Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Dungeon Master Tips (w/ Amy Vorpahl) | Quests N’ Answers

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Welcome back to Quests N’ Answers! This week, Dan Casey sits down with Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode gamemaster Amy Vorpahl to break down her approach to running RPGs, her hot takes about the “Rule of Cool,” and whether it’s better to run home brew TTRPG campaigns or embrace pre-written campaign modules. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now, usually this is the after-show for ongoing actual play TTRPG series, Saga's of Sundry Goblin mode, but today we're going to be zooming out a little bit further. I'm going to look at the fine art of game mastering, GMing, DMing, narrating, storytelling, whatever you want to call the role. It's maybe the most important one at any table you're sitting down to play when you're playing a tabletop role-playing game. Now, joining me today to help talk about this unique craft from her unique perspective is the one, the only game master of Saga's Up Sundry Goblin Mode, Amy Vorpal. Amy, how are you? Hello, I'm doing great. I could talk about this for so long. I never get a chance to talk about

my opinions about game mastering. So yeah, I want to. I want to really bad. Good, good. I had a feeling, well, you made that abundantly clear the moment we stopped filming after each and every episode of Goblin Mode. So, I was like, who do I talk to? I need, I need, well, I need to talk to someone, but also I need So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, look. We'll just do it, you know, a few months later, many months later. Yes. My hours are billable. You'll get an invoice in the mail after this. But why don't we start like any good therapist in the past in perhaps your childhood or, I don't know, adolescence, we'll figure out. When did you, Amy, first get into the world of tabletop role playing games? What was your avenue into this? Oh, I love this. I actually started later than I think most people,

I didn't start until my first day of my freshman year of college. So I was 18 and I had nine Lord of the Rings posters in my, in my room, in my dorm. Yeah, one for each of the rings of men. That's right. And one Yoda Mosaic poster. So fit that into, you know, Middle Earth lore. But I had a friend or a cousin whose friend, they were all coming to say hi, first day of college. And the friend looked around my room, knew that I was an acting major, and was like, have I got the game for you?

Just clocked you and nuked you from orbit. Oh, my God. And it was that night or the next night. I really can't remember that they had already, they had put together a crew to play. And I think it was a dungeon master, his girlfriend, this friend, Nathan and his twin brother, Brandon. and they were like, it would be nice to have another girl. And anyway, like, this woman seems perfect. So I did. I played, and I was, I fell in love immediately. It was a done deal from then.

And I played all throughout college. We hung out at college that summer, and we just played pretty much nonstop. We were all RAs over the summer, which just meant we had to pass out keys when people asked for them, which meant that we were in the office playing Dungeons and Dragons behind the desk. When we weren't doing that, we were playing the PlayStation 2 game, I think, of Dungeons and Dragons. Bouldersgate, Dark Alliance?

It might have been. I can't remember the name. Is that it was four player co-op on single screen? I think it was Dark Alliance. Fantastic game. Yes. And so it was like, we weren't doing, we didn't do anything else that summer. And it was, it was one of those things where everyone, everyone else has these stories of like how they were made fun of it and they had to keep it secret.

And it was just like, I, it was just at the forefront of my entire life. I never felt ostracized. It was like, me and my buds, that's what we do for a very long time. I love that. It's so wonderful to hear because that's been sort of my experience as well. I started playing back in middle school. I remember my dad got me the like, because I begged for, because he played when he was a kid. I got the like AD&D box set.

And I was just like, I was an only child, so I didn't have anyone to play with. So I was just playing by myself in my room, just like, exploring every single page and like making characters and being like, this is so cool. I wish there were more people to play with. And when I got to middle school, they had this one teacher founded the Strategy Gaming Club and just exposed me to all of these incredible worlds like Dungeons and Dragons, cyberpunk, all of these amazing things. And I'm so grateful for that because, you know, a lot of people, you know, you mentioned that some people felt like they were drawn to this because they feel ostracized. But I don't know. I think it's just, it's nice when it doesn't feel like

on the other end of that, there's not gatekeeping. You're not being kept out. It was like, hey, drawbridge is down. Everybody come on in. No portcullis. What was the teacher's name? I wish I could remember. My brain is putting at this point just from, like, turning my brain into glass by staring

at my phone for 19 hours a day and also having a small child at home. Oh. Which one of those is doing the heavy lifting, I wonder? I'm doing the heavy lifting because he is basically just like a, I'm, a medicine ball that I must goblets squat constantly and wrangle because he is a much like tippy. He's very agile and can elude your grasp at a moment's notice. But I apologize.

I will go back and I will, I will figure this out will put in the comment section because I just blacked out middle school. I just woke up one day and I was here. It was fine. It was totally fine. And my apologies to that teacher, he was wonderful. But sorry. you've been excised from history, buddy.

And that's coming from a history major in college. But do you remember your first character in that campaign? Yes, I do. Oh, yeah. Who was this character? Her name was Neferial Benadden, which I thought was so clever because it's nefarious and then the Bena being good. And she was a chaotic, neutral, halfling rogue baby.

And she talked like Audrey from a little shop of horrors. Amazing. On day one, I didn't know anything about this game, and they were like, build a character. And I was like, character, you say, that means this to me. And yeah, they were like, nobody else ever did an accent. Although one guy he played a samurai. I remember him specifically, he played Jin the samurai, and he would just lower his voice like Batman. But other than that, no other voices.

And everyone was like, oh, my gosh, we found the right person, you know. So, yeah, Neferio Venetan. No, I respect it though, because it's always like a big swing sometimes when you show up to the table, especially if there are people you haven't played with before. Oh, yeah. I'm going to do a character voice. Then you're like, oh, no one else is doing one. Do I stop? And the answer is, no, don't stop if you want to do the character voice.

