Critical Role - Game Masters of Exandria Roundtable

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Exandrian GMs Matthew Mercer, Aabria Iyengar, and Brennan Lee Mulligan sit down for a roundtable discussion of their experiences and best practices for game mastering in Critical Role’s world of Exandria! Purchase Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, now back in stock! Experience campaign and game master advice, 9 new subclasses, rich lore, new creatures, and much more in this beautiful tome. United States: https://shop.critrole.com/products/taldorei-campaign-setting-reborn United Kingdom: https://shop.critrole.co.uk/products/taldorei-campaign-setting-reborn Australia: https://shop.critrole.com.au/products/taldorei-campaign-setting-reborn Canada: https://canada.critrole.com/products/taldorei-campaign-setting-reborn EU: https://shop.critrole.eu/products/taldorei-campaign-setting-reborn Darrington Press Guild stores: https://darringtonpress.com/darrington-press-guild/ And other friendly local game stores in the US. Twitch subscribers gain instant access to VODs of our shows like Critical Role, Exandria Unlimited, and Critter Hug. But don't worry: Twitch broadcasts are usually uploaded to YouTube a few days after airing live, with audio-only podcast versions of select shows on Spotify, iTunes, & Google Play following a week after the initial air date. Twitch subscribers also gain access to our official custom emote set and subscriber badges and the ability to post links in Twitch chat!

Hi there, this is Matthew Mercer, resident Game Master here at Critical Role, to welcome you to this podcast version of the show. If you'd like to watch the stream as it airs, you can catch it Thursdays at 7pm Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole or youtube.com slash criticalrole. Twitch subscribers can access the video on demand immediately after the broadcast and it also becomes available on YouTube Mondays at 12pm Pacific. Podcast episodes land right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network on Thursdays, a week after the initial broadcast. Okay, with that info dump out of the way, let's dive into the story.

Welcome to our Game Masters of Exandria Roundtable. I am Matthew Mercer, joined by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar. The three of us have learned a lot from one another, and tonight we hope we can share some of that with you. We hope this roundtable covers some of your most burning questions and is helpful to any game master, but especially those hoping to play in the world of Exandria. But before we dive in, a shameless reminder that this book is available now! With my co-designers Hannah Rose and James Hayek, we made Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn to be a handy resource filled with lore, creatures, character options, and advice for running a campaign in the continent of Tal'Dorei. So many amazing writers contributed to this book, including Aabria, right over here, who kept parts of the book hidden from me so I could play

in EXU. But more on that later. We are all so excited for more folks to play in the world of Critical Role, and we wanted to give you a little peek behind the curtain at our inspirations, in hopes that they help you build your own stories and expand the world at your own tables. So, without further ado, let's jump into tonight's Game Masters of Exandria Roundtable. Alright, so this is kind of freeform, you know, mainly just asking each other questions, pulling prompts where you feel it's necessary, and conversing about it and sharing what knowledge we got. That, I guess to kick it off, let's talk about building a game, getting started with the process of getting a

campaign ready or getting characters together. Let's start with tips for session zeros, which I'll just start off with saying they're really important. Gotta do them they're not like absolutely necessary

if you already have a group that you gel with but if you can I highly recommend it because even if you do it's a really great experience and opportunity to one make sure

everyone's on the same page to make sure the themes are conveyed properly everyone knows the expectations and the lines and veils of who's comfortable with what at the table what do you guys love and what do you particularly recommend when it comes to Session Zero and the lines and veils of who's comfortable with what at the table.

What do you guys love and what do you particularly recommend when it comes to session zeros? Oh, man. I think for me, especially if you're playing with a table that you already know, I like it as just like a tone check-in. Especially if you're coming off of like,

this is a group and we play a bunch of things together. I love the just sort of affirmation of tone before you start a new kind of story. And that way you're not kind of like this is a group and we play a bunch of things together I love the just sort of affirmation of tone before you start a new kind of story and that way you're not kind of hitting the same beats that you did before and everyone has a chance to sort of decide to make a new choice for a new game and a new story that I think is really

it's a little amuse-bouche before your new game to like get the old flavor out and so that's my favorite thing, other than establishing lines and veils. I love safety tools. I love having little check-in things and X cards and stuff on the table.

That's my jam, but yeah. Which, for those who don't know about that or are uncertain about what safety tools are referring to, you can search online for tabletop RPG safety tools. Google it. Lines and veils and Google, and there are many great breakdowns put out by a number of great people in the community You can search online for tabletop RPG safety tools. Google it. Lines and veils in Google, and there are many great breakdowns

put out by a number of great people in the community that outline exactly what these tools are for and how to easily incorporate them. Yeah. Brennan, what you got, bud? For session zero, huh? Yeah, yeah. Boy, for session zero.

It's okay, take a minute. Take a minute. I'm sorry, we're just being so serious. I know. We're having a great time. I've never had a great time. Can we just say what happened, which is that you opened up the world of Exandria,

the greatest fantasy world of all time, and we got to come and do stories in it? Matt, Matt, I don't like high fantasy. This is my favorite world. Yeah, this is dope and cool, and thanks for letting us come and play in it. It was really nice. It was all an accident.

This world wasn't meant to happen. It just kind of happened on accident. And then it kept growing like the blob. And then a great movie if you haven't seen it. Depending on which one you watch. And then

better people came in to help me expand it even further. I'm very happy. I'm happy. Equal! I'm very happy, I'm very excited and very grateful. It's very, I love hearing you say, like it's an, it made me think of the fucking, oh cursing. You're allowed to hear it.

Okay, balls. So many cusses on the show. I know, but it made me think of the running, the gag, inside joke, the James Lipton questionnaire of like, when you die and you meet God at the pearly gates. Because as the creator of Exandria, the idea of getting to the pearly gates and meeting God and being like,

and him being like, listen, I'm gonna level with you. I got no idea what the fuck is going on. I got no clue what's, help, help, get in here. It's weirdly spiritually affirming to me. Session zero. Yes, yes. Session zero. How about setting the tone?

Now we've probably set the tone for this. Exandria GM round table, semicolon, the illusion of control. Ooh, that's real as hell. Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Amy Carrero. control. That's real as hell. Yeah. Shout out to Amy Carrero. I don't know which of the six D20 core cast to even say.

It's all of them. It's really all of them. All of the above. So I guess what I would say with Session Zero is there's a great quote by, I don't know if it's like Voltaire or someone, but the thing about like, I apologize for not writing you a short letter. I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I had to write you a long one.

Yes. Right? And that idea about the time it takes to make something short. So I really, at Dimension 20, because it's so short in the anthology pieces, you know, our longest seasons are 20 episodes. Session Z zeros are critical. They're critical, right? Because there's an element of, you know,

we were recording this on a day where we also randomly did the Twitter spaces for Calamity earlier today where people were talking about, like, player agency versus railroading, right? Which is interesting, right? Because there is, I think that is a false dichotomy. Because people, you know, always your players will do things that you don't expect.

However, the way you get around the fact that a shorter campaign, especially one with pre-built sets, especially one that needs to hit certain things at certain times, it doesn't have a lot of freedom to it. The way, and for anyone out there running a one-shot or doing something like that, let's say you want to run something in Tal'Dorei, and you know that there's a set limit of time on it. I used to run a game at a summer camp where it's like, hey, August 28th, this has got to be over. Everyone's going back to different states. The way you handle that and put that together

is essentially that you need rails, but it does suck for those rails to come for the dungeon master. So what you can do in a session zero is do really definitive for me, what I use session zeros for is like, look, I have a small amount of time to get this done. I need to know everything about you because that's what the rails are gonna be. The rails are gonna be who you tell me you are. Yeah. So that way you grant this full degree of player agency

and give yourself the ability to create rails that were designed by the players, right? Which is really, that's the best of both worlds. That's having your cake and eating it, too. So for me, session zeros, I don't even just have one. I'll have, I like to do character creation all in the same room.

God, can you talk about your character, because, like, I think that's the thing, sort of, not singularly, because you blew me away. It's crazy. I felt crazy being like, I have half a thought. And then after talking to you for two hours,

I'm like, I know everything about Laren. And also I know you do, because there were really cool moments in Calamity where you were feeding me, and it wasn't a railroad. It was like, oh, you understand exactly what Laren's motivations are, so you can help me see them and be like,

yeah, you're right. I don't hear that cool prophecy. I hate this tree. A million percent, which is like, and I think, so I think that for that, doing character creation all at the same table, it's just that the shorter a campaign's gonna be, the more prep work ahead of time can enable you

to achieve these objectives in a way that feels organic. So we do character creation all together. Like for example, I have a 13 year home game that did not have multiple session zeros. I had one night 13 years ago, I was 21 years old, and we were at my buddy Jack's place in Bronxville, and I went like, here's the world, what do you guys wanna be?

And they all made characters on the spot, and I said, sounds good, because I knew that the joy as we were going to play and find out, we had the benefit of time and this surging saga that we'd be able to find all that stuff. In a shorter run, you do character creation altogether because the group needs to have a cohesive identity, the characters need to have a cohesive identity,

and again, the easiest way to hit plot objectives if you have those constraints is to have, rather than be like, I need to guess what everyone's going to do, you just go, what do you think you're going to do?

And you do that and then they will be kind enough to just tell you. And then you get to prep around that. Yeah, I was going to jump into that too and say one of the cool things

beyond just figuring out your character and you hit on this a little bit, your character's objectives and kind of where you hope to see them go or what mysteries you want to lay out

for the GM to grab onto and maybe introduce as part of their story is the inner character relationships. Because, I mean, growing up and playing this game, beginning when I began my history as a GM, people would just come with their characters and throw them into the pot and see what happens, which is a fun way

to do it. But that's how Vox Machina started. But then, even then, we were all creating characters together and that's when Laura and Liam went like, let's make them twins. Now they came into the game with a pre-established relationship. They got to talk on their own and they already walk in with a further realized

dynamic between the two of them that affects how the rest of the party comes together. With The Mighty Nein, I did the session zeros independently with each character so everyone had an opportunity to really think about it one-on-one and play with it a bit. And then we did a session zero where they brought some of the characters together, so that once again, beyond just being a well-realized character, they had some pre-established relationships that then they could come in and feel comfortable having somebody to lean on in this creative soup of, I'm beginning a new adventure how do I find this, where do I ground myself in there

and to the point of Calamity deeply deeply set relationships that all of you worked together in advance of this that when you jumped into the game you already knew each other's characters, you had overt and secret histories with each other and all of these layers of goals

and secrets you had between each other that all of these layers of goals and secrets you had between each other that just made the rest of it so juicy. And you wouldn't have that unless you established a proper extensive session zero to let that build. Yeah. Oh, God, you go.

You go. You do it. You do it. Finish your thought. I was going to just say that idea of like, so like the sessions of a character generation being its own thing, following up with those individual, like what really makes your character tick,

and then having even like a session, this is more for like actual play, but having a session zero where the cameras aren't rolling so that someone can be like, hello, hello, hello. No, I'm not doing that voice. You know, like, bail, bail. Session zero isn't enough, you know. We're beginning a campaign, too,

and Sam's not, it's like, I'm not! The last of, like, three episodes, it just went away, and we're like, yeah, it's for the best. Sometimes you just, we all agree to forget, and that's good.

