Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 190 - Integrating Character Backstories with Rick Sandidge of Find the Path Ventures

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

A very special thank you to Rick Sandidge of Find the Path Ventures who was kind enough to come on the episode to discuss integrating character backstories into your game.  Please give their amazing podcasts a listen at find-path.com.  Resources: Find the Path Ventures:  https://find-path.com/ Find the Path Podcasts:  https://find-path.com/podcasts/  Find the Path Twitch:  https://www.twitch.tv/findthepathpod  

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. I find as far as backstory reveals are concerned, that they generally fall into one of three categories. That twist that's kind of fun. Those are really good, I encourage them. The second one is the bad version. Oh, secretly I've been working for the bad guy this entire time. And the third type is one of my favorite. of my favorite. Welcome to the Take It 20 podcast, episode 190, an interview with Rick Sandage of Find the Path Ventures. I'm skipping the pun this week since this is already a supersized episode and I want to get right into it. We chatted for about two hours during the interview, and he provided such a wealth of information. Cutting it down to 20 minutes was impossible, because there's just

so much I wanted to include. My regular listeners know that I hardly ever do interviews, and I only bring on people who I believe to be interesting and knowledgeable about tabletop RPGs. Rick definitely fits this bill, and I was thrilled to speak with him. He's an experienced GM and can bring a great perspective, especially when it comes to character backstories in your game. Rick is the GM of three current podcasts and streams for Find the Path Ventures, who publish live play podcasts, along with the other cast members, Heather, Jessica, Jordan, Rachel, and Ross. Rick, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. How are you today? I am fantastic. Thank you for having me.

Let's do the lobbed softball opening question that we usually start these things off with. Tell me a little bit about yourself. A little about myself. I am Rick Sandage. I'm the hosting game master for the Find the Path Ventures. So I am the game master for the Mummy's Mask podcast, which finished up at the tail end of last year. 222 episodes of that. And as well as the War for the Crown podcast, which is the new one that is released for our Find the Path podcast feed. As well as Hell's Rebels, which is our 2E conversion of the 1E Hell's Rebels Adventure Path, which is on our Find the Path Zents feed, and then Tyrant's Grasp, which is our

actual play that's available on our Patreon, for Patreon backers at the $5 and up tier. What is the link to your Patreon, by the way? Yeah, it's patreon.com backslash findthepath. by the way. Yeah, it's patreon.com backslash findthepath. So I was reading on your bio on find-path.com that you started playing games with the D&D basic set X number of years ago. I won't say what X is because I think you and I probably started playing about the same time. So I guess the question I would have is what was it about D&D that captured your imagination when you started playing it? Captured my imagination. For those people who have listened to any of our shows, I am a big fan of literature in general.

And so I've always loved fantasy. I've always loved science fiction. up as so many kids from the 80s did in that peak time of these amazing cartoons that explore these fantasy, you know, Thundercats and He-Man and all of those really classic things, as well as, you know, a love of Star Trek. Of course, Next Generation was the show that initially made me love all things science fiction and, of course, video games and such. And so, like all children, I basically kind of course, video games and such. And so like all children, I basically kind of imagined myself in the same sort of world and setting that you want

to immerse yourself. And I think RPGs in general and TTRPGs and old school D&D and now Pathfinder appeal because it kind of creates a framework for these collaborative worlds. I can't remember. I'm trying to think back. I'm wanting to say I was an angsty kid back in the 90s and playing Vampire the Masquerade and all those old school World of Darkness games. And there was one, I'm wanting to say it was Vampire the Masquerade, had a thing that said that what tabletop RPGs do or what RPGs do is let you play out these fantastic scenarios like kids naturally are inclined to do, you know, playing

things like cops and robbers or whatever it will, you will, but it has rules so that you don't get into those debates of, well, I shot you. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. And instead you can actually point down at a dice and go well like no I shot I hit your armor class you can see it right here and so I think it always appealed to me because it's both a creative effort and I consider myself a creative person and it's also a collaborative effort so it's something you can do with friends and it also involves. And I like things. Even if I don't always have full control over my life, I like things structured. I have to admit, whatever it was, one of my mom's friend's sons that I barely knew said, Oh, do you want to try this Dungeons & Dragons thing that we bought?

And it was me and two of his friends in a little home adventure that he had made. And next thing i know it's like blink and it's a few decades later and um yeah fast forward through the satanic panic and all the other things that kind of came along with it and uh yeah i'm still playing it so evidently it must have made an impression yeah it's uh well again i i dipped my toes in really early on and it's it is always that thing. It's that joke about starting tabletop games is like getting into drugs. You have to know a guy.

And then that's kind of how it was where, you know, I had a cousin of mine, you know, bring me into playing tabletop RPGs. And that's always the thing. It's always a cousin or an uncle or something that gets you into it. I played that for a little bit. And then I really fell in love with the classic CRPGs. You know, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 2, all those really classic games. And as time passed, I started discovering other games and it wasn't really until 3.0 came out when they had those big flashy books. And that was the point

where it reached, I guess it had gotten far enough away from the Satanic Panic time that you're talking about that you could find those in a Spencer's, which I don't know. Oh, yeah. Well, Spencer's, I think, also carried them, but you could also find them in even things like a Walden Books and things like that where before you had to go to a specialty place. You had to go to this little out-of-the-way place that looked a little sketchy, but you knew they had that, plus miniatures, plus dice, plus everything else.

Oh yeah, good times. Okay, so I have to ask an aside, since you started talking about early gaming. Do you remember the first character that you played? I do. It's a very tragic story. The first character I ever made was a halfling thief. And so, you know, back before you had rogues, when you just had thieves,

I made a halfling thief. I probably spent about four hours making this character, four or five hours making this character. And it was for a game group that was already in progress. I'm wanting to say that they were fourth, maybe fifth level. But it was that, like, if you're making a new character, the character has to come in at first. And so I spent all this time, I made this character. It started out, the rest of the party was camping on the road. I was walking down the road. I don't even remember what the scenario is. I can't tell you this character's name. However, a Wyrmling Red Dragon jumped out of a bush at me.

And so I was like, alright, well I guess I'm going to fight this thing. And so it lets out a roar and then the Game Master or the Dungeon Master is like, oh, the rest of you hear this roar thing. And one of his friends that was at the table who was playing, I think the Party Fighter, was like, I am not running

down there without my armor on. And so I'm as a halfling thief soloing this uh this tiny little dragon while they're apparently getting the fighter's armor on and uh long story short by the time they got down there i was dead so um that was my first character following that i made a human paladin very good and of course the tragedy is like you mentioned is that you spent four hours on it and i mean you probably had an idea about where you came from and oh fantastic it was unabashedly somewhat of a knockoff of proto um just because you remember the classic old school animated uh hobbit it wasn't hobbit it was the lord of the rings that had like the photo the nine finger

song and all the rest of that yep so i remember watching that and then that was kind of my inspiration for i want to be the thief that's okay to tell you how un uh uncreative i was back then my first character was a human fighter can you get more generic and boring i love a good human fighter don't get me wrong oh especially as the additions have gone on and the flexibility of the fighter class now is just something just amazing. Oh, yeah. Anyway, thank you. I always like asking people their very first character. Your origin story?

