, yep, we're flying away and it was all good and everyone was happy. But if during that time something happened like in the storytelling now, I can fully understand that I would be led a lot less happy to be home every day. Yeah. For example, Gundam was also a great, great, great example, because that was a big story. It only came on TV once a week.

Brian Wiggins  41:46  
or which one?

Rick Vechel  41:48  
That's the way which boo. I only noticed the Gundam

Brian Wiggins  41:52  
Wing. Oh, yeah, it was back in the 90s. So yeah, okay, that was one with um

Rick Vechel  41:59  
I got here in the in the Netherlands. So yeah, it

Brian Wiggins  42:02  
was a duo. And exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's Yeah, it's the first gun to my saw as well. So yeah,

Rick Vechel  42:09  
yeah, that's a great story. I don't get by once a week and it was an also enemies there. One. It was there was also part was unclear who was a real bad

Brian Wiggins  42:18  
guy. Yeah. And was Trey's a bad guy or not? Yeah,

Rick Vechel  42:23  
exactly. So I was like, Okay, wait, this is a very interesting part if it comes to storytelling, because it's something completely different to the Pokemon and he man episodes there was was was watching. Even even Dragonball Z had their bigger stories. But usually, aside from the last episode, you know, there was when screaming and three episodes

Unknown Speaker  42:46  
Yeah, oh, no. What we win? Yeah.

Rick Vechel  42:50  
Yeah, subsidy, Andy, you only Yeah, you have a session that takes about four hours or something. And I have to wait for new schedules to open up somewhere. So I can fully understand why some people are very happy with just running one shows, or at least some small, episodic kind of adventures to get for like, like the example he does, for example, eventually, yes, I can fully understand that part. So it's always again, a session zero question. What kind of game do you want? Do you want to episodic part of he-man? Or do you want the new he-man with a very grand storyline? Where you're always just guessing? Who's debating? Who is? Who's the who's the good guy? Are we actually winning? Are we doing something good here? Or are we the bad guys? How much depth you want?

Brian Wiggins  43:36  
Yeah, there you go. How much debt Do you want in your game? Because I can give you as much as you want.

Rick Vechel  43:42  
Exactly. For example, I run a game now. And I've really asked the players a few times already, please get into doo doo this world if you're only watching it from your notes. And from one side, you're going to you're going to miss a lot of his game, especially things where you get your advantage with. For example, they came they had to hunt some lycanthropes. And again, cool how some animals awesome. But a few a few sessions later, we're like, Wait a second. Could it be that the ones that asked us to hunt all these guys, these are the bad guys. These are very loving, and awesome people. Ah, and it really messed with me because I had just had a few tribes over there living there. And it was a tradition from that, from that village where they came from to hunt lycanthropes Western tradition. Yeah, if you became a man, you had to at least hunter werewolf as you wouldn't really be a man. So it was a very cultural thing, but the good and evil thing was very vague, you know, did did that because just to have them open up to the world because things can be different depending on what part you look at. Yeah, from. Oh, that's always a fun thing to experiment with. But then again, you player half a brain So be open for that.

Brian Wiggins  45:01  
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it comes down. What kind of game do they want? Okay, so speaking of the kind of game, on the scale of full tactics, with maps, minis everything all the way to the other end, which is strictly theater of the mind. Where what's your preference for running a game? Is it somewhere in between? How much do you go cheat? or How much do you like to go one way or the other?

Rick Vechel  45:29  
As a personal preference. I like maps. Yeah, I like being able to see how big the dungeon is that we explored. I like to have an overview of the map, and it could be the most you're used to playing Zelda and also get maps of my my dungeons. Yeah, and, for example, probably, I don't really need the extra building, because that only is a waste of time. But then, as a dungeon master, for others, I usually see okay, what what do they need for kids, I always use maps. Yeah. But then again, I do use maps that are so ridiculous, the basic, it's up to you use your creativity to imagine what's on the what's on the plate. For example, if I put a forest in a small cabin, I usually make some green flops, like that's tree. And the reason I think Ricky can really draw, so really, that's tree, okay, know that we'll get our way. And I know that some of my groups are very combat focused, and every comments scenario, they really need a map, if you don't have a map, they don't feel like they can prepare themselves much against getting into advantageous positions. So especially in combat, I'm used to using maps and for new players, I also do so for exploration, just to give them a feel of how movement works. How obstacles look, and to also give some minister time to shine, right? Because even people that haven't played have already have that 3d meaning at home. Like this is my hero. I want to play him. Who am I to say no?

Brian Wiggins  47:02  
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I started when I was running the game, it was for two friends from college and their two kids. And I, we were playing remotely at first. And they, the kids when I when I threw a map up on the screen, let them draw on it. They started doing much much better with it. And then so when we finally played in person for the first time I actually built a very crude version of the the first the Goblin hideout from the minds of fan delver Oh the correct Yeah, and I built that Yeah, I built the crag ma hideout in three dimensions out of foam core and and had them played and they loved it and and to the point where where they were fighting the goblins out front, the two guard got the there's the two centuries, the one started the the one kid he had his character start running into the dungeon because I want to see what's in there. And in ended up with one of the characters being knocked unconscious because there weren't enough people finding the goblins. But I found that Yeah, with the kids, it definitely got their attention a lot more to have that three dimensional experience, to, to play with.

