Speaker 1: This is not.
Speaker 2: Due to be.
Speaker 1: Life down.
Speaker 2: Straight from the.
Speaker 3: Curse, you'll find no be s side coolst.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, and welcome to Authors and Drag Inside Quest,
the every other week non game where we do something
different than we do during the game. Sometimes we talk
to somebody cool, Sometimes we complain about something going on
in the world, and sometimes we take an idea that
we did last time that we had a lot of
fun with and we just decided to do it again
and slap a part two on it. Oh g you
wonder what this one is gonna be. Anyway. My name
is Rick Wolterry and I'm joined by Misty he and
m Kate Gibson.
Speaker 3: Say, hi, guys, everybody, hows are going? When we were
counting in because like for the fans at home, well
we always do accounts in because we've got our personal recorders.
So we do a three two one go and like
all right, personal recorders and Rick's and released and he
stood there and his eyes were up into the right
and thought as like three and like it's like you
had this moment you pause, like you know, like I do.
Speaker 2: This, So I do the count in so many times
and for the life of me today I couldn't remember
if I counted down or counted up. I'm start with.
Speaker 3: And I'm doing my best, like I'm covering my mouth
and not laugh during your introduction because I'm like, it's
just three. But I've been there, brother, I've been there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been having I've been having. It's it's been
a brain fart day. I spent half an hour trying
to write a message to another author who was asking
me questions about ADS because I couldn't remember the word
relevance and I'm trying to think, what is a cinnamon
synonym to this court I can't remember? And it was
just like.
Speaker 3: A dude, that happens to me all the time when
I know about the rest of the obviously in there
writing and like I just this blank appears as a
word that I've known a thousand times, and I can
I have to go to google. Word that means something
like did you mean this, you idiot? Like yeah, I
did mean that, thanks Google, damn it.
Speaker 2: And relevance is such a common thing with ads, and
I was actually googled and I was like, I was
like ad and I knew it was an R word
r E And it was like giving me every word
butt real. I was like, fuck you Google.
Speaker 3: Ad revenue ad recall.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 4: I usually yell out to my husband what's the word
that means this, and then before he can answer, it
pops in my head.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Having somebody to bounce things off is the best
thing in the world because usually they literally just exist
as a wall for your own sound to come back
at you.
Speaker 3: I do it all the time. That's why I talk
to the dogs, or I'll talk to something in the corner.
I'll write to myself because when I'm home during the day,
no one else is around. It's just me at the
house and I work from home, and so my wife
comes home from being a teacher, the last thing she
wants to do is talk. But I haven't with the
exception of podcasts and the occasional things, I don't talk
to a human all day. So I'm I'm in need
of human like chatty chat, you know, and like me
talking to myself through the dogs. It started to go
a little crazy, you know, because I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: So and you heard it here first. When when when
Gibbey's in the in court explaining how his dog told him, Yes,
you you must like assassinate like this public figure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do the Son of Sam defense, but your honor.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm just saying we sure we want that
on a public podcast. That now I'm not gonna carry about.
Speaker 2: I'm not the one who's view.
Speaker 3: We all talked to our dogs moving on.
Speaker 2: He dogs look.
Speaker 3: Told at first he told me look my own bud hoole,
And I said, I can't do that. But if you're
not going to go do that, you know.
Speaker 2: So anyway, that part two I was talking about was
we had a great time last time talking about essentially
dungeons and dragons that might be asked whole scenarios, and
we were like, we still have so many more we
can do. We can do here, why don't we do
kind of a part two? And also, let's be honest,
it gives us a cheap way to like come up
with the topic to uh, to fill in fill in
this week's episode, which I probably shouldn't have said, because
that's like, you know, that's peaking behind the curtain.
Speaker 3: But oh here's the thing, like every third damn podcast
and YouTube video out there, anything related to gaming related,
does this exact same thing. But we we're bringing our
own own spin on this on this way, our own
our own stink we're putting on it. We're gonna throwing
our own stank at it. So who's got the first story?
Who wants to lead us off?
Speaker 2: All Right? I got I got one. Okay, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna. I'm gonna paraphrase this just to keep it short.
But okay, this so you're yours. Years ago, the DM
was playing or this group is playing a Middle Earth campaign. Okay. Now,
I don't know if anybody remembers the old Middle Earth rules,
but one of the things with the old Middle Earth
rules was that damage could be body specific, so it
wasn't just hit points. You could lay specifically target an arm,
You could target a leg, and you could like render
that like that limb like useless. So it was a
mountain adventure. I don't know, it might have been mountain adventure.
And they didn't say specifically whether it was Kost Doom
or not. But the party was climbing a mountain. They
got into a fight with orcs. One of the characters
got his leg broken, and as the party is climbing
up up the mountain, the one with the broken legs
is like, is taking a long time. So most of
the party reaches to the top of the mountain, they
have a little they they decide to have a little
sidebar with the d d M and the DM, okay,
is it? And then when the when the when the
remaining character finally climbs to the top of the mountain,
the other characters there and they're like, we've come to
the conclusion that you're holding us back. And they kicked
him and kicked him in the face and send them
tumbling off, you know, and the DM said this was
this was perfectly, perfectly fine, and the player was a
little miffed. So you know, I guess the question, and
I guess the question is there who uh, who's the asshole?
Speaker 3: Okay, So when we're doing that, when you're telling that story,
like what did the players say that they did or
didn't do to warrant this again? Because I kind of them,
I spant some of something they deal.
Speaker 2: Like broken leg. I was basically just slowing down the
party's progress.
Speaker 3: I just went beyond that. Did the actually like his
you know, when you're whenever you're painting a story, like
whenever I tell somebody like why someone broke someone broke
up with me. It's not like, oh, because I stole
their money and pissed on the seat, you know, and
kicked their cat. You know, it's like, oh, no, they're
so I'm just curious, did they even vaulteer any more
information other than just being an invalid?
Speaker 2: Okay, So according to this, no, it seemed to be
a normal, a normal functioning game. Nobody seems to recall
anything that the character that the character did. Apparently they
just thought it was it was funny to kick the
guy with the broken leg in the face.
Speaker 4: I have I have gamed with people that would do
that before. And you know, we were talking before about
being emotionally invested in a character in a game or not,
and I tend to be very emotionally invested. So I
would have been upset had I been that player and
somebody kicked me in the face just because I was
slowing everybody down. So yeah, I would I would go with, yeah,
the the kicker, and and the DM kind of was
the asshole, because really that that's not that's not something
that's going to lend a party coherence.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know, like again, on the surface level, sure,
the party is the asshole. In the story. But I'm
I have a feeling that this this players not not
given the beans. Are they were They were citing dirty
limericks the entire way, But we're else trying to be like, oh,
mister Frodo, They're trying to get into the very Middle
Earthian way of speaking. He's like, man, it's fucking hot
up in this britch, you know, like it was. Maybe
this player was just like, no, I'm fair, I'm Benny
from the west Shire. All right, no fuck all you
little guys. Oh my god, you're like Jesus is not
a freaking bow rog, you know, like like if it
had been that guy, fucking I would have kicked him
off the mountain as well. So so we don't know.
There's not enough information service levels. Surface level tells me
the party is, but I don't know. I'm not trusting
this guy.
