See it's all bars. Oh, thank you so much for joining us again
to learn what is happening behind the scenes at Oops All Bards. I am
Jillian Ashley Blair ivy. I said, it's four names for a very small
human being. I am joined by Ashley Banks who plays Bell, Ross Curry
who plays Andrik, and our producer Nate Runkle, who did so well on
Mike last time, we decided to give him a microphone again. For this
episode, episode four we had we all started back at Sovereign House, basically
the Bards being told that there's nobody left. As the theme song says,
so we need you to help with negotiations. So you were you had a
little bit of time to gather your things, figure out that maybe horses were
the best way to get to the Alcazar, and then travel to the Alcazar,
where a series of lucky roles that you did not do any of the
creepy haunted house type stuff that I had planned for you there, and instead
you went straight upstairs to meet Lucinda o'cor who is the former Minister of Propaganda.
I believe is the title that I gave her pretty helpful. If I
looked at my notes when we record these episodes. But you met Lucinda o'cor
and tried to negotiate with her, and we unfortunately don't have Anne, who
plays Clarice with us to talk about the negotiations specifically, but we have Ashley
and Ross here to talk about the episode, everything that was happening up to
that point. And then after the conversation with Lucinda wrapped, you headed out
and a mysterious canined sort of figure appeared and informed Rucus that his family was
in rather a lot of danger because of the arrival of Malvo's supporters, and
took Rucas away with her so that Rucus could take care of all of the
other dog folk who really needed him, and rode off into the sunset.
I think it's already dark by this point, but we'll say sunset, howling,
don't worry, be happy. So that is that is where we are
so far in our recordings. I would I would really just kind of like
to open the floor to need Ashley and Ross and see if there's anything that
happened while we were recording this episode that to keep by surprise or was perhaps
not going the way that you expected it to, like what What were some
of your thoughts or takeaways as we as we wrapped episode four. Yes,
Ashley, I'd like to say for the record that I'm pretty sure he was
not howling. Don't worry, be happy. He was howling smoke schworri shmappy.
Oh right, Yes, yes, that is the Just to make sure
that our intellectual property, I think that howling the tune of the song is
probably covered by fair use. But yesappy is is the the official dog folk
travel song. Yes, you know that was That was my only contribution.
I'll say that I wasn't expecting that at all for everybody to start singing along
and even re listening to it a little tear. I'm not gonna lie,
I'm a sensitive guy. It was. It was a really beautiful moment.
Yes, since since we're on the topic anyway, let's let's just talk about
that because for our listeners, just so you know, Rucus, there's not
a plan for Rucus to come back in this season of oopsal Bards Chris,
Yes, if you have not listened to episode four, this would probably be
a good time to do that. Ye. Put a spoiler rewarding in your
intro. Yes, so so, yeah, so so Chris Kleinecki, who
we've all acted with and play D and D with and was playing Ruckus,
made the decision to leave the show for reasons that were entirely his to decide,
and we all support him and love him, and some of us were
just at Chris's wedding this past weekend as we're recording this. You're going to
be listening to this. By the time you listen to this, Chris will
have been married for several months, but in real time, we've just celebrated
Chris's wedding, So there are absolutely no hard feelings. We love Chris very
much. We love Ruckus, but we have had to say goodbye to Rucas
as a player and as a character in oopsal Bards and So what I'd love
to hear from Ross and Ashley. I'm sure you've both and I know Ross
for a fact has and I'm actually I'm sure you have also come across the
situation where in a real D and D game you've had a player who's had
to leave your campaign, and I'd love to know how you handled that.
And this doesn't just happen in D and D. I've had it happen in
theater productions where you know a performer has a personal life event or there's something
that's not jelling, or you know, they suddenly you know they're an actor
and they get a full time job that pays them way more in that like
they just need to go on the spot and they're like, this is not
exclusive to D and D. So it it just happens, And you know
it's that it's cliche to say the show must go on, but you figure
out a graceful way to, you know, make that happen. As you
said, there there are no hard feelings whatsoever. It's just circumstances for such
that a transition needed to happen. For for me, it did happen at
a D and D table, And this one was one where a player just
was not vibing with the way I run my game. I had put her
on this She felt that I put her on the spot a few times because
I run a very social interaction heavy game and I and from my point of
view, I was trying to make all the players feel included, and so
at times I was saying, hey, how does Hilda feel at this moment?
And this person is fairly introverted and felt put on the spot. So
the type of game that I was running was not conducive to her idea of
fun. And you know, we had we had a very we're very good
friends about still one of my very best friends above the table, and so
like we just had a conversation like that's fine, and found a logical point,
you know, at the end of an arc within the campaign for them
to leave, and they left, and that's fine. It happens. So,
Ashley, what is your expert has been with players leaving? Yeah,
I actually can't think of an example of that happening, and I think I
get around it by doing a lot of one shots, so like jokes on
you players, a hahaha. But also the campaigns that I do have that
are very long running are with like my roommates from college, so you know,
we haven't actually had a D and D session for several months now.
