Imaginary Worlds - D&D Revisited

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

Stubborn Lippi a.k.a. Stubbs is a halfling, a bard, and a sorcerer. He's also the character I've been playing since I produced my 2015 episode "Rolling the Twenty Sided Dice," where I learned how to play Dungeons & Dragons. This week, I discuss the epic and surprisingly personal journey I've been on over the past three years with my co-player Adam Boretz and our Dungeon Master Arlin Foley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda. It's made with pH balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Molenski.

I always appreciate when people discover my podcast and they go back and binge through the old episodes. And then I get feedback all of a sudden on an episode that came out years ago, but it feels new to them. And one episode that I get a lot of feedback on is an episode that I did in 2015 called Rolling the 20-Sided Dice, which was about Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I had never played D&D as a kid. So I spent a few months at a game shop in Brooklyn recording myself learning to play. I also talked with some creative people now about how D&D influenced them in their adult careers. But one of the most common questions that I get from listeners

when they discover that episode is whether I'm still playing. And not only am I still playing, but I'm playing with the people that I met in that episode. In fact, I'm still playing a character that I created not in that episode, but very shortly afterward. So I'm going to play you a much shortened version of my 2015 episode. I'm just going to play the tape of me at the game shop learning how to play. And then afterwards, we will hear from my D&D group about the epic journey we've been on

since I recorded this episode three years ago. The Brooklyn Strategist is a game shop that's about a 20-minute walk from my apartment. During the day, it's full of kids playing role-playing games. But after 7 p.m., the place fills up with grown-ups. Although

most of them were still younger than me. And walking in, I felt a little weird, being like, yes, I'd like to start playing Dungeons & Dragons. But they were like, yeah, okay, cool. How I go about it from when I'm deciding, I decided first. This guy named Kino sat down with me and he just said, okay, you got to build a character.

It's the very first thing you got to do. So I said, okay, great. And he said, so are you a dwarf? Are you an elf? Are you a human? I didn't know. And then he said, well, you a dwarf? Are you an elf? Are you a human? I didn't know. And then he said, well, do you want to be a fighter or a sorcerer or a cleric? And I'm like, wait, wait, those are two different things.

And he's like, okay, okay, I get a better idea. Who's your favorite character anywhere, any medium? I said, well, Batman. So they debated for a little while. It was group consensus. The closest Batman-like character that could create for me would be a monk. Arlen, maybe you can help me. A good race for a monk. That's dexterity, right?

You see a halfling? Halfling monk humans? Do you want to be a halfling? What's a halfling? It's a little mini creature, Frodo. There you go. Oh, like right out? It's like three feet tall. Yeah, I would either pick a human or a halfling person. Okay, so what's the benefit of just being a plain old human?

So humans have this variant where they can have plus one to all their attributes. Because they don't have like magic spells like a drow does or like any extra features. But humans, they get that where they get plus one to everything and that could change your stats pretty significantly. Since I'm completely starting out new, maybe a human's a good starting point, good training wheels? Yeah, that would be the best thing you could do. Like a human fighter is usually like the base class you could be. The best in any class.

Yeah. All right. Sounds good. Very flexible. I'm very familiar with humans too. Yeah. Okay. Then I had to come up with a name for my character.

And for some reason, Azrael kept popping in my head. And I was like, that's lame. Azrael's like the cat in the Smurfs. And then I remembered, oh right, Azrael was also the guy that filled in for Bruce Wayne in the 90s when Bruce Wayne got his back broken. So I decided to at least change it a little bit. I made it Azron. Some more details about Azron, because I know those of you who are D&D players are going to wonder these things.

He is chaotic good, meaning he'll do the right thing if he has to. His training is the Way of the Four Elements, which allows him to do some earthy spells. I figured he should be able to do some spells, you know, even though he's a Batman-like character in this world. But looking back, I really wish I had chosen a character who was simply some kind of wizard, because I forgot how useless Batman can be when he follows the Justice League into a magical realm or when they go into outer space. Anyway, the next thing they had to do was figure out all the numbers that would define this character. So, you know, with D&D, you get about six different dice. And as you roll them, those numbers will be this character's strengths and weaknesses.

