The Lost Episode? Lessons from Ashley May King on Mastering the Art of DMing in Horror and Mystery

Have you ever done something that was like basically perfect and then you found out you had to do it again because you didn't hit the record button? Well that's never happened to me and welcome back to How To Be A Better DM. Also my name is Justin Lewis and that was a lie that did happen to me. This is the second time we are bringing on our guest Ashley May King to record with us. The first episode that we recorded together is Lost to the Void of Mystery. We'll never get that back. It was so good. It was so good and I'm so sorry that I didn't get it. We'll never know. We'll never know. But listener, you are so lucky because she has overlooked my mistake and I've brought Tanner on today as my adult supervision. We're going to have a fun conversation with Ashley May King again about, you know, Roman gods. So what do you think?

I'm totally down. I could talk about this for a uncomfortable amount of time. How much time do we have?

Well, I guess let's not waste any time and just hop right in. But before we do, Tanner, I forgot to say hello to you. So how are you doing, Tanner?

Hey, Justin. I'm here too. I don't, I mean, I wasn't here on the last recording and I think that's what went wrong personally. But...

Yeah. Right.

Yeah. I mean, I did, I did hear that, you know, they laughed, they cried, that it made them want to be better people. So hopefully that happens with this one too. Yeah.

It really did make me want to be better, especially after I realized that I didn't get the recording.

So on this episode of How to Be a Better Podcaster, we hit record.

Lesson learned. Boom. Done.

Write that down. Write that down.

Exactly. But today, like I said, we are joined by Ashley May King. A little bit of background information. She is a very talented writer for horror and mystery games of all sorts. She mostly plays Call of Cthulhu, but today we're going to try and dissect, well, she's going to unravel her mysteries of how to, you know, provide an awesome horror game. But before we get to that, Ashley, what is your favorite horror game? What is something that you've been geeking out about lately?

Listen, I am such a nerd for theology, mythology. I love finding obscure religions, and I stumbled upon this really fascinating Roman god of waypoints and of boundary markers named Terminus. This was a god they would have sacrifices to. And it feels like it's such a... Random, kind of benign thing, these, like, boundary markers, but it was, it had its own following. He had, you know, followers make sacrifices to him. It's just, I love that kind of thing. Just, you never, you never know what's out there, and then you never know how that can inspire something in a game sometime.

I feel like I get a lot of inspiration from Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. So, like, when you say sacrifices, like... Yeah. He's got a waypoints, like, street signs, like, they burn, you know, crossroad street signs, or... Or steel stop signs. Steel stop signs.

It's a lot darker than that. I don't know what the rating is on this particular podcast, but if you want to read some R-rated... Okay, great. Yeah, no, they would burn people tied to these, like, boundary markers and, like, leave their ashes to kind of, like... Yeah. I don't know, consecrate the new boundary or such. No, they were, they were killing people. Or, you know, perhaps animals and such. But, yeah, you gotta, you gotta really lock it in, you know?

That's nuts. Can you imagine that, but with, like, the HOAs and neighborhoods of today where it's, like, you have a fence that's two feet over and... Good night, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

Dang. Yeah, I just, in my mind, I'm like, thank goodness they brought it around, because when you're, when you're like, oh, they burned people, I was like, what does that have to do with waypoints? And you're like, oh, they'd be tied to these boundary markers. I was like, okay, they brought it around, they made it relevant, good on them. Exactly.

Topical. Yeah. They weren't just, you know, in a different third location burning.

I love it. Thank heavens. Well, that actually brings me to my next question, which is also unrelated. If you guys were the gods of something, just, like, something random, what would you be?

Pizza.

Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah.

Guys, I've, I've always been into making pizza. Recently, my wife went all out for Christmas. She got me a bunch of pizza stuff and, like, a pizza cookbook, and I made a really good margarita pizza. Like, the dough is so good. I know. I But anyway, I made a... Like, just off, off the top of my head, I came up with a recipe for a Philly cheesesteak pizza that tasted like Philly cheesesteak using leftovers I had. I was so proud, and I would be a great god of pizza.

Agreed.

I would follow you. I would burn people in your honor.

Just, hey... In a pizza oven. If you're going to do it, make sure you're preheating that oven for at least 50 minutes at the highest temperature that you're ovening. And we'll go. So, yeah.

think I would be the god of getting stickers off of things without leaving any residue. That's my special skill, and I feel like it's so niche, and I would want to be the god of something just so obscure and specific. And that is, like, if I think about the things I'm most proud of myself for, that hits the top five. I can get stickers off of anything without leaving. Any of that sticky stuff. It's all in the angle. You've got to go 45-degree angle.