You'd be surprised how many of them come back with, oh yeah, and that character died almost instantly. I think it's part of the learning process. I think it's somewhat indicative of old school gaming versus modern gaming, because a lot of the modern stuff now you'll at least get through, you know, they'll usually get you through a couple simple fights before they really want to, to deliver that killing blow.

And you have the modern changes for things like Pathfinder second edition introducing hero points that gives you a chance to kind of get out of these death situations, which i appreciate because i think you know character death should more of a shocking storytelling moment right not just oh hey your first character is here it's dead what do you want for your second character you are the gm for find the path ventures so yes can you tell me when your three shows release as far as what their schedules are so right now war for the

crown is on our find the path uh podcast feed so that was the feed that was uh mummy's mask until we completed the mummy's mask campaign at the tail end of last year and then we launched with war for the crown and then war for the crown has was started uh january 3rd i believe it was and it's about 30 episodes out uh you know, 30, 40, something in that neighborhood, depending on when this drops. And that one releases every Tuesday. Hell's Rebels, which is our

translation of first edition Hell's Rebels to second edition, is a every other Wednesday. Eventually, our goal is to get it to an every Wednesday thing, but that is a Patreon goal, but we have not quite reached yet. And then Tyrant's Grasp is available on our Patreon feed. And that one releases basically every Monday. Okay. And, or at the very least, it will be releasing every Monday, starting in September, as we have recently reached the $5,000 a month year for that one.

So that's where we'll be releasing it on a, uh, an every single week basis, which, uh, I'm not going to lie. I am. I am so thrilled for that because I don't like to pick a favorite child. Um, but God is tyrant's grass. Good. And, uh, and, and not just because the story's good because everyone delivers on such a, uh, a dark and a horrifying story. And every single week, the players are delivering. And the idea that we'll be able to, we went 100 episodes on a biweekly process and now being able to go weekly for it. It makes me so excited because I'm always eager to play that so much.

Congratulations on reaching that milestone, by the way, for the Patreon. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, it's, of course, thanks to all the people that are willing to open their wallets and show their support and everything else. And again, 7500 is our goal for bringing Hell's Rebels weekly, which is the next thing we're shooting for and a thing that I am also very, very excited to do. Well, I can attest to the quality of Hell's Rebels because I have been soaking in it until my fingers go pruney, I guess is a good way to describe it. Because I'm one of those that when I start listening to a podcast that has many, many episodes, I can't just, oh, I'm just going to take my time with it and eventually I'll catch up. No, uh-uh.

No, all my commute and on my lunch break and everything else, I'm consuming episodes because I'm desperate to try to get caught up because I know you've got two other shows that I want to listen to. Well, thank you. So I'm trying to get caught up. Hell's Rebels is fantastic. I have to admit, I am enjoying, pardon the term, the hell out of it. It is very good. I appreciate the compliment, and I am very fortunate to the term, the hell out of it. It is very good. I appreciate the compliment

and I am very fortunate to have an amazing group of players. So they bring their A game every time. Well, you have a lot of games going on. You're GMing three different adventure paths at this point. I mean, do you find any time to play? So generally speaking, unfortunately, no uh right now is a bit of an exception because i do actually get to play in uh the special that we're going to be doing which is the second season of tells from dark moon vale tells from dark moon vale was the short series that we did whenever we first started playing or playing around with the 2e rule set so it's right towards the beginning of the pandemic and we kind of used used it as a way to test. It's going to sound terrible. We use it as a way to both test whether or not we could record remotely. Also test all the new audio equipment we're getting because we just launched our Patreon

and just had money to upgrade from the, you know, $65, $80 microphones that we're using to much better microphone equipment and was also our chance to test out the 2E rule sets. So we did the first season of that, which was nine episodes, and it was a whole lot of fun. And I very much enjoyed playing my Dwarven champion. And we kept promising, we're going to bring it back. We're going to bring it back. We're going to bring it back. Everyone kept commenting. They're like, we really love this tiny little series. Ross, who's a player in Hell's Rebels, is the game master for that. And I've been playing games with Ross for years and years. And so if I'm willing to relinquish my seat to anyone, it would certainly be him. But outside of the fact that we're going to be releasing the second season of Darkmoon Vale, no. I play video games. I do enjoy

video games. It's kind of my way to turn things off when I'm done with things. When we first started Mummy's Mask, actually, I was still playing something. We were actually still playing through Carrying Crown, another adventure path which Ross was running for us. And one of the most, it's funny,

one of the most common things I would hear every time that we sat down to play Carrying Crown was we would sit there, we would play. And then after every great joke or shocking moment, and inevitably it was almost always Jordan, would say, why aren't we recording this? And I think that that was kind of the point that I realized that almost everything that we played would eventually be recorded from that point on. We finished up Carrying Crown, or we were still doing Mummy's Mask, and then we launched Tyrant's Grasp, which is actually part of the reason that Ross joined us for Tyrant's Grasp. And then we launched Hell's Rebels, and now we've launched War for the Crown after Mummy's Mask. And we've just kind of accepted, well, we're going to be playing anyway. And if we're going to be playing,

we might as well be producing content. So yeah. Well, that was actually a question I was going to ask you about. It sounds like that you played together before you guys started streaming. And was it that one question that made you guys say, why aren't we putting this out there for someone to consume? So I started actually listening to actual place myself. Um, after I'd, uh, I'd moved, I'd moved from one place to another and my commute to work became substantially longer. Um, I live in Dallas, uh, over in Texas and the, the traffic here is not Houston bad, but it's definitely not good. No offense to any of our Houston listeners. I mean, I've got family down there and everything else,

so I'm well aware of how bad the traffic in Houston is. But when I started listening to all these actual plays, I enjoyed more than a few of them. I could point to a number of actual plays and tell you how phenomenal they are. And they're going to be the names that most people recognize. I would find myself, however, occasionally, I noticed some of them didn't have what I was looking for. And sometimes that was a lack of rules knowledge. Sometimes it would be too many comedic tangents or character tangents that would go on too long, a lack of direction in the story,

a game master that didn't take control of the group. One of the most common ones I kept running into was because of the popularity of streaming, a lack of editing. And that just kind of, I sometimes feel like if something is very poorly edited, it's almost a little disrespectful of your time. And so I had basic understanding of audio work and all the rest of that stuff. I'd been doing some independent film work and all the rest of that with a friend of mine, Dean, who helped us. We'd already had our YouTube channel that we were doing some work on. And I kind of came to the ridiculous decision of,

how hard could this be? And let's go ahead and just try this. I was like, I really enjoy our games. I've been told by anyone that's ever sat in on any of our games or anyone that's even joined temporarily in our games that we're a great gaming table. So I went to the rest of the gaming group and I said, uh, Hey guys, uh, you know, with no knowledge really of how big of a commitment I was asking for, but Hey guys, um, what would you feel about taking our tables dedication to the game, our dedication to characters, our dedication to the story and turning it into a podcast and putting it out there for other people to listen. And I brought it up and I think everyone agreed in large part because I think they didn't understand either how large of a commitment it was going to end up being. And in some of their cases, I think it was just, I want to play more games. So yeah,

you're saying let's play another game. Let's do this. Let's make this happen. And I had all the equipment or I bought all the equipment necessary. So I wasn't asking for an investor from anyone that wasn't just their time. And yeah, we put it out and I've always been pleasantly surprised by how quickly people responded to it. I don't think that we succeed 100% of the time. I don't think anyone does, but I've always tried to hold to the mantra of don't let perfection be the enemy of good. And we've set out with our goals. I think we adhere to a number of them.

