Reach out to This Dungeon is Occupied at https://linktr.ee/thisdungeonisoccupiedpod

Warmup: Justin to This Dungeon is Occupied

Prompt: Think of the last group you DM’d for. Now describe  the character that you would like to have played in that group if you could add a new character for yourself.

Intro:

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m Justin Lewis, and together with my cohost Tanner Weyland, we help you craft better stories for yourselves and your players as you DM sessions of D&D 5d regardless of how much time or money you have.

Today we are joined by some awesome guests, the voices behind the This Dungeon is Occupied Podcast. We have Illideen, Thorn and Bone Daddy. I’ll let them share their real names with you if they want in a second, but first, let’s go through a couple of housekeeping items. 

First of all, remember that we have the next one-shot coming up in September. Tanner is that game's Dungeon Master, and we have all the spots filled. If you’re interested in watching that one-shot as a spectator you can go to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/audience at the time of the one-shot and enjoy an excellent show for a few hours.

If you’re interested in signing up for the next one shot, it will be in October and will actually be hosted by one of our guests here, Bone Daddy. He is a big fan of the horror genre so we thought it was appropriate to have him host a horror-themed Halloween one-shot. You can go to betterdungeonmaster.com/one-shot to sign up for that.

Lastly, we just want to thank you for all your support. We really appreciate everything you do for us. With every episode we strive to give you even better content, so please tell us if we do something wrong or right.

Now, let’s get into today’s show.

So let’s get into our discussion topics. Feel free and introduce yourselves amidst our questions, but don’t feel that you have to.

Main Topic: Preparing for Sessions

• What’s your main process for session prep?
• What tools do you use for session prep?
• How do you balance the main plot line and Individual Backstory plot lines?

Break: Continuation of Warmup Prompt

Prompt: Now describe the moment when the character you described at the beginning of today’s show betrays the other characters in the party.

Main Topic Continued: Preparing for Sessions Cont.

• How do you know you’ve prepared enough?
• Do you go back and revise any preparation (like editing a paper?)

• How much do you write out word for word versus simple prompts?

Close:

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welcome back to how to be a better d m today i am joined with

some awesome guests and before i introduce them and before we even go any further

let's jump in with the warm up that we like to do in show really

like getting to the story as fast as possible so ladin bone daddy and thorn

here's the prompt i want you to think of the last group that you deemed

for okay just take a second think about that group in your mind imagine the

scenario the story all the players now describe for me the character if if you

weren't playing a character in that group described for me the character that you would

like to have created and played as a player of that group even while you're

deeming

uh

anyone can go first or whatever

yeah i'll take this one there is a race of people in my world that

i'm dmingcurrently that

oh

they are dragon

yeah

born sorcerers but they are forced into

oh

being a dragon born sorcerer so

yeah

i use the the ionic crystals so each

m

character had

oh

a c ionic crystal somewhere on their body you know usually a forehead or in

the arms things

m

like that and that kind of transforms

hm

a code unquote regular n b c into that dragon born sourcer i would love

to play one of it just seems like a really cool back story you know

instead of just the regular i was i used to be a slave it's like

now i was a magic slave and you know you

yeah

can get a little bit a little

m

bit more fun and creative with it because the ionic crystals especially like in third

and three point five edition they had a lot of stuff to it

m

and the ionic magic and five kind of uses it a little bit and so

i just home brood some extra rules so

oh

nice

that's super interesting

no

would like to go

i'll

next

go next the last gaming session

oh

i did was actually world of darkness so i'll go back to the last d

n d session i ran which was with a bunch of new people he were

great

all played for less than three months interested wanting

yeah

to do big things so i just did the the dragon queen and started

oh

out great but they all nobody played a tank

yeah oh

um

there was no front line players

m

and it was it was all sorcerers it was all wizards and a couple rogues

i mean it was there was no front line players in there at all so

to be honest one of my favorite front line players is just a fighter just

a champion fighter it's very basic but

m

i would do it i always like to do them with a twist so i

kind

yeah

of either take them from the fighting pits or i take them

m

from just a a person that that has

oh

taught himself to fight so it's different

oh

than anything so you got different moods you almost got like the drunken master in

there and just a little different things in there just to make it more interesting

and i always

oh

like to either if i'm playing a full tank i'll do like you

oh

know goliath or anything like that but to be honest the way they were spread

around

oh

with races and everything i would have just done dragon born

oh

just did a dragon born fighter and i would have named him seth so

love

m

it

plain and simple

m i love that all right bone daddy

all

your

right

turn

so the last game i ran was the dragons campaign it was a fusion between

strict haven the curriculum of chaos and also the domains of dread book so what

i did was i did a continuation of like in the domains of dread there's

yah

there's like the domain lords

oh

and one of them escapes and like the actual canonical like story in the domains

of dread and it's a lith by the lich by the name asvonrex escapes and

so i did a continuation story where i he was like the headmaster at the

strict

oh

haven academy for magic and

oh

he was like trying to teach and hide

oh

at stricaven and so the players we're trying to figure out why why the domains

of dread were ceping into

oh

the world like the demi playing that the school was built on they were slowly

starting to see an it's because the entities were looking for for aslant put him

back where he where he belonged and i basically i turned all strad and all

the other

m

domainloids into kids i had them like

m

sleeper agents in the school and so there was

yeah

it was

m

it was just a wild little adventure

oh

that i had put together for my friends

yeah

and i i would have loved to play in that one because it was like

half like school murder mystery half half like there was like this whole world to

