Episode 47
How to Make a Dynamic Campaign with Garrett from Two25 Games
Welcome back to the Tavern Adventurer.
Today, we talk about how to make a story and campaign dynamic with Garrett from two25games.com.
If you want Garrett back on the show, you'll have to let us know.
Mentioned in this episode:
Brought to you by Session 0 Studios
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Transcript
all right well thank you for coming on the show garret thanks for joining me and
Speaker:tanner let's jump in with some really interesting questions first of all as an experienced dungeon
Speaker:master what is your favorite class and why
Speaker:my favorite class i think would have to would have to be dungeon master if that's
Speaker:a class if we can
Speaker:uh
Speaker:count that as a class that would be
Speaker:uh
Speaker:my favorite
Speaker:oh
Speaker:i much probably prefer to be behind the screen
Speaker:ah
Speaker:than
Speaker:oh
Speaker:in front of the screen but if i have to be a player usually cleric
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:or bard is my go to since i'm a i'm a real life musician i kind
Speaker:of like to role play that because i think i can i can do it okay
Speaker:since i know how musicians think for sure
Speaker:that's great do you ever actually
Speaker:i like
Speaker:like
Speaker:that
Speaker:bring an instrument to
Speaker:i
Speaker:use
Speaker:do
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:we we had a series on the
Speaker:m
Speaker:two twenty five instagram for a while and i need to bring it back but it
Speaker:was like how to introduce instruments to the game table in a tasteful way so it
Speaker:would be like oh these are the instruments that you might want if your game is
Speaker:within this unique flavor and of that was a music major in college and like music
Speaker:ology was kind of my focus in there was like the study of instruments and the
Speaker:study of cultural me and what not so i'd be like oh if it's an irish
Speaker:flavor maybe you'd want maybe fiddles and bazookis and banjos and barons and everything or if
Speaker:it's a middle eastern flavor maybe you want these instruments um so it's nice to be
Speaker:to bring that to the table that kind of livens things up as opposed to my
Speaker:player my my character
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:really strums the lute so well and i'm going to roll to prove that to you
Speaker:it's kind of
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:it can be done
Speaker:uh
Speaker:in real
Speaker:oh
Speaker:time so it
Speaker:uh
Speaker:adds a different kind of
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:spit on things
Speaker:you know the moment that they bring a bag
Speaker:i like
Speaker:pipe
Speaker:that
Speaker:in no it's over just
Speaker:then we all run the sessions
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:done
Speaker:that's
Speaker:head out
Speaker:at
Speaker:it's over
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:no bagpipes or recording
Speaker:that's
Speaker:is
Speaker:when
Speaker:allowed
Speaker:you just you know
Speaker:there it's
Speaker:total
Speaker:oh
Speaker:party
Speaker:it's a
Speaker:kill
Speaker:nat
Speaker:right there
Speaker:it's a natural
Speaker:ah
Speaker:one
Speaker:oh
Speaker:every time they play it basically
Speaker:one hundred percent
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:accordions and bag pipes are
Speaker:hm
Speaker:my
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:i don't like them personally
Speaker:uh
Speaker:that's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:just a personal taste that's my hot take
Speaker:h okay well that's a
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:great answer honestly i love clerics and and bards too i feel like
Speaker:oh
Speaker:there's a lot of flexibility there
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:okay next kind of warm up question for you if you could have one skill or
Speaker:mechanic from d and d in real life what would you have
Speaker:i would try and jump as many things into
Speaker:m
Speaker:perception as i could because i feel like me
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:personally
Speaker:m m
Speaker:in real life
Speaker:m
Speaker:i get so tunnel visioned about things that i miss things
Speaker:a
Speaker:that are around me
Speaker:oh
Speaker:or things that other people are doing like you've never noticed that
Speaker:oh
Speaker:no
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:no i've never noticed that but thank you for that out
Speaker:m
Speaker:um
Speaker:oh
Speaker:so if i could just jump all my cats into one
Speaker:m
Speaker:thing definitely i would be expert in perception
Speaker:ah
Speaker:all day every day it's not even
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:a contest no question about it
Speaker:just like going along and suddenly
Speaker:i hear that
Speaker:you just realize what's
Speaker:ah
Speaker:important in life and you're like oh wait
Speaker:it's
Speaker:i
Speaker:a
Speaker:just
Speaker:lot
Speaker:perceived
Speaker:less
Speaker:that
Speaker:poetic than that usually
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:it's like
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:oh i never noticed the door opened this way and that way or
Speaker:ah
Speaker:something real silly like
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:that you know or i never noticed this picture on the
Speaker:right
Speaker:wall but
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but then you feel real stupid when i was like how have you never noticed that
Speaker:and he's like i don't know because i'm not perceptive i guess
Speaker:yeah i think i would do insight because i feel like i'm the same way but
Speaker:with people you know like oh you were unhappy with me about that i didn't i
Speaker:didn't know you know
Speaker:that is true
Speaker:but that is just
Speaker:a person
Speaker:me
Speaker:in sight his perception
