Brennen “there’s no corner of my soul that I wouldn’t turn over for 5 points” Lee Mulligan feels like he’s having flashbacks to the yes/no episode of Game Changer
You're talking about Sam Reich, who has built a monument to devilry and chaos, and Brennan Lee "I don't particularly like winning... I just don't wanna lose" Mulligan.
Sams genuinely good point about storytelling arcs just truly cannot bear the weight of Brennan's overwhelming Vengeance Energy the whole time he's talking 😂😂😂 never forgive never forget 💀
@@merchkerns I think it just depends on the moment and how it's handled; I've seen where nat 1s make pretty interesting story points both for plot and fun shenanigans. Not to mention, some people purposefully choosing to throw (as in not rolling the dice and actively choosing to fall) in certain events too. They can definitely be more interesting.
@@merchkerns Honestly, most stories are just a bunch of failures compounding on each other until the characters either improve, or don’t. Like, I can’t think of a story where the most interesting moments are when the main characters’ plans have gone exactly as planned. Usually a failure of sorts is what drives the story and makes it more interesting.
@@merchkerns "get him humbled once he turns in his essay" sounds like you're forgetting that the evaluation of an essay is not about whether you're arguing TRUTH, but whether you're arguing it EFFECTIVELY, using logic and sources that back up your point.
I have no doubt in my mind that Brennan would've agreed 100%, no reservations, with literally ANYONE else in the world giving him this exact same take. This reaction is so specific to Sam Reich, so wonderfully spiteful, I can't help but love it
@@sy-pyit’s not though? Failure is both necessary to the development of a good story and inevitable in a game of chance. If you make the most of your nat 1’s, they can certainly be more interesting and lead to more interesting stories than a nat 20, “yay everything went smoothly exactly how I planned it.”
@@CaseyShontz Indeed! The whole crux of rolling relies on the idea that failure can be desirable! If not, why even bother rolling at all? Nat 20s only feel cook BECAUSE of their rarity in SPITE of failure. Doesn't matter how delicious your spices are if you don't have a solid meal to use them in, and struggle is the meat of stories... and without failure, there's no struggle.
@@CaseyShontzA character that never fails is often annoying and lame. So one may think that makes a bat 1 better than a nat 20. But a character that only fails is equivalently frequently annoying and lame. Failure just has bad connotations so people can overcorrect in their minds and say failure is better than success. A character that always fails or succeeds can be entertaining but it requires certain things to succeed and it’s about the same frequency for each.
@@jamespryor5967I suspect that the one where second place got the points got to him more than the one where he was automatically wrong by rule, especially since he ended up being named the winner of that one!
My favorite way to run nat 1's is to make it no longer about the player's lack of success, but instead give the enemy an incredibly badass play. It just doesn't make sense for me that the player would suddenly suck at what they're doing, and feels better when you did everything well but still didn't succeed.
It's not that they suddenly suck, it's more like when you randomly stub your toe on the table you see every day. You know it's there. It never moves. But suddenly the conditions were just so that you slammed your toe into that wooden leg, expecting clear air. You don't suck, you just aren't perfect. I like the way you run it also though, I wrote a similar comment lol. Nat 1's mean that the universe as a *whole* interferes with rather than allows for an action while nat 20s the universe as a whole *ensures* the action
This is one way to interpret the rule but everyone fails. Even the specialists, the trained, the learned. It's called living a life. There's always unexpected circumstances and I think as a DM they really do add reality to the game.
the irony is that Brennan's frustration shows us more of his character and his passion, and Sam orchestrating scenarios in which Brennan is faced with that failure has done more to communicate that passion to the audience. Sam is in fact getting the best out of Brennan by pushing his buttons
Let’s not forget the role of Nat 1s in the Gorgug “Are You My Dad” bit, Fabian’s Chungledown Bim story, Penny Luckstone’s interactions with the rogue academy… 1s can be super interesting. But also, some of the BEST moments come from 20s. Theobald Gumbar in the dairy ocean, climbing around a ship and avoiding a yogurt-y grave in full plate armor. Skip “I got my proldier’s license right here” Takamori. Ally as Pete punching the big bad of the campaign arc and needing to crit the Wisdom save just to survive… and he freaking nails it. We love to see characters Do Cool Shit. But it’s still always funny to have the stuff they’re really bad at thrown in. Sure, Liam Wilhelmina is the peppermint Batman… but he also says the most out-of-pocket shit to Annabelle Cheddar, repeatedly, and it never stops being funny.