At some point we'll pick it back up. So like, you know,
barring any you know, major shifts, there hasn't been an occasion for a
person to leave. It's more like, oh, I can't make it this
week, and it's like, okay, well we'll get together at some point,
I guess how's next Thursday and seventeen months, it gets challenging, and
we've certainly encountered that scheduling challenge within the Just the Up Cell Bards cast a.
We are actually recording this behind the scenes episode on a night that we
were supposed to be recording episode five, but because of various reasons it's not
including but not limited to the fact that there was supposed to be a playoff
baseball game today that might have affected everybody who lives outside of South Philadelphia's ability
to get two recording in South Philadelphia, and then the Phillies wound up losing
and it was a non issue anyway, I'm not better so but yeah,
but also getting home afterwards, getting home, which could have gone either way,
right, well, yeah, if the if the Phillies had won,
I think it would have especially been challenging for everybody to get home because for
those of our listeners who are not familiar with Philadelphia, when our teams win
championships, it is a beautiful bedlam in the city and a lot of that
happens not far from where Ross and I live, which would have made it
very challenging for the folks who don't live in this area to get home.
I just wanted to say though, that, you know, as far as
as far as trying to figure out player exits and what to do when life
intervenes. I also recently heard a very very clever solution to this, which
was player very much wanted to continue playing, but he was a college freshman
who was playing in a game with adults, and they created his backstory around
his character that he's a mercenary, and so sometimes his character just has to
leave to go out on a paid mercenary gig and he might be gone for
one gathering or he might be gone for six, but he'll come back and
have some stories. And he's working with the DM who is his mother's in
real life, who is his mother's partner, to kind of figure out like,
depending on how long he's been gone, what was happening, and is
he coming back with an interesting NPC or a cool weapon or some booty that
he picked up along the way. So there are ways, you know,
for for folks who are listening who are interested in playing D and D but
are worried about the commitment, there are ways to make it work with somebody
who very much wants to play, but maybe isn't always available when the rest
of the party is available. Well, let me ask you, Oh go
ahead, no, no, no, please, let me ask you this
from from a DM standpoint, and more specifically a DM standpoint of this show
where we've seen, you know, our fair share of disruptions, but nothing
out of the ordinary. Just you know, have you created exit plans for
everybody, just in case, in a small envelope that you can crack open
when when need being Batman style? You know, yes, yes, exactly,
I have not. You know, in Racus's case, I made it
very clear from the beginning that I did not want this podcast to wind up
on does thedog die dot com? So so I gave I gave Chris the
opportunity to let Ruckus go out in a blaze of glory, and he's like,
I don't. I don't think that that's what you want. I don't
think that's what our listeners want. Which I appreciate it because it wasn't.
I did not want to be the person who killed the giant dog. But
you know, I feel like there are if you are having a an in
storyline departure for a character as opposed to just so and so doesn't want to
play anymore and we've just kind of forgotten about them. There are a lot
of ways to do it, you know. It could be somebody is getting
summoned home for something that that's very urgent with your family, like what we've
handled with with Ruckus. It might be that, you know, it could
be that somebody gets very seriously injured or killed in combat. It could be
that they just decide that they've fallen in love and they're going to go a
lope somewhere. Be the first year hearing of the like the the Goblin princess
that they've fallen in love with. But now that's happening. It could be
that somebody needs to stay back at the base to keep an eye on all
of our chickens that we've gathered. Yes, yes, so Ashley and Ross
and I and also Chris and Bob and Anne were all playing in a game
that was run by our friend Michael, who's one of our producers at the
Courchroom. And that game started with a hybrid of It was all people who
were involved in a theater company that was run out of the University of Pennsylvania,
and some of us were a lums or staff at the university, and
some were students, And so what happened was that the student players, for
the most part, graduated and went on about their lives and doing that.
They keep doing that every four years. It's very inconvenient. So for the
most part, when they graduated, they had other things going on, and
they decided not to keep playing. I don't think any of them ever official
decided not to keep playing. I think they just kind of stopped showing up.
But for those of us who were already we'll say working professionals at the
time that we started playing that game, we decided that we wanted to keep
going, and so we had this kind of home base operation where there was
a chicken farm, there was a brewery, there were some other things,
and so it was like occasionally we would just like check back in to see
how things were going at the glob, right, That's what it was.
The glob we'd go, we'd like check in to see and so our da
would just tell us that, like, the chickens are very happy, the
yeast for the beer is coming along nicely, Like it was a good harvest
of hops this year, that sort of thing, and so we just like
they were there, and if the characters ever if the players did ever want
to come back, the characters were still in the world, but we didn't
worry about it too much, and that campaign just ended a few months ago.
