Episode 106: How To Plan A Session, Run A Convention Game, & MORE: An evening with Daisy Darling, author of GrymmWorld

Brian Wiggins 0:02 
This is the hidden roles podcast 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
Daisy Darling 0:30 
My name is Daisy Darling, and I am the DM for a untitled fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign for a group of rowdy professional wrestlers.
Brian Wiggins 0:41 
Now, fair warning, if you are a player in any of my games, or in Daisy Darlings games, and you listen to this nice characters you've got there be a shame if something happened to them. Daisy, thank you very very much for being on my podcast.
Daisy Darling 1:07 
Well, thank you Brian, so much for having me on the podcast hidden roles, and I'm excited to share thoughts insights laughs and have a good time.
Brian Wiggins 1:18 
I am too and you shared a little something right before we started and I'm Can't wait into it for us to get to that stuff. But let us start with this. What is the first ttrpg that you played?
Daisy Darling 1:31 
The first ttrpg that I ever played was Western game Star Wars The role playing game. And I believe I played it in all age myself here in 1991.
Brian Wiggins 1:44 
Okay, so what was that ruleset like I'm familiar with the newer one with edge of the Empire. I'm not familiar with that one.
Daisy Darling 1:53 
So the original Star Wars role playing game was a D six based game with a wild die mechanic. So you would roll and number of dice equal to your skill or attribute. And there's a wild dive, where if it rolls a six on the die, you keep rolling it. If you roll the one you take away that one in the highest or introduce a complication. And the core mechanic is very simple, where essentially you are trying to roll higher than a difficulty number. So arbitrary, not arbitrarily but there's a simple guideline say 2020 is something that's very difficult to do. You are going to try to shoot a bull's eye at the end of the corridor and open the blast stores so your friends can escape the difficulties 20 and your skill is five days. So you would roll five dice, and then see if you rolled higher than 20 and then adding some randomness to that there's the wild die which can either help or hinder you, huh.
Brian Wiggins 2:59 
Okay, I like that. What is your favorite ttrpg system?
Daisy Darling 3:06 
My favorite ttrpg system is invisible son by Monte cook games.
Brian Wiggins 3:12 
And tell me about that I am not familiar with that. Tell me about invisible.
Daisy Darling 3:15 
Invisible son is a surreal fantasy game, where a lot of narrative control is given to the player characters, it takes place in a fantastical realm known as the actuality in the conceit of the game is essentially what if our dreams were reality and reality it was our dreams, so everything is extremely magical. The rule books itself have many puzzles, codes, hidden messages throughout them. The game comes with this six fingered hand statue, you solve enough puzzles you learn that there's additional puzzles hidden inside the hand statue, you crack open the bottom and pull out sheets of paper. So it's really a masterful work by Monte cook. Really cool. Yes, and every player the way they advance is you select a character arc and you advance down your character arc in order to obtain experience in their arcs, the arc might be something like fall in love or defeat a great enemy or create a masterful work and so you in the game master will work through it. It's not a prep plus game in the sense that the game master they prep it in a very non traditional way. Essentially players show up and say this is what I want to do to achieve my art. But they don't understand all the secrets of the setting and the game master their number one job is to read the setting books and kind of go with the flow and it has a Taro like deck that causes very interesting occurrences to have throughout so invisible sons. Probably my favorite games. system it is a colossal work by Monte cook games that is just beautiful to look at and it's empowering to play. I,
Brian Wiggins 5:08 
I can understand why that is. Wow, that's hitting a lot of leavers that are very, very interesting. Oh, that is very cool. I'm going to need to check that out. Wow, okay. Um, so how did you make the transition? Or did you start when you started playing Star Wars? The that role playing game? Did you start behind the screen? Or did you make that transition? And when you made that transition? How did you do that? How would you go from being a player to being the herder of cats.
Daisy Darling 5:41 
So for my 11th birthday, my older brother, Sam, who's about six years older than me, but me a couple of adventures and one of the galaxy guides, and for his birthday, he got the rule books. And he was 17 years old, he was a senior in high school and him and all of his friends said, you're going to run for us. So I was only 11. So at age 11, I had to run for a group of surly Gen X high schoolers. And we did pretty good until we ran into the first mechanic and they scolded me I ran home crying, I cracked up the I had to reread a section of the rulebook five times before it's allowed to come back and run, which seems draconian, and it was, I went back and I wiped away the tears. And then I kept reading the session. And at the end of the first episode, it's a game that's episodic in nature. And I said, that was really fun. Can we play again, he said, Sure. And so I started improvising the rest of the adventure for the group, and it was just, I was hooked. After the first session,
Brian Wiggins 6:54 
wow. And they threw you in the deep end right away, right away right
Daisy Darling 6:59 
away. And I don't think I would have survived the experience. Except one of my older brother's friends who wasn't part of that group was a very, very experienced Game Master, and load me The Game Master Handbook, which had an enormous amount of advice. And just it gave me all sorts of skills, tools, inspiration. I also got a chance to play under him and see how someone else did it. But um, I think I ran that game every week for a group of players for maybe 20 years.
Brian Wiggins 7:39 
Wow. So you, did you So did you play at all prior to that? Or is it you did that and then you ran your first game, and then you had the opportunity to play under this other person? Or?
Daisy Darling 7:55 
I had run about six sessions,
Brian Wiggins 7:56 
and then you had a chance to actually be a player? Yes. Wow. That is a wow, I mean, it's, that's I? Wow, I mean, it's it's such a it's such a novel way to have someone be introduced into ttrpg. It's usually you know, the status standard route is you start playing and then one day, well, hey, I think I might want to do this. And so Oh, man, how do you think that that has influenced your approach to running games? having started in the GM dm, chair, whatever you want to call it starting on that side of the screen? How do you think that might have influenced you in how you run games?
Daisy Darling 8:42 
I think as a gamer as a whole, whether I'm running or playing, it gives me a deep appreciation for the individual that might be selected as a facilitator at the game. So for me, I just have a deep appreciation. So if someone else is running the game, I learned how to be respectful and supportive and model the kind of play behavior that I would expect out of the other folks who are playing at the table. And likewise, where it influenced my play is it in or the, the way I run games is it influenced me to essentially be fearless and durable, and assertive, because when you're 11 years old, and you're running for people who are just about to enter adulthood, it's very easy for them to take advantage and you know, the game can get away from you and you know, you're much smaller than them and you don't have as much life experience and even just your reading level is much lower than theirs. And however you you learn to control and run the table. And also understand that if everyone's there is there in good faith, and they're all trying to have fun in the way they get fun is by playing and engaging with the game itself, then it doesn't really matter how old or experienced you are. And I tried to take this. We had a spreadsheet somewhere, but I've facilitated games for over 2000 people. You know, I've been featured on, you know, over 50 twitch channels, I've, you know, been published by, you know, all my heroes of publishers. I don't say that as brag. Yeah. But I got there. It all started with being a kid at age 11. And sitting at a table and running an RPG for a group of certainly high schoolers.