You're here to play the character you want to play. Likewise, no one else has to do a character voice if they don't want to do one. And Dan, no one did. No one did. It's okay. As long as you're having fun and as long as you're having fun and as long as, long as they're not like, hey, you're freaking everyone out. You're too close to Audrey, too. We're pretty worried. We're worried for your vocal cords. Yeah, she only said Feed Me Seymour.

So I don't know. It was okay. Well, look, this is a good, I think, turning point as well in terms of we were just chatting a bit about ways to, as a player, what to do it to feel comfortable. But, you know, there's another very important role at any table that needs to make sure that not just the players are feeling uncomfortable at all the trains are running on time. And that is that as the narrator, the storyteller, the DM, the GM, the narrator, whatever you want to call it. I said narrator twice. Yeah, all the titles. Yeah. Yes, all of the titles, some proper nouns, some not. When did you first, do you remember when you first ran a game? How did you make that transition? What, what sparked that impetus inside

of you to be like, you know what? I want to be behind the shield. Okay, great. I never did. You were just like, hey, you got to do this. I never wanted this. I did not ask for this. I wouldn't give it up now for the world, but I did not. I have two answers. So the first time I actually dungeon mastered, it didn't happen because I had a panic attack. So everyone came together.

We were going to play. I had bought a module from the gaming store, and I was going to run a module. This was, I had already moved to L.A. It must have been my first or second to third year. here very early on, for reference, I've been here like almost 20 years now. And I got too scared. I never actually read the module. So we show up and I knew I was like, I'll open the book and whatever comes out comes out. You know, I'd been doing improv. I could improvise this. And I couldn't. Like I stumbled. I almost started crying. Like it was bad. It was just bad. And someone was zooming in.

I think we had four people, four players total. And it just didn't. It was like, I, sorry guys, I, I, and then now I don't even know how to explain it because I don't remember because it was actually pretty traumatizing. I mean, it was the definitive dream where you, you're an actor, you go out on stage and you don't know your lines. That is what happened and there's nothing to do. And also, because I am the source of the game, there's nothing for anyone to do if there's not a game to play. It was horrible. So, anyway. Greetings, adventurer.

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It's nice to hear, though. It's like, look, even people that are doing this on a professional level sometimes stumble out of the gate. It's definitely, there's a level. I'm definitely someone who relies on an ability to think on the fly and off the cuff in many situations. And there's certain situations where you cannot do that. You cannot yes and your way out of every single.

situation, despite what certain upright citizens might try to tell you. Yes. Harold. It didn't, yes, Harold, Mod. It didn't go, it didn't go my way. It didn't go anyone's way that day. However, the next time, so that actually was years later when I did DM, and so the real, real first time I ever dungeon mastered was on camera.

Okay. And it was, it was for, it was for, we did a thing on mothership called D&D for the AARP And it was three seniors and one of our other writers for Mothership, Josh Flom. And I was like, I'll DM for, you know, these people. I know enough of the rules at this point that nothing, nothing, you know, and this isn't the comedy. Like the D&D playing isn't going to be the comedy. So that, that was, I was still very nervous.

And it was just like I was the person on mothership who could DM. You know, they could have maybe outsourced this. But at the time there was budget and da, da, da, da, I was like, just get Amy. She can do it. And I was like, I think I can. Like I don't, and I don't, I think it's going to be horrible. Um, you can still see it on the internet.

I'm not proud of it. I will say like I, it's, uh, there are comments. What you did to those seniors? I. Thank God they're not good. Guys, guys, it's not good. It's not good. Uh, but, but I guess it's like I'm not,

when I say I'm not proud of it, I just mean, yeah, I could have done. I could have done better. Someone else probably would have done better. It really was my first time. You can't say that. You can't, there's no caveats on camera to be like, wait, wait, but it is my first time. Also, I didn't want the mothership people to know that. And you got to come in with a level of confidence.

So I faked it until I made it. And it was totally fine, totally fine. But I look back and I go, yeah, there was a lot of Amy in that. There's just a lot. There's a lot more now that I know that I can do with it, you know, like rules to break and which rules to break. If not all. Yeah. And it really, to me.

like, you know, we were chatting a bit before we started recording, and I've DMed a handful of times, like back in high school a little bit and a handful of one shots here and there. And it's terrifying each and every time I sit down because I do it so infrequently. It really is a muscle that you have to train, just like any type of performance, like, you know, the same way that when you're playing a character, you learn your kit, you learn your class, you learn what your character can and can't do within the bounds of this. world and when you are then responsible for painting every single scene from whole cloth, bringing characters to life, even when you have the scaffolding of a module, it can be a lot.

Oh, especially. I'm, I almost, if I, if I were to give advice to a new dungeon master, I would, who is planning on doing a larger campaign? A one shot, do, freaking just do a module. It's fine. But if you're going to do a longer campaign, do home brew. It's easier. And the reason is because if you're going to run a module campaign or a pre-written campaign, your entire job is memorization. Like, that's it. That's your job.

And that's not that fun. Homebrew, there's so much freedom. You actually have to prepare so much less and pretend that you've prepared more. And it's just way, yeah, it's easier and it is more fun. And you get the sense, you do get the sense immediately that, okay, I'm not the. only one telling this story. But in a module, it can feel like you might be the only one telling this story and everyone else is out there to fuck it up. Yeah, until someone comes in and asks you, what is your first and last name every single

NPC they made? Oh, yes, yes. That wound up being in this. At least it wasn't like in this normal, midwestern town where everyone is just pretty nice, come up with all of this. their names. It was like, you know, just throw some consonants and vowels at the wall and say the ones that stick. Yeah, come up with the world's most disgusting compound names, and we'll go from there. Dan, what's your, do you remember what your favorite goblin name is? I go back and forth because I've listened down to and watched down the episodes so many times that they're just seared into my brain. I'm a big fan of Numbi

gum trunk. And for those of you don't know, We're specifically talking about all of the myriad goblins we met in episodes 14 and 15 of Saga's of Sundry Goblin mode, a goblin by any other name, and the Goblin Games. Yunk Jaggers, pretty great. Nurh Herflederg, an instant classic that prompted an apology to the nation of Sweden. And, God, there's a couple others that really just tickled me. Rart Huffamp. Rart HuffMamp, it's a disgusting name. It is.