The main thing I wanted for Azeron was really high dexterity because I'm totally clumsy in real life. Finally, I was ready to start playing. Our dungeon master, or DM for short, was Tim. He sits at the center of the table behind a stack of books, which have this sort of detailed history

of the world and the characters, and as you go up the levels, what they're able to do, and scenarios for him to run through with us. So he had a piece of graph paper, and he draws a sort of crude map, and he does a little X, and he says, OK, there's some pirates here, nasty pirates. And then about maybe five squares away, he draws a little X on the graph paper and says, These are the locals being held captive. You guys are over here. Draws another X.

He turns to me and says, what do you want to do? I didn't realize my choices were that open-ended. I said, okay, well, first I want to make sure the hostages are okay. And he said, yeah, they are. Then I realized, all right, of course, this is not a humanitarian game. And he said, yeah, they are. Then I realized, all right, of course, this is not a humanitarian game. So what is his first move, this badass fighting monk that I've created?

I'm still thinking cautiously. So I'm like, all right, well, I kind of want to run up this sort of like this wall up here to get a better look at the pirates and survey the threat. So roll an add plus four and just don't roll very badly on this. I rolled very badly. You rolled a one. So the one is the lowest roll you can get on a d20. Twenty is great. Twenty means that something awesome happened when you rolled.

A one means that something really bad happened. And what that simply means is that you were like, hold on, I'll cut them off upstairs. You run up the stairs here, you get to the doorway right here, and you come running out, and as you kind of, well, you run up to the doorway and you kind of pop your head out, and as you pop your head out, you trip, and you actually stumble out onto the wall here.

There was a little body lying against the wall right here. As you were trying to sneak out, it slipped and fell off the roof, and the entire crew looked up at you and went, oh. Then Tim rolled to see how the bad guys reacted. The captain was not paying attention. This means I'm going to say that he actually just barely, he looked up and all his crew was like, we saw him up here pop out of the doorway. And he's like, and all his crew was like, we saw him up here pop out of the doorway. And he's like, saw who?

And there was a guy. This was the first moment where I was like, I get it. I get why D&D is so amazing. Because I tried writing screenplays for years. But I never would have written a scene like that, where I set up this super fast, stealthy, badass character. And on his first move, he trips, alerts the bad guys, and embarrasses himself in front of the new crew,

which means that he has a massive amount of motivation to make up for that and prove to everybody, like, no, I am the badass that everybody said I was supposed to be. And it wasn't even my choice. It was just the roll of the dice that dictated the story and the dungeon master that looked at the numbers and said, okay, this is what these numbers mean. I kind of did a lot of table hopping because I wanted to try different dungeon masters. And the experience was so different each time.

Like one of the DMs was all about combat, which meant it was all about the numbers. When I listened back to the tape from that night, you would never know that we're playing a fantasy game. 19, 15. We sound like actuaries or bookies. Another huge factor was the personality of the players. Like, one night, there was a teenage kid in our group, which was rare. It was mostly adults. And he decided that his character was a douche, his words. And he thought that was hilarious. And so as the night

began, our little fellowship came across a group of fire worshipers. And the adults playing the game want to do a lot of recon missions to figure out who they were. And this kid thought it would be really funny if his character walked right up to the bad guys and just started insulting them. And this kid thought it would be really funny if his character walked right up to the bad guys and just started insulting them. So the DM said, all right, they're pissed and they're going to strike back. And for the rest of the night, we were all desperately trying to stay alive. And yeah, you can die in D&D. One of the guys in the group said to this teenager that he didn't hate him, but his character did.

And the kid looked so shaken, I seriously thought he was going to cry. I ended up playing at the Brooklyn Strategist for two months. Some nights, I showed up feeling stressed or depressed about whatever was going on in my life, and playing D&D for three hours was really cathartic. By the end, I felt pure joy. Like in the final round, when we faced this ginormous red dragon. Arlen who helped create my character early in the summer was our dungeon master. We were getting our asses kicked trying to figure out how to stop this thing. And then I remembered I could actually use one of the few puny little spells that my

monk had. Can I make the dragon still with my stillness of mind? Yes. I use stillness of mind on the dragon. Okay, you're going to roll. This is for a special roll. It's a big dragon. You cast your hands up,

and your hands are shaking as you try to do this spell. Ah, three. You can help him. I'll help him. Arlen turned to this very mature 10-year-old kid who was staying up very late playing with us. And his character was also a monk. So he cast the same spell, Stillness of Mind,

and he rolled very high. I don't know what I'm rolling for. 15. No, 15 is good. The dragon begins to calm down. The cave's still shaking, and he rolls you with his snout wondering what happened. I'm more like, what the hell, this guy calmed me down.