But I do have a question about, like, for a longer-form campaign, and knowing that for, like, the main campaigns on CR, you're doing a lot of, like, homebrewing for your players, too. What is character creation like when you know that your players are going to have to sit in a character for roughly 100,000 hours? That's part of the conversation I have with the players. One, I don't ever want to tell them, you know, you should be this.

It's always about what do you want to play? What inspires you? And talk with the other players so you all feel like you have a comfortable group that, you know, overlaps in ways that doesn't feel like you're, you know, contradicting each other or that you don't feel unique enough in the setting. But also ask them questions of, like, is this something that you're excited about in the long run? Yeah. And, you know, here are the things that we can do if it ends up not being as exciting.

We can always pivot, you know. There's people that are very stringent. You know, your character is locked in this as you go forward, but if that's not fun for your group and it doesn't hurt anybody at the table, you know, if you can go in partway into a campaign and if they're not liking their character, they can sunset that character and they can make a new one

or they can, you know, transition into a different narrative element. Just because a person started their first 10 levels as a paladin doesn't mean they can't discard it and start life as a warrior. And not necessarily multi-class, but just switch over to it if it's fun. Discard those mechanics, get rid of levels, reskin, do a different thing.

I love that, I love that so much. That makes such a great narrative thing. Here's another funny question too. I love that. I love that so much. That makes such a great narrative thing. Here's another funny question, too. When you don't, what are the tactics you guys use to get around situations where, for logistical reasons, you couldn't have a session zero? You know what I mean? You're thrown into a stream. You're doing a one-shot, something else.

How do you bring the things you would normally get out of Session Zero into something in Meteor Res? I'm a huge fan of the giving everyone their opening moment by themselves. To just be like, okay, here's your opportunity to explain who the fuck you are. And we're all gonna take notes together and be like, what are your priorities in this early moment?

Because yeah, there's been many a charity game where it's just like, hey, this came together 11 minutes ago. And I'm like, I've seen nothing. I know nothing. Who are you? What is this? What do we care about? Oh, you're a monster.

Tight. Okay, okay, okay. And to that point, if you don't have time to do a session zero, you can just email a set of questions to the players. Just to get them thinking about it. Because they can be like, I'm a wizard who's good with fire magic. You're like, cool.

But what's something they regret from their childhood? Yes! Huh. And you just give them a few prompts. Some questions you can email them. You can do them all across the board to all the players, or if you have a little time, you can tailor them to each character to be unique.

Ask them questions about, you know, who else in the party owes you a favor and why? Yes. You know, who else in the party do you hold a grudge against and why? You know, just give them little tidbits that can kind of help replace some of those conversations that happen in Session Zero

to get them thinking so when they do show up at the table, you've tricked them into putting a little more thought into who they're going to be playing and how they're going to come to the table prepared. Love that. Write that down. Sucker your players into caring about the characters

and each other. Boom. There's not, I don't, I mean, I'll be, let's just also acknowledge, like, there's nothing, I'll just, like, there's nothing you can do if the players don't care. Like, at the end of the day, you know, it's like, I don't care how good of a GM you are,

like, the players are the driving energy of the game. Like, I truly feel like the weird thing about all these tabletops as a GM is, weirdly, it's like you're a one-person Greek chorus. Like, you're the supporting cast. The story has to follow what's happening out there. And I feel like there's a weird analogy I always like of like, you find out when you're baking,

you'll find out what you didn't put into the mix in the oven. Like you find out way too late what's not there. And I feel that way all the time when people make characters and they'll get three or four sessions into something and be like, it's not clicking for me. There's something happened this session that wasn't fun.

And you're like, it has nothing to do with this session. You made a character with no connection to the world that they're from. Or you made a character that has no history and people, there's complicated things about backstory. I don't think you need all the backstory in the world. What backstory is there to do is to give you a sense of trajectory.

Where you are coming from informs where you are going. And it's the going that's essential. So people will be like, I don't need backstory. And you're like, cool, where's your momentum coming from? Like, how are you moving? Because if you start with someone who's like, what's up? I have a class and spells and magical gear and literally no desires and no attachments.

And you're like, buddy, that's enlightenment. I don't know what to tell you. You're actually done, you win. You beat the game. You beat the game. You beat the game. You have no attachments and no desires? You have no goals? No enemies or friends?

Who are you? So yeah, that stuff I think is momentum. There's precious little I feel I can do if a player doesn't have those things. And even then, depending on the style of the table, it can be fun to explore that in the moment. One of my best friends in high school, who was one of the first people I GM'd for, Ian, love him to death, his character was a randomly wandering martial artist

on a search for power. And that was his whole backstory. And you know what? We had fun. We had fun finding out what that power was, finding out where he was wandering, finding out what happened to his parents, because everyone in D&D has dead parents. Yeah. And you just kind of find it as you go along.

So yeah, you don't feel like, to your point, every player has to necessarily feel like they are going to write a 40-page backstory, and you don't really want that necessarily. You know, one page is good for me, two pages more. At a certain point, it becomes a little challenging to incorporate all the details of the story if there's expectation to it. But if it's just for the personal player use, that's totally fine. There are real-life humans

that don't have 40 pages of backstory. You know what I mean? You don't have to go nuts. It's just the idea of, yeah, and I think that's right, of the detail is less significant, I think, than the idea of... In improv, we used to talk about the feeling of like, when does your character have justification versus when they don't? Which is like improv terminology of like,

do you know what motivates their unusual behavior, right? And I never found a way to articulate it, but I always knew the feeling of it. And it felt like the Iron Man. That last moment where something clicks, that's how much backstory you need. And that can be a sentence, or it can be a book. But when you go, got it. I will say on to that, too,

expectation of backstory integration. For me, I've always considered character backstory that is delivered to the GM is an invitation to play with it. But it shouldn't be an expectation. I've seen some conversations in the space in the past of people being like, I wrote Nixon's backstory. My GM never

made it its own story. And it's like, well, different stories find their way of happening naturally in the world based on how the players interact and how the GM wants to run the game. It's definitely an invitation. And if you do want to see that come to fruition, that's a conversation you should have in a session zero with the GM to be like, hey, there are some elements of this

that would be cool to explore if it fits within your story and just let them know that that's something that you are excited about as a player to maybe get into. But if you just pass the paper over and silently wait for the next three years for something to pop up and then get angry that it never happened, that's a lack of communication. And once again, a lot of then get angry that it never happened, that's a lack of communication. And once again, a lot of the problems that happen at the table just come from a lack of communication.

Truly. My favorite tip for the extensive backstory people, and people who are like, I have a backstory, but I forgot to send it, because I'm also that person sometimes, is right before the game starts, asking everyone at the table, pulling them to the side, and asking them really quick, like,

what's your backstory? Because someone that wrote 40 pages is going to remember the thing they care about the most. And for those who didn't come up with enough, they will generate something in the moment as they talk, and I'm like, got it. I got the most important thing, and I read the 40 pages, but you actually only care about this one nugget

right now, at least. So that's the one I'll remember and carry through in the beginning. We can revisit the other 39 pages later. I think I definitely fall on the other side of the spectrum in terms of like, for me, when I get the 40 pages of backstory, like, and again, ultimately it is agreement and conversation about what's the game you all want to play together. For me, I am lazy. So when someone hands me 40 pages of backstory,

I go, oh, plot hooks you'll bite on every time? Thank you. So in other words, there's an element of like, I, you know, when I, like, I often poke my PCs for that stuff because I want to go like, hey, what's the stuff that is going to be like slam dunks for me? Right? Like that I can – because like with D20, I make – I would say I make like 30 percent of the world and that's when we do character generation. And then people pitch stuff and I was like,

no clerics, no clerics at all? Don't develop gods, underline. And then, you know what I mean? Literally being like, where's your interest gonna be? Because it helps me save on prep time and it makes sure that I don't miss when it comes to plot hooks because it's never gonna be like, I don't know, you know,

like a mysterious necromancer in the corner of the tavern. comes to plot hooks because it's never gonna be like, I don't know, you know, like, a mysterious necromancer in the corner of the tavern. They're like, fuck this guy, what's up with this dude? And I'm like, your uncle, right, the guy you said you don't like and you swore to kill, he's here, you know, like. Bolo, sorry, Bolo please. Goddamn Bolo.

Oh, Bolo's the best. Yes! I love Bolo. Killer Diver Bolo. That's it, that's our next novel, is the whole Bolo saga. Yes! Legacy. Bolo, please. Oh, Bolo's the best. Yes! I love Bolo. I'd kill a guy for Bolo. That's it, that's our next novel, is the whole Bolo saga. Legacy. Bolo. I wish them. Oh my god.

Another interesting point, as far as getting gems prepped in the early stages, since Tal'Dorei, or Exandria in general, is an established setting, and this is a conversation that I'm interested to have as well, that can be daunting for people who are new or old players. I personally, as I've learned to GM, I would just create my own settings because I was too scared to dive into established settings, like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk when I first got into D&D. And so I understand there can be a reticence or an anxiety

about not wanting to ruin a setting or not wanting to run it incorrectly. And I think this would be kind of a good conversation to have on how to get past that fear and ways to prepare yourself for something like this if it's something you really wanted to do. Well, the nice thing I'll say is no one would ever correct you about running Teldorion wrong. You never had that fear, right? I actually was super confident, and I was like, you know what's going to be good

is to run in a campaign setting where the shit I have to make up on the spot immediately becomes canon. Yeah, that's fine. And that's going to be fun, actually. That's going to be super not stressful. This is going to be good for me. It's a great topic. We're going in a great direction. This is good. This is good. I's fine. And that's going to be fun, actually. That's going to be super not stressful. This is going to be good for me. It's a great topic.

We're going in a great direction. This is good. This is good. I love it. The good news is, for the majority of you, it will not be live streamed to the internet, so you can fuck it up as much as you want. And no one's going to poke you about it on the internet.

Yeah, dude. Fucking ice water in my veins. Hey, try it when the guy that made the world is at your table. You look great. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, people know this, but I literally, it was like,

Danny Carr with a blowgun in the corner. If I say some shit that's not true, please, please, help me. that's not true. Please, please, help me. But I have all of that to say. It's, yeah. So don't do it. Don't even try is the thing. No, I think, yeah, the way you kind of put it

where this feels the way it feels like when you run any sort of campaign or source book, where you know that there's a possibility that someone at the table will know the setting a little better than you because anyone can buy the book and study harder than you did because you were doing all of the things

to build a story and know 100% all the lore. I think it's just the idea of, one, if you have the ability to, take a break and go look something up. I think there's this weird tension, especially when people watch a lot of actual play, to be perfect

immediately. Video games have buffering. You can just be like, I have to poop real bad and then take the book into the back and study for five minutes and come back out with the answer that you want or the lore that you needed. Players are always going to go in the direction that one thing you didn't prepare, and they back out with the answer that you want or the lore that you needed. Players are always going to go in the direction of one thing you didn't prepare,

and they're going to go sprint that way, so give yourself a little bit of grace, I think is the first part of being comfortable. I'll also say to that, too, as part of the Session Zero beginning of the campaign, establish this is your version of the setting. Yes. If you really want to be hardcore in the canon, you can,

but really, and that was the intent with writing Tal'Dorei Reborn and writing Wildemount Book was to ensure that this was information that you could use. That it's meant to be helpful, that you can take and use as much as you want to the letter, or break it apart and make

it and customize it however you want to for your own setting at home. Just letting your players know that this is your own setting at home. Just letting your players know that this is your version of the world. Some things will be considered the same, some things might change, some things might contradict, and that's intended because it's yours, not mine. Not yours, not yours. It's yours. Yeah. Wow.