like sandbox world that they could kind of go to and see the different schools

that were offered if i had to play a character

oh

in there i would have loved to play like conspiracy this like kids it's like

yeah

he's like really into the domains of dread like he's like he's like yeah and

they're here and

m

like you don't even know and he's like

ah

takes a puff smoke

yah

of a cigarette and he's just like oh and

uh

that would have been

ah

to kind of just

h

be like investigating these things he's like determined to prove to everybody there here he's

like it's strad it looks like trade look at him and he's

ye

like that's a kid guy

uh

like what are you talking about because vampires exist on strict

yeah

stevens world so like just

yeah

a vampire why you so like you know like what's wrong with you

he's like look

and so

at the shadows you can tell

okay o everywhere look at the mist that's rolling in and like now that's just

weather bloom

oh

like y're doing their experiments

yeah

like

oh

no crease

h

yeah

i love that that is so funny well listener welcome back to how to be

a better d m i'm justin lewis and together with my cohort

oh

tanner wayland we help you craft better

oh

stories for yourselves and your players d m sessions of d and five e regardless

of how much time or money you have and today we are joined by some

awesome guests the voices behind this dungeon is occupied podcast we have laden thorn

yah

and bone daddy i'll actually let them share their real names later with you if

they want but first let's go through a couple of house keeping items first of

all remember that we

yah

have the next one shot coming up in september tanner is actually the game aster

for that and we have all the spots filled but if you're interested in what

in that one shot as a spectator you can go to better dungeon master dot

com slash audience at the time of the one shot and enjoy just a fun

show for a couple of hours but if you are interested in signing up for

the next one shot it will actually be in october and we'll be hosted by

one of our guests here bone daddy he is a huge fan of horror so

we thought it was appropriate to have him host our

oh

horror themes halloween one shot and if you have trauma from that blame him

yeah

but you can go to better than

yeah

you can go to better dungeon master dot com slash one shot sorry one dash

shot to sign up for that lastly we just want to thank you for all

your support we really appreciate everything you do for us and with every episode we

strive to give you ever better content so please if we're doing something wrong or

even something right go ahead and tell us but now let's get to today's show

so let's get into our discussion topics like i said feel free and when you

know you answer one of these questions you you put a comment if you want

to introduce yourself talk about you know some of your history and experience but don't

feel like you have i figure i think people will more so appreciate who you

are by the value

m

that you bring because in our last conversation we were actually on their podcast we

had a lot of fun and you guys do bring a lot of values i

figure let's just give

oh

them what they want so today we are talking about preparing for sessions and actually

yeah

in our conversation before we started recording you guys were mentioning some of the antics

with one of your previous campaigns and all the gold that thorn you were accruing

and all the preparation that you had to

yah

you had to do laden so i guess it's it's it's a good place to

start

yah

how do you know when enough is enough with preparation and sometimes when enough is

too much

so i'll take this one listeners i'm ladin i have been playing d and d

for about sixteen years now d d ming for almost half that time you know

it's enough once it stops being fun i

oh

am a writer so i love writing i have binders upon binders of just story

plots and plot hooks that i've come up with um that have either been played

or are

oh

just sitting as a tool box that i can pull out

oh

and it's one of those things that if you know in the case that you

were talking about about the gold i was doing exile spread sheets of gold and

salaries and you know they had the towards the end of the campaign we went

all the

m

way

oh

to level twenty towards the end they had

oh

a keep that they had with employees and so i had to make sure that

okay well this money is coming in but this money is

m

going out we had it was constant bookkeeping and i almost paid for quick books

m

for my campaign because it got that serious and at that point i was like

all right we need to

oh

did it chill a little

yeah

on the finance but

ah

it was still fun i mean every time that i did it you know it

was obviously hard to do all the math especially when you're thinking like okay one

gold is equal to thirty six point seven dollars u s so how much how

do i figure that out towards a beer okay well a beer is a copper

it is just

oh

it goes on forever but as long as it's fun i mean you're you're having

fun that that's all there is to it that's that's the big thing for us

on our podcast is just always have fun and that's if it was a point

to where i was like okay i really i need to sleep or i need

a beer you just

m

stop

m

that's that's all it is

m i like that i like

yeah

that oh bon daddy were you going to mention something

oh no i didn't i moved

yeah

i moved

oh

awkwardly

sorry

my back

well

my

that

yeah

you're fine

that

you're

works

fine

perfect because i actually had a question for bone daddy

oh

in the warm

uh

up prompt you were talking about

yeah

i mean you just casually mentioned that you used ree different like settings to create

an adventure and brought in a bunch of different you know enemies you know a

lot of depth that i could see other people just it's stewing over for

m

months just making sure they got everything right

m

how did you avoid doing that or or did you do that

well i so with one of my favorite things to do when nuts brought it

up is to i love cutting and pasting like the modules together because i like

seeing what the two settings would look meshed um it's it's how i pray for

games that when i know that people want to play in certain settings but i

always like to keep it fresh because the source books

m

are so readily available that people will read through them because there are really cool