Rick Vechel  48:20  
Let's be honest, kids nowadays, and I'm really trying to make sure that my son has a different approach. Whenever you turn on a screen, you see everything you need to know if for somebody to book yourself to imagine things yourselves. And even I am from a generation that lost a lot of that imagination, power. Sweat, especially also when I'm trying to frozen for the schools, for example, if I'm trying to get new kids to sign up for my after school program, I bring maps, I bring dragons, I bring everything. Yeah. I will also work up to that if they start playing. They also helped me with for example, creating dungeons for example, then we're going to create a lot a lot of small rocks or trees or all the terrain elements. So we can build on our own maps as we as you play. But it's a very important part, especially nowadays, people are kind of expecting that you'll fly out the door, they don't pay for them. Same goes for virtual maps, I haven't TV on a few understand that I sometimes use them as a digital map. And so I absolutely love it. Yeah, me personally, I hate it. But then again, I am graphically one of the worst people ever see. So as you're creating those maps when I do so, the first thing I'll do is laugh and that's perfectly fine. Because that's that's really sad that understand that fully. I can draw and they can do digitally. So. But it really does add especially for a lot of people nowadays. Yeah, especially if you look at some companies that are creating the 3d terrain. Yeah, they're not expensive anymore sort of helps. A few old Warhammer buddies really have 1000s of euros on terrain that they could now get for a few 100 bucks. Oh, man. Yeah. I'm trying not to rub that into their faces. They know what's true. But it does help to accessibility is a lot higher than it was before. Yeah, whether you can really easily build and show because I do understand that a lot of old games, especially the when I revisit old campaign books, for example. I don't get tax zero attack old armor. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, we'll help you with that. Again, anything that's

Brian Wiggins  50:36  
a special kind of hell, the.

Rick Vechel  50:40  
But I do understand that a lot of that gaming was built on theory of the mind. Yeah, as well as very basic math drawings. Yeah. Because of a very different time because this was early 80s. If I'm correct. 84 was the first d&d game

Brian Wiggins  50:57  
if so, first edition actually came out in the 70s 70s. Second Edition was the early 80s. And I forget, because I think there was like second edition, and then at some point, they split it out into the red box in the blue box. True. So I started with red box. And then obviously, that only took you up to like level three or four. And then if you wanted to go beyond that, then you went to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons went to a d&d, and that was the blue box. And that was when they started introducing like hex maps for outdoors and all the other stuff. And, you know, and and, and it's really a lot of tables, for better for worse, there were a lot of tables. I miss, I missed the treasure tables, I will say that it used to be as part of it as part of a monster's stats. It had treasure tight. And you would and you would go to that table. And you would roll and it would tell you exactly, you know, it would randomize to tell you exactly how much of anything you would find in that and that monsters layer or on that monsters person. And I do miss that. But there was also a lot. I mean, 3.5 obviously went to the extreme, but yeah, it started you know, yeah. But if I and I never seen a first edition, but I understand first edition was very unwieldy, because it was the adaptation from Wargaming to d&d. So there was a lot of a lot like character creation was a pretty archaic process, you know, like you needed you needed someone to help translate. You know, you needed someone to to take you through that you needed. You needed someone to help you with that, then it was a it was a process, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's changed. Yes. They have. Yeah, with 3d printing and the access to printers. You know, I mean, I used to always, I love draw maps. I recently in the last couple of months started getting into cracking terrain. And yeah, so I'm, I just, yeah, I'm going down a dark hole. Like,

Rick Vechel  53:10  
I have one YouTube account that I'm really I'm plowing through it, and I'm really trying to build as many things as he puts up. Not sure if you want a lot of names in your end. No, go for it. Go for it. It's the dmg and it's also a dmg dot info. And he made basically very cheap to read pieces. Yeah. And he does a lot of flair and happiness and fun.

Brian Wiggins  53:40  
I think I've seen some of his stuff.

Rick Vechel  53:43  
Now everyone a glue gun he makes but the most fun part that I saw a while back was his pizza box. terrane

Brian Wiggins  53:50  
pizza box to me. I'm gonna look that up. That's cool. He took pizza boxes

Rick Vechel  53:54  
and he got the unused ones for our swag. A lot of weird smells. Yeah. Well, yes. Use it to create levels. So if you have a hole in the ground, you could easily make that hole because you still have a second. You have second base? Yeah. In your in your game. Oh, I like that. That was amazing.

Brian Wiggins  54:14  
Yeah. So I've been watching, um, black magic craft. Oh, yeah. And he's got his priests. Yeah, he's got some. His his tutorials have been fantastic. So I've been using his methods for doing like the walls and everything. And yeah, he's had some he's he's got some really fun stuff as well. So yeah, there's there's a lot of great information out there. Yeah, so a

Rick Vechel  54:40  
lot of people have done amazing stuff. build amazing stuff. Yeah. And it was really awesome to see what you can do with a lot of wood wood. Let's be honest. Not very much.

Brian Wiggins  54:49  
Yeah. Yeah. I mean the foam core, I mean, the foam itself is not is not expensive. And the paints, I mean if you're if you're I mean Listen, you can get as much pain as you want. But for terrain you don't need to get like rubber. You know, you don't need to get the miniature paints. So you're getting stuff for like here. It's like 79 cents for a for a bottle. It's gonna last you a while. And yeah, I mean, and you're the only thing that's limiting you is your is the skill. And I know that I'm still very, very at the beginning of it and I kind of like what's been turning out and it has not been expensive. As much as I love Dwarven Forge. I can't justify dropping that kind of money. So exactly what

Rick Vechel  55:31  
even when you put in the shipping for for your you're still at the same continent? Yeah. If I need to get that delivered.

Unknown Speaker  55:40  
Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  55:42  
Yeah. And your and your and your mainland. I mean, I have a friend, one of the guys in my group. He lives in Florida now here in the States, but he grew up in Iceland. So it you know, everything was expensive. Yeah. I think I remember his told stories about Dean about the books getting over there. But it was so expensive even just to get the books because, you know, it's Iceland. It's an island, everything had to be flown or shipped there. It wasn't, you know, there was no economy of scale for that kind of thing. So yeah,

Rick Vechel  56:17  
that's what we have the DND beyond Yeah, so not as much fun as paper after we have to be honest. I agree. I'm a paper. I have a paper kind of dm. Yeah, I'm not sure if you have any other preference, but I screens distract me.