45-degree angle. Do you take commissions? What the heck?

You know, I'm happy. I get so satisfied doing it. You want to mail me something, I'll take a sticker off. Anytime. I got you.

Oh, that's amazing.

Oh, man. Now I'm thinking about all the, like... You know how when you buy a new container, or like, you know, Tupperware or something, it has stickers on the bottom sometimes. And then, like, it gets washed, and it just smears. And everything. Now I'm just like, oh, gosh. That'd be a really useful skill. Yeah.

That'd be amazing.

It's got to go low, slow, and at a 45-degree angle. You got it.

See, I don't have the patience for that. I always just get, like, I got to get to the end, and I rip it off. And honestly, I actually think that might be one of my personal struggles with writing mysteries and horrors. I don't have the patience to work through the problem. So let's figure out how to do this right. So if you could, just tell us the secrets to writing the perfect horror or mystery or both game.

Yeah. In two sentences, please. Just two sentences.

Sure thing. Sure thing. Two sentences. Start at the end and have your own timeline. It's funny that you mentioned...

That was great.

But that's really kind of what it boils down to, right? Like, you mentioned... Not wanting... Like, the problem being this thing to solve. I like to start at the problem and at, like, the big... I like to start at my enemy winning and what that looks like and what apocalyptic kind of hellscape follows and kind of, you know, set the stakes there. I don't spend too much time defining. I don't spend too much time defining what that enemy is at that point. In all of my game notes, I just call it the entity and then I'll find it later, I'll name it, I'll describe it, I'll come up with some cool abilities, etc. But I don't need to know that starting out. I just need to know what it wants. And then you can work your way back from there. I think a lot of times, if you work from the beginning, you get really caught. Especially in mystery with cause and effect and this clue leads to this clue leads to this clue and that can be very challenging once you bring other people into the game and they're not quite following the pattern that makes the most sense to you. So if you start from the end and if you establish the timeline of what the entity is doing, regardless of the player interaction. You're always going to be on track. And so I pictured as these two kind of parallel timelines, one that the players are on and one that your entity is making happen and they are naturally going to cross paths at certain points in that timeline. But you don't have to necessarily define that because if you know what your enemy or entity is doing, you can roll with that. Whenever the players are going to come up with, come into that world or see the results of it or anything like that, I find that that's a lot easier and I only say that because I have done it, I started out doing it the opposite way and trying to be so scripted with everything like, oh, I will present this. This will happen. And then the players, they'll definitely say this to which I can respond with this. And then, you know, it immediately goes off script and you're panicking. But if you give yourself that room of just being confident in the order of operations of what's happening, regardless of the players, that too also plays into that helplessness a little bit that you want them to feel that like futile kind of like that. That futility of being up against something so beyond your means and so beyond yourself that, yeah, when you and it makes it so much more satisfying when you do have influence over what's happening or how that entity is achieving or not achieving its aims.

That's my like super condensed kind of advice. And it really does. It boils down to two things. Start from the end and have your own timeline.

I have to say, I really like that because I think it taught me something about horror in the way that because when you were like, hey, you know, have two kind of tracks, two different timelines, what the players do. And that's, you know, decided by them and you during the session. But then separately, you've been like, hey, this is what the entity, the creature, whatever it is, is doing and its goal and its goal leads to what it's doing.

I was going to comment. I think that is so adorable. So for the podcast listener, there are two cats behind Ashley that are currently battling it out. It's amazing. I'm so sorry. No problem. No problem. Anyways, Tanner, go ahead.

But but like I realized I was like, wait, so why is that different from a normal antagonist? Because I was thinking I was like normal antagonists also are powerful. Maybe you don't understand them. Maybe you do. But, you know, theoretically, they're doing their own thing. But then I was like. Are they? Think about most stories. Most of the time, it's like, oh, the enemy has done something and the players find out and like it's almost like the enemy is static and the players are approaching them on their own timeline. Right. For the most part, with a couple exceptions, I think with horror, especially where you're trying to make it so that it's something so that the players are scared by the unknown and also they're like terrified by like, oh, this could happen to me at any time. You kind of need a more proactive antagonist.

