HuntRPG: Recent Episodes
Greg & Mike
Red flags when joining an RPG group, or "How I learned to spot a problematic RPG group"
(Danger signs from DM's or Players)
First and foremost: Niki joins us! She's got great perspective. Look for upcoming featurettes called "Niki's Bad RP Stories!"
- Bringing your +1/date/significant other with relationship issues into the game D&D is not "couples therapy."
- Players ganging up to coerce the DM for loot or items or special consideration
(We work in women's menstrual cycles to this session. Dunno how we got there, but welp, there it is.)
- The hyper-competitive minmaxxer, or when they're telling you how to level up your own character.
- Players that ignore campaign settings or game rules or even homebrew rules. Or purposefully make characters that the DM said are specifically not allowed.
- DM PCs, because then the DM's gonna split their attention.
- Experienced players with a "green" DM.
Greg disparages Critical Role again.
- Players who are "super-shady" into semi-legal activity in real life... walk out if that's not your thing.
- Players or DMs who can't handle corrections or criticism (constructive or not).
- DM mocks or belittles the players in a malicious tone, at the expense of the IRL player.
- DMs who don't prep... and it's obvious they didn't, and it's bad.
We throw in real-world Powerpoint presentation tips & tricks as well!
11. Too many players.
12. DM's that don't address the red flags or ignore safety cards/cues.
13. Too-quiet players. Why are they quiet? Why is nobody talking?
14. Players who check out of the game and end up watching videos or scrolling thru twitter on their phones...
The guys may have accidentally come up with a bad RPG porno concept.
-and-
We used 2 really big vocabulary words this session.
Editor's Note: Sorry, this episode went long. Now there's 50% more content to get through!
How to invoke fear or horror at your table top games!
"The Oldest and Strongest Emotion of mankind is Fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -H.P. Lovecraft
First, a few definitions: Horror, Fear, Dread, Terror, Disturbing, and Suspense
Before attempting any of the techniques make sure that you don't negatively impact any of your players. Don't play off of or use any of your players' real-world fears or phobias; don't translate those to your game.
Defining your flavor of fear/horror: Cosmic/Existential, Supernatural Fear, Personal Fear/Body Horror, and Psychological Horror
- Fear For Others & Loved ones
- Establish Everyday so that you can bring out the Horror
- Length of description for your scene setting
- Music is best used either for scene setting or as sting
- Get into the imagination of your players
- Tight Spaces & limiting movement
- Play with reality to disorient the players
- Try to make it a personal experience
- Try to keep the Adversary hidden for as long as possible
- Keep your players guessing
When is it time to Break Up with your gaming group?We've got 15 scenarios that hint - it's time to move on.
- Up and Down Relationships: sometimes you are good, and then other times you feel like you'd rather be anywhere else but at that game table.
- Investment: does your group do anything together outside of the game-time?
- Growth Gap: Have you grown apart from your group? Is it hard to talk to them about things that matter to you? If you feel that you have to tiptoe around things with them? It may be time to consider moving on.
- One foot out the door: While at the game table do you think this is the last game I'm playing with this crew?
- Needs: This is a biggie. If you aren't getting what you need from a game you should communicate what it is that is missing from the experience.
- Expectation Divide: What do you want from the group and what do they want from you?
- Hijacking: If you feel that your group (or more commonly one person in the group) is using the game as a means to control the actions or relationships of the others it is time to go.
- The Friends and Family test: Would you feel comfortable introducing your gaming group to your non-gaming friends or family?
- Overly critical/Defensive blaming: If you find yourself being overly critical and fighting a lot, it could be because you aren't getting some need met.
- How do you feel: The decision to leave a group is like any other relationship ending experience. It can make you incredibly anxious.
- Betrayal: If someone in your group has betrayed you in some fashion? (In real life, not the Rogue pickpocketing you...)
- Changes: They refuse to change; either an annoying habit or a style of play.
- Lack of communication: If you are in a group that you barely speak to during the time between games put a strain on the relationship.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: You stay with a group because of the time you have already spent gaming with them.
- Effort = Care: Either you or they stop making the effort to hang out and do things beyond the game.
Greg has a bit of the sniffles but he powers through it and does his usual barely mediocre job. Luckily the brains of this outfit, Mike, is here to pick him up!
D&D, while fun in and of itself, can be a social coping mechanism.
It's a roleplay toolset that is actually being used by some therapists to help people out of their shell.
- Improved social skills with peers
- Increased self-esteem and self-confidence
- Ability to express yourself and your needs assertively
- Improved impulse control and practice with turn-taking
- Stronger creative thinking and problem-solving skills
Just like martial arts improves your physical self-confidence,
D&D helps your mental & social self-confidence!
WOW, and we kept this one under an hour. Amazing.