Thinking it, it causes psychic damage. Saying it, it is uncomfortable to the palate. It is a bad mouth feel, and you should be ashamed. It should be a forbidden word within most halls. Yes, agreed, agreed. Curse upon thy family. The Huffman clan should be banished to the ethereal realm or whatever lies beneath that. Amazing.

But I do appreciate your point. were making about how with home brew you can just sort of you know it can be less work i can i can definitely understand the school of thought where you feel like it's going to be more work i think that boils down to your own individual approach to storytelling and prep i know for myself for many years it's been something of uh i have so many projects left unfinished because i have this like stupid perfectionist tendency where i'm like well if it's not perfect i can't finish it if i'm not in the right conditions whereas if i just sat down to work on it then i would have have something a finished product that I could improve. But I think that's something that maybe

holds a lot of people in place instead of just doing a rough draft or, you know, if there's something you like, say you really love Lord of the Rings, take the skeleton of that and graft it onto your homebrew world and mix and matches you want. Or even with like a pre-written module. Like we just did a cursive stride campaign in the last couple of years with my home group. And, you know, we definitely went way off book in some really fun and exciting ways. So the world is truly your oyster. Yes, gosh. I've often said, like, your prep is your rough draft. And actually, while you're playing it, it's impossible. It's your rough draft, too. And the moment you get to do a second draft is also right now. Do you know what I mean? Like, like, and it's in encounters where

maybe your guy is going down, like, they're all getting their roles and you're not getting any roles, but you're like, well, Mrs. Monster is actually really cool. Second draft, give him more, hit points, you know? Like, there are, there are so many, there are so many ways to do second drafts and make it your version of perfect, literally right now in the game. And there's, it's almost too much power as a dungeon master,

but there's no dungeon master I know who doesn't end the fight when it's over and not when the numbers number out, you know, so. Yeah, I mean that, that to me, I definitely appreciate when people sort of opt towards the rule of cool,

uh, with that as opposed to being sort of hard and fast dedicated to. Asterisk. What's the asterisk? Asterisk is that early game, and I would say that could be, it's definitely levels one through five, but I would even argue maybe even, maybe one through three or four or something like that.

One through five, let's say that. Those are when I think, and I, sure, rule of cool, but I think rule of cool is being, I guess here's my hot take. Rural of Cool gets tossed around too much. Oh, it's rule of cool. real cool. And my my take is early on people should feel like they can do shit and whatever, but then you get to levels five, six, seven, definitely upwards in nine, like level nine.

The rules are cool. Like the rules just are cool. So if you go off too much, then it's like, well, I'm pressing my video game controller buttons. And it's almost like, well, I guess it doesn't matter because someone else's, you know, just grabbed a spatula and someone thought that would be fun to, like, use as a weapon, you know, it's, but the rules are cool. I guess that's my, that's my, no, no, and look, your point is well taken. When I say rule of cool, I mean, what is going to make for the most enjoyable story that we are mutually telling together as the player and the dungeon master? I see. I don't, I don't necessarily mean, like, well, if you're, if you're grabbing a spatula and you're trying to like fight the vampire lord there better be an excellent reason for why you're doing this

because like otherwise i believe the coolest thing it can happen is you get appropriately punished for that or like it doesn't go how you think it's going to go and i think it also depends on what game you're playing you know with goblin mode we're using dungeons and dragons but i love systems where your characters are really fragile i love where there's a high risk that your character could die a horrible death. I remember I learned that lesson violently and early when I played cyberpunk 2020 back in middle school. I'm like, oh my God. My character just got annihilated by some guy with an oozy in an alleyway. That was awesome. Let's go again. Yeah. So I think you have to modulate accordingly. That when I say rule of cool,

that's what I'm referring to. But I agree. That's the whole point. You want to get to those levels so you can do the cool things. I feel like so many campaigns, you know, people that go into a campaign because, as we know, the hardest part of any TTRPG is making the time with other adults to sit down and make time for each other. It's the scheduling. Yeah. That's why it's like, okay, if you make it to those levels, yeah, you should get to use the ability that you've taken so long to rightfully earn.

But, yeah. Dude, I'm playing, I'm playing Strad right now. I'm running it. And it is a, it is a, it's a totally different experience from Goblin mode. Not in, not in the gameplay. I would hope so. But I will say not in the gameplay because, you know, the players are appropriately chaotic.

But in the prep and like what the session winds up actually being. Not to say, you know, Gavamode is definitely a show. We're playing Dungeons and Dragons. It has a comedic lean just by nature of, you know, who the cast are. There's some moments of darkness. But because Strut is also, it's dark

with some moments of lightness. And it's also a home game. And it's also, it's not homebrew. It's not from my... brain. It's something that is pre-written. And I have done, I've done a couple of sessions. I am one of those Dungeon Masters that can't not prep. It is not fun for me not to prep. Okay? I know some people who are like, oh, why, I never prep. And I'm like, that would not be fun for me. I know that I don't like, I don't, it's, I don't, that's not interesting to me either. And I don't

think it's interesting to too many, too many, no, maybe it's interesting to players. I'm not going to write anyone's, I'm not going to put words in anyone's mouth. But it's not fun. I like building a playground. I like it being messed with and I like building a playground and everything that I built never coming to fruition. That's totally fine. But to have had zero prep. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.m.S. slash college PC.