Can we pet the dragon? I don't know, it's a red dragon, so you guys have like how long before he gets bored and starts to... Right, okay. In the end, I think D&D did help me think about approaching problems in a new way. You know, you kind of come into a situation with a certain amount of points. That's just who you are. Then you roll the dice. And if you roll well, then you can kind of overcome whatever it is that you have as your natural talents. And if you roll poorly, well, figure out a new strategy.

So I'm actually joining a private D&D group. The adventures are supposed to be more character-driven, less about combat. I'm still chasing that high. Now, if you remember that episode, at the very beginning, there was a woman named Arlen Foley who helped create my character. And then at the end of the episode, I woman named Arlen Foley who helped create my character. And then at the end of the episode, I actually tried being in one of her groups. And after that session where me and that kid lulled the dragon, I said to Arlen, you know, that is the kind of role playing that I wanted from D&D.

And there was a guy who was sitting across from me named Adam Boritz who said, yeah, that's exactly what he was looking for, too. So Arlen asked us if we wanted to be in a private group with her. Three years later, we are still playing with the same characters that we invented for Arlen's sessions. Not the character that you heard, that monk character, but a new one. Because I really wanted a character that was a real character, not just like a badass fighter with really good statistics. And the amount of people in our group has fluctuated over the years. Sometimes it's two, three people, sometimes it's six people. But Adam Boritz and I have been playing the most consistently together with Arlen. So I asked them to come in the studio to talk about the journey that we've been on.

And it was also an opportunity for me and Adam to ask questions to Arlen, our dungeon master. Well, let me start with, okay, so how much Arlen have you been planning this along versus, like, what is your planning process like? Because when we play, it really feels like there's this world that you've created and you've set all this stuff up for us to discover. And occasionally you voice your disappointment when we realized there was something amazing you had set up that we completely walked right by. Well, before it was more really planned out what I wanted you guys to do, all the triggers for all the events. And I think that's where my disappointment came from, like having everything so mapped out. And you guys are like, I'm going to go that way or I'm going to go this way.

And I'm like, no, at least I'll go that way. Which is what we did the first day, right? Yeah, you guys did something really weird and I wasn't prepared. over time that what works for me is making it similar to a theme park where there are rides all over the place and you guys get to choose which ride you want to be on and then I just go with that so I feel more in control I have like things that happen in those particular settings but it feels free-flowing And I just spend my nights weaving it all together after the game. So it makes sense for the next time. Well, it's interesting because I mean, OK, so when I created my character, well, first of all, his name, first of all, I decided

to give him as much personality as possible. I made him a halfling. I wanted him to have a lot of magic, but I didn't know anything about D&D. So that's why I decided he was, I asked you like, what could he be if he has a huge amount of magic and has no idea how to use it? He just goes spell and it happens. And you said a sorcerer and you suggested, no, somebody else suggested wild magic and said, Arlen will totally screw with you if you do wild magic, which means that you are so out of control of your magic that every time you try to do one spell, another spell will accidentally happen. And that that's and then i got his name through a random name generator stubborn lippy but then you guys started calling him stubs i like the

progression of stubs yeah how would you describe him or his progression or him him and his progression just someone with a lot of it sounds so corny but someone with a lot of, it sounds so corny, but someone with a lot of potential where he's just figuratively, literally has all this power and doesn't know what to do with it. And he's just the kindest guy in the group, wants everything to be fair, just wants the most peaceful resolution ever. Although corruptible. Although very pliable. I feel like the story of Stubbs will be the story of innocence lost. You know, he started out very innocent. And now we're entering this phase in the campaign where we see a bit of the darker, more serious Stubbs.