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:with with people so you know two sides of the same coin i think
Speaker:right right
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:exactly um kind of tacking on to the first question we asked
Speaker:oh
Speaker:you said you know your favorite class is the d m well if you had to
Speaker:personify your dungeon master style with a character what character would that be what would be
Speaker:your dungeon master avatar
Speaker:like a like a fantasy character or like a fictional character
Speaker:well so if you had to essentially create a character like your players
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:do but that character had to represent your dungeon master style what kind of character
Speaker:that's
Speaker:would
Speaker:an
Speaker:that
Speaker:interesting
Speaker:be
Speaker:question i like that question um m i think
Speaker:oh
Speaker:there's a player at my
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:table he's the second half of two
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:twenty five actually his name is chris and he
Speaker:okay
Speaker:plays in my campaign this tenarian world which is just whimsical as ever he plays a
Speaker:half ling rogue named
Speaker:oh
Speaker:trouble and he's he plays him kind of
Speaker:oh
Speaker:like how one would play a bard but he's a rogue so he's just very whimsical
Speaker:and he's very like to you now give his party members a hard time uh doesn't
Speaker:really like combat
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:all that much but loves to watch and kind of play cheer leader or trip the
Speaker:fighter on his way in to make a killing blow or something like that just to
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:just to keep
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:the labs going would be that would
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:be my my avatar is somebody that's whimsical um that just creates a fun story and
Speaker:doesn't take things too seriously because at the end of the day we're playing make believe
Speaker:with rules and my humble belief is that if that's taken too seriously
Speaker:oh
Speaker:it can lose fun really really quickly
Speaker:yeah absolutely no one likes it when you're trying to have fun and someone
Speaker:yah
Speaker:turns it into a serious thing like comet like
Speaker:right
Speaker:not fun competition
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:where the goal is
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:not
Speaker:oh
Speaker:fun but it's winning you know over
Speaker:exactly
Speaker:everyone else yeah
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:hm
Speaker:and if it becomes
Speaker:ah
Speaker:a game of numbers and a game of stats and you know minmaxing and things um
Speaker:it's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:great for some tables it's great for some play groups
Speaker:oh
Speaker:that's not how i roll i love to do the role play thing first numbers are
Speaker:just
Speaker:right
Speaker:numerical mathematical representatives of what's happening in the story
Speaker:yah
Speaker:we can think of
Speaker:h
Speaker:as like players
Speaker:right
Speaker:instead
Speaker:help things
Speaker:of our characters
Speaker:make sense
Speaker:exactly but
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:when it becomes too much
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:about the numbers and not enough about embracing the characters and
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:embracing story structure and character development then it loses that kind of story telling focus and
Speaker:at the
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:end of the day
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:that kind of why it exists and that's what it's all about
Speaker:great
Speaker:i had
Speaker:go ahead
Speaker:i had a sorry i had
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:best friend who i've been trying to get to play with me for like years and
Speaker:years and he's like honestly man like dandy just seems
Speaker:oh
Speaker:like a meeting and an
Speaker:ah
Speaker:like when you know you're in maxine
Speaker:ah
Speaker:it's basically you know a meeting
Speaker:m
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:there's like no difference but if you know you're focusing on the story it's different
Speaker:and i think i mean minmaxing has its place i guess but i feel like
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:if one is to mind max one should go play sky room and not dandy because
Speaker:if you want to be an
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:almighty powerful wizard go do that go play an
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:mo go play wild go play gold wars go play sky room at the table
Speaker:oh
Speaker:top the tabletop role playing game we like to role play and be people who are
Speaker:not on a daily basis and embrace those personality traits that we wish we could
Speaker:ah
Speaker:n't real if
Speaker:yeah a great way to but i mean i think that most other mediums
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:are more like like board games even are more natural
Speaker:it
Speaker:medium for just like sheer numbers right it's like why do we roll play that's
Speaker:hm
Speaker:why they moved from war games back in the day to d n d right great
Speaker:point okay
Speaker:exactly
Speaker:so
Speaker:ah
Speaker:last
Speaker:m
Speaker:question
Speaker:h
Speaker:here
Speaker:ah
Speaker:m
Speaker:biggest d m mistake
Speaker:oh
Speaker:that you've ever made and no men here we've all made them
Speaker:ay
Speaker:i
Speaker:uh
Speaker:would say it's
Speaker:uh
Speaker:it's kind of
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:a re occurring mistake for me and my biggest weakness
Speaker:ah
Speaker:and we talked about this last night
Speaker:oh
Speaker:we chris and i did a d m coaching session and i had to admit my
Speaker:fault and