Brian Wiggins  56:31  
Yeah. I, I was building a tool. For my game. I started teaching myself coding last year. So I was coding something in unity on the Unity engine for my game, with my homebrew game for them to keep track of their character sheets. And I could keep track of it as well, because they always, even though we had everything on Google Drive, they kept on seeming to lose them, and you forget where you stored it and all that. So I put that on there. And I use d&d beyond as a template for how maybe things should look. And I made a character on there and it just wasn't as satisfying as having that piece of paper, that blank piece of paper, rolling the dice filling everything I yeah, I need to, I might eventually transfer it to a digital format. But I need to start pencil the paper pen to paper. I need to Yeah. There's something very visceral about that. It just yeah.

Rick Vechel  57:26  
If I select my first character, she does still have that one. And I really, Yeah, wow. It's one of my prized possessions. My level six cleric award and in third edition, but if I also just see how many times I've been working with an eraser to adjust my HB paper has gotten over there are some stains from some soda thingy that I somebody spilled over the table. It also it just nostalgic in that regard. Yeah. Just become older. I think. So just like regular old like paper. Yeah, sure. I can't get it.

Brian Wiggins  58:02  
I think it's what you came up with to, you know, I think people that if they're just getting into the game, so the players that I was with a couple of weeks ago, one of them again, they had no exposure to d&d prior to this. They he brought up the he bought he went and downloaded the d&d beyond app. Now he's about the same age as me within about 10 years or so. So it's not like he's, you know, brand, you know, he's not like, early 20s, or teens or anything like that. But for him, he had no other exposure. And this made sense to him. But yeah, I think if you came up with, you know, you came up where computers weren't ubiquitous, the same with me, you know, they were around, but they weren't the norm.

Unknown Speaker  58:44  
Yes. Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  58:47  
So what do you do when your players do something completely unexpected and unplanned? We had talked about that before. And but I mean, like, when you're faced with that moment, where internally you might be panicking because they did something so batshit insane, that it's like, and it's completely throwing everything you had planned thought about dreamt of out of whack. What do you do as a DM to make that look as smooth as possible? Because we've always said part of the part of the DM skill set is the poker face to almost never let them see you bleed, right? You have to make it always seem like this is exam I've planned for this. I'm ready for you. Even though inside you're going oh shadow shadow shadow shadow shit, you know, what do you do in those situations?

Rick Vechel  59:38  
Well, a small here's my poker face is about non existence. That again, I'm also very open about the fact that like, Guys, if you see me being scared, one of us is going to do something they don't like. So if someone Have some kind of weird plan to kill something? Usually you take one look at me like, Oh, we we might die if you if you make this plan go it Yeah, yeah, that that could be Yeah. But it comes with the preparation for that I'm very happy that I've read the dungeon master guide. Because there's a lot of stuff in there that helps with a lot of things that players come up with the dungeon master guide is the best tool a dungeon master can have. But something that is rarely read by dungeon masters. Yeah. Especially the new generation and nice in my experience. Yeah. There are, for example, madness effects if they do something so batshit crazy, burning down a monastery, peaceful people, because there might be a demon the next 10 years, you know, player stuff. I will get the madness parts with it. And vibrators know that if I if I need to, I will plan a break just to get my books in order or quickly see if I can find something. I also have a few things in my dungeon mastery that will just help me get on the right page as soon as I need to be. But But I'm very open about if they if they do something that I didn't expect. The first words probably like odd them. And the second one is awesome. Yeah. That also challenges Yeah, and I do I do enjoy that a lot as a dungeon master. If I want to more generic heroes, and I just recreate loads of rings and tell them to roll dice when I say not to be disregarding no roll the rings, of course, but you're working with people and people have the most batshit ideas, especially when it's not there. their personal fish is on the line. Yep. And I love that part. And also very happy that I can also show them that I am really happy. And at that moment like, oh shit oh shit, because they know I enjoyed that. Yeah, I enjoy the heck out of it.

Brian Wiggins  1:02:04  
Yeah, that's there's times where Yeah, where they're about to get like, completely turn everything sideways. And you're like, you know what you have I have to make your role for this. But I really want you to succeed because I want this to happen. Because

Rick Vechel  1:02:20  
the route of school allows for a window of opportunity. And I really hope did you start this through? actually does have consequences? Because if usually the kudos these are, the bigger the backfire will be? Yeah. The backlash will be in measurable in some some cases. So

Unknown Speaker  1:02:39  
yeah,

Rick Vechel  1:02:40  
guys. I do warn them most of time. Don't forget, if you do your Leroy Jenkins act. It could go well, it could go bad,

Brian Wiggins  1:02:49  
huh. All right. That the famous words? Well, you can certainly try.

Rick Vechel  1:02:54  
Yes. Are you sure? You wonder,

Brian Wiggins  1:02:56  
are you sure? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Rick Vechel  1:03:01  
love playing with that boat. Yeah, it comes to me at those times, usually make sure to get my dungeon screen open. Okay. Do we need to ruling on this one? Or is it something I could put the rule of cooling? Or is my knowledge low enough to at least make some amends for this of some possible role for this? Because that's that's also the fun part of a fifth edition. It's very easy if it comes to what could happen now. And how could this be? Yes, it's fair, it's a lot easier than it was in previous editions. So I'm very happy that it also allows dungeon masters to have some some fluid energy with the rules. Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  1:03:41  
Yeah, I think I think I never played fourth edition. So I don't have any frame of reference there. But I know that people, there's people that absolutely despised it, but there's people that enjoyed it very much and still want to play it. And but I think everyone kind of has the same opinion of 3.5. And it seems, at least for what I can see that there is a well, I will never claim that fifth edition is perfect. It is not theirs. You cannot there is no such thing as a perfect system. And I know that there's a lot of social issues that people have brought up with fifth edition and that's fine. But that aside, just from the ruleset, I have found that fifth edition, kind of tamps down on the rules loitering, whereas in 33.5, because there was so many rules, it was easier for someone a player to be like, well, the rules say that I can do this and it didn't allow the DM without really being heavy handed. It didn't allow the DM to say well, no, we're I'm not going to allow that to happen or I will allow this to happen because, you know, because of just the being so bogged down in rules, where's fifth edition, you know, and they even say it right in the beginning. These are essentially guidelines. If it doesn't work, throw it out.