The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark. every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass canon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. I think I like ideas. I like having ideas too. And if all of that impetus of ideas is happening either in the moment or by my players, then when do I get to have funds? I like writing,

you know? So that being said, I've done some games with Strad where I'm like, I don't need to. Maybe I don't need to prep as much as I think I do. Wrong. Wrong. Not for me. Like, it goes so much. I have way more fun when I do over prep, and I memorize the townspeople's names. Because everything in it is connected.

Like, Stratt has rooms in his castle that have, like, just so many noodles of lines drawn throughout everything that could even happen in Borovia. So it's, anyway, that it's, but fuck, do you think I do that? that for goblin mode. I've got my like past lore and then I'm like a kegger into a rager, huh? To be fair, to be fair, that was just the heist plan that Jason and Danielle insisted upon until it became our shared reality. That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's y'all's world and I'm just in it. But it, yes. So it's many, it's a different ball game on so many levels. But the thing that stays the same is kind of the amount of prep.

Yeah, and that's interesting as well. I mean, I can definitely relate to that. I've played a bit of 10 candles, for example, a game that I love. It bills itself as zero prep. And look, you can play it with zero prep, but I think it's a more rewarding experience if you do a modicum of prep, at least one person, sort of like, hey, here's kind of the scenario or like, the world we're going to be in.

We will collectively build this together because that's a game that has shared narration rights and shared DMing built into its mechanics. But if you're all just kind of going in there, William, Nillium, I think it makes for kind of a less rewarding experience overall. But again, your mileage may vary. Everyone's different.

Everyone's different. But I mean, it makes me, it makes me so nervous. I don't think I want to play in a game with a DM who didn't prep anything. Because I also play as a player I build out my character, I build out my backstory and I want things to mean things even if it is picking up a spatula like okay well how is that narratively important

and if the dungeon master has prepped then they can help me make things mean things as opposed to going I don't know you're just you're in a kitchen oh you want to pick it oh you want to pick it oh no okay now it means something it's like you could plant I like Easter eggs and planting and secrets And I do say that every genre of Dungeon of Dungeons and Dragons, but every genre of, maybe not every TTRP, but most TTRPGs, every main genre of TTRPGs is mystery. And then everything below that.

It's like, no, you're a mystery fantasy, mystery, sci-fi, mystery, whatever, because the DM should know things that you don't know. Of course. Yeah. And you're all sort of collectively revealing the narrative fog of war together. every time you open a new door, a new area appears before your eyes. You have no idea what's going to be behind that door. Maybe you do, but I don't believe you. I'm curious, though, what for you is sort of like the biggest unseen work that goes

into prepping to run a session, whether it be a one-shot or something that's going to become a campaign? The unseen work, I guess, for me, it's the walks and the percolating. Like I can point to my Google Doc and say, look, this is what I've prepped. But it's not accurate because I think about things. And I taught a dungeon master school for four months last year. And the first lesson I said was DMing is not a solo operation. One, at the table, it's not a solo operation.

You've got your players. But I also believe that even your prep, you will get lost in the sauce so fast if you're the only one soundboarding yourself. and I think that's true for any writing, but I've never run something without even telling it a little bit to my mom. Like, hey, this is what I'm thinking or a partner or a friend. And the school, I encourage them to be each other's. I'm like, it takes 10 minutes. Like, I swear to God, it's not a lot. But when you start talking about your ideas out loud to another person, there's energy exchange that actually starts creating.

I guess you could do it to yourself, do it with yourself. I've done it on walks where, to me, I'm, like, channeling a bit of the spirit of the game or something. Like, there's a dialogue happening. But there's just no comparison to being able to speak out loud to your ideas, get some feedback, and, I don't know, clarify and go from there. Even with Stratt, even with something, that's not true. With Stratt, I don't need anyone else because it's just, it's me in the book, baby. But, yeah, I think it's the- That's also you in dialogue with the authors of the module.

Okay. Yes. And that was my point all along is that it's, yeah. You're welcome. Thank you, Dan. No, but for Goblin Mode, obviously, I was so blessed to have story producers, Wren and Chawan. And Rin, particularly, we had so many conversations about what happens next.

She was so, so, so, so helpful with the Goblin Games. It was her idea to make them, like, I knew it was going to be a tournament, but she had it. She was like in the, like, in the southeast, in the south, there are these like fairs and clinics. And she also like the Scottish games, they've got some weird stuff. And so she was just like, she knew what I was going for and then yes and it so much that it turned into what it actually is. is. And then the other part, I remember this phone call so vividly. It was when Tippy died. And we knew Ross was coming on the next episode. And so we just had like this moment where a character died, which what the hell do you do with that? And then not to mention there's-

Was not planned as we as people know was not planned for at all. No. No. It was also like, I mean, we were joking in the green room like, does Jason still have a job? Ha-ha, ha. And it's like, And then no one's ready to make, like, Dan, you can't make that call, not really. And then Graham is like, I don't know, Amy, what do you think? And I'm like, no, no, not me. Can anyone have a thought about this? And so, but that phone call was the longest phone call we had. I was walking around my neighborhood for two and a half hours on the phone with Rent.

And what we came up with was, I think that's why episode 12 is like probably my favorite episode because it was trial by fire. and it came out even better. But yes, having help on any level, having discussions is the biggest unseen work of a dungeon master, the brainstorming and just the percolating. Well, no, I love that because it's also,

look, when you sit down to the table with your players, you're going to be vocalizing this story. And why not you can view it as a dress rehearsal or just, it always helps to talk through certain things. I definitely find that to be very valuable in my own creative process. Well, you're, someone's going to go, well, what if this happens?

Or I would just do this. Why do they have to go there? And you're like, oh, my entire idea. You're right. I need to put a different objective or of different motivation. Like, there's going to be holes that are totally solvable. Yes. But you might want to know what those holes are before.