@@TryinaDmhm There is a lot of potential that comes from nat 1s, and Brennan's own campaigns prove this. But of course a nat 1 is worth nothing if there's not still the chance to roll absolutely any other number. And the same is true for nat 20s. A story where everyone always rolled nat 20s would be boring, because the characters would cease to be relatable. They are flawless, never mess up or prove unable to accomplish something, unless by their own bad choices or the DM's refusal to let them roll. A story where everyone always rolled nat 1s, however, would be frustrating, because the characters would never continue forwards, never really improve or manage to reach any of their goals.
Counterpoint: In a show on this channel, Escape from the Bloodkeep, Matt Mercer plays a character who consistently fucks up in combat by luck and luck alone, and when taking that into account, the insecurity and feelings of inadequacy he gave Leiland was fucking phenomenal
I think combat failures suck so much partially because of these two things: 1. Failure means nothing happens. That's boring, especially when you waited for your turn for 30 minutes. 2. GMs emphasize player incompetence instead of opponents' competence. "You missed", which is especially absurd in melee, instead of "your opponent deftly parried/barely dodged/blocked your sword"
Thing is, they're both right. Failure *is* a deeply interesting thing to explore in RP, which people treat as something to avoid. But also, there has to be a level of trust or enjoyment of the little goblin energy Sam brings to the table - too many DMs have Sam's attitude as a veil for their malice.
truly proof that sam loves brennan so much and also they are so creatively compatible-he thinks that failure is the most interesting and revealing thing someone can do and has elaborately constructed jigsaw traps with the sole purpose of making brennan fail so bad he has to craft the world’s funniest, most enraged, most eloquent tirades about it
I think this is true of life as well. How people handle failures and setbacks tells you more about their character and resilience than their success does.
Now you know what 😂 I actually love this take and I will say I do kind of agree. Definitely not all the time but a lot of times to see the way a character tries to work around or reacts to the Nat 1. I also in a way appreciate Sam for saying this bc as a recovering perfectionist it’s really really hard for my to apply that mindset to myself. That my failures are interesting. And not just… failures. So even though Sam won’t see this. Thank you Sam. Thank you for thinking like this bc now we have Dropout and so many funny shows. And you saying this can help so many perfectionists struggling to become successful bc their own perfectionism prevents them from even trying.
@@jamespryor5967 paranoia XP is surprisingly easy to run once you get your brain around it. They could do notes using text/discord and have them come up on screen while they play.
Telling a DM to his face "instead of letting the players narrate the effect of their own wild successes, I prefer it when the GM has to tell them how all of their begging to use an Arcane check instead of taking the multiple hints to pay 150 gold to a roguish NPC caused their fireball to incinerate not only the chest's lock, but the chest itself and all of the plot-sensitive evidence inside it. And I especially love when you, DM, have to retcon on the fly why ripping 9 pages out of your notes is actually a good thing."
I think that in general, failure definitely makes for a more compelling story than success. I remember my failures, both in life and at the table, much more significantly than my successes because they’ve changed me more, taught me more, and shown me how I can grow.
I love that they moved on after this and like 10-15 minutes later Sam said something along the lines of "and we got really lucky" and Brennan was like "OHH IS THAT RIGHT I BET IT WOULD'VE BEEN SOOOO MUCH MORE INTERESTING IF WE WERE UNLUCKY🖕" and I cackled 😂
I feel like like this COMPLETELY call backs to the second place episode and I am all for it. You can just immediately see Brennan going from loving through traumatic flashbacks to seething with anger in seconds
This reminds me of the “disaster, conflict, triumph” d6 method that some games like Wildsea use. You roll a number of d6 based on how equipped you are to deal with a situation, then cut the highest dice depending on how challenging the situation is, or voluntarily if you want to have a higher impact for your results. Success only happens if you get a 6, otherwise it’s conflict (mixed success and failure) or disaster. There’s no simple failure because that’s not as interesting as disaster, and the cut mechanic means you get to see a success snatched from you, which makes it more impactful. I think it’s an interesting alternative to the standard d20 against dc that works well in narrative focused games.