Rick Vechel  1:05:00  
Yeah, exactly. It's a lot less. It's a lot less heavy. It's more like you have fun at your table and go on adventures together. Yeah. And that's a great approach. And if it comes to fourth edition, by the way, I've only played it twice. And I think that fourth edition was a wonderful game. If you didn't name it dungeon dragons.

Brian Wiggins  1:05:19  
Oh, I can see that. If you call it anything else,

Rick Vechel  1:05:21  
just something. I think that they got a lot of people angry because they were expecting 3.5 or better. That's fine or two. Yeah. And they got an entirely different game with some things that were still sounding like the dungeon dragons he knew. But a lot of things didn't. If they just rebranded it to, for example, dragons and dungeons.

Brian Wiggins  1:05:42  
Dragon Lance,

Rick Vechel  1:05:44  
for example. I think that it would have been a very successful part because it was just a different game, especially Yeah, you also know the board games like we're at the first shot a lot and stuff

Brian Wiggins  1:05:54  
on Um, no.

Rick Vechel  1:05:57  
That's a d&d board game. And just the boxes are worth their money just because you get at least 40 minute miniatures.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:05  
Oh, wow. what's what's the game called?

Rick Vechel  1:06:08  
It's the d&d board game. And they have for example, castle, ravenloft wrestle for short lawn, and a few other ones. Still have four or five boxes now from correct. But that's the end game between also play solo. You don't need a dungeon. Oh, that's

Brian Wiggins  1:06:24  
very cool. I like the

Rick Vechel  1:06:26  
tiles. And whenever you get to the end of the tile, you have to roll a new tile Yes. Roll with to see if something happens. For example, enemies pop up, or Oh, that appears.

Brian Wiggins  1:06:34  
Oh, I can take a look at that. Yeah. And

Rick Vechel  1:06:36  
the fun part is, this looks also with the powers in the leveling from their characters. It looks like fourth edition. But because it is not branded, like d&d in the traditional sense, these games are awesome. And everyone likes them. And I think that was a mistake they made with fourth edition, because I think it was to the core. It was it was fun. It was a good game. But it wasn't a dungeon dragons. I knew. Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  1:07:01  
You had a certain expectation.

Rick Vechel  1:07:02  
I think that a lot of people had an explanation that they couldn't get over. Yeah. For part, that's okay, because we've got a very fine fifth edition because of it. But yeah, well, yeah, I can,

Brian Wiggins  1:07:14  
I can see that when I played. It was one of the newer and I haven't played them in years. So I know I'm way far behind. But it was one of the Final Fantasy games. And it was one of the ones that it was basically real time combat you were running around. And I remember is almost you had to play like two three hours just to get out of the tutorial before you got out like into the real world. And I hated it. And I think part of it was because I was I had an expectation in my head of Final Fantasy because I've been playing Final Fantasy since the very first game on the Nintendo Entertainment System. And I had played all the way up through Final Fantasy seven I played Final Fantasy eight but I just thought it was boring. But it was still a Final Fantasy game and then you got to this one and they drastically changed the gameplay and I remember saying the exact same thing that you just said where it was if you would call this any other game I probably would have really enjoyed it but you call it Final Fantasy and that for me has certain things and these don't it doesn't have any of them.

Rick Vechel  1:08:19  
I have that with all the reasons are fancy. Because I've played nine profits nine I love that game. I love everything about it. And then I was like 10 that should be cool. Right? And then they came with it life action combat and I'm not a great gamer. Yeah, my brother race I usually go my little brother to help me with a boss. And he did so splendidly. So nothing bad about that. But I'm not a real life action gamer I can do to those combinations and yeah, great button mashing are not made for that. But bought the turn based combat for 49 D opportunity to just do tactically Yeah, in my turns and that that's what that was what I was good at and I probably I finished four times. I loved every second of it never really lost. But not really yeah, I forgot to do tutorial I died so many times.

Brian Wiggins  1:09:16  
Yeah, it's the I think that's the one I had the the chains right where you had like, you had to build chains for like the other people. Like you couldn't just throw a potion to someone you had like it was like this is Yeah, it was very, very frustrating. So I can see that we

Rick Vechel  1:09:31  
were used to something else. Exactly. That's what it was. Yeah,

Brian Wiggins  1:09:34  
that's a pretty good Yeah, I think that's a pretty good summary of of Final Fantasy well Final Fantasy, the later series as well as d&d fourth edition. What is store speaking of story, what is a secret that your players have never uncovered? Like without getting too deep into the lore what is something because you remember you had said I you had said before that there's stuff that you had planned And they never got to it but you still have it in your notes. What is like something that you really wished that they could have gotten to they never did or something that or something that as a DM they never knew that, whether it was like a massive improv that drastically changed the story, but you never told them, you know, it was like, what's a big secret you never had your players never uncovered from you?