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:humble up a little bit um but i'm so quick to admit my faults i am
Speaker:not perfect by any stretch of the imagination i'm just taking it one day at a
Speaker:time like everybody else but i have a problem with remembering the things that i do
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:for instance like i have i have a story structure but i'll forget about the bard
Speaker:in p c that i brought along like peter in the tenarian campaign at the table
Speaker:top peter's this bard
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:that met my party in the kindred hearts party um and then i kept forgetting about
Speaker:oh
Speaker:peter and they'd be like what about peter and like oh peter it's been writing
Speaker:ah
Speaker:songs this whole time in the corner that's a
Speaker:oh
Speaker:good point
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:you brought up there chris thank you
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:or we have a drew it my my fiance's druid she has a raccoon named felix
Speaker:that's her like her familiar her pet and i always forget about felix every session like
Speaker:well what's felix doing oh felix is just an he's just eating grapes and just having
Speaker:himself
Speaker:oh
Speaker:a good old time i have to make something up on the fly because
Speaker:oh
Speaker:i always forget about those little details i've got the big structure and i'm always concerned
Speaker:about what the players are doing that i forget to go in and be like oh
Speaker:yeah that that m p c needs he's doing something for sure i promise it's not
Speaker:important ight now let's go back to you what are you up to
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:uh
Speaker:oh
Speaker:h that's okay i mean no one expects you to to be the fabric of reality
Speaker:even though that's essentially what you
Speaker:oh
Speaker:are when when playing d and d you know
Speaker:yeah exactly
Speaker:ah
Speaker:that's kind of i guess
Speaker:ah
Speaker:the dem's job right you are god and you have
Speaker:hm
Speaker:to make this world come to life before your players eyes but also you're also a
Speaker:human so you're
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:not going to do
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:as well as a literal god could so
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:just
Speaker:oh
Speaker:go with the flow and have fun
Speaker:oh
Speaker:as long as your players are having fun you're doing something
Speaker:hm
Speaker:right
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:exactly uh
Speaker:totally agree
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:um go ahead tenner
Speaker:no no that was a go ahead justin take off do
Speaker:gotcha
Speaker:it
Speaker:for sure also i think there might be a little bit of lag so if i
Speaker:interrupt you i apologize so much i'm really bad at that so
Speaker:oh
Speaker:i'll try and slow down my super fast
Speaker:likewise
Speaker:mouth but
Speaker:i will i will try
Speaker:thank
Speaker:to
Speaker:you adventure
Speaker:keep some silence in there
Speaker:thank you adventurer for joining us today on how to be a better d m if
Speaker:you haven't
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:noticed yet we're not alone we are joined by garrett he is one half of two
Speaker:twenty five games and you can actually find them we'll put their link in the show
Speaker:notes but the first question i actually wanted to ask just because i'm a naturally curious
Speaker:person where does the name two twenty five games come from
Speaker:hit's a great question and one that
Speaker:oh
Speaker:we we get a lot has nothing to do with chris actually ironically
Speaker:my
Speaker:i started to twenty five and i was like chris
Speaker:oh
Speaker:i love your brain please join me and he said
Speaker:oh
Speaker:absolutely
Speaker:my
Speaker:i was waiting for you to ask so it was
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:a maid in heaven i love chris he's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:awesome guy but
Speaker:oh
Speaker:two twenty five was my
Speaker:my
Speaker:college
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:apartment when i was in college and all of my really good friends we were all
Speaker:roommates together and it was a party every
Speaker:m
Speaker:day not like
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:not like red solo cup
Speaker:oh
Speaker:college
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:party but like we would
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:be playing destiny and we'd be playing poker
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:night and then we'd be smoking cigars on the balcony and
Speaker:ah
Speaker:we just have a couple of drinks every now and then we will just spend all
Speaker:day together and
Speaker:m
Speaker:for me like that meant the world growing up and not having that i mean in
Speaker:west texas not everybody is into d and d but they sure do you love to
Speaker:drink and shoot guns so
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:for me who is like that's not my vibe um to finally have
Speaker:my
Speaker:that community and finally have that that tribe it's a fun way to keep that legacy
Speaker:going and as a way to say thank you to those guys out there um m
Speaker:oh those those three guys just kind of keep that alive and keep that name going
Speaker:and in spirit
Speaker:kay yeah
Speaker:that's beautiful
Speaker:oh
Speaker:well let's kind of dive into today's topic of dynamic storytelling and i guess i guess
Speaker:the general idea of today show is you know what is a dynamic campaign and you
Speaker:create one so first of all tell us what do you consider to be a dynamic
Speaker:campaign and what would be the opposite of that
Speaker:i think to me
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:whenever you say dynamic it means more life like realistic than static
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and i think the difference between the two would be a static campaign m a campaign