Brian Wiggins 10:45 
And it sounds like the group you are running, did have that approach of wanting to be they wanted to be there they wanted to play and while they made you read that section five times over before you are allowed to come back, it does sound like they did not take advantage of the fact that they had a younger person at the table running the game. It sounded like they were that you had it Am I am I picking up on that that was a pretty supportive a nice group to have. I mean, if you ran the game for them for 20 years, and
Daisy Darling 11:16 
I ran the game system for 20 the system I apologize, I'm under some, and I'll say it was great, too, because they didn't take advantage of me because once the role playing game became the hip thing to do, if you started taking vandrie started being mean, you're not playing well with others and you won't get invited back. So that's that's something it's it's both the improv skill and a sportsmanship skill, it where if you don't learn how to play well with others, then eventually you will be burned out of the group or, you know, the group will self selecting, curate, and invite people who can persist in the game. Yeah, by that the concept of persistence. That means we want to keep playing again and again and again, as many times as possible. So if you're a bully, no one's gonna put up with you. Likewise, if you bully the Game Master, or the Game Master is not going to agree to one run any more than someone else is going to have to learn all the rules. This
Brian Wiggins 12:10 
is true. It amazes me. Well, it doesn't it doesn't how many toxic players you know, you always hear the horror stories and I I maintain that they're still the minority. It's not the majority of people who play these games are not bad people. There's a there are a few bad seeds. But it's I do find it amazing that those people can have as many years as they have playing these games, but you hear also, or maybe even see or witness how they've approached the game itself and the people around them. It's like, why and how, you know, it's, I don't get it.
Daisy Darling 12:49 
No, it's um, there's ways to manage and create toxicity. And I used to be a contract Game Master that would get hired by parents to run RPGs. For children that needed to be socialized, they're having their friend groups are having trouble with sports, they're having trouble at school, they were not very respectful and as a bit of a Mary Poppins that would be brought in to straighten out the children. Except I do that by teaching them how to play well. There's some wonderful, wonderful individuals in the community like Adam sparks and Dr. B with games to grow in similar organizations, where they use RPGs as a sort of behavioral therapy activity. And so there aren't toxic players. But it's interesting that you can rehabilitate people's play styles, using basic techniques, such as sentence framing, and just sort of the positioning at the table and you can actually use it to help people acclimate to being in that environment. And there's definitely some situations where people do awful things at the table and we have enough evidence that we know that it's occurrence it's not necessarily a rare occurrence, but it is the minority I believe, because otherwise I don't think the game itself would be able to thrive Exactly. It's similar with online games you run into a griefer a bad player or someone who's ill mannered with a certain amount of frequency unfortunately, with tabletop RPG is you can curate the group. It's a little bit easier and yeah.
Brian Wiggins 14:31 
I see now. I want the series that is where the logline is. It's Mary Poppins, but it's the Mary Poppins of RPGs. I want I want to see that now on Netflix or whatever
Daisy Darling 14:45 
it is impossible. It meaning this table is impossible.
Brian Wiggins 14:48 
Oh my god, that would be an amazing shock.
Daisy Darling 14:51 
I'd love to do it. You know, I kind of do
Brian Wiggins 14:53 
a DM boot camp. It's like It's like what was that Supernanny, but like for the DM
Daisy Darling 15:01 
Absolutely, and I think it's very useful. And I think a good environment for anyone listening to this is cut your teeth as being a convention Game Master, where you go to game conventions, you learn to run for random individuals that have signed up, they oftentimes they paid money to play in the event. But you're just gonna have to manage all kinds of tables and develop skills to manage and facilitate those tables.
Brian Wiggins 15:27 
I will say, I am not brave enough to try that. I that is something I would be terrified of, not necessarily because of the people at the table. I'm not like, Oh, I'm gonna have all the bat. No, I would just be like, man, am I gonna be, I would be nervous about running a game for strangers and not having that. That margin of error I have with my friends that if I'm a little off my game, or if I make a mistake not to say that, you know, you have to be perfect, but you don't have that with strangers, at least in my head. You don't have strangers and oh, that's not the right thing.
Daisy Darling 16:01 
Yeah, it takes some. And when you know, just a little peek behind the curtain in those situations, I usually begin with trust building at the table. Then I go through a period that I call the investment in immersion, where I get everyone in cinema. And you know, I'm a filmmaker by trade. I get everyone to, I create lean forward moments where everyone just leans in a little bit. And they're like, Okay, I think, you know, I'm at a convention, this is a game of strangers, but it's real now, you know, just like, they're like, they're part of the game. And then they all invest and they realize, like, we've had a table of people that have never played together before that just shared this powerful bonding experience in a public place. And it can be quite good, but you're right, it can be terrifying. And when I started doing it, at the start of fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, I was watching a lot of tables struggle, the convention space in games like Pathfinder, etc. Where it was just it was time and the site Geist, where it felt like convention game masters were struggling. And now I would say less so but that also might be my bias, because I've been doing it so long.
Brian Wiggins 17:17 
Yeah. Man, that is, that takes a lot of bravery to do that. That is so good on you. That takes that takes. I think the word I'm looking for is Moxie. It's kind of a random question. But in our rapid fire, rapid fire ish section of the podcast, what is your favorite monster?
Daisy Darling 17:39 
Mind flayers
Brian Wiggins 17:40 
mind flayers wire mind flayers and I'm not surprised. But why our mind flayers? Why move to them again? why our mind flayers your favorite monster.
Daisy Darling 17:51 
They are proprietary, they are meaning they're bespoke to Dungeons and Dragons. They are alien. They are cyanic, which is a controversial ruleset. And system then has existed since eldritch. wizardry you know, Gary Gygax was like, you know, I need to make some mechanics that will just nothing that the players have ever seen. And so you have these creatures from another plane that infested the underdark that are prevalent in, you know, legendary box sets like night below. Or my friend Bruce Cordell wrote the Olympiad, which is like the original guide to mindfulness. And they're just kind of a creepy cool, you know, and they're filling this their brain eaters they're awful. Yes,
Brian Wiggins 18:47 
there's that too. Yes. They drill a hole in your head with their tongue. Yes. They there. I think it was, was it Volos guide to monsters or it was one of the source books and they really got a little bit deeper in fifth edition on the on the mind flayers. And it was like, oh, oh, just hope this is all icky. All of it. None of it's good. Yeah. Now before we get a little bit deeper into some of the other questions I have, I need to ask. So you said you run games for professional wrestlers and I need to know more. There's just so much there.
Daisy Darling 19:21 
I do. I'm not gonna name drop. No, it's okay. That's fine. That's fine. I had been producing a show on Twitch for a well known highly regarded channel, and there was a professional wrestler on that stream. One day, a cast member couldn't show up and they asked me if I would fill in and I just crack them all up so bad with my shenanigans. And then at the end of that I gave everyone my cell phone number and let them know if they ever needed to get ahold of me for any reason in a professional a wrestler was like, hey, I need a twitch producer short notice for a stream, can you do something? And I did. And then a month or two later was, Hey, can you start running my home game? Here's who's in it. And I said, okay, right, I could do this. I'm fans of everyone. And we've been playing every week for about 10 months now. And it is just a blast. It is.
Brian Wiggins 20:24 
I can only overdone
Daisy Darling 20:27 
over the top and they rip each other. They Yeah, on each other. They, they are goofy. They all have very different personality types. But they all show up every week. And they just love the magic of play. And they love having a weekly game. And I think it was the last session that one of them said, I've never played a character this high level before. And I mentioned earlier about when you play with the when you play with others, the campaign persists. Yeah, so they've been able to play every week. And they're like, I've never been this high level before. And it's very exciting for them.