I'm not even sure if those other players know if the campaign ended,
there's still in the wesapp group of the group made group. But that's that's
certainly one way of doing it too. You just have a reason for your
players to stay behind. They might decide to open a te shop in the
last town that you visited, and so maybe you'll maybe you'll be able to
encounter that that player again if you roll back through town. There are a
lot of things to do. You don't necessarily have to write somebody's exit with
finality. It's not it's dand it's not a soap opera. But if you
if somebody wants it feels very strongly that they want to. As an example,
that the player who left the game that I run, they were a
wizard, and the way we left it off was that they left a note
for the closest person in the party that they were two that they found you
know, a session later. But she had gone off because she realized that
actually being out in the world was not advancing her study in the way that
she wanted to. She needed to go to a place to really study Arcanda
in an academic kind of way, and that way. You know, the
wizard had left the party, but you know, especially because this is a
very good friend, the door is always open for them to come back.
And I don't care how much shoehorning it takes. If they ever came to
me and said, could I rejoin the game, that avenue is open for
them, and I will make it happen. I think, you know,
going back Nate to your your you know, Batman style envelope, I think
I don't know any dms who have that, because A, you know,
the options are endless. B it's really dependent on the character what the player
wants, right, what feels good for them, but also where the characters
are in their art right, Like if Ruckus were leaving, you know,
somewhere in the middle of the season, it could be that it could be
that you know, the same things happened, but it could be that that
wouldn't quite make sense, and maybe the particular beats that that story followed would
have been different. And I think, yeah, so just it's it's hard
to do a character leaving well requires planning once you know what's happening, but
it's very hard to plan it in advance because otherwise you're you're kind of shoehorning
things. That makes sense, Yeah, And I will say, like when
when Chris told me that he was leaving, like we did talk about again,
like I said, you know, we can let Ruckus go out a
blaze of glory, and he said, let's not do that. But I
gave him a couple of options, both in terms of how that departure would
happen and also when it would happen. Like you know, we had the
way that that episode wound up being structured, It was like we could have
had the the Other Best Bow show up right as you were walking out of
the Alcazar to go get your things and collect horses, or we could have
had it happen as you were walking, sorry, as you were leaving the
Sovereign House, not as you were leaving the Alcazar. But we could have
had it as you were entering the Alcazar or on your way to the Alcazar.
And you know, Chris said he'd really liked to get through the episode
with us, So we made the decision kind of on the spot for that
particular decision to just have it go that way, and I think that it
wound up working out very well. So I also wanted to just kind of
talk about what happened while you were at the Alcazar, because, as I
mentioned in the beginning, I had kind of planned on there being on our
opportunity for you all to explore this old summer home of the former autocrat of
Malveaux and through a series of roles that revealed the information that you needed right
away. You just basically had Lucinda Corp throw open the door and be like
hi, I'm or hi y'all, I'm up here. So so I'm curious,
and I know, like Ross, we we actually just finished in one
of the campaigns that you run, we had kind of a haunted house situation.
But I'm curious when you have situations like that where you've planned something and
then it doesn't go that way, how much of that material do you recycle?
Because I've I've personally already figured out what if anything from that I can
recycle, But when that opportunity presents itself, or when players skip something that
you're actually really excited about doing. Do you figure out a way to get
it back in there or do you just say, you know, what was
it meant to be within the same campaign. I don't recycle it. There's
stuff that I put in my back pocket for a one shot or another campaign.
But you know, one of the cliches, but I really believe it's
true is plans are useless. Planning is essential, and that you know,
so the effort of creating a haunted house, you know, you might run
a Halloween one shot next year in which you get to use all of that
stuff. It might not happen in Oops all Bards, but that time you
put in, you know, you find another creative outlet for it, whether
it's by putting it into a short story or putting it into a one shot
or that. That type of work is worthwhile. So I let my players,
you know, if they short circuit something great, I have no problem
them with that. You know, since since the incident that we talked about
in the previous behind the scenes, like that was one of the big lessons
learned of, Like, you know, don't put anything out there. You
know, if you put a binary choice, and this is not the haunted
house situation. But if you put a binary choice in front of players and
you're prepared for them to do either, by definition, fifty percent of your
effort is going to be wasted. But I don't think it ever is.
You just find other you know, you learn from the process of doing it.
So no, I don't worry about players short circuiting my plans anymore.