Rick Vechel  1:10:26  
Well, I, I have to be careful, because I have the biggest thing that I've, that I'm working with at the moment. Because I have two groups in the same world, but they're separate from each other. Right. And they both come in contact with a guy and I love this part. I got to the they blame me that I didn't use enough dragons in the game called dungeon dragons. They had fun on finding a lost mines of endeavors like yeah, that's the old dragon. Yeah, that could have taken that one. So what what are they Okay, okay, okay. But I use dragons like I did in 3.5. And that means that dragons can easily be just somebody. Lee leading a military somewhere, yeah, in their shapeshift form, right. All of my dragons also have magic like they did in Dragon nomicon insert 35. And there is an NPC that they are in contact with that is secretly a golden dragon. And they've been in contact with admin for at least every level that they've took. And nobody even Six Suspects him for being one of the most strongest parties because he's a great golden worm. Within my rule of a rune and some of them really got onto his nerves as well. They're really trying to like a is it as one very fun He's like, I'm just looking out for the world like I've done for 1000s of arrows. And it's and there's gonna be a time hopefully soon that that there we'll see his him changing into this golden dragon. Hmm. And I I'm gonna love every minute

Unknown Speaker  1:12:12  
of it. Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  1:12:15  
Yeah, they might

Rick Vechel  1:12:15  
even tried to spar with him as well back to just really try to see if he could if we could get him down. He was like, he was a guard Captain at that moment in time. He's like, I'm going to show Lord over maida how strong we are. And he wasn't our for Paladin. And what is strongest smite A Critical Hit, hit hit the Golden Dragon during the shrug it off the gate next round. But he never thought more of it just like always a strong human. Yeah, not just when he when he gets out of these golden skills out of his human skin. And just like I tried to hit a dragon and level form and lift.

Brian Wiggins  1:12:55  
You get that T shirt.

Rick Vechel  1:12:56  
Yeah, but a lot of my NPCs are strong and powerful. Monsters could be dragons could be fiends demon celestion.

Brian Wiggins  1:13:03  
I like it.

Rick Vechel  1:13:03  
And those are hidden within my NPCs. Because I do like a very grounded game. Because let's be honest, if there's a bitch feed somewhere, he's probably leading a country or something. These are awesome. Be powerful. Yeah. But just to give them those solid layers of let's do also some political stuff. And how, how much can we do and get away with it? I love playing with that. A lot of players have not figured that out yet.

Brian Wiggins  1:13:36  
I like that. We had it. We had an NPC in the last game that showed up repeatedly. And I always just described him as an old man wearing kind of like very plain beggar clothes. And he was always feeding canaries. And he always had seven canaries around him and he was always feeding them and he would have little conversations and he would appear and disappear. And at no point did they really investigate? And they were like, Oh, he's mysterious. And he knew all that stuff. And it wasn't and eventually it was revealed in the end that this that they were kind of being guided a little bit by boham the entire time because they've always in the lord of Forgotten Realms boham it likes to walk around in the world as as a like a poor beggar. And he always has his honor guard with him which are so he polymorphs himself into a human and his and his his honor guard are seven ancient golden dragons that polymorph into canaries awesome so that was a lot of fun to more shapeshifter Yeah, whatever that is. So yeah, that's that's I like that though. Cuz that's you. What you've done is you could build a really cool world filled with paranoia of like, oh crap. Which one of these guys is a demon

Rick Vechel  1:15:01  
Your case what would would be a god?

Brian Wiggins  1:15:04  
Or possibly, yeah, yeah, that was the only one and he was very hands off. I didn't want a lot of divine intervention. But I just like the idea of there being someone. I had rules where it was from internally, it was like, the gods cannot directly interfere. There's got to be a rule there. Otherwise, then what's the point?

Rick Vechel  1:15:22  
Right now that the extraord rule didn't step support bigger?

Brian Wiggins  1:15:25  
Yeah. And well, then that would have been fun.

Rick Vechel  1:15:29  
I kill it carry.

Brian Wiggins  1:15:32  
No, No, you didn't. The canaries getting now the canary is gonna kill you.

Rick Vechel  1:15:37  
Yes. always gonna kill me. Well, it drops this polymorph Yeah. That's a fun thing, though. Because I must admit, I keep God's out of my games. Possible. Yeah. And I have a reason for that. But I'm curious. Why did you bring for example, a guy like boham with the material plane? Um,

Brian Wiggins  1:16:00  
so in the original in this campaign, I had this concept I remember. And he's not really dealt with that much. In fifth edition. And when like, Can I really not remember that? There's a it's one of the should What is his name? I can't remember his name. Now. It was one of his like, this mad God. That it was the So basically, the Abyss was created strictly to keep him distressed did you keep him imprisoned? He was imprisoned by the other gods, I forget any. And it's the um should the Temple of the elemental I think was like the original module back in second edition. But he Um, so he's like this. He's like the one. He was the one in Forgotten Realms. He's the one entity that should he ever break free of his prison. It would unite all of the gods evil doesn't matter their alignment, I would probably even your night. The night the the nine planes of hell as well, because this guy's only goal was the total annihilation of all of existence. As like, what can you ask for a better bad guy who wants nothing more than to make everything not be anymore. And so I said, you know, and I figures, okay, but if someone like that, like a great old one exists, there's probably cults that are dedicated to them. And maybe one starting to get a little bit closer to cracking open is prison a little bit. And the gods can't interfere directly. But they could potentially have agents on the material plane that would stop this from happening. And I thought well, bomb, it makes the most sense. And I like it. I just like the idea that he also likes to spend a lot of his time walking around the world. You know, he's not used

Rick Vechel  1:18:01  
to, like the Vikings would have. Yeah, hold on, Odin. We're just here. Yeah,

Brian Wiggins  1:18:06  
exactly. I liked it. I always like that concept of deity. That understood their role. And it wasn't necessarily to interfere. But it was to be there to guide to illuminate. And the only way you can do that is to be amongst the people. So yeah, I always like that concept. And I just thought it was kind of cool. And it was like little little things here and there. But the campaign I'm running now has no gods. So it's, you know, we went the complete opposite direction with it. So yeah,

