Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Game Mechanics Affecting Story | Roundtable

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

This week on the Roundtable, Jasmine Bhullar, Ivan Van Norman, and Matt Colville talk about how game mechanics can effect your story. Grab a drink and pull up a chair! Immersive storytelling has the power to transport you to a whole new world, but becoming a storyteller requires time, patience, and dedication. We've gathered some of the most notable storytellers to hear their perspectives on their craft, their passion, and how they build worlds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Insurance isn't one-size-fits-all, and shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives' name-your-price tool for years. With the name-your-price tool, you tell them what you want to pay, and they show you options that fit your budget. Enough hunting for discounts, trying to calculate rates, and tinkering with coverages. Maybe you're picking out your very first policy. Or maybe you're just looking for something that works better for you and your family. Either way, they make it simple to see your options. No guesswork, no surprises. Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be? Visit progressive.com and give the name your price tool a try. Take the stress out of shopping and find coverage that fits your life on your terms. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. It's time to bring on the blooms at the Home Depot with Spring Guard.

Deals. Find savings on hanging baskets and flowers to brighten your backyard or any space that needs instant color. Then get everything you need to plant and protect them with low prices guaranteed on soil and mulch. Dig into spring garden deals for four days at the Home Depot. Now through May 10th. Exclusion supply, see Home Depot.com slash price match for details. Tonight on the round table. There's always a way to do what you want to do. You just have to figure it out and that figuring it out is part of the fun of playing. Matthew Colville, who has decades of experience in writing both video and tabletop games.

I stare at you, Nutcracker, and I say, fire upon your soul as I slap you across the face. Ivan Van Norman, a tabletop and RPG game designer who wrestles with the sprawling narrative of Foreververse. I am excited when my players are excited. When they do something, I'm sitting there. I'm just like, oh, yeah! And Jasmine Boulard, host of the innovative RPG show

the out crowd. Perfect because it's not the no button, it's not the yes and it's the yes but. I have it composition notebook with Lisa Frank stickers all over it. And it says GM's rule on it. I have a- Oh thank you. And Sharpie. That's beautiful. That's high-tech.

Index cards. Always professional. I love my index cards. One for passing notes and two, just because I basically make myself, you are amazing. I make all my notes and kind of like stack them up so that when I, after the show, done I just taken them I just absorbed them all. What were we, what was our subject? It was about game mechanics and how they shape the story and vice versa.

Are they a means to an end or are they a process that allows you to like, I don't know, further the storytelling. Do you have opinions on that, either of you? My favorite parts about role play and role playing games is the like the stories and the interactions. And I'm one of those GMs that if you sell it to me, I won't make you roll for it. Right. Oh, sure.

Yeah. We did that with 7C recently. Yeah. And what's one of the reasons I love 7C is that it rewards flamboyant storytelling. And it does it in the mechanics. It gives you bonus dice. Sometimes you'll even earn what they call their kind of bennies or their hero point. Yeah.

If you sell it, then go for it. Yeah. And with our system that we used over at Hyper, you could also get plot points, and you could literally spend them like, plot point, and become the GM. Oh, sure. For a moment.

I remember this is going to be obscure reference. There was a game called Torg. Oh, I know Tor. From West End Games. Yeah. It's a crazy game. It's not important what it's about, but it got a lot of juice when it came out

because there were cards, and players could get a card that allowed them to tell the GM, no, that's not what happens. Right. Having a game mechanic that gives the players, but the players, see, the thing a mechanic like that does

is it lets the players know this is possible. Right. They didn't know it was possible before until they saw the mechanic. And as a good DM, you always want to be able to say, no, you don't even draw, that's amazing. But knowing that the players go, wait, I can take over. That gives them power that they didn't realize they had before.

And not only just take over, but like, stop asking and start telling. Yeah. Can I do this? Can I do this? Why are you asking me? Go. Exactly. You tell me what the glory that you're going to provide to this story is in the game. They made a game in the 90s called the Baron Munchausen RPG.

Barron Munchausen. That was a great movie. Yeah. And they made an RPG. I mean, Baron Munchausen is a German folk character. Is it even really an RPG? I don't know. It's more like those one-page thing.