And look, I'm open, as a player, I'm open to a certain level of railroading for lack of a better term. Because, you know, I recognize that the dungeon master, the storyteller has put a lot of work into this story and I want to see where it's going. But at the same time, you all have to develop that shorthand and figure out, okay, how much, how much rain do I want to give my players to wreak havoc in the sandbox I've created? Are they going to help me build this sandcastle or am I okay if they kick it over? I think another thing is, is that this happened, this came up a few times in the Dungeon Master School is the appropriate level of mean to be to the world and to the players. So

you always get these memes and like the internet going, I'm the dungeon master. Everyone I can kill everybody. Ha ha ha ha. And it's like that ha ha ha, but also you should. You know, like actually you should you should exercise that right when necessary. But but do have you do have leverage. Like if people are doing shenanigans, okay, now it's not 12 guards. It's the entire city watch and it's a hundred and like that you're gonna die like or get brought down to zero.

Like like do the consequences. And also if the characters have the ability to do something, that means there's at least one other being in the world who has that ability. So, you know, if they're going to, you know, cause chaos or do whatever they're going to do, this isn't, they're not, they don't exist in a vacuum. They're not, you know, plot protected. So make it just be like, great, you want to do that? Oh, that's a good one for me to know that I also can do. And here are these other, this other group who's well organized and probably has some level five, level 10 people there. too, they can do that too.

And you, and you doing it taught them that they could do that too. Yes. No, I love that. Take your medicine. Someone who loves medicine, please. Advil, I'm accepting sponsors. Any of all ibuprofen? You make my body possible.

No, I love the idea that for every player action, there is a NPC reaction, this level of narrative physics at work because, you know, there needs to be. There needs to be a sense of actions have consequences and that what you do as a player matters because you're, that's why I love tabletop role playing games is because you're building a shared story. Like, yes, in many cases, you are like a player, a character within the larger world of this omniscient storyteller. But your actions are writing things that they need to.

respond to in real time, and that's the beauty of it. It's a collaborative storytelling mechanism, unlike most things that I've experienced, and I find it endlessly rewarding. So, yeah, just be prepared if you're going to live that murder hobo life, some hobos may murder back. Well, that's well said, yes. Yeah, I guess. I guess it was well said. That's well said. It was well comma, said. It was well said. The other part of that is to be mean to the world and being mean to the world by that, I just mean

like, if you're going to play Skyrim, that's fine but why not play The Witcher where there are real problems and people are just outside crying? Like, because if everything is, it was a note when people would pitch things, I'm like, but it, even if this is post-apocalyptic and this happened, this

happened, it does, the way you're pitching it, it seems like everything's kind of okay. Like, if everyone has everything all figured out for the most part, what are the players even doing then? Like, what problems would they, like, want to solve? So if, you know, players aren't biting on your plot hooks, the reason is most likely that you haven't been mean enough to the players or mean enough to the world around the players?

I would just also like to say that Skyrim does have a very real problem that people need to solve, and that is how quickly can I eat 50 in tight? wheels of cheese. It's a problem. It defies time and space itself. Also, also if you, so you can carry that weight, that weight was once in your backpack. Now you've just put it in your body. There's no like rules for bowels or, you know, releasing things from your body. There were mods for that, Amy. Okay. But, but the weight didn't go anywhere. Like you've just, you've just reallocated the weight, but in your backpack. That's why you hire someone to follow you who's sworn to carry your burdens. Yeah, they're proponents of codependence in Skyroom.

And that's okay. Look, it's an important lesson that people need to learn. Speaking of important lessons, I'm curious, Amy, what is, you mentioned some stuff that you would give advice to people for, if they're sitting down to DM for the first time. What would you, what's a piece of advice that you wish you knew when you first started out, especially for building towards a campaign? What is a piece of advice you would give someone who's interested in building out a campaign once they've decided to maybe go the home brew route, for example? I think what I would say, and this is true, I think, for a lot of D&D and PrEP. When you get to, you're going to want to invest, not invest, but read something about the hero's journey. Whatever form that is, the Harmon Circle, I think, is a really story circle, yeah.

Story Circle, that's like a really bite-sized version of it that's totally fine. anything else, the hero's journey, even saved by a cat. It's all the same format in different words, but I would read something like that and then know that you're going to be prepping kind of, let's say there's 12, and so you're going to be prepping kind of one through,

maybe six, then you're not going to prep these. These are for the players to mess with, and you might prep 12. You might prep like the end. Yeah, but you put with options. Yeah, get a sense of where they're going. So, but I, that's true for the campaign. So you're gonna wanna prep 12, like,

what, what is the big thing that's happening that's affecting a lot of people? That would be the lore, maybe deities, maybe, you know, McGuff, I think Goblin Mode is a very magical item heavy story. But they're, but Strad, like, you would wanna prep, like, what's Strad's deal? And then, and then forget about how they're gonna get there,

all of that, but prep like what they want, why they would say no, why they ultimately would say yes, to the journey and then and then what they want, but they, they might get what they want, but it's not what they need. Maybe prep that. And then, and then you're done. Like the how of it, the act two, act two A, act two B. No, no, don't touch it. Like, don't worry about it. They'll, you know, have how you think you would solve it. And then they'll have a much better way of solving it. But there's, it's, um, act two A and act to be are actually the most difficult things to

write in narrative. And in D&D, you actually don't have to write them to prep. You play them out with the characters, and their movements are going to be miles and miles better than anything that you could think of. Yeah, and that makes sense to me in particular, especially in the context of something like TTRBG, because you don't know what these little gremlins at your table are going to do. You know where they're going to start, you know where you want them to end, what happens in between. That's the beauty of it. It's just like atoms colliding and just figuring out how you use that momentum. And the other thing I will say is spend. I, when I started strawed, it was some people had never played before and it's still fun.