I think our listeners respect the fact that every episode we put out, I do not think it is our best episode. But I think it is the best episode that I would have done. Okay. I always think that, yeah, I could have gone further. I could have done something more here, but I think our listeners respect the fact that we are always trying our absolute artist. Well, we are our own worst critics in a lot of ways. Oh, yes. Especially if you record, even if you're not recording for a stream, if you wind up recording Oh, yes. comment on is you mentioned bad editing kind of being a little bit of an indicator of a poor

quality podcast. And fair or not, for me, it's poor audio quality. If it sounds like somebody is shouting through a hail of gravel to a microphone at the other side of a football field, you know, the content could be great. But if it's just completely grating on the ears, whenever you're trying to listen to it, it makes it tough to stick through it. That was one of the first things that jumped out to me about Find the Path is because I had listened to a few Let's Plays here and there. And I want to be perfectly honest, I knew nothing about Find the Path. Did a search for it, found the website. Oh, you guys are Paizo partners.

Let's give this a listen. And I played the first episode and said, OK, these people are putting in the work, putting in the effort. And the audio coming through is really, really high quality. Let's see how the game is. It's like I'm sitting in with friends. This is fantastic. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Well, thank you.

The advantage with Hell's Rebels was, and part of the reason that we wanted to put Hell's Rebels out there, was one, we wanted to have a show that was second edition. After second edition, Pathfinder launched. Two, it was because we were still in the midst of Mummy's Mask. And when we first started, I think I made a joke earlier where I was saying that we started with $60 microphones in a decently treated wound. I did the best that I could with the setup and the equipment that we had. And after about 20 or 30 episodes, you know, we'd gotten sound treatment. We'd put, you know, bass traps and acoustic paneling up and all the rest of that

stuff. We'd learn different ways to mix the audio. And so, you know, I've heard people say that like our first maybe 12 to 20 episodes are a little rough. And there were some people that said that that turned them off early on. That and an entire controversy about the fact that I had a habit of putting things in a tentative past sense or tentative future sense, where instead of saying you walk over to the tree, I would say you would walk over to the tree. And I don't know, it was just a verbal tick. And then people made me aware of it. And that was the thing. I was never aware of it before. And that was a type of criticism that I took in, I internalized and I worked forward towards. And so, you know, now we're using, you know, $400 microphones and, you know, each one of us has an audio setup because

we do have these amazing supporters through our Patreon that when we got in that first flood of support, when we launched our Patreon, we invested all that in equipment. And so once we had all this new equipment, our first thing was let's put out another show in this case, the find the path presents feed, which has our hell's rebels that really illustrate. This is the new equipment. which has our Hell's Rebels that really illustrate this is the new equipment. This is us taking, at that point, two and a half years of experience doing podcasting, and let's launch strong with a new show. And again, I think Hell's Rebels is a great show. I think the group really delivers on the character and really embodying the characters and delivering on the setting of that world.

But the other thing that you were saying there was early on we had a review that came in where we got a tagline that we actually used for our website, the find-path.com, where someone said that when they listen to us, it feels like actual people actually playing. That's a great quote. Yeah. And we took that and we tweaked it. I think it was Jessica tweaked it to actual nerds actually playing. And that's a good, that's a great quote. Yeah. And we took that and, uh, you know, we tweaked it. I think it was Jessica tweaked it to, uh, actual nerds actually playing. And that was the thing is, you know, we're as, as great as we are. Um, and I do think

we are, um, you know, putting modesty aside, we are not professional voice actors. We are not professional comedians. Um, We are two teachers, a software engineer, a librarian, and an x-ray tech. And, you know, I, at the time I was a numismatist, you know, so we're a bunch of people working desk jobs. And then in our free time, we were like everyone else trying to carve out a small amount of time to get together with friends to, you know, engage in this fantasy world world i think people kind of connected with that because we're people just just trying our damnedest and it does show through as well because like i said the the audio quality is good the editing is good you mentioned that your your players really do a good job of buying into hell's rebels

especially the world that it placed in and the like. Did any of your players have any performance or theater in their backgrounds before you started recording? Oh, well, Jordan would love to tell you about his time in high school theater group. He mentions that periodically. I love the man. But he does. He loves to bring up the high school theater. Yeah, honestly, I think for all the rest of us, the answer, however, is no. Actually, I do have of those games. And I used to co-play them with my

younger cousin. And my younger cousin hated to read. He loved the games. He loved playing the games. He loved the big flashy lights and all the rest of that stuff. And so actually when I was little to keep him engaged and following the plot and all the rest of that stuff, we played through the entirety of Final Fantasy Tactics, which really drove home my love of these big, epic fantasy stories in medieval settings. And I voice acted the entirety of that game. I dramatic read the entirety of that.

I think that that might have been a big influence early on on my storytelling style and approach to things because I love that story so much and has so many great dramatic plot twists. It's really part of the reason why I love the idea of just because of the War of Lions from that of doing War for the Crown, because War for the Crown is very much that political intrigue and nobles and giant armies getting ready to clash with one another and, you know, some nefarious force behind them manipulating all these politics. And I love that adventure path, by the way, and I'm going to say, okay, I'm not going to spoil anything, but you guys need to go listen

to that because it's fantastic. Oh yeah, yeah. We just finished up book one, so it's a good time to get in relatively early in that adventure path. Do you feel like that when people pick up your adventure path, do they need to go back to episode one and pick it up from there? Or can they pretty much jump in where you are? I would say sampling the show with the most recent episode isn't a bad idea. You were talking about the quality of audio, and I'm in the exact same boat. I'll find a new podcast and I'll go, this is really interesting. And a lot of times I'll want to start with episode one.