That's good. You answered that too good. I was making it up. Yay! Yay! What's the prompter saying now? Are we supposed to read that? You answered that too good. I was making it up. What's the prompter saying now? Are we supposed to? I can't read anymore, why'd I take my glasses off? Okay. What's it saying? I was doing it sincerely.

Exandria is a labor of love and collaboration. And as part of that conversation, Aabria, what was it like creating Nier at All Park? Ooh, thanks for asking. Can't stick in that voice. Just let it drop. It was so, okay. Man, EXU is so cool.

It's such a beautiful thing to have been able to start off in a established place and be like, here's like, let's play all the greatest hits. Like here's Iman and those things that we know and love and looking at. Yeah. The moment we were able to move and create something new was that was like the gift because you get your opportunity to say, like, here's the theme that I take from this world that I love so much. And as someone who didn't get raised in high fantasy, to me, the interesting part of this world and like this sort of Campbellian monomyth that you play with a group and improvise is that idea of aggregating power and deciding what you're going to be. And it's usually a hero, but not always. And yeah, Neardall Park was my little love letter

to the idea of being at the precipice because the brief was very fun for that first Calamity. They were right at level two going into three, knowing that half of the cast was going to take their characters into a long form campaign and then pick all of their subclasses while we were playing. That idea of like power undifferentiated and being in the moment making the decision about the person and the hero you wanted to be i wanted to create a little city

that sort of lived in the like we don't really see the difference between like divine power and nature power and arcane magic it's all just just potential and what you want to do with it. So it ended up being like a fun little theme. And then I just want to add a bunch of vowels. That's all. That's it. I mean, that's honestly the trick. Add vowels, add apostrophes, make it look fancy.

I mean, you're not going to get a more solid GM tip than throw an apostrophe in there. Yo, get that in there. That's good. Get it in there. I love that, that kind of like Promethean in between space, that liminal space of possibility. That's so fun, thank you for adding to the world. Yeah!

It's so cool. I ugly cried when I saw the first mock-up of the map and it was on there and I was like, Ryan, my poor husband, was like, I don't know what to do. Like, he just stood there as I just, like, scream-sobbed at my cat. Because it was real and a part of it.

It was great. So thank you for that weird moment in my relationship. But Ryan, I was like, once a month. It makes me joy. I think I've said this to you before as well. Like, I despise the auteur theory of world building in creation, in film in general, but in this instance, the idea of one person is the author of a space

and kind of domineers over the what's right and what's wrong with that. This was, once again, all created kind of out of accident and the necessity for it to build, and as it kind of took on a life of its own, nothing has been more fun and more exciting than watching it grow beyond me. You know, like, and I feel like, like, you know, as a person who's not a parent,

this is the closest thing I have to a child is this world, and watching other people kind of become family to it as well and kind of adding and developing it in their own way. It's really kind of special. Story babies? I think we got story babies. Oh, hell yeah. Speaking of story babies, let's talk about what you did. Yes. Because I got

a place, you got a time. Yes. What was it like building out the sort of legendary Age of Argonauts? For the record, I was so much more relieved to have a, I think what you pulled off with the first EXU and then Kaimal after it is so much scarier to me and such a bigger lift because as much,

because I'm sure people who get Calamity are like, you could fuck up the past and change the future. But to me, I was like, you're like, you could fuck up the past and change the future. But to me, I was like, I was like, I was counting them, I was like, We got halfway there and we were like, wait. I had a button to shut it down if it got to three, I was ready.

Here's the thing, when you don't have those first, when you don't have those first two, because it goes one in 20, one in 400, one in 8,000, one in 160,000 or 1.6 million? In any case, the first two 20s take it down from either 160,000 or 1.6 million all the way down to one in 400, which is way more likely.

No, but to me, I was very intimidated by the idea of having the past behind you, which is what EXU, the situation is, is you have the full weight of the canon there. Weirdly, when Matt was talking to me about, like, oh, like, EXU, here's all the corners of the world that warrant exploring,

and Matt threw out the Age of Arcanum, and I was like, that was not said by accident. Like, that's a part of this world that Matt loves. And the entire Aorark in C2 is, I mean, there's a million of my favorite arcs, but that one does stand out as being like, what an incredible piece of world building because fantasy,

like what Exandria nails and what Matt nailed in C2 is fantasy's bad with time. Fantasy is bad with time. All respect to J.R.R. Tolkien. I'll cry every time Théoden's on screen or in the book for the rest of my life, a sword day, a red day, as the air of the sun rises. But we gotta get to Return of the King.

We gotta get there. We'll get you there. But I've called it out in the past that, like, in Middle-earth, like, the best sword that ever got made got made 10,000 years ago, and if you compare that to the real-world advancement of weapons technology in Earth,

you start to go, like, how are blacksmiths doing emotionally? Are they okay? They're all doing better. They're all like, yeah, I guess there was an elf a long time ago who made the best thing there's ever goddamn been. And what's so great about Exandria

is that it exists in time. Matt is so good about having fucking holidays and a calendar and time moves. And it creates a feeling of reality to all these things. And when you go into C2 with Aeor, you get the feeling of like, no, no, no, this like, yes, we have this lapsarian, Edenic thing that's necessary for fantasy of like,

how do you populate a world with tons of dungeons and magic items that are unexplained? You need some long ago time. And in Middle Earth, Tolkien kind of just goes like, yeah, shit was dope back then, and it stopped being dope. time, and in Middle Earth, Tolkien kind of just goes like, yeah, shit was dope back then, and it stopped being dope. Anyway, and... I'm verbatim, that's what he said.

But with Calamity, there's this incredible in-world explanation for how this stuff got lost. So it was... I'm sorry I take 40 minutes to answer a question. No, it's fine. My brain, so I apologize. Your brain is good. But the point being, it was an incredible time to go back to,

and it was really exciting to go back there because it was basically, as an improviser, the ability to yes and all of the implications of this deeply tragic, horrifying, you know, you get to Aeor, Cognosa, the Genesis War, you know, like all this stuff, you get into this thing, the, the, the Immensis Gate, and you start going like, this was not like now. And it's, you know, and it's, it's, it's different.

You get to this world and you're like, this place was bureaucratic and Byzantine and itantine and things aren't like this anymore. How strange. And you see visions of a more technologically advanced, which is a big departure from the Tolkien thing. It's not just like, oh, people were more magical back then. It was like, no, no, no, there was a whole system going on. So everything with Avalir and everything in Calamity was

a huge yes and and a huge ability to basically tap into a piece of storytelling DNA and go, okay, spread that out. What's the evolution tree that comes off of that Aeor arc from C2?

And it was a goddamn dream. And specifically to be in the ancient past was, I felt like a big load off to be like, I'm going to go into the ancient past, I'm going to sideswipe to an unnamed sky city, and we're going to make something where, like, it's going to sort of, like, have a little bit of space for six of the best

players in the world to fuck my shit up and not ruin anything in the canon. But also, you explain the shattered teeth, which is fucking dope. That was so cool. That was delicious. There was

some of my favorite stuff that came out of talking with Matt in that one were like, because I think that we were talking about it before, because in the early stuff of that it was like, yeah, where does Avalir go? Like, it's bopping around. It's sort of this traveling city. For the record, like, just to jump in here, like, so much of my life since Critical Role started, even before that, just at home, was just by myself in my room building this shit, because the only people that cared

about it were my players. Getting to collaborate with people, both in these books and then actually world build and have you out of this is so awesome and so freeing. To have somebody to bounce it off of reminds me of when I used to co-GM with my friend Zach

like 15 years ago. To have somebody to bounce ideas off of and to like, you know, tie things together. And these conversations were exactly that. I remember like taking Omar to the vet with Marisha and while she's taking care of his instance inside, I'm out there for like an hour on the phone with you talking about

just like the cosmology of Exandria and how the gods relate to mortality and their creations and the historical kind of truth behind a lot of the different gods. And, like, I don't get to have those conversations with anybody. You know, like, that's awesome. But anyway, sorry, I had to cut you off there. Yeah, I need another 20.

Thanks, man. Yeah, please don't cut me off. What was I saying? Essentially, it was a beautiful time to explore. And tying it into the lore, the shattered teeth, the Vespin Chloris, and the divinities, right? Because those are the things that sort of like, you couldn't Pervon Sewell. Talk about a moment where you have to improvise

where you're not expecting it. I was like, all right, we got the Purvan cameo, and he's dippin', and Sam and Luis being like, wait! And I was like, don't make me do more stuff with Purvan. That's a part you can really fuck up. I was very careful about not giving them surface. You know, part of having Avalir be, again, a before-unmentioned place is I was like,

whatever you guys do here, it's like I've childproofed the house. Sorry, not that the players were themselves children, but you know, foam surfaces. I'm a dumb baby, thanks. You want stuff that they can break it. 100%. You want to have that thing where it's like,

okay, we're gonna be in a corner of the setting that if you break it or don't, whatever, it's gonna survive. Rather than doing it in like, we first talked about doing it in like, okay, we're going to be in a corner of the setting that if you break it or don't, whatever, it's going to survive. Rather than doing it in like, when we first talked about doing it in Aeor, I was like, that's really intimidating in a very scary way, because we know that Aeor has to survive

well into the Calamity. There's a lot of things that need to get hit there. So yeah, that's what was like doing Age of Arcanum stuff. It was a joy. Incredible. I mean, I'm not saying a broken record here, but I'm just

cool. You guys are cool. This has been fun. Another cool facet, too, of having you guys play in this world is everything you do, you know, you keep saying, I don't want to mess anything up, and you haven't. I don't want to mess anything up, and you haven't. I didn't want to mess it up. I was like, I'm going to ruin it.

And you tried. I broke it. And you broke a lot of things. Thanks. But there was one thing you couldn't stop. Heartbreak. And the calamity, I guess, is in the name. But so many facets of the player choices of the world building that you've both done,

are now canon. And that gives me more things to play off of in the future, too. And it's kind of like the cyclical thing where we just, I don't know, we get to fill in the gaps and push back the fog of war, and it is a world building yes-and, which is awesome. It isn't just like, I've been building this thing and you guys did your own side stories.

It's passing the baton back and forth. And nothing is more exciting than watching what you guys do or playing in what you guys are doing and being like, oh, that'll be fun to maybe pull into a later campaign or like, oh, this will be a fun thing to reference down the road. Or, oh, that actually ties this thing together that I hadn't had time to really flesh out.