Wasn't making situations where it's impossible to not fail one of the torture methods used in Red vs Blue to cause an AI to shatter itself just to cope?
Failure can be a really important part of storytelling! It helps round characters out, and showing how characters deal with failure is far more interesting than showing a character that always wins. I mean, mary sues CAN work, but its hard.
but a nat 20 is so much more fun when the thing you're trying to do is a long shot anyway, with such a slim chance of working that failure would be the Expected
That's why I love Ten Candles. The failures tell the story more than the successes, and the way the player characters deal with the failures and the mounting dread of their inevitable death tells you about both them and their players. Watching four or five people go from laughing and making jokes to being terrified to even roll the dice over the course of three or four hours is a great way to tell a story.
As much as I understand why Brennan is reacting the way he is, Sam has a great point. Critical Failures can not only make the DM think on their toes on how Quick, Epic and/or Funny the fail it. Give the player a chance to roleplay their character going through a bad outcome on an action or attack, and leads to a more immersible and fun world for the entire party.
To steelman Sam's point. I thinking it's worth mentioning that success is more interesting, giving risks of failure. To some extent, failure is more interesting with stakes. Consistent individual failure feels bad and not just for the player but the whole group. It's nice when you can make failure part of the fun. And if you aren't doing that you are mitigating the quality of your successes as well. I've had some surly dice in my time, and I've been in a game that only reward good dice rolls. Interesting isn't how I would have described that experience. When you run a game, it is important to make failure interesting. Failure tends to change your trajectory, as well as raise the stakes. Personally I think that degrees of success and failure are also more interesting than a flat success/failure. Competent storytelling, especially collaborative storytelling, benefits from from a pool of actions to direct the story. A nat20 or nat1 could be highlights but really shouldn't be majorly focused on. There contributions tonthe over all narrative. I've listened to many I rolled well stories from dnd and I rolled poorly stories. Honestly I'm not particularly fond of a story that talks about die rolls, but I understand the excitement.
i do think sometimes the nat 1s do tell such a great story though. fabians misadventures in leviathan wouldnt have happened without them and they led to such a good arc for the character
I don't think failure is more interesting than success, but I do think it is underappreciated. It gives contrast and depth to the world, and when the two are combined well you get the best story possible.
In theory I agree with Sam about failures being interesting when you're trying to tell a story? The difficulty, though, is that so often in d&d specifically (as compared to other TTRPG systems) failure is the "null hypothesis" - the option where you lose a turn and not much else happens. Natural 1s, then, are "interesting" less for introducing the possibility of failure, and more because we are more likely to interpret them as _fumbles_, as failures that create additional complications beyond just not being successes.
my first thought was that failures are only "interesting" if you haven't had many of them yet, or if you have never experienced true failure because there's always a safety net (usually a financial one)
I'd agree. Repeated failures can be crushing to go through, and most failures that people can learn, grow from, and find interesting are just setbacks. A true failure is something which is final, and can't be undone or recovered from.
I think he was mostly talking about dnd, not real life. This does apply a bit to real life in that you learn more about a person when they fail or don’t get what they want than you could ever learn from their reaction to success, but I don’t think it means Sam thinks failure in the real world is a good thing. Unless it’s a failure that he’s specifically engineered to torment Brennan with on his show of course 😈
I keep telling my players that failing in accomplishing something they really need is as interesting as managing to do it. Changes the story, sets them up for a different challenge than the one they were expecting. Nat 1s mean no matter how hard you try, that failed, and that's beautiful too.
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Brennen “there’s no corner of my soul that I wouldn’t turn over for 5 points” Lee Mulligan feels like he’s having flashbacks to the yes/no episode of Game Changer
The answer, to this particular question… was yes
And Second Place
And Bingo
100% the first thing I thought of
@@merchkernsBrennan did well on the Second Place
I love that Brennan can't look past what Sam has done to him
Trauma runs deep XD
Can you blame him?