Absolutely. If you're waiting for these certain triggers, like in a haunted house to go, then you're going to end up with a lot of dead space when the players aren't quite as they're not stepping on the traps that you set so cleverly because it's not a horror movie. It's not scripted. They're not going to go in the basement if they hear. A noise, you know, even though it is really fun in horror games. And I do find that players often play into those tropes a lot because it's a fun way to do it and always reward your players if they play into a horror movie trope. They should learn something from it. Yeah, there is an opportunity in horror to let the story also drive the fear in your players that there are things happening. That they don't know about and that they are late to the game almost and like trying to catch up and that leads to this like real life anxiety that kind of like carries over into that fear.

Yeah, I think I was trying to think before this recording why I like horror so much because I feel like everything that I write has a very horror basis. And I think that is what I enjoy so much about it is there is so much autonomy in the story and in the evil forces or the through line, you know, through the like inciting action is the same thing as your enemy basically. But you have so much autonomy with that to then use that as a driving force and also, I mean, I will say the very first time I read it, I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to die. But the very first time that you run a horror game and like you see people physically recoil from the table, that's also a really satisfying feeling. And I think in a sick way, I love that so much. I enjoy that so much more than people laughing like at something like I want. I want to see them like have a visceral reaction to things. But yeah, it does give you a lot of. As a writer, it gives you a lot of control over the story without it feeling like you're railroading or putting anything on too narrow of tracks, because that's just the nature of it. You're fighting against something and that something is has its own aims and has its own process. And. Markers and desires and things it will avoid and that just like it all wraps up into a really nice world to throw people in.

I think one thing that strikes me the most is this process that you described. It aligns so well with horror because of like the feel of the process is is horror, right? This entity. That seems like you don't have control of because they don't and to me, I mean, obviously this isn't a horror principle that I'm going to say, but it speaks to the fact that you need to understand the game that you're giving or maybe the story arc that you're giving and plan accordingly, right? Like if you're doing a simple adventure or like a horror or if it's political intrigue, the feel has to align. With that right and that goes down to exactly what you said, the actions of the entity or the problem and how that is making the players react or act and I think that's just I think that's so fascinating how you you kind of caught on that and you're just rinse and repeat, right?

Yeah, and it's I mean, it works as a starting point in pretty much any genre of horror or mystery. To always work from the end in mystery or else you'll end up with I've literally tried like the red string on the wall kind of like to figure everything out and it's just it's it turns into such a mess start from the end, but no, that's so right and it applies so easily to whatever setting that it's in whether it's, you know, gothic horror and you're in like a Victorian haunted mansion or it's something more. Modern and visceral like a theme park with like murderous clowns or whatever it's going to be you can still apply that idea to that setting and that's a good starting point to at least get you out of being stuck with defining everything early on because that's where I found I would often get hung up is trying to just write out. Okay, these are all. My NPCs these are all my monsters these are all the things they can find and use etc but I didn't have any stake in what these things meant to the story at that point I just wanted to come up with cool stuff and then it was kind of tricky to then fit that in at like he's misaligned puzzle pieces into the story I wanted to write so letting one inform the other. I think. Is a much more forgiving way to approach writing and it gives you the sense of you're able to shape a very satisfying narrative without having to have everything figured out and the focus really should be on the narrative at least, you know, in the genres that I like to write for like we like horror because it makes us feel something. And either that something is we leave it with unease we leave it with catharsis we leave it with hope or we leave it with a just like fear like they're just the feeling that we need to look over our shoulder constantly and so once you define what that is what feeling you want to leave folks with you can make a satisfying narrative and you can figure out how to shape. By knowing what note you're going to end on. Kind of like how you can tell the key a song is by the last note that's played in it. And so it's kind of that same thing and you use that to inform the rest of it. And, yeah, I love focusing on kind of story structure and beats and making sure that it's very satisfying in that way.

So as I was talking I was like I, I love all of this. I kind of want to get specific.

So, do you have a favorite horror campaign that you've run.