Brian Wiggins 20:59 
I have to imagine now I've seen, I saw, I saw a big show when he was on with jocks makena when they did the d&d event, and it Xavier Woods, who joined the acquisitions incorporated game and was then they were both fantastic. And I think, because there's so much of that improv muscle that they have to exercise while performing their craft that probably and they're used to playing it over the top character that you know, probably translates well, but I have to imagine there's kind of a little bit of a catharsis there, too, that they have this touch point every week, when they've got a life that, you know, you hear all of the struggles they have with just being on the road constantly, that this has got to be like a catharsis, or at least a little, like a touch point for them to be like, Alright, I'm going to ground myself, I'm just going to be this other thing, and just have fun and absolutely a good mental health thing for them.
Daisy Darling 21:53 
It is, it's a comfort, it's an escape. When you think about it, it's very, very, very difficult, particularly in the time of a global pandemic. Your jobs not necessarily secure as a pro wrestler, and there's lots of releases that happens. And each month when they release talent, you know, you go through such great stress, but to have the comfort of a game, where you can escape for a few hours in play a fantastical character. And I think one of the reasons you see such powerful and poor performances is pro wrestlers develop a skill called getting over, they'll get over with each other, and they get over with audiences, and they get over with crowds. They understand how to connect with an individual, and take control of the moment and create moments, as well as create space for others. You know, if one pro wrestler dominates too much time, then the audience becomes bored with them to the point where they start getting heat, and they start getting booed. So that's something I've noticed when I played with the wrestlers is they're very good at creating space for other people, as well as when it's their turn to have the space. They know how to create powerful, impactful moments. As well as get over. And as well as they sort of develop the fact that their schedules are so rigorous. They're constantly in practice of doing it. As long as they would like to have a good time and they're competitive to like they they want to do well in the game itself.
Brian Wiggins 23:25 
Yeah. Yeah, you just hit like on a whole bunch of stuff there that they get sick is very direct translation. to like, how like beat so yeah, being a good being, being at the top of your game, at whatever level, you're at being at the top of your game as a pro wrestler, you would have a set of skills that are very, very similar. That would make you at least I don't want to say be a good game player, because I don't, I don't want to use that term good. But one who's going to have a lot of fun with it, and the people that table will have a lot of fun. So maybe in that sense, you know, being good in that you're you're bringing a lot of joy to the people around you, man, here's,
Daisy Darling 24:04 
here's, here's, here's a really good correlation. I think the number one skill that you need to develop as both a pro wrestler and as a facilitator of games or a player in tabletop, is you need to develop trust and trust is built upon psychological safety of explained to people. You can have a pro wrestler from Mexico and Japan that don't speak the same language that can work in a credible manner. Because they trust each other and they know how to be safe. And so with pro wrestlers, they learn how to I think it was Steven regal, who had a phrase he goes, you learn how to hit really hard and safe places.
Brian Wiggins 24:42 
I hit very hard in very safe places. Yeah, I remember that word. Exactly. Yes,
Daisy Darling 24:47 
exactly. So that's that's something you learn how to do as a role player as well. And a skill you can get from professional wrestling, where you learn how to hit very hard and very safe places. So you have what looks Like a very very very impactful maybe emotional blow but it's safe and you're not going to break the individual right it can be Captain sort of this kayfabe Pyramid of trust system and those are skills that you can apply in professional environments at the game table whether progressing or not.
Brian Wiggins 25:21 
When you think about it no one you're not going to randomly do a ladder spot with someone in the ring without having discussed it with them with them with them that with them first. So sort of the same thing with d&d or any I say d&d, but any RPG you don't want to do a high spot with him if you haven't talked if they weren't prepared to do that. That can be damaging to the player
Daisy Darling 25:43 
absolutely
Brian Wiggins 25:44 
wow this is not that there's I never i mean i mean i i mean i grew up when I was a kid I think you and I are about the same age so grew up with the whole you know rock and wrestling you know hulkamania stuff and then there was the Attitude Era which was I was in college for that is very very cool time. And then you know, as I got older I got out of it. And I follow it very tangentially now but I love listen to the interviews with these guys like from like, absolutely getting behind the scenes. But man, I never even thought about how much of this parallel that is. So
Daisy Darling 26:17 
yeah, the two the two. What I'll call domains that have been most inspirational to me in tabletop are professional wrestling and stand up comedy. Yeah, those are the two things it more so than my filmmaking and I've been shortlisted for an Oscar, and I was nominated for best features South by Southwest, stand up comedy and professional wrestling are the two things that I pulled from the most when I'm on stream or off it's just the skill sets I've developed from those two domains.
Brian Wiggins 26:53 
Well I this is not RPG related at all, but I figured just because we're on the favorite he'll favorite face and if you have a favorite overall doesn't matter what it is your face. I know that's tough, but I just want to throw that out there cuz I just got this.
Daisy Darling 27:07 
Alright, right. all time favorite heel is Ric Flair working. Heel. Okay. And my favorite face of all time would be the icon sting. Okay, I close behind Ric Flair would be I'd probably say my favorite of all time is Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Brian Wiggins 27:29 
Yeah. Yeah, rowdy was something else, man.
Daisy Darling 27:36 
Yeah, there's just it's so hard to pick favorites. Like Yeah, I really like Randy Savage. I really like really just like all of them. Ricky Steamboat.
Brian Wiggins 27:46 
I think we could just because when I came up with it, I always loved Triple H as a as a heel.
Daisy Darling 27:52 
He's so good. Yeah, he's someone. Yeah. I think when I was in high school, he was probably my favorite. Yeah, as a heel.
Brian Wiggins 28:00 
And I think a mile time I think, man, I gotta go Jake, the snake. Because that dude has chops when it come when he gets on the mic. I saw a clip from him. I think it was with a W and it was just like, he was like, never turn your back on someone you respect. And you just turn. man. Man anyway.
Daisy Darling 28:27 
Totally good. To mark out on the spot.
Brian Wiggins 28:29 
Ah, yes, absolutely, man. Oh, okay. Anyway, so getting more into the ttrpg side, if we want to keep on with the with the with the wrestling metaphors and analogies, we can but um, we actually this ties in, we talked about, you know, the hitting very hard and very safe places, basically the safety of your players. But in addition to that, also being able to build something of an interesting campaign story, whatever, depending on the game that you're running. So session zero is always very, very important. What are the questions that you ask or what is the information that you need when you're conducting session zero for a brand new campaign?