Rick Vechel  1:18:38  
I have a bit envious zona, even jealous. I've grown up with the group of friends and theoretician. They're interesting, there would be a time when you had the power to dethrone a god. Yeah. And I had players who were constantly trying to do so. So I just put my Gods behind the veil, just to have them safe from these murder. badasses from third edition. And I still have that fear with me the fifth edition today. So I'm pretty envious that you could actually let them walk around because there's only a 10th of a small hint. demokratische could have that goes where among men did murder. Oh, yeah. Goes to space. I don't see them a lot anymore. About the original group, especially a few of them. They would go to town. Yeah,

Brian Wiggins  1:19:33  
I think with the new edition with fifth edition new it's been out for 12 years with fifth edition. I mean, I look at that, and I'm like, Alright, so best case scenarios. If you pick a fight, and boham it decides not to get himself involved. You're now fighting seven ancient gold dragons. There, I can't I you'd have to have a massive level 20 party to even begin to have fighting chance with that because I mean even if you have like even if oh I'm gonna use power word death yeah but they have a legendary action of just succeeding on a throw that they fail so if I do their their saving throw, and they failed they can just choose to succeed

Rick Vechel  1:20:17  
if you have seven dragons, you kill one Yep. Actually economy will state that there are six others. Yeah,

Brian Wiggins  1:20:24  
exactly. Yeah exactly so it's like just that fight alone is a next one possible fight to win and i don't i'm sure somewhere that their stats for bomb it but you got I have to imagine that boham it would be insanely more powerful than all of those dragons combined. He doesn't need the body guards. They're an honor guard. So he if he decided that he needed to defend himself he would just willed them out of existence. So it's not like the the only the only entity I think Muhammad fears is TMR. So it was like yeah, sure I'll put him in there. What are you going to do? He's a god you're not

Rick Vechel  1:21:08  
if I remember correctly, most of the God in dd 30s at least word sentences reading 30 or 40 are suffering like that.

Brian Wiggins  1:21:16  
Yeah. And then it got to go all bring to town. Yeah, well, yeah. And then it got to a point where Yeah, it was very possible for characters to be more powerful than gods and that way I forget it was one of the developers of the game I forget who it was. And they from one of the first edition I think and they had said this doesn't make any sense. Why are the players more powerful than the gods that doesn't make any sense at all? And or the characters and yeah, so I think they decided to pare that back a bit and they started playing around with how the gods working so yeah, so have

Rick Vechel  1:21:51  
that again in my in my games and maybe that's also something that came from my my school friends back in third edition especially divorce a few power builders among them and I'm not personally a power builder, but I do know what works Yeah. So if I have a party Dad's going full murder hobo or being level 17 and just try to undermine the kingdom

Rick Vechel  1:22:17  
by assessing the king in broad daylight and stuff because yeah, we'll there's always somebody stronger or someone that can on you.

Rick Vechel  1:22:27  
A very happy to at least keep the new players grounded a little bit more. Because they know a cold opener, a bag of tricks, but he will. After us somebody powerful could be eventual father uncle of the team that you dethrone or maybe even some celestial aspect that was really rooting for that right? for that guy. So I've always, I always have a small, even one miniature. And that's something I modeled after a Final Fantasy game. And my friends know if this girl hits the table, they're gonna lose. I have made one female warrior, pharmacy nine Beatrix, that's also the main protagonist for a big part of the game. And I've been in love with her since I saw her in firefights at nine. I love her character. I love her story. And she's awesome. And I've made it many of her and I've asked one of my friends who very good painter to painter in the best quality possibly could have with some art that I found. Yeah. As like, I put it in a small shrine at the back of my Dungeon Master table. And she's in if I stand issues within arm's reach. Our players know if I put her on the table. They've done fucked up. That's or, for example, what was agreed upon that'd be wouldn't for example, or something that went way out of bounds. Then she's coming up and she'll, she'll make some new some new friends out of requests. And all my players notice and are terrified of decimal miniature.

Brian Wiggins  1:24:16  
I like it. Yeah, there should be consequences. Yeah, that's that's really important. Yeah, there has to be consequences for actions. for better for worse.

Rick Vechel  1:24:26  
Exactly. If they do something awesome. Also reward them like Yeah. Well, this whole I'm sorry, guys. I'm not even in the storyline where they're just chasing after an evil that's coming up. And they're doing that without any help from the world. They're just chasing after this evil. So nobody really knows what they're doing. And I'm sure they're going to be this evil sometime when like the key. Now we're level 10. And now what because there were is like couldn't even buy a boat in dungeon dragons. They don't have enough wealth and anything. Yeah, it's kind of overnight. Do they also they didn't connect with the world in any part. Yeah. So that's gonna be very fun to reward these guys upon saving the world that nobody knew was in peril. Hmm. I like that they even if they're coming up Yeah, we killed the big guy to meet this guy Barbara was like and do have proof? Yeah, prove it. It was just a week here and then it was gone. Yeah, we had a few months popping up but it all disappeared. So maybe nothing really happened. So I'm very, very interested in how what part is going to take it that they won't get the they they only know amongst themselves that they did this? Yeah, that's because they didn't really have interesting lore in the world already just tunnel vision. I have to kill the bad guy. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:25:56  
So we do that? Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  1:25:59  
Well, so that talking about consequences actually leads into this next part. So we're getting towards the end here. And I always like to grab a question that I find floating around in the DM community. And this is what I saw yesterday. And it was on the DM Academy subreddit, and I don't have it in front of me. So I don't remember the username of the person who did it, or a person who posted it. But they were asking a question of how to deal with greedy players. So they have a game that they're running. And they've you know, they've, it sounds like they've been relatively generous with items that they've been giving out. But they have one player that whenever they encounter a chest, that player shouts over all of the other players to make sure that he gets to the chest first, so that we he can have the items or his character can have the items. And the one thing he did mention was that the other players have mentioned that they are uncomfortable with this, they're not pleased that the one player is running rampant with running roughshod over everyone. But it sounds like they're not really also about confronting the player about this. So as a DM, how would you deal with that if you had a player at your table? Who was being greedy? And I don't want to put any reasons behind it, because I don't know what the reasons are, what the motivation is, but if they're being greedy and jumping in and even saying, well, that's what my character would do, because that's usually the excuse. Or excuse. Yeah, right. What's How would you deal with that as a as, as a DM, if you had if you had a player who was hoarding all of the stuff for everyone,

Rick Vechel  1:27:46  
it could have I always I'm very shocked for a part that a lot of these things that people are not liking but other players that they don't really never dare to discuss it. Because you have to. So if as a person I really put the group together like guys, some people not having fun, we have to do something about this. Else this game will just stop Yeah, because there's there's a lot of ways as Dungeon Master how I could put this to stop

Rick Vechel  1:28:20  
dismemberment, if you check it out, right, we have the tools as dungeon Master's.