Or, wow, that's not at all what I was anticipating. It's much cooler than what I was thinking of. We're going to go with that now. I just love the whole process. So thank you guys for taking the plunge. And to that point, in using this at home, you don't have to worry about any of this pressure. You can do whatever the fuck you want.

You want to stop the calamity? Go for it. Oh my god, do it. It's fine. Stop the calamity! Don't let it happen. If you see a tree and it doesn't make sense, you should just leave it. You should just trust a tree is maybe the thing.

The Sun Tree's ancestor, look what you did. Look, I expected to blight it, just to be like, hey. The hubris of slightly disliking hippies. My parents will remember that. Fuck you and fuck your tree. Every wizard is a yuppie. Of course they hate anyone that walks around barefoot. Wizards wear their shoes to bed.

They're not cool. They're not chill people wizards wear their shoes to bed. They're not cool. They're not chill people. I wear my shoes to bed. Here's a fun question. And before we answer this, totally fine too, but of the lore that you've established and brought into Exandria, what element of it is your favorite?

What thing are you the most proud of and what you've created in this world? Oh, that's a good question. Wow. Dang. You're gonna wanna speed this a little bit up while we think in real time. I know it seemed disrespectful in Kaimul,

but to me, I just loved the idea that even a generation after one of the worst things that ever happened to Tal'Dorei in the Chroma Conclave happened, to me, irreverency and a lack of holding the past as sacred, it's a hopeful thing and a sign of progress. We're like, we're no longer wounded by that so we can laugh at it. So making the like Chroma Spa cave and really just the world's goofiest little casino to me was that idea that like nature heals and sometimes it heals a little stupid, but it does heal and moves forward. And then when you mentioned the taste of taldore in the main game uh my group chat of all of us while we're watching like blew up we're like did you see i'm like yeah watch it ah oh and and and i can't take all the credit for that the taste of taldore was uh bashir gauss is one of his contributions to the hell catch valley so that's that was bashir's little

thread that he threw to me and then i got the flesh out from within there so that that was another example of passing the baton back and forth in co-world building that makes something really special. I love that. Exploring that was all the external chaos and internal deep sigh that I could have never hoped for. I'm so sorry.

Just, oh, God, you're right. Now I have Casa Bonita and Tal'Dorei, and I thank you for that. I'm so sorry. No, it's right. Now we have Casa Bonita in Tal'Dorei, and I thank you for that. I'm so sorry. No, it's wonderful. It's fucking great. But it's true, though. It's one of the things that, you know,

for all of its bumps and warts, I always appreciated about South Park is that it is willing to take sometimes deep tragedy and as part of the process of processing it and healing from it, to be able to find the humor in the darker elements of humanity and kind of showing its face.

And I think that's a really fun example of that. Humor, yeah. I love that. Like you were saying. Oh, do you do funny stuff? Because I just cried for four weeks straight. God. Cool. Damn. Cool.

Damn! Cool. I'm still dehydrated about this whole show. I'm sunburned from this side now. Ah! Fucking Two-Face over here just flipping my coin. Part, honestly, when the bolo scene happened, part of me was like, get your laughs in now, motherfuckers.

Tone's not coming up from this. No, but honestly, like you're saying, I believe irreverence as healing is beautiful. And I think that, honestly, to that point, humorlessness does not occur in nature. When I have been around death in my real life, there's almost always been laughter, not at the expense of death.

One of the ways I put it, talking with Iz about it, was like, death is not a punchline, but it is the perfect setup. Death renders everything around it absurd. So weirdly, I've always, in moments that I've been in, either at funerals or dealing with the post-mortem, even just logistics of like, okay, a family member has passed away.

I have a reservation for us at Bucca di Beppo. And you go, and you just go like, yeah, because we are hungry again and we will have to eat. And later today, some of us will poop. Some of us will poop on the day of death. And everything is rendered hilarious by the presence of that there.

So I feel like irreverence, that's actually, I feel like both me and Iz have that shared value of like, yeah. It's why we loved Everything, Everywhere, All at Once so much because it's like profundity and absurdity are deeply in love. They go hand in hand, right? The world is very profoundly meaningful

and deeply silly. Daniel Sloss has a wonderful piece in one of his stand-ups where he talks about using humor in the darkest of moments as a wonderful, necessary relief of stress and emotion. And he has a whole story

about his closest friend waits for the perfect moment with the perfect joke at the most inappropriate emotional beat. And I can't help but feel that deep in my heart and love that truth wholly. Yeah, a million percent. To the Exandria thing,

I think what I, in terms of a piece of lore, I really enjoyed just like, there was a chonky bit of lore for Avalir. You were a champ, Aabria, in terms of being like the stem wizard. Like everyone got a lot of lore. You were like, here's 40 spell engines.

And for everyone that kept track of what the fuck those spell engines were, you're a champ and a pro, and I appreciate you. Because in that, like, there was, I threw a lot of, like, jargon at people. Almost, and I think that, like, the jargon for me

was part of the point of being, like, if you're a little intimidated by the amount of crazy wizard shit going on, yeah, it was intimidating at the time. Like, this was out of hand. Like, this got a little goofy. So having, and I think I texted you, Matt, one day,

you were like, we were scheduling a meeting, and I was like, just sitting here coming up with fake wizards. It's like. This is my job today. This is my job. My job today is I've come up up with fake wizards. This is my job today. This is my job. My job today is I've come up with 30 fake wizards. Got all their names.

There's so many of them. So you've called three fake wizards. Go. Madara Glyph. I feel bad about her. Let me just say, that was the meanest thing I did, and I went home and I was like, I feel bad about that. It's pretty harsh.

Ugh. Shout out to Madara. I'm so sorry. Madara. Ooh. Don't suck that tree, but I'm sad about the girl. Yeah, Madara. Well, you know, I definitely was like, I was like, I'm either going to bring that back

later and have it be like, oh, she quit or something fucked up happened. But then, you know, the apocalypse happened and other shit. Scott took priority. But the, yeah yeah i think that was great and i think too just the idea of being able to bring vespen chloris in bringing vespen chloris in terms of a piece of lore to really connect because the world remembers vespen as

such a villain and to really underline that his greatest sin was the greatest sin of his age, which was hubris. In other words, this guy was not a nihilist. He didn't want to, he wasn't like, I wanted to release the betrayers and I succeeded. He, like every other fucking wizard, thought he could do some cool shit and was wrong. And to take Matt's world building of like the Age of Arcanum, they overreached, they went too far. And to be like, not only is that Vespin's crime, it's the crime of these people. And so you as an audience watching Calamity

can infer, because this is all you're seeing, that this is true everywhere. And so that in a weird way, so many, like, you know, one is an instance, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern. You see all the ring of brass and you go, oh, the whole, this is the, this is the world. This is the water that all these fish are swimming in. And so that, like, to use Vespin for that and say, and paint the whole age with that brush through him and the ring of brass was my favorite part of that world building. I think definitely the establishing of Vespin, as far as the Calamity goes,

is one of my favorite things that you finally got to show and reveal within the lore as a character that's been kind of a spooky specter throughout the history, as well as establishing the creation of the Shattered Teeth and the final reveal at the end. Just such a great moment. To put the spotlight back on you, one of the things that I thoroughly enjoyed through EXU was a very important city that had never been seen in person throughout the entire campaign, that was deeply tied into the backstory of two main Vox Machina characters, Vex and Vax, the town of Byroden that they grew up in, that had been spoken of and written of in loose tales and meant to be kept fairly vague until we visited it. And then we had the opportunity to, and you brought it to

such vibrant light in so many wonderful ways that I wouldn't have expected. And as another example, in ways that made it far better than I would have done myself. And once again, this is one of the things I love about collaboration is being surprised at how people continue to elevate things beyond what you can. Even as the initial creator of it. And it completely changed my perspective on that city. It's something that was like, oh, it's a fun thing there that maybe we'll ever get to now. Like, I really love Byroden,

and I really want more stories to be told in it. And now people have a very clear idea of not just it as a fantasy town, but also elements that reflect actual real-world experiences and cultural touchstones so that people who live in those sort of environments and those parts of the South and beyond the border there can look at it and be like,

oh, I know exactly what that is and I can build off that for my own home game. And shout out to Amy Carrero because we had that conversation about Laredo, Texas and I've yelled many times on the internet about why I think the American South is the most magical part. There's something storied about it

in this very interesting way. And also having the fun of making a place that felt homey and cozy in the way that the descriptions and experiences of Syngorn weren't in order to validate Vex and Vax's path of the way they romanticized their youth that we never saw versus this sort of coldness of the elven city that we did get to see.

It was just fun, and pies are fun. And I'll say to that point, too, it's that logic thread, I think, that makes worldbuilding good. You can make up a bunch of towns and be like, these towns are unique in their own way, but when you get down to finding the logic as to why they are the way they are and what makes them similar and contrasting against the other nearby societies, those logic questions that you ask yourself is what ends up leading to really, really good world building

because it feels alive. There seems to be reason to why things exist the way they are and where they're going. And that's kind of my exercise whenever I'm trying to world build is have some fun ideas, throw them down, and then start the logic matrix of how does this fit now

against everything else around it? How does it affect the space that I've put it in? And if it doesn't work, do I move it elsewhere? What do I change to make it work? Does it bring up more questions about things I've already created? And then how can I change the math on these things so they all now work together and make sense? And that's, that's part of the problem solving and kind of puzzle aspect of world building. It's so fun. And, uh, you guys are freaking great at

it and I love it. We learned it from you story, dad. Learned it from you. Oh my god. What's next on the thing? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I like, do you want to ask this? Yeah, I'll ask, I got this. We gotta stop squinting so hard. We're just like, this is natural. Yeah, put on my glasses, though. I will put mine back on.

I can't see for shit, y'all. Well-oiled machine. Matt! Yeah, brother? Oh no! I'm blacking out. Drink some water. Just more coffee. Never had water a day in my life. What were some of your inspirations for Exandria?

That was almost as big, so I'm done. This is actually great, because like Exandria itself, Exandria was born in a misty past that none of us have access to. Which is pretty fucking cool. That's a little bit of the Matryoshka doll of the Genesis. Like, we come into campaign one partway through, so the idea of, like,

it's Genesis really starting as others. Like, yeah, what were its inspirations? And, like, I also do kind of want the, like, real-world info. Yeah. Not only, like, your kind of, like, lore-building stuff, but also, like, where were you in your life when you were, like, building it? Ooh, yeah. That's interesting also where were you in your life when you were building it? Ooh, yeah.

That's interesting. Who were you when you built this? Younger. Yeah, I'm done with drinking. That's a little spit take. We're done here. Okay, so Exandria started as a reaction to wanting to run a game for a bunch of my voice actor friends who some of them hadn't played in a long time, and some of them had never played.

And so it wasn't meant to be a world, it was meant to be a city. I just built Stillben. It was a swamp town for a one-shot, and I got nothing more beyond some basic facets of the town, a couple of inn names, a couple of road names, a couple of factions, and a general through line, a one-shot we could play in six hours at home on a weekend. And that was it. It wasn't even in Exandria. There was no name for the world. It was just a town. And then we finished the one-shot,

and then the email came in. Hey, that was great. When's the next one? Oh, Snowbound is becoming a campaign. And they were hooked, and I was like, yes. And so then the next game turned into Western, and then I built the area around Western. And then after that second, third session, I was like, oh, this is becoming an actual campaign.