I'm really impressed for us that you remember a whole month ago the conversation we
had on the last behind the scenes, because I've already long since forgotten that
stuff. Well, you know, all of us are just known for having
men maries that are just so sharp. There's nobody in this cast with any
memory issues. No ADHD, none, no long COVID, no long COVID,
no nothing, no nothing of the story, just no medications or just
just just a crew of neurotypicals who hit every deadline. Jill could actually throw
that back in the other way, like when our roles went really well and
we knew exactly the room that we had to get to, did you think
about repurposing or like replacing some of the obstacles in order for us to like
just to have to get to the like we knew exactly where we had to
get to, but like we might still have had to do some unpleasant stuff
to get there. Yeah, I thought about it, but a lot of
a lot of what I had been in the house was not even necessarily obstacles.
It was investigation. And so it was like, this is this is
information that I can just have loosened to give to you, or you could
you know, if you roll well enough on your insight checks or your perception
checks, you could pick up rather than it being like, you know,
books for you to find or drawers for you to open. There were not
necessarily a lot of encounters in the house because I wanted us to make sure
that we actually got through recording the whole episode, and I didn't want somebody
to get hung up on you know, we had in one of the games
at Rostium's we had like a sentient rug recently, and so I didn't want
anybody to get caught up and trying to figure out how to get away from
this rug that was trying to swallow them whole. So it was going to
be and I guess haunted house probably is not necessarily the right word for this,
because it wasn't like there were not ghosts or phantasms or polter geist in
this house. It was going to be more like learning more about what might
have might explain what has brought Malvo back. And some of that you kind
of did find out a little bit from your interaction with Lucinda and some of
that. Honestly, it's it's interesting and it's relevant. It gives more flavor,
but it's not so essential that you can't move on with the story without
that information. And so I've got certain things that I had planned to happen
in that house that were just revealed in that conversation, and there are certain
things that will maybe get revealed later, and there are certain things that once
we wrap, I'll be able to say, here are the things that you
didn't know about Malvo and his return, his presumptive alleged return. So yes,
for me, it was I was sad to not have you get the
opportunity to see this house, because who doesn't love to walk around a spooky
house? But it was not something that I felt like I could just wasn't
going to like oop, somebody's foot fell through a floor, a stair tread
and now you're in this in the kitchen or something I wasn't I wasn't going
to do that. It also it kind of felt like it would cheapen the
fact that you were all able to figure out where you needed to go very
quickly, So I didn't want to put any obstacles in your way at that
point. You know, there were there there again, were still things that
that didn't happen or that you didn't find out by things going that way,
but you also managed to just circumvent all of that and go to the main
information source and get that that information much more quickly. Let me ask you
a question from a DM standpoint, and I'll also throw it to Ashley and
Ross from a player standpoint. What are some things, if any, you
know, maybe maybe not, that you might have done differently had this just
been a game and not a show. Hmm. I think that I probably
Oh, that's a really good question. I think that I probably would have
nudged you all a little bit more towards like don't you want to explore this
spooky house rather than just saying like, oh, you bunch of a bunch
of lights just lit up along the staircase, so clearly you're supposed to follow
the staircase up. I think that I probably would not, and and maybe
even for the purpose of the show, in hindsight, maybe I wouldn't have
had you roll for that immediately. I might have just said, like,
you're standing in the foyer of this this grand house, and what are you
going to do? And let everybody explore it a little bit independently before I
before I brought the dice in. But because I had those, I think
they were perception checks so early on to just be able to say like,
oh, hey, what have you know? Oh you see the candles,
you see the so yep, go on upstairs. That was that that in
some ways actually eliminated the choice from the players, and it's probably not not
the way I would do it going forward, or if I if I had
the DC on those roles I had set so high, I was like,
there's no way, no way. And yet every time so it it It
worked out for all of you because you got to get to the information a
lot faster, and it works for me because I got to give you that
information faster, and we got to like, you know, go home a
little bit earlier. I mean, we're recording at Mayan Ross's home, so
we didn't make it a difference for us, but everybody else got to go
home a little bit earlier. It's just that we you know, there was
there was stuff that might have been fun or interesting for you as players that
you missed. I mean to go into some of the crunch of five V
a little bit. One of the dangers of the situation that that Jilled set
up and dangers I mean in terms of you know, us being able to
short circuit things is bar words are skill masters. All Bards, regardless of
our subclasses, get jack of all trades, which means at a minimum,
we get to add half of our proficiency bonus to every single skill check.