Rick Vechel  1:28:27  
Even in critical role somebody died because of being greedy. Yeah. And then offer another one. So for it, so that's even worse. Yeah. So as I said, we have tools to just kill that character. It's the easiest thing we can do when a terrorist scout that are. But then again, if that happens in my group, the most important part I usually also emphasize and every thing that I do is like, you guys have to fully trust each other. And also would ask the rest of the group, for example, in a bottle episode. Why are you guys together? Why is this greedy bastard in your group? What does it bring to the table that you guys do like? Because sometimes it could really be that the person doesn't really know, right? He's just used to doing the dungeon siege, run around in a dungeon, empty all the chests. So to at least nothing gets lost. I've also had a player in one of my groups, and he and I were adults, I was a player in a group and I really was ready to throw through a window because you play d&d as you would, for example, in Assassin's Creed, you also use these examples. So when he came up to a few guards and started stabbing them because it didn't get discovered in the shop, Jesus, I think what we're level seven by that we already played quite some time. Yeah. But then was a second time in the city and just went full. They don't even murder hobo just full anime protagonist. Yeah. And it was all and then he got his ass ruled by the guards because he wasn't that strong. And d&d isn't a game where you can solo an entire army. Yeah. Um, and he and I really, we had bought a table and before the the next game, I call them up as like, if we can get 30 or I'm still I'm quitting this game we talk about this. And in this case, he really didn't. He never experienced the other than that kind of playstyle. So for him, this was a way we wait, how can you do this? Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, back to square one. That was with dungeon Lawson just pulled him and by then, okay, let's talk the next time how we want to play this game, what kind of world we're in, because you're going to get your ass kicked again. I'm not saying we copied my character because mine was efficient in combat, but we lost our entire party balance. So we'll do an easy fight. We got our I swapped. So we were really like, Okay, how, how do we want to play this game. And I think that's the most important part. And that's not suffering as a dungeon master per se, but simply as one of the guys on the table around that table in that story. And as we said before, in this in this podcast recording, it's perfectly possible that some guys don't fits all groups. Yeah. I also have groups where I've been in like, Guys are very sorry, I love you guys. But this is not my kind of story. Yeah. I even have one of my best friends also dming the guy gave me a break after I was the DM for four years. And we came across it. I know a lot of monsters. And he wasn't as comfortable with rescanning we flavoring using all kinds of other books. So with you and we sat together for two evenings to work out how my character would deal with this information. So we made him a writer that wrote a lot of here were some other heroes. And he had to roll in the history check for everything that he ever encounter a monster. If I knew anything, yes or no. Right. And it was up to me to just make sure that it didn't spoil anything for the other players. But we talked about that. We made an agreement about that. And the games are fun. Yeah, true. There are moments are like, Oh, I noticed I noticed my character wouldn't. I'm gonna get my ass kicked. Is it gonna be fun? Yeah. Yeah, but, but then again, it's still a game. So even if my character would die. bikers didn't die because I didn't know it's something I should resist the fire. No, my character died. Because being here is badass.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:44  
Yeah, dangerous. And that happens.

Rick Vechel  1:32:47  
And you have to also remind that story also to your players, if they die. If something happens, like, for example, this, this goes it gets to every just how do you want your hero to be remembered? What do we want to what here? Do you want to revisit at the end of the story? And that's that will be my approach a very long and lengthy answer. Sorry about that.

Brian Wiggins  1:33:11  
No, it's fine. No, it's I found that most of the questions kind of have the same answer. Right. It's talk to your players. Yeah, right. And yeah, it's have fun and it's okay to fail. There's no there's no winning d&d, right? There's, you're the only way you win is by having fun. And so don't Oh, I've had I've had players that like, had like their had their builds. And it wasn't necessarily a power gamer, but they build it. And so they had all these adventures. They never wanted to fail a role. I also suspect that they were cheating on their roles, because we're playing remotely. Because they never they somehow never rolled less than a 17. And it was like, that's suspicious. Yeah, it is. And it's like, that's also not fun. Because the fun and this also comes from the failures. It's fun. Like I'm wearing a T shirt right now. It says, You reach, let's say, you reach out to push the orc off the ledge. And then it's got a picture of a D 20. With a one. And it says, but instead, you lightly you. You lightly caress him on the back. He is uncomfortable. Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. It's great. And it's like that. That's that's to me is like, that's the essence of the game right there. It's you try to do epic things. Sometimes it doesn't happen. And what does and when it fails, that can be fun. It doesn't have to be funny, but it can be fun to have bad things happen. And then you have to deal with those consequences. So

Rick Vechel  1:34:40  
those are the short it says friends that Slade together, stay together. I like that I use that in every game that I have. Because I want the guys at my table to be one team. Yes, one unit. You go in together you get out together. And that's the most important part in d&d because if you play around for lone wolves out there Worst adventure ever. And yeah, I also follow the stories on Spotify on YouTube from all things d&d where they read out stories that people send in their Reddit. And you see a lot of things that are just like, if some people just talk to each other that could solve world peace. Yes, absolutely. That's. And that same goes for d&d.