Show me someone who could
Has done AND continues to do 😂
True friendship is giving your friend grief forever
This is such a sam reich take. And such a brennan lee mulligan reaction
Explains the non winnable game changer
Yesss thisss 100%
I’m gonna use this format to comment on *every single bit* of dropout media
This is such a Sam and Brennan video and such a dropout fan reaction
You're talking about Sam Reich, who has built a monument to devilry and chaos, and Brennan Lee "I don't particularly like winning... I just don't wanna lose" Mulligan.
Just in case anyone was wondering if Brennan has forgiven Sam for the "Name that biird" challenge. He has not.
Besides the part that the real point was to test his heart rate it was a really dick move to accept any kind of penguin when he had to be specific.
Sam has engineered Brennan’s brain to forget every other bird species besides Roseate Spoonbills.
There was also a whole episode where the game is that brennan cannot win. You get points if you answer opposite of brennan.
Not just "name that bird", dude is still thinking about "yes or no"
was it worth it?
yes
will Brennon ever forgive him?
fuck no
Brennons bringing that hate to the grave
Sam: I think failure is more interesting than success
Brennan Lee "I've solved your labyrinth puzzle master" Mulligan: You would think that
I got that reference!
The minotaur's escaped! And you're gonna get the horns. 👿
@@AdamFunk BUDDY!
“Brennan what is the rule of the game?”
“I CAN NOT WIN!!!!”
E
@@EEEEEEEEusername checks out. Are you my FBI Guy? I feel like you're everywhere I look 🤣
@@TheXenoEnder
I see him a lot too, is he 'our'?
Or designated Dropout agent?
Do we all get crowns?
@@Fox-983 Uh, no, we only had two.
Sams genuinely good point about storytelling arcs just truly cannot bear the weight of Brennan's overwhelming Vengeance Energy the whole time he's talking 😂😂😂 never forgive never forget 💀
I love his hot take
It’s not a genuinely good point, it’s a Lit 101 student’s faulty take that’s gonna get him humbled once he turns in his essay.
@@merchkerns I think it just depends on the moment and how it's handled; I've seen where nat 1s make pretty interesting story points both for plot and fun shenanigans. Not to mention, some people purposefully choosing to throw (as in not rolling the dice and actively choosing to fall) in certain events too.
They can definitely be more interesting.
@@merchkerns Honestly, most stories are just a bunch of failures compounding on each other until the characters either improve, or don’t.
Like, I can’t think of a story where the most interesting moments are when the main characters’ plans have gone exactly as planned. Usually a failure of sorts is what drives the story and makes it more interesting.
@@merchkerns "get him humbled once he turns in his essay" sounds like you're forgetting that the evaluation of an essay is not about whether you're arguing TRUTH, but whether you're arguing it EFFECTIVELY, using logic and sources that back up your point.
What an eloquent take Sam has. It makes you wonder where he came from.
Africa
He seems very knowledgeable. I wonder if there was an Ivy League university in his home town.
I heard there's some sort of crumbly theater near his childhood home? Could try finding where that is
@@KibannnHe actually made the theatre name up because he couldn't remember it 😅
Hey Sam, where you from? 😂
"Okay Brennan - Nat 1s are more interesting than 20s, yes or no?"
I know what's going on here.
.... I'm gonna make popcorn, you guys want some for the meltdown?
Sam says "Roll For Initiative"
What a lose lose situation. Brennan agress and he has to admit Sam is right. Brennan disagrees and the correct answer was yes.
That would have been toooo brutal.
I think Sam should commission a special set of dice for Brennan, where all the 1s are replaced with a roseate spoonbill
Or even better, dice that have 1’s on all sides.
Oh my God that would be such a hilariously trollish gift.
Brennan looks like he is having Vietnam flashbacks
Yes and No is all I have to say.
That’s not even vaguely close to what a Vietnam flashback looks like.
@@quadling3521 yeah there was no wavy fade-out, no harp music, what is this!? I thought Dropout had some production value!
