Dimension 20

Adventuring Academy

Fantasy Shapes Reality (with Jennifer Kretchmer)

Season 2 Episode 5

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Brennan: Hello, one and all. Welcome to another exciting episode of "Adventuring Academy". I am your humble dungeon master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. This is Dropout's show where we talk about all things related to gaming and running games at the table, and tabletop, and all good things like that. Our guest today, we are so delighted and lucky to have her. She is a television writer and producer who is the author of the Accessibility in Gaming Resource. She plays Alyndra on "Silver and Steel", an actual play that you can catch on D&D Beyond, and is also the co-creator of "Monsters and Fables". Please welcome to the show Jennifer Kretchmer!

Jennifer: Hi!

Brennan: Hi!

Jennifer: Thanks so much for having me.

Brennan: (laughs) We're delighted to have you. Thank you so much for being here. You share the honor and distinction, much like myself, being a multiple decade member of the D&D club. You have been playing since you were a wee one, just like myself, who discovered the game in my youth. How long have you been playing for? And what first introduced you to this marvelous game?

Jennifer: So, I have been playing almost 20 years, and DMing for about 16 of those. The first introduction I ever had to D&D was at summer camp. I went to a performing arts summer camp and they had a D&D elective. And a bunch of my friends were really into it, and they were like, "It's acting, it's storytelling, it's all these things," and I kind of went and watched one session and it didn't connect, but my brother got really hooked on it, my younger brother. And he got into it and tried to teach me and I just wasn't ready. I wasn't in the right place for it yet. But in high school I had a group of friends who wanted to start a campaign, and at that point I was like, "Yeah, let's do it," and I stole my brother's books (laughing) and we started playing, and I haven't stopped since. So, it's a delight. I started with "2nd Edition" and have been playing ever since.

Brennan: Incredible. Ugh, "2nd Edition". So, your first characters would've had THAC0, they would've had the bizarre inverse of attack books.

Jennifer: Bend Bars, Lift Gates.

Brennan: Ugh! Oh, a song from my heart, Bend Bars, Lift Gates.

Jennifer: And when bards had to triple class to get it.

Brennan: Yes. (laughing) What did you have to be to be a bard again?

Jennifer: You had to be a rogue, a fighter, and wizard? Was it mage thief wizard?

Brennan: Yes. I think it was-

Jennifer: I think that's the combo.

Brennan: Yes, there was an incredible combo. This is prior to subclasses in 5E, prior to prestige classes in 3.5. There were just incredibly onerous requirements on you to be this thing, which I have to be honest, I've never fully understood those ability score requirements, because in most cases the ability score they require you to have will be one that is very necessary for the class as well. It's always sort of like, hey, if I want to be a wizard with an intelligence of eight I will already be deeply penalized.

(laughing)

Jennifer: Yeah.

Brennan: Do we need to make it impossible as well? Surely the game can allow… Let me be my eight intelligence wizard, my highly incompetent wizard, please. I want it so bad. But "D&D 2nd Edition" had incredibly onerous standards on a lot of those things. A lot of non-weapon proficiencies. I think weapon proficiencies were by weapon in a lot of cases.

Jennifer: Yes.

Brennan: So, it's like, you have someone that knows how to use a longsword and you hand them a broad sword and they're like, "I'm sorry, this is completely lost on me."

Jennifer: "This is foreign to me, I apologize. Here, why don't you take that.” (laughing) Let's sell it. Let's sell it for gold. (laughing) Pardon, do you have any spellbooks back there?"

Brennan: Anything I might be able to use… Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer: The leveling at different rates for different classes, so when you'd multiclass you would be like a level six fighter and a level two wizard at the same time.

Brennan: Oh, yeah. I remember that was very, very challenging. And then in 3.5 they had a thing of favored classes where it was one of your classes didn't count, but all the rest had to be within one or two of each other. The youngins with their how streamlined this game… Especially when I hear people talk these days about, "Oh, 5E is way too crunchy for me," and my eyes just boggle being like, oh, the horrors of the distant past. This is the most effortless it could be in terms of the old rule system.

Jennifer: Strangely enough, I feel like sometimes in some ways 2nd Edition was super rules light. If you look at modules at things, there's a lot of space in there to play with, and I think for a lot of us, you didn't even need maps and minis at that point, it was very theater of the mind based. You could have them, obviously, because D&D evolved out of wargaming, but you didn't have to. And so, for me there's so much imaginary play in there that often now can be adjudicated through rules that have evolved and developed because there weren't rules. (laughs) There were questions that weren't necessarily resolved in the content you had. But also, I didn't know about modules for years, I only knew about the core books. So, everything I was playing was original stuff, which was fantastic. It was a fantastic way to get into the game.

Brennan: Truly. My introduction to the games as well was almost completely homebrew, and even when we did do D&D published material, it was almost exclusively campaign settings with which we would design our own adventures, right?

Jennifer: Yeah.

Brennan: That's so cool. When you got into D&D at first, who was DMing? 'Cause you said you've been DMing for 16 years. When you first got into DMing, how long had you been playing? And what was the thing that eventually motivated you to be like, "No, I'm gonna be behind the screen. I wanna lead my own adventure."

Jennifer: Yeah. We sort of had a rotating DM situation in that campaign, and it went on for a really long time. And so, one person would do a campaign, and then someone would sort of do a one-shot, and then we would go into another campaign, there would be a couple one-shots here and there. And so, at a certain point we started doing more of that, and I kind of went, "I think I would like to do this. I think I would like to try this." And I spent about four months designing a setting, had travel brochures from my towns, and every temple had a corresponding track, all that stuff, and then the first thing that happened is, my players were coming in from having blown up three towns in a row. (laughing) And they go, "We need to talk to this town council," and I went, "The town council." Ah. Which, in some ways was the best possible introduction to DMing I could've had, because I suddenly had this understanding of, oh, no matter how much prep you do, they're always gonna catch you off guard with something and you're gonna have to either figure out how to solve it, make something up, or throw something in their way to give yourself some time. And that has always stuck with me, that I'm so grateful that my very first moment as a DM was absolute sheer terror (laughs) because I didn't know what to do. And on that one, I handled it differently than I would now, but I was like, hand on, head out of character. I'm not prepared. At first they went to a spa, they did a town council retreat to a spa three days away. You can't get there. You can't go visit. They'll be back in a week. Go away. But eventually I hand on head was kind of going to my players and went, "I totally didn't think of this, and no one told me we were gonna be coming from that, so, yeah. Just go with me, I'm new to this." (laughs)

Brennan: (laughs) This is my first day. You guys blew up three towns. Although, I have to say, the idea of an entire town council being like, "We're getting reports of some nearby towns getting blown up. This is stressing me out. I say we take a weekend, all of us get together, we pack our bags, there's a great resort, it's like a two day's journey."

Jennifer: "Some yoga, clear our heads."

(laughing)

Brennan: I really love that. Yeah, it really is a deep insight into, A, what you as a person will do when faced with that sudden kind of, the pressure is very fun 'cause I feel like it's never the PCs putting you on the spot in a malicious way, they're just curious. They just go, "Well, what's in there?" And you have to reach into the spot where you grant yourself a degree of authority, which is honestly counterintuitive and uncomfortable in a lot of ways, where you're like, yeah, I'm gonna make something up right now, and then we could be living with that, depending on how long this campaign goes, for years. I have to answer this in the moment, come up with an NPC that years from now one of you could be married to in the game world, or could be your arch rival and your greatest enemy. It can be very arresting in that moment, but it's also part of what's so thrilling about the game. As you DMed more and more, what time period in your life was this? Were you getting involved in creative work in television and moving that direction concurrently with yourself as you were playing D&D more and more?

Jennifer: Yeah. I mean, I think. Oh, I'm sorry.

Brennan: Oh no, go for it. Yeah.