It's a past the ball storytelling. Yeah, it's a storytelling game where somebody will say to you, Barron, how did you get out when the queen of the moon had you captured and was gonna cut your head out? How did you get out of that? And this is the first time you've ever heard of that. And now you have to explain to us how Baron Munchausen made it out of you. It's amazing because it's a pub tale.

Yeah. It's a pub tale that you all tell each other. That sounds awesome. And you just carry the story. with you. That's where mechanics in a weird way, because there's basically no mechanics. Correct. Yeah. And it's, it is a dreads like that. It's a glorified ghost story. The rules are just a tool for tension and that tower, have you do know about dread? You're basically telling a ghost story. Okay.

You take a Jenga tower, which they call the Tower of Doom. And as each player does things, instead of rolling the dice, they pull from the tower. Right. And if at any time the player is pulling from the tower and the tower falls, that character either goes insane, they're dead. They're just out of the game. And then you stack the tower back up, you pull blocks, and then you keep going. So the towers is purely a metaphor

before the tension in the story. Yes. That's awesome. That's amazing. Have you ever felt like more structure is sometimes good for newer our peers? Because sometimes you throw them in this playground and they sit there and they'll stare at you like,

how do we, how do, because they don't know what to do. They're like, well, I don't know what my tools are. And my brain, I'm like, everything here is your tool. And you can use anything in this beautiful playground. I guess that's, kind of gets into the more you prep and the more you hate using that term railroad because it's such a dirty word in the DM world. I think that the negative, I think that there are some negative connotations with railroading, but I think that is the best way to get people into

Dungeons and Dragons, in my opinion, into pen and paper. I've gotten people playing it and it's like, I call it my gateway drug with my semistics. That is essentially a D&D campaign, right? You're reading from a book, except there is no GM. And it's the easiest way to fool people who are like, oh, I'd never play that pen and paper stuff into playing it from my semistics. Because they're like, I love this. This is great.

There's more to this. It's like there's this game called Mouse Guard. You may or may not be able to play a mouse with like an acorn shield. How adorable is that? I ended up being, I found myself in the position of being like a fourth edition D&D evangelist. because I'm one of the few people that liked it. And so that surprises people.

But one of the things I noticed was that when you make a character in Fourth Edition, the first thing that happens is you get a bunch of powers. And that meant, and I've introduced dozens of people to D&D, hundreds probably now. And it was a huge difference between normal every day, any RPG, where like, I don't really know what I can do. What are my options? And Fourth Edition's like, here are your options. Here are your options.

And it empowered the players early on. But then the other thing I noticed going forward was it also, ended up with many situations where the players felt like if this doesn't solve the problem, then they got frustrated. Right. I always love 3.5. Well, it was, in a weird way, that one was the opposite of how Forth did it. It was a sandbox. It gave you so many different choices, and it's just the ability to kind of

get into it, which is why one people loved it because all the mechanics of D&D, and I mean, mechanics like people who like to go into the engine and like play with everything in engineering. Break it. That was what they loved. When I was running 3.5, I took this stuff super seriously, and I would spend like an hour and a half with a chart figuring out, okay, you weren't there for this adventure, and you don't get that XP, this is divided by five.

You're like an accountant. And it didn't even think about it. Didn't even think, at the time, that just seemed like that was perfectly reasonable. And it was an incredibly intense mathematical experience. That actually soured my first experience ever with pen and paper. Oh, really? I had an ex who played, obviously now he's an X and I'll tell you why.

I decided I'm gonna play Dungeons and Dragons. And at the time I'd been playing World of Warcraft and I was like, this is it. And I purchased the books. It was the Book of Vile Darkness. Oh yeah. And this is my edgy phase. So I was like, Cancer Mage.

That is me. I'm gonna be a cancer mage. And I go, and this is like your stereotypical, like, they meet once a month and they play for like 10 hours. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah, like that this is a way. It's one of those groups. Marathon gaming, yeah. And I get in, I'm so excited, and I painted my miniature

and I figured out the game. And immediately they're like, well, you're chaotic evil, so you can't really roll with us. And I'm like, really? And they're like, yeah, you can't play with us. And like a bunch of greasy nerds. I immediately turned it into like a sex thing. I'm like, it's because I'm a girl.