But a lot of times I'll listen to their most episode one but a lot of times i'll listen to their most recent episode to go here's where the audio quality is and then that way if i go all the way back to episode one and go it's not there but i know it's going to get there okay that's fair yeah so because we are an episodic it's continuous um it's because it is a continuous and not just kind of uh this is an individual episode i would say starting on episode one would be necessary for most um mummy's mask is complete there's uh 222 episodes of that um which is a big commitment hell's rebels however is what you were saying earlier is that's the one that we started we had our new audio equipment we had our new setup um hell's rebels was somewhat unique until we had our new setup. Hell's Rebels was somewhat

unique until we launched War for the Crown in that it was the first one that has only ever been recorded remote. And while there are a number of challenges that come with remote recordings, one of the advantages to it is it does mean that everyone's audio is 100% isolated, which means that I have a lot more control on the editing side of making sure everyone's audio syncs up the way I want it and people don't talk over one another unless I intend it, things like that. So I would say, yes, start on the first episode for the entire story. But out of our various podcasts, I think Hell's Rebels would be a great jumping on point for most people. If you're wanting a good idea of like, this is the audio quality that I'm going to get

from most of their shows, eventually. It takes us maybe a good 40 or 50 episodes to get in Mummy's Mask to really start getting the audio down. And then Mummy's Mask has a sound change whenever we go remote around episode 120 or so. And I think the audio quality across all the rest is pretty solid all the way across the board. Rick, I understand that you are a GM full-time now. Is that right?

I am, actually. As of basically the beginning of this year, I think it was April or May, we reached our 5,000 tier on our Patreon. So I still do a couple of side projects and all the rest of that stuff, but really the podcast is my primary job. What do you feel like the biggest challenge is as a GM for so many different ventures at the same time?

Well, I mean, a lot of people will probably go back to the whole thing of keeping straight every character name, every character voice that you're doing, every side plot, all the various convoluted things. Honestly, I think probably the most difficult thing is having your players keep in mind their various characters' abilities. It is a common thing that I see, even with us just doing three different games, where someone will go, it's like, oh, right, I can do this. Wait, wait, no, that's not this character. Or the classic Jessica joke of, oh, this character

is good at perception, which always surprises her. But really, I think the biggest challenge is just kind of like anyone doing a multitask is running three adventure paths at the same time is kind of like reading three novels at the same time. You know, sometimes you might get a little confused or need a refresher. I opened up even before we started doing recordings. Every time that I would sit down to do a live game back in the day when we were just a bunch of friends hanging around a table, I would launch the beginning of every single thing with a recap of what got them to where they were. And I would usually keep that relatively brief, but it's just, you know, when last we left our

heroes, the party had left the town of Sandpoint and were wandering into the hinterlands to go and trace down the goblin threat. And everyone would go, oh yeah, that's this game. I'm fighting goblins. All right. It's the interesting thing with doing the recordings and all the rest of that. I made this joke early on when we were doing Mummy's Mask that people can reference something on our Discord, which we do have an amazing Discord. We have an amazing community there.

And they oftentimes talk about even the older shows. And they started a conversation about this episode know, the older shows and they started a conversation about this episode, I think 120 or something like that for Mummy's Mask. And when they started referencing it all started flowing back because not only was I experiencing at the time, but I was also, you know, in the mindset whenever we were recording it to edit it. And then after we were done, I edited it. Then, you know, you do the first pass, you do your second pass, you add in all the audio and all the rest of that stuff,

and then you release it. And I can remember Mummy's Mask with a greater degree of detail than I can remember the entirety of Rise of the Runelords. And I've run Rise of the Runelords from book one through book six three times. Oh, wow. And I can tell you more about Mummy's Mask. But it's good that it's stuck like that. Since the transition to 2E, one of the things I took as kind of my passion project is I wanted to introduce new players to 2E. So 5E players, 1E players, even Shadowrun.

A couple Shadowrun players have come over yeah and my local game store yeah exactly it's like you know it's like come on first one's free and the next ones will cost you much like playing rpgs is a lot like trying to get people hooked on drugs anyway i'll probably edit that statement out because i'm not sure i want that one going out to the listeners that's fair so the next question I would ask you is suppose you stumbled upon a lamp and you rub it and a genie comes out and says, I can make every wish you ever have about find the path ventures come true. What does that look like for you? Ooh, um, I would love for the podcast to be as financially stable as possible. I don't need us to be rich, but I would love for the podcast

to be financially stable. Honestly, it's that whole thing of like a genie's lamp or the wishing cap and all the rest of that stuff where I've been so happy with how it has been going. We have such an amazing community. I wouldn't want anything about our community to change because they have been

so great. I'm not entirely positive what else I would ask for. I want people to continue because they have been so great. I'm not entirely positive. What else I would ask for? I mean, I want people to continue to back us on our Patreon. We're planning on expanding things for our YouTube channel. So I would love for people to back us more on that. I would love to have more time to create. I mean, even as much content as we create right now, it took us five years to do Mummy's Mask.

Four and a half, really. And in that four and a half years, Paizo put out nine new adventure paths. I want to do them. So it is the constant struggle. Yeah, honestly, if I could say I could wish for something else, I wish I had time to explore, maybe even as heretical as this might sound, maybe even outside or beyond just Pathfinder. I am a huge Lovecraftian horror fan. I am a huge weird fiction fan, and I would love to do some Call of Cthulhu. I pick up in this weird way.

I have a habit of picking up RPG books that I know I may or may not never even get a chance to run. And so I will just have the Alien RPG and Call of Cthulhu and Mork Mord and Blades in the Dark and every one of these other games and go, someday, someday I will play these. For me, that's delta green i mean i have to admit i've picked up a number of delta green books and said oh this would be really really interesting to play and i'll thumb through it and what i wind up doing and using these other game systems for is stealing ideas yep to throw into my game because oh well okay yeah this is set in 1980s united states i can't exactly have everybody run in with M16s, but, you know, we can make those, you know, lizard folk shock troops or something like that

and just kind of translate the idea over into the game world. So that's how I steal from there. No, it's funny you mentioned that. Very, very minor spoiler here for War for the Crown. I did a knighting ceremony in War for the Crown very recently. I think it was the most recent episode that was released as a recording of this. And when I was doing my prep work for that, I sat there and thought, where have I read a knighting ceremony recently? And I realized it's because I picked up the Pendragon, the new edition of the Pendragon RPG

that came out. And so I opened that up. I went through there and I found the entire knighting ceremony from there. And I just stole it whole cloth and went, boom, our theory and knighting ceremony. I'm just going to go ahead and insert that into war for the crown because that's, uh,

that's great. That I think I've mentioned a couple of times. I don't think I've ever mentioned it on anything that's been recorded before. That's kind of my white., is the great Pendragon campaign. For the Pendragon RPG, it's basically an adventure path, sort of, except for it takes place over the course of 85 years. And it goes through the reign of Uther, all the way into the Chaos Period, into the Boy King, into Arthur, all the way basically through the reign of Arthur where you play a lineage of knights. So yeah, that's my great white well of I don't know if I'll ever get to tackle this

project. But it sounds amazing if you ever do get that chance because that sounds like it'd be a very interesting campaign. Give me five, six hundred episodes. I can knock that out. No problem. Five. And to quote men in black, you know, maybe we'll move to a 32 hour day. So we've got time to get everything done that we need to. It would be nice.