Daisy Darling 29:10 
Okay. And the way I'm going to answer this question is, I'm going to reference a game that's been around almost as long as Dungeons and Dragons. It's a German game called dashboards Agha, which is the darchei. It is published by Ulysses should be lit and they have a guide in their appendix, called a guide to a great session. And they have a section for players. And they have a section for game masters and then they have a section for everyone together. And it asks about 58 procedural questions, and they explained that you we call it a session zero but this is longer than a North American They learn that you should have a session where players and game masters and facilitators and everyone that's going to be in the room get together and talk about what should occur. And I'll give you an example of a question they might ask. They say, how do we feel about die rolls? Where it completely spoils the narrative? Do we want to agree as a table that maybe we can hand wave? These? Are there rules in the rulebook that we don't want to include? They actually have a checklist, it's very German, and design, in the dark is almost a meme, because it has over 1000 rules. Interesting to note that you can fit the essential rules on just four pages, the rules, the explanation of all of them, but they actually have three degrees and over 1000 rules if you want to incorporate granular detail, which is interesting, because anytime any situation comes up, they have a rule for it. But then they also have a general guideline that could just get you through it if you didn't want to dig in deeper. But they they guide you through as they go, Well, how do we feel about introducing new players to the group? Not everyone thinks about that? They say we have a group, they say, but have you considered? What's your procedure for introducing? Can anyone just bring anyone they want? Should you talk about it as a group as the game master who introduces it? So some of the some of these questions? Now, that's a very in depth guide. And I actually think it's one of the best ones out there. Especially if you're running a long persistent campaign and some of the things questions I would ask though, that'd be like, what are some things that? What are some things that we want to have out of balance? These are subject matter issues, turns of phrase content that are out of bounds? Same as if we were drawing a basketball court, it's out of balance that doesn't count, it's out of play? What are some things that we feel need to occur off camera? Are there situations or fictional events in the game that should occur off camera? We fade to black on these. In some parlance, we refer to both of these things as lines and fails, which comes from a 2002 essay by Ron Edwards. Hey, Ron, if you hear this, and then then I ask people, what are your content wishes and promises that you want? We talked about what we don't want in the game, what are some things you absolutely want to be included in this game. And then we can talk about whether it's even within the context of the game to include those things or how we might modify our play space to include them. Something else that I've recently introduced, I play a lot of romantic RPGs. And so we we include a matrix of this is how I feel in regards towards romance to NPCs. Here's how I feel in regards to romance with other players. Here's some additional guidelines like I might tell everyone it's like flirting is pre action but always ask before you touch in the game, don't smooch me
Brian Wiggins 33:06 
good rule for life too.
Daisy Darling 33:09 
Yes. So but these are some things that I put in a session zero some other things we go over is I have a some common assumptions about the game. Not necessarily questions but in order for people to buy in. Like if I'm running knights, black agents, which is a gumshoe game by can hate. I say, the assumption is you are you all trust each other. You're super spies, and you all trust each other. This scenario only works if your characters trust each other. vagabonds, a deferred, which is a OSR pvta game designed to just pick up old d&d modules and run them they explain. The players are, everyone works together, everyone works together. quest RPG explains, you know that if there's PvP, the players determine the outcome. There's no rules, they'll just determine if they can't come to a consensus, then it doesn't happen. So there's all sorts of different ways to play it and adjust it based on the rule set that we're playing. But I'd like to introduce some assumptions and then talk about what's included. You know, I had a player recently that said they didn't want spiders in the game, so there's no there was no spiders. There was another one where someone said it's very important to them that we're playing good society, which is the gene Austin RPG, and they said, We We must make sure that there's just a big dramatic kerfuffle at a dance party a ballroom because what why else are we playing the game?
Brian Wiggins 34:49 
Fair. So once you've gotten I'm saying getting through it, not like always slog through it, but once once you've gotten through all of that, and you're getting into the campaign. What is your approach to planning a session, I've spoken with people who are almost entirely fly by the seat of their pants with only only the barest of notes to get through. And then I've got the other side of people who are meticulous note takers. And while they're not necessarily trying to micromanage every possible outcome they have, they're trying to do a lot more planning a lot more heavy lifting. What is your planning look like? What are your tactics for getting ready for a session, okay?
Daisy Darling 35:35 
It's typically determined by game and group. And so what I'm going to do is describe how I prep for the professional wrestlers, which is very much in alignment with the way I prep a game like Dungeons and Dragons in general. So the first thing I do is I write down the name of the players who is sitting at the table. And I write down the names of their characters, race, class, and level. And I just write that down. Because each player might have individual needs or wants or desires or a play style, and just writing down their names. We'll bring that back to my memory, who's sitting at this table. And for context, for the listeners, I used to run 15 games a week, which is a lot. So it's very important for me to figure out who is sitting at the table. Yeah. Then the next thing I do, is I write down a strong start. This is how this week's session is going to start. We're going to start strong, I want to be able to get it into action quickly. And I typically need to have a strong start to make sure I get everyone's energy up to carry us through the session. I run for this group at the tail end of the day. Some of the players have probably already started drinking. And so I want to make sure that I can get them into the game and invested so I write down a strong start. Could be a combat could be something unexpected. Like they meet that last session, they met the Princess of the Apocalypse and she appeared in she announced that a comet was going to smash into the planet. And there's what but that's how I started them. It's just like doomsday scenario clock's ticking, how are you going to handle this? Then the next thing I do is I write down 10 secrets or clues. These are interesting things about the game world and the environment that they will be. Gaming through that I can introduce as sort of a this comes from will write the game designer, he designed some city and he designed spore. He says one way you can keep people playing is by giving the revealing to them secrets about the world. And so it might be a blind beholder. aimlessly wanders the underdark. And he is a creature of sadness. So it's a beholder who, you know, they typically have a bunch of ice stocks and an eye. What did that poor creature was blind. And it's aimlessly wandering, when my plan is pine that they're going to ask questions about it, and they're gonna want to engage it. And they might actually like, as I described, you know, the sad bruises and lacerations on this creature because he's blind, wandering through a cold place with sharp rocks, they might have sympathy, and they might have pity for this creature. And it might cause them to invest. Or they might get into a fight against the flying beholder, who knows. But it's one of those things, but I just write something down in a bucket of phrase that will reveal a secret about the world or a clue to advance. Whatever arc they are pursuing. I write down at least 10 of those that way I have ammunition. Regardless of what's going on during the session. There's something I can introduce. The next thing I write down is planned combat encounters that might occur during the session. And if it's a creature I'm unfamiliar with, I typically reference first the stat block, then I read the lore. And then I see if someone like Keith Amman who wrote the monsters know what they're doing. Are there any tactics that I should be aware of if there's, you know, a massive spell block or I ran an owl Hoon recently, which is an undead beholder, or not beholder elicited just below Lich Tim. And, you know, they have a finite amount of spell slots. And tactically you can decide how to use their wallet force or their disintegrate spell, or if they're going to cast something. When will they use their mind blast etc. Someone's going to correct me in the comments where they go through they don't have a mind blast. That's regular Oh, I get I remember. Counting. Yes, and then I'm able to balancing counter and some of them I have as more like competence building exercises where it's like the Pro wrestlers, I want them to squash some things I want them to, you know, come out there in just I might not even be tracking hit points I just want to see what actually I want to see their psychology. How would they approach? Just there's a group of bandits on the road. They're leaving town and they see the bandits in their in their airship, how do they handle the bandits? It gives them a chance to explore their abilities. But also, I definitely always plan at least two deadly encounters. And the two deadly encounters are because I want to keep them awake and I want to challenge them.