stories going on but i also want to keep people on their toes so i'll

usually introduce like a different concept into the game for example i've done rhyme of

the frost made in and propping for that was he rimwiththe frost maidens

m

like

yeah

ten towns

m

beginning and i fused it with setting

oh

that had to do with it's called witch

m

plus craft that i had purchased and it's a it's

m

a setting book that has like a really really

oh

fun and cute like intro about like a world

yeah

that that you can you can add

yeah

a more intricate system to basically creating alchometic components but i took that world and

the fused fused it with the ten towns world and then i also took some

aspects from from raven loft that i that i particularly enjoyed that i thought would

fit in well with the theme of the story and i created a little

m

essentially a

m

map in my head of where we were going to go

m

and kind of just placed these places into the map

m

that you could cross over in the way they interact would interact together and what

it meant for this concept to exist in this world and how that wouldn't act

later parts of the story so that's usually how i'm prepared for games if i'm

running modules i haven't ridden myself like so someone as like i want to play

around with frost and i was like we could do that not going a look

the same but it's going to follow a similar trajectory

m

i'm not going to throw things at you that you know how to beat i'm

gonna i'm going to send things like different little creative things that you're not expecting

yah

at you so

yah nice

so doing stuff like that obviously takes a lot of preparation that you can't really

equate to like session preparation it's more like like behind the scenes preparation so you

know directed to all of you guys what sort of things are you guys doing

kind of on a regular basis that you feel is transferable across any session any

any game campaign and anything like that

and i'll start this one thorn for all the listeners i've been playing d and

d and other arpgs for right around thirty three years

oh

been been ming or story weaving is like we like to call it for run

about twenty five off and on and the last campaign i did was was a

world darkness campaign because we after a lot of stuff we have other friends there

into other tabletop games and so i have done world darkness off and on for

a long time so i did one and my preparation versus their preparation way different

because i don't like to write it's okay

oh

if the d m s and in story weavers everythin if you don't like to

write that's fine i will do some studying i actually came up with this campaign

oh

um

oh

a thing that i saw on youtube called forever verse it's run by ivan van

norman who is an amazing amazing g m and his thing was he too ok

his character s from world

m

darkness and did like a time travel back to world war two

m

and then he actually after that was over he actually went to a different table

top game he put them into

m

seven s which i've never played and always have wanted to since i've listened to

this because it sounds great but i took that a little bit and just put

it in world darkness and it did kind of a time travelling episode so my

game whole

m

thing was like they fought against this

oh

thing in modern day and then all of a sudden they're

m

transported back to jack the ripper so it's england you know jack the ripper

m

era and it's all that's going on while they're trying to figure

m

what's going on and then after that one ended it was back to the the

salem witch trials so i was using history in it

m m

and i would have i would research it and i would look at this this

is what happened these are the people these

m

are the names this is what's going on but other than that i let them

run wild n each section that i came up with had a time limit they

had this many things this many sessions to actually finish this if they didn't they

got pushed and i was keeping kind of the score between them and the b

b

m

b g just trying to figure out where they were going to land so it

was a lot of prep as far as the studying of

oh

the history of it but i was using real history so it was a lot

easier and you know i've done the big campaigns where i've wrote stuff out i

just don't like it um

yeah

me personally i fly off the hook i'm off the cuff i let them do

what they want and i react

oh

to it i think it goes

my

pretty well for me and not everybody can do it but it seems to work

well for me

and with that being said so

oh

do you do a lot of prep just like for the campaign in general and

then make the each session prep a little bit lighter

m

or do

yeah

you guys kind of do it a revert yeah okay the

that's

first

what

one then

i do these guys right here these are all written out binders

oh

these guys do amazing these

oh

are two of the best and i'm saying from a lot of

yeah

experience they are two of the best gems i've ever played for i mean they

are

wow

amazing and it's been so much fun

wow

doing it and

oh

i true

yeah

i make characters that kind of wreck their

m

plans

oh

but i'm known for saying chaos is good r p and that's what i do

so i do it well

yeah

yeah

ah yeah if then i can add with with prepping either for a big campaign

or even for a session if i've definitely slowed down

m

on writing even as much as i like writing i kind of take it as

a writing outline now you know a little bit of bullet points

oh

and as you as you get

oh

i want to say get better but as you continue to

oh

d m and n do even as a player

m

you are able to do a lot more

m

improve and kind of go off of things that are um

oh

because second nature i mean mark twain says

yeah

that you know there's no longer a original idea everything is going to be

oh

based off of something else whether it's reference from a movie reference from a book

poetry it doesn't matter what it is you i mean there's been so many humans

on the planet now that

m

there's not going to be an original idea completely

m

it's just going to be twists of something else um let me look at the

difference between star wards and harry potter

yeah

you know

oh

hm one orphan to another orphan it's kind of the same thing

oh

but still that

hm

nice different twist

my

um it's kind of the same thing when you're when you're prepping if you're if

you haven't this idea for a story if you have something like knowbondaddy was saying

a source book use the source book but at the same time make it your

own because there's no way that you're going to memorize i mean maybe matt mercer