And I got lost in session two where I was like, what is this missing? And I realized, oh, it's missing actual player characters. They had formed great characters, all of that. And I was like, I don't know how to punish them. I don't know how to pull their strings. So I got on the phone with each one of them for 30 minutes to an hour. and we built full backstories, and now I know.

Now I know what to do. Even in Borovia that does not exist on this plane or the planes that they're used to, I realize I don't know how to play a game without characters with backstories. So do that. And then let that tell the story.

Because even if you've got your really cool, big bad guy and all of that, if you can draw the lines and tie the strings all the way, like do your little red line, you know, crime scene board thing. It's going to be way, way, way, way more fun for me as a dungeon master. You know, it's all I know is my experience. But I think it'll be more fun for the players.

No, as someone who is primarily a player, I 1,000% agree. And something that you did that I really appreciated when we started Goblin Mode was you sent around sort of like a survey of like, here's a bunch of questions I'd like you to answer about your character. And it caused me to think about fibs in a way that I might not have until I sat down to the table. Because left to my druthers, I would have been like, I have like the 60 second rundown of who fibs is in my head. But this made me think about who was he? Like, how does he exist?

What's the context of his life? What are his goals? What are his aspirations? Like, who are his friends? Who are his enemies? And it's stuff like that where even if it doesn't come into. to play, it's useful to me. It's useful to you as the storyteller.

But what's really exciting, and this is something that happened to me in, like, not just in goblin mode, but also in, like, my home game, you know, a detail, like an offhanded detail I made up for my character in my Curse of Strad game came back to be a major plot point, like two years into the campaign. And it blew my mind because as soon as he, as soon as the DM mentioned it, I was like, no way. This is so cool. This thing that I thought was just kind of like a detail in the tapestry of my life is now something that is like weaving in this cool new thread.

And you know that person had been sitting on that, you know, and just like waiting for the time to be right. Yeah. And it's just like it's just something that needed to be in like, and this is in the context of like an existing module. They just kind of grafted this on to an existing character and sort of replaced that character in a way where I'm like, oh, oh, that's super cool. I didn't realize. And now it just adds this level of depth and investment into a side character that made the whole campaign so much better for me as a player.

It is literally, that's my journey with Strut. So we've played five times now. And what I realize, and so I'll just say this, I'm learning as I go because I've never played a pre-written campaign in my fucking life. So I've been reading articles about how to play it well. And there's something that's missing from that advice and from what I'm learning is every time you, so every genre of TTRPGs is a mystery. And it's the dungeon master who needs to know what's really going on. And you see that in pre-written adventures people, there'll be a title that says, what's really going on?

And it'll be really early on. Like, it will be very early on. And so you do need to know what's really going on as a dungeon master. Now, in Stroud, or a pre-written campaign, what's really going on is the character's backstories are getting f***ed with. That's what's really going on. So you actually, I didn't realize this initially. I was like, it's pre-written.

This will be great. Maybe it was that trauma from when I first tried to do a pre-written campaign that I never did it before. But this time, after session two, the thing that was missing was backstories. And then I was like, now I can write what's really going on. Someone was interested in the Raven Queen. She's going to play a part even in Borovia where there's no Raven Queen. It's like, yeah, yeah, there is.

And so you can mess with the TLDR. Look, it's Ravenloft. Oh, it is Ravenloft. That's right. But what's really going on is up to the dungeon master. And it always, what's really going on should be like absolute fuckery with people's backstories. And even if someone's dead in their backstories, if they don't know how that person died, now they're just might not be dead.

So, oh, no. Oh, no, all these fictional grandparents I just created. Yeah, it might be way more devastating. They left you on purpose, yeah. They all slept in one giant Willy Wonka-style bed. And they all died in it. They all died in it. Because of Strad.

I'm curious as well, what is your, for you, what's the most, rewarding part or what is your favorite part of running a game? Whether it be a home game or something for a wider audience. It's the, it's a cop-out answer, but it is the theater kid energy that is just, it feels like, I don't know what your experience, I know you did plays in school.

When we would do plays and musicals, it's like that feels, it's the closest as an adult I've ever gotten to that feeling of people. You know, we have the things we have to do, you know, say our lines, rehearse, know the blocking. And then there's times when you're just in the audience passing notes back and forth or stretching or like, who's got a crush on who or, you know, someone brought a guitar and now everyone's singing. It's like, it's the theater. It's the theater kid energy that anywhere else would be so annoying, but it's so loved and beloved and like and hallowed in a D&D space. So cop out answer.

I can appreciate that. I think there's like my brain instantly. I'm like when I think theater kid energy like I think it's been I've been so long out of like the high school theater. I was just like, oh God, they're going to ruin rent for me. They're going to ruin wicked for me. They won't shut up about singing these songs. But look, there is just there is that joy about being silly or being dramatic or being just like emoting openly and creating something together in a very performative way. even if you're not doing like big grand character gestures,

you're still collectively imagining and putting yourself in this space to create a story that you're putting on for each other, if no one else. So I can appreciate that. I guess I guess I also want to say I've never seen more like unmasking than at a D&D table. You should watch Mission Impossible. They love pulling off masks. They want to make. Ethan Hunt.

What are you doing here? How do you get this accurate replica of my face? Yeah, Phyllis Seymour Hoffman. The, but you know what I mean. Like we're in, we're in a community of like really neurodivergent people or,

especially in L.A. Like everything feels so charged with politics or I've got to be good at this. Or even in, even in spaces where it should only be creative, it's charged with success or not. And at a D&D table, it's like none of that stuff exists. And even people,

with high levels of any version of like anxiety or depression it's it's really it's gone like it's it's pretty it's pretty magical no it's for me it's always exciting when you sit down to play with someone that you know in a very different context and seeing someone really take to a tabletop role playing game because it's liberating you get to just be someone else you get to do something different and you just get to really just try and embody this character and just create some beautiful chaos together. I also have a rule at my table. This is kind of on that note

where I don't have any rules around phones. So I get out your phone, do your phone thing, dissociate, I don't do whatever you've got to do. I have no rules around it because I also know sometimes it's just not your turn and that has to be okay that you check out sometimes. It's four hours. My brain's going so constantly.

