@@ultrabigfella They were socially distancing before it was cool. But seriously, she coughed and in my mind I went "No, you can't do that! What about COVID!" and I think I'm seriously broken at this point
The DM decides that the adventure will be a heist mission. The PCs decide whether the music that plays will be Mission Impossible, the Pink Panther, or Benny Hill.
08:15 "I've even looked at someone and been like, 'hit a nat 20 and I'll let it happen'... PC's always think they're gonna hit that nat 20." ...to be fair, if they're ally beardsley, They Will.
Man that bit about Marisha wondering if Beau tapped into a part of her that she didn't want influencing her personality for the next three years was powerful.
I think what's so overlooked is that it is necessary for women to be able to tap into that part. And that's not to say it's healthy to be angry or aggressive all the time like she was rightfully concerned about, but it is absolutely necessary to know that in any situation you are in, that you are capable of standing up for yourself, even if that means being loud and aggressive. And the most delicious part of Beau's character growth is her learning the moments to turn it off and how to gauge when it is necessary to throw blows and when things should be handled diplomatically.
I'm autistic and I've never heard someone who's not autistic bring up our needs and accommodations and shit in such a respectful manner, and I wanna cry, like whenever they do there's thinly veiled ableism with what they say, but here Brennan talks about it with such respect and understanding holy shit It was such a small act but it means so much so thank you
I'm autistic too & yeah 100% agree, you put it well into words. Something I've seen from Brennan in general with anything 'abnormal' is that he just has an awesome way of being fully chill with it, talking about it in the same way he would anything else & it just coming across as part of his confident normal, if that makes sense. Feels like he very consciously doesn't do the thing people do of having little like built in insecurity-insurance, being-seen-as-weird-protection acknowledgements built into their statements, kinda distancing themselves from the socially bad weird scary etc to be able to talk about it
@@dgp2024 As far as I understand it, it means you should always plan for the future, but you should recognize that no plan will or should go perfectly and that one should always be ready to adapt.
dimension 20 is what got me in to critical role. and i will always recommend oxventures by outside xbox. (its not exactly "pro level" dnd) but its ridiculously fun, charismatic and likable people learning to play dnd for the first time. and you literally see them fall in love with the game and grow as players and dm's
also is it only the wrong path because you're approaching the plot like a video game with a linear quest tree, or would it actually rationally be the wrong way to solve something if this were happening in real life?
I was considering if the "right path" was too obvious, but that actually is exactly what Brennan was talking about with players kicking themselves for making mistakes that are truly on them. But then you have to make sure you don't switch it up on the players too often. If they alternate between obvious and non-obvious, and it is almost always the opposite, it is gonna be frustrating to solve things after a while, but if they know that it is mostly gonna be the obvious solution, but with a non-obvious one every once in a while, it would be extra exciting when the non-obvious comes, or vice versa
This happened last session. We were picking back up in a shop. Before the session, our DM mentioned certain things that might happen during RP to check that we were cool with that. I was VERY cool with that. Start of the session, the DM in-character reminds us that we have people on our tail 10 minutes behind us. Instead of quickly grabbing our desired items and running out the back, we took time to RP with the shopkeep. In a unrelated conversation a week later, our DM says something along the lines of, "or they think they're strong enough to not need a 10 minute head start." With which I responded, "you wanted us to talk." Even if you aren't trying to encourage a choice out of players, they may see it where you don't intend to.
As we really really miss having a bard on the new critical role season - even though it is of course more dark and gritty - we really need one. Not many people could play a good, not stereotypical, quick-witted bard, but Brennan can certainly do it. I really want Brennan on Critical Role and I want him to be a bard. Very much!
22:58 This is such a great story. Especially about Laura, because that's so like her: she lets herself get so emotionally invested in everything Matt is giving her, it's just the best.
Brennan, I can’t thank you enough for mentioning stimming and other attention-anchoring methods. As someone with ADD _and_ autism, it’s hard for me to give my undivided attention for more than 20 seconds. I’ve gotten very used to telling people that if I don’t have my phone or a puzzle book or something, I’ll actually be LESS likely to listen to what they’re saying because nothing will be able to stop my mind from blasting off into outer space at the first hint of a side thought. So yes, I’m the person who’s constantly on her phone at DnD, and I’m not sorry about it. Brennan and Marisha understand why. PS: “Just take notes to stay focused!” I can already see someone responding. Okay, let me pick out a possibly important detail that I heard the DM say, figure out how to word it so that it takes the minimum number of words but is also easy to understand if I read it later, write it down in at least triple the time it took for the DM to say it, and... oops, I just missed 5 minutes of the session. Why are we rolling initiative?
Oh I'm the same. I'm autistic and adhd too and I pay attention by playing mindless 3 match games on my phone and listen with my ears, and the one dm who was from the beginnning like 'phones on the table' and it frustrated me so much bc I kept accidentally zoning out
I feel you. I'm a DM primarily and I am a terrible note-taker when I'm a player. My DM brain kicks in a lot and I start imagining scenarios that might occur and strategizing hypotheticals and all of the sudden its been five minutes and I missed everything.
Something incredibly traumatizing happened to my character and I ended up crying for the first time playing DnD a couple weeks ago, it was sudden, I didn't expect it to happen, and I did not think I was the type to be so invested in the moment, but I just burst into tears and had to take a moment to collect myself. I learned that session that even though the moment was incredibly sad, it created a memory that I wouldn't want to forget and would propel me to want to create even MORE memories for me and my character.
This is a mood. My Oath of Vengeance Paladin is going THROUGH IT right now, and when she was teleported to a plane to speak to Lathander, she started crying. And so did I.
Those are some of the best moments. In my campaign we met a teen aged girl who was troubled and we tried to help her. After dealing with some of her stuff, we offered to take her with us as we were leaving town and she came with. Over the next dozen sessions or so she became like a surrogate daughter for my barbarian who had lost his family. Months of real life time later, we were fighting a beholder and she died. It really took me a minute and we had a cleric that could raise dead after the fight. It was astounding how much it hit me.
I’ve had two moments like that in my past year of playing dnd. One felt awesome, immersive, and well-worth it. The other felt like cheap shock value and genuinely disturbed me, but when I tried to voice this after the session, the DM just felt proud they were able to affect me, and confessed it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to reveal an important NPC’s death in such a grisly way. I don’t think that latter DM realized I was making a complaint, not a compliment. I wished there was some sort of content warning beforehand.
When Marisha was talking about respect, I immediately thought of that one time she tried to write down the contents of a smut book after Matt, cos she thought there might be some important info in there. That's high respect for the DM right there~ and I say that as a person, who was constantly interrupted by players and could barely convince em to write down important npc's names. Respect is very important, you guys
"There are no wrong paths." Me watching my players spend an hour on a puzzle where the answer is just to spell "pathology" but they took pathogen, rearranged it to spell heptagon and now are obsessed with the number 7 and looking for a seven sided room. -_-
Yeah but remember when Ally hit that Nat 20 and was revived, stopped time, brought a man who has been dead for about 8 months back to earth, and created a new god? So the whole odds are this won’t happen thing doesn’t always work in a DMs favor
I think Aguefort was gonna come back regardless and that Nat 20 was just a convenient opportunity and the consequences of the new God was just essentially flavour
Ultimately after all that, the only in-combat effect was Arthur pointing out that she already had a time-travel device the whole time, maybe she could just use that.
