Episode 10 - Not Final

Two friends discuss their roles as Dungeon Masters (DMs) in the game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). They discuss the responsibilities of a DM, their preferences for the term DM or Game Master (GM), and what draws them to the role. They also touch on their differences as DMs, with one being more brutal and rule-oriented, while the other focuses on storytelling and hero moments. Hey, Alex. Hey, Axis. What is a DM? A DM, or GM, in Dungeons & Dragons D&D, a Dungeon Master is the game's referee and lead storyteller. They are responsible for many aspects of the game. These include preparing the game, creating the world, running the adventure, embodying characters, and handling conflicts, both in the table and out of the table. That sounds about right. Yes, and you and I are both DMs. I personally prefer the term Dungeon Master. Of course, when I tell people I'm a Dungeon Master, it does get me in trouble, because they do exactly what you do, and they just initially make the assumption that I'm not talking about a tabletop role-playing game, and I don't know why I give people that vibe, but it is there. It's the red hair. We all know the red-headed are soulless, so we know to watch out. I also have freckles, so maybe that's it. Yeah. You know, all those souls. Right. Every time you take out a character, you get a new soul on your face. Yeah, you know, or my arms, you know. Or somewhere, yeah. So do you prefer the term DM or GM? I answer to either, honestly. I use the term Dungeon Master, but I've also been referred to as a Game Master. I think the Game Master term is more encompassing than just D&D. I think if you give the Game Master, you're talking about, hey, I could be really good at Monopoly and Dungeons & Dragons. Right. Well, and it is, because it could be tabletop RPGs. It actually expands into video games and all of that kind of stuff, too. So, yeah, Game Master, I feel like, is a much broader term, and I do prefer Dungeon Master as far as being at the D&D table. That's just my personal preference. Yeah, I think I do, too. Yeah. It's just more fitting. I mean, we spend most of our time in Dungeons or slaying dragons or slaying players. That's you. Yeah. Although, last Friday, I had my first TPK. I didn't mean to, though. It was so fun, though. We had Go Figure, it was Gru on a new character, and he was on my shoulder telling me the wrong thing to do, and I did it anyways. That's right. That's right. So, as a Dungeon Master, I would love to know kind of what it is that draws you to the game and what draws you to being the Dungeon Master for D&D, because this is not a role that everyone chooses. In fact, there are people that run for the hills from being a Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master role is very intimidating, first and foremost. I do feel like everyone should DM at least a one-shot in their life just to kind of see how it feels, but they see the Dungeon Master's Guide. They see all of the craziness that you have to kind of stick with to make a table go. But for me, it's a matter of providing spaces for people to play. I think that's probably what gets me through the day as a Dungeon Master, knowing that I am able to create these games that may not be available for other people in times or days that they're able to. Yeah, so I like being a Dungeon Master for kind of a different reason. So, a couple of different things. One, if it's not blatantly obvious from our podcast, I kind of like being the center of attention. Oh, clearly. Clearly. I'm a little bit of a peacock. If you are running the game and creating the story, that is your – you're the center of attention. It's your world. But that being said, that's not my whole driving force. It's just kind of a nice perk for me. I love to teach, and I love to help people learn. And even if it's not new players at my table, there is always an opportunity to learn things. For instance, if you ever get a DM at your table, that is probably one of the biggest learning curves that you'll ever see. And I know you've run into this because everybody DMs different. You and I do, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But it's so important that if you're a DM and you join a table, that you come in with a mindset that you are ready to play that person's game, not your game, and that you're willing to learn. And so, I mean, you and I were playing together the other night, and I was DMing. And I actually – I had a mechanic that you hadn't thought of before, and I gave your character favored terrain for the map we were on, on the fly, because it was a swamp-like map. So it made sense. Even though your character doesn't really have favored terrain, I wanted you to have the ability to navigate that map. It was also a matter of I didn't want you – you had to cater to me. It almost felt like you were taking it easy on me, and I didn't want you to feel like that. But then I had to stop myself and said, you know what, it's not my table. It's her table. It's her rules. It's her world. I'm going to shut up, and I'm going to try to survive, and I didn't. That's right. I gave you favored terrain, and you still didn't live. But I did run across that tree. You did. Yes, and that was really good. And it's great that you had the ability to sit there, and you learned from that. And so I love to teach, and I love to help people learn things, whether that be new players or very young players. I've talked