I, I do I'm really biased to the very first one that I wrote. It's gothic horror, it's Victorian mansion, it's lowlands of Scotland, it's changeling child, it's ghostly happenings, it's raining more it's like it's so. It's. It's a very evocative thing and when I first wrote it it was that thing where it was so scripted everything every NPC said I had typed out I had tried to anticipate what the players would say and like. It went off script I think two sentences in of course and I panicked. But now that's a scenario that I've used in I guess train with geek therapeutics at times and then use them. They're both really interesting as well. It's a. It's a super fun kind of scenario, personally I've never used a theory like that as the scenario to teach therapist. Some of the game mechanics so they can use horror to heal and kind of give this sense of catharsis so now I've run that and I've run that scenario a few other times. For a few streams and then like personal games. So now I think I've totally run it. Somewhere between 20 and 30 times. It's never ended the same way. Twice. Ever ever ever. And that's the kind of thing, and I think I'm so connected to that story and I feel so connected as a person, but I think I've never run it the same way twice. passionate about it because it was such a learning process for me to then be excited about the fact that it is never going to end the same way and with that uncertainty and sitting with that instead of you know a complete 180 from hyper scripting everything out to then expecting and looking forward to that difference and to things going off script and feeling comfortable in that setting um see i'm very partial to that one um for a lot of reasons i suppose and also i think gothic horror is my favorite genre of horror i love shirley jackson i love uh mary shelley like you know the classics and that they're just those are stories that i remember sticking with me so much and to kind of pay homage to that is it just feels special tenor

tenor I mean i have a thousand but uh justin do you have a question i do i do um this is less specific well i guess kind of different type of specific so uh you say start at the end and i i love that and and maybe i didn't understand the first time um but when you say the end are you meaning like this is the resolution scene this is everyone like leaving the haunted house going home happy or this is like the climax

the climax the oh shit it all went wrong like worst case scenario for the player's best case scenario for the entity um i start with the entity's win scenario as because that's their aim and that's what they expect to happen so all of their actions are going to be informed by that expectation um and so that is where i start from and i always like to give my players i aim to be informed by that expectation um and so that is where i start from and i always aim for at the very minimum three different paths to resolution um one the entity wins they lose the apocalypse happens they all die whatever whatever um i i really like to situate them in a with a scenario where they call my bluff on that a lot of times um love that love when the world ends when they're like she's not gonna do it yes i will um so i have my entity wins apocalyptic scenario like ending then i think okay how can they solve this with the clues that i give them and that informs what i need to put in this setting what what tools i need to drop in this haunted house what intel um and so then i can come up with what it would take to thwart these plans and so then those become my clues um that they find either by their own discovery or if you need an npc to just hand them a piece of paper just do it the players need information sometimes um and there's a fun mechanic in call a cthulhu that i like to use for that that i'll go into in a moment um so apocalyptic ending they solve it fantastic thwart the plans and then they always and i say those and that they always go for the third option which is violence um which is you know i i think we play a lot of fantasy games i think dnd is very much that like power like hero fantasy type thing and you think you know oh swing big sword kill big monster fantastic um and so i always i always give my players guns and then they are useless um you know and that's just like a fun moment every single time i play a game and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die but it makes them feel it emboldens them a little bit to make choices that maybe they wouldn't otherwise but then makes the stakes even more real so but i do always work in a way to where violence could win this situation if you fight the right entity or fight this thing when it's like at its weak point before it becomes this thing it ascends or whatever or you use this certain material that can you know like like in the victorian setting if you use iron against fey then it actually like finds purchase whereas if you're trying to shoot a bullet it's gonna go right through nothing happens you know what i mean like um and leave those kind of things for them um gosh i know i said i was gonna come back to oh okay um so there is a fun mechanic in call of cthulhu specifically that i really like to reward and that's the sanity mechanic um and it's kind of what really sets that game system apart and there are ways to work sanity into dungeons and dragons there are some really great um fits for how that works and i definitely suggest playing with it it's very fun um and it's not something i like to de-stigmatize the loss of sanity in this game um i think that the loss of sanity should always be rewarded with a lot of sanity and i think that's a really good way to work with intel and so i use that as a way to drop seeds that explain the plot and so as someone is losing something they are also gaining a better understanding um and that is kind of what the loss of sanity perhaps is in a way it's just open to like a different kind of knowledge and so uh i the call of cthulhu mechanics work really well with that um to where you can play into it and play into the stakes but also use that as an opportunity to give them the key information that they need whether they're hallucinating hearing a voice that puts some of the puzzle pieces together as to like what happened in this haunted house or if they are drawn to a certain part of the house that oh god i really need them to explore but they're avoiding it like you know you can use them to find out what's going on in this haunted house or you can use those innate mechanics to reach the goals that you need the players to reach to for them to be equipped to win in the end um because that also you know i sure i i have the entities timeline in mind but i want my players to be able to beat it i want to give them everything