The stained glass metaphor is a beautiful way of phrasing things. I'm glad to have such a great way to put how I've been feeling about my characters. I also now want to go and make stained glass portraits of all my past characters.
I loved this. What Marisha was saying about the memories being as real, or even more so, than her actual memories really struck a chord. I will never forget having my head stuffed into the couch as my character, Magnus, watched all of his friends die horrifically after playing every Sunday for over a year. I'm making a map right now, I've just named the River that runs through it The Marisha.
I'm so so glad you talked about stimming. I used to color all the time in high school, specifically in math class because I'm ADHD and dyslexic, primarily with numbers. My teacher would yell at me and embarrass me in front of the entire class and I ended up getting a much lower grade than I could have because he stripped me of my ability to pay attention to what he was teaching.
The importance of using DnD as an exploration of what would happen if you reacted differently cannot be understated. I fully attribute DnD with my ability to function in social situations. I had a lot of depression growing up from social anxiety and a lack of friends (likely due to some form of autism but I've never had the money/time to get a proper diagnosis) and having the "excuse" I could tell myself that, "It's my character screwing up this social interaction, not me" made it so much easier to actual experiment and figure out how to be a functional person who could actually make friends. I fully credit DnD with pulling me out of depression and bringing me the longest lasting, deepest friendships I've ever had.
Well.. Its not only about who could do it but more about who the group is. Everyone coming in full, he will be just an late addition. But, that said: If Ashley have another TV show and cant show up for some months, he would be a perfect long term guest member for sure.
So glad to see some more Marisha! Can't find enough panels or hosting shows with her on it! Thanks for giving us 50 minutes of heavenly comfort and pleasure! ^^
Recently diagnosed w ADHD, it's so touching to see this neurodivergent representation! I will go nuts if I have to shut up and listen for a long time without doing anything, and drawing has always been my "socially acceptable" lifeline for that. I can verify it HELPS to focus, in fact, having learned about this side of myself, i've started to offer similar activities to my friends if they feel awkward in situations. ADHD brains are like 6 moneys writing on a single typewriter and if you want one monke to do something specific, you need to gather all the rest and put them in the daycare so the last one can actually finish writing something. Drawing, adult colouring books, knitting etc are all activities that engage hands and visual part of the brain with low focus tasks, while leaving the listening part of the brain with more RAM so it actually stays engaged! For example, 'accidentally' leave a dirty set of dice and some cleaning supplies next to them and by the end of the game they'll have meticulously scrubbed every single die at the table. (ngl this made me want to do this at 1am). If this need for fidgeting isn't accommodated, you can find the adhd brain start to lose focus in the gap between sentences. If you think that's annoying, try living with that every day. Pls give us something to keep us occupied at the table and don't judge.
I love brennan talking about giving players a chance with the dice to like do something crazy if they hit a nat 20 with the foreknowledge of the true magic of Ally Beardsley like its so funny
Ally: "can I just roll and if I hit a nat20, I'm still alive?" Brendan (distracted): "yeah, sure." Ally (rolls): "nat20." Brendan: goes blue screen of death
To add to the Pike death moments in the home game, Ashley and Brian talked about it, I think in Ashley's Between the Sheets interview. She came home at about 2 AM crying and talked to Brian about Pike's death. He didn't quite understand what happened then because he hadn't get into D&D yet. But it was a profound moment for both them as well.
I'm a newer DM but I realized that Call of the Netherdeep provides a good answer to how to solve the party meandering too much problem. Have the rival group beat them to it. Let's say it was to obtain a crucial clue about the BBEG. Well now they have to negotiate with their rivals to share the information with them. 🙂
“Context is everything” - YUP! I have to constantly remind myself when watching CR C1 or C2 that Marisha Ray is playing a character which eats gravel in EVERY scene. She, herself, is not an actual disaster. She’s just that great as an actor & role player.
For some of these interviews, it sounds like Brennan is just getting to know someone or talking with a friend, but sometimes it really feels like Brennan is connecting with people on his own level. This is one of those. Marisha gets a lot of shit for playing characters that are flawed, including from me. But it is a brave choice for an actor, and it ultimately doesn't harm the story at all.
Unflawed characters are boring. Riz wouldn't be cool if he wasn't always searching. Kristen wouldn't be cool if she wasn't a confused gay atheist in a religious family. Pete wouldn't be cool if he wasn't a drug addict. It's their flaws that make them who they are.
It’s kind of ironic, I’ve heard people speculating about Marisha seeming more comfortable while acting about Beau after hearing about her struggles. I’m currently playing as a grumpy cowboy and experiencing similar feelings as Marisha was when she started as Beau and it’s kinda cool to hear
i'm actually looking into dnd as group therapy, like possibly covered by insurance and definitely ran by therapists, bc seeing the level of catharsis people can get in dnd just feels so perfect for that and i'm glad that enough other people thought that, because it's a real thing.
Speaking of players destroying plans, My first game started a lot like Skyrim, so the players started off in a cart leading to their trial. There were only two players mind you, but my Fighter player, who was an Eladrin Elf, has a racial trait that lets him cast misty step once per short rest. And I gave my other player, a Goliath Barbarian, a stomp ability that works almost the same as thunderwave. So the fighter teleports away from the cart and his bindings, then the barbarian stomps and destroys the cart, kills the guards, and runs away. The fighter walks straight up to the keep of a nearby town, talks to the lord, rolls high on charisma, and gains favor with him. In about 15 minutes the players circumvented almost the entire first session and got into my later plans. ALWAYS be prepared to deal with players actions, it's pretty incredible to see how differently people think and react to different situations.
The barkeep metaphor gave me the idea of having like a franchise of taverns or shops that are all the same right down to the proprietor's personality. The only thing that changes is their name. "Oh I'm not them, my name is this."
That's a great idea. In my (eventually played in) world, I've got a goblin simply named The Fence and he is.. well, the fence. He always seems to be available, always has what you need, and always drives a hard bargain. There is mystery surrounding him in an almost-cartoonish fashion with him showing up in places where he shouldn't be, like appearing in the town that's two days away in less than a day's time, or seemingly never sleeping. The Fence, ofc, is actually a group of siblings, at least 25 of them, that all operate under the same name and pretend to be the same person, using a vast network of tunnels and delivering info to each other through an overcomplicated mess of sending stones. Because it's funny.
Absolutely love Marisha....such a great actress! She played a character I hated so much and stayed true to it. Then played a character that was my most favorite in their second campaign. Good actress.