Brennan like halfway through Sam elaborating: “Wait I’m a victim of this mantra”
I have no doubt in my mind that Brennan would've agreed 100%, no reservations, with literally ANYONE else in the world giving him this exact same take. This reaction is so specific to Sam Reich, so wonderfully spiteful, I can't help but love it
No, Brennan is a really good DM so he knows why this take is, as my favourite TTRPG blog writer would put it, "a load of $!%^"
@@sy-pyit’s not though? Failure is both necessary to the development of a good story and inevitable in a game of chance. If you make the most of your nat 1’s, they can certainly be more interesting and lead to more interesting stories than a nat 20, “yay everything went smoothly exactly how I planned it.”
@@CaseyShontz Indeed! The whole crux of rolling relies on the idea that failure can be desirable! If not, why even bother rolling at all? Nat 20s only feel cook BECAUSE of their rarity in SPITE of failure. Doesn't matter how delicious your spices are if you don't have a solid meal to use them in, and struggle is the meat of stories... and without failure, there's no struggle.
@@CaseyShontzA character that never fails is often annoying and lame. So one may think that makes a bat 1 better than a nat 20. But a character that only fails is equivalently frequently annoying and lame.
Failure just has bad connotations so people can overcorrect in their minds and say failure is better than success.
A character that always fails or succeeds can be entertaining but it requires certain things to succeed and it’s about the same frequency for each.
Yeah I could actually imagine him saying this verbatim on a random podcast but he has to stick it to Sam.
Brennan: **Immediate PTSD flashbacks to Game Changer Yes/No**
That freaking "Brennan Can't Win" episode absolutely MARKED him for LIFE 💀😭😂
More than one.
And, this season, the one where he won despite not doing the best also upset him alot.
@@jamespryor5967I suspect that the one where second place got the points got to him more than the one where he was automatically wrong by rule, especially since he ended up being named the winner of that one!
@@MikeDCWeld That’s the one! I was trying to avoid spoilers, though.
My favorite way to run nat 1's is to make it no longer about the player's lack of success, but instead give the enemy an incredibly badass play. It just doesn't make sense for me that the player would suddenly suck at what they're doing, and feels better when you did everything well but still didn't succeed.
Ooh, I like that
That's a really cool take
It's not that they suddenly suck, it's more like when you randomly stub your toe on the table you see every day. You know it's there. It never moves. But suddenly the conditions were just so that you slammed your toe into that wooden leg, expecting clear air. You don't suck, you just aren't perfect. I like the way you run it also though, I wrote a similar comment lol. Nat 1's mean that the universe as a *whole* interferes with rather than allows for an action while nat 20s the universe as a whole *ensures* the action
I just immediately screenshotted and shared this with my DMing community, this is brilliant. Thank you.
This is one way to interpret the rule but everyone fails. Even the specialists, the trained, the learned. It's called living a life. There's always unexpected circumstances and I think as a DM they really do add reality to the game.
When Sam started giving his explanation, I had the same thought as Brennen. “Of course Sam would think that.”
I feel like if anyone other than Sam had said that Brennan would have been more open to it. 😂
tbf it's also part of the bit that he has to argue the opposite
@@KaelWrit Yes but like he was READY to disagree
@@KaelWritAnd Sam was the perfect -monster- person for Brennen to disagree with for this bit.
Sam: “I think failure is more interesting…”
Brennan: *kill bill screech*
"What is this look?" Sir, you know **exactly** what that look is for
the irony is that Brennan's frustration shows us more of his character and his passion, and Sam orchestrating scenarios in which Brennan is faced with that failure has done more to communicate that passion to the audience. Sam is in fact getting the best out of Brennan by pushing his buttons
You hear that mom? IM NOT A FAILURE IM JUST INTERESTING
“ *GET A JOB YOU BUM!* “
- Mom, probably
Let’s not forget the role of Nat 1s in the Gorgug “Are You My Dad” bit, Fabian’s Chungledown Bim story, Penny Luckstone’s interactions with the rogue academy… 1s can be super interesting.
But also, some of the BEST moments come from 20s. Theobald Gumbar in the dairy ocean, climbing around a ship and avoiding a yogurt-y grave in full plate armor. Skip “I got my proldier’s license right here” Takamori. Ally as Pete punching the big bad of the campaign arc and needing to crit the Wisdom save just to survive… and he freaking nails it.
We love to see characters Do Cool Shit. But it’s still always funny to have the stuff they’re really bad at thrown in. Sure, Liam Wilhelmina is the peppermint Batman… but he also says the most out-of-pocket shit to Annabelle Cheddar, repeatedly, and it never stops being funny.