Brian Wiggins  1:35:21  
Yeah. Absolutely. In game and out. So what is one tip you have for a brand spanking new Dungeon Master, someone who's about to run their first game? What is one tip you have for them?

Rick Vechel  1:35:34  
I have a boring one and an exciting one. Okay, well,

Brian Wiggins  1:35:37  
I know give me both What? Well, y'all Today, we're gonna make it a twofer.

Rick Vechel  1:35:41  
Oh, perfect. The first is read the dungeon master guide. For a lot of things your plays are true to it. There are answers already written for you don't get any gray hairs over things that you're going to panic at the table. Just have that book nearby. And it's important because you have to read like 200 pages. Sorry, good art. So I find but the fun part and advice and it's also comes to your role building. And that's a fun thing for dungeon master's and usually, in most cases, know what is going on in the world around the players in in the world. What is happening, who's living over what, what's over there. A Goblin raiding a village doesn't always happen when a party just arrives. party could also be late. Things are happening in your world, give it a place because that makes your job of telling a story easier. Yep, you come to a city. And it's been ransacked. Now as a few guys to find out what happened. Same goblins you went over shopping. But if you were three thieves earlier, you would have gotten a very attractive encounter. Now it's up to you guys to stay the goblins in their lair. And that's, and that's perfect. Because just so just go and watch a real building, make sure the will doesn't revolve around your players. And just follow that with a camera.

Brian Wiggins  1:36:58  
I really love that about that metaphor you have of the cameras on them. So for this campaign, I'm running now I started a spreadsheet for myself. And at the end of every session, I've got the major factions, political, whatever, just the major things, the major players in the world that these folks might never interact with. And so the in the first in the first session, there's an assassination attempt on some potential heirs to the Emperor's throne. So that's obviously going to set in some world changing events. All right, on a political scale. So even though the players might never interact with that, at the end of every session, I have a column, I write down like the date of the game, I write down the date in the game, so I can keep track of time because I'm terrible at that. And then what are the different moves that everyone else has made? Did these pirates start doing attacks on this coast did this through but whatever. So that way as they move along, if all of a sudden they move out to the coast? Yeah. Has it been ransacked for the last six months or not, you know,

Rick Vechel  1:38:05  
but exactly. It also makes your job as Dungeon Master. More fun. Yeah. Because a lot of DMS get tired too, just because players are just doing their thing and Dungeon Master there is a tool for that world. And in my experience, this helps you to kill that. that possibility because you're also making your world fun for yourself. You have you're going to make NPCs that you're that you're going to fall in love with. I have one I'm Percy illovo is his name. And he's a potion Brewer. And he's a warlock, a toxic ghosts. And he's a and he he grew up with these ghosts. He thinks they're, they're fun. And he already has a laugh, and he's a very gentle guy. Whenever they go into a store to see a big battle axe, whatever an icy glimmer above the door, as I always kind of warrior kind of guy is this very thin guy. Hey, it goes in a very happy, joyful guy. He only has an exploration ever faces a goblin when he's getting out Herbes. He's just he thinks the world is something that only puppies and butterflies are and he doesn't. There's no evil here. Now. The government's already doing what that means is still there herb so I kind of kind of understand that. And he's very joyful guy and I love that guy. They come to Neverwinter he has a store over there with all kinds of potions. He's also doing occasional questgiver. And if we find a dragon for this, nah, yeah, we're just go on with his day. And that helps with everything never pays go throw at me. Even things like our guys not again, or just when they were at Sega city for example. They have the opportunity to visit god dammit. But these things are my shining light in even if our players do all kinds of stuff that I don't really like yeah, these are the things that help

Brian Wiggins  1:40:00  
So what is one tip you would have given your younger dm self knowing what you know now

Rick Vechel  1:40:07  
don't play the cleric get your fighter or Paladin instead. characters don't use that cleric Don't be the most most advice I would give my 13 year old self. Because if it comes to the rest of my gaming experience I could have been here faster at the moment but I'd like my adventure thus far. So just another starting character would have been fine. And you have to experience what what your preferences are as a player. I hate playing mages orange characters. I absolutely hate it. Yeah, I want to be in the brunt of battle helping my eyes. And I've played with three wizards now. And the only one that I liked was blitzing, and that I was too ambitious with and died a third. But the other guy standing in the backseat and the fireballs or their grease or other comments of utility spells. They're not my thing. You have to Yeah, find that out for yourself. Whatever works. But yeah, I think that my first character should not have been a cleric. Yeah.

Brian Wiggins  1:41:14  
So Well, I mean, that's pretty much we're pretty much at the end now. So what are where are places if you would like people to follow you or find you or see the work that you're doing? Where can folks find you out there?

Rick Vechel  1:41:26  
I think the easiest way to find me is through websites vecow fancy.com, or find me with vecow Fantasy on Instagram. It also has a link three for all other discord links or whatever you want to join now join up on so yeah, Instagram is the thing that you can view the most of my my own adventures. I have a discord where you're always happy to just find you look for a group show what you're working on. I'm working on a boat at the moment. So craft. So that

Brian Wiggins  1:41:58  
awesome. Dude, Rick, man, thank you so much for coming on to my podcast.

Rick Vechel  1:42:03  
Thanks for the invitation. I was surprised when I got the meal. And I loved every part of it since every meal at this podcast. Thank you, Ryan.

Brian Wiggins  1:42:11  
Thank you. Thanks, dude. This is awesome. Well, that's it for this episode of hidden roles. Remember, players if you're in my game or in Rick's game, and you listened to this podcast, your characters just might get Goblin. Yeah, that's the thing. With a dungeon masters, we can make it a thing. Please make sure to give us a big old five star review on whatever platform you happen to be consuming this podcast on. Please follow the hidden roles podcast on twitter at hidden underscore roles. And you can always give me Brian Wiggins a follow up at the same Brian on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Brian WigginsOctober 11, 2021Comment