I guess I've got to start building this. And so from there, I began going into Photoshop and started just scanning hand sketches of the outside of Tal'Dorei. And there wasn't even Xandri then. It was just Tal'Dorei. And I still have my old files that I really poorly done in Photoshop. But yeah, so it was just a slow building thing. And then eventually they had explored enough of it and began to ask and invest in enough of the world's history and the lore that I had to write it. And so I began to expand upon that in my head, and then I came up with the name of the world,

which was Exandria. And they asked about other continents, and I said, sure, Assyria. And I will never get to it, and then eventually when we do, I'll flesh it out. And, you know, like, it just kind of organically happened as we played. It was laying the tracks down in front of the train

as the players are exploring it. And then the more I did that, the more I fell in love with it. And then I just wanted to see more of it realized and wanted to flesh it out. And then it became the logic thing. It began from what was just like throwing things together. What are the things that bother me about fantasy worldbuilding? As a person that grew up reading novels and watching fantasy films and TV, a lot of high fantasy is wonderfully designed in its flair and its color and its magic

and its robust sense of wonder, and then it breaks down if you look past the curtain. Like you were saying earlier with Middle-earth. At a certain point, you're like, yes, well, it's a magical time where things of wonder occurred. Now there are dwarves. And you're like, right, but like. So you're 3,000 years old, but your generations are each like 150. How do you know that if you go on a date with someone, it's not your descendant? Do you guys keep a record of this somewhere? I would. You'd have to have little bracelets or something.

That awkwardness still happens, I'm sure, in the Kryn Dynasty. Love that. Kryn Dynasty matchmaking? Buku bucks, baby. Guarantee you're not related. There's an interesting book I remember reading many years ago that a friend recommended to me

called, I think it was Many Lives, Many Masters, which is an interesting story, I say. It's supposedly based on a true story, but about past life regressions and people discovering that they had reoccurring souls that would show up in different past lives. In this life, they were partners. In this life, they were neighbors.

In this life, they were a father-son. But they were a continuing cycle of spirits. It's a very interesting story, whether or not you believe that or not. I don't necessarily, but it was interesting to read. But that was an element of that inspiration

in the creation of the Korean dynasty. And as it began to develop, I was like, that's got to be an interesting scenario to all of a sudden be born, come in to realize

your previous memories and be like, huh, you there, my oldest teacher, I was your father 300 years ago. You know, this is odd. Let's grab a sandwich and have some therapy.

Like, you know, it's a weird scenario. But yeah, so then I guess to what you were saying earlier, the world building of logic began to be, okay, this is a game of Dungeons and Dragons. There are ancient relics. There are ruins that contain mystery and power. Why do they exist? There has to be something that buried them.

There has to be a reason, not only that people could build great things, but then lose them. And that's where the idea of the Calamity came into bay. And also, the Divergence was one of the things that bothers me in a lot of fantasy settings, where there are powerful deities, all powerful entities that,

that guide the threads of fate and walk amongst the planes. But then all of a sudden, if there's a great danger, it's up to a couple of low life heroes in the tavern to beat it. And the gods are like, ah, thanks for me. You know,

like the, the logic kind of broke for me there. So I wanted to come up with a reason that the gods were removed from the world so that the players still felt they had agency and couldn't rely on the gods to fix all their problems. And if they did, I wouldn't have to be like, the god just says, nah. The godfather known for being like, we'll put a pin in it. You're not entirely wrong. But yeah, so a lot of it was just kind of lodging out those facets of history that bothered me in other fantasy settings

and wanting to try and lay out some ground rules early in that would help me down the road if we ever crossed those paths. So I could go on a whole tangent from there. But I think those are some loose answers to that question. Yeah. Oh, it's so cool. God, the idea of being in like Westruun

and having a feeling of like, I think we're in the oldest part of our world, not actually. Like the idea of like a world that grew organically from something small and then like over time, you know, like, that's so beautiful. It's very weird. I'll have to see if I can,

I know I have the files somewhere. I'll have to look at my old, old maps where it's just like the dividing planes. I don't think they're my old, old maps where it's just like the Dividing Plains. I don't think they were called the Dividing Plains yet. It was just like, there's a town, and there's Gatshado the Mountain, and there's just grass, and there's a little mountain here,

and there's Stillben, and that's your map! Yay! The idea of like, is there part of you that wants to, I don't know, to me, if I were in Exandria, I'd be like, I want to go to Stillben. Just to be like, some don't know, to me, if I were in Exandria, I'd be like, I want to go to Stilben. Just to be like, some part of me, I'm drawn to that town. It's so cool. Funky little fishing town.

Funky little fishing town. Love it. Little swamp town. There has to be someone in Stilben now that has a small trade where they sell relics of the legendary Vox Machina that are totally just fake and given shitty titles on them. Beautiful. I have a question. Do you remember the moment where Exandria felt not complete, but whole to you?

Instead of just the... At what point were you like, I've laid enough track, and now it's connected, and the train can go on its own a little bit without me like... Never. Okay, cool. It's always a... Yay! connected and the train can go on its own a little bit without me like never okay cool it's it's always a oh okay what next do i have to do oh god um which is you know that's a special stress when it comes to actual play you know when you're at home the only people you have to impress are the people at your table uh and what we do the stakes are a little larger you know when people are assembling wikis and pages that are listing out

all the contradictions within the things you've established in your lore, and you're like, fuck! I forgot that! That's not what I meant! I misspoke on it! Okay, well, I'll figure it out later. What did I just say? Panic? I've only ever felt an actual play. I'm like, yes.

What did I just say? Oh, no, I have to say it again. Oh, what did I call that? I'm still getting over it, Abrea. You asked Matt, like, when did the world feel done? And Matt Stone Cold went, it doesn't. With this right here. Folks, get it at your local gaming store,

tell Derry Reborn. If that's not done, and this is a continent, folks. Yeah, get it at your local gaming store at Tal'Darii Reborn. If that's not done, and this is a continent, folks. That's one continent. They got Wildemount too. This is not done. I'm just gonna go home. I don't know. Take it, man. What the

fuck? Not done? I got three months between seasons, okay? Welcome to Biggityburg. Here we go. It's the new town. This is the new season. You whackity-schmackity do ten episodes. Help me. The only thing my brain's going to remember

from all of that is Biggityburg. Welcome to Biggityburg. I'm different. I'm on the ruins of Avalir and the from all of that is Biggity Berg. Welcome to Biggity Berg. I'm different. Go on the ruins of Avalir and the Shattered Teeth. Biggity Berg. Biggity Berg, deep in there. Welcome to Biggity Berg. Go home, play that in your world, and tag Brennan on Twitter when you do it.

Let me know how it goes in Biggity Berg. Hashtag Biggity Berg. Truly. With that, though, I think that is a testament, Matt, to like your, you know, every GM is different and everyone, like, but you're like, I know what you mean of like rendering this stuff in detail. There's always more to be done. There's always more world building to be done. But I do think that like your knowledge of this world is so deeply inspiring and the idea too of a world that like because i think you want that feeling right for me that feeling of you sit at a table and you look

up at a gm and that gm goes like oh i literally know about this world i i i would pass out from exhaustion before I was finished explaining to you everything I know about this world. You want that feeling as a player to be like, it's real. That's such an interesting thing, where players always do that. They always say that, did you know? Did you prep that? Was that written down before? But you's like but you feel that as a player when you sit down and I think like the beautiful thing about Alexandria and again even like of course your answer was going to be like it's not done yet. World building is a hallmark of

great storytellers. Yeah. Or lazy ones. You know what? You can be both. I can be very much. You're incredible and you got to roll around in a compliment you've got to roll around in a compliment. You've got to roll around in a compliment. I'm getting better at that, thank you. But also, not done in the sense that what I set out to do with this, especially with the books, is to not be like, here, Tal'Dorei, it's done. It's like,

here, Tal'Dorei, this is what me and Hannah and Joey or James Haig have put together, and there are many spaces in here for you to continue to build off of. It's a thorough scaffolding for you to also take the inspiration to build off in however way you want to. Nothing makes me happier than meeting critters in the wild, pre-COVID and also in the street on occasion here and there, and them telling me about their home games. Some people are scared to mention it, others are more excited to tell me the things they've changed. I'm like, yes, please, tell me how you've broken my world and made it your own, because that was what I want to hear. I want you to feel like you own now this setting in your own way.

That also is kind of what I mean when I say it's unfinished, meaning I hope that in passing it off, it continues to grow with everyone else. Yeah, that's beautiful. Oh, man. Why do you guys make your villains so hot? That's my question. It's not on the prompter. Why do I make

villains so hot? First of all, I was following in your footsteps because Abrea established that every Exandria GM gets a Betrayer God as a goodie bag on the way out. Yeah, that is fun. That is fun. That is fun for us. I saw you with the Spider Queen and I was like, I'm doing that shit.

There was nothing more gratifying than watching you have that big spoilers turn moment because I was like, I could have never done that. Amy would not have let me be bad. She's like, no, girl! I'm like, I got girl bossed. The fact that Amy, and once again, this is a testament to why I love playing with newer players. Yes!

Oh, when they don't know what they can do. There's a cycle, I'm'm noticing through the years of playing. It's like a player cycle. When you first begin, you don't know the boundaries that a lot of experienced players expect or understand. The more you know the game, the more you tend to, more often than not, stay within the confines of what the game establishes as the rules.

But when you're new to it, you don't really understand that, so you take wider swings, you make stranger choices, you really kind of push against those boundaries because you don't know where the boundaries are. You're like a kid who's learning how to walk for the first time and bumping into the furniture, and it's wonderful. And then eventually you kind of fall into those lines, and not always, but sometimes you find yourself

kind of subconsciously sticking, you know, coloring within the lines because you've learned to do so. Then over time, you begin to realize you've been doing that, and then you go back to being weird again. That's my other favorite point. It's new players or extremely experienced players that have come back to reclaim their stupid youth as players. Amy was a perfect example of a player who just didn't give a shit and wanted to just follow the thread and push in the best way. And the two of you playing off of each other. I, oh my god.

I'm sitting, I was at the table just kind of going, what is happening? This is amazing. That's so good. But I think, Aabria, your proficiency and excellency in reading that, because that's the thing, right? It's so funny, the term master, game master or dungeon master, it creates this hierarchy, but it's an inverted hierarchy. Because what it is, is you are in the position of service as a GM.

It's like you are singular. Even though all these people share one role and you have a singular role, I've always compared it to the person who's making dinner in a small kitchen. Because the kitchen can't fit that many people. You're making dinner for everybody. And I feel like you're saying to read your players

and go, I'm going to serve you in this moment and give you exactly what you're asking for. That is what you are. You're a genie. You're like, I'm going to serve you in this moment and give you exactly what you're asking for. Like, that is what you are. You're a genie. You're like, I'm going to grant your wish. What's the experience you came here to get? Let me give it to you. And I feel like that was an unparalleled example

of, like, reading what a player wanted in that moment and being like, cool, you get your wish. Like, that was great. It was so great. To answer your question, that is the audience's eye, and the internet is thirsty. Yeah, we are. Don't try to make villains hot. I audience's eye, and the internet is thirsty. Yeah, we are. Don't try to make villains hot.