but there's no way that you're going to be able to memorized the

yeah

entire source book the entire

yeah

lower behind something that's been going on longer than you know some of us have

been alive so trying to trying to do that just puts undue stress so have

your bullet points you know use

m

other sources i am a big user fantasy name generator dot com because i'm not

coming up with a thousand names for my cities i have a city with a

population

yeah

of one million i based it kind of off of san antonio i'm coming up

with all those names so i have a little bank of fifteen to twenty names

that i haven't used for the party and it's on the side of my computer

i used world anvil

m

to keep my notes organize um so when i'm when i'm there and you know

go into a shop i'm just looking at the name and going get that one

and then i copy and past it to a note and then it just makes

it easier so i think that that's more my prep now is just having a

couple of quick power point or bullet point notes that i can look at and

go all right this is cool let's run with it

okay

i love that head

no

tenner

it's just interesting i think i'm noticing from a lot of you you're saying that

kind of like hey do a lot of the bulk of your prep maybe early

on like when you're riding the campaign

m

but and for each session afterwards you know don't don't stress over the nittygrideo of

each session am i wrong about that

m yeah that's

no yeh

right

oh

go ahead

go ahead

um that's so when i think like the bulk of the campaign at the beginning

with my notes and and things along with nature usually the way i

m

start my beginning book prep is i look at what the goal of my campaign

is going to be so i have my story in mind and i break down

specific story points that i want to touch on thing so the end of course

like what i want my ending to kind of shape and look like the general

goal

oh

and then i break down what needs to happen in the story and

m

i kind of branch it out like so there's possibilities that can go from each

of these points but these are points that i want to hit on and that

makes it a little easier to kind of kind of rep for me because at

that point i am a little more flexible so as long as i reach

oh

point

m

or a general form of point than i can doesn't matter how they get there

m

so like it gives it up portunity for for improve is the opportunity

yeah

for any kind of

oh

offshoot they want to do and m and i kind of just weave it around

that essentially it just branch off there and then it does not and it's not

always a straight line they will always go down the path that i present to

them so it's kind of like a curve around

m

but i definitely i'll write out notes on the side i'll be like in case

this happens this is a possibility i'm just kind of to think about it and

then i just play it off when they get there so like i

m

think of what

oh

what would be the next reaction will be the next thing they do and then

i'll play my story off from there

okay

m

i like it you wanted to add to that i think

yeah it's kind of the difference between railroad and sand box campaigns you know railroading

is a very direct line there's there's these

oh

walls kind of like a bowling alley you know you can only go one direction

m

the sand box it's a little bit wider i do like to think of a

sand box you know it's still a box so you still have the parameters of

your campaign but your characters and your players can go

m

basically

oh

wherever they want um and one of the things that i like because i've been

a player in a railroad campaign and you know

yeah

sometimes it works but

m

if you are the type of person that

oh

kind of gets upset if if your players don't follow a plot hook

m

instead of saying no no no this is how it's going to go you know

and forcing the sto that way take the plot hook and move it in the

sand box there's nothing wrong with your the town that they didn't go to just

move it if it doesn't make sense that you know if you're in

oh

a ocean town and everybody was mur

m

folk and sea elves and things and now they're in the desert well great i

mean now they're good nose now they're dragon born whatever just and just that you

don't have to change the names you don't have

m

to change

oh

the towns all that other hard work that you did that you

m

thought of or even just looked at and copied

yeah

copy and paste it somewhere else it's kind of rail rody but it doesn't feel

that way anymore

m

so you

yeah

can still use

ah

those things and still have fun with it instead because being in a railroad a

true railroad campaign can be extreme

yeah

boring

m it's less rail rody and more stress reducing for the g the

right

d you know uh kind of talking about how you got i kind of preferred

to do a lot of prep work up front in the campaign what sort of

things do you need or do you think need to be covered or at least

thought about just for you know for our nub listener out there who wanting to

run the

yah

first campaign you're saying hey if you're if you're going to start a campaign you

need to have these things at least started

yah

in your mind in order

yeah

to start correctly

well the one thing i would say and it kind of sounds counter intuitive is

you have to think about the ending use all campaigns

m

come to an end at least an arc does you have to think about how

you imagine it ending and you can't be hurt if it

m

doesn't in that way so what i do

oh

is i think of how i want this to end i think of the campaign

oh

and everything and how i want it to end and

oh

then you kind of work backwards okay could so they got to go to her

they

oh

got to go to hear these things need to happen or they don't

oh

there's ways around it like me i am known for just changing mind on the

fly so if your characters come up with a good

my

idea or if they come up with a really roundabout

oh

way or just something that's very creative to

yeah

get them to a certain step in it let them do it because it makes

for a better story i mean you don't have to think of everything that's one

thing i've learned over the years i've playing as you do not have to think

of everything because your players can think up of a lot use them but i

think the i think one of the most important things to think of is just

the ending you got to figure out how you wanted to end because it can't

go on forever

i think

oh

i think with with a specific prep the most important

oh

thing would probably

oh

be just a blank notebook uh because your players like like thorence said you know

your players are goin to come up with something and if you're let's say you're

in a murder mystery and the person was actually colonel must with the candlestick but