Yup, I fuckin love Nat 1 rolls in Fantasy High cuz they’re either rly sad or rly funny
@@TryinaDmhm
There is a lot of potential that comes from nat 1s, and Brennan's own campaigns prove this.
But of course a nat 1 is worth nothing if there's not still the chance to roll absolutely any other number. And the same is true for nat 20s.
A story where everyone always rolled nat 20s would be boring, because the characters would cease to be relatable. They are flawless, never mess up or prove unable to accomplish something, unless by their own bad choices or the DM's refusal to let them roll.
A story where everyone always rolled nat 1s, however, would be frustrating, because the characters would never continue forwards, never really improve or manage to reach any of their goals.
Blimey.
"if i roll a nat 20 can i come back to life"
fabians terrible no good very bad day
“I think that failure is more interesting than success” is such a raw line
Brennan is still up in arms about the Roseate Spoonbill
I love watching a conversation between a chaos-god and the blorbo of his torment.
Outside of combat, yes. Fumbling a jump or a stealth roll can add to a characters story and personality. In combat...it's awful...
Counterpoint: In a show on this channel, Escape from the Bloodkeep, Matt Mercer plays a character who consistently fucks up in combat by luck and luck alone, and when taking that into account, the insecurity and feelings of inadequacy he gave Leiland was fucking phenomenal
I think combat failures suck so much partially because of these two things:
1. Failure means nothing happens. That's boring, especially when you waited for your turn for 30 minutes.
2. GMs emphasize player incompetence instead of opponents' competence. "You missed", which is especially absurd in melee, instead of "your opponent deftly parried/barely dodged/blocked your sword"
@@tortture3519sounds like you had a subpar DM then
@@tortture3519I mean, I get around that by having enemy Nat 1s be equally comedic and/or humiliating for the NPC.
Thing is, they're both right. Failure *is* a deeply interesting thing to explore in RP, which people treat as something to avoid. But also, there has to be a level of trust or enjoyment of the little goblin energy Sam brings to the table - too many DMs have Sam's attitude as a veil for their malice.
truly proof that sam loves brennan so much and also they are so creatively compatible-he thinks that failure is the most interesting and revealing thing someone can do and has elaborately constructed jigsaw traps with the sole purpose of making brennan fail so bad he has to craft the world’s funniest, most enraged, most eloquent tirades about it
TeamFourStar moment "I'd be proud if not for my UNYEILDING RAGE!!"
That's what Brennan felt 😂
“Did you..”
“Did you just hold a grudge?”
Oh my god I had to go into the brain archive to realize what and who you’re referencing
I think this is true of life as well. How people handle failures and setbacks tells you more about their character and resilience than their success does.
Brennan sounds like he’s scheming a murder while talking to Sam
Brennan has been yearning to put this feeling into words and Sam handed him an opportunity
This conversation is so beautifully meta
the flashbacks are getting to him…
he cannot win
Now you know what 😂 I actually love this take and I will say I do kind of agree.
Definitely not all the time but a lot of times to see the way a character tries to work around or reacts to the Nat 1.
I also in a way appreciate Sam for saying this bc as a recovering perfectionist it’s really really hard for my to apply that mindset to myself. That my failures are interesting. And not just… failures.
So even though Sam won’t see this. Thank you Sam. Thank you for thinking like this bc now we have Dropout and so many funny shows. And you saying this can help so many perfectionists struggling to become successful bc their own perfectionism prevents them from even trying.
It's so much more enriching to the story when the player trips and accidentally falls into the lava and dies with no saving throws.
I honestly don't know whether I would laugh or flip a table
"I'm not a failure, I'm interesting."
Reactions to failures are more interesting than just success imo. The failure itself isn't more interesting but how they respond and adapt is.
Sam would make a great Paranoia GM
I would love a D20 season where Sam is the GM and they do some kind of take on Paranoia.
You know they just can't play it straight.
@@jamespryor5967 paranoia XP is surprisingly easy to run once you get your brain around it. They could do notes using text/discord and have them come up on screen while they play.