Jennifer: I was always involved in creative spaces. I was always an actor, I was writing. I wasn't really sure what I was doing with my life yet, I was in college. So, I started DMing, I think, the summer before I left for… Or maybe after my freshman year. But I didn't start DMing regularly until after college. And in that time, I was mostly acting. And then eventually I started moving toward producing and writing more and more. And yeah, I think there's a very good reason that a lot of showrunners are DMs and come out of the D&D tradition. First of all, the books teach you how to tell stories. You look at something like the DMG2 from "4th Edition", and that is just such an incredible set of resources on telling stories, but also on how to manage a group of people, which is exactly what you're doing when you're working in TV. You're wrangling different perspectives, you're trying to make everyone have their moment where they feel like they're special. (laughs) You're trying to make sure that you're giving a consistent narrative, that it stays exciting, that you're introducing quality twists and turns, and all of that stuff is laid out and you learn through D&D. It's the best acting class I've ever taken, it's the best writing class I've ever taken, it's the best producing class I've ever taken, is just playing the game. The tool set you gain is so extraordinary.

Brennan: It's really beautiful. And I think that's an excellent point, too, in that you are simultaneously engaging in all these levels at the same time, where you're learning just about how to work with a group of people to tell a story. A friend of mine who writes for a late night show was telling me a great thing that an elder coworker said that had been there for a long time when this friend of mine was voicing some nerves about beginning the job. And this elder television writer was like, "Hey, half the job is being cool, but meaning half the job is, do you work well with people? This is a high stress job. Are you resilient, and kind, and compassionate to your other coworkers? Can you be empathetic to the needs of the other people around you?" Those soft skills are definitely so important in almost any creative endeavor you could follow in life. And the game teaches them to you so much because you're managing the feelings of all these other people. You're trying to satisfy the desires for a group of three to seven people that all love this story and they're all figuring how to go in a satisfying direction all at once.

Jennifer: You're also learning what combinations of characters make for interesting story, what kind of conflicts will make for interesting story, and obstacles. There's that "There are only seven stories" idea out there, but you really learn so many variants of them through playing and reading the content, and learning more about the world, and things like that. It's so wonderful.

Brennan: I love that so much. When you are DMing, 'cause I love what you said, too, about that idea of you're learning all these storytelling skills. One thing that we get asked about a lot, or that I get tweeted at a lot and people will comment about a lot is always like, "Oh, you're being the bad guy to your players, be kind to them, be nice to them." When you first started DMing, what are your thoughts on the degree of simultaneously, that kind of pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time of, I am the antagonist, and also I am deeply serving my players and want the best for them and collaborating with them?

Jennifer: Yeah. I think story comes out of conflict. That's what a story is. It's why you don't get the story about, so-and-so woke up today and they brushed their teeth and they combed their hair and they went to their job and it was a regular day, and that's the end of the story. There's nothing there to build on, there's nothing there for you to connect to emotionally. So, I think that you really do. I tell my players when we start a campaign, if they are level one they are basically burly farmers. I love the hero's journey. I don't want my level one players coming in and going, "I am an expert, I can do all of the things, I am going to succeed at no matter what I try," because then where's the game? Where's the story? Where's the adventure that you're going on? What are you gonna learn from it and come back with? So, I tend to try and start from that sort of place and move forward from there. I also am a strong believer in session zeroes. And part of my session zero is talking about things like lethality. Are you comfortable with your character dying? If so, what are the circumstances under which you would feel okay with that? Do you want this world to be about the adventure of this particular character and their journey? Or do you want this to be about, this is a dangerous world? Do you wanna go grim dark? I love talking to players and knowing that. And then the really fun one is when players begin playing more and more and they go, "I'm actually okay if my character dies heroically. If there's a moment where it makes more sense, I would rather that that happens." That's always such a delightful moment with players, when they realize that the story is so much bigger than any character. And I think one thing that streaming has kind of contributed to for new players is this fear that if your character dies, the game is over. And something you learn in the earlier editions when you have to have six or seven character sheets just to get past level one, is that you can walk away from a character. It's okay to leave a character and bring in something new and come back to that character, or get rid of that character completely and try something different. Just because your character dies doesn't mean your story as a player is over.

Brennan: Yes. One of the great things, I think, that I've seen in campaigns, too, that has helped take the sting off of death is having other ways for player characters to exit other than death, which I really enjoy. Having that thing where being like, hey, if you're not having fun as this character, let's get you another character. We can change perspectives. This is not a vessel for you. This is not your proxy in the world. It's a character in the world that you happen to be piloting around and giving these actions to, but fundamentally, you could be someone else. And that first time that you have like, yeah, this PC is… I've been running one home game for over 11 years now, and a character, one character had a kid, became a dad, and stopped adventuring. (laughs) He was like, "I'm gonna go raise my child with my partner. I'm not doing these adventures anymore."

Jennifer: Which is such a satisfying arc.

Brennan: Yes!

Jennifer: Because you don't get to hear those stories. You wanna hear about the person who realizes, oh, I've found something that is more important to me than the things I thought were important to me. That's such growth, and that's such a beautiful thing to have in a story. I also am a firm believer in letting people have happy family lives. I think there's a really important point in that, that not every character has to be an edgelord whose parents, "My parents were killed, and then my partner was killed," like, there's nothing… It's fridging characters, and it's not finding a motivation from your more recent experiences, which I think are the best impetus for an adventurer, unless you have, like I had a character who was like, "I saw a play when I was a kid and there was this character in this play, and I've basically spent my life trying to become that." That was awesome, but if you're going into it as the only reason you aren't rooted anywhere is because you're taking the easy, simple character excuse of, oh, my family's dead, you're missing out on so much. But there is a degree of trust with the DM that you have to have that they're not gonna go, "Oh, you have a happy family life? Mine."

Brennan: Sure, of course.

Jennifer: Which we usually do. But-

Brennan: To their credit, I am gonna try and do that, but (laughs) they have calculated that risk accurately. But I totally get what you're saying, and I think that there is something very beautiful about having a family life, or having something more rich than that. But I think part of that, also, that we can articulate for people, is that when you are making those edgelord decisions… So again, as I've said, I used to work at this live action roleplaying summer camp. Whenever we would have the youngest boys come in, these 11-year-old boys, we had a boy one time who came in who said, "My character is a rogue and an assassin. His name is Wolf. He was raised by wolves, his parents were killed and he was raised by wolves. Those wolves were killed by other wolves, and now Wolf is on a revenge quest to kill the wolves that killed his adoptive wolf parents," and I was like, "So, to be clear, Wolf's human parents, nowhere in the mix 'cause they died too early?" And he was like, "They were elves, not humans," and I was like, "Roger that. Gotcha." In having seen that happen so many times, it's very clear that what that phenomenon is about, which makes a lot of sense for kids, I think, is it is epic power fantasy, and the fantasy is, what if I didn't care about anything and didn't have anything that was close to me so I would never have to be vulnerable? So, literally my only interactions with the fantasy world are I am invulnerable, because even if you kill me, I don't care, and everything that I do, it's just only gravy, nothing is at risk. It's like, I have nothing to lose, I'm attached to nothing, I'm already emotionally detached, and everything can just be power fantasy, which makes a lot of sense-

Jennifer: And they're always chaotic neutral, too. It's not actual chaotic neutral, it's chaotic jerkface.

Brennan: Yes.

(laughing)

Jennifer: And yeah, we all have… Our first characters are almost always proxies. I feel like the trajectory I see for people is like, the first character is your proxy, the second character is you trying to be the antithesis of who you are, and then you finally start settling in to actually playing characters who are-

Brennan: Novel, and-

Jennifer: Based on the dice. (laughing) I think that's a reason that so many women play elf casters first, and so many men play either paladins or rogues, edge lords, right off the bat, because I think there are these very specific kind of gendered notions of who we should be, and we're wanting to explore those things. So, yeah.