Speaker 2: Well well, okay, that that that that that that is fair.
I will tell you for a fact that none of
that was was was happening because this was not for
this is not from readit. This is an actual D
and D story from my past. And I was kicked
in the face.
Speaker 3: So now I know you're full of ship because I know,
the Italian and you came out like, oh my freaking
go on, No, no, no, I know you. You were
a New Jersey hobbit. You you were way down. So
someone kicked you off a mountain.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm donuts.
Speaker 3: Bobo tea baggers, motherfucker.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: So did did your character die? Did you have to
roll something up?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I fell off a mountain? And let me tell
you the Middle Middle Like you know in D and D,
it's hard to die die Middle Earth not so hard.
Speaker 5: Quick.
Speaker 3: I see that Steve is trying to join us. Is
there something going with the castle that allows him in?
Speaker 2: No? No, I think no, I think that was that
that looked like a technical glitch. Okay, oh there he
is technical glitch.
Speaker 1: Fantastic Sandcaster is a piece of ship.
Speaker 3: Well, they definitely can't use this in the outgoing message.
Speaker 2: We paid them for a license. We can say what
we want.
Speaker 1: If they didn't want to be saying that the such
a piece of ship.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. You know, at some point we will
we will reach a point where this like where the
AI is smart enough to basically be like, don't let
them say nasty things about us. It will just beep you. Yeah,
we were just talking about a real life experience that
I was sharing, that I was sharing my pain with
and and keep us in the process of trotting all
over and telling me that I was easy, asshole.
Speaker 3: Don't wife, don't ask me my opinion if you don't
want it. Like, no, it sounds to me like you
were belly aching up the mountain side. You know, you're
trying to like, oh my leg everybody stopp and pay
like that was like my grandmother. Okay, let me tell
you a story about my grandmother, mister Rick, my grand grandmoman.
She was still alive, bless this woman, but she would
like do this little this little little little putter little
everybody had to stop and pay attention to nanny forbid. Okay, okay,
but when that when no one's looking, that bitch could
walk really fast, like when she had like her on
her oxygen mash. She had to stay at our house
for a while. She was saying like, oh, I gotta
sit down, I gotta sit down, And then I hit
in the hallway and look down the hallway. But no,
she didn't see me looking. She took it all off.
Whenever had a cigarette and came back. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: All I'm hearing, Gibbe is that your grandma needs to
be exhumed and her cause of death re examined. Because
now it's starting to sound suspicious.
Speaker 1: You can't smoke a cigarette while you're wearing an oxygen mask. Pist.
Speaker 3: That's true. She could walk really fricking fast, is what
I'm saying. What I'm what all I'm getting at is
rix Rick's tail of woe. His paraphrased tail of woe
was like, oh, there's this one guy in this party.
He was the fairest and most beautiful of all, and
he had a lame leg, and had he was he
was trudging up the mountain like Sam Wise, but all
his friends were like inspiring against him, wringing their hands.
And then they got to the top of the mountain
and punted them off like a wheel of cheese and
Skyrim and you know what's good on them here?
Speaker 4: And though what had he how had he gotten his
leg broken? Had he gotten his leg broken?
Speaker 5: They did.
Speaker 2: From a battle. As I said, the Middle Earth, the
old Middle Earth system, you could like when you rolled
for damage, you would then see like you would there
was a subtable to roll to see where you got
hit and depending on your like your limbs had so
many hip points and such before before they got broken
in crap.
Speaker 1: I think that just wait until you were asleep and
jumped on your knee. That's I have to understand, Rake.
The only the any evidence they I have is playing
day and day with you, and.
Speaker 2: I will admit that probably does. That probably does sound
like the only thing I can say to that is
when cameras aren't rolling. I have played, I have played
serious characters before, but since there's no evidence of unbelievable
I've played, I've played DND with Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: You know, unless you're trying to tell me this is
like the Rick origin story and this is what have
the edge and you've just been playing assholes ever since?
Speaker 3: By what kind of character?
Speaker 4: Blue origin story? He got kicked off the mountain and
when he got to the bottom, you know, it popped.
Speaker 3: Up like two forms silas and mood came up at
the same time.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: So, Okay, what kind of character are you playing in
this Middle Earth campaign?
Speaker 2: I honestly do not remember.
Speaker 3: Oh, now the details get hazy.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, well, no, the details became get hazy because
I'm recounting a story from back when we when I
was probably about fifteen. Okay, oh, experience assholes too.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is an origin story.
Speaker 3: All I'm hearing is New Jersey edge lord got pushed
off mountain and the and the party rejoice. That's that's
the that's the now. No, to be fair, if they
legitimately did that to you, that is a dick move.
And uh, now the question is which if you were
on the other side and you guys, you guys got
to punch someone else off the mountain, you were part
of the cool kid club, would you have laughed? Okay,
so there it stands, all right.
Speaker 1: I think anyone saw it gaming it's funny?
Speaker 2: Is it just just who who?
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody's an asshole. That doesn't mean nothing's funny.
Speaker 4: I don't think the humor was the argument. I think
the whether or not he deserved it was the argument, which.
Speaker 2: Sometimes death is death is like hilarious. We had we
had a campaign one time where we like it was
kind of a Jack and the Beans things. We wound
up on top of this like this thing with like
with like a cloud scape ahead of ahead of us,
and I was like, all right, I step out into
the clouds, and the DM literally just went like roll up.
A new character was like, are you serious, He's like,
it's a cloud, stupid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he didn't specify these.
Speaker 3: Are tangible clouds.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well.
Speaker 3: All right, who's got the next story? I've got one
If no one else's ready, so I've got one, go
for it.
Speaker 4: Okay, So it's am I the asshole for dumping two
gallons of mayonnaise on our cleric.
Speaker 3: No, this, this is this is an alchemy drug story.
I guarantee it, you know, because yes it is, because
it can make mayonnaise for whatever reason.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, okay, so I'm gonna I've paraphrased it down.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 4: So they were in a magic item shop and the
character managed to get his hands on an alchemy jug.
The party's cleric was haggling with the shopkeeper to trade
her ordinary shield for an amulet of the drunkard. So
eventually the shopkeeper lost his patience. Instead, I'm not going
to trade you a magic amulet for some ratty ass shield,
and the cleric starts pulling the is it because I'm
an elf? You're a racist? Bit? So the character with
the with the alchemy jug dumped the entire contents of
his jug on her head.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is an elf. There's no way elves to
discriminated in any fantasytic.
Speaker 4: No, right, I'm inclined to say, no, they were not
the asshole, because the asshole was the complaining cleric who
was trying to make a bad deal in the first place.
Speaker 3: But here's my here's my two, here's my five gold shield,
and I want this but uncommon item that's worth at
least one hundred to five hundred. So no, that's not
gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Sounds like somebody was very waspy.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure what the crime here was. Okay,
you got okay, you got mayonnaise dumped on your head. Sure,
what were you? Were you in a town where like
where where Mao was reviled and like everybody who, like
you know, who made a sandwich the wrong way was
put to death. If not, who cares.
Speaker 4: I think the crime was that it wasn't really mayonnaise,
it was miracle whip.
Speaker 6: And so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so, that's disgusting.