As I mentioned earlier, I started listening to the Hell's Rebels podcast. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on is because I've played through Hell's Rebels and I remember the's one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on, is because I've played through Hell's Rebels, and I remember the broad strokes of the story, and as I started listening, I kind of went, wait a minute, that's a little different than I remember, and that's a little different than I remember, and that's a little different than I remember. And every single change that was made wound up integrating, or at least a lot of the changes wound up integrating to some of the characters' backstories. And I thought, oh, that's superbly done, the way you kind of brought that in. of the changes wound up integrating to some of the characters backstories and i thought oh that is

that's superbly done the way you kind of kind of brought that in so that's one of the reasons why i wanted to bring you on thank you sounds to me that you are a very adept and very skilled at bringing in character backstories i guess one thing i would ask is what's kind of your from a 50 000 foot view what's kind of your philosophy or methodology for integrating character backstories into a game? I find that helping your players build characters that their backstories will easily integrate is one of the easiest steps. It's one of the most often overlooked things.

I've been in a number of games, Paizo Adventure Paths being a prime example of this, where the game master will hand you the player's guide and then go, here's the player's guide, now make a character. And that works well. However, the player's guides do tend to be very general. And I think it's because there are some game masters that are very precious about not letting their players know anything. I don't want them to have the slightest hint. I know this takes place in Chilliaks,

but I don't want them to have even the slightest idea that there might be Asmodeans involved in this. And really kind of, I feel like so much of that starts with this. I sometimes make a joke that there's that barrier that is the GM screen that sometimes separates game masters from players and is a positive and a

negative. One of the negative sides of that, other than the fact that it brings about this view that a game master isn't a player, which I don't agree with, is the idea that the game master's job is to keep the players in the dark because they're against the players. And so bringing this around to backstories is most of the time I'll sit down with everyone, everyone at once and go, okay, well, let's make characters. And then they'll start talking to things. And let me use Hell's Rebels for an example. I worked very thoroughly with everyone. And Jessica came to me and said, I'm thinking a half out.

And I went, okay, cool. And Rachel also came to me and said, I'm thinking a half out. And I went, okay, cool. And Rachel also came to me and said, I'm thinking a half elf. And I went, okay, great. And I went into the book and I looked at all the stuff in the book about Kintargo. And I presented both of them. It's like, there's really, there's two really cool options you could do with this. There's this school that is run by an elven teacher and has some really, you know,

like a lot of these, you know, the bastard children using that in the proper term are delivered there. And so that's a really interesting. And because there's all these elves that came in here because elves were the hot commodity for fashion, you know, a couple of years ago,

a few centuries ago, honestly, there's a, there's a half old population. And then when I talked to Jessica about it, I centuries ago, honestly, there's a half-elf population. And then when I talked to Jessica about it, I went, actually, yeah, there's a shocking number of aquatic elves in the surrounding area. And she was like, oh, aquatic half-elf. I'd never even thought about that, but that's really interesting. Let's do an aquatic half-elf because I already wanted to have kind of a retired

pirate theme. Suddenly you have aquatic elves being brought into it and heather came to me and basically said i want my character to have previously been you know an anasmodean because that's one of the backgrounds and i went great let me work with you about this and what about your family what do they have these connections and i kind of dropped this uh is anyone your family connected to the hell knights and she was like actually yeah i was thinking i maybe have a brother connected to hell knights like this is the hell knight order that's involved there are any of your family connected to the Hell Knights? And she was like, actually, yeah, I was thinking I maybe have a brother connected to the Hell Knights. This is the Hell Knight order that's involved there. Are any of your family still connected? And then she was like, well, I have a nephew. He's an armager.

That's kind of what I'm thinking. And suddenly I'm like, boom, giant plot hook. Tie that in. Again, Jordan literally came to me saying, hey, I want to be a noble, an ex-Chilaxian nobility and all the rest of that stuff. And I was like, I presented him with a couple of families and said, here's these

families. And he was like, well, these Serenis seem like they're really involved. The whole opera scene and all the rest of that stuff was like, yeah. And it would be an interesting connection if you want to go the Sereni route. I think Ross was the only one that took the bait for playing a tiefling and that kind of, uh, it provides its own backstory tie in just by its very nature, especially when I established the Cloven Hoof Society in the city. So yeah, I guess my takeaway there is to have a good foundation to integrate the character's backstories using even from a neutral stance. If you have somebody that's playing a fighter and they say, yeah, I was trained by master swordsman. Instead of having them work in a void by themselves to come up with the name of this master swordsman and where they live and all the rest of that stuff,

just say, okay, look at my notes. How about this? This is an awesome swordsman that lives in the city. And then if that swordsman happens to be secretly a vigilante that fighting against the you know oppressive regime or something like that suddenly you have a character that's that's very cool and it's very interesting that you work with all of them i guess one of the questions i would have is do any of the characters have secrets from the other ones like there's a there's a big reveal about their backstory that I know when I listen to it, obviously without spoiling anything, some of the noble backstory wind up resolving itself in at least in a minor way that was very unexpected for me. Do all of your players kind of

know each other's backstories pretty thoroughly or is it you just kind of have a 50,000 foot overview of everybody's backstory that everybody knows and then maybe little details get revealed as those shocker moments it depends on the uh the campaign so mummy spask and hell's rebels in both of those cases the players didn't really uh and even tyrant's grasp or the players didn't know the other characters backstories uh other than a very general light, unless the characters had some sort of connection to one another, which is pretty common with Jess and Jordan because they are married, and so they sometimes discuss their characters with one another. In the case of War for the Crown, no. I actually, I specifically wanted them to all know one another's backstories

because the idea, the premise for the war for the crown adventure path is uh well at the very least the premise for the version of it that i'm running um is that they were all friends of one another 25 years ago and then have gotten back together and so they all knew their backstories um really tight when they were 15 years old and they first hung out and now that they're all you know late 30 early forties, they've all kind of heard. It's that sort of thing where you've like, I mean, I follow you on Facebook. I mean, I kind of know what's going on with your life. You have kids, right? I find as far as backstory reveals are concerned that they generally fall into one of three categories. The first category is the here's a backstory reveal that is a great twist for the other

players. It's this thing that I've been keeping secret that I didn't tell everyone else here that I have a secret child with the high priest of the city or something. It's that twist that's kind of fun. Those are really good. I encourage them. The second one is the bad version. The second one is the bad version. The second one is the one that I hate. It's the one that I discourage anyone from ever doing. I've been in games where it's been done

before, which is the backstory reveal of, oh, secretly I've been working for the bad guy this entire time. That's the derailing, suddenly everything's gone to crap. It doesn't really work very well. And mostly it's because it suddenly makes people not trust one another.