Brennan: 100%. And I think that if you are watching this and you're gonna be running a game for the first time and someone brings that edge lord character out, I think when you… Because the sad part about those edge lord characters, listen, if you are a middle school boy, have at it. Those kids seemed to have a great time when we were LARPing, as Wolf searching for the wolves that killed his wolf parents to avenge their wolf deaths. Seemed to have a ball. If you're an adult, I think sometimes that can kick in a little bit. I used to coach and teach improv, and in that same way, people don't say no in an improv scene because they're jerks, they say no in an improv scene because they're scared. And no is a way of reasserting power and dominance, it's just that it doesn't work. It's not gonna give you the results you're thinking. In the same way, if someone is feeling a little trepidatious, they make an edge lord character, I think you can talk them through that and say, "Hey, I noticed you made a character that's very antagonistic, very closed off to connections with other party members, I totally get why you would do that. It makes sense." And you're right, that is a very common badass that you've seen in movies and television, so why wouldn't it occur to you to make that character again? That being said, you are going to find as the game progresses, you're going to start to become more and more uncomfortable with this character as you watch the party around you make these close connections and develop this badass comradery-

Jennifer: And that's a way to get around it, too, is I also do in my session zeroes, I do Fiasco relationships. Everyone is tied to one other person in the campaign because that way you're never gonna leave. (laughs) You're going to wanna stay there for a reason because you have your sibling there, or you have a person who was your fellow soldier in the war. Whatever it is, you're gonna have a reason. It gives the players a reason to stick around, even when they instinctually might be like, "I'm out, bye." (laughing)

Brennan: Yeah, truly.

Jennifer: "You guys fight, I'm gonna sit back here and hang until this is done and I can come in and take all the treasure." I think having those relationships right off the bat really gives them someone to interact with, it gives them someone to build story with outside of the game if they wanna keep going on that. There's so much value to having connections happening.

Brennan: I fully, fully agree. By the way, when you say Fiasco relationships, is that based off the game "Fiasco"? Or is that-

Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brennan: Awesome. I've heard about, yeah-

Jennifer: And Sly Flourish wrote a chart for them as well that you can use specifically for D&D. But you can also make your own. The ideas are coworker, partner, you own a business together, they're your neighbor. Just any of those sort of things.

Brennan: I love that. Speaking of resources like this, I wanted to talk about this incredible resource that you created, the Accessibility in Gaming Resource. This is a hugely helpful boon to the world that this is out there. Can you talk a little bit about what prompted the creation of it, and what it is, and how people can find it and use it?

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. So, the Accessibility Resource, I do a lot of work in terms of accessibility and inclusion in tabletop gaming, across the board, but specifically my focus has often been on the disabled community. I have something called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means I embody the riddle of the Sphinx, I can be on two legs, two and a cane, or on wheels. So, it just depends on the day and how I'm doing. And so, the disabled community has been hugely important in my life, but it is a community that has been historically excluded from fantasy worlds. And players are often not given the tools they need to be able to participate fully. So, I wanted to find a way to point to the best resources about disability and inclusion that I found over, I don't even know how many years, and that I've been saving and compiling for my own use, but it also gives a way for people to educate themselves and learn, so there's that 101 conversation. It can get really exhausting to answer the same questions about disability over and over, and so this kind of gives me something I can show people, and other disabled people can show people to say, "Hey, take a look at these resources, and once you've gone through that we can come back and have a conversation if it's not answered there," but it's a little bit of a shortcut. It was a little bit of a selfish thing, I guess, because I wanted to have that. But I also wanted to be able to give people these resources that they may not have known existed. And it's ever-expanding. But there is a link, I believe, which will be posted with this to the toolkit, but it's a Google Doc, so it's screen reader-friendly, and it collects everything from resources about the basics of disability and how people interact with disability, the social model of disability, to talking about specific mechanics, links to information about how to make your websites more accessible, how to implement captioning on your stream. I made it as comprehensive as I could to get people included because I think there are amazing stories to be told. And in a world that is constantly ravaged by monsters, it seems to me that there would be more disability and accessibility rather than less, and I think it's just a place where as a society we don't give it enough attention. The disabled community is the largest minority in the world. It's one in four people, and it's a community that isn't given a lot of voice in media, in stories, and especially in fantasy. And the way we conceive a fantasy really shapes our reality, so I strongly believe that you can make your fantasy better than our current reality, and that will help tilt the balance as we go on.

Brennan: That is incredibly poignant and a beautiful message for people that are watching this that have games of their own they wanna run. I cannot encourage you highly enough to go check out this resource. It is, (laughs) yeah, it's very funny to hear you say, "Oh, I made this as sort of a tool to be like, check out the FAQ and then get back to me." It's an incredible boon and a gift to the world to have this to be able to go and consult. And as you've said, it does answer a tremendous amount of questions, both about how to make your real world content more accessible, and then the fantasy universes as well that people are playing within. Within your sort of, play experience, and obviously I encourage everyone to go and check out the toolkit first and foremost. Were there things early on when you were playing D&D, or other, in fact, any tabletop game, where you were like, "Oh, this is an immediate fix that I wish more of the DMs that we're playing with did this," or "I wish more of the people that I was just at the table with were doing this"?

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. I think breaks is a really simple one. And one of the things that I really strongly believe in is universal design, which is that when you're being inclusive it's affecting everyone. It's the same way that curb cuts help people who have strollers, or are wheeling up deliveries, things like that, it's not just for people who use wheelchairs. So, I think breaks are one of the easiest, most immediate things, and also have had a huge rate of return for me in terms of gaming. For me, I try and do breaks every 1 1/2 to 2 hours, that's about where my body and brain will get cranky and need to move around or stand up. But also, I found it's… I also have ADD, so that's a really fantastic way to keep myself focused, and I found that with many of my players, at about two hours, that's when attention really starts to wane. And so, by taking five minutes, standing up, going to the restroom, getting a snack, getting a drink, coming back, having a chance for your brain to go do other things, and check your phone, and whatever you need to do, that's a really simple one. And on the topic of phones, devices can be an accessibility tool at the table. Some people need to have their fidget stuff. I think as long as it's not affecting the other players at the table, technology has become so much a part of the game now, between D&D Beyond and having books available in eBook form, having your notes, all of that, those resources, and particularly now, obviously, we're existing through technology with each other. But I think technology, for a long time I was a zero tech table. I wanted this to be our break from the world. And as I've experienced more and learned more about neurodiversity, and all sorts of things, I've just realized that if a player says they need it at the table, in general, communication is key. If somebody says they need something, as much as possible the answer should be yes. Yeah, do what you need to do. I also usually run an open table where people can get up if they need to, and things like that. But yeah, the answer should always be yes to access. And if you can implement it in your session zero, offer up, hey, if anyone has any access needs, let me know, you can let me know privately, we can discuss it here, but we'll make it work so you can enjoy the game as much as everyone else is enjoying the game.

Brennan: I think that's huge. We've said before on the podcast as well, this idea that one of the things I think people are always quick to do is look at a behavior and say, "What would that behavior mean if I was doing it? That's what it really means." And it might be true for you as an individual that if you were looking at your phone you've checked out and aren't paying attention. It doesn't mean that that's true for the person doing it. And it could be an accessibility tool for them. That's a lesson I learned many years ago. I was working, again, as a camp counselor, working with a whole bunch of kids on the autism spectrum. I remember it was jarring at first 'cause I hadn't worked with kids before on the autism spectrum. There was one kid who was walking in the back of the room, stimming, not making eye contact, and that kid's tutor was basically like, "No, he's paying incredibly close attention," and after the workshop he delightedly recited every piece of information that had been given.

Jennifer: That's awesome.

Brennan: And it was like, oh, yeah, you cannot substitute what is true for you for anybody else in the world. You have to communicate and check in because people are unique and people aren't gonna have… It's not always gonna mean the same thing. So, I think allowing phones or tablets at the table. And again, don't use those symptoms to mean the thing. It's like, oh, if they're checking their phone it means they've checked out.

Jennifer: Stimming can mean you're really excited and you're having a great time. That's often when people will stim is when they're really engaged and really excited.

Brennan: Yes.