And this is your little boys club. And I got really upset about it. I may have flipped a table. But the part of the thing is, they weren't, they weren't coming at you on you. gender issue, they were coming in because you're a cancer mage. Yeah. They were like, well, you must be evil.

You must be evil. You should have taken all that hate as like a cancer mage and like turned it into like the character. Well, they were higher level than me and everything had to be by the rules. And as a GM now, I'm just going to say this, if a little brown girl walked into my basement like, I'm excited to play D&D, I would never be like, we're going to kill you because you're only level one and you're evil. Because what you want is you want more people to play. Yes. Right? If someone's interested in playing, like, back,

I came up when I started, this is like 1985. Like, there was not yet this stigma of, everyone I knew was playing in high school, like cool people were playing, because it was still a relatively new thing. And if someone said, what is that you're doing? You wouldn't try to explain it to them, you would just say, here's a character, she'd sit down and play.

Right, right. I would have just like, like, explored why you wanted to play the cancer mage, explored the concept of who you wanted to do into it and try to incorporate that. And if the character needed to be like four levels higher, for you to be able to play in the group, even if it's just for that one session,

well then, fuck it. Like, you know, just make four levels higher. In hindsight, it wasn't a great character. I was basically like a boot-like catwoman who had been resuscitated by plague wrap. I'm curious, so you get the Book of Wild Darkness, were you thinking, this is what D&D is? Oh, yeah.

Was there a culture clash when you discovered, oh wait, this is just this one kind of like off-shoot over here, the corner. Yeah, I was really disappointed. Right, because if you're like, this is awesome. Yeah. And then you find out, really, it's like,

The first session I went to, I was really disappointed. I'm not gonna lie, if you guys wanna hear about this train wreck, let me tell ya. So I decided I'm gonna play D&D, and I went to the store, and I got like, I don't even think I picked up a player's handbook, I'm pretty sure I just googled how to play. So I grabbed the book of Vile Darkness, and make my character head over, and there's like a dude

wearing a barbarian hat with horns, and they're all like, you know, Bartor! And I'm like, oh God, like, what is this crap? I was so upset. Well, if we're talking about how games, mechanics and influence storytelling. That is 100% that. Like you had this one example, magic items from the Book

of Wild Darkness and all these crazy prestige classes. And that 100% colored your notion of who not only your character was. In other words, these weren't options. This was it. Also what the game could be. And when you walk in and you're like, okay, well, this is actually a lot less interesting. They were boring.

Sure, yeah. And that's often. And that's why they tried to kill me, because they're boring people. Screw those guys. Yeah, I can feel all the shade. Yeah, look, I get to hang out with these awesome people now, they're probably still eating Cheetos.

It is always often about the people that you play with. Now to be fair, they always, they have their own process. And we were just talking about safe spaces too. Like a table's always a safe space. Even if they were not kind to you. Okay. Ivan, you're so much of a better person than I am. I don't know.

I've just seen a lot of people who've been burnt from in a similar way to what you put up with. And probably what you've encountered a whole lot of that. No, I mean, look, we're lucky that we're in a position now where I think this is I feel like this is the beginning of the turning of the tide. Right. Where for the past 40 years, more people were bouncing off of D&D than playing it exactly because of the experiences. But now, I think more people understand

if they end up at a table like that, they're like, well, this is stupid. I know there are better tables out there than this. Yes. There are better tables out there. And that's the joy of like the fact that we're now in a place where there's more options is that if you don't like what's here,

there is someone out there no matter what you want to do who is totally in with your jam, and is going to celebrate you for what you bring to the table and wants to incorporate you, even if it's not right in front of you, it is out there, you just need to be patient and go and find it. Yeah, don't make the mistake of thinking,

these people are the game. Do you think that because of the advent novel of all of these RPG shows, that people feel pressured, that their first campaign has to be perfect because they're watching these shows that are so great? You know, no one watches Titanic and then grabs a video camera,

and it's like, I'm gonna make Titanic. you know and kind of go crazy or nobody goes to like the Louvre and sees a sculpture and then picks up a marble and it's like I'm gonna do David but anyone can play a role playing game sure I've got a lot of people on commenting on my YouTube videos saying I watched Critical Role and thought I could never do that of course you would of course you would think that if you watch Critical Role you're gonna think holy crap D&D is this thing unobtainable right yeah exactly and that's why eventually I told people in the videos I said eventually I will stream one of my games and you will see that I am just like you, we're just a bunch of bumbling idiots, we're just a bunch of nerds are going to play. Just tomble through it. Yeah, and we streamed and people were like, holy crap, you and your friends are just like me and my friends, I can do this.