about throughout the season that I had the group that was in middle school, and so those were kids, and they're learning to have not only their own voice, but they're learning skills and those things. Or take someone who's very, very shy. I have had players who were cripplingly shy and through D&D have had the ability to come into a group in a room full of people and actually have a conversation, and that's because D&D helped them break out of their shell and find who they were. And so I love helping people learn in that way. And, of course, there's the mechanics and things like that. It's not like telling a story. Well, it is telling a story. But, I mean, any story. I like telling the story as well. Oh, yes. All of the tables that we're doing in Axis Gaming, all of the tables that I'm doing myself, they're all official modules, right? We just started the Vecna Eve of Ruin one on Thursday nights. But they're all official modules. But I have my own homebrew campaigns that I just haven't dusted off and worked with. But getting into the D&D games, it's tell the story. There's a Humblewood book out that it's all small animals, like some Secret of Nym. Yes, I saw that. It looks so good. It looks so fun, but it's not specifically Dungeons & Dragons, so it would still be an excellent opportunity to get in there and see, okay, what story can I tell with a bunch of rodents? Yeah, absolutely. And it's a great way to have that creativity if you have the time for it. And I've had my own homebrew campaigns, like the Seven Deadly Sins campaign that I created for my turn pillars. We've got to play that. I would love to run that campaign. We've got to play that. And it would be a completely different game to what we all have. But it's a matter of all that wasted story that I just, we can't just leave it sit on a shelf and get dusty. We've got to play that game. It's still in the brain. It's okay. It'll all be there. You know, and so I also would love to touch on some ways that you and I are different as Dungeon Masters. Of course, we love telling the story. We love being the center of attention, because you do, too. Right. And we love helping people grow. But I would love to talk about how we're different. Yeah, and I think the most drastic difference is I'm very brutal whenever it comes to my players. Oftentimes, if I have people that want to rules lawyer up, I guess I should say, it generally ends worse for them, because I'm already bending rules so that everybody is having fun. And then I get thrown, well, rules has written this, or this is what the book says, or this is how my old DM says. Like, okay, we can do it that way. Well, this is how I had the events planned to go. But with your rules, now you have an extra step that you have to get through. Right. Hope you survive. Right, right. Whereas I think that kind of thing is the only thing that I really prep in advance. And, yeah, I think I know you do a lot of preparation on your stories. I come from the school of winging it. Like, I will, if I'm doing a module, I will read the module and know exactly what I'm supposed to do, or I will get on YouTube and I will watch a run through of something, because as my moniker lets you all know, I am the dyslexic DM, so reading modules for me is painful, which is part of the reason that I like playing on Roll20, because it brings it down so easily for me. So I don't do as much preparation. But as far as that kind of stuff, like the rules lawyer thing. Now, if it comes up and I'm in game and I've either put out a house rule, which I will do at the beginning of session zero for every game, or it comes up in game and someone wants to push a rule on me, I will stop the game dead. I won't make any exceptions. I won't make any accommodations. I will stop. I will stop over the table. We are not having this conversation. You will play the game the way I am playing it, and then we will have this discussion privately, because this is not to be had between me and anyone else. You and I will just have this conversation. Not you, obviously, Axis. I mean you. No, no, I get it. I get it. I knew what you meant. I knew what you meant. I didn't. Yeah. So, you know, whereas you'll entertain some of that and kind of work it in, Which is generally what I'm hoping for. Right. And I don't do that. And I have never, ever set out to kill a player, ever. And I don't know why that is. You should try it sometime. It's very gratifying, especially those type of players. I mean, killing you guys the other night was pretty funny. I'm telling you what. I mean, I just sat back and let it happen. It was very funny, because I want them to have hero moments, and I want to see the story develop, and I want to move forward. I think I am more apt to kick a player for something like that, though, if they are not able to have an adult conversation with me outside of the table, rather than letting them leave on their own. I think I put my foot down. I'm much more over the table, and you, I feel like, are much more in game. I also, thankfully, keep most of that kind of drama out from the session time. I have been lucky enough to find a group of players that, even if they don't agree with me initially, they will wait and message me after the session, so it doesn't bog everything down. All of the people, I mean, you've interacted with most of them at this point, but they all, they ask their questions, we move on, and all of that kind of conflict revolution happens behind