I had a similar situation occur as the "feeling awakening" of Pike's death that happened with Marisha in the 1st campaign that I played in. We had played for about 2 sessions (we had like 8hr sessions at the time), and we were just doing silly things, making jokes and all that stuff. But we had been sent to this other continent, and were tasked with opening up trade routes to our home continent again. And we learned that the reason why they closed were due to the 2 biggest nations going to war and cutting off trade lines for each other. So we went to the evil nation first (on accident), talked to the BBEG, and then left for the good nation. But when we got to the good nation, we ended up witnessing the evil nation's entire army show up out of nowhere, and massacre almost everything. We were able to help lessen the damage, but the scene that made us feel something for the 1st time in this world was the aftermath. The DM had slowly been lowering the volume of the music while the massacre happened until it was completely silent when he was describing the aftermath of the massacre. *warning for those who dont like gore or traumatic scenes* And so all we heard were his descriptions of rubble everywhere, dead bodies all over the place, even going so far as to describe how my paladin attempted to heal someone who was already dead, and how our rogue found a woman holding her dead child. And it made multiple people at the table cry because of the severity of the scene he was describing, and it totally shifted the tone of the campaign. Especially when it was discovered that the only reason why the evil nation was able to commit this atrocity was because when we met the BBEG, he stored an invisible teleporting anchor on my character that allowed him to see where I was and teleport mass amounts of creatures to the anchor's location. It was incredible for learning how to feel the character
I'm so happy to hear you mention stimming! Especially in such a loving and positive way❤❤ thank you ! The ttrpg community attracts a lot of autistic people, and it can mean the world to us, to be meet with kindness ❤ As with so many other things, it's good to talk about it, as long as you come from a genuine place of wanting to have fun with this person. It's okay to ask "hey I noticed this, is there anything making you uncomfortable? And can we make that better together? " then they have a chance to tell you if it's just a normal relaxed stim or not, ect. Being open and kind about it, will allow many of us to be more relaxed, because we normally still face a lot of stigma. I can only speak for my self, but my stims even tends to be less disruptive, when I know the people around me are chill about it ❤ Go have fun with your autistic player, we really love you🥰
A little moment of self pity , I have aphantasia so I have no minds eye. Hearing these guys talk about their memories of dnd adventures and wishing I could visualise the epic adventures in books and from master DMS, well it really stings... Makes me so envious. I love the world's they create and so so wish I could experience them to there true potential . That said I'm still thankful to hear everyone's amazing stories :)
49:29 The default should be immersion therefore the default should be NO PHONES. Like they were saying, being a player character is all about immersion. I’m convinced DnD has gotten the biggest resurgence of popularity over the last 50 years precisely because we’re all subconsciously begging for a reason to NOT look at our phones.
He, who reads, lives a thousend lives. He, who plays, lives life with an intensity. What I always loved most about pen and paper was exploring myself and living all those different lifes. It helped me to understand myself a lot better, because the qualities I found in most characters, again and again, were mine. I discovered, that I am actually a very social person, not the introvert I acted like, because I was bullied in school. I discovered that I am slightly arrogant at times, because I lived that aspect of myself without fear of social backleash. And then dealt with it, cause I did not like it. There is not that much research, but in my country pen and paper is becoming more popular to play at schools and youth groups, because it is a great medium the explore different aspects of yourself and of social interactions. Especially for people on the spectrum it gives a very safe environment to train social interaction. But problem solving and creative thinking are huge aspects too. Learning to wait your turn and to listen to others, concentrate... The list of benefits is long.
I am at the last part of my first GM experience, doing a one shot with a group over Roll20 and I have LOVED setting the landing page of the session with scenery that reminds the players where they left off and planned music for scene changes, combat scenarios, both ambient music and ambient environment sound. For me, it has done SO MUCH for retaining player attention. I recommend taking that extra little bit of time to add polish to the immersion. Works wonders.
The question that Extreme Otter posed. Most of my games the last decade, part of what happens between session 0 and a full table meet up is there is a written agreement made between the DM and players about the rules - consensus about phone/(when it's ok or not to) use of social media apps, etc. Helps create that mutual expectation of focus, etc., meeting needs of everyone, etc... so forth. Awareness of accomidations/comfort, etc. Great question, and really appreciate B&M's responses to reaffirm. In my games we also finish the session with 'what worked well for you, what really didn't, and we determined again, with consensus who *one player for session max* may have earned an extra inspiration based upon their contribution/action made in the game. Insentive even to be engaged. The questions also help the DM/players perhaps make some adjustments for the next session.
For the whole being present in the game thing, I have trouble processing when there is a whole lot going on and I will...blur out? It's the only way I can explain it. And if pressured with "what are you going to do? times running out" I will lock up and disassociate. I have the same problem with twitch based video games. I'm horrible at FPS games because everything happens too fast when you run into someone and it all turns into a blur of color and sound I can't process. I don't know if other gamers have this problem, but I would say if your players are blanking out, then ease up on them a bit. You want to stay immersed, but it's also a game and you don't need people at your table just shutting down because they can't process their own thoughts, let alone your input.
That's a good discussion to have at your table! For both player s and DMs it's a good idea to check in. You can explain 'this pressure is not helping me to NOT overthink things, this pressure feels like I'm shutting down all together' and then the table knows not to push that facet of gameplay for you. It's not always easy to immediately get that difference from the outside, but it can (should) be taken into account.
I love the comment about making combats more deadly, Matt did just that in Asarius when he mindcontrolled Caleb, they were breezing through the last few combats and getting very cocky until that moment.
Main difference for me between from player to Dm was how important and interesting I found RP. It felt night and day and made me appreciate the other pillars of the game
40:58 The "could the clue be down [the other] fork?" part reminds me of the first time I felt like a real GM. I was co-running a larp with friends, and we gave them the "map of the city with magical leylines" so they could figure out where to go next. We had convergences at all of the sites they should explore ... and also a set of 4 separate leylines coincidentally intersecting in the middle of nowhere. OBVIOUSLY the players wanted to go there, because that's where the most magical energy pooled. I moved the city's Archmagus (who they hadn't met yet, but were going to in like 1-2 more sessions) estate there and the players were rewarded for their "totally correct instincts" to "find the plot"
Something I can say after running one page games similar to Honey Heist (Sexy Battle Wizards, The Witch is Dead, etc). If you like something from a system, one page or otherwise and you love it but you are running a dedicated system like DnD or whatever: you can steal that for your home game. Be it a monster or the way a specific race or group of people it described, you can put that in your world. Or you can take a rule or something similar and put it in your game. Or even from the same system. I use the Wild Magic table a lot even though my players don't have sorcerers. Reading scrolls they don't know, blasting a spell into a potion, doing interdimensional shenanigans. Roll me arcana and I will see how bad it goes. Just... creativity can bring so much extra stuff to your game.
LET THEM HAVE CONSEQUENCES. BEAUTIFULLY SAID! I had a party following a thread where a coven of green hags were sapping the magic from a fey spirit of a nearby forest. The town next to the forest asked them for help and when the party learned about the hags they decided it was beyond their scope of power and that they needed to go level up. And went out of town and off to a far away place to “level up”. So yeah I was sad they didn’t do this cool story, but it gave a cool opportunity. Eventually they went back and found the town destroyed by the hags. Which gave everyone a sense of shame and watching their reactions suddenly they were not just killing the hags for a quest, it became personal. So where the plot was derailed for a bit, we ended up getting a really cool story that we wouldn’t have had if they just did the initial quest. It’s the “yes and” that gave us a totally unique way to finish the story. Such great advice from these folks.