the player was like you know what i'd be really interesting if it was the

maid um and you know write that down and it's a way cooler to the

players go i told you it's that thing it's you know

m

that's that's the i knew it the whole

yeah

time ten sessions ago

m

instead of

hm

know i guess that it could be cool to still have a twist you know

and and maybe they think it's the one person

look

the whole time and it turns out to be a party member but if the

if the cool ending isn't cool for the party you fail it has to be

fun it has to be that i'd like to say it's the rule of cool

if it's cool and you guys are talking about it ten years later over drinks

then you've won that's that's the only way to win any table top game um

but aside from that it would be

yeah

you know like i said maybe a bullet point of a couple of names so

that way you know like i said if if i'm writing a whole binder full

of campaign work and then they say oh well what's this guy's name yeah i

can't remember you know

oh

it's not the only like

yeah

that's why i said like matt mercer can do it and and the other awesome

professional

m

d ms because they are that's their job they're paid to do that but

hm

a lot of us have and er two extra jobs on top of being a

story

yah

weaver

yah

and trust

yeah

me story weaving can sound like a job and i know you guys have talked

about it on an episode before but you guys are starting to do an hour

or two hours of prep work every time you have a session and it's weekly

now you're starting to get almost into a full time job you know starting to

think about it

m

so if you're not going to be able to remember and a player says hey

what's this this tavern's name instead of saying

m

hold on let me look at my binder and take ten minutes

m

to turn the page to the right spot just have names up there and you

know you kind of get a field for where your players are going to go

if they're traveling from point it point b somewhere in between there if you have

a plot hook and you know it's going to happen so just have that little

spot there don't have the whole twenty page book or a whole bunch of ideas

and it does help if you have a little bit of improve of experience or

practice improving because then you like what's that guy's name that's george the guard he's

eighteen years old and he's holding a pike and he he's stopping you and you

know he maybe he had a a a late puberty and his voice is still

still messed up and then you can throw out a fun voice and that will

be

oh

more memorable and then you just write that down

yeah

i had george the pike guy at the guard door and that's all you need

and then you can just go from there and i did that reference because

m

that's exactly what happened

yeah

with my wife she really wanted the guard to

yeah

have a name and i was like all right you know what yeah he's got

this weird crackly voice and he was like stop you need to wait at the

gate and she just she died

oh

and

yeah

so i was like all right well he's he's in the campaign now so

that's

m

amazing

yeah i love those

well well justin i feel

um

like it's a perfect

go ahead tenner

time to go into the continuation of the warm

oh

up because he did mention betrayal

yes

yeah

so another thing we like to do lately is kind of continue to warm up

and progress it nother step so think of that character you described at the beginning

of today's show now describe the moment in which that character you described betrays the

other party member

this is so

okay

up our alley you have no idea

oh

yeah uh

i can see all

um

of us nodding

yeah

uh

yeah

i'll go

bone

i'll

dad you

go

want to take it

yeah

yeah so as i was saying

yeah

the curriculum of chaos

yeah m

and the domains of dread as he refused together aslinret has escaped his

oh

imprisonment and the entities

yeah

that that

m

that keep the prisoners in the

yeah

maids of dread are seeking him out so they send the domain lords as like

sleeper agents i'm really intimate of the gathering so i keep saying sleeper agents because

i'm like for axent leeper agents

uh

but

m

the

yeah

i'm like

m

yeah and so my

yeah

character is working with the party and then

m

as on rex finally reveals himself and my my characters head like explodes

oh

there's like a little like little weird like elder brain in there like a tiny

elder brain and it's like finally because

yeah

one of the main lord is an elder brain that's completely

m

crazy and so it's like finally why he's like he's so crazy is because it's

it's the elder brand just like kept itself dormant for a little while until the

right time he's just

oh

slowly

my goodness

been reading everybody's information off their heads so the reason he's crazy is because he's

like consistently getting feedback where everyone's like thoughts and so that would that would be

the moment he'd betray them as once

yeah

evil is done and then he open portals to let mindflayers into the school

oh my goodness so he is the greatest

yeah

conspiracy theory

yeah

and in and of himself that's amazing

yeah

that's awesome

yeah

he's like i

awesome

knew

oh

it

yeah

oh

it was me all along

yeah

mind blown

yeah

that's funny

i love it

for mine because on

m

the whole

okay

quote unquote slavery thing and being forced into this dragon born sorcerer with the ionic

crystal i would add that in his deep back story

m

he volunteered

m

maybe

m

maybe the b b g helped him some time in his life or you could

even if you wanted to get really spicy you could multi class him in a

warlock and his patron is the the thing that he's trying to

m

help especially arch lich patrons it is really awesome

yah

patron

ah

to have the spells and they are amazing

m

but i would have it where you know the patron

yeah

asked him you know to do this thing and he's well i need a little

bit extra power and he gave him a scionic crystal instead of just

yeah

giving extra spells you know along the warlock list here's this crystal it takes a

sacrifice and

yeah

just jabs it in and he's now he's a

yeah

dragon born sorcerer slashed warlock

m

and i guess that you know the

oh

betrayal would would be revealing that the entire time

oh

that they've been working with the party

oh

every time that they've gone behind scenes

m

if they split up you know we're just a day in the town let's go

shopping great i'm i'm going to go over here i wanted to get some some

items for potions

yeah

and maybe there's some behind the scenes work with the d

m

m of trying to subvert the parties missions or try and get something to line

up to where it's the big reveal is we get to the b b g's

layer and you know maybe there's a monologue and the sorcerer just walks across turns