This session is all about D&D 2e to D&D 5e, the culture shock, the nostalgia, and the history. We denigrate magic missile horribly whilst comparing and contrasting the two versions. Honestly, we're all over the place with this topic. Plus, we manage to mischaracterize Betty White's affectation for animals, which does not include Ookla the Mok... which we also mention.
This goes on for over 2 hours in this special bonus "End-of-Alpha" Session.
Where were we? Oh yeah, next session: We're into the BETA podcasts!
Mike is loud and Greg is quiet, our sound level balancing for this (alpha) session 9 sucks but we kind of figure out how to normalize audio at around (beta) episode 16. We don't really get around to starting to discuss actual topics until about the 7 minute mark, so feel free to skip ahead. Or go listen to something that doesn't give you an aneurysm. Just kidding please listen to us, we need validation!
Our first topic is kind a noodly/esoteric topic: When is "too much setting..." too much? When you're fighting against the immense weight of pre-existing campaign lore that your storytelling ability is constrained. We call this "Campaign Ossification." We compare the depth of lore/canon of Star Wars to other "campaigns"/"worlds." Also, we insult the Star Wars Disney sequel fans pretty heavily, which we are NOT sorry for.
~Spoilers~ for Dragon Heist from 19:30 in to about the 21:00 mark. Caution!
We crap on people who run homemade modules. Because we are horrible people. Wanna hear a secret? We run premade modules, too. Don't let anyone tell you not to run premade modules.
Another bad segue (segway?) at about the 36 minute mark into Tactical skill of a DM. How do you play smart monsters? Big shout out to Tucker's Kobolds and "thinking like a terrorist." We discuss the important tailoring aspects of making kobold pants and specifics on accommodating the tail. Look for legendary actions & lair actions!
We leave you with a great idea for listing your dungeon on the medieval MLS and possibly engineering an OSHA-Dungeon.
We tease some upcoming episode topics, like alignment, deities, and D&D 5.5 or 6. Excitement for breaking OUT of the alpha podcasts and INTO the beta podcasts starting with Session 11. If we make it that far...
We start off with an apology, which is always appropriate for a podcast with the quality standards we promote here at HuntRPG.
Player Power Creep! (No, not a Rob Zombie tune.)
Comparing the July 2014 5th edition of D&D vs. the December 2021 5th Edition of D&D... wow, player characters get LOTS more powerful. Meaning: player characters get progressively more STUFF, but the monsters stay the same, enticing the players to purchase the new WotC books so they can have EVEN MOAR POWER! Probably not a purposeful bit of marketing on WotC's part at all, surely.
Mike gets too excited just before the twenty-minute mark and we lose him for a bit, but then we're back to talk about monkey grip and whatever the hell THAT is...
There's a discussion about Pathfinder 2.0 vs. D&D 5e where our hosts demonstrate their complete lack of understanding of Pathfinder 2.0 while spewing wild generalities and unfounded accusations about both RPG systems.
We do talk about Celebrities who play D&D. We say nice things. Please come on our podcast. We name drop a lot of people and probably offend some of them, we aren't sure. There's a bit of a comparison of how socially accepted D&D is now vs. the "Satanic Panic" of the 80's.
Greg has a cold, and we discuss what happens if you give spiders alcohol.
In true professional fashion, there is then a jarring transition to the first topic of the podcast: The level of magic in your campaign. (High magic? Low magic? In-between?)
Oh, the difficulties of spellcasting and the dearth of magic items in low-magic campaigns!
Oh, the high-magic campaign shenanigans with things like otyugh Sewage plants, the privacy-less society, instant transportation, and magical "technology."
What about magically splitting the atom & creating a supercollider that inadvertently sucks the planet into an artificially-created singularity to the far realm? Mebbe we need "Arcane Police Enforcers" to prevent that...
Greg rants about the vision/visibility game rules in D&D vs. reality. We discuss long-range tactics, archery and we somehow manage to insult Nebraska. Greg calls bullshit on the limits of blindsight, tremorsense & darkvision for creatures that evolved or grew up underground. Why can't these creatures see in darkness as well as humans see in bright above-ground light?
We start off by thanking you for listening. We know that we'll eventually get complacent, and for that, we apologize in advance.
Once again, the two best DM's in the world, Mike & Greg, tell you how it is. Dungeon Master PC's? (As in: a character that the DM has in addition to running the game?) They are bad; they are "DM Ego Bleed." Mike gives you the unvarnished truth about using DM PC's. Greg piles on, because Mike is right. As usual.
Greg blatantly asks for "Aliens"-branded merchandise. You don't need to give into the temptation to gift him anything, it's okay.
We explain "Redshirts," while Greg offends the English and also the Russians with his horrible accents.
There's a lovely network outage at around the 40:30 mark, but we get back on track with nary a missed thought.
Does Age Matter? We talk about "Age Ratings" for the games we DM, and how it relates to acceptable language and shared history at the table. Your pop-culture references from the 80's aren't going to resonate with the kids today, grandpa. Also, why it's important to have a lawyer, folks. We give some props to Dave Chappelle, while we talk about how the RPG community has shared conversations in it's digital space.