I make villains villains, and then the internet goes, they're hot. And I'm like, I don't, how? That's a hot boy. Okay, no, well that, well that. That's a hot boy. Well, okay, no, Lucien is hot because. I walked into this room and was like, hey baby. Look, look.

Smash! Lucien is hot because the character that eventually became Lucien was established as hot by the creator of that character, and then thus I had to represent them as also being equally hot. Your hands were tied. You had to be hot. Your hands were tied. And why was he mostly naked? Because I wanted him to be. Yeah! There we go. Well, because it is very much that angelic, biblical kind of visual,

that classic painting I wanted to reference, and I wanted to see his muscles. It's good to see muscles. Right? It's good. While we're talking about building and having physical stuff, let's talk about my favorite new skill that I got to learn for EXU,

which was physical maps, because I'm a theater of the mind kid until this. So talk to me, y'all, people who have done this, way more about the process of building maps for encounters for your games. Ah. To start, I'll say I've played both theater of Mind and map, and I love them both for different reasons. Yeah.

I think for smaller groups, I prefer Theater of Mind, unless everyone really, really enjoys having miniatures and maps. But Theater of Mind can tell a quicker story and combat can feel more cinematic if you're not having to focus down on something that's on the table. But with larger groups, like five, six or more players, theater of mind can become challenging for people to understand spatial awareness, and that's where the minis really come into play for me. But when it comes to maps,

I'm also a huge fan of miniatures. I've been collecting them for a long time. I love, I call them my adult Legos, because it really is just like sitting down and bringing something to physical life and being creative. Yeah, how about you?

I'm going to give Rick Perry a call. Well, I will just say, I remember when you told me about the beauty of Blu-Tack, and I was like, oh my God. That changed. Oh, Blu-Tack. Well, that's a Rick Perry original. So on Dimension 20, we have Rick Perry,

who's our production designer, who is a brilliant man, and his whole shop at Katie McGeorge, his whole shop of people are awesome that come on and produce our miniatures, which is, even if I were a minis collector, so many of our Dimension 20 seasons are set in Candyland Game of Thrones or High School for Heroes, right?

So we do a lot of pop culture mashup things and a lot of genre mashup things, which means that all of a sudden it needs to get built from scratch. And Rick does an incredible job of doing that. But it also means that the maps we play with over there get featured in the episode where they appear and then we wish them a fond farewell and off they go. But when I'm playing in home games, I have the dry erase, I have the minis, I have the tokens, I have stuff. I really recommend Othello pieces if you have a home game.

Because you can flip them over to the white side and then dry erase on them for hit points and you can track the hit point right. Damn, I never thought of that. Write that shit down. That's good, this is good. That's a life hack right there. It's a life hack, you just have how much,

and if you don't wanna give away how many hit points they have and also subtraction's harder than addition, you just literate how much damage they've taken and you keep in mind their HP total. Ooh, that's good. So, I do prefer maps because I think that there is a lot of fun for tactical.

And I also play with larger, I think your point about larger groups is exactly right. And especially there are, I think if you are a big theater of the mind head, put a little bit of thought. Either check in that your group really doesn't care about balance or really doesn't care that those mechanical things are not of the utmost importance.

Because there are some classes that will get short shrifted by a lack of a map more than others. Rogues, really screwed by a lack of a map. Those bonus action, cunning action, really helps to have a tactical layout. Area of effect, forget it. If you don't have a map, the amount of times Emily Axford has raked me over the coals, shout out to Emily Axford, the amount of times she's raked me over the coals by being like,

hey man, you lined up all these little dudes. There's 12 in a line, the maximum amount I can hit with a lightning bolt. And I'm like, yeah, that's a good point. They're definitely in that line. But there's no arguing. Conversely, it's also when the players all are doing their rounds and it comes to the enemy's turn, and they realize

that they've all gotten in a line. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that does feel good. That's very, very delicious, too. And also, again, if you have battle, if you put a lot of love into your battle maps, grist for creativity can occur anywhere. So one of the fun things, too, like Rekha Shankar in Bloodkeep, where she sees a bunch of chains

that Rick Perry's put all over the battlefield, and she's like, can I grab one of these elves with a chain and make him into a reverse gravity, chained up balloon man? And you're like, I can't argue with the board. You absolutely can. We're measuring out the distance. That's all incredibly doable.

And to that point, you don't need masses of amounts of dwarven forged terrain or anything to build out a map. To your point, having just paper and pen on the board to draw out the areas. I, for years, did it all on large graph paper. I would get easel-sized paper with one-inch by one-inch grids on it, and would draw the maps on there, and would use dice as position modifiers. Even without that, if someone asks in theater of mind, how far are the way for me? I can go ahead and put some dice or some pennies down and just show like a general distance just so there is spatial awareness, but without having to do all the effort of having to feel like you have to show up with an entire, you know, fully build immersive map there. But if you want to do that too, that's also a lot of fun.

I love the process of like having an idea for a map, which to me is like, okay, what enemies are on there? What kind of terrain would this require? What sort of fun challenges can I put in front of the players to make the tactics beyond just a slogfest? What things can the enemies use against them in the environment? And what things can the players use against the enemies in the environment? And then if I can, throw a couple of random things down and see what the players do with it that I wasn't expecting. Like, the chains is a perfect example. Like, you just sometimes throw shit down,

kind of like Yahtzee it out in front of you and be like, oh, we'll see if anyone comes up with something creative. I love when the players, like, surprise you. They're like, does this make sense? And you're like, yes, and that's why I put that there for you. Oh, my God. Incredible.

We had in Campaign 3, there was the Shade Mother fight, where it was in this deep mine that had been abandoned, and there was this terrifying alien queen-esque creature that was down there that was building out a hive slowly. Cute. They go in to fight it, and in the abandoned mine spaces, there was this giant machine that I had just sitting at the base of this large rock tower,

and it was just part of the cool space there. Then Liam, as Orm, is like, I'm going to go ahead and fuck with the controls of this. I'm like, okay, let's go ahead and make some rolls. You figure out what you think is probably where the ignition is on this partially messed up giant auger-like machine, rolls well on it, he goes and engages it forward and it burrows into it. And I'm like, sure, now it topples the entire thing, which pins one of your players, but also changes the dynamic of the battle, ends up crushing a few other enemies. Never anticipated that, but it made for a very cool thing, which then allowed them, if I recall, he then took his rope of binding, whatever it is, like the rope that wraps around things, wraps it around the Shade Mother

and then throws the other end of the rope into the engine of this mining machine. So dope. Which then tethers her into it and she's like being dragged into the machine and can't escape and chase them. And like, you don't plan for that shit. It was just things that were on it

that the players got creative with and you roll with it and those end up being some of the most memorable moments of battle when you finish it with your players. I love it. Yeah. I think it literally just occurred to me in the moment of you saying that, which is that

because I don't generally run theater of the mind combat, but in hearing you talk about it, I think what it is is that weirdly, even though theater of the mind expedites things, one of the things you should be aware of when you're doing theater of the mind that I'm not realizing has happened when I've been a player in theater of the mind stuff is sometimes that that expediency can come to the detriment of texture. Where you go, you know, like having that idea of like, oh, right, like those inspirations of like what's that machine, what's that thing, what's that thing. If I'm doing theater of the mind and I narrate quickly and I'm like, okay, you're in some cave and a fight breaks out, it actually raises the likelihood of an encounter that's just hit point sinks

subtracting from each other. So the idea of like, if you're doing theater of the mind to remember, don't just breeze past environment, don't breeze past weather, don't breeze past mood. I'll add on to that as well. One of the things I like about Theater of Mind that can counter that is reminding your players that they can ask questions about what's in the environment. Yes. You know, the downside of also having a battle map sometimes is the players

sometimes can just assume that they can only utilize what's visible. I see, yeah. They're like, oh, if you just build a room that's like a square dungeon room with a throne, you're like, cool, this is an empty room with a throne. And they won't ask what's in there, they just assume it's an empty room with a throne. If it's more of a theater of mind game or experienced players

who are playing a miniature game and know, they can be like, are there lanterns hanging on the wall that are burning oil? Like, yes, there are three of them. You may not have considered that before, but you can answer the question of the players. Like, cool, I'm going to grab one of the oil lanterns hanging on the wall that are burning oil. Like, yes, there are three of them. You maybe not have considered that before, but you can answer the question of the players. Like, cool, I'm going to grab one of the oil lanterns and smash it against the throne to burn it. You know, that

just comes with the prompting of questions and it helps to remind your players that they can ask questions about the environment. You know, you may not have planned for that cool chandelier that they want to hang from to swing past like a pirate and slash the enemy across the back of his, you know, his armor, of his armor. But unless the players ask that question, that moment won't happen. And sometimes the players just get used to the same things you do, and you don't think about

raising those questions. So just another cool little thing to consider as you're going into battle to remind people to ask questions about what's around them. Again, communication is key. Yeah. To that same point of improvising, how much preparation goes into a session for you guys, comparatively? I know for actual play, when you're being watched by a lot of people, there's a little bit more pressure to have your shit in line

compared to a home game where you can wing it a little better, but I'm just curious. line compared to like a home game where you can kind of wing it a little better. But I'm just curious, like for an average session, how much do you prepare? Ooh. I think generally speaking, it is borne out that my amount of prep time will be equivalent to the runtime of the game. But it's not always like,

okay, I know this is gonna be like a four hour session. It's gonna take me four hours. Sometimes it's just studying and reminding myself of the things like I do. Like once I have my outline, kind of try to like learn it and commit it to heart so I can feel comfortable improvising on it when you start to play. And once the cameras are rolling,

but yeah, it feels bad because I do also do the like GM just sitting on my couch, pretending to watch Moulin Rouge, but I'm just thinking about D&D. Just looking off into the middle distance. Occasionally I'll see my darling husband being like, you thinking about swords again? Oh yeah, Iz does that. Iz will be out of the peripheral vision and then bend over to wave. Yeah. and then like bend over to like wave. I think one time I came out and I was just standing

in like the half dark kitchen with like a thing of half and half. That is terrifying. Oh it's freaky. And I found someone who will forgive me it. So yay, hooray, we did it. But truly that vibe of just like, I also can't always stop it.

Yeah. I'm just like, all right, time to go into the office to work. And then it's like, well, half way through the living room, I'm going to stop walking and just stare. Because maybe gnomes work different than anyone's ever thought before. I'm going to have a new thought right now. The amount of times that I'll be thinking of an NPC

in the upcoming part of the campaign and start in my head imagining how their physicality would be and that's how they might sound and I'll start improvising dialogue and finding their voice and then suddenly Marisha's like, you talking to yourself? I'll just be off in the hallway and be like,

of course, follow me down this path. Yeah, no, I was just gonna put my shoes on and I had an idea. You heard nothing! If you're a dungeon master and you need some voices time, just don't do it in the bathroom, because other people in the apartment sometimes need to get in there.