around and is now on the b b g side just looking

m

at the party that that would be fun

yeah

yeah

i'm gonna have to write that down

that sounds amazing m

so

yeah

with mine being with it with a

yeah

beginner party i would i think it would be very dramatic and which i'm

oh

big on is like the big review to do it early on so you

yeah

got this dragon born character that secretly follows t met and they're in the first

castle setting in hard the dragon queen when they're fighting all the co bolds and

everything like that and he's just helping them through that

h

and everything

m

and it comes of the part where the dragon comes on

oh

and he kind of helps through that and then you got that one off

m

that one on one versus the

oh

the big dragon born like general

hm

and have have seth just walk out like here like he's going to challenge him

and then just falling behind him and revealed to the

m

party

m

that he is

m

actually part of the bad guys

all along my

love it

yep

goodness

yeah

ah we are big

ah

fans of the betrayal

i love

so

all those

all the players betray each other

yeah

and they're like

yes

wait

yeah

a

what

well

yeah

and it can be fun

yeh

eh

you know when

yeah

we've we've talked about this before but when you're going to do something like that

it does take a certain table to

oh

play a betrayal like a player betrayal some people

yeah

don't like it some people

hm

don't like p v p but if you have a table that's willing to accept

it a fun one is to allow everyone at the table

oh

to know that it's going to happen hey guys steve is the bad guy the

people know

oh

but your characters do

m

not

m

uh you know try not to met

yah

a game but let's play it that way we

ah

know that that happening and it can be a really fun brain teaser because now

you're you're thinking about okay well my character doesn't know this

m

i have to figure out how my character would act and that forces you is

player to get better at

m

role playing and getting into your characters

oh

mindset you know because otherwise you're like well i mean i know he's

m

a bad guy so i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and follow

oh

him every time he tries to separate the party but your character

uh

would your character do that does your character actually trust him

oh

because he saved your life a couple of sessions ago you know like okay yeah

that's probably true so you have to dig in to your care actermindset and

m

i've played a campaign like that and

m

believe thorn has done something similar and it just really helps get into to that

that mind set get into better r p and then you can use those tools

later on for other campaigns

yeah nice

wow i love that

yah

on that note you mentioned that you know one of the best things for preparation

is to be really good at improve or at least have some practice so what

sort of things have you guys done or have you heard of other people doing

or would you recommend for practicing improve or getting better at it so that way

that aspect of session preparation or camp camp preparation is taken care of

my favorite game to play is what if and it's all it is and i've

been doing it since i was a kid because my my dad likes to write

and so he likes story telling and we always think of of these what if

scenarios so what

m

uh you're walking in the in the woods and you see a paul print and

you want to take a look at it what are you doing and you know

of course my dad did

m

thirty

oh

years in the marine core and i was in boy scout so a lot of

it had to do with real life he was kind of teaching me life lessons

oh

oh

but we took it a step further and added on that fantasy level because obviously

you know if i'm a kid i like well what if what if

yeah

the bear was was flying and he landed right there and i mean my dad

would just take it and go with it but if you play that with your

friends or even with you know playing by yourself and thinking about it through your

head like what if this

m

happens what if that happens you kind of

oh

build your own tool box until kit

m

of improve stuff so when thorn the chaotic dude that he is

yeah

oh

throws a a

yeah

new

yah

mercer a group

yeah

of warlocks at me

oh

i go great yeah there's mercenary warlocks they all dress exactly the way you describe

your character and they are now the divine and on and write that down cool

the divine divine an has obviously it's a mercenary group so they have a head

guy

ye

and the head guy is going to be

m

i don't know bobber and just keep on go and from there but all you're

doing is is

oh

just playing that what if that add on game and just adding to it a

lot of that came from reading background i read

m

a lot of books i watch a ton of content i mean i

m

keep mentioning mat mercer because i've seen almost all of critical role

m

you know dimension on all those things if you watch those things

oh

it's absolutely impossible not to soak up some of that creativity because

oh

i mean even watching a regular t regular

m

v show on like netflix or something

m

you're getting somebody else's story and so now that story

hm

is at least in the very back of your

m

mind and if something just happens to trigger it you know then you can you

just play off of it

now

ah i love

i

that

did something

i love

very

that

similar like back in high school we would start a story like we

oh

i had a pretty large group of just like nerves

oh

friends you know we were all just

m

playing the indian stuff like that so we would one person would start a story

the next person will take it over and then the next person will take it

over and when you do that with you know five or six people you can

oh

get a pretty in depth story going on and so it was very similar what

wlilidin said but we were just telling

m

whichever kind of story you want and i mean it was fun we do

oh

it i mean sometimes we do it for hours just in a circle

oh

just in go keep going and it really taught me a lot about improbleabout coming

up with stuff just on the fly but one thing that we've done for raven

because she wanted to learn more about coming off the cuff is she just ran

a campaign with no prep and

wow

had us

m

in it

oh

and that's always a lot of chaos so it really it's tater a lot about

about

oh

where to go when somebody brings up something that you're not expecting and it really