AND YOUR HOST, FRIEND COMPUTER! I’VE BEEN HERE THE WHOOOOOOLE TIME
@@raaabr2513 SAY HI, TREASONOUS CLONES
Izzy having so much fun is a blessing for all of us 😭❤️ I love this
Telling a DM to his face "instead of letting the players narrate the effect of their own wild successes, I prefer it when the GM has to tell them how all of their begging to use an Arcane check instead of taking the multiple hints to pay 150 gold to a roguish NPC caused their fireball to incinerate not only the chest's lock, but the chest itself and all of the plot-sensitive evidence inside it. And I especially love when you, DM, have to retcon on the fly why ripping 9 pages out of your notes is actually a good thing."
I feel like he doesn't fail that often lol 😂
Can we please have a mini-series of the Dropout cast Playing mafia!?!?!
I think that in general, failure definitely makes for a more compelling story than success. I remember my failures, both in life and at the table, much more significantly than my successes because they’ve changed me more, taught me more, and shown me how I can grow.
I'm also with Brennan, I disagree and I can explain why in one word:
Blimey.
Farts.
I love that they moved on after this and like 10-15 minutes later Sam said something along the lines of "and we got really lucky" and Brennan was like "OHH IS THAT RIGHT I BET IT WOULD'VE BEEN SOOOO MUCH MORE INTERESTING IF WE WERE UNLUCKY🖕" and I cackled 😂
Torturer: Hot take, I like torture.
Torturer's Victim: Really!?
I was just waiting for this to turn into a game changer episode
I’m having flashbacks to “Brennan Cannot Win”
Such a large percentage of the clips of Sam I see are him laughing uncontrollably that I choose to believe he's just giggling all the time
Speaking like a true CEO!
I feel like like this COMPLETELY call backs to the second place episode and I am all for it. You can just immediately see Brennan going from loving through traumatic flashbacks to seething with anger in seconds
This reminds me of the “disaster, conflict, triumph” d6 method that some games like Wildsea use. You roll a number of d6 based on how equipped you are to deal with a situation, then cut the highest dice depending on how challenging the situation is, or voluntarily if you want to have a higher impact for your results. Success only happens if you get a 6, otherwise it’s conflict (mixed success and failure) or disaster. There’s no simple failure because that’s not as interesting as disaster, and the cut mechanic means you get to see a success snatched from you, which makes it more impactful. I think it’s an interesting alternative to the standard d20 against dc that works well in narrative focused games.
This captures both their essence so well
That explanation activate Brennan's Fight or Flight
Both can make for stellar game moments that you remember for years.
Wasn't making situations where it's impossible to not fail one of the torture methods used in Red vs Blue to cause an AI to shatter itself just to cope?
Oh my god, Sam is the Director
This moment is absolutely perfect
“Are you my dad?”
Bao is just incredibly amazing for this. She knows how to go make some new stuff.
I thought he was gonna go "ill tell you what sam, yes or no?"
Failure can be a really important part of storytelling! It helps round characters out, and showing how characters deal with failure is far more interesting than showing a character that always wins. I mean, mary sues CAN work, but its hard.
but a nat 20 is so much more fun when the thing you're trying to do is a long shot anyway, with such a slim chance of working that failure would be the Expected
That's why I love Ten Candles. The failures tell the story more than the successes, and the way the player characters deal with the failures and the mounting dread of their inevitable death tells you about both them and their players. Watching four or five people go from laughing and making jokes to being terrified to even roll the dice over the course of three or four hours is a great way to tell a story.
As much as I understand why Brennan is reacting the way he is, Sam has a great point. Critical Failures can not only make the DM think on their toes on how Quick, Epic and/or Funny the fail it. Give the player a chance to roleplay their character going through a bad outcome on an action or attack, and leads to a more immersible and fun world for the entire party.
I can’t handle them having a normal conversation. I NEED POINTS! I NEED BUZZERS! I NEED SAM AND BRENNAN BEHIND OPPOSING PODIUMS I CANNOT HANDLE THIS
Brennan took that personally
That cut is perfect
Failure is only interesting in a leisure activity to people who enjoy success in life as often as Sam 'Boot Strap' Reich. Where is this guy even from?
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
@@axeldornelles5292any good movie theatres there?