the scenes. Thankfully, I'm able to shield most of that, but there's always players that just don't come back. There's always players that hate everything that you're doing. Hey, it might not be your jam. Yeah, and that's totally okay, too, and I actually encourage players. I tell them that from the beginning. Look, if this is not for you, that's okay, because there are other tables, and I will never be offended by that, but if you come at me in real life, then we have a problem. This is a game first, yeah. Exactly, it's a game, and it's, so one of the things that I do when I have players at my table in my home, because my table is my home, yes, in my dungeon, and no, it's not that kind. I interview players outside of my home. We'll sit down, we'll have coffee, things like that, and if we don't mesh as individuals, I don't have those people to my table. Yeah, I actually had, before I started interviewing players, and it was part of the reason that I started doing that, an individual that we had that would come to sessions, and I noticed that after, you know, two sessions, he had started talking to my son. Obviously, my son now is almost an adult, but at the time, he was no older than 10, and this individual would start having conversations, which is fine. There's no problem with that. They didn't seem inappropriate, until he started providing gifts to my son when he would show up to sessions, and I obviously put a kibosh on that very quickly, and it was inappropriate for a stranger to be doing that, but also, he started letting it affect the way he played the game, and so it was just not an individual that I felt comfortable having at my table. I think that's something else that kind of alienates people from the Dungeon Master role, is because at the end of the day, you still have to be the adult at the table. You have to be the one making those hard decisions to confront people. You have to be willing to say, hey, look, this isn't working, and I can't have you around because you're causing more problems. Right, and as a Dungeon Master, you have to be the adult. You have to be able to do that. And you have to have those conversations. I know something that you and I both do in our Session Zero is that I don't know if all DMs do it, but we will ask for people to privately message us in the event that they have any kind of triggers, and I don't mean the kind of triggers that are like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you said that. I'm talking about real triggers, things that might be of a sexual nature or things that might be of an abuse nature or things that are going to cause actual trauma. Yeah, I think that's where we are alike in that regard, is that we both, as different as we are as DMs, we seem to have the same core responsibility outlooks as all DMs seem to have. If I'm telling a story about something, and it goes down to where I'm dealing with a Necromancer, and people aren't okay with, like, body evisceration, okay, I will modify my story. We will take a lighter tone, or we will find that resolution in a different way. I think that's one of the big similarities that I think makes us able to work so well together. So we've talked about our similarities and our differences, probably not in full, but, you know, if you guys come out and meet us or come and message us on one of our socials, we'll tell you more about it. Hey, the live play is in the works already. It is. So I would love to tell you, and I haven't even told you this story, Axis, but I'd love to tell you about my favorite DMing ever. So it was a module, it was a one-shot. I pulled it off the DMs Guild, and of course I paid for it, and I had just finished running Curse of Strahd, and this is meant to be run as a one-shot after the entire group has killed Strahd, and it is called Weekend at Strahd. Ah, jeez. Yep, Weekend at Bernie's. So all of you 80s babies out there, all of my Gen Xers are probably going to love it. So not only does this campaign come in, and it gives you a little bit of comedy at the end of Curse of Strahd, because Curse of Strahd, especially the battle at the end, is so intense. Yeah. This is, like, all of the traps that are set in the house are still traps, and you're trying to work your way through the house. This thing comes with an 80s playlist that you can import or put on Spotify at your table. Okay. It is the best thing ever, and I actually came very close to TPK-ing my party, and I killed my dear husband in the game by cutting his head off with saw blades that went across the room that, kind of like, if you're thinking Indiana Jones, those saw blades that come out, this was kind of like that. And it was just so much fun, and I think that was probably my favorite time DM-ing ever, because we all just sat at the table and laughed and laughed and laughed, and we danced to these songs and we all sang, and we had the best time and we had snacks, and I feel like that's the epitome of what this game really should be, and that module, that one shot, was my absolute favorite to ever run. You know, I like that you brought up the social aspect of D&D, and I think I appreciate that you brought it up specifically because a lot of people will forget that Dungeons & Dragons is a collaborative game. So there is an aspect of social dynamic built into the game itself, and I think that because of that particular point, I would probably say my favorite story as a DM is probably the adventure that we did on