I'm like, absolutely you can't. One of my favorite experiences is when we were running the Pugmire game, and it was still in beta. The roles weren't even done, dude. Like, games not even finished, but we did a stream of generating NPCs, and like it was just a spreadsheet, and it was just like a crowd source. medium in which I felt like everybody got to feel like they had a hand in the creative process and they got to make something.

And mine is more about showing you what's going on behind the scenes. And it really started to frustrate me when the people in chat at first they would see my notes and they would watch and you could see them talking about, did you see what he just did? This person said this and he completely flipped it around. He has his notes written this way and he threw all that out and made something up. And then when it got to people- That's what happens.

Yeah, and I was like, oh, this is great, I'm glad we're doing this. But then it got to the point where people were watching for the story. They weren't seeing the behind the scenes anymore, and that's one of the reasons we stopped. But that notion of like seeing what the DM is doing behind the screens. There's so many other role-playing opportunities out there. And every week, there's something like in a couple weeks,

we're playing a game called Puppetland. It's a craft-made world in which everybody is puppets in a puppet land. And there was a human who was the maker. And it's funny because that game is very much, it gives you a story in which to kind of work with. But tying it back to our topic, the mechanics are very much centered around,

you have to tell it like you're telling a story. Sir Francis with the elaborate bowtie walked into the room and saw the nutcracker sitting upon the table. And that's what the DM would say, but then the Nutcracker character would go, I stare at you Nutcracker and I say, fire upon your soul as I slap you across the face. And instead of doing the I statement,

it is the third person statement. So everyone's telling it like it's a single narrative. So it's a little bit like that pass the ball. Right. The narrative. And it's wonderful because you're essentially all telling a story together. Were you your first DM? I was my first DM.

I was my first DM. No, no. You're like, I was my first DM. I left such a bad impression on my first players or in my first game that like I think about that game so often now. You feel bad. You still feel bad. I still feel bad. I think up and a cold sweat like, no.

Those children probably hate D&D and hell. I did. I just, you know, it didn't completely ruin it for some. Thank you. God. I feel like when I first started playing D&D, there was this feeling of it's the DM versus the players. Oh, sure.

Sure. That's a classic style. And all of my, I think my first six games, it felt like he was trying to kill us, or he was trying, he was moving against us, or he wanted to tell his story, kind of like what you were saying, and we were trying to tell our stories. And one thing that I feel like Open Legend tackles right in its GM guide is like, don't don't freaking kill your players. Yeah.

Greetings adventurers, spring has sprung here in Los Angeles, and that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees. I'll take it. And that means I've been outside a lot more. Walking around, occasionally galloping after a toddler hopped up on juice boxes, traveling a bit. You know the vibe. And after doing some spring cleaning, my wardrobe, I got to say, looking a little bit sad. I want clothes that can keep up with me and my son, but updating my wardrobe every spring sounds pretty expensive. So that's why I wound up signing up for Fabletics as a VIP. It let me overhaul my springtime outfits without obliterating my bank account. New VIPs unlock major savings on that first purchase, so trying new fits feels way more doable. When I signed up as a new VIP with Fabletics, I got 70 to 80% off everything. It made it easy to grab a few new pieces without overthinking it.

And the quality really surprised me. Everything feels premium and soft and breathable, but you're not paying those premium price. What I like most though is how versatile everything is. You've got stuff you can work out in, but also wear out. There's matching sets, lightweight hoodies, joggers, teas, you name it. The kind of stuff you can throw on in the morning and not worry about later. When I'm at home, my favorite thing to pull on is the oversized hoodie. It's so comfy I could just live in it 24-7. It's perfect for walking my dog on like a chilly night. But what I'm out and about, I've really been loving the ribbed Johnny Collar Polo. It makes me look like I should be taking a high-powered meeting by the pool at the white. Lotus, but hopefully with less murder involved? I don't know. It's insanely comfortable. I highly recommend it. So shop now at fabletics.com slash critical role to get 70 to 80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP. Take a quick style quiz and be sure to select critical role when prompted to unlock your 70 to 80% off. This is a limited time offer, so don't wait. Again, that's fabletics.com slash critical