Daisy Darling 40:35 
I probably average in an actual combat 1.5 players get knocked unconscious. My players are currently ninth level. They have tools to prevent death. And but I like running challenging combats. Just slightly beyond probably what I referred to as the group experience, and skill cap in the fact that it's just slightly beyond it's like when you're a parent teaching a child to speak, you always speak to a child just beyond their vocabulary, so they start to develop new vocabulary. So my players are starting to devise tactics and strategies to defeat creatures that are maybe just a little beyond what they're used to. And it lets them stretch and explore their abilities and become more proficient at solving combat encounters. Then the next thing I do is I write five fantastic locations and evocative descriptions for them. These are backdrops these are set pieces, these are the things they're going to see in the game. Then lastly, I write down loot that they could potentially get, what tables I will roll on. And I can prep a a three to four hour session and about a half hour. If I need to draw upon maps or other encounters for inspirations, I have a vast library of nearly 50 years of role playing material from a variety of systems. I'd say through that campaign, I've probably pulled from five different rule sets, 12 different publishers. We've gone all over. And it's been good and we've been playing about every week. And it's it's everyone's seems to be appreciative. So a lot of that advice comes from a book that I was thanked on in special things and collaborate on sly flourishes Return of the lazy Dungeon Master. That's sort of the lazy GM prep, where there's some nuance and there's some variety is I probably put more emphasis on combat tactics, and fantastic locations, because I want these players to see things and experience things that they never have before. So I think more with more intention on the evocative set pieces and the challenging combats.
Brian Wiggins 43:08 
Okay, so when it comes to combat, are you more theater of the mind? Or are you closer to the like how tactical with like minis maps and whatnot Do you like to get versus how much pure theater of the mind? Were on that scale? Do you think you fall? Or do you enjoy the most?
Daisy Darling 43:29 
I would say and not to avoid answering the question, but I'm rather agnostic. What I like to do is I'd like to examine the source material and have tools to provide for the needs of the players. So some players might need some level of abstract positioning. So we might drop some miniatures on a very crude map just so they can get an idea of proportion of monster scale the number of opponents in some abstract ranges. A good example of a system might 13th age, I've engaged I'm near and far. It's long range, I can't see it or targeted anymore. If I'm running a module like kobold presses to wake war, well that has combat encounters with hundreds and hundreds of creatures there would be absolutely no way we could represent that in run it with any efficiency if we use minis for every creature on that combat field. So However, I'm a big fan of tactical combat, and I think so much of Dungeons and Dragons, mechanically is dependent upon a grid that I like to create setpiece pitched battles, boss fights, legendary encounters, where we introduce these components. So here's what I'd say percentage wise probably one Every three sessions, I'm going to have an extremely evocative detailed tactical map, possibly commissioned or built. And positioning is going to be part of the flow of combat, the players are going to have to think about how to control range and where they end up on the field of play. However, in the interest of time and effort, I'm probably going to use two to one abstract positioning where I just have some abstract markers and some sample ranges. Just as a graphical representation during combat, and then, in the last place, we'll probably run pure theater of the mind, which I think is a really good and efficient way to run combat. But again, it comes down to the needs of the players and the needs of the group. When I was running the games Tavern channel, I had a player explained to me that one, he was a nurse, too, it's the time of COVID. Three, he's probably worth 13 hours before he's come to game, for he's trying really hard five, he needs to be able to see where things are. Because he's playing a wizard, he has a whole heck of a lot of spells, he's not too sure exactly how to do it. So in order to play the game, and get the most enjoyment out of it, I committed to preparing a map in minis for every combat encounter for that particular player. Which isn't too hard. It I was running a publish module. And so I had access to maps as well as I was a patron to a number of Patreon mapmaker patrons where you have access to 1000s and 1000s of battle maps. So it's very easy to find something to suit an adventure. I grabbed some artwork from d&d beyond it This was played online and virtually, and just scale the images and place them on the field. But that said it my weekly game at the pro wrestlers. It's probably four times we've run theater of the mind eight times we've run with abstract positioning in some graphical representations. And then twice, we've run a very evocative detailed tactical map on the grid.
Brian Wiggins 47:19 
So this is maybe you have a solution to this because this is a challenge that I've run into whenever I've wanted to use maps from the different modules, for example, princes of the Apocalypse, I have that model. And you know, it has some really fun maps in there. But the challenge that I've always had is that that's the section of the book that really only the DM is supposed to be looking at. And the maps Typically, these gorgeous maps typically only have or have all of the DM notes on there. Like little like either things are numbered or there's like little clues and hints that you might not want you might not want your players to be seeing so as to not spoil anything or give away or lead them. You want them to kind of explore and discover the space on their own. How do you deal with that? Are you because I found myself recreating the maps and it obviously never looks as good as it does in the book? How have you gone about dealing with that, with dealing with that, okay, that issue.
Daisy Darling 48:24 
Historically, what I would do is I would draw them on a tactical grid, just using a simple like chest x map and I dry with a dry, dry erase marker. If you use a a permanent marker, this is the pro tip for everyone you can draw over a permanent marker with a dry erase marker, and you can then erase permanent marker. That's the pro tip for those of you that accidentally mark up your chest x map. The second tactic I would use is I would look on the cartographers website and see if they are selling high quality versions of their maps. And oftentimes they have both a player facing and Dungeon Master facing version princes of the apocalypse is a good example I believe the maps were a lot of them were drawn by Michael sly, who you know might fly SC h l e y. And Mike sells maps you know for like $2 you can get a very high quality copy of the map that is player facing. If you have access to a resource such as you know if the maps were done by lawyer, the lawyer has a site as well as look on the photographer sites to see if they are selling player friendly and player facing versions of the maps. Likewise, if you're using a third party tool, like d&d, beyond d&d beyond will allow you to access both player and Dungeon Master versions in a method that is superior to the book, a good example you know yeah, I found them on you know, Mike's site give you an example of princes of the Apocalypse, but you can. Typically on a on Mike site, I'm just gonna link in the chat, he will have an include in his pack player and Dungeon Master versions. And again, if you do purchase one of these maps, I recommend using the architecture printer at Staples where you can do a large poster size print for like $2 instead of $30. So about $4, you can get someone to do all the work for you. And it is an added cost. But you're also avoiding revealing secrets within the book or being forced to draw and do everything yourself. I will say this to something else I might do is based on the type of adventure I might use a combination of tools to represent specific portions of the map. For example, I recently or not recently, maybe six years ago, I ran the tomb of horrors. I drew the non combat in puzzle portions of the map on isometric game paper. So there's game paper calm, and they have these isometric maps. And so I would draw them. So it's a very interesting, bizarre perspective, secret areas of the tomb of horrors I had prepared on Dwarven forge dungeon piles, and I would introduce them into plate these are secrets. Now we're three dimension instead of 2.5 D and and then combat portions where we would run into combat, I had Dry Erase dungeon tiles that I plop out in, I'd had pre drawn the rooms. So I was using three different types of maps on a single dungeon, which created a different kind of tone feel based on the circumstance. So I think it'll depend on the adventure. When I did storm kings thunder, which I tweeted about, I would just purchase the maps that I needed from the cartographers website and do architectural versions. There's some pretty good paizo flip maps, which are very good for quick, quick and easy wilderness, etc. I would also think about, what is the reason for the map that we're using?
Daisy Darling 52:29 
Is it what information do I need to convey to my players?