And if you're in there doing voices time, then they might remind you that that's not the right place for that. And they might be brusque about how the bathroom's not the right place for that. Even though it's very quiet and kind of meditative in there. It's a great acoustic. It's a great acoustic.

Yo, mine's bathtub. I get in the bathtub and I get weird in there. Yeah! This is the real shit! We're finally saying it! All righty! It's a lush bath bomb and you just being deeply weird for an hour and a half in the tub. I love it. Okay.

For me, driving was my time, and then the pandemic hit. Then when I realized in the pandemic how much driving was my time to think and prepare and practice. And then not having that, I had this like weird, like, where, where do I put it? Where do I put this energy? Where do I find this time? And it, and at first it was in the backyard, but then like some of the neighbors would wonder what was going on. And then it was like taking a walk. And then I realized I looked like the person in the neighborhood that everyone like got on the other side of the street to go around. And I, I eventually I just told Marisha,isha, I'm going to be on the other side of the house. Just leave me alone for 30 minutes and don't judge me.

And she's like, it's fine. Just straight up in a mirror with dental floss between two fingers being like, so you really thought that you could withstand the force of my... And I have, in my phone, I have dozens of voice memos of once I find the voice in NPC, I'll record a couple lines of it so I can refer to it back later. I'll make a little note on it. It's super dumb.

Shout out to GM spouses. Y'all are some real ones. Seriously, rep me. Thank you. I get this question a lot. Sometimes people are like, how do you keep from telling your spouse or your partner all the secrets of your thing, or keep it secret from them obsessively. Like a red dragon and its horde, the minute she comes to my office, every tab is closed, my chair turns. What can I do for you? What should I do? Everything cool? I was looking at porn. I was looking at porn, actually. Don't look at me!

It's straight up. Yep. Oh my god. This sucks. We need a little GMGC, just a little group chat to be like, we gotta be weird with each other and leave these good people alone. I had a bookmark on the knob, you know what that means! Truly, there is, and I'll be real,

there is no teenage, coming of age, weird, like, I'm in the bathroom figuring my body out that is as embarrassing as being a full-grown adult and having a partner being like, coming of age, weird, like, I'm in the bathroom figuring my body out! That is as embarrassing as being a full-grown adult and having a partner being like, you doing voices in there? Like, so much more embarrassing than any adolescent anything. Recommendation, get a dog. Because you can make weird mouth sounds at the dog,

and then it just sounds like you're having, like you're doing just, like, a cute quirk, because everyone talks weird at the dog, and they don't think it's you being like, maybe this is what my elf sounds like you're doing just like a cute quirk because everyone talks weird at the dog and they don't think it's you being like, maybe this is what my elf sounds like now. No, I can't tell that story. Turn the cameras off. Turn the cameras off.

That's how we start. To the same point of the awkwardness of voice time, make sure that you don't fall into voice time when doing other things, like physical upkeep. Because then when your partner walks in and is like, what is happening here? Can be worrying. You don't try to do the voices when you're in bed?

Come on now. Come on now. You got to bang it out as an NPC every now and then. What? What? What? Only me? You're going to leave me out here? Next every now and then. What? What? What? Only me? You're gonna leave me out here?

Next question, next question. By myself? So how would you say your GM styles differ? Obviously not that much. We all do bathroom voices time. Is this getting released? No, right? This is just for us, right?

This is just for us. Oh boy. Yeah. I love you guys. I love you so much. I love you so much. Well, here, to take the heat off of that one a little bit. So, Aabria. Yeah? Brennan. For EXU, and an extension of that, a lot of the other games that you've run on your

own channels and other channels, how do you make sure that a self-contained story doesn't go too far off the rails, to the point where it doesn't feel like, one, it's railroaded, to what you were saying earlier, but also ensuring that within a very set period of time you have to tell that story, you can still bring it home to that really successful and fulfilling conclusion. You start. I'm still thinking about dumb stuff from before.

For sure, yeah. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. We're going to be coming back to that for a while. I just can't believe I found bathroom buddies. There was a bathroom buddy time. Three of us would just get together and make voices. We all get one of those big Vegas hotel rooms

with a huge bathroom so we can all stalk around doing our various villains. What do you say we do a Japan trip and get some onsen somewhere and just really freak out the people that are taking care of it? That'd be amazing. Perfect. Hi, is this the concierge?

An adjacent suite appears to have three ancient deities of evil. Okay, how do you keep your story from going up the rails? First of all, again, in a home game, you should never have as many rails as an actual game has. And especially D20 is structured. Rick Perry has to pre-create all the sets. And there's a given number of them that have to be created ahead of time.

Which means that something like a plot has to go around the tent poles of those sets. Which means that character creation has to happen eight weeks or more in advance of when we're going to film episode one because that's the amount of lead time that Rick needs. And I don't want to make battle sets until I know who the PCs are because I want to tie their backstory. So I don't recommend that you run your home game like Dimension 20.

It's a lot. And also the fact that cameras roll with us going, you have four or six or 10 or 20 episodes to get this done, and the plane's gotta land, right? Is very, it's just frankly very stressful. But, so that's why I think, like I have, I'll always have a very different vantage point, like we were saying before.

I, all the sauce that I can on session zeros and character conversations, multiple check-ins, let me understand where you're going, because baby, when the cameras are rolling, I'm already fucked at that point. Just straight up. The oven. We're in the oven now. Hope you've remembered

the flour, because we're in the oven now. This is what the cake's going to be. With all of that, I would say to put this in the context of a home games, this is actually useful. I would say, what the hell are rails? Right. And essentially what people in a home game refer to as rails is they mean like, what's my role as the storyteller here? Because I know that all of us are great storytellers, but I also know how much the three of us know

that we're really not the storyteller, that you are that Greek chorus. Like, if you're not any of the protagonists, to what degree are you the fucking storyteller at all, right? And I have an analogy that's been bopping around in my head for a little bit that I think does explain rails, at least as I like to think of them. And I will do this in less than five minutes.

I'm so sorry. Run the clock. Go for it. Okay. What I'm looking for when I'm a player is full immersion. I don't want the experience of being a storyteller when I'm a PC. And that's a little bit of a different thing. Like a lot of indie games want a flat hierarchy

on the table where everybody's deputized as a storyteller. I don't want that when I'm a player. When I'm a player, I want to be living in a story, immersed into a character that is not, to their knowledge, living in a story. Like Evan Kelp says in Misfits of Magic,

I'm not a character. Yeah. Right? I don't want to play a character that's thinking about their fucking narrative arc. I want to play a character that wants to save the world as quickly and efficiently as possible. Right? Yeah. But I, the player, want the arc. So me and my character exist at odds because I want the deep immersion. I want the fucking Mount Doom, Frodo's quest, all that shit, but I want to play a character that doesn't want that.

I want to play a character that gets the ring as quickly and safely as possible to Mount Doom, because that's the immersion I'm looking for. So what does that mean if I want to provide that experience to a player? Players are like water. They are going down the hill as fast as they can, seeking the path of least resistance. That's the character is like water, but the player wants anything other than a straight line.

So my job as rails is irrigating a path down that, that lets the water always have taken the fastest route towards its goal, but at the end of it, the shape is the most convoluted and pleasing. Right? That like, you achieved the shape of a story while you were trying your hardest to go in a straight line, if that makes sense. I love that. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool.

That's really good. Nice, I'm different now. You should do this for a living. Oh, man. But, so that, to me, that's what rails are. Yeah. The rail, like, my job when I'm telling a story is not to have a story in mind for you to go on.

I really think about myself as improvising in reaction to the players with a bag full of lots and lots of storytelling tropes, right? That is literally like, I'm in reaction to you. You're driving, but I have a double helix, I have a weird S, I have this roundabout and this cloverleaf. I have these shapes that I'm gonna throw in front of you

because I know you're trying to go straight, but I know you'll be sad if you do. Yeah. So that's what a DM's rails are to me. It's reactions to that desire of the PCs, knowing that the player wants one thing and the character wants another, and they'll be most pleased if they both get their way,

which you can do with cleverly improvised rails. Nice. And to that point, part of the preparation, taking into account what you were saying earlier, is getting to know enough about the world and the kind of story that you're hoping to tell and you're hoping the players will enjoy, so that when you do start, you can let all that preparation go and just ride with the player actions and agency and have that bag at the ready. And at that point, a lot of your preparation should be modular. You should know which things are important to tell the story, what bits of information you feel would be the most impactful for the players to discover,

to uncover, to take to heart and use to drive them towards a goal to fulfill that heroic fantasy or that horror narrative, whatever it is you're using to tell. You want to make sure that anything that's important to that story can be shifted. If in order for them to discover the really important information about the mystery of the murders,

they have to go to the police station to talk to this one guy, but they never go to the police station to talk to this one guy, but they never go to the police station. What do you do? So you have to think of, like, this information might be held by a number of people, and whoever they encounter down the way, they might have the opportunity to gather it there.

And at that same point, I would also caution against locking necessary information behind die rolls. Yeah. You know, you never want the opportunity of a player getting to a point where they're about to uncover something that's really important, and they roll poorly, and in your head you're like, well, I guess you don't know it now. Shit, now we're all stuck at an impasse and the story has

come to a complete halt. To that point, even if they roll low, just give them a piece of it and consider where you can lead them to find the next part of that tether and unravel it. You always want the momentum to be going forward. Unless it's things that really don't matter and it's just for fun, still give something, even on low rolls, at least to guide them in the direction that you think will be most fun for everybody at that table. That's just my little input on that one. Oh, good. How about you?

Oh, shoot. I like my answer less than yours, so I don't want to say it. You can ask a question if you want. Yeah. No, I'm going to answer. I like to sort of, okay, I think I get described as, like, thinks in movies a lot, and I rely on that a lot with my players, too, because every player, like, ostensibly grew up watching movies, and everyone just has a, like, written in their heart, understands three-act structure really well.

So if you start cueing them for it, they will sort of fall in line and begin to complete on themes and ideas and plots for you and help you, especially when it comes into, like, getting towards, like, you don't want them to get too off the rails because we have to come in for a landing and a short form thing. If you start setting it up like an Act 3, it's fun to watch good players that are also storytellers sort of line up their shot. They're like, got it. I understand sort of in my heart what the act structure of a movie is, of a heroic journey is.

And I've got to start lining myself up for the end of that. And I think there's something inside good players that will say, like, okay, I understand that this is where the endgame is headed, and will, like, kind of turn towards the sun like a little flower and land that. That was all.

That's great. Yeah. I'm actually nervous about it. Nervous always. I will also say, Aabria is a great GM, even in a player's seat, which is like,

which is a very, if you don't know what I'm talking about, like, hey, Laren blighting that tree is for, I have, I don't, I do, in 24 years of playing this game, I do not remember a PC doing something that literally made weight disappear off my back to that degree. You know what I'm saying?