Jennifer: But also I wanna point out, disability is nonbinary. People think that disability is, if you are blind you see zero. Like, there's nothing there. Many, many wheelchair users are ambulatory like me, where you might see us walking one day and you might see us in a chair the next. It doesn't mean anybody's faking. And some people's symptoms vary day-to-day, and what they're able to do that day varies day-to-day or hour-to-hour. So, checking in with people, seeing if they're okay, finding out what people need. Sometimes people will just wanna lie on the couch and participate by being present, but not necessarily able to sit up at the table that day. All of those things, it's all just listening to the people you're working with and asking questions if they're comfortable answering them.

Brennan: Yes, 100%. And I love what you said, too, about making these things more accessible helps everybody. Regardless of your ability status, everybody could benefit from a break after two hours. Everybody benefits. I get roasted a lot in the comments of our shows because I snack constantly because my blood sugar shoots up and down and if I'm not constantly eating almonds I get cranky and distracted. (laughs) So-

Jennifer: Yeah, and things like captioning, people can watch a stream with the sound off, which is something a lot of people didn't realize that they wanted, and then all of a sudden something they love will start getting captioned and there's a huge difference. And also, I wanna commend you because this is the first show where I said, "Hey, is it captioned?" And the answer was, "Yup." It was already taken care of, and that's so incredibly rare. I'm usually providing resources to get things captioned. It made it such a comfortable… There's a degree of comfort when someone is acknowledging accessibility, and things like pronouns, or whatever it is to respect the identity of people. It's so meaningful because you come in knowing that you are welcome, which is not necessarily how it goes most of the time.

Brennan: I deeply appreciate that. We try, we don't always get it right, and we're always looking to improve and learn more in everything, not only Dimension 20, but everything Dropout does, we're always trying to do better, but that means a lot, I really appreciate that.

Jennifer: It means a lot to me and other people who use captioning as well, so, thank you.

Brennan: (laughs) Well, shucks, that's lovely. I wanted to talk as well… So again, to everybody, go check out the toolkit, go check out this resource. I have read it myself and it's so awesome. And it will light your mind up as you read it in terms of not only how to make your table more accessible to the real life people that are playing there, but also in terms of world design, and in terms of how disability will exist in one form or another in your fantasy world. And you have a responsibility, I think, to portray it ethically. And also, in the same way that so much of fantasy is talking about things in the real world, hopefully there will be inspiration there to make a more inclusive and wonderful fantasy world that allows people to see themselves reflected in it, and tell new and exciting and thrilling stories with these characters. I wanted to real quick also talk a little bit about, so, you've been playing D&D, and how you got involved with actual play. And especially like Alyndra on "Silver and Steel" after having the game be such a big part of your life. What was it like to get involved in actual play?

Jennifer: It was delightful. It's this hybrid of all of the things I love to do in so many ways. So, it's getting to connect with people, it's getting to tell stories collaboratively, it's getting to do some performance stuff and play characters, and tell longform stories, and tell shortform stories. It just was really delightful. I got involved because of Satine Phoenix. Satine and I had been friends for about eight years at that point, maybe. We met at Comic-Con my first Comic-Con. (laughs) We met 'cause she was in a booth next to some of my friends. We started talking and became friends. And one day she called me and said, "Hey, I know you play and DM, would you wanna come talk about it on stream?" And I kinda went, "Okay." And I ended up being on a show with her and it just sort of went from there. And part of that, too, was representation, because I started getting, especially young women, reaching out to me and saying, "I've never seen women who DM before," because when I started doing that and talking about it publicly, there weren't a lot of women involved in the community openly, and phenomenally that's changed in the last few years. Once I had people coming to me and saying, "I started playing because of you, I'm now six months into DMing a campaign, and it's this, that, and the other thing," that really resonated for me. And I went, "Okay, well, I need to be doing this." And I wasn't super public about my health stuff at that point, and then I realized there was no one who was, at that point, disabled and talking about it. And I felt like, you know, I think people deserve to see themselves embraced in these worlds, and having the opportunity to have the amazing experiences that I've had playing. So, that sort of is the genesis of it. And then when D&D Beyond reached out to me and said, "Hey, do you wanna do this?" I was overjoyed. So, Alyndra's genesis, the thing that's really special to me about Alyndra is, she has a whole bunch of names, she has a really, really long string of names. But each of those names was given to me by someone who's been very important to me in my life or my gaming life. So, my mother gave me Alyndra. Garanahil is the Elvish translation of the street I grew up on, the street I was born on. Grif is named for my best friend's grandparent. Grant is named for my friend Grant Imahara, who passed away this year. So, when I got my dragon, I couldn't land on a name for a really long time, and finally I realized that that was the name. Just people who have been incredibly influential. Orion Black helped me with Rime Spiro. So, when I played her, immediately I was already going in, 'cause I joined the cast later than the initial group. I came in two episodes in when Todd took over to DM. I already felt really strongly about this character, she meant a lot to me already, so I wanted to go in and do her justice, you know? And she developed into this amazing, this incredible person who I've been getting to play for a couple years now, and it's a joy. Every time I get to play her it's so much fun. And I love those people, too. The stories we get to tell together, it really is, it's one of the highlights of my week. I love it so much.

Brennan: That's so beautiful. It's very moving to hear you talk… Words always tend to fail when you're talking about characters that mean this much to you. It's such a funny thing because it is so deeply heartfelt and significant, and you are honoring so much of your own life and journey. It's not a stretch when you look at things like "The NeverEnding Story" where it's like, yes, it's magic, and it's fantasy, and it's symbols, but they're the symbols I use to talk about my real life, 'cause if I talk about my real life in the logistical mundane details I feel like it will lose some sauce in the translation, you won't really get it. 'Cause it doesn't feel like the logistics, it feels like dragons. My life, you know, it feels like dragons, and-

Jennifer: That's what something like "Buffy" does so well, is it turns monsters into metaphor. A lot of the supernatural type shows, that is what the stories are about, and I think that's what's so interesting, is the monsters can absolutely be metaphors for what you are dealing with. And that's what's fun about storytelling, is you find the things that matter and then you tug on those strings until you cause a problem.

Brennan: Truly. The fun of the storytelling is that you fall in love with these, you can't help but fall in love with them. And it's so funny to talk about… I've said this before on the podcast, I think, but the thing that games always need is something along the line of stakes, right? Either you're winning bragging rights, or you're playing poker and you're gonna win real money, and with Dungeons & Dragons, the conceit of the game and with tabletop in general is always this thing of, the stakes are you love these people. And it don't matter that they're fictional, if anything happens to them, you're gonna feel real sad. And it makes you lean into those dice rolls and the idea of, I need to hit a 20 right now. Oh, god, please let me hit that 20 right now. It is intoxicating. And that love for those characters is so meaningful, and I hope that people… I think that's why you see people have a fascination with these games, is because it taps into that thing that's so primal and deep.

Jennifer: Yeah. I had a character who, the first character I ever had die, I got really upset when it happened, and I got chastised for it. I was told, "How dare you care about this this much. It's just a game," and "You're doing the 'Mazes and Monsters' thing, you're putting too much into it." And the great irony of that is, now that's what people are striving for in their games, is to pull those kinds of emotions out of their players, and to have a table that cares that much, that it matters so much. You look at something like "Adventure Zone" where you just follow people through the course of their lives as it's all happening in concurrence with the story, and see how those things influence it. And that's something that's so amazing about long campaigns. But getting people invested, having people put their heart into something, it's always… I'm kind of amused by the irony now that people were kinda jerks about the fact that I cared, that this game meant so much to me. And now that's really what everybody's fighting for and pushing for in their stories.

Brennan: Yeah. We won, the good guys won that battle.

Jennifer: Yeah. (laughing) Cheers to that.

Brennan: Yeah, exactly. No, it's really true. And I remember that, too. I learned to play as a 10-year-old kid and I was being taught by a group of 20-year-olds. I made this bard, I made a bard. My mom put up a notice in our local gaming store about like, "My child wishes to learn to play," and a group of, again, admittedly very generous to teach, to be like, "Yeah, we'll teach this 10-year-old kid how to play.” But I made this bard. This one DM at the table was a real jerk and killed my character. I got turned to stone by a gorgon and then smashed.