It is not hard for a group of Bards to roll a whole bunch of
twenty fives on even if our character sheets are not optimized. It is not
hard for a group of Bards to roll a whole bunch of twenty fives on
perception investigation, in site, that type of stuff. Because you know,
it's it's the nature of the class, and I don't especially when you have
all barts right like when you have then it's like, oh well they have
a good chance of like getting surprisingly high rolls. When you have five bards,
statistically one of us is going to do really well. Yes, yeah,
And you know, one of the ways that you can limit that if
you're dming your own campaign full of bards, because I don't know, you're
as insane as I am, is to not let as many people do the
roles. It might just be like one person gets to do this role and
if it fails, then it fails for the whole party. You can also
rely more on people's passive perception or passive wisdom to figure out what might the
result be, rather than leaving it up to the dice sometimes I mean as
the DM. Depending on what platform you're using, even if you're using payper
and pencil, you probably have all of your character's sheets so you can see
what everyone's passive skills are and make a determination. Just like look at and
be like, oh, this person's passive perception it's ten and the DC here
would be seventeen. I'm going to make that person. I'm just going to
ask them like what you know, here's what you notice, and just not
leave it up to chance. But I also really like the opportunity to everybody
likes to roll dice like, everybody likes to roll physical dice. It's fun,
and so I don't want to take that away from you either. Yeah,
And I think the trick as a DM is finding that balance of anytime
your players fail a check, they're always failing forward and always progressing the story
even if they aren't rolling well. And I think for dms the inverse is
true that you want to make sure that they always succeed forward as well.
Yes, so you don't have don't leave it to chance for something where it's
like, oh, if you roll in that twenty here, it breaks the
whole game and you just never encountered the boss I had planned. Yes,
Instead, a twenty means that something really cool happens, or you get information
you wouldn't have had, or you get an item that you wouldn't have had,
or you get a surprise is a tack round because you get the drop
on somebody that you otherwise wouldn't have. Right, making sure that the the
best case scenario doesn't break your game and the worst case scenario doesn't result in
your players being like, well, I guess we just stand here and then
try picking the lock again, right, And I will say I've played in
games, and I've listened to a lot of actual play podcasts and other content
where sometimes somebody rolls a natural one at a crucial moment where like the DM
really needed the player to find that information out, and so instead of not
giving them that information that is important to go forward. It might be that,
like the consequences of the natural one are going to come up later.
It might be that, you know, you trip and fall and your foot
goes through that steatrad that we were talking about, but when it does,
you find a piece of paper brushing your shin, and so there's the information
that you needed, and so you have ways. Or it might be in
a conversation with an NPC where somebody rolls a natural one and the NPC is
like, look, it seems like you really need help. So now I'm
just going to give you all of this information, or at least enough of
the information to allow this to progress, because, yeah, you don't want
to be in a situation where a natural one is everybody's just gonna stand around
a stair at each other and the game is over, And you don't want
to be in a situation where a natural twenty is like and you have managed
to drive Shreman tank into this castle and everybody is dead surprised at the end.
I actually in all of that D and D podcast podcasting content that we
listen to, I know that Roz and I have been listening to an episode
a while back of not Another D and D podcast. They do these Dungeon
Court episodesdes and there was one where the players managed to I don't remember if
they actually built or if they just like hijacked some sort of airplane, space
shuttle whatever. It was something that could fly and had a lot of firepower
to it, and they made the decision to jump out of it, and
you know they were safe. They had pair of shoes, but they allowed
it to just like fly into the castle where the Big Bad was. There
is literally no way that anybody could have survived that. So yes, congratulations,
like you are done. So there's also like you have to make sure
don't don't give your players a dirigible if there's any chance that they could fly
that dirigible into the Big Bad Layer. Prepare or prepared to be prepared to
suddenly be like, ah, yes, the big bags lair has cannons that
are specifically are going to shoot you out of the sky out of the sky,
yeah, yeah, or the big bad has a twin brother is now
going to seek revenge on you for doing this, like the Wicked Witch of
Wicked Witch of the West sort of scenario where like, you killed what you
thought was the bad guy. Now here's an even worse guy. We're sorry,
but your princess is in another castle, Jill. While we're talking about
the house, and you know how quickly when further. I'm just curious as
to do you know we're doing theater of the mind here, because this is
an audio medium, do you actually even lightly like sketch out like what the
actual layout of this house was. I had it, it was all in
my head. I was I would have been able to tell you, like
what rooms are where. I did not build a map for it. We've
done just so so the folks listening at home. No, for that first
encounter at the stadium, we did actually have a battle map, because that
was if you listen to the behind the scenes episode for episode two, you
know that we re recorded most of that encounter. And part of the reason
we re recorded that was because it got very confusing to keep track of where
everyone was without a battle map. So we even though you're never going to
see the battle map, we had a battle map that we were able to
look at for the purposes of running that encounter this time, because again I
didn't really plan on any sort of like the encounters were not going to be
combat that I was planning on you coming across in this castle, So it
didn't seem important to have a map ready to go for you. But I
was, you know, knowing that we have some very good note takers in
our group, it would have been very easy to say, like, off
to your right, you're going to find a dining room and a salon and
a kitchen, and like, I'm not looking at my notes right now,
so I don't remember exactly the flow that I had it in, but I
did have like in my head, but also some notes on what is the
general layout of the house, and like when I, you know, when
you got to the library, I was able to describe where the library was
and what it looked like. So I knew that. But you know,
you missed out on a couple of like servant type NPCs who might have been
able to give you some information you missed out on. It's not going to
come up again. So I can. I can tell you you missed out
on a shrine to Malvo that was had been set up in the house.