Like, for real. I think your style is incredibly cinematic, where knowing how to get to the beats, knowing the act structure, knowing like, and here's the thing that comes next, and there is, you know, like, what higher commandment in storytelling is there than make it matter? And that's what I felt like with that, with the Blight on the Tree in Calamity or anything else like that,

that instinct for storytelling and to drive things. Oh, another moment that I've never gotten a shout out yet was even the fucking gold bow in Calamity or anything else like that, that instinct for storytelling and to drive things. Oh, another moment that I've never gotten a shout out yet was even the fucking gold bow in Calamity where you popped off and were like, that's the last piece of the machine I needed. For you at home, I didn't show it on screen, but in my head when Brita was like, that's the last thing I needed for the machine,

I went, it is? In my head, I didn't know it was because this is a master storyteller. And that GMing instinct of make it matter, make it count, hit the beat, keep it moving, is I feel like your style to a T. And that, more than any, like honestly, maybe rather than saying rails

of like rhythm, act structure, beats, what's the next thing coming in? That idea of like, and structure, beats, what's the next thing coming in? That idea of like, and using that as like, your rails structure are the moments that you know, like, you ever not complete a musical couplet where there's that hanging thing? Yeah.

I feel like in your DMing style, there's a lot of that of like, how am I gonna keep you on the rails? Because I know that you want this note to resolve. I know there's this thing that you want there. You said that cool, thanks. You heard that. I'm what he said is the cool way.

Wild, wild. Thanks. It's true, it's true. I have not had the opportunity yet to like properly GM for you yet. I have not had the opportunity yet to properly GM for you yet. I've played Under You. I'm going to count that ESO game

because I... That's true. And then a proper... The ESO game was a lot of fun. It was a one-shot. It was for Brandon, one-shot. It was very chaotic and a lot of fun, but a proper session.

I look forward to doing that. Yes. Playing under you is amazing. To all the points you said, it's experienced players and people who have GM that know that taking the biggest swings and following that instinct when it happens is so much better than the safe decision, more often than not. There is something to be said about survival and not pushing the button if it's to the detriment of everyone's fun at the table, but understanding when it makes sense, not just for your

character and the story, but will elevate the stakes in a way that everyone around you trusts and appreciates. And that is something that is I wish more common and only comes with experience and trust and you do it every time and it's so much fun to watch.

Thank you. I love it. I do want to say, I feel like I learned, if I have cool things from this, learning from watching you guys last summer because getting to GM for both of you and watching sort of forever GMs

untethered from having to be an entire world and focusing all of that creative might and the like the trust and freedom of like thank you for trusting me in those moments and just being extraordinarily joyful and still having the full weight of your very good brains uh focused to the single point of a character like I remember going home from every one of those sessions for Miss Mag and for EXO and being like, oh man, that's everything. That's why we do it. Like, you guys were just, it blew me away every time.

And it was so cool to come back and like try to do a little bit of that back at you and be like, this is what you look like a little bit, maybe like a tenth of it, it's very cool. Hey, the very first episode you ever GMed for me, you immediately did something and I was like, I'm stealing that and using it forever. The fucking Abria signature of, and here's what you don't see.

And I went and my head popped off my body and spun around in a little circle and went, you can do that? And then settled back onto my shoulders. I mean, talking about cinematic, I feel like that was an incredible moment of like, oh my god, of like, talking about inviting the audience in and of course, like, acknowledging the degree

to which we are living in a story and to even frame it in that way of, here's what you don't see. That shit is still rocking my world a year later! What's so cool about this era of actual play, being people that grew up

in some of this pre-internet, the older folks, or playing in spaces where the only experiences you had gaming were the people that you met in person through social groups or work environments, and so your exposure to different styles of GMing was extremely limited. For me, up until I began running Critical Role and other people started—I began following their other streams and seeing people like you play, I only knew my style from the other friends who ran for me and me trying to improve myself in a vacuum. And I've learned so much

in this short time from each of you, and I just continue to take notes and learn. And I love that we have this space now where we all can make each other better by playing together and by watching other people out there with all the other amazing actual plays that exist

out there, and just kind of like seeing what resonates and taking inspiration from that and incorporating it. We all talk about game masters, the top of the game. We're all still learning, too. We all have skills that lend very well to a lot of this, and we're all constantly learning from each other. That excites me more than anything, is the fact that that even at this stage, I'm constantly taking notes. It's a virtuous cycle.

You're the best. Now we're all bathroom boys. Before we finish this up, though, we do have the important question. What are your favorite GM snacks? Yeah, Brennan? Let me be clear. This was put into this fucking questionnaire to come for me. I'm going to explain something. If you're at home and you're afraid to tell your gaming group that you're a snacker, I've

got your back, okay? Because it's okay to fucking snack, all right? When you're out there, let some of us sweat from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. Some of our bodies are betraying us constantly. Would I have chosen this paper white fur covered, constantly sweating body? No, I wouldn't have. Does it require constant almonds? Yes. Almonds all the time, okay? And I'm not gonna apologize, because these two fucking elevated beings,

these two hovering, what are the pre-Skeksy, pre-mystic light beings from the Dark Crystal? You two, some of us are pod people beings from the Dark Crystal. Oh, God. You two. Some of us are pod people, okay? I'm a little podling, and I need to snack. If I could have another mouth in my back so that I could. The biggest obstacle in my GMing, all right, is that the same place I talk from is where the food needs to go.

Wait till we get in for Christmas. A mouth in my back. So that I can have a friend shoveling salami into an open furnace in my torso while I narrate. And I'm not sorry. I like to snack. To answer your question, almonds.

Calamity was the least I've seen you snack, and that's how I knew that you knew it was real. I was like, this dude is not even eating almonds right now. Because I always ask for my almond tithe when we hang out. I'm like, if you're eating an almond, I'm eating one. Yes, for sure. Well, even, but I would say there's something about the time of day we were shooting those, and also, like, you know, D20,20 we do because we'll do two talkbacks and two episodes in a day

which is nuts that's a lot great we'll talk about that later that's wild that's a lot um uh but yeah that and and there but I will say although you know in that last episode there is the wall and we call it's like it's a and there's a moment of caffeine need and blood sugar and whatever needle in that last thing. We hit the five-hour mark, and everything in my body was like, hey. I know that you like the feeling of being on keto. You wake up in the morning. I get really hangry when I'm not on keto. I get very affected by my appetite moods.

And my body went, hey, check it out. If you don't slam a Coca-Cola in the next 30 seconds, you're gonna pass out. You're gonna go to sleep. You're gonna go to sleep on your feet. And that's not a good place to do that. Thank you to whoever blurred that in the thing. And I remembered, I was like,

Greek it, Greek it! And I went and threw it in the thing. And threw it. You had so many banger lines. Your villain lines, incredible. Nothing put the fear of fucking God in me more than, we're off keto. This is how we die!

I thought we could win the calamity until you came in and went, I have sugar in my body, you're fucked. Popeye's spinach, or something. Oh my god. Into my mouth. Oh my god. Yes! Oh my god.

Oh man. I was slamming, I think, Nutter Butters back there. It was bad. The scene behind the screen was not good. My favorite is there's one damned bag of Funyuns back there. And every time I walked past it, I was like, I want to eat them because I love Funyuns. But now we sit next to each other.

My ASU season, we're all 48 feet apart. And I was like, I can eat all the funky ass snacks I want because no one will ever smell my breath because they're in a different time zone. Now we're sitting next to each other and I can't have a romantic moment with Sam and just be like, onion. That's exactly what you do when you're next to Sam, though. Next time. Now I know that.

Next time. You guys actually do that, though. I mean, for real. It's just anxiety? It's partially anxiety. I don't think about it. I'm so here because if I'm not here, I'm deep inside here, which is never where I don't think about it. I'm so here, because if I'm not here, I'm deep inside here, which is never where I want to be during that.

And I think, honestly, because I snacked at home a little bit when I used to run games, I think being online very early in, this is just the sad reality of being on the internet, I remember we used to snack more in the early days, and someone made a comment about me eating on a stream or something.

I don't remember what it was, but it was enough to make me go like, oh, I'm not going to eat anymore on stream. So that's just a little subconscious moment. Internet does that to you. A little bit. But mostly anxiety. Mostly it's just the initial five minutes of, okay, we're about to go live. Every single time we go to now recording,

the appetite just vanishes. I remember the look that, I think it was Max gave me, when three weeks into doing stuff here, for long days, I was like, hey, sorry, I gotta run. Where's the bathroom? And you went, you've been here for eight hour days for three weeks, what have you been doing? And I went, oh, holding it,

because I don't acknowledge my nothing exists, except for my weird little brain. Yeah, it's a tank. Until we're done. Storage facility until the story's done. Exactly. I think it's so funny, because if you were to ask me why do you snack,

I would literally, full-throat, it'd be like, anxiety. It's like a bloodstream. But also, this is the weird thing of the flow state you get into as a GM is so bizarre because I feel like, I think I've told this story before, but I got in a bad car accident with a bunch of friends. We had to rent a car.

We got dropped off by the tow truck at a pizza place, Tony Pepperoni. Shout out to Tony. Shout out to Tony Pepperoni. Yeah, Tony Pepperoni, Henrietta, New York. Shout out, thanks for the pizza, Tony. I have one of their staff shirts that inexplicably is the words Tony Pepperoni in a Batman symbol.

There's no business relationship to DC at all. It's just literally a pizza place that likes Batman. And that's literally it. But we got there and I- Now they're getting the cease and desist. Yeah, now they're getting the cease and desist. Yeah, now they're getting the cease and desist. Wait, cut it!

No, I made it up! Don't, please! Tony, I'm sorry! But the thing was, I got there, and I was the only one old enough to rent a car. We were younger. We were in our 20s. And I ordered four pies.

There were five of us. I already got four full-size pies. And I'm renting the car across the street, and I'm like, they There were five of us. I already got four full-size pies, and I'm renting the car across the street, and I'm like, they've eaten all the pizza. They've eaten all of it. They didn't leave me any. And I got back, and no one had touched a slice, and I was like, guys, the pizza.

Aren't you guys hungry? And my friend Molly was like, we just got in a car crash! We're not hungry, man! And I was like, you and I process shock differently. Manja. And I fucking put one and a half to bed in the booth. Incredible.

One and a half full pies. Oh my goodness. The machine needs fuel. I respect that. That's probably healthier. Yeah. Much healthier. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll learn from a distance and not actually do anything to work in that positive direction. You hate one Gloria Coleman like you're doing it. I'm proud of you. It's elves and hobbits. You guys have your Lembas bread and I'm over here with elevensies and second breakfast

and it's all different strokes. Yeah. I love it. Well, I think that was a fantastic note to finish this epic GM round table. We're all going to head into the bathroom for voices time right after this wraps. Goddamn right. I can't wait. Thank you all for watching this delightfully chaotic discussion. I love it so much. Thank you both so much for coming and being a part of this and

building off of this. Speaking of this, the Todd Irwin campaign setting Reborn is available now, so you can bring the magic of Exandria to your own table. But yeah, love you guys. Love you. Thank you so much, And love you guys. Good night. Later. Bye. Bye.

Thank you so much for joining us on this adventure. To help new listeners discover the show, please give us a rating and review on whatever podcasting app you're listening on. Until next time, is it Thursday yet?