Jennifer: So mean.

Brennan: So mean. And they kept telling me like, they were like, "You shouldn't be a bard. You will not be a very good bard," and I was like, "But I want to make up songs about the things we do." And so, it was this very… In any case, point being, that was an attitude there. But I think that it's one of those things where that older kind of malevolent vibe to the game, I think the game was… This is maybe overly romantic, the game was destined to escape from those people because it's one of those things where it's like, when you realize the power that something like this has and you go like, if you wanna play a wargame there's really great wargames out there. Don't you see that this has the capacity to tell stories that are so deeply impactful? I think the writing was on the wall the moment the game kind of went, "This is a story about heroes." It was like, no, no, some musical theater kids are gonna find this, some LARPing kids are gonna find this, and it is going to take off because that is what the game can do that nothing else can do.

Jennifer: So, how do you feel about the video game players that come in with this idea of, I'm gonna win D&D, I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna go after all of the loot and I'm gonna go after XP and just, that's my trajectory, is I'm gonna find all the synergies? And it's a totally valid way to play, but I think for those of us who have played through older editions, sometimes there's a different scent. So, what are your feelings on that?

Brennan: So, caveat, I am a hugely crunchy player in addition to loving improv and storytelling. There is no part of the game I don't like. When people are like, "Do you like crunchy mechanic stuff, or do you like storytelling stuff?" I go, "Yes, I like all of it." I want a character that is just optimized to hell and back, and for them to be a character who, you know. So, I love it all. And again, if you are playing the game and having fun, you are doing it correctly.

Jennifer: 100%, that's the only way to win D&D.

Brennan: Only way to win D&D is to have fun.

Jennifer: Is to have fun.

Brennan: So, if you are like, I don't like talking in character, I don't like roleplaying, I wanna hit the dungeon, grab the loot, and bail, and you and your friends are doing that and having a great time, salud, slainte, go with God, have a great time, right? That being said, the thing I would always say if I were to raise a counterpoint to that is, cool, you like the crunch, you like the mechanics, you like the optimizing. Let's take one step back. What is this game optimized for? If you wanna optimize, let's optimize. Because there are more mechanically advantageous systems to do pure video game style play, namely, video games. If you're just down to grind and grab loot, my feeling is, this game's parameters are always so loose. The judgment calls inherent in this… If you are the kind of player who's like, "By the books, I don't like any messing around, I don't like loose edges." You don't like loose edges? The DM is setting difficulties based on gut feeling and that's in the rule book. The game is rife with judgment calls and bizarre parameters of how to adjudicate things. And by the way, the person who's running your antagonists could at any time drop a terrorist on your party and kill everybody, and the only thing preventing them from doing that is the fact that it's a creative writing exercise and that that would be lame.

Jennifer: 100%.

(laughing)

Brennan: So, weirdly, my answer to the optimizers is, optimize. The game is not optimized for crunch, even though admittedly, compared to other tabletop games, D&D does have a bunch more crunch to it. But, even within that I don't think, even at the farthest edges of tabletop, you're always gonna be coming back to this central thing of, why are we at a table, virtual or otherwise, telling a story together unless this thing is supposed to be rooted in a collaborative storytelling exercise?

Jennifer: Right, yeah. I agree completely. And also, there's that great moment when you get someone who has only played video games, when they're newer to roleplay where they realize that they think there are these walls there, and then suddenly they push through and they're like, "Oh, I didn't mean to. Oh, oh. Oh, what's over here? Oh, you mean that failed roll means that something really, really interesting is gonna happen? I'm gonna, can I just, I wanna just, can I? Okay." And then they go full tilt, and it's one of the greatest moments, I think for me, when I'm playing with new players, is the moment when that light bulb goes off and they have that recognition that there are no walls here.

Brennan: Yes. Oh, god. That is actually a perfect segue into use beginning to get some fan, these are submitted on our Discord. Thanks, everybody, for submitting these questions. We got some great questions coming here that this leads us to an incredible one from Callum. Thanks, Callum. "In 5E, critical success/failures for skills checks are a very common variant rule. Lots of people, particularly online, have very strong opinions about this rule. What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of critical successes and failures?" The ever-looming nat 1 and nat 20. Jennifer, what are your thoughts on the critical success or failure?

Jennifer: I go back and forth sometimes. I like the variability of rolls. So, I tend to do success based on how well you rolled. I also think that there is this, a lot of people come in thinking that a crit on either end is, you can do whatever you want. I call it the moon jump. People say, "I can jump and I can jump to the moon because I rolled a 20," and you're like, "Mm, no." No, you can jump really high, and you land very skillfully, but you're not gonna be able to get to the moon. So, I tend to play with crits in skill checks, but there are times when I won't apply them. Under certain circumstances, they have to be reasonable. And I do apply the spectrum of rolls as well. If you get an 18 it's gonna be a lot easier to do than it is if you get a three.

Brennan: Yeah.

Jennifer: So, that tends to be how I homebrew. How about you?

Brennan: I think that this question gets… Callum, you may have answered your own question here because I think the pervasiveness of this as a house rule tells you people like it. They can't get away from it. I know that some people have very strong feelings against it, but the issue here is this. You could have a very strong philosophical argument about why there shouldn't be critical successes or failures on skill checks. When you're at the head of the fuckin' table and your player hits that nat 20 and they look up at you with that look of wonder in their eyes, and they're like, (gasps) are you gonna tell them they didn't succeed? Are you gonna look them in the eye and tell them for real like, "Well, yes, you may have hit a 20 on the dice, but actually the difficulty class of it," no, you're not, because you will feel the sourness in the air as you rob them of that most noble roll. At least that's how I feel. And I think that there is something very joyful about this idea that in real life there isn't this 5% chance that you will succeed on the impossible, or a 5% chance that you will fail something that you should always be able to do. That being said, we're not in real life, we're in a story. And the idea of something going terribly wrong that should've been okay, or the idea of something impossibly succeeding at a moment where it absolutely had to is the bread and butter of storytelling. The game affords it during attack rolls, obviously. I think that there's some fun with doing it in saving throws as well where's it's like, oh, impossibly you hit a nat 20 saving throw? And I think that it’s also that fun thing of, it doesn't have to be that you accomplish anything, but you put a little bit more mustard on it. It's a little bit better than what just the numerical result of the roll would've been. I think they're just too fun to ignore. And they let you do fun stuff, too. So, I do homebrew that they are always crit fails and crit successes on nat 1s and nat 20s. With this caveat that a lot of times I will just ignore a nat 1 because sometimes it'll be like, sometimes a nat 1 is like, okay, someone's doing a research check and they get a nat 1 and it's like, what, do you burn the library down? How do I really have… So, sometimes you hand wave it, and I think DMs should be okay with those hand waves.

Jennifer: There is something really fun about having them think that they're on the right track and giving them information that's completely wrong. So, yeah, "Have I heard of this bard?” "Oh yeah, but you heard that they were a fighter."

(laughing)

Brennan: Yeah, it's like, oh, I got the exact right intel. Yeah, exactly, they're walking around with something completely incorrect. And I think, too… We have a character in this long-running home game who is an 18th level wizard now, and at earlier levels he was in this high stakes wizard's game of poker, and ended up losing. And they were gambling with things like memories and spells and all kinds of bizarre Fey currency. And unfortunately, the wizard put his luck on the line, lost it, and lost it to this legendary wizard who was in the realm of death. So, he has been luckless forever. Which, by the way, doesn't mean that he's unlucky, it means that he is without luck. And so, he is the only person mechanically in the world that doesn't auto fail on a

Jennifer: That's so cool.

Brennan: It's very fun.

Jennifer: I'm doing some Feywild stuff coming up. I may just yoink that.