Speaker 1: Two thouands of mayonnaise. And when she steps out the
store just immediately attacked by a herd of cats.
Speaker 3: Just or just let us step out of the sun
for like an hour. This the stink alone, it's just
gonna spoil. Yeah, No, there are.
Speaker 1: Still worse things to be covered in two gallons of
and in any one of our games.
Speaker 2: Definitely. Yeah, like I'm I'm I'm very surprised we haven't
found an out me jubb jug that we could produce
two gallons of let's just say not mayonnaise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's we do you have one. He's it's called
bentt you know. He can support many gallons of mayonnaise
all the time.
Speaker 1: Human alchemy, Chuck, He is a human alchemy, Chuck.
Speaker 3: I would say the first in the ass on that
story is the one the ones who are trying to
like trying to like just the humble shopkeepers trying to
run a business and they're trying to like barter barter,
and then they trying to drop they like, oh it's
because I'm an elf, like they said, like, well now, haha,
players think they're funny. And so whoever jumping at mayonnaise
you're the hero of this story, Good on you.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a tendency and I do it myself.
When I'm playing a video game, is you show up
in the game world and basically you just kind of
look at everything as this is mine. I just haven't
gotten it yet. And it sounds like they were taking
that a little too far with the whole come on,
just take this this stupid piece of that, give me
like powerful magic for it. And you got MAO dumped
on you. Who cares?
Speaker 3: I mean, if you think if you're gonna play the
video game rules, then you you just tell them the
shield for five five gold and then steal it back
when he's not looking, you know, and just you know,
just there are ways around this. You're like, that's like
you going to an auto story area. Here's my electric scooter.
Can I have a Porsche?
Speaker 4: No exactly.
Speaker 1: I also think if this had been a scenario where
the DM just happened to have two gallons of mayonnaise
in the real world and dumped on the player, it's
still fine, but you do have to question why he
has two gallons of mayonnaise. Sounds like specifically for that purpose.
Speaker 3: At that point, it's it's I am that's a skilled check,
because like two gallons of mayonnaise is what like thirty
pounds and like a big ass thing. You gotta get stealthy,
get behind your player, turn it over, and mayonnaise isn't running.
Speaker 1: It's I don't think you have to be stealthy. I
think like a pro wrestler, I think that would.
Speaker 3: Be so show down exactly.
Speaker 1: What was unfolding? You just kind of look on in
Frozen Terror because nobody expects to gons of mayonnaise.
Speaker 2: But still, you're right, thirty pounds. There's still thirty pounds.
I mean, what was that that that scene from Ghostbusters
were where Peck gets like, you know, gets Martino. They don't,
they don't shaving cream on the on the on the actor,
but apparently it was so much shaving cream had actually
hurt him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 3: One hundred pounds of shaving cream is one hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: You know, if it had been real burning marshmallow, it
would have been skin glass time.
Speaker 3: That's why he came back in the New when and
he sucked even more so.
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows, maybe this had like a three constitution,
so that that gat that that thirty pounds of mayonnaise
finished them off.
Speaker 3: Now they've got an egg allergy in and then just
just it took him down, you know.
Speaker 1: So they're are worse ways to go. I can't think
of one right now, But.
Speaker 3: All right, I've got all. I've got a This is
less of ann asshole. This is someone complaining, but I've
got am I asked with questions down before. This is
a short one, and I want to read this one
off because it made me chuckle when I got done
with it, because I want to see if you guys
pick up on the same thing that I pick up.
This is a person complaining about their old DM, and
the title is my old DM was something else. Here's
some highlights. I had a DM a while back. They
made playing D and D more frustrating all the time.
Some of the things they did still stuck with me
and I just needed to vent. Here's a quick rundown
of what they what was? What was it like playing
underneath this old DM. Number one banning the shield spell
with my hex blade. They straight up banned my shield
spell on my ex blade warlock was apparently having a
twenty one AC as a reaction. Is bullshit? Isn't that
what the spell does? But you know what fucked me?
It was two op for my dungeon master. Number two,
fudging roles to kill my monk once they ad minute
to fudging rolls, so a one shot to one shot
my monk, claiming that I was high on power. I
need to be taken down a notch, dude. What Number
three making fun of my character's name. One of my
characters a lizard folks. They was Barrack, and the DM
not only mocked me by calling me Obama, but also
bullied my character and game because lizard folk are not
liked by humans. I was clearly meant to make me
feel bad and it worked. Number four constant criticism. Every
time I did something, the DM would tell me what
I was doing was wrong, and for the last bit,
dragging the game out for just one player. We once
spent over an hour watching just one player do research,
and when I got my phone out to pass the
time past the time, the DM gave me shit for
not quote paying attention. I'm not the one to complained,
but this DM really sucked the fun out of what
should have been a great experience. Now, obviously this person,
this DM, does sound like an asshole by changing certain things,
but there's something I keyed in on during this little
Tale of Woe, and I'm wondering if you picked up too.
Let's I want to hear your opinions before I give
my own.
Speaker 1: Firstly, I liked the Obama jerk. I thought I was
funny if somebody was playing a lizard man and you
spend the entire campaign saying like, ohy, is this for
your global warming agenda? And yeah, yeah, yeah, please carry
on doing that all the time everything else, it does
sound tedious. I mean, I know, it's like balancing a game,
so nobody's just hugging the limelight all the time and
that and you know, helping slow slower players, but it
does sound like shutting down everything cool and watching somebody
do research foright how Yeah, yeah that sounds boring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're not here on the other side
if this person is done anything like I like, I
understand nerving certain certain spells like I have what's it?
A tiny hut is one of the is one of
those spells that as a DM I can't stand because
players use it as a crutch.
Speaker 3: But they hide in it too, they pop out shoot
spells hot back in and they yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, but the whole Okay, you needed to be knocked
down a peg. You know you're yeah that it This
DM doesn't sound like it's like they're fun to play with.
Speaker 4: I agree, yeah, but yeah, I mean the whole point
of a DM is supposed to be making it fun
for everybody else. And yes, they're supposed to have fun too,
but not at the expense of the players.
Speaker 3: So well that I can argue that one. But it's
whenever i'm dming it is I believe I am your
I'm your biggest cheerleader and your worst enemy. I want
to prop you up so I can knock you down
because it's much. It makes it fun. But for this
particular tale, here's what I keyed it on. He had
this player and he or she they They had an
XPlay warlock, they had a monk, they had a lizard.
That's at least three characters they played under this DM.
If you have fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, shame on me, fool me three times, go
fuck yourself at that point that you are going your
what's the definition of insanity? You keep doing the same
thing expecting me different.
Speaker 2: Not on.
Speaker 3: This person's an asshole, walk away, get a new DM.
Speaker 2: If you know.
Speaker 3: That's how this DM is like, Oh baby, that's why
I won't hit you this song. No, no, no, it's a
toxic relationship. Walk the fuck away, just walk away?
Speaker 2: Fair.
Speaker 7: True.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that doesn't make him the asshole.
Speaker 3: It sounds like, well I keep going back to the
person that punishes me. Well, okay, not for your real life.
Speaker 1: Well maybe you just don't have any other friends. We
don't know.