Speaker:that can take place in any world if you put it in the context of greek
Speaker:mythology or norse mythology or you threw it in middle earth or forgotten realms you
Speaker:a
Speaker:put it on the planet of arcis you plant it on tatton you an ut
Speaker:my
Speaker:and any
Speaker:m
Speaker:intellectual property any world any franchise that you want if it's still the same story and
Speaker:it doesn't matter where it takes place your story is static and it isn't good enough
Speaker:a dynamic campaign
Speaker:kay
Speaker:is where characters
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and the world come together in this perfect in this syncronous way and there's a energy
Speaker:there that you can't have one without the other which is i think like star wars
Speaker:you can't have tattoo ween without luke sky walker and you can't have luke skuywalker without
Speaker:tattooween you can't have politrities without racus you can't have king arthur without
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:camelot those would be dynamic stories they're timeless
Speaker:m
Speaker:and when you can't again when you can't separate the two that's when your campaign goes
Speaker:from
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:static and to oh my god this is an amazing story and i am so thankful
Speaker:m
Speaker:to be at this table
Speaker:yeah i
Speaker:hm
Speaker:agree i think that when i think of i mean there's actually a podcast i was
Speaker:i've been listening to
Speaker:ah
Speaker:for years and they did a campaign
Speaker:m
Speaker:at the start and i see this a lot with campaigns where lower levelled players
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:uh or campaigns tend to have a good amount of variety because you can't focus all
Speaker:your time on these huge battles
Speaker:oh
Speaker:where everybody as got a billion different abilities and thing and so
Speaker:oh
Speaker:it's
Speaker:hm
Speaker:like okay simpler battles
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and then we got some role playing
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:and then we got some skill check you know they try and keep it very dynamic
Speaker:and different but then later on in that same podcast when i didn't higher
Speaker:m
Speaker:level play i noticed that it just became a lot of battles and that because the
Speaker:battles took so long you know they the role playing
Speaker:m
Speaker:in between just didn't feel nearly like differentiated enough right and so i felt a little
Speaker:static to me at least
Speaker:yeah and i think part of that and i don't i don't want to get ahead
Speaker:of you know
Speaker:ah
Speaker:rest of the structure of the podcast
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but if there
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:are battles and there is combat and there are fights
Speaker:m
Speaker:just because like you're like oh we haven't done combat in a while and i don't
Speaker:want my players to be bored that's not a good enough reason to do combat your
Speaker:players have to wait or you have to invent combats that matters to service the plot
Speaker:in the characters that way anything and everything you do in your story matters which is
Speaker:why i'm not a fan of random encounter charts like oh we haven't done a little
Speaker:roll for random encounter that
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:that does nothing to
Speaker:oh
Speaker:that just buys time
Speaker:oh
Speaker:if you're going to buy time then do
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:something else go to a tavern go invent an m p c on the fly that
Speaker:matters and can't service the plot fighting goblins in the forest because you haven't fought goblins
Speaker:in the forest for three sessions is
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:not good enough time and that's how you're going to get static and burnt out
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:really quickly both dim and the players
Speaker:oh so kind of an interjection question m i think that is a very interesting viewpoint
Speaker:so a lot of people myself included i use random and counter tables specifically for travel
Speaker:because i have no idea how to make travel interesting uh without making it realistic and
Speaker:so forth so how do you
Speaker:oh
Speaker:treat travel long distances short distances kind of the whole gammit yeah
Speaker:that depends on the story well for my own sake
Speaker:m
Speaker:i never let travel be travel if they are traveling and now they see something on
Speaker:the road whatever they see on the road or whatever comment they have needs to service
Speaker:the plot um in some sort of way whether it's it's bandits on the road oh
Speaker:well maybe these bandits are just these underlings to a bigger problem somewhere else and maybe
Speaker:they have a letter
Speaker:oh
Speaker:on them he dropped that maybe is in thieves cant and now the rogue has a
Speaker:purpose and now the rogue feels like
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:oh he's paying attention to me and he's paying attention to those little details like i
Speaker:can read thieves can't right so but if it's gratulations you killed all the bandits okay
Speaker:now what now we just keep going to the town it was just an obstacle it's
Speaker:like it's running track and there's hurdles and you just have to jump over the hurdles
Speaker:okay well the
Speaker:oh
Speaker:hurdles are just there for you to jump over they serve no real purpose other than
Speaker:that how high can you jump so again i would say like for people who love
Speaker:combat and kind of that more men max and i know that term gets like a
Speaker:real bad
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:negative rap
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but if you happen to have
Speaker:oh
Speaker:a real mind max table but heavy war gaming kind of kid table maybe that's great