And while there's the general joke of you should never trust an NPC in a tabletop game, and I disagree with that also, but you should at the very least trust one another. And the third type is one of my favorite. Just talking about backstory elements and a very, very minor spoiler here for our version of Mummy's Mask. Jordan made his character for that, who's this catfolk monk that was abandoned and raised by this priest and joined the Temple of Phrasma and all the rest of that. Jordan himself just said, my adoptive father died. He never told me anything about where I came from. I don't know anything about where I came from. I don't know anything about all the rest of this stuff. I just have some small inklings and he had some hints,

but that's it. And that's the third type, which is when you as a player trust your game master enough to hand over your backstory reveal to them, Where you just go, all right, well, do with this what you will. And suffice it to say, episode 50, actually, of our first run for Mummy's Mask is when Jordan's character's backstory came out. And I think you can tell how happy he was in that episode where he's just like, oh my God. Because the one thing with trusting part of your backstory over to the Game Master is the Game Master knows the flippant story. And so if you want your

character to be tied into the story, and I always encourage that you never want a character to be as fun as it is to be the man with no name or, you know, the traveling, you know, the vampire hunter D that rides into town and solves a problem. You want your character to be tied to the story because if you aren't, then you're kind of a tag along. And the other characters that are tied to here where it's just like, well, I'm the random mercenary that wandered into town. And in the meantime, it's like, oh, I'm the, the son of the blacksmith. And my father has the plague and I'm sitting here fighting to protect this town because my father, you know, can't be, you can't take care of himself. And it's like, well, this character has motivation and the other one doesn't.

No, that's true. And tying the character tightly to the, to the, especially the place where the adventure is happening. The example I'm going to use is one of the games that I'm actually get to, I actually get to play is we're running through Bloodlords. Oh, yeah. And it's a ton of fun, that kind of thing. But one of the best things that the GM did was he basically said, okay, you need to find a reason for your character to be in Geb. And if you're undead, there's a very easy reason why your character isn't Geb. But if you're not, if you're quick, you better

find a really good reason why you're toughing it out in a land of undead where you are at best second-class citizen and at worst cattle. Yeah. I have a very controversial opinion here. Hit me. And this controversial opinion is the

Pathfinder player's guides for the Adventure Paths are specifically written in a way that anyone can play any character that they want. And the problem that runs into that is if your character is not actually connected to the story, that character will never be as invested as a character that is otherwise. A good example, I feel like, is the second adventure path that ever came out, which is Curse of the Crimson Throne. Great adventure path. Love it.

Absolutely love it. The collector's edition, well worth it. I've got two copies. When I first sat down and I told everyone to make their characters for it, I gave them the player's guide

kind of overview, and that one actually has backgrounds in it that tie you all to basically say, this one guy effed'd you over and you're all getting together to deal with this one guy. And I took it a step forward and I told them, you have to make a character. Your character has to be from this city and you have to be invested in this city. And that's it. You can make any other type of character you want,

but the character must be from the sound and the character must want to help this town. And sometimes I feel like the inclination to allow a player to make any sort of backstory or background that they want sometimes inclines people to do a, well, I had this character idea and my character idea was that you know i'm a prophet of calistrate from druma it's like okay cool are you what what are you it's like i'm a fighter okay um all right that's fine uh we're

planning on doing strength of thousands where you're going to be part of the magambian school of magic it's like all right well i'm not changing my character and uh when you make a character like that i kind of feel like you're sort of you're either one making it more difficult for the game master if they're going to incorporate your character's backstory or two basically saying i don't care if my character's backstory gets incorporated right because a lot of game masters are going to look at that and go alright well I'm actually going to focus on the person that made a character that makes sense for this story

who's like what's my character's motivation for being at the school? My dad is a teacher at the school. Boom! Character backstory already incorporated as opposed to going I'm going to tie in the prophets of Calistrate to the

mcgombian wizard academy exact or a magic hating barbarian how am i going to tie that in yeah it's it's the classic joke of um i remember it was in the uh skull and shackle player's guide where it was this is skull and shackle and then there's that side blurb of what if your player wants to play a paladin for the pirate campaign right um or again in iron fang invasion there was a side blurb in there that was like this is the adventure path where you're fighting um uh hop goblins and then there's a side blurb in there it's like what if my player wants to play a hop goblin it's like just tell them no yeah and that's one of the one of, honestly, one of the worst pieces of advice you can give to new DMs is that you can't say no. I think that leads to tragedy within the game because then the inmates are running the asylum, so to speak.

Well, and it's not even necessarily that. It's sometimes I feel like the idea with the you can't tell your players no is that you're stifling their creativity. And again, I think this somewhat harkens back to the idea that the game master isn't a player. And that the game master isn't trying to exercise his creativity. And so by making a character that doesn't mesh

with the setting, or sometimes specifically making a character to be contrary is more or less trying to sabotage your friend's story. So again, if you want to make this collaborative storytelling thing, which is what we're all here to do, you really want to make certain that everyone's characters all work together to tell the best story you can possibly tell. And so if you really come up with a concept that's like, I'm a hobgoblin deserter and I fled this place. And you know, that's, those are the occasions where it makes a great second care. If the first character dies and then it's like, we need a new character in book three of iron

thing invasion and it's, I'm the hobgoblin deserter. That's a great character. Fantastic. Come on in. I've got a, I've got a pre-made way we can tie you in yeah you just immediately jump in um i think that the the challenge sometime with incorporating backstory into um the story is sometimes players specifically look at it as an opportunity to if i'm being blunt with it to f over their game, where some players will just go like, all right, well, you know, I'm, uh, like my father was, uh,

a Greek, like the tiny little cricket Faye person or something like that. And, um, you know, he's part of a, an entire court of, uh,

uh, awakened cats that live out in the forest and they have a little fairy circle that they, they, you know, do this and they live inside of a treehouse built into the branches of a treant and that's where I grew up and all the rest of that stuff and it's almost that

they're trying to specifically trip up the game master to go, ha ha I gotcha and my encouragement to any game masters out there is either A, tell them no or B, funny enough as I actually did with Jessica in Mummy's Mask, she made a character with some elements that I basically told her, just so you know, these elements are your character's backstory, never going to matter.

Because I'm not working them in because they have nothing to do with Osirian. And if it doesn't have anything to do with Osirian, it has nothing to do with Mummy's Mask and it's not in this story. And that's what I encourage players is that, you know, be at least a little bit flexible and malleable with your characters. Oh, yeah. The example that I'll use, again, going to Bloodlords, is a character that I'd never played. I'd never played a flesh warp. And the concept was fascinating. I wanted to bring it in.

The next, you know, next adventure we want to run is Bloodlords. And it will be easier, without spoiling anything, it will be easier to run this as undead. And so I just kind of took my flesh warp and said, okay, great. He's a flesh warp, but he also happened to die in the process. And so was brought back. And in this case, I'm a flesh warp mummy cleric. And so I'm having a ball. I mean, it's basically the character that I wanted with a slight little twist on it that, oh, yeah, he happens to be undead.

Yeah. I have a classic joke for a lot of characters that I make that I'll come up with a character concept. I'll come up with the entire concept. I did this for Serpent Skull and I'm just like, okay, cool. Alchemist. All right. Fun. That's an interesting thing. Alchemist Noble, whose family ran a winery and all the rest of this stuff and so he originally investigated like alchemy for the idea of becoming a brewer and then you know his family were wrongfully charged and so he turned it to start making bombs and all the rest of that stuff and i went through the entire character concept and i went and and i do this a lot and maybe this is just me being a little a little silly sometimes i do have a silly side but i reached the end of it i went you know it would make this character way more interesting

if they were a halfling yes and and sometimes i do like i'll always start with you know human as my my vanilla default and then sometimes i'll just sit there and go like an inquisitor is interesting and i love the Inquisitor class. It's like, what if I was Inquisitor of Shalyn? How would that work? Yeah. Love of beauty and art. Yeah.