Speaker 3: It might not have other friends. That's true, but I'm
not saying in real life. Obviously, toxic relationships are a
hard thing to get out of, and I understand that.
But in this D and D one you can walk away,
you know, or.
Speaker 1: We could say that, you know, somebody else is gonna
have to DM. No one's having fun watching this guy
do research. I can do that in real life and
improve myself. I'm not here to improve myself. I'm here
to play D and D.
Speaker 2: And you know it can be done. It can be done. Fine.
The last the last game I DM, I was a
dming Tomb of Annihilation that is a tedious as fuck
module in five E and it was getting tedious as fuck.
I was getting bored with the players rtting board. When
finally players were like or like we just go to
a different campaign, and I point, I was like, I'm exhausted.
Can somebody please take over dming? You know, and it
kind of want to be in a win win.
Speaker 1: But when nobody's happy, Yep, nobody's happy, so you can
just move everybody wins. Doesn't sound like this DM in
this case is a happy person.
Speaker 3: No, oh no, well unless they're mocking for the Obama,
Like it sounds like this, so the person that whoever
did the research thing, that's where there, buddy. You know,
they're giving them all the cool stuff, and like, listen,
the shield spell means you have a okay, twenty one
armor class for a shield means you're you have a
normal armor class of sixteen. That's fine, there's nothing wrong,
and the shield spell exists for that reason. It's just
but you're gonna run out of spell slots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it takes up a spell slot, you know, like it's.
Speaker 3: A warlock you got for it most.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mook has it in in Dicey Bastards, And I
think and like, you know, I could use it three
times and then I'm pretty much fucked right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't sound too op to me. It does
sound like the DM in this case has just got
some shoes that he needs to work out. It just
seems like an unhappy person. Well maybe, you know, maybe
the the poster here just not a very likable person,
But that still doesn't make him in the asshole. In
this scenario, the DM doesn't like him and then keeps
being a prick to him, and not even in a
fun way, despite the Obama Church of whatever.
Speaker 3: Now, whether they knocked him down a mountaintop would be funny,
then would we be allowed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least that's decisive. At least everybody's made their
feelings known.
Speaker 2: I do understand the concept of, like, you know, like
with the monk thing, sometimes you have a power gamer
in the group, and like the DM might not be
paying attention, and the person will be like, oh, gonna
use this powering yes or whatever, and then you'll find
out later they're like and you're like, oh God, that
just broke the game. Sometimes that happens, Like, you know,
I made the mistake one time not really paying attention
to somebody's like, hey, can we use ionic? Sure totally
broke the game. Yep, one my fault. But then I
had to start finding monsters that would actually give them
a challenge.
Speaker 3: Right once they can start reading thoughts and doing things
with their mind. It's like, especially when they added the
feats telepathy and telekinetics, you know, just like like at
level four, I could all of a sudden, I'm telekinetic.
I can move shit with my mind, like I'm better
than me chain Like, oh no, that's it just turned
on one day, huh. Okay, So some of those are
a little harder to run, not impossible as.
Speaker 1: A DM in that case. I mean, if they say, like, hey,
can I do this impossible thing, I think it's a DM.
If it's ruined in the game, you say, oh yeah,
well there's those great powers you have. Turns out you
have a massive brain tumor a junctival to situation.
Speaker 3: There's also a situation where if the monk wants to
do a backflip over an enemy just for the flavor
of it, because they have a plus eight to acrobatics, that's,
if anything else, it's showing the other players what you
can do with your abilities. Try some creaky crazy shit.
You want to parkur off the wall, great, give me
a roll, because if you fuck it up, I'm gonna
beat you. While you're down, but like, let one power
gamer teach the other ones like, it's not it's not
a turn based I punch you, you punch me. This
isn't the revolutionary war type of firing with firing lines.
You're allowed to use a dynamic space, get creative, have
a little bit of fun.
Speaker 2: But you know, just but you're right understand, there are
there are consequences, you know, like and I trust me.
I've had players around the table like you know, it's like, okay,
you you fudged the role. You gotta one. Bad things
are gonna happen. It's like, oh, why do you have
to do that. I'm a trained fighter. I don't think
that would happen.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, no, yeah no you don't. Yes,
you're you're a train but you can still slip in mud.
Sorry whenever I.
Speaker 3: Had a player do that to me once. So what
I said, I just pull up a video of like
powerlifting accidents on YouTube and just watch when like they
tear their asshole out, like like like this is a
trained professional and look what happens. So shut up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I've been breathing in and out for
forty two years, but I'll still sometimes check in my
own spit.
Speaker 3: The wife I will like can't breathe saliva.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I always think if you've got to do
something cool and it makes sense for what your character
is great, But also if you're doing that all the time,
it's just kind of boring and it does have to
make sense. I've already been very clear about what I
don't like about just characters who can fucking do anything
at any time. I just find it very narratively dull.
But yeah, maybe it's a DM just say okay, you
can do it. But here's the payoff for that. Here's
the is the downside of what you're doing.
Speaker 3: You're horrible alcoholic, You've got no family because you've spend
all your time on You do backflips.
Speaker 1: You can do it BACKFLI if everybody thinks you're annoying.
Speaker 2: But when you land, you like break down the digits,
relizing your parents don't love you anymore.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a reason Batman's a one pump chump because
he spends all his time training and not as tough
time actually romancing. So moving on, who's got the next story?
Speaker 1: I have a sexual politics story.
Speaker 3: Is a d do you relate it? It doesn't have to be.
You've turned out.
Speaker 1: I'm having an argument with my girlfriend, and I want
you to know this is a D and D story.
I don't have a girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Sex politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know this sounds horrible, but hear me out,
which is a great way to start, and I approve
they have a group of friends. Basically, I've got to
break this down. He goes on a bit he's been
playing with a group of friends for a long time
and a couple of dudes take time to dming and
one of his friends always plays a female character, and
when he does, he constantly hits on me in the game.
I know he does it as a joke and it
usually gets everyone laughing, and I'll laugh about it, and
I always have to awkwardly turn him down in character.
I'm far from anything even remotely close to homophobic, which
seems like a long way of saying he might be homophobic. Beloka,
I just don't have it in me to flirt back
with him. Now here's where I think I might be
the asole. We start a new campaign, and in anticipation
of the friend doing the same stuff, I made my
character gay and George, Yet he makes a female character
as usual, and then the first session session starts making
awkward advances towards the poster that I politely respond with, sorry,
I'm not interested. There's nothing against you, I'm just not
into women. And apparently the K guy did not like this.
He says, you cannot just say that your character is
randomly gay on the spot. But in fairs, the poster
did actually make the character gay. It was in his
backstory story and checked out with a DM, and the
gay friend got irate, started calling him homophobic and saying
that you can't role play a gay character and how
he's just doing it just despite him, which is a
bit true I think maybe, but also a big it.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now, the rest of this is him being he's quite
he seems quite hand ringing about it that you might
actually be you know this, he might be construed as
a gibbet. He phoned them afterwards, but the gay friend
was still annoyed with him. Thinks he's a homophobe, and
you know, you feel he feels awful about the whole thing.
But what do you think? Do you think? Who do
you think the asshole is in this scenario?