Speaker:in my experience and in what i do i plot and character development over combat every
Speaker:day all day long so if there is combat it always has to service the plot
Speaker:oh
Speaker:so if they're going from
Speaker:m
Speaker:one town to the others three
Speaker:ah
Speaker:days pass
Speaker:oh
Speaker:you are now in the
Speaker:m
Speaker:town three days have passed
Speaker:a
Speaker:or on your way there you demon
Speaker:oh
Speaker:you hear
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:the rumbling of a demon in the forest and in chris and i are working on
Speaker:this gogamesh campaign that i keep harking on and harking on and harking on but so
Speaker:in the works
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:so in tenaria they went through the cedar forest where uhjardith lived but jardith is just
Speaker:key word for baba is from the epic of gilgamesh who were trying to turn that
Speaker:into a to a campaign so for for a plot reason that's a big plot element
Speaker:there's a king demon in the forest and there's these little you know demon underlings with
Speaker:him okay now that's that's a plot limit rather than you have these demons in the
Speaker:forest
Speaker:m
Speaker:why i don't know or goblin in the forest why i don't know okay let's move
Speaker:on
Speaker:that's really interesting kind of continuing on that so actually tenor you ask questions i might
Speaker:yeah sorry you go ahead
Speaker:no yeah one thing i do like about your
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:answer garret is like you know you can
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:like you travel can
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:be mechanic that's interesting in a game if it serves a purpose
Speaker:m
Speaker:and that's kind of what i'm
Speaker:hm
Speaker:seeing a lot in this discussion is that dynamic
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:at least for a d
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:m yeah it's about variety but it's not variety for variety's sake it's variety
Speaker:exactly
Speaker:for for story's sake and so for example
Speaker:hm
Speaker:if it's like oh your characters are usually in typical grassy plains you know normal
Speaker:m
Speaker:temperate forests but instead they're up in
Speaker:oh
Speaker:a frozen mountain and they're hiking that then all of a sudden a bunch doing a
Speaker:bunch of checks to make sure that they're
Speaker:m
Speaker:okay and that they're not getting frost bite or anything else that's interesting because one is
Speaker:varied and too
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:it's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:like oh they're actually it's
Speaker:oh
Speaker:showing in a mechanical way
Speaker:oh
Speaker:that they're doing
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:something hard right and not just for heart's sake it's you know it's changing it up
Speaker:right
Speaker:and that even i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off
Speaker:go ahead
Speaker:the lad kind of g in the way but
Speaker:oh
Speaker:it kind of reminds me of the mines of maria and i going up the mountain
Speaker:in the snow there's tension there there's plot tension
Speaker:oh
Speaker:why because they're in the snow and they're in cloaks and these habits have their feet
Speaker:i
Speaker:like are are their toes about to fall off frost bite like what's about to happen
Speaker:why are they doing this this seems really risky and that adds that risk in there
Speaker:so again if service is the plot it adds tension especially if you have them roll
Speaker:those survival checks and what i was like oh oh yeah you're your foot got a
Speaker:little chilly there as you climb this mountain and oh well
Speaker:oh
Speaker:i got to go to the long term injury section of the d m g and
Speaker:figure out how to how to assess this or whatever right
Speaker:yeah and and that kind of makes me think of you know how do you the
Speaker:next question i would ask is how do you create a dynamic world because obviously most
Speaker:campaigns they take place
Speaker:ah
Speaker:in a pretty typical fantasy setting
Speaker:ah
Speaker:you're going
Speaker:m
Speaker:to have typical towns typical you know castles
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:you're not going to have too much
Speaker:oh
Speaker:variety there and people are going to rely more on
Speaker:oh
Speaker:the n p c's and maybe
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:the combats to add
Speaker:oh
Speaker:variety but in terms of a dynamic world
Speaker:oh
Speaker:how do you think you can make that
Speaker:that's an interesting
Speaker:oh
Speaker:question and i want to prompt that question with this
Speaker:oh
Speaker:question i want you to answer this question
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:for me and that can help i think that's going to answer your question
Speaker:m
Speaker:what's the difference are you familiar with done and start worse by chance
Speaker:yes
Speaker:okay so what
Speaker:oh
Speaker:would be the difference between aracus and tattooeen
Speaker:oh
Speaker:both are desert
Speaker:gosh
Speaker:planets but what's the difference
Speaker:that's actually really good
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:that's a good point honestly
Speaker:yeah oh
Speaker:they're very similar in terms of actual um climate i guess you could say the difference
Speaker:what what kind of the players are making of them right because a racks
Speaker:m
Speaker:it's like oh this place you got the spice that everybody is
Speaker:ah
Speaker:going crazy for it's got a lot of political intrigue whereas tatueen it's filled with a
Speaker:of people who aren't interested
Speaker:m oh
Speaker:in it at all and they're just trying to get out and it's more you know
Speaker:m
Speaker:cut throat um yeah that's actually a great point that you could take any kind of
Speaker:environment and depending
Speaker:oh
Speaker:on the objects the goals and the characters you put in it it almost becomes an
Speaker:entirely different place h