they need to to really win in the situation so i was thinking by the way i love everything you're saying this is i think it's so important to think about you know character actions and how you can guide them without forcing them and i like playing in the sanity aspect of that uh because in dnd like you said there are workarounds ways that people have worked that in um which is like some home rules right uh but i'm curious how how's your experience been with getting players to play into that uh that fear that mental instability like if they do fail a sanity check and like have they have some of them pushed back or have you had to encourage some of them

to kind of lean into it more i think that most players are so keen on the opportunity to play into chaos even your most like straight laced like logical rational players if you give them an opportunity to ask to act against type i haven't met like a lot of resistance with that um i think it is very heavy in role play so i try to to make them maybe a bit more comfortable with it is as i'm describing it like i'll kind of like act out what they're experiencing a little bit if they're like looking over their shoulder a lot kind of like embody that kind of anxiety a little bit and really try to be as evocative as i can with the sounds and the voices and with all of that um so that they feel real unease that they're able to then carry into that and yeah i i find most the time people are so down for it especially when they can do a turn and like they become an enemy to the other players all of a sudden because of some irrational kind of uh thinking or not even irrational it's very rational to them what they're experiencing so um that's a fun way to get people to engage and to maybe come out of their shell a little bit but i do find like some players need a little bit of i try to make them more comfortable by being ridiculous um so that they don't quite feel like they have to be the first one to get a little weird with it i will always turn it up to 11 to kind of you know make them more comfortable with it

um i think that is so great and i love the concept of insanity especially because uh in basically almost every ttr ttrpg definitely dnd we face well our characters face uh some pretty mind-bending things so you mentioned you've seen people who have fit sanity or that kind of mechanic into games but obviously you can do it wrong so how do you go

about doing it right versus some mistakes people might make a good question i think and i think it's twofold i think one mechanically and two ethically um mechanically i think that i i'm biased obviously i think call it cthulhu gets it so right i it has to be a percentile and have to be acquainted with the fact that you can only lose this this is something you will it it's depreciating um and i like to raise the stakes with it um kind of very slowly where maybe the first thing they see isn't quite so scary it's only like a d4 penalty to their sanity and build my way up through the dice the suite of dice until they come to face with this thing and all of a sudden they're taking a d20 hit to their sanity um and making that build up kind of uh gets the players always like a little uneasy but also like a little as they see that you're sharing information as this is happening a lot of them get more bold and want to also learn that even though it comes at a cost um so i think you conscious in how you build it's that slow build that slow creep that is in every horror movie um and so you kind of want to like give an inkling and then all of a sudden it's the snowball that starts in avalanche and then they're just taking penalty after penalty after penalty and then it's like even that frenzy is kind of fun in its own way um but i do think the percentile system is the best way to approach that it gives you a lot of time to think about it and i think it's the best way to approach that it gives you such a large threshold um another fun thing i like to do is at the start of a game i'll ask oh do you guys want to play on easy medium or hard and just kind of like a throwaway thing um and every most tables are like let's play hard mode we know what we're doing it's like okay we're gonna start out with a d20 penalty to your sanity everyone roll and by kind of starting that a little bit lower especially if you're doing a one-shot um that's a way to kind of like start chipping away at that uh and it also gets them acquainted with that loss up front um that's something i like to do i think that's fun i think the other side of it is how to handle sanity ethically um and also approaching like these mental health mechanics in games in a way that is sensitive and a way that is um not stigmatizing and that too is why i feel very passionately that like a loss in sanity quote unquote should be rewarded with unlocking a new kind of knowledge or a new kind of sensory input you know maybe you're hearing something that the others can't hear but that is if you follow that you're going to be rewarded with part of the story and a larger understanding of what's going on um and so using those things in a way that isn't so like stereotypical um and uh being sensitive to the fact like not just settling someone with you know for example like i think people throw around ocd a lot um and trying to approach that more so in reality than just um kind of what we see depicted as ocd but instead giving someone real context for you have a compulsion you can't fight it it's gonna make you anxious if you do fight it so you have to give in to this thing and you have no control over it and i think