Speaker 4: What the guy who keeps hitting on him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, yeah, you're playing you're playing a one
trick pony there because you know it makes it makes
the other guy feel uncomfortable. So when the tables are
turned and you don't like it, well.
Speaker 1: Mhm. My personal feeling is, but yeah, if you're going
to hit on somebody to make them feel uncomfortable for comedy,
I think that's okay. But I think that to an extent.
You know, obviously if it's if it's getting you can
usually tell when it's getting properly uncomfortable. It doesn't sound
like the guy was overly uncomfortable with it. He knew
it was being played for left. But yeah, when if
they turn around, say actually I made a gay character,
you can't do that to me anymore? Fair enough? Sounds
pretty funny. I know there are some arguments in fiction
that they you know, straight dudes come right, gay dudes.
Men can't write women. You know, white guys can't right
black guys. I know there's a complicated discussion around that.
My personal feelings is, if I don't know who the
writer is, I don't give a shit. But in this case,
I don't know. I don't think he's appropriating here, And
if is.
Speaker 2: He something if if like, you know, if the guys
that the gay character the guy's name was obvious, if
he was obviously going overboard and mocking like, you know,
oh my my character is is Am and gay lord,
you know, and he comes up we'rening a moa and
and being fabulous. You know that that'd be one thing.
Speaker 3: Where I came out over a.
Speaker 2: But it basically sounds sounds like he basically just said
I'm not interested because I swing the other way, you know,
just to stop you from from from being annoying this way.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That that that that that one, like I said, feels
like somebody who can dish it up but can't take it.
Speaker 3: So the first friend, the one the one that kept
making female did they did they did I miss there?
Do they say the orientation of the actual human being
who was making the female characters?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a gay man.
Speaker 3: So he's a gay man playing playing a a woman
to hit on.
Speaker 4: His straight woman playing a straight female. Yeah, to hit
on his straight friend.
Speaker 3: Well okay, so that one so inten definitely intentionally doing
it to cause tension between like just to be funny
to hit on them. Yeah. Uh, it's a sticky wicket.
You know, like like that's a douche, that's a it's
a prick move to do that, you know, especially if
you know this makes your friend uncomfortable. He says, like
they can keep saying I'm not a homophobic, but maybe
they are. Maybe they're not, but like it is your friend,
you know, Like I've got game friends I played d
D with and they hit on me and something I
hit on them back, and I make them uncomfortable. I
make it weird.
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to say, I think you probably
can be uncomfortable with a man hanging on you and
not be homophobic, just like you could be uncomfortable with
a woman.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I've had people like that exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, and again, if this was a one time thing
and they're getting they're losing their minds over it, that's
one thing. But it sounds like this is a chronic.
Every time I make a character, I do the same thing,
which that makes it weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but don't he's really shut him down for it.
It's a it's a funny thing they do. They all
laugh fair enough, and he was like, eh, sorry, guy,
I'm get it sounds more like he was annoyed that
he didn't get to carry on data shick specifically to
this guy he was.
Speaker 4: And you know, sorry if yes, okay, when you found
a joke, you want to repeat it because you like
the attention of people laughing. I get that, everybody gets that.
But after you've done it forty.
Speaker 10: Yeah, when you've done it.
Speaker 4: Forty seven times, and you know the person that you're
targeting is about to stab you with a pencil, it's
time to give it up. And he and and fortunately
his friend found a less bloody way of making him
give it up than the stabbing with the pizel.
Speaker 3: I'll give it up, is right? Well, you keep saying
the same thing over and over those of us. Anybody
out there with with kids, young kids in their life
or your own children, knows it. When they each a
certain age they have, they get into a catchphrase mode.
They find one or two things someone laughed once or twice,
so they will keep beating that horse dead. And I
took my son like he keeps saying the same, like, son,
please stop, it's not funny anymore, Like but kids laughing.
But I'm not a kid. You know, did I do that?
Where's the beef?
Speaker 2: I lived?
Speaker 3: I lived with the era of catchphrases, and I don't
it's it's the lowest form of comedy. So please got stop.
Speaker 2: Some of us are over fifty years old and we've
never gotten out of that. We've never grown out of that.
But literally, every time my dogs out at night, I'm
doing like the conatick, like go go free.
Speaker 3: You're doing it to your dogs? Are you saying? Hey, wife,
look am I funny? Look at me? Did you see
me say I said the ConA in line again? You
just see me say it that. If you're doing that,
then you got a prop.
Speaker 2: She's in the room, I will look at her. My
good reaction.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, Well that's the spousal torture totally off the day.
But I'm just saying, COSSI spouting this doing the same shtick.
Speaker 2: Yes, I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's even funny to me when you know it's
not funny, and it's the thousand times you said and
she wants to kill you, that's funny. Yeah, yeah, as
I said, I am thinking.
Speaker 8: But.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've also got to say it like, Okay,
you can play a gay character. Anyone could be Mike
the normal gay guy. That just sounds boring.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: You know, if I was going to play a gay character,
I'd want to go full Liperacci. Why not.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing. D and D is role playing.
I mean, if you're gonna say, oh, you you can't
play a gay character, you might as well just say, well,
you're not an orc in real actor, you can't play
an orc, you know.
Speaker 10: Right, as long as a Prett wasn't doing it like purposely,
like like I said, outlandish to the point of being
like an insulting stereo.
Speaker 3: Dude mocking you by doing this? Are you just are
you just playing them?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well we all know there is a line. It's
like I played Brandon five Master, who you know would
be like a typical Shaw Brothers monk. Therefore, Agent I
didn't start doing like a Chinese accent. No, that would
have been that would have been crossing the line. But yeah,
I don't think. You know, again, if I was just
kind of like, hi, I'm Mike. I don't like chicks,
that's probably fine, you know.
Speaker 3: Just William the cocksucking barbarian, like I like two things,
killing and dick. You know, now that being said, that's
fucking funny, like and I'll fuck it, you know, like,
now I'm done to the dragons, William the koksucking Barbaria
coming this fall.
Speaker 2: I'm here for two reasons.
Speaker 1: What's your character monovation? It's like, right there, I'm.
Speaker 3: Just gonna collect our tesculs around the necklace is kind
of oh, all right, Rick, what do you got?
Speaker 2: All right? So this this is not an in character thing.
This is more of a case of no, this is.
Speaker 3: A reel one or another. Someone hurts you a long
time ago story.
Speaker 2: You know something in my stories are peppered with real
with real h D and D things. I figured, why
why not? Because we've like, if you've played for any
amount of time, you've encountered weird things at the table.
In this case, we had started we had started a
new game with a new DM. We we knew it
wasn't it wasn't like they were new, but they were
new to the role and they brought in a They
brought in a friend to the game, and within a
couple of weeks all of us kind I hated this
friend because basically they were disruptive at that table, they
weren't really good with role playing, and.
Speaker 1: His name was Rick.
Speaker 2: Guys, but event eventually the party was just like not
having what we weren't having a good time. It didn't
help that it was like that. It was a very
very straight least game where everybody was playing like, you know,
actual heroic you know, non like you know, asshole character.
So it was a little it was a little dry
to begin with, Like I was, I was playing like
an an Elvin lawful good ranger and that was the
last time I played an Elven lovel good ranger.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you that sounds so tasteless.