You know, depending on how that what you had found out there might have
given you a little bit more information about how or whether Malvo truly was back
or whether this was some sort of glamour or illusion. You might have been
able to glean some of that information, But there was no universe in which
I was going to give you all of that information, no matter how well
you rolled. So so yeah, but like I had, I had things
planned, but it was going to be largely an investigative encounter rather than a
combat based encounter, So having the map available for all of you was not
going to be as essential, right. I meant more in terms of you
know, the layout. Did you know how many rooms there were, like
what rooms were on which floor? That kind of thing. Yeah, I
sure did. It was kind of sad for did not be able to share
all of that with you. Maybe maybe we'll do some some bonus content there
for our patrons at some point, But it's it was not it was not
something that it was not something that I felt like I needed to actually have,
like a physical sketch of in order to navigate you through it, I
would have been able to describe it to you just fine. I mean,
the good music and knowing that that like the layout of a large, fancy
house very reusable. Yes, yeah, absolutely, and also some of that
information that I had hidden around that house, and some of those NPCs might
show up somewhere else. You know. It's kind of like when you have
when you have a situation where there is information that you truly need your players
to get, and they're at a fork in the road, and it's like
they can go either east or west, and east is toward one town and
west. You know, east is toward Easton and west is toward Weston.
Uh and but either way they're going to need to re up on their their
rations as soon as they get into town. The shopkeeper has the same information
like you can. You as much as you try to direct your players in
one way or another, there are certain times where you can say, like,
there's there's just information that I need to get to my players. And
so the eastern shopkeeper and the Western shopkeeper are cousins who talk to each other
frequently and have shared this information, and now they're going to share it with
you, or you don't even you don't even bother with that amount of backstory.
It's like, no matter where you go, you are going to be
getting this information. Yes, there is a cabbage seller in every town.
Yes, somebody's trinket shop is going to have exactly the object that you need
to use as your spell casting folcus. Sometimes as a DM, you create
doors for your players, and sometimes all of the doors lead to the same
exact room. Yeah, and sometimes you come up with some sort of magical
conceit to explain that. Sometimes it's just like I don't care if you went
upstairs or downstairs, like whatever, whatever door you open next is going to
be the room where you're going to have this encounter. And sometimes pold to
know that because and sometimes they just never find you know, if you you
come to a fork in the road, turns out left and right buefully to
the same place, but they don't know that right right exactly. It's a
really fine line though between you know, I'll say that using the false choice
beneficially to like, Okay, this information needs to get out there are the
players to Okay, you're missing this right, but but also choices should at
least in my view, choices should have consequences like, no, you we
didn't fully explore the house, so there should be information that we don't get
that has replicasions. Oh and that absolutely is. Yeah, and it is
a really fine line that that whole, Like the illusion of choice is an
interesting philosophical thing to think about in terms of when you're running these games.
Yes, yeah, And I think it's a matter of like what are the
stakes when when these choices are being made, Like if the choice is you're
going easter, you're going west, but basically like you are, the next
thing that you are going to do is get supplies. It doesn't really matter
if you decide to when you get to the fork in the road, because
eventually the roads are going to converge. Like if in that that is the
case, it doesn't really matter if it is, you know, like what
we talked about in our past behind the scenes episode, where like you can
go north and find the cure for this disease, or you can go south
and this character in your or this player in your party is going to wind
up dying because you've ran out of time trying to like find this hermit librarian
instead of getting the cure for the disease is like, those those are choices
that have real consequences to them. And yeah, by not exploring the house
again because this was this was Lucky Roles and not a player decision. I'm
going to be a little bit nicer to you and figure out how to insert
some of that information. But there are certain things that were site specific,
like that shrine that you're not you're not going to encounter again. And then
there are other things like you know, if if there was a note that
was written on a scrap of paper stuffed in a book somewhere in that house,
maybe you're just going to find that note written on a scrap of paper
in a book at a thrift store on your way to wherever you're going next.
That's the That's that's where we're like, that's the level of consequence or
importance that we're we're talking about here. I'm not I think you're right.
I think that your choices, the actions that you take, do have consequences
to the direction that the game goes in. I'm just saying that sometimes it
doesn't actually matter, yeah, or sometimes the consequence is further down the road,
right, Like maybe you're going east versus west, and you're gonna meet
a town keeper shopkeeper in either town that gives it the same information, but
then where you go after that is going to be different because maybe on one
side you're near the coast and on the other side you're near the mountains,
right, like exactly the doors can lead to the same room but have different
effects long term, right, But it is making you think of that scene.