Speaker:i think you just
Speaker:m
Speaker:answer that question all on your own where if you're again if your story can fit
Speaker:in any world your story is not good enough but at the same time if your
Speaker:world feels like world like it just feels so plain and bland and it feels like
Speaker:forgotten realms
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:it feels like dragon lance or whatever and i'm not trying to bash wizards worlds or
Speaker:anything but
Speaker:hm
Speaker:if it feels just like you re skinned all the gods in all of the places
Speaker:to new names but it feels the same then that's
Speaker:m
Speaker:not dynamic enough that's a static world and you might as well just play in forgotten
Speaker:realms bcause the source book's a already there um m for instance
Speaker:uh h
Speaker:in the two twenty five game world story lose which we've been world building on world
Speaker:building wednesdays on our twitch channel for a couple weeks now chris and i will have
Speaker:some guests on there every now and then too um m it's what i call shreckmeats
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:peaky blinders so it's very whimsical and very you know
Speaker:m
Speaker:all these very fairy tail kind of stuff you have the big bad wolves and you
Speaker:have these picksies and you have this and the other except there is a god and
Speaker:there's this whole back story about there's one god and he has three
Speaker:my
Speaker:sisters the triumverant and they overthrow the god because god sucks and they try
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:to be so good that they aren't it's kind of like a mom who gives their
Speaker:kids everything they
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:want and they have no discipline so the mom kind of sucks that's kind of the
Speaker:vibe that this is going for and now the world is kind of in this misshapen
Speaker:place where the pixanelli are these pixy empire and their kind of like the italian mob
Speaker:and then you have the
Speaker:oh
Speaker:the wilfavian empire and they're like the irish
Speaker:ah
Speaker:mob so you've got these two mob families um
Speaker:oh
Speaker:at battle with each other because the yare
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:who is kind of a thinly veiled church structure very you know very holy very hierarchical
Speaker:okay
Speaker:they band wild magic and they band a substance called moonshine magic moonshine man excuse me
Speaker:so with this moonshine
Speaker:oh
Speaker:manna anybody can drink in they take a roll on the wild they take a take
Speaker:a walk on the wild side as we say
Speaker:uh
Speaker:game where
Speaker:uh
Speaker:they roll on the wild chart the wild magic chart and whatever happens happens
Speaker:oh
Speaker:um now it's like the picanelli work with the are but they've got the
Speaker:m
Speaker:mob family kind of doing the black market stuff
Speaker:oh
Speaker:but they also have to work with the wolf avin because they have wolf spain
Speaker:a
Speaker:and wolf spain plus the pixy dust is what makes the moonshine manna so the enemy
Speaker:of my enemy is my friend so
Speaker:m
Speaker:even though they don't get along they have to get along and now
Speaker:oh
Speaker:our players are put into this political climate so all of that to say
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:not this isn't advertisement for story lose but all of that to say um
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:if you want your world to be dynamic and you want it to have a unique
Speaker:flavor you have to start with a theme i think the theme of story ellis
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:is political intrigue and really it's just political inter political intrigue
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:and religious religious rivalry because there's people that love the old god there's people that love
Speaker:the triumphant these people that love the yarrow who is the new god on on story
Speaker:ellis god incarnate so which one is the real god and now it's everybody's got their
Speaker:own theological beliefs and differences in the midst of that
Speaker:oh
Speaker:now there's all this who's got control of the wolf spain who's got control of the
Speaker:picks dust and how are the picknell working with the yarrow but also trying
Speaker:yah
Speaker:to stab him in the back and also trying to the enemy of my enemy is
Speaker:my friend very god they're very
Speaker:m
Speaker:good fellows the irishman kind of vibes
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:which is not something
Speaker:oh
Speaker:you see in every world which is what makes that dynamic if i went into forgotten
Speaker:realms and i just renamed everything and it was like this is my world that's not
Speaker:it's not nothing you got to make it something new start with a theme
Speaker:oh
Speaker:take elements from other existing things and combine it and even if you watch people bigger
Speaker:than me and i'm not big i'm just saying if people way bigger than me like
Speaker:oh
Speaker:bandon sanderson and his talk or that he does it by
Speaker:my
Speaker:u um he just combines things
Speaker:oh
Speaker:he's this combiner he takes this and this makes this takes like the high stuff and
Speaker:a
Speaker:the mist
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and he makes miss born and boom there's miss
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:born so that's an that's coming from him so do what he says i'm just repeating
Speaker:what he's saying just combine stuff
Speaker:m
Speaker:and start with a theme
Speaker:oh
Speaker:if you want your theme to be whatever well start with that theme and then how
Speaker:is that going to play into your world
Speaker:seemed really long
Speaker:i couldn't
Speaker:winded
Speaker:agree
Speaker:but
Speaker:more
Speaker:i hope
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:that i hit the i hope you got
Speaker:m
Speaker:what i was trying to say
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:nailed it