role for 70 to 80% off everything as a new VIP. And now, on to the show. Greetings Adventurers. Lately, I've been getting a bit more intentional about what I wear from day to day because instead of just falling out of whatever laundry baskets nearby, I've been leaning into pieces that feel easy and comfortable but still put together because it just makes

getting dressed simpler when I have a plan. Quince has been my go-to to help with that because the fabrics feel elevated, the fits are clean, and everything just works without me needing to overthink it. And Quintz has all the wardrobe staples you need for spring think 100% European linen shorts and shirts from just $34. They're lightweight, they're breathable, they're comfortable, your legs, and torso will thank you, and you will still look put together.

And clean 100% Pima Cotton Tees with a softness, well, you gotta feel that to believe it, believe you me. Their pants also hit that same balance. They're relaxed, they're comfortable, but still polished enough to wear basically anywhere. And everything's priced between 50 and 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen so you're getting premium materials without the markup. And since spring is here in Los Angeles, a brief period where it's 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees, I spruced up my wardrobe with a pair of the comfort stretch traveler five pocket pants and the heritage washed denim shirt. Not only do they feel great, but I unequivocally look good as hell while wearing them.

That's just science. So refresh your every day with luxury you'll only. actually use. Head to quince.com slash critical role for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash critical role for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash critical role. Study and play.

Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Yet 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. College PC. Try to work with your players. Have a childlike excitement. I am excited when my players are excited.

Yeah. Oh, sure, yeah. When they do something, I'm sitting there. just like, oh yeah, like in there, and I'm just as excited as they are. And I always tell my audience, I'm like, if you don't feel that way, you really gotta re-center and decide how you're gonna GM

because you should be excited, just like they are. It's that going back to that old improv style of thinking. It's not a no, it's a yes and. It's not a no, but it's a yes and. And you know, there's always limits and you should always put limits because without conflict, there's no reward, right? And I think that's another beautiful thing

that good DMs do is they balance that conflict versus just like giving the players anything they want. Like there's a difference between doing that. Because you can go too far. If you give the players everything they want, then they don't feel challenged. It's kind of like they're just walking through the situations. Sometimes that's to be mean.

There's always a way to do what you want to do. You just have to figure it out, and that figuring it out is part of the fun of playing. So if your players have ambition, if they're trying to get things done, you don't just say no, because that's not how your character works. No, because there's no rule that supports that. It's like, no, there's a way to do it,

but it may require you having to jump through some other, yeah, sacrifice. Sacrifice is the big one. Yeah, because for me, a big. Because you want to run a game on that table. Well, I realized that the juice for me was when my players would take this magic item that they had randomly gotten and they're like, well, I guess I'll take that thing. It's not what I wanted, but that, and I was like, look, that's what the table said you get.

And then later on, when they take it and come up with some incredibly inventive use for this, that gets them out of a jam. And I'm like, I guarantee you no one who has ever played D&D has ever used that item to do that thing. You're unique. This is a unique experience. And that to me had a big impact on the kind of game I run. Just trying to emulate that.

So we talked a lot about story light kind of systems. Have you ever had a gameplay experience in which like the mechanics or their rules actually made the game better for you? Yes. 100%. Great. And one of them was vanquished. Having the Q system and the plot point system, there was never a moment where if I, if I had a moment where if I If I had a plot point, I had to worry about failing a skill check on something I thought I should pass.

Got it. I played a technomancer so she could like manipulate technology and I, you know how like Necromancers like stitched dead bodies together and create golems? I would stitch technology together and create, yeah, and control it with my mind. And what was great about that system is if there was a moment where I'm going to pull like a Hank Pym or a Tony Stark moment, I could like spend a plot point and just be like, like, I'm now the GM, and so this is what's going to happen. I'm going to do a backflip off the table.

And you're just going to cut through the bullshit and get straight to the point. And I never had to worry about rolling that fail. And there's times as a GM where you'll see somebody, they'll describe something really cool, and then they'll roll for it, and they'll roll a three. And you're like, yeah, that was an amazing idea. I wish it had worked.