There's an episode in the Good Place and at the end the our protagonists
go this is you know, no spoilers for for anybody who hasn't seen it
yet, but also why haven't you seen it yet? But the protagonists are
like, we got all four clues you gave us, and the other person's
like, okay, I mean I I gave you over a thousand, but
sure, good job, right, And I feel like that's what being a
DM is is, sprinkling the needed information in so many ways. Yes,
well, I think, or like you know, into the woods where you've
got the cow is white as male, like the cape as red as blood.
The hair, Yeah, yes, there we go, thank you.
I can't I can't actually do it. I'm not singing it, so but
you know, there are, there's the moment Into the Wood spoiler alert if
you have a scene or not familiar with this, like thirty three year old
musical by Stephen Sondern, which like, if you're not, yeah, I
think it came out in eighty eight, eighty nine something like that, so
like thirty six years old, nineteen eighty seven, eighty seven. Great,
well, I meant it was at least close if for our listeners, if
you have not listened to or seen Into the Woods, there is a recording
of the original cast with Burnet at Peters that is readily available and you should
watch it. There's also the movie that was made a couple of years ago
with a bunch of famous Hollywood actors that I didn't bother to see. I'm
fixteing it on stage many times, so I've heard, but I've seen it.
I've also seen it on stage many times. I've been in the play
many times. And the reason that I'm bringing it up is there is a
moment in the play where instead of getting you know, they are trying to
find the hair as yellow as corn, and they make a decision to get
something that is not actually what they need, and the spell that they are
using these ingredients for doesn't work. They also the cow as white as milk
winds up dying and they have to revive the cow in order for the spell
to work. Like there are there are things that happen along the way with
these items or these pieces of information that you collect that can go sideways if
you didn't go through the right steps or didn't get the right information. So
so yeah, like it is, it is still really important to take the
time to figure out the puzzles and collect the informations or collect the informations,
collect the information, or collect the objects. But there are also ways to
circumnavigate some of those things. Yeah, And as a DM, the the
challenge and part of the pleasure is finding the things that are immutable and finding
the things that are well, they can get that information later or no,
you need it now. And back to what we were talking about before with
the checks, you know, how do you fail forward? How do you
succeed forward? And how do you keep it interesting without Yeah, at the
end of the day, how do you tell a fun story? Yes?
Absolutely, and that is that is what we are trying to do. And
I think that that is probably a good note to leave everybody on. Oh
so we don't get to talk about the most important aspect of this past episode?
Or is that what is the most important aspect of this I'm dying to
know what you think is the most important aspect of this past episode. I
really wanted to know how you came up with the names of the horses Pansy,
Rainstep and Hogan and Flashhart. Oh boy. I had a fantasy name
generator open on my computer while we I nailed it, and I kept refreshing
it until I found names that I liked. That was was there was there
any logic to what horses personality and what name got associated with which character?
None at all. I thought that it was going to be we have gone
to the stable, and we have found horses. I did not realize that
we were going to spend so much time. I should have realized, given
that I know my players pretty well, I should have realized that we were
going to spend some time trying to find the right horses for the right players.
I also should have considered the fact that Ruckus probably would not want to
ride horseback. But yes, we uh, that was truly a like,
oh, we want we have questions about horses. Okay, Like that is
uh and that is something that happens when you're playing D and D a lot
too, Like, oh yeah, people joke about Boblin the Goblin. How
you're sitting in a bar, as we talked about last time, who you
basically gave to us in the form of Goth the Satyr. Yes, yes,
that is also I think I'm pretty certain that name came up from a
fantasy name generator, also Goth's name. But you know, so there's this
idea that like the party walks into a tavern or they're sitting in a bar
and there's like an orc in the corner who's got a hood pulled up over
his face and is like shuffling cards, and you've got an elf who is
sitting by himself in the back of the room observing everything that's going on.
And then there's a goblin down at the end of the bar, and the
party says, I want to talk to the goblin. It's yeah, great,
this is yeah. So it's like this is Boblin the Goblin, and
you just have to roll with it. So that was the horses. That
was my That was my of this particular episode because it's not the first time
it's happened. It was my bobblin the Goblin moment where it's like, oh,
you guys want to meet the horses. You don't want to just have
horses ready for you to go tomorrow. Okay, we're going to do this.