I love what they said about memories of your characters being so real. When you talk with your party members years later, you don't say, "Remember when Zaltar the sorcerer and Tremdal the bard killed that dragon" You say, "Remember when YOU and I killed that dragon?" Because you remember it as yourselves in the moment.
That last question is a great opportunity to role play the person into paying more attention. "I attack that gnoll over there" "Ok, roll for attack.... you hit the dead gnoll for 6 points of damage and that's the end of your turn." or "Your turn, what do you do?" "What's happening?" "You wake up, you don't know what's happening. You're confused and have disadvantage on your next saving throw."
I've had a player lick a concoction of alchemist's wares that pooled together on the floor. The potions were all knocked over because the PCs decided to engage in pvp. They took 14 damage at level 2, weren't looking great. The concoction actually morphed into an enemy that melted any steel they used. After the battle, THEY LICKED IT AGAIN. And I let them. They rolled a very high con saving throw and took no damage. That's the magic of D&D.
This is getting meta - they're talking about rough starts and needing to get going in an episode of a podcast that started out a bit awkwardly (a few slight misunderstandings, Brennan visible trying to yes-and through it) and developed wonderfully.
"Yes, and..." plus redirecting the energy are two of the thinga I'd definitely love to master :) Very pleasant, entertaining and informative 'interview' :D
Don't never say no, but use it sparingly. No should be reserved for situations where what is being asked would break the fun for others or be so far out of the agreed upon limits of the setting that it would destroy the tone/world/vibe/suspension of disbelief. And you really need to be careful with those yes but fuck you moments. As a player I'd much rather be told you can't climb up there than be told effectively "Fuck you here's an army of new enemies for trying/succeeding." On the other hand, if you are saying no because it would destroy your story you have not set up your story correctly. Killed a villain too soon? They were a pawn for a bigger boss. Stopped the calamity before it could start? How do the players keep the mcguffin safe from the next mad lad in line? Long story short, if you are going to say yes let the yes be awesome or don't bother and be ready to roll with the punches no matter what happens.
While I have a really hard time crying in front of other people, I had a similar conversation with a friend to what Marisha said about memories. I don't remember sitting around a table playing D&D, I remember fuckin' BEING THERE. At that point in my life, I _was_ my character in that world. I remember feeling what they may have felt, even though at the time I wasn't really emotional. With DM'ing it's a bit different, and I see it less like another person's memory and more like an animated show featuring the world and characters of the campaign I was running. It almost makes looking back on past sessions or campaigns the best part about playing for me at this point. In the moment I may have doubts and think about all the little mistakes I made, but in the future I can look back and see the best parts with much more intimacy. This game is so fucking good.
4:00 Interesting take... I also think that Greg Costikyan, in the TOON rules, had a good concept that essentially said that the Road Runner isn't smart enough to realize that it can't run across thin air, whereas Wile E. Coyote, a suuupah geeenius, can't help but think that he should plummet over the same cliff.
I am always so incredibly impressed with Brennan. Like, Marisha gives this great tip about punishing players for making the wrong choices, because that makes them learn from their mistakes, and then I'm sitting here going "but what if it wasn't their fault" and Brennan just straight up follows it with "Did the players miss something they will kick themselves over" fully satisfying my worries about how Marisha's tip could be misconstrued. And then he later talks about neurodivergency and how focus isn't the same for everyone, really showing his empathy and understanding for people different than himself, really working towards making D&D accessible for everyone and I'm blown away again. Honestly such a great guy!
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Two gingers, chillin in a studio, five feet apart, cause that’s what their sound system requires
Love them gingers.
it's social distancing
I understood that reference :D
@@williammoorman692 ...this was filmed in May 2019?
@@ultrabigfella They were socially distancing before it was cool.
But seriously, she coughed and in my mind I went "No, you can't do that! What about COVID!" and I think I'm seriously broken at this point
The DM decides that the adventure will be a heist mission.
The PCs decide whether the music that plays will be Mission Impossible, the Pink Panther, or Benny Hill.
And ultimately they will always choose Benny Hill
@@mugginsttp1396 a benny hill style remix of the MI theme
I'd like to propose the addition of Doom music to the list of tracks
it always ends up as benny hill
@@aldar8240 My party bounces between Doom, Benny Hill, and the Royal Dragoons playing Amazing Grace
08:15 "I've even looked at someone and been like, 'hit a nat 20 and I'll let it happen'... PC's always think they're gonna hit that nat 20."
...to be fair, if they're ally beardsley, They Will.
And if they're Wil Wheaton, they won't even think that they'll hit it
Multiple times.
@@gabebaum6527 …with advantage
Even with ten times advantage, Will Wheaton can roll no higher than a 5
@@PalleRasmussenunless he needs to roll low of course
"Talk to your players. If that doesn't work, kill somebody."
...
When will my dm do this to make sure my adhd ass is paying attention
God, Brennans side track on stimming.
The more I hear him speak outside of pure comedy the more he's just a genuinely good accomidating person
Brennan is just the best.
Timestamp please
@@monicatruong1223 He starts talking about his work with autistic LARPers around 46:20~ish
@@monicatruong1223 46:42
Thanks so much for the timestamp
Man that bit about Marisha wondering if Beau tapped into a part of her that she didn't want influencing her personality for the next three years was powerful.
So powerful! I also loved how intently Brennan was listening. He was on the edge of his seat just like I was.
I think what's so overlooked is that it is necessary for women to be able to tap into that part. And that's not to say it's healthy to be angry or aggressive all the time like she was rightfully concerned about, but it is absolutely necessary to know that in any situation you are in, that you are capable of standing up for yourself, even if that means being loud and aggressive. And the most delicious part of Beau's character growth is her learning the moments to turn it off and how to gauge when it is necessary to throw blows and when things should be handled diplomatically.
I'm autistic and I've never heard someone who's not autistic bring up our needs and accommodations and shit in such a respectful manner, and I wanna cry, like whenever they do there's thinly veiled ableism with what they say, but here Brennan talks about it with such respect and understanding holy shit
It was such a small act but it means so much so thank you
I'm autistic too & yeah 100% agree, you put it well into words. Something I've seen from Brennan in general with anything 'abnormal' is that he just has an awesome way of being fully chill with it, talking about it in the same way he would anything else & it just coming across as part of his confident normal, if that makes sense. Feels like he very consciously doesn't do the thing people do of having little like built in insecurity-insurance, being-seen-as-weird-protection acknowledgements built into their statements, kinda distancing themselves from the socially bad weird scary etc to be able to talk about it
"Plans are worthless, planning is essential " - Dwight D. Eisenhower
This is true for war and DMing
can you explain what this quote means?
@@dgp2024 As far as I understand it, it means you should always plan for the future, but you should recognize that no plan will or should go perfectly and that one should always be ready to adapt.
I mean he ran one of the biggest campaingns ever :P
@@dgp2024 It's just a clever way of saying "strategy is worthless without tactics".
Thanks, Erik! I've been looking for that. I'm a history teacher btw... 😆
Marisha Ray is a ray of sunshine, you can't change my mind.