Bonus: Mike uses the word "zeitgeist" in a sentence, and coins the term "Cultural Shorthand."
We plug the Hops & Dragons Twitch Stream, AND we plug "Pulp Phantom", a mashup of Pulp Fiction AND The Phantom Menace.
Greg insults the English again by calling Michael Palin a "short, little dude." Michael Palin is 5' 10", which is apparently reasonably tall for most Englishmen. We apologize for the error.
We end the session in a very classy manner by expressing our hatred of real-time wargaming like old-school Warcraft. We apologize to Blizzard for being too old and uncoordinated to play their games.
Why is it "Ducks in a row?" Why not Elephants? Things to ponder, gentle listener.
The boys jump right into talking about "Getting into a new online group." Greg dives into Roll20's "Looking for Group" community and comes out scarred & annoyed, but yet still manages to get into a game. We go over some hints & tips for finding games, and also for DM's looking for quality players.
We bust Rob's (Friend of the Show) bullshit "hours played" total on Roll20.
We get sidetracked talking about who would be the most hilarious (or terrible) celebrity DM? Don Rickles? Gilbert Godfrey? Mel Blanc? R. Kelly?
There's another brief aside regarding How you act online vs. How you act in-real-life?
"Mighty brave talking your BS online, aren't you?"
The Maguffin! We find it, and then talk about how to use it. We re-invent the Egg Maguffin D&D Breakfast Sandwich, and then we offend Europe, oh and also Canada. A bit. Sorry.
The boys try to wrap their heads around "the Social Contract." What's allowed at the table, what's not, and setting those boundaries up front, in order to prevent problems down-the-road. We'll probably talk EVEN MORE about this more in future sessions.
Greg's a little slow on the uptake regarding the Episode 3 and 4 and how we're recording the sessions today, since we did a doubleheader. Don't worry, Mike sets him straight.
We learn that Mike is a bad, bad man.
Also: Actors that play D&D!
(Please be a guest on our show, Gary Busey!)
We did talk a bit about Safety Cards, and using them at the table.
Roll20 has Safety Cards!
Get your deck of Safety Cards for Roll20. (by Evil Hat Productions)
The original "Safety Card": X-Card by John Stavropoulos.
This week, Mike & Greg discuss:
- The "Matt Mercer Effect" - Good? Bad? We're the guys with the mics.
- "Randalorians" - Playing with "randos" you find on Roll 20 and, well, other online places
- The Twitch breach from October 2021 - Change your passwords, people.
- Paid DM's vs. Free DM's - Is it worth it?
- Virtual Face-Punching, if you invent this you will be the world's first trillionaire.
- How many games can you DM in a week? How about play in a week?
- Playing with friends who actually get your pop-culture references.
Never thought we'd actually make a SECOND one after the first one, didja? We ramble a bit at the start; but hey, this is an Alpha version of the podcast, whaddya want? We're still learning, damnit.
We start off talking about Consequences for Player Actions, default behavioral models, DM Railroading vs. "No-Consequence" worlds like Skyrim or Zelda, where you can kill city guards and break pottery without earning yourself 5 stars and having the army hound you.
We have a nice power outage caused by lightning at around the 26 minute mark. Of course, we handle things like true professionals: We cut out the bits where we panicked, cried, swore, and fumbled around to fix things.
Mike breaks out the big words again with Fait Accomlpli (pretedermined events that leave the characters no options) and DM Fiat (The DM judging or controlling actions without any player input.)
Greg offends the British with his horrible English accent. We talk about just "Handwaving" the rules. Keep the game moving, your D&D session is like a shark: if it stops moving, it dies.
Unerpreparation vs. Overpreparation for your sessions. Re-use/repurpose material: Your players will never know! Use some premade stuff to save time, borrow and steal from anything & everything. Oh and hey players, you should prepare, too! Underprepared players kinda suck.
Playing online vs. playing in-person? Greg spews baseless facts and conjecture while Mike looks on skeptically. A metaphor for the podcast, really.
DM advice & stories, we're talking about Dungeons & Dragons! The first (alpha) podcast. Almost 2 hours? Incredible. Terrible audio levels. Get an inside look into us quite literally figuring out this podcast thing on the fly and choosing audio for the podcast. Is this the beginning of something great? Or a foray into a time-sink of wasted effort and missed opportunity? Time will tell...
Mike sounds like a robot for a good portion of the episode, we talk about owlbears & awakened trees, "fake" undead, grognards jumping into 5th edition after 20 years of not playing, and which D&D monsters hibernate?
Other topics we ramble about:
- How to subvert expectations to keep your sessions fresh
- Theater of the mind
- Sun Tzu
- Rick & Morty
- Rolling dice in the open vs. Behind the screen
- Javier Báez
Thanks for listening!