Brennan: Please, yoink away. It's fun because it means that there's this sort of grim resoluteness, and now that… At lower levels it ended up saving his ass a couple times, and now at higher levels it's kind of an interesting thing because it means that more often than not a nat 20 he already would've succeeded on because he's so high level, but now it just means this thing of like, if he's pursuing somebody it's like, well, maybe he'll make a mistake. And it's like, no, no, he doesn't have any luck, he won't make a mistake. Nothing will… You might get lucky, but nothing about him will result in a bizarre error.

Jennifer: And then you start thinking about, how would the gods of luck feel about that? About someone being pulled from their domain, and then Tymora's gonna get cranky. You know? (laughing)

Brennan: Exactly. It's very, very fun. And another character, the campaign sorcerer is specifically an entropomancy luck and destiny sorcerer, so you have this young kid who is all luck. Every one of their spells is flavored. Their protection from projectiles isn't a magical rune shield, it's just, "No one ever seems to hit me or my friends." And then this wizard who's this dour old man who's like, "I don't have any luck at all, it's all skill, baby." But I think that you make the right call for your table. I think it's just too fun to get away from. It feels like it should exist.

Jennifer: You want the highest highs and the lowest lows, and that's where the story comes from. Great things come out of failure, too.

Brennan: Exactly. This next question comes to us from Sinister Sea Slug. Thanks, Sinister Sea Slug. What a sinister-

Jennifer: Awesome name.

Brennan: Awesome name, we love it.

Jennifer: Awesome name.

Brennan: "What are your favorite ways to introduce horror into story and plot?" This is a great question. What are your favorites ways to… Jennifer and I were talking specifically about horror roleplaying, like Ten Candles, before we got on. Jennifer, what do you think the role of horror is, I guess specifically in D&D, but then more broadly in tabletop as well?

Jennifer: I love horror. I'm a huge horror fanatic. I wrote my thesis on zombies. I love it. It's really hard to do well in tabletop because the things that you can add in tabletop are going to be dread. You can do that with narration and description, you can do that with mechanics, depending on what you're trying to get to. But I really recommend that everybody go pick up the "3.5 Heroes of Horror" book.

Brennan: Ooh, yes.

Jennifer: That just teaches you everything about horror, but I also strongly recommend that you play stuff like "Ten Candles". First of all, it'll change the way you DM forever because it's magic. But also, because it shows you how you can amplify and intensify horror. I think the best way to start is just have things be slightly unsettling. Someone stares a little bit too long, or as they turn away you think you catch a nictitating membrane over their eyes, but you're not sure. It may be the light playing tricks on you. And building that. But also, when you're doing horror it's so important to talk to your players about what's okay. That's a place where you can really get into stuff that squicks people out, not in a fun way. So, before you start implementing those things I always really highly recommend talking to your players about things, you know, phobias they might have or things like that because at the point it stops being fun, that's when you've failed as a DM, you're not doing the game right. Or as a player, if you're doing that as a player and intentionally going against what is fun for people. But yeah, slow build, starting really small, and then ramping it up. You're not gonna usually be able to get jump scares off. That doesn't work super well. But building the dread, building the chase, not letting them see the thing that they're up against. What people will put into their imagination is always going to be worse. If you just say that you see just a mass of, you know, teeth and eyes and this thing, and just give a loose assemblage of what they look like, it's so much scarier than if you show them a picture.

Brennan: Yes. Well, I think that's sort of it, is you know, to a certain degree I agree with the common wisdom that all fear stems from fear of the unknown, right? So, you're always going to… The more clarity you add, clarity is almost a recipe for courage. The more clarity you have, the more you're like, okay. Like for example, I think one of the problems with televising or depicting Lovecraftian stuff and Eldritch Horror, is that when you look at it as a three-dimensional computer representative figure you're like, oh, that's just a big doll with too many eyes. You're like, that's-

Jennifer: Kinda ridiculous.

Brennan: Yeah, it's like, that's a monster, I know what to do with monsters, you kill monsters. As opposed to at the table I think one of the benefits of tabletop is that you can be loose in your description. And again, it's weird stuff like saying, "You look into the dark and all you can see..." If you go, "You look into the dark and you see a creature about eight feet in length with 140 eyes," that is goofy as hell. If you go, "You look out, eyes, all you see are eyes," what that does to a person's head is it makes them go like, "All I see are eyes? How many?" And then you have them on the back foot.

Jennifer: There's an amazing podcast called "The Magnus Archives" that is-

Brennan: Yes.

Jennifer: Yeah. And what they do with narration, if you're looking for ways to learn how to narrate horror, they are brilliant at it. Especially in, I think, episode four, they describe something that is so deeply unsettling, but not at all graphic. It's so weird that it actually had me looking around my apartment at night going, ehh. Because it is this unknown, but just enough that you're like, oh, oh no, oh no. Nope, nope, nope.

Brennan: Yeah. Well, and I think that's something, too, is to remember that one of the problems D&D is always going to run into when you're trying to do horror Dungeons & Dragons is that even at first level, characters have abilities that are impossibly heroic, right? And the antithesis to horror, is again, clarity. And one of the biggest pieces of clarity a character can have is knowing what to do. It doesn't matter if I'm fighting… If I have a magic sword, even if you put me up against Cthulhu, part of me is gonna go like, okay, odds are I die, I'm gonna try to hit the big squid monster with the magic sword. And you know what? Maybe we don't get lucky, but what the hell. Horror, I think, thrives in moments where you describe something that leaves your players going, "Well, I don't know what to do about that." You know, some weird thing where it's like, you hear a tremulous wailing off in the mist. Something screams and is gone. You can't be sure if it was human. It doesn't sound like it was calling out for help, it just seemed like it was calling out in confusion and misery. And they go, "Well, I don't know." And if you're left with that feeling of, is that bad, is that good? I think horror tends to thrive in those moments of uncertainty. But I would say, too, that especially introducing horror into a plot, like you said, the question was, "How do you do it into the plot or story?" Just remember that there's a big difference between horror elements, like if you run "Curse of Strahd", if you go somewhere that has gothic horror elements, your players might not be scared, because again, to a group of high level adventurers, the difference between a werewolf or a vampire and some other kind of monster, like an ankheg or some other, some elemental, there's not that much of a difference. So, horror at a certain point just becomes a flavor, unless you're taking pains to introduce those elements of uncertainty and dread, like you're talking about. Love that question. Thanks, Sinister Sea Slug.

Jennifer: Yeah, that's a really good question.

Brennan: This next-

Jennifer: Explore as much horror as you can. Look into how people write it, how people read it, what's done in movies, what can you pull from that? And actually, if you can find a movie on Netflix or something with audio description, it's really interesting to hear how they do horror with that.

Brennan: Yes.

Jennifer: There's really cool descriptive stuff.

Brennan: And I also love, too, what Jennifer was saying about making sure you're checking in with your table. Whenever you do stuff like horror, I think that one of these things that we can generally assume is, the assumption at a table of friends that have come together to play a game is normally fun. That's the base, we have come here to have fun. However, I think all of us know that a lot of people go and watch horror movies. Horror movies are fun, but they're not fun. And the same can be said for lots of genres. If you're going and watching a wonderful romance story, that is deeply gratifying on a level, but you're not in your chair going, "Woo!" (laughs) It's not like a rollercoaster, it's not one of those things that's like, oh, this is fun. That's okay. A group of adults can come together to seek an emotional experience that provides catharsis. That could be fear, that could be sorrow, that could be romance, that could be lots of different things. And it's just, again, about communication of the table and coming to an agreement of like, hey, in addition to hanging out and seeing each other at this tabletop and playing a game together, are we looking to get another ancillary experience? Is that horror? Is that one of any other number of emotions here? And all of that's groovy as long as there's consent, communication, and agreement at the table.

Jennifer: Yeah, and what function is it serving in the story, too, I think is also an important question, because horror, of all genres, horror may be the most metaphorical. It's always a way to almost metastasize anxieties in the world. And so, that can be really interesting when you're doing that for characters, but it can be less fun sometimes when you're doing it for people. So, doing an outbreak scenario right now would probably not be the best thing because that's not letting people have the fun of the escapism at the table. It's forcing people to confront things, which on the other hand, some people might be like, yes, I wanna be able to defeat this, I wanna feel like I have control over the world. So, it's very much knowing your table and talking to your players, but it can be a great way to explore characters' fears, too.