So then, Adam, your character is like the exact opposite of mine. And yet our two characters have this incredible like Laurel and Hardy sort of like chemistry. How did you come up with your character? Well, I wanted to play a rogue because I feel like I always play rogues. And he didn't start off as evil as he was. You know, I kind of just wanted him to be sort of chaotic, neutral, kind of, you know, a roguish, badass character. And I don't know. And then he just sort of got worse and worse as time

went on and then we find him in his current state where he's really just horrible. But he's charming. He's very charming. How did you come up with his voice? You know I don't know. I feel like his voice found me and then like since then I haven't been able to like play a character unless I can like find the right voice

for it. Like because we had another game that we played briefly and I had two characters cause Arlen killed one of them. Um, but both of them, I never really felt like I found like the right voice. And so I never felt like I was really like that character. Whereas with, with my rogue and this campaign Morn, like, I feel like I can just like drop in into him in any situation. I like to know what he says. Well, when you were on paternity leave, we went to the alternate universe where you were never been born and we met all of your relatives and we were doing your because you had this sort of well well well you know kind of voice and we were all hours and hours of mourn yes oh really we were all competing to see who could best impersonate

mourn as your relatives in the world that your character was never born. As females, too. And who did the best? Arlen. It's funny, too, because I remember early on, I found it really hard to find Stubbs. It would take me a good hour to get into character. And I would always think of Michael J. Fox in Family Ties Back to the Future, but at his most vulnerable moments. But he's a halfling. Like that's kind of how I would try to imagine Stubbs.

But it would take me like an hour until I finally was like the world of the game shop had disappeared and I was completely in our world. And now it's just instant. Like you pose a situation and you're like, what does Stubbs do? And I just start speaking. And when I described the character to my wife, she's like, oh, it's primordial Eric Malinsky. But I think that's like one of the great things about Stubbs as well is that, you know, the way that you play is very much in line with what Stubbs would or would not do. And I feel like you don't, you know, a lot of players will like do things for the advantage of their character

or to move the game along, but you definitely, I feel like, don't do things unless that is what stubs would do or is being forced to do, which is great. And that is a gift as a DM. I appreciate it. There's times where I've encountered characters where I know their alignment, I know their background, and I know all this stuff about the character and it put the character plays more like an extension of the player instead yeah well when did you decide because you you you invented this huge backstory for me because I had

him as just like kind of a misfit in a village who left to become a bard you came up with this storyline where you're like do you mind if I create this huge backstory for stubs and i was like that's fine and it turns out he's like he was like a fey lord he was like a lord from the from the fey realm and had like had been sent he had lost his memory and had been sent to the material plane and i just accepted all this is like okay this is what i'm working with but like i't know why, but I'm glad I worked out. But why did you decide that? Honestly, I just wanted Stubbs and Eric to know that they were bigger than what they thought. Because I remember we spoke a lot about getting in character and you're having little difficulties. Like, what should Stubbs do? And I was like, let me just show him the mountain.

Yeah. And that he's much greater and much more powerful than any of these people at the table if he just gives himself a chance to climb this mountain. And I just wanted it for you and Stubbs because I felt in the beginning Stubbs was kind of falling into the background and not getting because we had very outspoken players at the table who kind of just stepped forward. Yeah. And I was very new and very happy to play the sidekick early on. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we've had some really interesting character moments. Like there's a term called the NPC, which is a non-playing character, which is a character that you play. I always describe, when I describe you to other people as my DM, I always say she's like a one

person theatrical company. Like the NPC, the relationship that we have with your NPCs is amazing because like we have individual chemistry with certain NPCs that you've created based on the relationships that develop naturally. And you also do a lot of voices. You do a lot of great voices. You do great accents. You do. You're Irish.

Like I love the Irish accent. You've done like a British accent. You do. You're Irish. I love the Irish accent. You've got all the good British accents. Your stuffy, rich old guy voice is great. I can't even remember who that was. Who was that? Who was the stuffy, rich white guy? We've met a few of those. Yeah.

They populate medieval times, really. I mean, what's that been like for you when you take on an npc and you notice that we have different chemistry with those particular npcs it's a lot just generally a lot um i try to keep my my npcs as separated from myself because then you guys start getting attached them having conversations like mostly they're just depositories of information that you guys can just withdraw whatever you need i appreciate the relationships you guys create but there's times where you'll see me trying to kill off a lot of the npcs because i like we don't need them anymore guys like i have nothing for them like the and they i just become i like the, how many guys?

Five. The sixth player sometimes. Tagging along with your adventures. You know, following, trying to respond to like, guys, I think we should stop. Like, oh, I'm not going with you. I can't. You can't convince me. But we become so attached to the NPCs, it's really hard for us to have them die.