All of Marisha's haters can meet me in the parking lot
Here's a 13 megaton energy discharge suit have fun
named appropiately
Marisha Ray is a ray of lightning. It's a whole day's worth of sunshine happening all at once, woo
Didn't you mean a scorching Ray
So glad Marisha persevered with Beau. That character had such growth and her journey was so good to follow!
True story- Honey Heist is actually what got me into watching Criticalrole campaign 2
dimension 20 is what got me in to critical role. and i will always recommend oxventures by outside xbox. (its not exactly "pro level" dnd) but its ridiculously fun, charismatic and likable people learning to play dnd for the first time. and you literally see them fall in love with the game and grow as players and dm's
@@kristalcornwell NADDPOD is also incredibly, delightfully serious in their silliness
Also important to consider: did your players go down the "wrong path" because the "right path" seemed boring?
also is it only the wrong path because you're approaching the plot like a video game with a linear quest tree, or would it actually rationally be the wrong way to solve something if this were happening in real life?
I was considering if the "right path" was too obvious, but that actually is exactly what Brennan was talking about with players kicking themselves for making mistakes that are truly on them. But then you have to make sure you don't switch it up on the players too often.
If they alternate between obvious and non-obvious, and it is almost always the opposite, it is gonna be frustrating to solve things after a while, but if they know that it is mostly gonna be the obvious solution, but with a non-obvious one every once in a while, it would be extra exciting when the non-obvious comes, or vice versa
This happened last session. We were picking back up in a shop. Before the session, our DM mentioned certain things that might happen during RP to check that we were cool with that. I was VERY cool with that. Start of the session, the DM in-character reminds us that we have people on our tail 10 minutes behind us. Instead of quickly grabbing our desired items and running out the back, we took time to RP with the shopkeep.
In a unrelated conversation a week later, our DM says something along the lines of, "or they think they're strong enough to not need a 10 minute head start." With which I responded, "you wanted us to talk."
Even if you aren't trying to encourage a choice out of players, they may see it where you don't intend to.
Brennan on Crit Role when????
GREAT question
After Brennan on NADDPod
Yes! This NEEDS to happen!
Spurt v2.0
As we really really miss having a bard on the new critical role season - even though it is of course more dark and gritty - we really need one.
Not many people could play a good, not stereotypical, quick-witted bard, but Brennan can certainly do it.
I really want Brennan on Critical Role and I want him to be a bard. Very much!
22:58 This is such a great story. Especially about Laura, because that's so like her: she lets herself get so emotionally invested in everything Matt is giving her, it's just the best.
Brennan, I can’t thank you enough for mentioning stimming and other attention-anchoring methods. As someone with ADD _and_ autism, it’s hard for me to give my undivided attention for more than 20 seconds. I’ve gotten very used to telling people that if I don’t have my phone or a puzzle book or something, I’ll actually be LESS likely to listen to what they’re saying because nothing will be able to stop my mind from blasting off into outer space at the first hint of a side thought. So yes, I’m the person who’s constantly on her phone at DnD, and I’m not sorry about it. Brennan and Marisha understand why.
PS: “Just take notes to stay focused!” I can already see someone responding. Okay, let me pick out a possibly important detail that I heard the DM say, figure out how to word it so that it takes the minimum number of words but is also easy to understand if I read it later, write it down in at least triple the time it took for the DM to say it, and... oops, I just missed 5 minutes of the session. Why are we rolling initiative?
Oh I'm the same. I'm autistic and adhd too and I pay attention by playing mindless 3 match games on my phone and listen with my ears, and the one dm who was from the beginnning like 'phones on the table' and it frustrated me so much bc I kept accidentally zoning out
Brennan*
@@joshuaizly5502 Whoops! Good catch.
I feel you. I'm a DM primarily and I am a terrible note-taker when I'm a player. My DM brain kicks in a lot and I start imagining scenarios that might occur and strategizing hypotheticals and all of the sudden its been five minutes and I missed everything.
I do the same thing!! I take overly detailed notes and draw (we say it’s in character) during my campaigns
9:06 Sounds just like two people who would join forces in convincing Matt to let them stack summonable horses nearly 3 years later... 😄
Something incredibly traumatizing happened to my character and I ended up crying for the first time playing DnD a couple weeks ago, it was sudden, I didn't expect it to happen, and I did not think I was the type to be so invested in the moment, but I just burst into tears and had to take a moment to collect myself. I learned that session that even though the moment was incredibly sad, it created a memory that I wouldn't want to forget and would propel me to want to create even MORE memories for me and my character.
This is a mood. My Oath of Vengeance Paladin is going THROUGH IT right now, and when she was teleported to a plane to speak to Lathander, she started crying. And so did I.
Those are some of the best moments. In my campaign we met a teen aged girl who was troubled and we tried to help her. After dealing with some of her stuff, we offered to take her with us as we were leaving town and she came with. Over the next dozen sessions or so she became like a surrogate daughter for my barbarian who had lost his family. Months of real life time later, we were fighting a beholder and she died. It really took me a minute and we had a cleric that could raise dead after the fight. It was astounding how much it hit me.
@@bradyfischer1511 Fuck you for making me cry
@@famweefood7073So did I. It’s the amazing power of tabletop games
I’ve had two moments like that in my past year of playing dnd. One felt awesome, immersive, and well-worth it. The other felt like cheap shock value and genuinely disturbed me, but when I tried to voice this after the session, the DM just felt proud they were able to affect me, and confessed it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to reveal an important NPC’s death in such a grisly way. I don’t think that latter DM realized I was making a complaint, not a compliment. I wished there was some sort of content warning beforehand.
When Marisha was talking about respect, I immediately thought of that one time she tried to write down the contents of a smut book after Matt, cos she thought there might be some important info in there. That's high respect for the DM right there~ and I say that as a person, who was constantly interrupted by players and could barely convince em to write down important npc's names.
Respect is very important, you guys
"There are no wrong paths."
Me watching my players spend an hour on a puzzle where the answer is just to spell "pathology" but they took pathogen, rearranged it to spell heptagon and now are obsessed with the number 7 and looking for a seven sided room. -_-
Yeah but remember when Ally hit that Nat 20 and was revived, stopped time, brought a man who has been dead for about 8 months back to earth, and created a new god? So the whole odds are this won’t happen thing doesn’t always work in a DMs favor
And they surpassed that in Sophmore year
I think Aguefort was gonna come back regardless and that Nat 20 was just a convenient opportunity and the consequences of the new God was just essentially flavour
Ultimately after all that, the only in-combat effect was Arthur pointing out that she already had a time-travel device the whole time, maybe she could just use that.
The stained glass metaphor is a beautiful way of phrasing things. I'm glad to have such a great way to put how I've been feeling about my characters.
I also now want to go and make stained glass portraits of all my past characters.
Now I do to.
...
I don't know how I'm gonna do one for ,y Shadow Monk... XD
As a student of Linguistics, I appreciate Brennan even more now that he's made that reference
As a student of Linguistics who missed the reference, I would appreciate this comment even more if it had a time stamp.
3 minutes in?