Daisy Darling 52:36 
So it's, it's gonna be a combination of all the above, I think so those are some strategies I've used to solve when there's a DM proprietary, confidential information, that you're trying to avoid spoiling secrets,
Brian Wiggins 52:49 
this is all very good, I'm gonna so that link you shared with in the chat that we have there. And you mentioned a few other things here, I'm gonna make sure I put those links into the show notes for anyone who's listening so that way, they can click upon them at their leisure. Um, so what do you do? When you're planning out? I'm gonna, I'm gonna frame this in that we know that the exacting art and subtle science that is running a TT RPG game is not really containing chaos, but definitely trying to direct it in certain directions at times. And, you know, most of the time running around with your hair on fire, trying to pretend like it's not this, but what do you do when your players do something that is completely unexpected and unplanned? Not necessarily, meaning they took a different direction with plot, I don't mean that because that's just alright week, that's a whole other thing. But I mean, like, within the confines of something that maybe you were planning for, but they find a way to, and I love it when they do this. But when they find a way to twist a rule that you didn't think about or use one of their abilities or powers in a way that's completely novel, that really is like, you have that brief moment of, Oh crap, I didn't What the hell are we gonna do? What is your approach to dealing with something like that?
Daisy Darling 54:13 
Okay, and I'm going to give two examples that come into play and the first example I'm going to give and I'm going to link this in chat This was on a stream game, and it was completely unexpected. However, it became the cause of much celebration can multiple back of holding Spanish TMR? And the correct answer is rules as written. There's no reason it wouldn't work. We're at the climax of the red hand of doom camp. And right so shout out to Josh hashtag kill Josh. Josh is was one of my favorites. players of all time, Josh was a forever dm. Very well respected adventurers league Dungeon Master sweetheart, really embraces role playing on all levels. And he had a protocol that he referred to as the weapon of magic destruction. And he had been sitting on essentially a portable hole and a bag of holding for about 1010 months. And he had told me there were many times throughout the campaign, he almost executed the strategy when all the players seemed completely in over their heads at the climax of red hand of doom. TMR makes an appearance and if you convert the module to fifth edition, the recommendation is you just run her stat block from ryza tmrw, meaning She's like a CR 30 creature, and she deals hundreds of points of damage, and your players are only going to be like level 13 maybe when they get there. They're going to get wiped, and she certainly she has legendary actions where her various dragon heads cause all sorts of damage. And
Brian Wiggins 56:08 
this leads directly to descent into a furnace. I'm assuming this
Daisy Darling 56:13 
well, the player managed to use his wing boots and land on TMR and then shove the bag into the portable hole. Oh, what he did before that he used his bonus action because he was playing a rogue he used this bonus action to use an object and he poured out all the contents of his bag of holding that's held tactically is. And I thought it was odd. I was like, why is it just some days back, he lands on TMR and shoves the bag into the bag, warping her to the astral plane himself to the astral plane. He didn't lose any of his magic items in the back of holding because he dumped it out as a bonus action which a rogue can do Mm hmm. And then came out went away. I had to clap. And there were people on Twitter that said, No, that's that i would i would send her right back to murder them all. So when I do that, like you got to celebrate that
Brian Wiggins 57:12 
so I'm describe this woman again. So they put TMR in a bag of yo you
Daisy Darling 57:18 
can't you put a bag of holding inside a bag of holding right which causes both bags to explode. Create a Astro tear a hash sends everything adjacent to it to the astral plane.
Brian Wiggins 57:31 
Oh, I got it. Okay.
Daisy Darling 57:38 
Yes. And so what I did is we celebrate the players were able to begin to escape the start of their next adventure was them escaping from the crumbling Temple of TMR. They'd be in the red hand of doom. And as they exited the that was that was that the you know, that was a dramatic conclusion. It's something unexpected. I thought they were going to run away. And then TMR would get loose and then they would raise an army and they drive her back to where she came from. And that's not what happened. They defeated her. And this is the first round of combat TMR rolled a natural one on initiative. The very last person to go in she's killing everyone with her many legendary actions and these wide you know, area of effect breath weapons from her various heads. And she's avoiding anything bad happening to her with her legendary resistances. But the astral tears not a spell spell immunity doesn't help she has it just the thing that happens. Yes. And she's she's gone. And she had only appeared to because the red hand had failed. And you know, she was just going to cause some problems for a little bit as it says in the adventure. But I asked the player after the session, I said, Do you want to create a new character? Do you want to keep playing this one? Because you're a crafty individual? And I think what if you sacrifice three magic items in exchange for a flashback scene where you made a deal with the Council of wizards that are at the city? You know, essentially they had some very, very, very powerful allies, we decided that there were three allies that would have enough magic to bring him back should he end up in the astral plane. And we'd looked at the dungeon Master's guide for guidance on how long it would take him before he would arrive. But we decided I said you're going to sacrifice some of your resources in order to not lose your character as you rightfully should. But this is a compromise Yeah, you sacrifice something you have an opportunity to get new magic items. You can return as your character and it was amazing, because everyone escaped from the crumbling dungeon and they're all about to die. At his characters there
Brian Wiggins 59:56 
there is Hey guys, what's
Daisy Darling 59:59 
up And he just answered he said, so have I disappeared in the astral rift yet? Oh, that's so cool. Yes, very good and like so it actually hindered like I was like well let's talk about this I don't want everyone to think you cut off scot free so he wrote an explanation and we didn't turn Matic we actually did it similar to Gandalf the white revealing himself to the fellowship where essentially I was speaking then we start speaking in overlap and then he took over. I had him because his character would think it would be funny, he has disguise self and he was constantly disguising a certain NPC. So he showed up as a certain NPC in disguise that way his character was able to travel across the land in cognito. And essentially, it was a nice reveal, and everyone applauded it a second time where something unexpected occurred was I was running storm kings thunder, and I wrote a random encounter. And Lynn arm all the cloud castle of counter sensory was the next encounter, but it's a mile high in the sky, and they had just gotten out of iron slag, they were really beat up. They're kind of under leveled to go to that castle. But they said, Oh, we've got a solution for this. And they pulled out a bag of holding that had been modified so that it had a essentially the, I want to say the helmet of water breathing or something. So whatever's inside, it doesn't need air, they had a bag of Tresemme. So essentially flying cats, and they have 10 flying cats that they dumped out of the bag. Then they had pygmy words that they picked up in the adventure out of me out of the abyss, which is an eight shrunk down, mounted the flying cats and flew up to the castle.
Daisy Darling 1:01:42 
And I let them know we're going to need a little bit more time to prep your castle. ran with it. And I said I'm just gonna run this. Now it wasn't quite right at the beginning. And we're not really taking the plot in a different direction was just kind of like oh my goodness, how are we going to do this? And I think what I do in the players do something completely surprising is I applaud that's what I've learned to Monte cook has good advice in the numenera Court book. When your player See, see your players defeat your big, bad evil guy in a single action. Clap them, clap their ingenuity. You're lucky to have such clever players. Oh, yes. And, and they might take a deal that throws things off. And usually what I do is I applaud and then I just try to think about, let's just play to find out what happens. Keep rolling with it. I'm not shy of any of my improvisational skills or the ability to run d&d. And as you've seen in my prep, I write down 10 secrets and clues for every session. So I have, you probably only touch four of those or five of those in a full session of Dungeons and Dragons. So I'm able to just keep engaging with the experience. If I, if I don't have an answer, I usually have play. It's like I have decks of cards that money cook games or inkwell ideas releases where it's like, okay, I can just introduce things, and just kind of, like follow the logic of the game system that we're playing. That's um, that's kind of the magic play. And I'd like to start with once my players kind of banished to half the level, they should be in order to even faze her and dramatically ended the campaign. But a beautiful and wondrous way.