Speaker 2: But but but eventually we were like we were like, okay,
we approached the EM because that's this was their friend,
and we're like, can you have a word with them,
because they're kind of bringing down breaking down, like you know,
we're kind of dreading showing up for the game because
they're they're here, and like, we didn't want to kick
I don't think we wanted them to be kicked. We
just wanted a word with them. But the DM took
it personally, you know, told the friend basically, everybody hates
you here. The friend left and then the DM was
like was all pissy at the at the rest of us,
And it was just one of those cases where there
was that one that that one, that guy around the
table that like you know, that was just bringing that
game and because causing people did not have fun. So
it was kind of like, were we the assholes for
asking the DM to have a word with with this
person or were they because, like you know, because then
then rather than just saying, hey, can you tone it
down a bit, they basically said oh, oh, you know,
they pretty much just said, yeah, everybody at the table
can't stand you.
Speaker 1: Hmmm. First of all, right, a lawful, good Elvin Ranger
sounds like a chicken dinner with no gravy. Why that
makes sense to me, That's the first thing that came
to mind. Yeah, it sounds like I mean, I guess
I suppose it's up to the DM to manage that
the social aspects of it in the context of the game,
as well as the game aspects of it. I suppose
that it becomes this weird sort of dual role when
you get to that in this particular social activity, which
can't be easy. I guess in some cases, was this
the case of the DM was friends with the guy
and no one else was Yes, yes, And that's difficult too,
And that is difficult outside of the I've got friends
that just don't mix well of other friends in it. So,
as Shane, you think that their mutual love of me
would bring them together.
Speaker 3: But no, how can that not be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I asked myself the same question.
Speaker 2: Because there's enough Steve to go around.
Speaker 1: Can't you all just love me equally? It's idiot peance.
Speaker 3: No, well as your church friend and your porn friends
you like, they're not maybe they'll overlap, maybe they won't.
Speaker 1: So no, they definitely do, but it depends what church
you belonged to. Yeah, so it is difficult thing, but
it sounds like you just went fine. None of these
guys like you. Fuck you. That's yeah much, I can
sound very diplomatically handled.
Speaker 4: We years ago, we had a situation where one of
the players wanted to bring a friend over to join
our group, and we said, yeah, sure, no problem, more
than marrier blah blah blah. And he showed up with
this guy and I have never smelled a human that
smelled that bad before or since. It was so bad
that we had to open up. Yeah, it was like February,
so it was really cold, and we still had all
the windows and doors open because nobody could breathe. It
was that bad. I don't know how this man had
this kind of smell, but it was. It was a nightmare.
And so we went to the player and said, look,
he can't come back because my house still has that
smell in it. A day after, he can't come back.
And the friend of course didn't want to didn't want
to tell him, and he said, well, why don't you
tell him? I said, he's not my friend, he's your friend.
You tell him.
Speaker 1: Someone's got tell him this is.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: Instead, my my friend just went he quit the game,
and he told he told his friend that he just
wasn't playing with us anymore. And so neither of them
came back.
Speaker 1: Which way that bob a whi.
Speaker 2: That's one of the things where you find a way
to link, you know, to throw and be like, aren't
you glad you used dial and you stared at the guy?
Don't you wish everybody did?
Speaker 1: Its like a there's everybody else to like to shower
before before we get into some combat. Let's a little shower,
and he can make it educational act.
Speaker 2: Rather than pizza. I got deodorant.
Speaker 1: Pizza barks filled entirely with decorative soaps, but.
Speaker 9: Yeh.
Speaker 2: Then you do the fake. Then you do the fake
like you know, how how dare you as you lea
slip them a five? You know?
Speaker 9: Okay? Yah h mm hmm, right, yeah, h.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There have been days I've run out, I've like
gone out done yard work and then run out to
home deep immediately afterward. But I'm well aware at that
point that if people are walking past me, they're probably
going God, damn. You know, there's that self awareness.
Speaker 4: But the you know, but the problem was the person
responsible for not letting him know wouldn't take responsibility. And
I think the DM in your story had the same issue.
He wouldn't take responsibility, so he was a jerk about
it instead of just being responsible and grown up.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it's easier to be a jerk. This is
true most times. In fact.
Speaker 4: Uh sure, let's see. Okay, am I the asshole for
making my players wear hats. I'm terrible at remembering to
make my players make concentration checks, just the worst. So
for my New Year's Eve game coming up, I've had
the brilliant idea of making players with active concentration on
spells wear giant hats in real life so I can remember.
Speaker 2: Sounds delightful.
Speaker 4: I don't need to know if this is a bad idea.
I'm already convinced of its genius.
Speaker 2: I'm stealing this brilliant.
Speaker 1: Just for concentration or not. Like every single thing, it's like, okay,
you're unconscious, but on your unconscious hat, please.
Speaker 4: Be okay with it because I have a million hats
in my house, and I could be like, but he
says enormous hats, doesn't he Yeah, giant hats. So I'm like,
what's the giant hat?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You could do like the Druids. Every time they wild shaped,
they've got to put on a certain animal hat. I'm
going around with that horse mask on. You can take
it off when you stop wild shaping.
Speaker 4: That's but who buys the hats? Who has to pay
for the hat?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 1: Just you put out the rules before the everybody's reading it,
Like there's a mandatory showers and two hundred dollars hat tags.
Speaker 2: My wife crochetes. I feel like I need I need
six concentration hats. I need six, like you know, feeble
mind hats.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, fifty dollars for a rage hat. Come on,
trustworvery dice.
Speaker 4: Hey, Hey, i was told there would be no fact
checking in this game.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there are only two types of people who
put that much work into their their basement, and the
other people tend to wind up on true crime documentaries.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yes, I'm so jealous.
Speaker 1: All right, so we're all agreed that this man is
not the sole for for useful hats?
Speaker 3: Was it a man I think is a missile ricked
insert situation? Isn't it?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 2: I want, I want to, I don't. I don't think
you finished the story mister where his player is upset
about this, or.
Speaker 3: Because an asshole, you're a visionary.
Speaker 1: This guy just wanted to go on into that and
tell everybody about his really cool hot idea, and this
is the format.
Speaker 2: The only time I would get annoyed about that. If
it's in the middle of summer, it's ninety five degrees
and you're making me wear my wool concentration.
Speaker 1: Cap, well, somebody could just cast kind of cold on
you and you put on your refrigerate hat and then
you'll be fine.
Speaker 3: If they have to, like here's your stealth hat. It's
there's still hood and it looks like like a racist hat.
Then you have to raise some questions there, so you know,
or it's possible.
Speaker 2: That, like you know that the dem only had so
many hats and people had to share, and like you know,
and everybody knew that like that that lace head Gary
would be showing up for that.
Speaker 1: Weeks again the mandatory showering rule would would come and
perfect that be like, what's this special hat that's a
shower cat?
Speaker 3: Take hit strange object you're handing. Is this a relican
called soap? Just use it?
Speaker 2: And for you the medicated cap, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Please take this potion of not fucking stinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all right. Would you like to hear I've
got I've got it, I've got to am I the assholes?