that can lead to a lot of actual empathy um for these very real things that exist that's very very fascinating i'm just thinking of like all the ways that well for one that i've probably done this wrong but that when someone has sort of a uh an effect of having lost some of their sanity right based on what you're saying it sounds like you describe their feelings and their impulses and instincts rather than you are depressed or you have schizophrenia you know like instead you hear some things and the rest of the people around you don't seem to hear those things which

makes you feel strange or something like that exactly and 99 of the time people who experience these things don't know that don't know what to call it and so calling it schizophrenia or calling it depression doesn't really it's not as evocative as talking about the actual sensory input and the actual you know symptoms i i talk about ocd because i myself have ocd and so i am very sensitive to it and i'm not going to talk about it because i'm not going to talk about it because i'm not going to talk about it because i'm not going to talk about it because i'm not going to talk to how it's portrayed a lot of the time and just like but i think genuinely running games has helped me so so much with that it's that same thing i was talking about with

ocd a lot of the time is predicated on there's one correct answer there's one right way to do things i don't know what it is but i know that there's one correct way to do it and it alludes me and then that's the way i'm going to do it and i'm going to do it and i'm going to do it and i'm starts this loop and that's how i would approach writing games at first and once things weren't going the one correct path that i had set for it i would panic absolutely but now i think this like running games has been this like unintentional exposure therapy to where now i'm so excited when things go off book that it's i trust myself in that situation and i'm not going to talk about it i'm i look forward to that situation and i'm not uncomfortable in that unknown um and that has carried over a lot into my own life so i say that to say anyone else out there who also deals with that it's uncomfortable to kind of get over that hump when you're running games but it i'm telling you it helps so so so much um and those are the kind of things that um you can play on in these sanity situations so that like desire for like knowing what the right thing is and freezing up and just kind of you can play with that rather than just saying oh you have ocd and then all of a sudden they're like washing their hands every five seconds and it's like okay that's like a facet but that's not how everyone experiences it but like whatever um yeah i i urge people to get creative and to yeah describe it as what they're experiencing

rather than naming what they're experiencing i i think that is overall just probably one of the best pieces of advice for most of the the role-playing experience right describe what they're perceiving rather than oh you see or you know you're in a bakery right um unfortunately smell of bread yeah it's so much better that way exactly um we are to time unfortunately um so but before we let you go first of all thank you so much ashley for joining us

for the second time yeah thank you um you know anytime third time's a charm so let's uh let's do

this again i was gonna say i i do want to have you back on the show because uh i don't know about tanner but i have some more questions i'd probably like to dig into yeah too many honestly um but but before we let you go how can people reach out to you support you and see what

you're up to uh you can find us on our website at tanner.com and you can find us on our website at tanner.com and you can find me across the internet um at my name ashley may king uh m-a-y may um i am around i stream on the swole initiative network i have some upcoming um shows coming up with devalidate uh and yeah i've got some exciting things in the works that i can't even announce yet but uh keep an eye on my socials and you will be in the know

excellent and and listener please if you get the chance check out her social media and tell her thank you so much for coming on the show uh a second time and just just show her all the love you can we would really appreciate that um but last thing ashley and also tanner um please leave one last parting gift to our audience in the form of a practical tip or advice or do this based on everything we talked about or something we didn't talk about

just to help them with their horror games or just being a dm in general i'll start um i think i think a great way to do a horror sequence in dnd is to have them roll initiative even when they're not in combat and have them go turn by turn uh it's a good way to give you kind of a framework to make sure you're being descriptive enough with this which in horror is very important uh and two if you're not in combat you're not going to be able to do a horror sequence it gives them a sense of like dread that like oh why am i are we going in turns uh it and also allows you to throw in a nice little trapezoid right or something just a little little something in there but at the very least you're causing that suspense and you're letting you're kind of

making them cue on the situation and just mull it over so that that's my tip i think to echo that you should be as descriptive as possible keep all five senses in mind i think we focus a lot on vision and what the players see but make your monsters smell give them a smell uh an odor that they can that they can follow or that they can or leave some kind of you know footprint or something tangible just really play on all of the senses um and that's what i'm trying to do i'm trying to make sure that you're not in a that's what's really going to transport your players from the table to the haunted house or

whatever you have put them amazing when you said smell i just imagined the worst smell i could and that honestly conjured up an image of a of a monster so uh excellent excellent advice um ashley like i said it's been wonderful having you here for the second time and we do look forward for a third time but listener that'll have to wait we'll be back next time with another hand crafted episode just for you until then let's go ahead and roll initiative