Basically for anyone that's going around there and like hecklers at theaters or something like that, I'm running to the back and punching them out because they're disrespecting art. I love playing my Inquisitor of love, but sometimes playing around with a character concept, that's the thing. You can rework a character relatively easily. And so if you have this idea that's like, I really, really want to play a fighter, great. We're doing this Magic Academy thing. It's like, okay, we'll figure out a way that your character, are you willing to sacrifice being a fighter to be a Magus? Or are you willing to be a fighter fighter to be a magus right like or are you willing to be a fighter that multi-classes into wizard or you know what if you're a fighter that multi-classes in wizard that focuses only on buff spells to make you a better fighter

um there's ways to rework that character concept to keep your character concept true and still make the job easier for your game master to incorporate your character's backstory to incorporate your character to make your character's backstory, to incorporate your character, to make your character flow. And again, you want your character to be awesome. And making it easier for your game master to make you more central to the story just makes the story better for you. I just have a few more questions for you. And again, I appreciate you taking the time, Rick.

This has been fantastic. I appreciate it. I love talking shop. This is something that I would do for free. I could do too so one one question i have what piece of advice do you wish you'd had before you ever started playing rpgs piece of advice uh it's hard to boil that down to one okay then two or five or ten or however long you want to talk. I'm listening. So firstly, know your players. It's kind of what we were talking about just before, but one of the things that I didn't realize really starting out because I was so focused on the story side and making sure the

monster stat blocks were right and making sure that I wasn't unbalancing the treasure and all the general mistakes and things that you're so concerned about when you first start out. But knowing your players is very important. Know what they like, know what they don't like. Know what they're expecting when they show up to the table. Making sure that it's the same thing that you're wanting to do. I've made this comparison a couple of times before, but I love the Lord of the Rings. I do.

I love the novels. I love the movies. I love the Lord of the Rings. They did. I love the novels. I love the movies. I love the Lord of the Rings. They did Gimli a little dirty in the movies, but I love the Lord of the Rings. And a lot of times when I'm running a game, I want my game to be like the Lord of the Rings. Occasionally, there's going to be a joke in there,

something like that. But for the most part, it's serious. It's, you know, tragic. You're going to get heartbreak in there. And, you know, while there will be some funny things that will happen here and there, it's mostly a dramatic story. But if my players are showing up expecting Monty Python, they are not going to have a good time playing a game that's like the Lord of the Rings. And I'm not going to have a good time running a game that's supposed to be like the Lord of the Rings, but with Monty Python characters.

So I would say first, one of the things I wish I'd known first starting off is be very upfront. I think that I always go back to this thing of communication is key with your group and have an open line of communication. Let them know what you're wanting to do. If you're going to go, I'm running Bloodlords, and I'm going to be running this funny, campy, you know, like, I keep wanting to say Dawn of the Dead, but no, I'm thinking Evil Dead. This Evil Dead style, yeah. This Evil Dead style, you know, it's going to be kind of funny,

and I'm going to be talking like Skeletor all the time because, you know, skeletons have no lips or whatever it is. That's great. But if, on the time because, you know, skeletons have no lips or whatever it is. That's great. But if on the other hand, you're like, I really want to explore this dark, fatalistic nation where life is fleeting and unimportant and death is all pervasive and oppressive. You want to make sure your players know which one of those two versions of the stories they're getting into first. If I was going to give a second one, I would say once you know who your players are, learn to pace your game around them. One of the most common things I hear people comment about is pacing concerns. If they're constantly looking for direction, as if the players don't know what the heck they're supposed to be doing, give them more structure.

Sometimes some players, and I literally mean this by the players, some players have spent their entire day at work, in an office, running a business, making all these decisions. And they're like, I really don't want to puzzle my way through this entire complex thing. And they're like, I really don't want to puzzle my way through this entire complex thing. I just want to know where the next plot point is so that, you know, I can enjoy role playing with this NPC and buying some new awesome gear and shooting arrows at dragons. And if they don't want so much structure, if this is a group that you're like, we just want to show up and have a little bit of fun and we're happy wandering around. We're basically happy playing a game like Skyrim where we're just dropped in here. We're going to ignore the main quest and we're going to do side quests nonstop for the rest of this campaign. Then that's also great. And you make your pacing around that because that's what your players want. They are focusing on NPCs and sandbox stuff. There are two dozen versions of Skyrim because sometimes people just love doing that sandbox game. So really understand what the pacing is. Learn what kind of pacing that your group

wants, whether or not they want it to be story focused or whether or not they want it to be, we're just going to sit here and if we get nothing accomplished today, except for we spent our 500 gold reward from our last quest and we spent four hours buying gear and talking to funny shopkeepers and they're perfectly happy with it, great. But be certain that that pacing applies to your entire group. Because if you have one player that really wants

to get things done and then you have two players that want to do nothing related to the plot and then you have one person that's just kind of like, I just came here for the chips and to hang out with my friends. You do need to kind of figure out what's going to balance out that group. I always like to do things in threes. So I guess for the third point, if you will, and this might seem incredibly counterintuitive for GM advice, figure out what your style is and stay true to it. Know yourself. If you stay true to your style

and your players love long, detailed descriptions of every room, if they love that Tolkien thing where it's every rock and stick has a backstory, do that. If you'd rather focus on, if you are a person that's like, you know what I really love

about Pathfinder? I love the combat. I love the minutia of it. I love moving miniatures around this battlefield and figuring out spell combinations. If that's what you as a game master like to do, we'll do that instead. A common thing that I see are people going on to advice things for Pathfinder, for Dungeons and Dragons, for every single game and asking for advice on how to be a better game master and such.

And that is good because you are trying to educate yourself. You are trying to forge yourself. But the most important thing at the end of the day is to stay true to the type of game master you want to be. And it took me a long time to learn that I don't, as we were talking earlier, when I first started listening to other actual plays, I don't want to be those game masters that I listened to on other actual plays. They have their own style and that's great, but there are some of their groups that's like, I would be tearing my hair out if I was dealing with this group of players. And there are some of them that their style just wouldn't mesh with my own. So you have a style and take bits and pieces out there, but there is no doing it right. If your players are enjoying themselves, if they are engaged, then you are doing it right. Once you find your style, your style is not wrong. I mean,

there may be a mismatch between say a GM style and a player style. As you mentioned, I had, I started running skull and shackles and one of my players said, mentioned, I started running Skull and Shackles. And one of my players said, oh, I'm having a blast. But one of my players said he wanted this wide open sandbox. Anything and everything. And I prepped more for running Skull and Shackles

than I ever have for anything in my life. Looking at the islands and what's on them and what the settlements are and what legends exist. And I've got a, I think it's a 72-page Google Doc full of what if they go here, then we can run this type of adventure. What if we go there?