Which would you rather hear? Am I the asshole for
not wanting my husband to play Dungeon and Dragons on
Mother's Day? Or am I the asshole for not wanting
to hear my husband's play by play was unders Dragon's game?
Speaker 2: Because first, first one, I could I could kind of
understand the mother's day thing.
Speaker 11: Yeah, m m hm yah.
Speaker 8: H m hm h m h mhm.
Speaker 5: H m h uh huh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you could have shortened that to my stupid
ned boyfriend once shut up the bad, stupid ned hobby.
Speaker 2: You know something I do understand. I do understand that
you know, the things I'm into, my wife is that into,
and the thing she's into I have zero interest in.
And as a result, you compromise, you reach that point
where yes, we're gonna listen to a bit of each
other stuff. But there is that limit, like like if
she starts talking to me about music notation, there is
that limit where I'm just gonna be like, I have
no fucking idea what you're talking about, you know, and
no real interest in it. And same way if I
decide to go off on like an hour long tangent
about transformers for some reason, I fully expect to get
the eye roll of can you please leave the room
before I murder you?
Speaker 1: And you're right, I think there is kind of a
limit to how much. Honestly, if you significant other is
genuinely excited about something, fucking go of it. Just go
with it for a.
Speaker 2: Little bit, you know, But there's a limit.
Speaker 1: That is a limit. But if somebody is, if the
person you love is genuinely excited about something, give them
some fucking space that make him feel stupid.
Speaker 4: She sounds to me like all the girlfriends that I
met in years past who would show up to our
D and D games because they found out that their
boyfriend played and that there were women in the group,
and so girlfriends like, I'm not gonna let you be
around other women, and so they would show up and
lay all over the boyfriend and complain the entire time
that they were ready to go. This is said, barring,
can we leave now? And you know, it's like I
could never be in a romantic relationship with somebody that
didn't share at least some of my interests. But I
but I agree with Rick too, this is a this
is a relationship thing. You're gonna want to be kind
to each other and listen at least some And so yeah,
she just sounds I think she's the asshole.
Speaker 1: I think there's a difference between hearing about it and
doing it. I don't think you have to do everything
that you Sometimes it's good that you don't have for
shad hobbies. That's a little bit of absence makes the
heart grow. Fund Sure, somebody comes through the door and
they're buzzing about something, you know, give them half an
hour at least.
Speaker 4: Uh, Well, it's that whole I don't know what an
elf is.
Speaker 1: Of course you you everyone knows why elf is.
Speaker 11: Yeah, m hm.
Speaker 5: Hm hm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, my my, my oldest has her own place.
And I will still start I will still get like
tweet storm or like like text message storms about like
you know, oh, hey, this this like this car that
you don't give a shit about. It's like, oh, it's
gonna have like eight hundred horsepower and this and this
and this and and yes, there there is that indulgence
of I'll listen to a certain point, but there will
come a point where I will just say I don't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was. And also you might just
be cutting off your nose to spite your face. I
remember my daughter got into musical theater, and I hadn't
looked at a musical for a long time. No one
was forcing me to look at musicals, so I didn't
look at musicals. But she loved it, so I gave
it a time of day on it, and then we
were watching I think it was a little Shop of Horrors,
and I realized I knew every fucking word and Annie,
I knew every fucking word. Yeah, I used to really
enjoy these and I just haven't for a while, so
I just got back into musicals, and you know, it
was a passion I could share and communicate with with
somebody I love. So that was I'm not saying that
it's going to work out for everything. She could have
been into I don't know, Ghostbusters twenty sixteen, and then
I would have had kick her out of the house.
Speaker 3: But you know, when it comes to this story, my
wife lover, she's the anti nerd. She is she is
a non NERD human being and she does not and
she unfortunately has what I like call D and D trauma.
Her boyfriend back in high school was Buddy Mind. Because
my wife and I went to high school together, we
knew each other back then. We didn't date till later life,
but her boyfriend subjected her to the D and D
cult that he was part of. She'd have to play,
but she had to hear all the stories. And she'll
say no, no, no. But I remember we were dating
and she was like, oh god, so and so would
tell me the story, this story, this story doesn't matter.
I try to keep it out of her, but when
I come home a little bit excited, she's like, you know,
it's not real, right, I'm like, I know, it's not real.
But the game that I play with my friends and
these moments that we were having, these experiences we were
having was a very real shared experience around the table,
and I'm trying to share some of that elation. But
if you so help me, God, if you come at
me and tell me about one of your friends who's
being a bitch again, and she's telling this story and like,
has nothing in impacting my life whatsoever. I'm just going
to tune you out to just keep that in mind,
you know. And she's like, neither is a show we
watch together. What we do in the shadows is not real,
but we had fun watching it. Okay, so suck it.
That's that's that's the answer there, you know, So yourse,
every goddamn word I have to say, I'm taking half
your ship. That's it, Steve, you have a last one
to finish this out.
Speaker 1: None of them are particularly interesting. I have learned that,
you know, some of the stereotypes of D and D
people are true, because there's a lot of very interesting
people out there. So that gives a little bit context
to the to the the issue we just had. I
suppose this one is a kind of about mechanics, and
again it goes on far too long for someone who's
not that interesting. I feel it's going to end on
an anti Christian.
Speaker 3: I've got a short I've got another one, more short
one if you want, and it's about D and D
slavery and why the players.
Speaker 1: Why Yeah, let's get into the weeds with slavery.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is a person complaining about their dungeon master.
So the title is he he couldn't be old slaves,
he couldn't feel bad about slavery because of Lore. So
I had a problem for a while with the Fighter
in my D and D campaign. I pitched the campaign
to the group as the party facing an empire that
build itself from the destruction of the native Hobgoblin population.
I made it very clear that be helping hobgoblins. A
couple sessions in the Fighter starts complaining that it would
it wouldn't make sense for the party to help the hobgoblins,
as in D and D Lore there are quote warmongers
and slavers. I'm sure you can understand. I was quite
peeved with this. I reminded the Fighter that I pitched
this idea of months in advance. I also expressed that
even if these hob goblems were war markets, it doesn't
make it okay for to have genocide put upon them
and to enslave them. We argue about this for quite
a while. The other players started backing me. Eventually, the
fighter begrudtually stopped, not before calling the bar a bleeding
heart and wanting to stop for wanting to for wanting
to stop slavery. At this time, he's no longer in
the campaign, so.
Speaker 1: Uh interesting one. I mean, it's kind of like some
lady think about it. At this time, we kind of
have sort of an idea of slavery, like the last
great actions we took against a horrible horror from history,
and that's kind of where we live with it. But
if you're talking about like, oh this this is set
in medieval Europe, it's just like there's a lot of
fucking slavery. But at the same time, it's like, yeah,
you're probably not going to be a ni ev. You're
probably going to be a literate peasant who dies of
middle age from fucking two fake or something. It's like,
you know, so there are compromises there's very It doesn't
have to be accurate, but there has to be a
little bit of very similitude. And it sounded like the DM,
I guess, was going for a very specific thing that
perhaps ignored those aspects.
Speaker 3: Of I was reading. I was like, he told the campaign,
you're going to be helping the hobgoblins who are being oppressed,
but the players couldn't get past the prejudice of like
kind of like, but hobgoblins are slavers, so I don't
want to help the slavers.