Brian Wiggins 1:03:28 
It's a one yeah. And so I love it when they're doing something like that, and I'm gonna make them roll. Or I have to roll or whatever to see if it works or whatever it is. But there's times where I just love being able to say, I'm rolling, but I hope I fail because I really want to see this happen. Yes. And but I want I still want I want the dice to have agency there. Because then it just I can't just give it to you when you're going that wacky I need to have some agency there with with. Okay, there are some rules here. I can't just hand it to you. But I want you to succeed because I want to see, let's see. I want to see what happens.
Daisy Darling 1:04:03 
Yeah, in the case of the timeout situation, the rules were surviving to get to the point where they could do that strategy. Yeah. And then the, because then it was just running rules as written. And then we reference because people are like, that should work. I was like, based on all the literature, it should. In fact, this has come up before. And it's the most accepted interpretation of the rules. Now there's there's other times though, where it's like the rule of cool is great, but the RNG and the randomness of the dice, regardless of how they come out, creates a fantastical fiction and a play experience that there's been a lot of discussion about dmvs sometimes we as dungeon master's and game masters and facilitators don't necessarily know the correct narrative. Or if we turn the game into something completely skill based. For example, if you and I were here, and we just started improvising a movie script We could probably come up with something pretty good based on our experiences and over time, and we do that and it'd be limited based on our skills as creative. So sometimes though, just having in a player experience, which is what games are having a luck component, and an RNG component is what keeps people coming back and removing some skill, and introducing something unexpected, it allows an opportunity for discovery, we're going to discover something about the game and the prey play space that never existed before. And obviously, you know, I root for and I'm a fan of the players and I often want them to succeed, especially with shenanigans. But sometimes you can have like really powerful experiences based out of failure. Party turnover, sometimes is a phenomenal way to keep the game persistent, fresh and going. where maybe a character unexpectedly disappears for a time, and then comes back dramatically. All these are good things,
Brian Wiggins 1:05:58 
to do a call back to what we were talking about before, some of the most memorable wrestling matches of all time, are the ones where they have all those false finishes. Or you could equate that to the failure. They didn't get the pin, they didn't climb the ladder, they didn't get out of the gate, or whatever it was, but that's what cremate creates that drama. You know, yes, if it isn't, if I forget which I think it was the first TLC match, and I forget who it was, but if edge didn't spear that dude off of the ladder, when there was no need to do so. Huh? Oh, yeah, probably one of the harder Yeah, yeah, it's we always had a joke where it'd be like a Jeff Hardy, not the JIT. Not the joke. Isn't the Jeff Hardy's dead. No, No, I'm kidding. I'm gonna preface that because I love Jeff Hardy. I thought he was I think he's amazing. But it was, it's gonna be like, if Jeff Hardy dies, and it's not by his own doing, that's going to be the shock. Like that. He didn't know he doesn't break his own neck doing a send time bomb. It's like, oh, he died of old age really.
Daisy Darling 1:06:56 
And there's, there's something special to Yeah, when there's a difference between you when you kick out a pin at two seconds. And 2.99. Yeah. And dice tell that story. numenera in the cipher system is a great rule set. But there's few games where I've seen people cheer where they've rolled a four on a 20 sided die. That's one of the rules sets where you might have a whole group of people cheering seems like an arbitrary number. But it's like, that's the kind of game it is where it's like those those victories where the narrow edge of defeat and if it's completely unfair, we might be making assumptions as a facilitator, a dungeon master Game Master, where our own judgment is what's best. And it may be, it may be that we are that in tune, and we're playing with a group of people at a table, and we all aligned but I mentioned earlier in this broadcast, that I cut my teeth as a convention Game Master, and having a standard set that everyone a common language that everyone can reference to. And I can tell the difference between people that say convention games and running convention games are their worst experiences, versus those that are saying it's the best experiences I was running for a group of primarily narrative story heavy players, and they're playing in the TPK tournament, the kills antithyroid tournament, and they said the best experience they ever had in dungeons and dragons. They were literally one bonus action away from killing Zanna thar before the time ran out. Such a dramatic game of twists and turns and it came down. And their hands were shaking as they're rolling the dice because they knew the clock was ticking, they have three hours to go through two combat encounters than face, the Santa thar special encounter. Part of that is they have to assemble a party from a portfolio of characters and make the best level seven party that they can. And the fact that it came down to a single role that they failed, hmm, they still said they all shook my hand at the end. And they said, this was the best play experience I hadn't done so far. Yeah,
Brian Wiggins 1:08:56 
that's that combat only the journey and but it's ready to get there.
Daisy Darling 1:09:00 
Yes. It's like It's like a very exciting sport event. It's why we cheer at basketball games. It's why we cheer at pro wrestling matches, whether it is there's an extra level of narrative controls, we refer to it. In other words, a wrestling match might rely on kayfabe and a predetermined outcome. But we as an audience, buy into that predetermined outcome. And we understand that there is a higher power that we might even be a part of that's controlling the outcome of everything, or it's something that is based on a percentage of chance, such as a basketball game, or players have shooting percentages, etc. There is a likelihood that they will succeed at the action, a randomness, we can create very dramatic and powerful story experiences out of our play experiences using either tool and it's just understanding the judicious use and the context of each mechanism.
Brian Wiggins 1:09:57 
Mm hmm. Love, I'm loving this crossover. It's so much fun. Alright, so a question I got actually from the DM Academy subreddit that I saw today, and I thought was interesting. And I think it actually would be interesting to have your take on this being that you run as many games as you do, and you have all of this stuff floating around in your head and trying to get it organized. The question was there in the middle of a combat, this dm was in the middle of a combat encounter, and they said that they lost two of their players between sessions. So now they only have two players. And basically, it's a TPK situation. Now, aside from the, I'm gonna say, the easy answer of answer of where your puppet, the other two characters, then you figure it out from there. How do you deal with the possibility of irregular attendance and not because of a disrespectful thing? I'm not saying I agree, I don't want to if the player is just unreliable, and I'll be there, I'll be there and they're never there. That's something else entirely. I mean, for maybe I don't know about the pro wrestling game, but there might be weeks where just someone's not available for whatever reason. How do you deal with irregular or when you have a player at the last minute drop out, but you don't want to cancel the game.
Daisy Darling 1:11:18 
Okay, um, the general rule for us is if you're down to players and and it's a one time Miss, we usually reschedule if we're down to players. If it's a single player, and they're going to miss a single session, I use a technique from game design, known as dynamic difficulty adjustment, which that means you are going to adjust the difficulty of the combat scenario and rebalance it based on the capability and capacity of those in play. The dungeon Master's guide has an excellent resource for creating your own monsters. Likewise, you can use some of that math underneath the hood to adjust encounters. Now there's other game systems where we're able to do Side Stories, flashbacks prologues prequels, and have exciting game experiences that might introduce something new, and we all get back together a new piece of information, a side scene, if you will, where we can add some space to the session play. Now, if you're in a combat the middle of combat and you've lost two players, and they're not coming back, I would rely on dynamic difficulty adjustment. Understanding that we're playing a game. And I was talking about a little bit on Twitter's today, there's two assumptions. The assumptions are the norms of play and the norms of fairness. And you can rely on the norms of play and the norms of fairness. To adjust an encounter. DND has underlying math, they use an equation to generate encounters. And so you can encounters are scored by car challenge rating. And they give you in the dungeon master guide tools on how to design encounters based on car. The general rule for fifth edition that I use is a car should probably be maybe two, two points higher than the level of the characters if you want it to be a challenge in combat. So the fifth level characters do a CR seven, you're going to challenge this players you know don't get hit by a fireball spell, but it's not going to kill them. The second thing that I think about and they encounter is the action economy. What are the total number of actions bonus actions and reactions that can occur in a round of combat? And am I going to overwhelm the players if I do that. So these are more game design tricks. However, you as a dungeon master given these design tools within the dungeon Master's guide to use. Likewise, I might use variant mechanics say I want to keep the fiction of like say say there's five works. I don't want to remove the five orcs and make it 2.5 orcs that would one look weird into it changed the description. We can read content, we could do that. But what I might do is say it's five orcs, but we're going to use the cleave damage variant from the dungeon Master's guide where damage that would go beyond the killing blow will bleed onto a dupe Jason enemies thus producing their hit points and exact play, which is a way to increase action economy without changing the mechanics without reducing the number of actions on the opponent side and relying on variants that are in the official source materials.