Stormrack Isle. It was fairly fitting that I would step into 5E, albeit incredibly late, but I stepped into 5E into the online platform, and Stormrack Isle was my first adventure doing that, and I lucked out. We got a great team of adventurers. We lost a couple, but it's been a wild ride with that same group of people since then, and that was November of 2023, and here it is halfway through 2024, and we're still going strong. Yeah, there have been some storyline changes, but it's been a wild ride, and it seems like my favorite story is ongoing at this point. Well, and it's not even that it's just the story. One of our players actually was traveling recently and wasn't able to make the stop, but I actually contacted that person privately and was like, hey, if you're coming through town, I would love to sit down and have coffee, and that would have been our first meeting, but I was comfortable doing that because we have had this rapport for six months now. Yeah. These people are our friends now. I would definitely, if one of them called and said, hey, something's going on and I need help, I would pick up the phone. I'm right there with you. I get it. I get it. Yeah, so the social aspect is definitely there, and I think that it is really, I think it's because the reason that D&D became so much stronger during the pandemic is because it allowed for that social aspect when none of us could talk to each other, none of us could see each other, and you couldn't be around the table, and so we all hopped online. Yeah. That leads us into our homebrew because you and I have both homebrewed, and this week we have something special because you made our homebrew this week. We did, or I did. I made it. It's all me. I'm the center of attention. Yay me. Yeah, so this is called the Dungeon Master's Draft, and I decided to go with a coffee smoothie. I decided to do a smoothie because whenever you and I first met, we bonded over a couple of smoothies. We did. And it has all kind of worked out since then. We've got a thriving gaming community. We interact almost every day, and now we've got a podcast that we are subjecting the Internet to. Yes, and I hear that people love it, so we will keep doing it. Excellent. But yeah, the Dungeon Master's Draft is kind of a merger and fusion of two Dungeon Masters, and it kind of goes like this. Instead of a half cup of milk, I actually used a protein shake, about the same amount provided by Alex. Yes. It was a great addition instead of milk, but I feel like any kind of milk substitute would work, but it's going to be a half a cup of milk, a two-thirds cup cold brew or coffee. It doesn't really matter. Cold works better, but if you just brewed it, that's okay too. Throw in a full banana, a tablespoon of almond butter, and a teaspoon of cocoa powder, as well as enough ice cubes to kind of make the spoon how you want. In addition, you're going to throw all of that into the blender and enjoy it. If you want to enjoy it with alcohol, there is a peanut butter whiskey that you can add to it. I used the Screwball brand, but any peanut butter flavoring will do. If you do prefer more of a peanut butter taste, just throw in a big dollop of actual peanut butter, organic if you can. It's healthier. That is the Dungeon Master's Draft. Delightful. Seeing as I work out every day and have a protein shake every day, I will happily be doing that tomorrow morning. That's the reason I provided you that protein shake, and I'm so glad that you used it. It's a coffee-flavored protein shake. It is. I forgot to mention that. I was thinking it was just chocolate milk. It is actual coffee-flavored. It is. Yes, it's a coffee-flavored protein shake. That sounds delightful. It really does. It sounds like a mocha, like a cold mocha. It's actually a spinoff of one of my old smoothies that I used to eat, that I used to drink whenever I was working out and lifting heavily. All it was was a banana, the almond butter, the peanut butter, or not a pound, a cup of mixed berries, and some almond milk. I was just like, you know what? We'll throw it all together and mash it up and see how it comes out. I tried it tonight, and it actually tastes really good, just like this podcast, which is something that you and I kind of threw everything together, blended it up, and now we've got this. That's right. I love it. I love it. Well, I will have to have it tomorrow morning when I go to the gym. I know. Isn't the idea so sweet I almost made myself throw up? I know. The coffee's bitter, and that's you. That's me, yeah. Then it's sweet, and that's me. Moving on. You all can all find out in person at the June 7th through the 9th Fan Expo here in Dallas if you want to come meet us in person. We're going to have lots of goodies at this point. We have T-shirts, tote bags, and coffee mugs that we will be handing out, as well as stickers in abundance. Stickers. Yes, all the stickers. So many stickers. And we just want to say a big, huge thank you to all of you. We have got some pretty loyal listeners at this point, and we have officially made it over 100 listens, and we could not do that without you. So thank all of you so much for being here and going on this journey with us. This is our last episode of Season 1, and we will be coming back to you June 12th for Season 2, which is going to be extra special because we will be having guest stars on the show in Season 2. Woo-hoo! Yes. Thank you all so much for listening, and this is Dungeons & Darkroasts.