is tater a lot about improvin coming up both of the stuff just off

m

a fresh mind

o

i love that

also one thing i like to do with newer players that i play with is

if we're if they're trying to learn how to work more off the costan off

of in proof is that i'll have them i'll have them come to a campaign

m

with no idea

m

with what they're going to expect like no back story no nothing and just bring

the barest bone

m

of character of their like just a basic idea of what they want to be

then from there we'll just build on it together like we'll go through and i

will present situations

m

and scenarios like the what if situations that team is talking about and from those

situations i'll build on to their characters for them and they'll write it down and

write down like this is an aspect of their story and i have them come

out but they're on the spot and i'll i'll provide like if their stuff which

is a very common thing and i'll provide a little like anecdotes like i'd be

like oh like do you think this is something they would enjoy and then like

kind of they would

yeah

work off of that presented idea and it would kind of like spark something else

in them that we eventually just by the end of it they build a character

and we've gone through like a little scenario that it could lead somewhere it couldn't

like i mean

m

it's just little situations little conflicts we're dealing with yeah

uh

it's awesome go ahead

oh

elden

yeah

yeah

m

there is a a way for the story

m

weaver to help new players select a bonded as saying is giving these prompts

m

um if you are

yeah

oh

let's say just in the middle of combat and they well

m

i i cast fireball okay cool you cast fireball how does that happen how describe

the fireball does it come out of your hand is it a laser beam is

that you know whatever it is describe that and that is the simplest way

m

to use the word lightly but force the player to roll play because they

m

have to think of the detail

yea

you know think of a color of the spell think of how you know it

shoots out do you have tattoos does your character i use that tattoo to flow

um and it it kind of gets those juices flowing and the other thing that

i love doing

m

is if they have a paragraph of back or just a paragraph can make a

full on

oh

book worth of story it it can make an entire campaign and if you are

in the campaign and these

oh

players have come they they come to you with even one sentence back story okay

i was raised by wolves great you know what's going to happen to your wolf

m

pack and you know

uh

it's it's something that you can you can twist especially

yeah

if you're doing a horror story hey that wolf pack they're now wear wolfs um

and you have to either try and hear the licenthroppe maybe you get bit you

know things like that can happen and it can

m

really be anything one of our favorites that we like to talk about is thorn

and i used lady hawk the movie

yeah

to come up with his dual

yeah

characters he played two characters at the same

oh

time that were twins and we we just kind of home bred a little bit

of a mechanic

ah

and you know by day you know the the sister was awake and the brother

was a wolf and the you know the opposite was true the sister was the

hawk the brother was the elvin form and it was interesting that we came up

with the basic concept and then i said you know what ud be interesting if

bain was the person who changed your your forms maybe it was a curse and

using his back story putting it into the campaign we had a whole i don't

know six or seven session story arc just for his characters and because of that

it made thorn really have to think about his back story how does it affect

the care actors themselves how do they react

oh

you know differently to other players because they've already been scorned once by a god

yeah

how are you how re they going to react to other n p cs and

things that so if the story weaver can just use even a small port their

back story it

m

can really get them to engage

okay yeah

yeah

that's great

m

one question i've had you know since we're talking a lot about like you know

we've talked about how hey you can avoid having to prep a lot for a

session if you've done a lot of preparation for the campaign in general we've also

talked about i improve

oh

so i'm wondering in your guys's opinion is there any specific like say that you've

done all

m

that right you're fairly good at improve you've prepared

m

for the campaign in general is there any

oh

kind of specific and

m

h n do get preparation before each session that you can make the can kind

of elevate the session

m

like or do you think

oh

it's not really necessary to

m

write any paragraphs or prepare specific things i'm just curious

m

yah no i think you can you can prepare

oh

specific things you can write your paragraphs you can write down

m

like simple back stories or just what

m

you what you want out of that session that day

oh

um i personally when i do it i make sure i try to read back

on the previous session

m

notes because you want to be prepared for what has already happened for sure um

but

m

you really if you if you want the party to go a certain way or

if you want to set forth certain specifics that you want to happen that session

write the bullet points down down what you what you want to have come up

because believe

m

or not it's not always just pure chaos you do have a bit of control

and pointing that gun and aiming it and firing it doesn't mean you're goin to

hit exactly where you want to you can't be upset if it doesn't that's where

the improve comes in but if you want to set those specific bullet points down

there that's perfect that's what you need that's you want to hit that's where you

want to lead the party

m

i'm not saying railroad em i'm saying that's where you want this this session to

aim towards um

m

if you play with a bunch of dams like i do that never have as

it never really goes

oh

the way you wanted to

yeah

but that's okay as

oh

long as everybody is having fun that's fine but they got

oh

definitely write down the bullet points and see where the general direction you wanted to

go

m

and then adding to that

yeah

it does get a little easier

oh

prepicfosession in the beginning as

oh

you as you play longer with a group because

m

initially my minutes are very when i when i start with a new

m

group my notes are very like this is there's some ideas that i have for

this first session that we could touch on this is the goal that i'm working

towards i break it down even further

m

than that and i'm like this is either the conflict or the story

m

point i want to touch on like possibly within like the first

oh

session or session number two and then like kind

oh

of gently leave them there like it's

m

just they like ilidinwas

oh

saying like

ah

moving moving story beats story points around so that way like they still reach that