That kind of thing. And presented with a sandbox. And the funny thing about that is is that the other players voted him the captain because I don't think that's a great secret that once you get your own ship, somebody's got to be the captain. Somebody's got to take on these certain roles. They made him the captain because I don't think that's a great secret that once you get your own ship somebody's got to be the captain yeah somebody's got to take on take on these certain roles they made him the captain and when staring into the face of the abyss of a wide open sandbox

I don't think he liked it that much you know and so what I slowly had to do is I'm slowly adding more and more structure so rather than saying okay you've got this wide open map you can go to, I've got a whole lot of NPCs nudging him, hey, go to this town, go to this island, go search for this treasure to try to give them some structure so that he feels like he's leaving them on a purpose, not just, hey, go yo-ho, yo-ho,

it's a pirate's life for me, but we're going to capture this Sargava fishing vessel and, oh, wait, these are just poor fishermen. We're going to capture this Sargava fishing vessel. And, oh, wait, these are just poor fishermen. We're going to give them some gold and send them on their way. You guys are the worst fucking pirates I have ever heard of. Anyway. No, that's a very, very valid point. And just on that subject there, again, it's knowing your style is so important.

subject there again it's knowing your style is so important because if it's what works great for you your players will come around to it and if they don't come around to it and this is some this is the bit of advice that i know is a little bit controversial then maybe they shouldn't be in your game it's if if they're if what they are wanting isn't what you are wanting to deliver, then they need to find a group that works better for them. And it always sucks to say that, especially when you're talking about a group of friends. But it's always that you have the one skeleton at a feast kind of thing. No, you know, Blood Lord's Illusion or comedy intended by that. But you have that one person that's just kind of like, well, I'm just moping in the back because I'm waiting for combat to start

because everyone else is doing this giant role play thing. And sometimes you just have to go, well, yeah, that's just kind of how it is. Also, if you want an extraordinarily controversial opinion here, just on the subject of what you're just talking about, I'm going to fire a couple of shots here real quick. God of War 2018, categorically, in every single way, better than Breath of the Wild. Ooh, that is a shot fired.

And I think the reason for that, and I actually, I like Breath of the Wild. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but Breath of the Wild is a game that is 100% about go out there, find your own thing, collect these things, take it in whatever order you want, and all the rest of that. And God of War, I felt like the 2018, Ragnarok stumbled in a couple places. But God of War 2018 was a masterpiece in pacing. Even when the pacing was slow, the pacing was deliberately slow. It was a wonderfully paced game that constantly kept the plot moving and kept the group engaged. Or kept me engaged as a player.

As opposed to Breath of the Wild wild which i was constantly looking for direction because that's the kind of player i am i'm the kind of player that goes give me a list of all the side quests i'll knock all the side quests out and then i'm going to move on to the main quest because i'm i have to 100 things but at the same time i need to go okay okay, well, where am I going? What am I doing? And the joy of Breath of the Wild is finding it. However, I'm not one of those players that takes joy in, you know, wandering around Skyrim looking for the plot. I want the plot to be presented. And then I want to actively pursue it like a ravening wolf. So, yeah.

And again, that's kind of what you're saying, that once your players were dropped into this massive world of, okay, well, you're off the plateau. What are you going to do now? And it's like, oh, crap. What am I going to do now? As opposed to some players do need the guiding. And if that's the type of game master you are,

if you're the type of game master that goes, I've made you a course, don't be afraid of other people telling you that you're railroading. Don't be afraid of other people telling you that you're playing the game bad, wrong, whatever. If it is your style, it is your style. I've always said that if somebody has to leave your gaming group because it's a clash of styles, that's not a personal attack on you or them.

That's not a, you're a bad DM or they're a bad player or it's a bad situation. It's just basically just mismatch. And so basically to say, hey, have fun with your game. I don't enjoy this type of game. I'm going enjoy this type of game. I'm going to go find something that's more akin to chess on a battle map than it is a lot of role play. That's fine. Yeah. It always makes me go back to the fact that in almost every relationship that I am aware of, every couple that I know, that I hang out with, there is almost always, this is almost a universal truth. There are some exceptions. My own relationship is a bit of an exception.

There is the one person that likes horror movies and then the other person in the relationship that doesn't. I don't think that that's any real dig on the quality of the movie The Conjuring. The Conjuring is one of the best horror movies I've ever seen. However, some people, Jordan, for instance, despises horror movies. He wouldn't go see The Conjuring because he doesn't want to, which means that when horror movies come out, Jessica joins Rachel and I to go watch horror movies because some people just don't like horror and that doesn't make them a bad person or make them dumb for not liking it. And it doesn't make them a bad person or make them dumb for not liking it.

And it doesn't make you a bad person for liking it. And it doesn't make the movie bad for being a horror movie. Just some people like to clump all tabletop RPGs into one giant basket and ignore the fact that you have your goth phase for your World of Darkness, and you have your, you know, weird fiction phase for your Call of Cthulhu and your fantasy adventures for your Pathfinders and your Dungeons and Dragons. It is an amazingly multifaceted number of game systems. And just because you like one over another

or one is your preference or one style is your preference, it doesn't invalidate any of the others. And you should find a group that works the best for the style that you have. I greatly appreciate all the time that you've dedicated to answering this goofy fat man, old man's questions. I love talking shop. Again, if I weren't sitting here with you right now, I would probably be sitting with Ross or Rachel or Jessica and Jordan. I would be sitting with somebody talking shop

about Pathfinder. Do you have any parting thoughts on Find the Path Ventures or RPGs in general or character backstories or anything we talked about tonight? No, I mean, if I can take the opportunity, of course, on your own show here and all the rest of that stuff, I have been eternally impressed by the amazing community of people that have cropped up around the Find the Path show, the Find the Path ventures in general. And so I do like to take every opportunity to thank them. Again, I am immensely, and I can only use that in the actually using the term immense, immensely thankful for the fact that I am now able to do what tiny little, I think I was 12 years old, me with the big red box envisioned, which is creating content and

creating stories and sharing those stories with the world as a living. And that is something I never imagined I would be able to do. And being able to do so is entirely thanks to the fact that we have an amazing community that supports us. Again, I just want to take an opportunity to shout out to everyone else that has supported us. And all those people that make our place such an open, such an inclusive, such an inviting place. A little corner of the internet to go to. Find the Path has three different podcasts to pique your interest. such an inviting place, a little corner of the internet to go to. Give them a listen and please consider supporting them on Patreon to gain access to the Tyrant's Grass podcast they're releasing. I'll bet you and your players would have fun doing it. Again, I always do encourage people that I'm sure it's much the same for your own show,

that if you do have iTunes and all the rest of that stuff, just a reminder for everyone, please go onto iTunes and give reviews. It is great for metrics. Every single one of those reviews, I mean, it makes it more likely that it'll reach one more person who may be looking for exactly that type of podcast. Oh, yeah. Rick, this was a privilege

and a pleasure to speak with you tonight. And I really want to thank you so much for your time. And thank you for having me. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright

2023. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.