Brennan: Yes. Absolutely. I totally, totally agree. Speaking of which, this next question comes to us from Emma. Thanks, Emma. Emma asks, "How do you deal with triggers that come up at the table? Assuming something was forgotten about/not discussed beforehand/the person being triggered didn't mention it, how do you deal with a triggering situation if it arises?" This is an excellent question, I think. And it goes to something that's very good, too, because I think on the podcast before we've talked about session zeroes, safety tools like lines and veils, safety tools like the X-card, those are great. But one of the things I think is really important to hammer home is, you absolutely can and should do your due diligence in setting up those boundaries, but one of the things you don't wanna do is assume, well, I did our session zero, I did the X-card, I did the lines and veils, there will. (laughs) Exactly, for a million reasons, up to and including triggers can arise, people can go through events during a long-running game where they develop new triggers, people can discover a trigger at the table that they didn't know they had, and so, therefore couldn't have thought to raise during your session zero. Jennifer, what are your thoughts and feelings about the best tools and practices for people to deal with that as it arises organically in the moment?

Jennifer: Yeah. So, in the resource document I do have a link to safety tools, I have a link to the Tabletop Safety Toolkit that was made that's brilliant. Also, the Monte Cook Consent in Gaming is great. But yeah, it has to be an ongoing thing. One of the first things I say at my table is, you can joke about almost anything, but when we're talking about safety tools I take it 100% seriously. If you are making fun of safety tools, if you are giving anyone any shit for using them, you're out of the game, period. This is no questions asked. The idea of undermining someone's fun and feeling comfortable at a table is not okay. So, I think you can work with LARP tools, you can do hand signals, you can have a way for people to privately message you. Have an X-card, or use red, green, yellow. And I think there's something, too, to having that intermediate step, which is, we're edging toward something that I'm not cool with, I'm still okay, or this is still in character and I'm having fun being distressed, but also you need to be aware of what's happening. There's a lot of checking in that needs to happen. I mean, it all comes back to communication. And some people aren't great at picking up subtle signals, so having an agreed upon tool set at the beginning of the game that you remind people on an ongoing basis that it's okay to use is really important. And one thing as a DM you can do, is you can actually use that tool set and show them that it's okay and how it will go if you want to have a shift in the game. I've done that intentionally just said, "Nope, we're gonna X-card this, and we're gonna move away," on my own story just to demonstrate that it's okay and we move right away to something else. I do think that there's a technique called the Luxton technique, which is in the toolkit that I think is the best tool set for a long-running game where you really are with people you trust, which allows people to narrate how they want that to go down. If they wanna move away from it completely or if they need to feel like they can win that situation. Those are things that I think can be really valuable. But asking people, or even having an anonymous survey online to say, hey, what are your no-gos? And I keep that as a list on my DM screen so I can keep just cross-referencing to make sure I'm not edging into that territory. If I know we're gonna play a particularly traumatic type of session, and I have things I just don't put in my game period because they've been common enough for people that I don't want them. I just automatically say, "Nope." But if I know that we're gonna be facing off with something that's really intense, or that could get intense quickly, I try and check in with people before the game and say, "Hey, we're gonna go into some stuff that's a little heavier tonight, I just wanna make sure that's okay with everybody. Everybody feeling good about that? Or is there anything you wanna add to the list of things you don't wanna do?" But making sure people feel safe, that they can trust that the table is going to respect their boundaries and that they can feel comfortable communicating those things I think is a really important tool set.

Brennan: I fully, fully agree. And again, these resources are a great, great place for people to go and see, A, what the different types of concerns that can be raised at your table are. And I would say, too, to this question in particular, which I love, it is that thing about, assuming something was forgotten about, not discussed beforehand, person triggered, what the question is sort of hinting at is this idea about, what do you do when the bumpers come off? When the safeguards fail? And I think what's important about that is, nothing can replace… Nothing can replace a genuine desire on behalf of everyone involved to keep each other safe. And in fact, if I had to choose between a table of people who were learning about these safety tools for the first time, but had my best interest in heart and a table of true villains but that had played with the safety mechanics and were like, "Yes, I am bound by the letter of the law in these cases," I'm going first table every time. The genuine desire to take care of each other is something that I think is behind these guidelines. These guidelines are, as we have said, tools that hopefully are manifested from a genuine desire for everyone to have the best time possible and to take care of each other. And to that end, should a safeguard fail, it's like, oh, this didn't come up in our lines and veils talk, this didn't come up in this other thing, I think that what the best thing you can do, is say what do we do? How do we prepare for when the preparations fail? Which is always a funny conversation to have. But I think the way you prepare for that is go, well, we're doing it right now, we're having the talk, we're having the conversation, and I think that that needs to always be able to exist at the table. And there's has to be kind of… I don't know, I just was talking about this the other day. There's a great line from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" when he goes like, "I wouldn't give two cents for all your fancy rules if behind them there wasn't a little bit of everyday kindness and looking out for the other fella." To a degree, these rules are tool sets that are hopefully in the hands of people who care about each other, and that that is motivating what you're doing so that you will never feel self-conscious for saying "Hey, I forgot to say this in the rules section," and we go like, right, the rules talk was about taking care of each other. You're always allowed to re-initiate the rules talk so that we can more effectively take care of each other. The spirit of the law is what we're really focusing on.

Jennifer: Yeah, it's an ongoing consent. And I think also, on that level, it's important to kind of think about, I mean, where these came from, was from stuff that can get really unsafe. This came from outside of tabletop. And I think looking at kind of the structures that are included in those conversations, like taking time afterward to make sure people are okay, and just checking in and making sure that you are minimizing the harm that came from a failure of tools. If something goes wrong, if something goes really wrong, stop immediately. Stop immediately, go take some time off, if that person needs to go be by themselves, that's fine. If they wanna have a conversation about it, that's fine. But when it goes wrong you have to acknowledge that something went wrong so that it doesn't happen again, and that you are showing the person who felt like the tools have failed that you understand what didn't work. Because if you don't understand what went wrong you can't understand how to make it right. So, I think that's part of it, too, is really, if they fail you have to acknowledge that they fail, and really recommit to not letting that ever happen again.

Brennan: Yes.

Jennifer: To the best of your ability.

Brennan: 100%. I fully, fully agree with that. This next question comes to us from Michael. Thanks, Michael. "I know you're familiar with throwaway NPCs becoming beloved by the players and growing into someone much more important than you had initially planned, but what about the opposite? Have you ever had problems where you create an NPC for a character's backstory who is supposed to be important with them, but the NPC and PC just don't click? Normally if an NPC doesn't grab the characters I just let them fade into the background, but this feels weird when it's someone who is supposed to be important to the PC. How do you develop NPCs who are planned as a part of the character's background?" What a great question, Michael. I've actually never seen a question like this before. The opposite phenomenon is very well documented, of the Sam Smorkle goblin, who's a random NPC who just becomes a party mascot and is beloved. But yes, of an NPC that is supposed to be important, I committed this faux pas very badly in my long-running home game of a love interest for one of the characters who was this extremely brooding, like, noble kind of werewolf. It was almost like she was a selkie, where she was like… One of the PCs was a hobbit and this other character had been from this group of wolves that were intelligent and speaking beasts who had been turned into a hobbit, so this kind of selkie mythos back and forth. But she was very-

Jennifer: So, you're saying she was an edge lord?