Speaker:sweet okay then i did my
Speaker:sure
Speaker:job
Speaker:for
Speaker:to day
Speaker:sure so if i can kind of summarize it sounds like one of the key aspects
Speaker:of making a campaign dynamic is not only making excellent characters so making the setting a
Speaker:character and even the story to a degree kind of a character and having those three
Speaker:character groups interact and affect each other change each other right
Speaker:absolutely it's this holy trinity of story telling like you have your setting you have your
Speaker:ah
Speaker:heavier characters and you have your players
Speaker:oh
Speaker:one of those is out of wax
Speaker:ah
Speaker:the story is going to fall flat they
Speaker:okay
Speaker:all
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:have to be perfectly aligned and if they're not it's like an equilateral
Speaker:m
Speaker:triangle if one of them is not the same something is going to happen something
Speaker:oh
Speaker:is going to go wrong if it's your said angle that you
Speaker:oh
Speaker:can play in any world if it's your players well i don't know get new players
Speaker:oh
Speaker:or teach them it's okay to teach it's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:totally fine to coach and to show the way
Speaker:oh
Speaker:if you if this is the vile you're going for and that's the importance of a
Speaker:sesso zero so
Speaker:yah
Speaker:in a hero's journey
Speaker:hm
Speaker:a journal for five t t r p g is published by two twenty five we
Speaker:have a session zero section that goes by like okay what are your expectations of this
Speaker:what is this what we're all on the same page that yeah
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:we're all going to be talented stories where i'm not here to just
Speaker:oh
Speaker:kill goblins i'm here to tell a story and you're goin to lead the story and
Speaker:i'm just a player in it and we're here to do this together
Speaker:oh
Speaker:co operatively um and if your m p cs
Speaker:ah
Speaker:are flat well okay you've got this cool world but why why is the population of
Speaker:the world so lame don't make it lame make it dynamic make
Speaker:m
Speaker:it cool make it unique
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:flavor it
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:with certain flavors
Speaker:oh
Speaker:that it needs to be flavored with
Speaker:yeah it kind of makes me realize that the hardest thing because because we have dem's
Speaker:obviously we have well it feels like we have more control over the theme
Speaker:ah
Speaker:the setting the plot to some extent right
Speaker:m
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but the thing that's most out of our control is the players
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and so kind of kind of launching off of how you were saying that we need
Speaker:balance
Speaker:oh
Speaker:for each of those one challenge i've always had is whenever there's a player who feels
Speaker:like
Speaker:oh
Speaker:they and how they play their character are static because technically they can play however they
Speaker:want this is just fun game
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but you also are like oh they'd have more fun if they were more dynamic
Speaker:ah
Speaker:now they played you know their character can go from bad to good or good to
Speaker:bad or oh they can a bad streak and they can lose something important but then
Speaker:they can also
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:get something important later on i don't know
Speaker:and
Speaker:how
Speaker:they absolutely
Speaker:how
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:do you encourage
Speaker:should do that
Speaker:that you know
Speaker:so i think if anybody's
Speaker:ah
Speaker:playing d and d nine out of ten people playing dan d have heard of a
Speaker:hero's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:journey not not the journal not the not the two twenty five journal but like the
Speaker:joseph campbell
Speaker:uh
Speaker:circle of like
Speaker:yeah yeah
Speaker:oh
Speaker:the ordinary world going on a journey
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:and i personally what i do is i sit there with the back
Speaker:oh
Speaker:stories and stuff and i go okay how is this going to happen because
Speaker:oh
Speaker:d ming is also here's for all
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:the players who have never deemed before here's a little spoiler alert here here's the secret
Speaker:it's the illusion of choice always whether you go to the tavern or you go to
Speaker:the book store that m p c is going to be either in one place or
Speaker:the other and they are going to have something for you
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:to do so it's not one way or the other now you can play
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:it one way or the other like oh if only they'd gone to that tavern that's
Speaker:not how i do it because
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:i have a structure so on that circle like okay here is like the red hair
Speaker:in is in the story i was campaign and he's playing tige who is this this
Speaker:ferbolbuard i say here's
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:here's his ordinary world what journey is he going to go on that makes it that
Speaker:he comes back to the ordinary world at the end with with the elixir coming back
Speaker:as a different person evolved
Speaker:yes
Speaker:okay
Speaker:and it's all about the character journey if the character journey happens in your dynamic world
Speaker:that's a story worth telling
Speaker:m
Speaker:one hundred percent of the time every time if you do that for
Speaker:m
Speaker:each of your characters and do that for yourself as like the plot because i mean
Speaker:you have your plot
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and then you have your sub plots would be like your character development somebody's long lost