I let them happen, though. They've given us some of the greatest moments in the campaign, the relationships, friendships and relationships. And I know that one of our characters was a student. Ilo. Yeah, Ilo. Oh, sweet, Ilo.

But Ilo was a dear friend of Stubbs and Arkander's apprentice. And she developed something much deeper with everybody. Well, with Stubbs, there was almost some romance in the air there. No way. Stubbs was too afraid. Stubbs is primordial Eric Malinsky. He never asked any girls on dates. I think a lot of the other characters were like, hey, Stubbs, like, get in on that.

But Stubbs really wanted something, a genuine connection with her, especially when everyone was treating her like crap for that period of time she was possessed. That's true. When someone's possessed, they just get treated like crap. Yeah, no, once a demonic entity enters them, like. It's all over. So, well, that's interesting, though, because the big dramatic moment for me in the entire three years we've been playing is when Ilo told me, my character personally, that she was going to do a spell that would save us all, but she would die. And she said, don't tell Arkander, who was her mentor. Right. And I literally didn't.

You wrote a note to me. I passed it across the table. You passed the note to me so that the player noah who was playing arkander literally did not know she was going to commit suicide to save us all and i respected her choice and he got so mad at me afterwards we got into this we it got really intense and then there was a moment we even took a break like we stepped out of character and he's like we're cool right i'm like oh yeah yeah we're just playing the game yeah and then we went right back into it it was like it was intense i think that it was a hard moment because for me it was like i she can't do this alone but she can't

ask her teacher who she has this very deep connection with it was like her father figure he had considered her like his daughter being an elf i knew that if i told arkander if i had told arkander or i had told no he'd be like no not happening i'm gonna save her because he'd been trying to protect her this whole time but i knew that i will have this very sweet relationship and stubs is this really powerful wild mage so he could help her. And she knew that he would respect her wishes. Yeah, what was that like?

She also, by the way, Ilo had this great Irish accent, too. No, I can't even remember. I know, you're not going to make me do it. I'm not going to make you do it. But what was that like to watch that play out? I didn't think that you guys would react like that. I think it would have been like a moment of silence kind of thing and we would move on but it's something that's everyone's carrying like up to now like remember when i'll sacrificed yourself to save us and the beauty of it is stubs kept

like her whole plan and like kept everything very discreet Noah was really trying to like Noah was playing Arkander in a way that he was just not hearing anything Stubbs said he just thought it was Stubbs fault like Stubbs could have stopped it and oh yeah he blamed me yeah and Stubbs just held it held his ground and stuck with his ideals and respected his friend's decision. And I was like, oh, God, that's a moment. That was emotional. What about you, Adam? What was your most emotional or intense moment?

The most emotional moment for Morn? Well, I guess it would be when he learned that his parents, whom he assumed have been dead for years, are actually possibly not dead. So I think that was kind of like a moment that challenged me as a player, too, because, I mean, like you said, like more as kind of charming and entertaining and not as a character, not really in touch with his feelings. So that was like a challenging moment to play him as a character because, you know, to react authentically, that would go to like his like deepest wound. That was the other thing is that when I, you know, Morin wanted to head in a different direction than the rest of the party to sort of pursue the mystery of his parents' death and his background.

And another player did not want Morin to do that and cast a suggestion spell on my character, basically preventing me from doing that. It was so funny the way you played it because I could see you as the actor in that moment, both pretending to be hypnotized and suddenly could not caring less about your parents. And yet hinting that there's something really wrong with that

and that when you discover you've been hypnotized, you're going to be legally, like there is going to be paid back to this. Yeah, you know, it was a fun moment to play. And I think that that was what I tried to do. Because I emailed Arlen, I think after that with like plans for like, you know, exacting revenge.

And they never really came to fruition. And I think the player who did that, like we had a chat by a river, our two characters and sort of work things out. Yeah, which by the way was a faux pas. You're not supposed to, you can do whatever you want to the NPCs, to the non-playing characters,

but the actual people in your group, you're not supposed to cast spells against them. I didn't even know that because I was pretty early on in D&D. The reason why the suggestion spell happened it's because you were like, I'm going to Icewind Dale.

I'm going to find my parents. I'm getting on that ship, guys. You can't stop me. Oh, you were going to break up the party. In a major way. The thing was is that, you know, I don't want the other players to be nervous. Like, don't worry. I'll always keep you together, but you got to trust in the story.