But that is the like beautiful and wild and wacky thing about this game
too. That's I mentioned in our last behind the scenes general Addison Goods General
Goods. Yes, yes, And that that is from my first campaign that
I DMed and became the naming convention for literally all of my shops and shop
keeps. So we have we also have Carrie's Apothecary. Uh huh. So
yeah, that's just now. It's now, it's a thing anytime they need
a shop. I'm like, the name of the shopkeeper is the name of
the shop, but not the way that you think. Yeah, I love
that, I will I might have to start adapting that myself. It is
it's it's fun to be put on the spots sometimes for these things. And
it is also I didn't start playing D and D until you know, there
was internet, and I was using my character sheet was on my phone around
my laptop and as a DM, like I when I'm dming modules that are
not homebrewed, I will I will use modules that are in books. But
I still have my computer that is open in front of me. So that
if somebody says, oh, I want to, like I want to go
over to the tavern and have a drink, tell me about the bartender,
I'm like okay, and like Fantasy Name Generator is up and running. I
will also say some kind of like behind the curtain information for our listeners but
also for our players. I've been using chat GPT a lot in the creation
of some of these things. I as a writer have very mixed feelings about
chat GPT in terms of creating content that you're putting out into the world.
But for whatever reason, probably because chat gpt was built by people who are
nerds like us, you can pull up a very good stat block on chat
gpt. So if there comes a time where you have somebody who is like
I want to go talk to the bartender, I'm going to be really surly
toward him and pick a fight. I can be just like, hey,
chat gpt, please roll up a stat block for a level eight ELF ranger
who happens to be working at a bar while he waits for his next assignment,
and it will you know, it'll tell me how many hit points he
has and what his stats are. And you know, if he's a ranger,
he might have a couple of spells, so it'll tell me what those
spells are. You can also, can I just say, as a DM,
yes, stat blocks on the fly are fine unless it's a spell caster
spellcasters. Yes on the fly is just so because every every ounce of information
that I have ever stored in my brain about spell casters, what they can
cast, how many spell slots they have, how many spells huh, immediately
goes out the window. Yes, every time have you looked at the simplified
way of doing spellcaster slat stat blocks that And again I'm hesitant to give credit
to wizards, but they did correct this a few a couple of years ago
in terms of like now, it's basically, if you have an enemy spell
castor they have rather than slots, they just have spells that they can cast
either at will, once a day, twice a day, three times a
day. And that's so you don't have you you don't have to worry about
the slot. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Ross. Does that
implies did you miss the part where I just said, literally any information I
ever had in my brain about spellcasters goes out the window, because you are
implying that as I'm making up this character on the fly, that I have
anywherewithal and that is one of the things where I have used chat GPT,
And it's just like I need you know, ah, I'm trying to think
like some something just super OpEd that I don't like that you guys are not
because this is not a real example, but like I need a level of
fourteen Cobald wizard. I have never played a wizard. I don't know all
of the rules of wizards. But chat gpt will say like here is here's
their set block, and here are their spells. Now, I will say,
because chat gpt is extremely imperfect, I will then go and check the
pH or an online source to make sure that these are real spells, and
if they are not real spells, I will figure out a way to adjust
the Homebrew so that it actually makes sense for what I am trying to do.
So it's not like chat GPT created the spell that is completely broken,
but for the most part, like it is, it is not giving me
all of the like, it's not giving me the description of the spell.
I still have to go into the pH or into one of the online sources,
say like, oh, chromatic orb, that's a wizard a source or
a spell, not a wizard's bell. But we'll go with it, Like
chromatic orb requires a diamond that's worth a thousand gold points, and like does
this character have a diamond? I don't know, Like what did chat GPT
tell me this character has a diamond? No, So now I get to
decide does this I am never copy pasting directly from chat gpt. It's just
that sometimes in the moment where it's like, oh, you want to pick
a fight with a bartender, great, these are his stats in that capacity,
I'm definitely ready. Yes, it's just it's a helpful shortcut. Yes,
I see Ross is waving a finger at me. Actually, chromatic orb
requires a diamond that's only worth fifty gold Oh Jesus, I knew there was
an actually coming you. Thank you so much, husband, Oh mine,
We'll just end the episode on that little man's play that I just got from
my husband. Anybody has anything else they'd like to add about any of the
things that we've talked about today. Otherwise we will we will see or you
will hear from us. In about two weeks. We'll have all our people
call your people. Yes, thank you everybody for listening, and we'll tell
Oops all Bards is created, GMed, and directed by Gillian Ashley Blair Ivy.
This episode was produced, edited, and sound designed by Nate Runkle.
Oops All Bards stars Ashley Banks as Bellsernameo and Coleman as Clarice Sauerkloud, Ross
Curry as Andrek Harrowhold, Chris Klinecki as Pooched and Ruckus, Bob Killian as
Kilonian Stumps, featuring Page Clinecki as the voice of the bark Buttons. The
Oops all Bard's theme song is by Bob Killian with additional lyrics by Jillian Ashley
Blair Ivy. Oops All Bards is executive produced by the porch Room. We
are part of the porch Room Network on Spreaker Prime. For more information,
visit oopsaalbards dot com. Thanks and be sure to subscribe to Oops All Bards
on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your podcatcher of choice. We'll see you
next time. How l it go? Well, We're sure you can get
a Coops and Salbers go wide down.