Brian Wiggins 1:14:55 
That's an old two way rule. That's how they think that's the standard for I think If I remember Yes, that means standard if you if you did 10 points of damage, and there was only five points left on that, on that creature, whatever it was that Goblin, the next five, if there was a god next to it went over to the next one.
Daisy Darling 1:15:12 
Yes, and I think my advice would be to find ways that accelerate play rather than slow it down in other ways. Playing a combat with only two PCs is more challenging and you have less resources than if you have four or five. So I try to give advice, where if I'm going to make a change to the game, my end result is often to accelerate play. I don't want to turn it into a slog. So if this the average for d&d combat is actually three turn or three rounds, that's just kind of a standard if you have a full party. So I'm going to try to get this finished within three rounds. However, we'll notice, we'll also notice as well that say, we play for four hours on average, if we only have two players, we might only run two hours, why we're going to be spending more creative energy and needing to take up more space then if we had a full table. And so those are tools that we can use and say that we're going to plan for a shorter session, because we're going to cover more content because there are less individuals voicing opinions over the course of the session, so you just think about that. If you look at a podcast like party of one pod by Jeff Stormer, Jeff runs one on one RPGs. And he uses a variety of rule sets. However, he and the other individual playing the games use a lot more creative energy. Then, if they had a full table
Brian Wiggins 1:16:50 
so what is one tip that you would give to a brand spanking new Dungeon Master still has the is still in mint condition,
Brian Wiggins 1:16:59 
they still have that new dm smell. They don't smell it the tears of their players yet, what was one tip you would give them
Daisy Darling 1:17:06 
run as often as possible,
Brian Wiggins 1:17:09 
like away from the table or
Daisy Darling 1:17:13 
it could be at the table so ridiculous. No, run, run as many sessions as often as you can, you're going to get better by putting in more reps, you're going to get better by putting in more cycles. When I was running the game everyday as you might not have the opportunity to if if you don't have the opportunity, and this would be so you don't have the opportunity to run as often as possible. Also, if you run as often as possible, you might find and be able to create a game group that you fall in love with. In you have the option to opportunity to play with more people. That's what worked with me was Star Wars. And that's what worked with me with Dungeons and Dragons. The next if I had to give another tip is find what you do best. And focus on building around that strength. I recommend people build around their strengths rather than try to improve their weaknesses. Because it's good to work on your weaknesses because their opportunities of growth. But if you find something that you do best, for example, my friend, Greg is great at descriptive my friend Kai, he is great at session pacing. Kai said when I was great at was framing the session because I run many different systems for many different people. And everyone is able to lean into one purpose, find what you do best and then build around that. You might be very good at voices and voice work. And you can find a way to use your unique talent of doing voices voice isn't required. I don't do voices at the table, typically. But I framed sessions really well. And then I build around that since I frame sessions very well. Let's look at the game system we're running what is the core unit of play? How can I introduce this? How can I teach the game as efficiently as possible so the tip is fine what you do best and build around it. And if you're able to run the game you love the most as often as possible, you'll get better at running it.
Brian Wiggins 1:19:23 
If you can go back in time and visit my in this case your 11 year old self. What is one tip you would give your younger dm self.
Daisy Darling 1:19:33 
Um play with my peers. earlier and more often. For example, I began running Star Wars The role playing game when I was you know 11 but I didn't start introducing like say kids in the neighborhood that would have benefited from forming a relationship through roleplay earlier so I think being more inclusive earlier, and there's not that I was an inclusive, I ran Star Wars for immigrants from the Ivory Coast and from Panama and it helped them learn the English language and make friends. As well as for friendships that last till this day. So but I think I would start that earlier and stuff starting at like age 14 I'd probably start at age 12
Brian Wiggins 1:20:22 
boys they say the best day to start was yesterday, the second best days today, right? Um, well, we're just about at a time. Where can people find you? If they were if you wanted people to find you, I'm assuming on the internet, where where would they be able to track you down and follow you because you have a lot of great resources you've shared tonight and I need to thank you for that. Where can people follow you?
Daisy Darling 1:20:45 
So you can follow me on twitter at a wise artist, one word, you can find me I'm actually at the producer for web diems twitch channels. If there's any streams going on webcams twitch channel, you can find me on twitch.tv backslash Web DM. Likewise, you can find me running on my own channel at Daisy plays da y z he plays. And I'm here and there. I have also published a lot of d&d material through to see gaming. So if you're so inclined, by my book, grim world, which is a dark fairy tale, d&d setting that introduce eight unique mechanical subsystems to supplement play, add more story and narrative to it. If you like Japanese games like retama, we introduce a variety of mechanics that are inspired and influenced by some of the strongest mechanical systems in the world to supplement your fifth edition game, and get the most out of the system. And I'm very proud of the work because I work really hard to
Brian Wiggins 1:21:48 
make sure you send me a link, and I'll make sure that that goes out into the show notes because I want people to be able to find that. Daisy, this has been a lot of fun. I always have fun doing this. And I can say it's always that we have some unexpected fun. And this was definitely continuing that trend. I had no idea that our conversation was going to take the turns that it did into the world of professional wrestling and all the stuff in the amazing resources that you've shared. Thank you so much. Are we going to see you at PAX unplugged this year?
Daisy Darling 1:22:22 
Absolutely. I'll be there as an exhibitor with TC gaming, I'll be doing book signings, I mentioned the TPK tournament earlier in this call. They're coaxing me into running a session. So if you like playing competitive Dungeons and Dragons for prizes, it's a great experience to really flex your skills. And I may be speaking on a couple of panels, but I'll be there for sure.
Brian Wiggins 1:22:43 
Very cool. I'm a Philly guy. And I've been going since the since its inception. So we're definitely at least say hello to each other at that point. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. God.
Daisy Darling 1:22:55 
Philly is my favorite food city in the world. Oh,
Brian Wiggins 1:22:59 
man, you got me right where it counts. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, though, for so much for coming on and taking the time out of your extraordinarily busy schedule of 15 games to come on to this silly little podcast. I really appreciate you and your time. Thank
Daisy Darling 1:23:17 
you. Thank you, Brian.
Brian Wiggins 1:23:21 
Well, that's it for this episode of hidden roles. Remember, players if you're in my game, or an easy darlings scheme, and you listened to this podcast, your characters just might get elicited. Yeah, that's the thing. We're the 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 rose. 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 18, 2021Comment