One, I can't keep track. I'm not going to be like a school mom being like no phones. But also, I've been a player before, and there are boring moments when, especially when it's, I mean, you give your attention to your friends and all that. And NPC's talking. Boring. No, Amy's NPC. Let's be clear. But, you know, there are just times when, you, yeah, you know, you still, you've got a life to live and this is a four-hour freaking game.

And then there are times when you're in Stratt and you're describing some horrible body horror stuff and you need that escape outlet. points or or you just like your phone or or anything and I don't have and I but I've just been there and I don't need anyone to explain it's like why would I it's in a class if someone's going to go to the bathroom you just go yeah you're going to go to the bathroom that's why I feel about phones no I get it for me I'd almost rather structure in some sort of like regular breaks I appreciate that as a not me just for me I know that like if I don't want to be left to my own devices because I don't want to be consumed by my devices because I take enough sort of psychic damage from them all day long anyway. I will be less attentive to the things that will draw me into the game if I

am like fiddling with my phone for some reason. It's why I find, sorry, go ahead. Hot tip, a great way to bring people back to the game if everyone, if it feels like people are checked out. Text them. You text them. You just get on your phone. You join, you meet them where they're at. And if they are at a digital space, you just go to the digital space. No, you say there's an animal there. Any animal. Doesn't matter. And you give it a name.

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ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years. Savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. See site for details. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one

happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, sad, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. from Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to Happy Say and Fused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Boom, we're back. Interesting.

Because, Mr. Scruffles? They, people will want to write it down. It's like almost, it's like what people write down in their notes. They almost write down very little else. on a consistent basis, pet slash animal names will be written down. And that's just hot tip for me. You're welcome. All right. Duly noted. And look, as I will say with goblin mode, I took them down. I just listened to the talk bag. And everyone, like at the top of the episode was just everyone reading off their list of names and you all have the same names. And I was like, oh my gosh, you got it.

And you're getting them all right. This is amazing. For this game, I made the conscious decision. I'm like, look, I want to be locked in. I'm going to take as many notes as I can. And I filled a good chunk of a notebook. And it is definitely rewarding because as a player, like, helps me prep for the next session, but also just helps me feel more invested in the world because I'm like, oh, this is lore that matters. It doesn't feel like I'm blasting or like pressing the X button to get through the quest

prompt as soon as possible just to figure it what's going to appear on my mini map, which, you know, exactly. It helps me as a play. feel more invested and hopefully makes the DM feel more rewarded for the work they put into it as well. Well, no spoiler. This is a bit of a spoiler, but you get me. You get me in an episode that has not been released yet. And in a way that like, like, freezes me for a second. And everyone's like, Amy's not getting emotional about this is she? And it's like, have you ever felt like a player recite lore back to you in an accurate way? In the way that you,

you meant it and you thought you were just planting a seed and everyone of course forgot it. And then the player just like just like stabs you right in the heart with your own lore. Yeah, Amy is getting emotional about this. So players, remember, if you write things down, you can stab your DM with an emotional lore knife. This is in the rules and it's totally legal in every state and so territories. All right. I want to wind things down a little bit. I'm curious, you know, we've been talking a lot about TTRPGs in a grander sense,

but especially D&D because that is the system we're using for Goblin Mode. You know, we mentioned a few others here and there. Is there another system out there that you really love running, that you wish more people would give a shot or one that you think is overlooked? I wish. I wish I had a good answer for this. It's okay. Yeah, no, I mean, not.

I think there are tons of them. I haven't run. It's not in my, like, back pocket at all. So have I run anything? Or as a player, something you've played, you're like, I wish more people would run this because I found it rewarding. I think, I mean, it's not, I really do enjoy Call of Kathulu, which I think is, in any of the White Wolf games,

like, they're all very similar. The way that they stack skills really, really makes it feel like you've got a unique character. And for people at home, you're talking about like vampire, the masquerade, werewolf and all of that? Yes, yes, yes, wherewolf. Specifically, where I think I've only played vampire once, but I know it's a beloved game, and I wish I had more information about it right now.

But any of those, I think those mechanics are really good, the Genesis system, that's the same as the fantasy flight, fantasy flight games with Star Wars 2. that both of those are really good that make you feel like you've got a unique character with what I call unique video game controls where the buttons you can press are special and it gives the DM because another thing I like to do as a DM

is I look at character sheets and I think people should just this is how you DM and this is how you prep you look at character sheets and you put things in the way that make the characters push their video game controllers and push the buttons that they specifically have. So other than that, there's not really a whole lot. Like, if you're a new DM, it's like, yeah,

I mean, there are little ways we can break it down and, like, get into the nitty-gritty of it, but your whole job is to get your character, your players feeling like they're interacting, yeah, they're pushing the video game control buttons. So, but I think, yeah, Fantasy Flight, I still am really passionate about Dungeons and Dragons, And I think the main reason is because of, because of how long it's been around, they've got the magic system freaking down.

Like, it's so balanced and so cool. And if you think there's something that you want to do, there probably already is a way to do it. I know there are like really cool things out there. Magic items and spells being written. That, that, and it is, it's like a, just a fertile ground for creativity. and the base rules are plenty. Like just the magic system and what you can do and where your imagination goes,

you can move through plants. Like, if you look at the spells that you get, have access to and really, I don't want to say meditate on them, but if you think about what the heck that means, it's really cool. So I really like Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah.