Agreed
As linguistic of student I agree
Linguistic prescriptivism is just rules-lawyering for language 😂
I loved this. What Marisha was saying about the memories being as real, or even more so, than her actual memories really struck a chord. I will never forget having my head stuffed into the couch as my character, Magnus, watched all of his friends die horrifically after playing every Sunday for over a year.
I'm making a map right now, I've just named the River that runs through it The Marisha.
I'm so so glad you talked about stimming. I used to color all the time in high school, specifically in math class because I'm ADHD and dyslexic, primarily with numbers. My teacher would yell at me and embarrass me in front of the entire class and I ended up getting a much lower grade than I could have because he stripped me of my ability to pay attention to what he was teaching.
Brennan’s nerd knowledge is amazing I would love to sit and just have a hour long conversation with him about everything nerdy.
N. .?.
The importance of using DnD as an exploration of what would happen if you reacted differently cannot be understated. I fully attribute DnD with my ability to function in social situations. I had a lot of depression growing up from social anxiety and a lack of friends (likely due to some form of autism but I've never had the money/time to get a proper diagnosis) and having the "excuse" I could tell myself that, "It's my character screwing up this social interaction, not me" made it so much easier to actual experiment and figure out how to be a functional person who could actually make friends. I fully credit DnD with pulling me out of depression and bringing me the longest lasting, deepest friendships I've ever had.
Everyone's saying Brennan should do a guest spot on Critical Role and I'm over here like, he should be a full cast member.
Well.. Its not only about who could do it but more about who the group is. Everyone coming in full, he will be just an late addition.
But, that said: If Ashley have another TV show and cant show up for some months, he would be a perfect long term guest member for sure.
Or you know, Matt and the gang play as PCs for Brennan and D20?
I think they're doing longer term guests now in campaign 3 SO THIS WOULD BE REALLY COOL
Or you know, he's got his entire own thing going with Dimension20, so neither he nor we need that. You could just watch Dimension20 too.
He got this in ExU: Calamity!
this channel would be nothing without Brennan’s quiet interjections of “rad” and “hell yeah”
PCs always think they're going to hit that nat 20
"can i roll to see if ghosts exist?"
So glad to see some more Marisha! Can't find enough panels or hosting shows with her on it! Thanks for giving us 50 minutes of heavenly comfort and pleasure! ^^
Recently diagnosed w ADHD, it's so touching to see this neurodivergent representation! I will go nuts if I have to shut up and listen for a long time without doing anything, and drawing has always been my "socially acceptable" lifeline for that. I can verify it HELPS to focus, in fact, having learned about this side of myself, i've started to offer similar activities to my friends if they feel awkward in situations.
ADHD brains are like 6 moneys writing on a single typewriter and if you want one monke to do something specific, you need to gather all the rest and put them in the daycare so the last one can actually finish writing something.
Drawing, adult colouring books, knitting etc are all activities that engage hands and visual part of the brain with low focus tasks, while leaving the listening part of the brain with more RAM so it actually stays engaged! For example, 'accidentally' leave a dirty set of dice and some cleaning supplies next to them and by the end of the game they'll have meticulously scrubbed every single die at the table. (ngl this made me want to do this at 1am).
If this need for fidgeting isn't accommodated, you can find the adhd brain start to lose focus in the gap between sentences. If you think that's annoying, try living with that every day. Pls give us something to keep us occupied at the table and don't judge.
I love brennan talking about giving players a chance with the dice to like do something crazy if they hit a nat 20 with the foreknowledge of the true magic of Ally Beardsley like its so funny
Ally: "can I just roll and if I hit a nat20, I'm still alive?"
Brendan (distracted): "yeah, sure."
Ally (rolls): "nat20."
Brendan: goes blue screen of death
This is hands down one of my favorite entries. I wish they had more time to chat on embodying a character, because it was getting so interesting.
To add to the Pike death moments in the home game, Ashley and Brian talked about it, I think in Ashley's Between the Sheets interview. She came home at about 2 AM crying and talked to Brian about Pike's death. He didn't quite understand what happened then because he hadn't get into D&D yet. But it was a profound moment for both them as well.
I'm a newer DM but I realized that Call of the Netherdeep provides a good answer to how to solve the party meandering too much problem. Have the rival group beat them to it. Let's say it was to obtain a crucial clue about the BBEG. Well now they have to negotiate with their rivals to share the information with them. 🙂
I could listen to another 3 hours of them talking.
We have an ongoing honey heist game where we get orders from Abraham Lincoln's ghost as to what honey related item to steal.
I'm here from the future. Merisha's voice @ 19:36 is her rat in campaign 3 of critical role!
this is a master class on character embodiment, aspiring actors take notes
Loved Marisha sharing that, playing Keyleth and Beau made her a better person. The possible transformative gifts of playing D&D!
“Context is everything” - YUP! I have to constantly remind myself when watching CR C1 or C2 that Marisha Ray is playing a character which eats gravel in EVERY scene. She, herself, is not an actual disaster. She’s just that great as an actor & role player.
Brennan needs to be on Critical Role
YES! He would be a great guest character.
And he has to be a bard! There are not many who could do it, but Brennan for sure can.
I want that so much.
2 years later
@@HafidzMurshidie 1 month later, he is the DM haha
The Queen of DnD!
For some of these interviews, it sounds like Brennan is just getting to know someone or talking with a friend, but sometimes it really feels like Brennan is connecting with people on his own level. This is one of those. Marisha gets a lot of shit for playing characters that are flawed, including from me. But it is a brave choice for an actor, and it ultimately doesn't harm the story at all.
Why would you give an actor shit not the character?
Unflawed characters are boring. Riz wouldn't be cool if he wasn't always searching. Kristen wouldn't be cool if she wasn't a confused gay atheist in a religious family. Pete wouldn't be cool if he wasn't a drug addict. It's their flaws that make them who they are.
It’s kind of ironic, I’ve heard people speculating about Marisha seeming more comfortable while acting about Beau after hearing about her struggles. I’m currently playing as a grumpy cowboy and experiencing similar feelings as Marisha was when she started as Beau and it’s kinda cool to hear
19:36 we hear Pâté de Rolo's voice for possibly the first time...critters can correct me but its awesome. much love guys...
100% thats what i thought haha
love the side mention on Stimming and how important it is to let folks stim
i'm actually looking into dnd as group therapy, like possibly covered by insurance and definitely ran by therapists, bc seeing the level of catharsis people can get in dnd just feels so perfect for that and i'm glad that enough other people thought that, because it's a real thing.
Speaking of players destroying plans, My first game started a lot like Skyrim, so the players started off in a cart leading to their trial. There were only two players mind you, but my Fighter player, who was an Eladrin Elf, has a racial trait that lets him cast misty step once per short rest. And I gave my other player, a Goliath Barbarian, a stomp ability that works almost the same as thunderwave. So the fighter teleports away from the cart and his bindings, then the barbarian stomps and destroys the cart, kills the guards, and runs away. The fighter walks straight up to the keep of a nearby town, talks to the lord, rolls high on charisma, and gains favor with him. In about 15 minutes the players circumvented almost the entire first session and got into my later plans.
ALWAYS be prepared to deal with players actions, it's pretty incredible to see how differently people think and react to different situations.