Brennan: She was an edge lord, exactly. Very brooding and mysterious. And all the five PCs were like, "Your girlfriend sucks, dude. She's no fun to be around. Boo." And it has now been… Any time this character gets introduced the characters are like, ugh, eye roll, like what's this person's deal? It's like, "I was the last of my wolfkin." And they're like, "Everyone's got a sad story, lady, I was trapped in a gem for 100 years. We've all been there." (laughing) But, it's very much a funny thing where it's like, oh, I was going for this other thing, but then the characters didn't click, or whatever else. Has that ever happened to you, Jennifer, of like-

Jennifer: Oh, yeah. (laughing) Oh, yeah. I think any time you run campaigns you're gonna find things that worked and things that didn't work, and things you really thought were gonna work that failed, and then things that come out of nowhere and become huge successes. I don't think there's anything wrong with letting that character fade into the background. If the PC is supposed to care so much about this, if this person is so important in their backstory then the PC should be doing some of the legwork on that. They should be finding the reasons why they care about this person, or why they're important, and if they continue to be important in their life or not. You also can do the ye olde doppelganger, like the fact that it's not clicking is because this isn't actually the person, this is the bad version, and then you can throw that out and the players will never know that that was originally supposed to be who it was and it just didn't work. So, you can do a good old fashioned switcheroo if you need to, but don't abuse that because then your players don't trust anyone. But yeah, I think there are ways to replace the function of that character, too. You can always throw in, oh yeah, well, it wasn't really the wizard who was teaching me, it was the assistant who was the one who really helped me understand what was going on, if those things are instrumental in your campaign. If not, let 'em go. They can fade into the background because you'll find some random NPC who's tap dancing on the side of the street that the players will be like, (gasps) they are everything. And they can be your exposition bot instead.

Brennan: 100%. And I think also, your job as a dungeon master is not for your PCs to all be lovable and get adopted by the party, your job is to represent a textured world that allows your players to go on adventures. And if not every NPC is their absolute favorite of all time, that probably makes sense. You're not out here trying to churn out fodder for plushie dolls, like everything has to be lovable or I have failed. It's like, no, you can have a character who perhaps is a foil, or perhaps has some other quality to them. And even if it's like, oh, this is a beloved backstory character for someone who is maybe not the most fun for them to be around, that's okay. NPCs serve different functions. When you're doing storytelling, these characters are your little tools in a Swiss army knife, so to speak, and not everybody needs to be that comic relief character who's gonna be endlessly, the PCs are going to them to clock their reaction to something.

Jennifer: It has to be the result of their actions rather than the person. So, in my current campaign my players met a rock, and this rock was an existential rock, and they were able to convert it to good, which should not happen normally, but the player critted twice in a row. And I was like, okay, you have turned the demon good. Done and done. But the result of that, is that rock has now started flying around Avernus converting devils. And so, there's now a whole religion built around it, which is great. And I spent a bunch of time in one of my sessions having the players create the tenets of that religion and the symbols, and that became part of it. So, it doesn't even have to be about that rock anymore, it's now about the result of their actions. So, maybe you have the person who was the apprentice who's now the master because the old master wasn't doing it anymore, wasn't able to do their job, or didn't want to, or whatever you wanna do, so now the apprentice has risen up. So, it's the result of the actions rather than specifically being the character that was supposed to be this huge impact.

Brennan: Yes. I think that's hugely helpful. And I think that again, I would say as a DM in general, just be kind to yourself, take pressure off yourself. Just by virtue of, if you have a very successful character or an NPC that your players really love, don't make that your new bar. Sometimes you'll be like, oh, they really liked that NPC, great, you succeeded. You can't have your highest success be the new minimum for what you are supposed to be doing.

Jennifer: Yeah, you have to also have characters that aren't great for comparison because then when you do meet the one character who everybody's eyes light up and you go, oh, this is the important NPC, now you have a reason for that person to be foregrounded rather than the other way around.

Brennan: 100%. This next question comes to us from Rainsolo who's one of our mods, thanks, Rainsolo. "As we move to online games, what has been your preferred way to roll your dice? I love my click clacks, but sometimes math doesn't like me." The eternal virtual dice or physical dice when you're playing at home. Do you have a strong preference one way or the other, Jennifer?

Jennifer: I love the D&D Beyond dice. I didn't think I was going to like them, and then they're actually super satisfying and they can do things that my real dice can't do, and they auto calculate numbers, which is wonderful for the speed of the game, but when you're DMing you need another solution, and so, I mean, I do have my dice tower right next to me and have a case of many, many sets of dice nearby. I don't think you have to always choose one or the other. You can even flip between the two if you want. But in terms of an accessibility tool, having virtual dice can be amazing. And yeah, with math, not everybody's great with numbers. Some people love the numbers, some people really don't, and that's a way to save time and to make that. And in case people don't know, you can actually use your phone virtual assistants to roll your dice if you need to. You can say, "Hey," insert your phone's virtual assistant's name here, "Roll a D20," and it will, and it will speak it back to you.

Brennan: Very, very cool. That's awesome. I think why not have your cake and eat it, too? I totally agree. We've just shot a ton of Dimension and I've found myself going for the physical dice every time I had a huge bunch of bad guys with the same attack modifier. It was like, all right, we've got eight of these little dudes that are all taking a swing, rah, and then you go and it's much easier to kind of assemble that out in physical space. Also though, I like to roll in front of the board a lot. I'm a big fan of rolling in front of the board. I know some DMs wanna keep everything behind the screen. For me, I really like rolling in front of the board for things that are going to be unavoidably bad or good, and you're immediately gonna know one way or the other. The kind of thing of like, all right, this giant's hammer is coming down. You got three hit points left. This is bad. We don't gotta be coy about how this is gonna turn out. So, the nice thing about virtual dice, especially if you're on a virtual tabletop, your Roll20s, other things like that, you're in a Discord and you have a dice bot in front of you that's gonna be able to roll for them. You hit that, you go, okay, on a 13 or higher it's bad news, and now all of us have that moment of being in time together bated breath, and we have the group release as it either succeeds or fails, is I think really, really gratifying 'cause we love those moments of what on our show we call Box of Doom moments, where it's like, we're gonna roll in the Box of Doom and it's gonna be bad or good and we're all gonna know at the same time.

Jennifer: High stakes.

Brennan: High-

Jennifer: High stakes stuff. 'Cause you want that to be collective. That's one of the places that tabletop shines, is when you have those moments that are so high stakes and everyone's just (gasps). To have that together communally, collectively, collaboratively, and watch it happen, or have someone go, "Wait a second, I have," like at the very last second, "I have advantage!"

Brennan: Yes. (laughs)

Jennifer: Those moments are just so… That's what makes the game.

Brennan: Oh, I love that. In my home game we call that PC creep. That little thing of like, you're about to narrate the bad thing happening and someone goes, "Wait, I forgot, I have advantage!" And then they're like, okay, advantage, and then someone else is actually like, "Oh, but remember, you get that plus two bonus from this other thing," and we're like, any more creepin'? Anymore PC creeping that we're gonna be adding to this before I get to exact my terrible will upon the party?

Jennifer: Yeah. (laughing) I think ultimately when you're talking about playing virtually, it's what works for you and your table, which is always the answer with D&D, unfortunately. People are like, "How do you do this?" It's like, well, it depends. But if you love rolling in the open, you love virtual, you're playing on a VTT, you're doing maps and minis virtually, that can be a great way to do it. If you just are caring about the numbers, rolling it privately is fine, whether it's on a solid dice tower or on some sort of character sheet or dice roller. Yeah, so it depends on your group-

Brennan: Yes.

Jennifer: What you're looking for.

Brennan: I fully, fully agree. And that's something that I think, too, is not a bad mantra just for everyone going forward, is like, obviously in advice shows like this, Jennifer and I bring a lot of years of experience of this game, but again, we're not the people you need to keep happy, it's the people that are actually there at the table with you. So, the ultimate authority in this is always the wellbeing and good time of the people that are at your table. My goodness, an hour and a half has flown by. Jennifer, it has been an honor and a delight to have you. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and talk with us today.

Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. (laughing) Best time.

Brennan: Oh, I love it, talking about games, what could be better? Gang, that's "Adventuring Academy". Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll be back next time. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you then. Bye-bye!

Jennifer: Bye!

Brennan: Yay! Woo!

Captions extracted by: gluegunshots

Edited by: gluegunshots