goal is just but they're still doing what they want to do in the thing

but when you play with people that you play like when you play with them

for a while it gets easier to know

m

and because i like playing with torn and iladean

oh

they play in a game

m

of mine i know that i can expect chaos from tourin know i can expect

laden to work off the chaos from thorn and also slightly chaotic as well a

little less but a little but also like i know that that's

yah

going to happen when they're playing together

h

so i know what

yes

i can present and what would work well during that session prep and it's just

getting to know your players like their play styles what they're what they're looking for

in

oh

there in their game in the in the game that they're playing and what their

care de how their character reacts to things so that's that's one of the ways

that i prefer my sessions

i like that i really think it's important to know your caryouknow your players and

to your point and kind of what you were talking about earlier thorn about you

know letting your players also add to the prep is there any anything you guys

do specifically saying hey this week you

m

are prepping this specific aspect player and not necessarily like the whole session but hey

player i need you to write this back story for this n p c or

d you guys do anything like that and if so how do you manage that

and what do you prefer versus what do you not prefer

thorn and i have a novels worth of text messages back and forth

m

a lot of things

h

we do is behind the scenes and i've we have another player penny who he

loves world building and so i have i have this idea for a council called

the veiled assembly and i had

m

the seven characters i had aim for the person i had the general idea

oh

i said penny here's two

yeah

sentences you're creating the character and you know luckily

yeah

like my my group luckily is all d ms so when i say hey create

a character they're like great i stated

oh

it i've got a back story

yeah

here the name here's a

yeah

here's a secondary if you need

yeah

it and just go on from there

may

and a lot of times we'll either get on a zoom call or text back

and forth but when we did when thornton did the lady hawk thing we i

mean for weeks we were talking back and forth and it was fun because both

of us ended up having to re watch the movie

yeah

to get a lot more in depth you know we were research right so

yeah

m yeah

it was

yeah

it was a lot of fun i definitely say as far as like specific prep

work if it's you know like bone daddy said if it's a bunch of friends

lot easier to not have to prep um and to your question you know if

you want to ask them to come up with

m

something or you know tell them that hey i'm totally okay with you coming up

with something on the fly just like the example i gave with thorn and that

that mercenary warlock

m

that was in the middle of a session that we were

m

we were talking and his character just said yeah i'm a part

yeah

of a mercenary warlock mercenary group but i was like

m

great yeah write that down cool

m

oh

h

so you

m

know but if

ah

it's i do the most prep work oddly enough for a one shot i have

m

the entire story planned out i have all my bullet points my computer is just

laden with stuff and

oh

the last one shot i did i actually had to compute ready to go i

had everything the story wise on one side i had all my

yeah

n p cs and towns on the other so that way i didn't ruin the

emersion ou know like

m

and do i do i remember who this guy was okay coote like instead i

could just look over really quick and it helps to have i've volunteered at a

it's called san and it's a animate convention here in san antonio and bone daddy

did it as well i had hand outs for the for the players and just

let em you know hey this is what's going on this is how we're going

to do things

m

and do that with our group there is no way i'm doing that i'm not

printing anything out for these guys there you

yeh

know

m

i have been playing with them long enough to where

yeah

i know that if i kill thorn's character he's totally cool with it he prefers

it because of the drama

yeh

and it's great

yeh

because everyone else at the table even though like let's say raven she hates

m

her character is dying

oh

and will do everything in her power in including begging like different gods are arch

m

and she became a clerk for a god because she didn't want her her character

to die

yeah

it was interesting so it was a wizard a wizard cleric

yeah

yeah

multi

m

yeah

class but with thorn if i ode unquote accidentally kill his character the rest of

the table still gets that feeling of drama but i haven't hurt thorns feelings you

know we've talked about it

m

many many times

yeah

you know hey what can i get away with your character he was like i

don't kno rip an

m

arm off it's fine you know it's just what we do

ah

so like i said like playing with friends you can get away with a lot

more

don't know how many

excellent

cons died

so it sounds like oh go ahead

yeah

don't know how many tons of diet in illidene campaign so i'm

m yeah

blots

the

yeah

he died

yeah

ten minutes

that's excellent

in

amazing

ten minutes

you

in

always

yeah

he died

love that got

it

to

was

love

great

it

and he did it so

yeah

great it was amazing

yeah

oh

yeah

yeah

well

yeah

well that's awesome well i think we're coming down to the end of the time

we have scheduled with you guys tanner are there any final questions you have for

this dungeon is occupied

okay if you could give one way for for a new d m to just

improve their session prep

oh

give one tip real quick at the end

oh

for each of you

oh that's a good one that's that's that's hard because i remember being in

oh

new d m and it sucked

yeah

it was

m

horrible

yeah yeah

the biggest tip is is don't be a to mess up honestly

okay

you're going to make mistakes the store is going go monkey you're goin to mess

up roles you're not going a know what roles to ask for it's okay

oh

this is a learning thing you have to learn to do this and to do

it well

oh

i'm not saying you can't come in and be amazing from the start but i

ah

guarantee united

oh

percent of the people aren't don't let it discourage you and as long as you

have good friends at the table and people that are supporting you you're going to

be fine so just don't

oh

be afraid to make a mistake because everybody does it

yeah

i made so many so that's

m

what i've got

love that

yeah

and i would say just just wholeheartedly follow

m

if you if you feel like something is working for you then do it like

everybody works differently one thinks differently and don't let don't let