@@axeldornelles5292I hear they have a lovely theatre there
@TSNam
With a Chilli's nearby, IIRC
I like how Sam says "more interesting" and Brennan is immediately like "Oh?? You think failures are better??" 😂
and Brennen took that personally
To steelman Sam's point. I thinking it's worth mentioning that success is more interesting, giving risks of failure. To some extent, failure is more interesting with stakes. Consistent individual failure feels bad and not just for the player but the whole group. It's nice when you can make failure part of the fun. And if you aren't doing that you are mitigating the quality of your successes as well. I've had some surly dice in my time, and I've been in a game that only reward good dice rolls. Interesting isn't how I would have described that experience. When you run a game, it is important to make failure interesting. Failure tends to change your trajectory, as well as raise the stakes.
Personally I think that degrees of success and failure are also more interesting than a flat success/failure. Competent storytelling, especially collaborative storytelling, benefits from from a pool of actions to direct the story. A nat20 or nat1 could be highlights but really shouldn't be majorly focused on. There contributions tonthe over all narrative.
I've listened to many I rolled well stories from dnd and I rolled poorly stories. Honestly I'm not particularly fond of a story that talks about die rolls, but I understand the excitement.
i do think sometimes the nat 1s do tell such a great story though. fabians misadventures in leviathan wouldnt have happened without them and they led to such a good arc for the character
I don't think failure is more interesting than success, but I do think it is underappreciated. It gives contrast and depth to the world, and when the two are combined well you get the best story possible.
well damn if I'm not the most interesting person there is
i love the dropbox extended universe continuity
Brennan kinda proving Sam right lmao
Amazing duo.
Brennan is still bitter and its hilarious
In theory I agree with Sam about failures being interesting when you're trying to tell a story? The difficulty, though, is that so often in d&d specifically (as compared to other TTRPG systems) failure is the "null hypothesis" - the option where you lose a turn and not much else happens. Natural 1s, then, are "interesting" less for introducing the possibility of failure, and more because we are more likely to interpret them as _fumbles_, as failures that create additional complications beyond just not being successes.
my first thought was that failures are only "interesting" if you haven't had many of them yet, or if you have never experienced true failure because there's always a safety net (usually a financial one)
I'd agree. Repeated failures can be crushing to go through, and most failures that people can learn, grow from, and find interesting are just setbacks. A true failure is something which is final, and can't be undone or recovered from.
I sure do wonder why, with this context, Sam would have this take. Maybe knowing where he’s from would help clue us in?
I think he was mostly talking about dnd, not real life. This does apply a bit to real life in that you learn more about a person when they fail or don’t get what they want than you could ever learn from their reaction to success, but I don’t think it means Sam thinks failure in the real world is a good thing. Unless it’s a failure that he’s specifically engineered to torment Brennan with on his show of course 😈
I keep telling my players that failing in accomplishing something they really need is as interesting as managing to do it. Changes the story, sets them up for a different challenge than the one they were expecting. Nat 1s mean no matter how hard you try, that failed, and that's beautiful too.
The exact response I would expect from a Nepo-baby. When you roll a Nat-20 at birth of course Nat-1s seem interesting
You know what they say if you wish to succeed you must brave the risk of failure
2 zaddies in an argument
This ep was a huge success
failure is 1,000% more interesting because it builds back up to success, however id say nat 20's are more *exciting*
These two would have a hilarious podcast
I've noticed that people who say nat 1's are more interesting, haven't experienced enough failure in real life.
@mork4971 spoken like someone who has imagined it more than experienced it, haha
LOL I feel similarly… failure is boring, I do it all the time 🥲
Sam gave the most hilarious revealing answer he could on this question
This is a good example of a good friendship that contains zero trust.
Thank you. I had a terrible day and i couldnt but laugh at this
Brennan said exactly what I was thinking "Of course you'd enjoy failure more than success"
The fact that it cuts off at
“I disagree”
From Brennen is so fucking funny
Brennan, having an internal montage of unwinnable game changer moments as his eye twitches.
It's not just failing, it's failing at an unimaginable level, and I love that.
I loved Brennan's responce when he say that Dropout rolled a nat 20 on creation
The perfect cutoff