Speaker:grandfather comes back and they say oh it's been so long and then
Speaker:oh
Speaker:oh who now they feel like you read their stuff and they feel value as a
Speaker:player now they're more invested and if they're invested in their acting now and their role
Speaker:playing everybody else is going
Speaker:a
Speaker:to feed
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:off that energy so again the way that the table works now kind of from a
Speaker:meta perspective if we're looking
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:at the tap itself and
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:not so much of the game um everybody's feeding off each other's like role playing energy
Speaker:nd that excitement in that gumption and everybody is going to buy more into it hopefully
Speaker:um if that's what your players want and that should be established in session zero so
Speaker:i'm going to assume that everybody does that and i'm going to assume that that's the
Speaker:way it's going to go
Speaker:m
Speaker:because it should have been discussed beforehand if that was going
Speaker:m
Speaker:to be an issue
Speaker:ah
Speaker:excellent
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:well i hate to cut
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:all of us off but we have gone the the allotted
Speaker:my
Speaker:thirty minutes which is insane to think because that went so fast garret it was
Speaker:that did
Speaker:awesome
Speaker:duffle
Speaker:haven't
Speaker:by
Speaker:you hear it and talking
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:honestly i had two challenges one just sitting back and listening and just enjoying it that
Speaker:their challenge was not asking all the questions and things like that so listener if you
Speaker:want garret to come which i'm sure you do you're going to have to reach out
Speaker:to him on his his social meeta which you'll tell us in a second and just
Speaker:thank him for coming on the show you also have to reach out to us and
Speaker:thank us for having him on the
Speaker:m
Speaker:show and we'll get him back and well we'll do another one of these but garret
Speaker:how can our audience reach out to you support you and see what you're up to
Speaker:i mean first off thanks for having me on the show this is awesome
Speaker:okay
Speaker:i mean i'm super passionate about storytelling
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:and about this stuff so it's super cool to have like to be able to have
Speaker:this discussion with others who really enjoy the topic
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but you can find two
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:twenty five at t w o two five games g a m s except for on
Speaker:twitch where games is spelt with two s s because i'm a dumb dumb and have
Speaker:to wait six months get that one s so
Speaker:uh
Speaker:that would be two twenty five games and that's where
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:we do our podcast the investigation check that's where we do home brewing history where we
Speaker:look at historical events and home brew those characters events um that's where we do world
Speaker:building wednesdays and that's just where we house all our programs and all our shows and
Speaker:stuff so i hope you can leave us to follow i hope you
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:follow us on instagram where we post all our our pictures and all our kind of
Speaker:what's going on in the world at twenty
Speaker:oh
Speaker:five and again to you both tanner
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and justin thank you all
Speaker:m
Speaker:so much for having me on it was an honor and a privilege and i thoroughly
Speaker:enjoyed it and thank you again
Speaker:no honestly so great to have you
Speaker:likewise a
Speaker:appreciate that
Speaker:yeah so for tanner garrett before we say so long to our adventurer listener last words
Speaker:from both of you
Speaker:i'll i'll go because garret i think would probably a better final thought
Speaker:m
Speaker:but
Speaker:oh
Speaker:honestly for dynamic dynamic campaigns it's so much
Speaker:oh
Speaker:it's not about
Speaker:ah
Speaker:variety because otherwise you'll just have a billion tabs
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:open for every game right
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:i think i realized that
Speaker:oh
Speaker:today it's much more about okay
Speaker:ah
Speaker:can you make it so that there are there's enough there's variety
Speaker:m yeah
Speaker:that matters
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:can you make it so that they have highs and lows so that they're invested in
Speaker:the various aspects of your campaign instead of just one or two you know and
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:i think that that's what really matters
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:absolutely i couldn't agree more to that and i would say there's no right way to
Speaker:d m and there's really no wrong
Speaker:oh
Speaker:way to d m it's whatever brings you joy whatever brings the table joy and as
Speaker:long as everybody's having fun you're doing it right because at the end of the day
Speaker:it's it's a game even though it kind of feels like story telling guide lines more
Speaker:so
Speaker:oh
Speaker:than a game in my humble opinion
Speaker:yeah
Speaker:but it's meant to be fun and as long as you're having fun that's all that
Speaker:matters you can take everything i said as as gospel and script scripture you can take
Speaker:everything i say and throw it in the tray
Speaker:oh
Speaker:as long as you are having fun then you're doing it right good job you have
Speaker:my my support good for you you did it bravo
Speaker:oh
Speaker:uh h
Speaker:excellent so listener adventurer make sure you have fun we'll be back next week with another
Speaker:episode but from all of us here how to be a better d m and from
Speaker:garrett we'll see us and let's go ahead and roll initiative