The barkeep metaphor gave me the idea of having like a franchise of taverns or shops that are all the same right down to the proprietor's personality. The only thing that changes is their name. "Oh I'm not them, my name is this."
That's a great idea.
In my (eventually played in) world, I've got a goblin simply named The Fence and he is.. well, the fence. He always seems to be available, always has what you need, and always drives a hard bargain. There is mystery surrounding him in an almost-cartoonish fashion with him showing up in places where he shouldn't be, like appearing in the town that's two days away in less than a day's time, or seemingly never sleeping.
The Fence, ofc, is actually a group of siblings, at least 25 of them, that all operate under the same name and pretend to be the same person, using a vast network of tunnels and delivering info to each other through an overcomplicated mess of sending stones.
Because it's funny.
Absolutely love Marisha....such a great actress! She played a character I hated so much and stayed true to it. Then played a character that was my most favorite in their second campaign. Good actress.
it's really incredible to hear that even in a game that matt mercer ran that people would still get distracted.
I hope to god he’s the guest on the 69th ep of this campaign it would be so so amazing
Minor spoilers
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Boy am I glad he wasnt
That was R O U G H
cam you imagine being a guest for that
Matthew Mehojah it really really was holy fuck
I love this series. brennan is so eloquent and always has amazing analogies and ways of explaining things
Can we talk about Marisha's nail polish? It looks so cool and the color is great
holy shit, Brennan and Marisha - you're both so wise and empathetic
A changeling the lost character i played helped me come to terms with my bisexuality, so i totally agree about how therapeutic aspects of these games.
im not watching it on drop out because im watching it 3 years later BRENNAN
"do you have a bus to catch?" is a great response to being worried about detours lmao
I had a similar situation occur as the "feeling awakening" of Pike's death that happened with Marisha in the 1st campaign that I played in. We had played for about 2 sessions (we had like 8hr sessions at the time), and we were just doing silly things, making jokes and all that stuff. But we had been sent to this other continent, and were tasked with opening up trade routes to our home continent again. And we learned that the reason why they closed were due to the 2 biggest nations going to war and cutting off trade lines for each other. So we went to the evil nation first (on accident), talked to the BBEG, and then left for the good nation. But when we got to the good nation, we ended up witnessing the evil nation's entire army show up out of nowhere, and massacre almost everything. We were able to help lessen the damage, but the scene that made us feel something for the 1st time in this world was the aftermath. The DM had slowly been lowering the volume of the music while the massacre happened until it was completely silent when he was describing the aftermath of the massacre.
*warning for those who dont like gore or traumatic scenes*
And so all we heard were his descriptions of rubble everywhere, dead bodies all over the place, even going so far as to describe how my paladin attempted to heal someone who was already dead, and how our rogue found a woman holding her dead child. And it made multiple people at the table cry because of the severity of the scene he was describing, and it totally shifted the tone of the campaign. Especially when it was discovered that the only reason why the evil nation was able to commit this atrocity was because when we met the BBEG, he stored an invisible teleporting anchor on my character that allowed him to see where I was and teleport mass amounts of creatures to the anchor's location. It was incredible for learning how to feel the character
I'm so happy to hear you mention stimming! Especially in such a loving and positive way❤❤ thank you !
The ttrpg community attracts a lot of autistic people, and it can mean the world to us, to be meet with kindness ❤
As with so many other things, it's good to talk about it, as long as you come from a genuine place of wanting to have fun with this person. It's okay to ask "hey I noticed this, is there anything making you uncomfortable? And can we make that better together? " then they have a chance to tell you if it's just a normal relaxed stim or not, ect. Being open and kind about it, will allow many of us to be more relaxed, because we normally still face a lot of stigma.
I can only speak for my self, but my stims even tends to be less disruptive, when I know the people around me are chill about it ❤
Go have fun with your autistic player, we really love you🥰
I freaking love these, Brennan! Thanks for putting them out. This was a great.
“matt mercer, you may have heard of him” he says to matt’s Literal Wife ahdhfhvjv
Almost like that's the joke
@@cait812 i know!! that’s why i commented indicating i thought it was funny!!
As soon as he said hit a nat 20 and I'll see. I pulled out my dice and hit a nat 20
A little moment of self pity , I have aphantasia so I have no minds eye. Hearing these guys talk about their memories of dnd adventures and wishing I could visualise the epic adventures in books and from master DMS, well it really stings... Makes me so envious. I love the world's they create and so so wish I could experience them to there true potential . That said I'm still thankful to hear everyone's amazing stories :)
"Players will look up from their phones if someone is rolling death saves, and thats a fact!"
I can’t believe that I’m now just finding this interview between two of my favorite people
49:29 The default should be immersion therefore the default should be NO PHONES. Like they were saying, being a player character is all about immersion. I’m convinced DnD has gotten the biggest resurgence of popularity over the last 50 years precisely because we’re all subconsciously begging for a reason to NOT look at our phones.
He, who reads, lives a thousend lives.
He, who plays, lives life with an intensity.
What I always loved most about pen and paper was exploring myself and living all those different lifes.
It helped me to understand myself a lot better, because the qualities I found in most characters, again and again, were mine. I discovered, that I am actually a very social person, not the introvert I acted like, because I was bullied in school. I discovered that I am slightly arrogant at times, because I lived that aspect of myself without fear of social backleash. And then dealt with it, cause I did not like it.
There is not that much research, but in my country pen and paper is becoming more popular to play at schools and youth groups, because it is a great medium the explore different aspects of yourself and of social interactions. Especially for people on the spectrum it gives a very safe environment to train social interaction. But problem solving and creative thinking are huge aspects too. Learning to wait your turn and to listen to others, concentrate... The list of benefits is long.
That is the best Laura Bailey impersonation I have ever heard.
Dude. This will be a required watch for my players from now on. Bravo.
I am at the last part of my first GM experience, doing a one shot with a group over Roll20 and I have LOVED setting the landing page of the session with scenery that reminds the players where they left off and planned music for scene changes, combat scenarios, both ambient music and ambient environment sound. For me, it has done SO MUCH for retaining player attention. I recommend taking that extra little bit of time to add polish to the immersion. Works wonders.
The question that Extreme Otter posed. Most of my games the last decade, part of what happens between session 0 and a full table meet up is there is a written agreement made between the DM and players about the rules - consensus about phone/(when it's ok or not to) use of social media apps, etc. Helps create that mutual expectation of focus, etc., meeting needs of everyone, etc... so forth. Awareness of accomidations/comfort, etc. Great question, and really appreciate B&M's responses to reaffirm. In my games we also finish the session with 'what worked well for you, what really didn't, and we determined again, with consensus who *one player for session max* may have earned an extra inspiration based upon their contribution/action made in the game. Insentive even to be engaged. The questions also help the DM/players perhaps make some adjustments for the next session.
The talk about letting the dice decide and Brennan DIDN'T mention Ally's "roll a Nat 20 and you can be alive" moment??