Oh, I just thought of one other thing. Go on. And this is about, I had to think about this. wrote a campaign book for alchemy RPG. It's called Dark Symmetry. Everyone check it out. I'm really proud of it. The one thing, they, they wanted, they had pitched me like this city underwater. And one of the main things that I had to, they also wanted it to be sci-fi. And any world building, I can't watch a movie without thinking about this now. When you're defining your world, the magic systems might be built into your game. So that's fine. You should think about magic if it's not.

and just what those rules are. But then the other thing you should think about, which is very similar, is materials, what materials people have access to. So, like, in fantasy, for me, it's wood bone metal. And then anything you can make, plants, fibers, things you can make from that. And then anything synthetic, which includes plastic and rubber, those don't exist.

They just don't. Unless they do. And then you have to find a way of, like, how, did they do? do, did they, did they like harvest oil from the ground the way that we know it? Or was it this other being whose secretions are plastic like? And you just have to be, you just have to be, because there were, there were a lot of discrepancies that I, I just had to like, I was like, what's going on here? I can't wrap my head around what this looks like or how this is formed, or why is this, how is this smooth? I guess, is it sewn? Why are all these being secreting

so much? It's like, it's something that I didn't realize how important. it was to just decide. Like, if you have access to sand, you have access to glass. Fine. Plastic, how? Rubber? That's all, that's all synthetic. Like, all of this is a man-made material, which is fine. Epoxy, you know, on boats, like things like that. You're, you've just got to be really judicious. And, and now, even when I was watching Planet of the Eighth's, the new one, I was like, if this person can handcraft a freaking bronze necklace. This person can handcraft like why where are the smithing? Where is where are we doing blacksmithing that this person gets access to this but the other people don't and other apes have electricity but these apes like I I'm out like it made me so it made me so

I just yeah it broke my brain because you see materials that people if people have access to them they either made them found them I know they were arguing that but it's like not. Not quite. So like just just logic it out. It doesn't have to take very long. I appreciate that as sort of like a world building thing that you might not consider otherwise because I think it'll just open up new ideas for you, especially if you think about those limitations. There are the amount of people, and I had this experience too, in Dungeons and Dragons who are writing home brew shit and we have all researched how to mine elements and what that actually looks like. What a vein of copper means? You know, we've all played Skyrim, but like, what, what, how? And how would you know?

And, and, and, but the amount of DMs I've talked to or, or writers who have done research into actual mining, it's, we've all done it. So, like, maybe just read a Wikipedia on, on, on mining. Just become an armchair metallurgist. And, uh, and you can put that on your LinkedIn. And I will endorse you for it if you ask me to. Yeah, yeah. There's just certain things. Like, I don't think everyone needs to learn exactly what a halberd is, things like that.

But it could be fun. And if that kind of thing interests you, great. Materials matter, and it takes about five. Oh, and laws. Sorry. Laws can be, you can make four laws that are just like, don't, if you hurt anybody, da-da-da-da, and then the consequence of that. If you just spend a little bit of time and come down, like, I think Candlekeep does it really well because they're like, there's just no fire. There's no fire here.

It's magically protected from fire. Because they know it's a thing of books. And if you bring up fire, man, like, is any of that fun? You know, just set the library. Yeah, you're going to set the library on fire. I got it. Okay, ha, ha. So they just said no fire.

And you're like, yeah, if I can do stuff. Oh, and don't run a town where there's no magic. It's not fun. Unless you're like, yeah, it's not fun for anybody, actually. I've tried to do that a few times. I played in that too. And it actually, you think, oh, everyone's going to get real creative with the way they solve this and it's like, no, magic was the fun part. You'll just kill people in different ways.

Magic was the fun part. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Sorry. Now he's back in the real world. Yeah. Oh, I'm trapped. I mean, I'm saying things very like cut and dry. I'm sure there's more nuance to it. But like, like, I have experienced some of these things. And it's like, you think you're being creative and it's, it's just like, or just play the game. Look, I think hopefully it goes without saying all of this is coffee. It's caviotted with your marriage may vary. Yeah, mileage may vary. My, you know, asteris, Amy Vorpaw, and the views of this podcast are not representative, you know, whatever.

But they are my opinion. So, yeah, grain of salt. All right. Well, so the earth has been salted so that nothing may grow except some cool new ideas for campaigns and storytelling. Amy, thank you so much for joining us today on Question and Answers, telling us a bit about your process, about Goblin Mode, about the fine art of DMing, GMing, whatever we want to call it. Yeah. You mentioned alchemy. Is there anything else that you want to promote or where can people find you on the

worldwide web? Yes, there is something I would like to promote. You can follow me at Vorpal Sword. I'm mostly on Instagram these days. I think everything else burned down. And I think Twitter's not even here anymore. They were outside of candle keep and they all burned down. They all burned down.

Yeah, fire was available. Yeah, so it's at Vorpal Sword. And the main thing that I've been working on is, well, reels. That's fun, making little comedy things. about gaming and then the the other thing is I'm writing a video game and you can you can play a demo it'll be released in June we already had one demo and this we had a page I did a page one rewrite based on the gameplay that I think is going to be so much more fun and so much better none of the themes are different like the characters are the same what happens and in the

things stays the same but the way that go that you go around the how of it is is magical it's so It's so cool. And you can find that at playvesper.com. You can also, when I do these reels, every, like, third one, I collaborate with Play Vesper. And you can follow them on Instagram, too. So they're at Play Vesper. Fantastic. Well, folks, go check that stuff out.

I'm so excited to experience it myself. And thank you, everyone, for joining us. Now, remember, you can catch new episodes of not just question answers, but more importantly, Goblin Mode on Mondays and both Geek and Sundry's YouTube and wherever fine podcaster served. As for me, I'm inside your computer. That's where I live. You can find me here each and every day. And until next time, Nack Brecker Rules.

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