Trust in me that I'll make it work. I would have figured out a way to stop him organically. Yeah. I think it's one of those ones where your character is not acting in what you perceive as the best interest of the game. acting in what you perceive as the best interests of the game. But yeah, I mean, there are definitely times where like you and I'm sure you know this playing stubs where you'd like this is the only thing my character would ever do under these circumstances. And that's what I'm just going to have to do, even if you don't really want to. Well, that goes with the last question I was going to say is that I think that a lot of people who play aren't actors. And sometimes what I've noticed with people playing any RPG

is that the character they make is just a small little extension from themselves that we just grow and nurture and becomes this own being. And you have more of a connection to it because it is a part of yourself. What I notice about players is like, whenever you What I noticed, what I noticed about players, because like it's whenever you guys play others, other characters in other games, it's just another version of Warren

or it's another version of Stubbs or another version of Adam and Eric that just come out because instead of what actors do, I don't know the whole process, but we're just a bunch of people playing and have to take our roles and what's our, what's the closest inspiration that we have is ourselves. That's a really interesting point about us not being actors. Cause we are, it is very much like being an actor, but, but someone hasn't written this role for you.

And it's true. You don't, you know, really good actors. I mean, uh, they talk about the best actors where they, they often get insulted sometimes when people think like, you know, like I remember when after Heath Ledger died, a lot of people were like, oh, that character of the Joker, it tormented him to death or something like that. And Christian Bale was in an interview and he just said, do you know how insulting that is to an actor to claim that they cannot play a role without it like taking over their life? Right. And I mean, there's a whole debate about that with method acting and all that kind of stuff. But it's interesting, too, when you think about that, like in D&D and a lot of these role playing games, we are taking on in some ways the craft of acting without really having the training of being an actor. And I imagine for some people it's hard to let that go or to not personalize it too much. Yeah, we've totally had people like just way too immersed and way too attached to the idea of their character

and needs to express this character in this certain way. I think we even had the very, very first game, we had someone for one session with us who's very attached to playing this very good, very lawful character to a point where he was satisfied, but it was really wrecking the game for me and for everybody else,

where he was just taking it upon himself to do certain actions. He was like, but that's what my character would do. So you got to just roll with it. And I'm like, no, I don't have to. You're not even listening to what I'm saying. You're literally playing a one-man show back there. And they're over here doing another thing.

Which is interesting, too. And I talked to my wife about our games, you know, whenever I go home. And she thinks it's ridiculous. But also she. As does my wife. She also never remembers my character name. She's always like, how's Muffin Stubbers? But my wife's always like, well, it's probably because Arlen's a female and they can't handle a woman being in charge of the entire world, which I think is an interesting point. I never thought about that. I've had the fortune to have people playing with me

who just treat me as another person at the table. I feel very lucky. I hear horror stories about other females out there trying to host games and it not working. You have to kind of hold your ground. I think the best thing a DM can achieve is becoming invisible to the entire table. When I'm not there and you guys are just, you know,

doing whatever you need to do and my voice is just narrating. Like I'm this small Asian woman, I'm only four foot 11, and then when I'm doing all these scary voices and, you know, hoity toity or doing an Irish accent or British or doing garbles of a Cthulhu beast, and you guys can see that instead of me, then it's, I've done my job. I've totally done my job. Are we, I mean, are, are we more into role playing than your other groups? No.

I've made it known to a lot of people who play with me. It's very role playing heavy that sometimes I don't even get to roll dice. Like there's been times where we're just talking. It's just us talking the whole time and there's no rolls. I make it clear now because in the beginning when I was just working for a game store and they were just assigning me tables and people were very unsatisfied with how I wanted to play, I learned my lesson and I had to just tell people, listen, this is what's going to be like. I don't do a lot of combat. And when I do

a lot of combat, it's short. the combat will never trump what I'm trying to achieve with the story. And there's still a lot more story to tell. Also my character kind of accidentally destroyed the world of the Fae realm where he came from and I really really need to

make that right. That's it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Adam Bortz, Arlen Foley, and of course, everybody who was in the original D&D episode. Imaginary Worlds is part of the Panoply Network. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook.

I tweet at emolinski and imagineworldspod. My website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.