For the whole being present in the game thing, I have trouble processing when there is a whole lot going on and I will...blur out? It's the only way I can explain it. And if pressured with "what are you going to do? times running out" I will lock up and disassociate. I have the same problem with twitch based video games. I'm horrible at FPS games because everything happens too fast when you run into someone and it all turns into a blur of color and sound I can't process. I don't know if other gamers have this problem, but I would say if your players are blanking out, then ease up on them a bit. You want to stay immersed, but it's also a game and you don't need people at your table just shutting down because they can't process their own thoughts, let alone your input.
That's a good discussion to have at your table! For both player s and DMs it's a good idea to check in. You can explain 'this pressure is not helping me to NOT overthink things, this pressure feels like I'm shutting down all together' and then the table knows not to push that facet of gameplay for you. It's not always easy to immediately get that difference from the outside, but it can (should) be taken into account.
I love the comment about making combats more deadly, Matt did just that in Asarius when he mindcontrolled Caleb, they were breezing through the last few combats and getting very cocky until that moment.
Main difference for me between from player to Dm was how important and interesting I found RP.
It felt night and day and made me appreciate the other pillars of the game
Best talk about playing and DMing I've ever heard. Thanks guys.
40:58 The "could the clue be down [the other] fork?" part reminds me of the first time I felt like a real GM. I was co-running a larp with friends, and we gave them the "map of the city with magical leylines" so they could figure out where to go next. We had convergences at all of the sites they should explore ... and also a set of 4 separate leylines coincidentally intersecting in the middle of nowhere. OBVIOUSLY the players wanted to go there, because that's where the most magical energy pooled. I moved the city's Archmagus (who they hadn't met yet, but were going to in like 1-2 more sessions) estate there and the players were rewarded for their "totally correct instincts" to "find the plot"
Come hang with Brennan on our Discord! Sign up for DROPOUT: bit.ly/2KOHLyr
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Marisha Ray is a freaking legend.
Something I can say after running one page games similar to Honey Heist (Sexy Battle Wizards, The Witch is Dead, etc). If you like something from a system, one page or otherwise and you love it but you are running a dedicated system like DnD or whatever: you can steal that for your home game. Be it a monster or the way a specific race or group of people it described, you can put that in your world. Or you can take a rule or something similar and put it in your game. Or even from the same system. I use the Wild Magic table a lot even though my players don't have sorcerers. Reading scrolls they don't know, blasting a spell into a potion, doing interdimensional shenanigans. Roll me arcana and I will see how bad it goes. Just... creativity can bring so much extra stuff to your game.
LET THEM HAVE CONSEQUENCES. BEAUTIFULLY SAID!
I had a party following a thread where a coven of green hags were sapping the magic from a fey spirit of a nearby forest. The town next to the forest asked them for help and when the party learned about the hags they decided it was beyond their scope of power and that they needed to go level up. And went out of town and off to a far away place to “level up”. So yeah I was sad they didn’t do this cool story, but it gave a cool opportunity.
Eventually they went back and found the town destroyed by the hags. Which gave everyone a sense of shame and watching their reactions suddenly they were not just killing the hags for a quest, it became personal. So where the plot was derailed for a bit, we ended up getting a really cool story that we wouldn’t have had if they just did the initial quest.
It’s the “yes and” that gave us a totally unique way to finish the story. Such great advice from these folks.
I actually love this crossover, it's insane
I love what they said about memories of your characters being so real. When you talk with your party members years later, you don't say, "Remember when Zaltar the sorcerer and Tremdal the bard killed that dragon" You say, "Remember when YOU and I killed that dragon?" Because you remember it as yourselves in the moment.
That was seriously one of the best dnd interviews I've see, spectacular job and I love both of you marisha and brennen
they were talking about distractions and such while i was reading a fucking novel... people can definitely focus on two things at once
That last question is a great opportunity to role play the person into paying more attention.
"I attack that gnoll over there"
"Ok, roll for attack.... you hit the dead gnoll for 6 points of damage and that's the end of your turn."
or
"Your turn, what do you do?"
"What's happening?"
"You wake up, you don't know what's happening. You're confused and have disadvantage on your next saving throw."
I've had a player lick a concoction of alchemist's wares that pooled together on the floor. The potions were all knocked over because the PCs decided to engage in pvp. They took 14 damage at level 2, weren't looking great. The concoction actually morphed into an enemy that melted any steel they used. After the battle, THEY LICKED IT AGAIN. And I let them. They rolled a very high con saving throw and took no damage. That's the magic of D&D.
This is getting meta - they're talking about rough starts and needing to get going in an episode of a podcast that started out a bit awkwardly (a few slight misunderstandings, Brennan visible trying to yes-and through it) and developed wonderfully.
Jokes on you, I cry all the time even without D&D
I knew that the "chair" gonna be a thing!
oh my god i was SCREAMING about the chair the MOMENT the question was asked im so glad marisha brought it up
This is the good stuff. To any DMs out there.. hear this one out.
"Yes, and..." plus redirecting the energy are two of the thinga I'd definitely love to master :) Very pleasant, entertaining and informative 'interview' :D
Don't never say no, but use it sparingly. No should be reserved for situations where what is being asked would break the fun for others or be so far out of the agreed upon limits of the setting that it would destroy the tone/world/vibe/suspension of disbelief. And you really need to be careful with those yes but fuck you moments. As a player I'd much rather be told you can't climb up there than be told effectively "Fuck you here's an army of new enemies for trying/succeeding."
On the other hand, if you are saying no because it would destroy your story you have not set up your story correctly. Killed a villain too soon? They were a pawn for a bigger boss. Stopped the calamity before it could start? How do the players keep the mcguffin safe from the next mad lad in line?
Long story short, if you are going to say yes let the yes be awesome or don't bother and be ready to roll with the punches no matter what happens.
While I have a really hard time crying in front of other people, I had a similar conversation with a friend to what Marisha said about memories. I don't remember sitting around a table playing D&D, I remember fuckin' BEING THERE. At that point in my life, I _was_ my character in that world. I remember feeling what they may have felt, even though at the time I wasn't really emotional. With DM'ing it's a bit different, and I see it less like another person's memory and more like an animated show featuring the world and characters of the campaign I was running. It almost makes looking back on past sessions or campaigns the best part about playing for me at this point. In the moment I may have doubts and think about all the little mistakes I made, but in the future I can look back and see the best parts with much more intimacy.
This game is so fucking good.
4:00 Interesting take... I also think that Greg Costikyan, in the TOON rules, had a good concept that essentially said that the Road Runner isn't smart enough to realize that it can't run across thin air, whereas Wile E. Coyote, a suuupah geeenius, can't help but think that he should plummet over the same cliff.
"doing a Voice like this" She says in the future voice of her Familer. lol love it.
I am always so incredibly impressed with Brennan. Like, Marisha gives this great tip about punishing players for making the wrong choices, because that makes them learn from their mistakes, and then I'm sitting here going "but what if it wasn't their fault" and Brennan just straight up follows it with "Did the players miss something they will kick themselves over" fully satisfying my worries about how Marisha's tip could be misconstrued.
And then he later talks about neurodivergency and how focus isn't the same for everyone, really showing his empathy and understanding for people different than himself, really working towards making D&D accessible for everyone and I'm blown away again.
Honestly such a great guy!