I feel like that should have worked. That should have worked. But she only rolled a three. There was a game called Warhammer Fantasy role play. Okay, yeah. There were many different editions of it. But it's basically, I think, the same system they use for Star Wars now.

It's similar and also dark heresy. I loved the die mechanic because it encouraged me to run the kind of game I would not have run otherwise, which was a much more pulp fiction, Indiana Jones, out of the frying pan into the fire, because it's like, you roll the dice, and it's like, yes, yes, you succeeded, but something horrible happens.

Yes, you have successfully jumped from one of these two coaches to the other one, while they're barreling down the street, but now you're hanging by your fingernails. That's why-and. And that reversal of like, yes, that happened, but you know you're in a worse place. Yes, but.

It's perfect because it's not the no but, it's not the yes and, it's the yes, but. Yeah, exactly. It was good news, I like that die mechanic of the good news, bad news thing. And that always made the players feel like they were making progress. And it also made me feel like I was creating tension

and I was like, I would not have done this if it wasn't for these dice and this dice mechanic. I agree 100%. Edge of the Empire, sometimes you can feel can be a little crunchy, but then you have these great moments come out of it and it's worth it. So what games are you folks intending to run next?

I would love to do a campaign set in the Mahabharata. Because I feel like Indian mythology isn't explored a lot. I feel like anything outside of like European mythology isn't explored a lot. There's a lot of cool, like Chinese and Japanese mythologies out there with huge pantheon of gods that are like crazy out of this world. And great stories. Yeah, great stories behind them. Yeah, great sagas. It's just like awesome stuff.

That's cool. How about you? I want to do a game where I pick three players, where I get together with that player individually. And we're going to play from first to third or fifth level, just you and me. And you are some kind of regent. You are somebody who is a Duke or a king or a wizard that controls this. And on another night of the week, you and I playing, and the three players are in the same world, and they're dealing with other NPCs, and you don't realize that the wizard that you're talking to is her.

Right, and then... You want to build backstories that are like several episodes to cross. By the time we all get together, there'll be two or three or four players who aren't part of that. They're just normal players in a D&D game, but these other players have... Not only if I played through my backstory, but I have a position in this world.

I have responsibility. You've done several sessions with each one of these players that link them together. And they didn't even know, because then you're basically building up to one beautiful giant moment where it's like... I actually...

I love that Guy Ritchie style of... Okay, thank you, yeah. Ah, I live for stuff like that. Yeah, so actually, I wanna run 10 candles. 10 candles is essentially a system that has a physical representation of the story in the form of 10 candles. And what you do is the scenario is always,

you are the last person of a blank. And the idea is that during each plot point, you snuff out a candle. The idea being that the very last candle is snuffed out, and the idea being that you're basically going through and maybe you have people with you and they're getting snuffed out as you're through,

but you're going through this terrible alien situation. Did you ever play Pre? Oh, the video game, yeah. The video game, pray. So the odds are all around them. They're basically just escaping capture and moving through, and then that final one, and it's like there's still hope.

I would love to end on hope. Some of the best stories are told that way. Oh, sure. Like Rogue One or even Halo Reach. You know how Halo Reach is gonna end because you know where Halo 1 starts. I mean, Titanic, you know how Titanic's gonna end. You know how it's gonna end.

I still want to enjoy the story. And if it's going well, you know it's going well because the players have forgotten. Oh, that's right. Everything ends. And that's our jobs as a GM to make sure that we make the journey interesting. Because does the end result ever really matter? It's the journey. Yeah, sure.

The journey is the destination. And I love that. Like, it's like fighting fate versus like ending on like a smidgen of hope versus the death of a civilization. It's like three totally different approaches that are all wonderful stories. that I would subscribe to at any time. This is Coke Zero Sugar with Real Coca-Cola taste and Zero Sugar. Listen closely. Hear those bubbles?

That's the sound of delicious real Coca-Cola taste and zero-sugar. Ice cold. Ah! Cook Zero Sugar. Real Coca-Cola taste, Zero Sugar. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items. Then review your list and carefully choose each one.

Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes. So you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. Get free delivery during online deal days, plus $30 off your first online order. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. 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 Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about, and join us in the dark.