Speaker 1: Hobgoblins, yeah, wouldn't be oppressed. And that brings up another
I guess mistake we make. I think it's because it
was couched in the language of Tolkien. When race means
something completely different or as a much brighter, broader category,
people get really antsy about certain monster groups having innate characteristics.
It's like, yeah, when we say race, it's not like,
it's not like what we talk about today. It's more
like Neanderthals and humans living side by side. Very different.
They scept more extreme than that, but people still get
antsy about it, and we kind of put a modern
spin on it because we don't want to be in
a situation where I guess it becomes uncomfortable. So I
kind of get where this is coming from, but from
the d m's perspective. But I guess if the rule
book says that actually, these are a horrible monster race
and all they do is slave and oppress, I don't know.
I don't know who's right.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 1: M hmm, yeah.
Speaker 2: More.
Speaker 1: Slavery is never a great thing.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I mean, I mean a lot of this
kind of sounds like the finale of Salty Best.
Speaker 1: Actually this it wasn't even the finale is literally like
the third episode. Brick probably had loads of really cool
things for us to do in Salty Besters, but we
had a paladin and a robot whose morality was binary,
and it was like, man, there are some slaves on
the ship, and rather than kind of like us, how
can we subtly work around that towards the good, they
were just like okay, So I immediately set everything on
fire and that's that the entire tone for the rest
of the game. There was no fucking missions after that,
just massively aggressively reacting to everything because we were like,
now these people are slavers. So I guess everyone dies
and and that's how we're playing things, which was to
be fair, true to the characters they were playing. And
I guess, again, what's the DM trying to do? Ardie's
a bunch of evil characters who believe the only way
to defeat the Warmong slavers is by becoming that which
they detest. Is there supposed to be a dark message here?
I don't know, Like.
Speaker 2: I'm a believer that as the DM, you set up
the game world like you point them in a direction,
but if they go if if they go east, you
don't force the north. So I guess, I guess it
was a case of if this fighter was being disruptive
at the table, that's an issue. If the fighter was
basically just being like, you know, why don't we signe
with these people instead of these people? Well, as the
d M narratively, sometimes you gotta like, you know, you
gotta gotta you gotta work work that in.
Speaker 4: You know, so you you got to remember that that
just because the book says it's so, doesn't mean that
you have to follow that rule. People think that that
these are hard and fast, concrete rules that you cannot
break from, But it's D and D you're supposed to
make it your own. So, I mean, Gey Got said
that in the beginning, so you know, you don't have
to happen.
Speaker 1: Fuck guys die, Hobgoblin die. I do. I think it would.
It'd be really funny if they're like, hey man, just
because the book says their murderous walmart enslavers. No, we
shouldn't become we shouldn't sink down to those levels. Let's
help them rise up. And then it just cuts forward
to like the last session. Okay, so you guys are
enslaved by the hobgoblins.
Speaker 2: One one hundred percent. You know there are just just
because one group is evil doesn't preclude the other group
from being evil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and you know, sometimes it's good to
just again, people get a little bit too sensitive about
kind of real world situations. I want an orc to
be an orc, And the reason I want an orc
to be an orc is I don't really want to
have a huge moral conundrum about stabbing someone. Got that
in real life. I don't need that in the fancy realm.
Speaker 6: True.
Speaker 2: Well, it's also it's like, you know, the thing is,
it's hard for us to envision, like, you know, different
sentient species m you know, we.
Speaker 1: Think, because rick to be fair, we wipe them all out, exactly.
Speaker 2: But that's that's the thing. Like, that's the one thing,
like I try to play moog along the lines of
like he doesn't see this moral conundrum of hating elves.
He was raised that elves are the devil, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it'd be like I guess, I suppose fantasy
would be more like if you were kind of modern
human you came across the tribe of Neanderthals and hey,
they're just like me, And it's like, well, no they're not.
They're they're free, times stronger, and they'll probably eat you.
Speaker 2: So I guess the natives of Sentinel Island, the Sentinel Eese,
who every time the modern world has tried to make
contact with them, they just kill the fuck out of
whoever shows up on their island.
Speaker 1: Wise, they know that taxes are around the corner. Probably
that's the utopia we all want to live in. But no,
I don't. It sounds like you had to be honest.
It sounds like a guy who's saying, but hobgoblins aren't.
This is the asshole. Not because hobgoblins aren't that that's
fair but because the dmic's clearly got a story they
want to tell and for everyone to be a part of,
and you're already fucking the Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's it's kind of like if the DM. If the
DM says you can be any any alignment you want,
and then later they don't like you being evil, that's
on the DM. If the DM tells everybody up front
this is gonna be a good campaign, no evil characters,
you don't slide in an evil character because at that
point you're being the dick.
Speaker 7: M Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, ah yeah, I mean yeah, yeah. You're trying
to tell the story. You're trying to tell out with
familiar components, which makes the storytelling. That's why I don't
like it too much. It's like, oh, it can be anything.
It's like I think they're trying to get to the
stage where it's like, hey, there's no reason that like
a half like wouldn't be as strong as half AK.
It's like, yes there is. Look at him, barely lift
my spirits that very little fuck.
Speaker 3: You know, so you get a halfway with a twenty
one strayer.
Speaker 2: Again, we're not we're not dealing with like you know,
with with different races of human. We're dealing with different species.
Speaker 3: That's why they changed the new group book and they're
all called species now. They got ritteric.
Speaker 1: That makes sense to Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean that it's like saying, as a human, oh, I
should be able to hold my brother as long as
a lizard man. No, he's haf fucking crocodile. You can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of like you keep those sort of
recognizable pieces so you can build center building blocks to
build a story. And if you start sucking them with
too much, they're they're not building blocks, they're just ever.
They're just balls. It's just a big pair of balls.
You know, who wants to be in a bullpit? Fucking halfling.
That's it.
Speaker 3: That's how you get MRSA. But we've also hit an
hour fifteen recording time, so Terry, anybody wants to add
to the end of this, uh, this second edition of them.
I the asshole Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 1: I think we're self slave everything will right.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's let's be honest. I mean, if you
played d India at some point, you probably are the asshole.
You know, It's just it's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker 1: Are you the interesting asshole who's moving the store and forward?
Speaker 3: Or do you kicked the asshole off the mountain? And
that's what it all boils down to. So sorry, Rick,
you know what I'm not. I'm not even sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure of them weren't either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, clearly you were not. Your friend's betrayed you my friend.
But that's Hey. Everyone needs a Gollumn story and that's
how you got it. So that's that is Gollum's origin
right there.
Speaker 1: That is true until still telling the story to this day.
So legends are made. You were just on the wrong
side of it.
Speaker 3: Who was a sinus out of here?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: I think we did. We just said everything interesting that
you need to hear. Go to patron, give us money.
What does ignore? Ignore that? If you like, just carry
on listening for free. You're shirking halfling and we'll see
you next time. On Office and.
Speaker 3: Dragons, Bye everybody, Bye bye. By Authors and Dragons.
Speaker 12: Brought to you under Creative Commons license, meaning you were
free to share this material so long as credit is
given to those who created which is us people. You
just heard to play the game opening and closing themes
performed by the gore Core Fourgon
Speaker 2: H