Questions from the Listeners and answers from the Players / DM.
Knights of the Night
256_DnD_5E Wrap up Questions and Answers
[music] Hello, and welcome the Knights of the Night to Actual Play podcast. This D&D 5th Edition adventure, Heart of Flame, was written and run by your DM Mike. And now, please enjoy episode 256, the D&D wrap-up questions and answers. The discussion begins immediately. [music] Okay, questions from the listeners. Luke G posted and I asked a question about higher levels, and we didn't get there, so we're going to skip that one out. And go to the next, which is, "How do you feel about the overall balance? My experience has been positive so far, but I'm interested in knowing other opinions." Balance? The balance of the different classes? Oh, I don't know, I didn't play any classes. It's kind of made up your own. Your classes. To me that no gadget tears are worth a whole troop of quartz. Yes. The amount of damage you could deal with your sorcery was ridiculous. Compared to what everyone else could do around the table, I thought that was a bit unbalanced. It bothered me because you were killing things that we didn't have to kill, so I liked it. And I'm way past the age where I care if my character does the most. Well, I love that, though, whenever it was keeping notes over there, it seemed that you were rolling very well for things. No, she was rolling sometimes six dice. I couldn't roll six dice if I wanted to. Okay, here's the thing about playing a martial class. I could roll six dice if I would burn every spell slot I had, adding to the damage, and then I'd be able to do nothing else except for attack with the sword for the rest of the story. And you just came back and did another spell, or a sorcery thing like that. Well, the last two weeks I was doing nothing but cantrips, which is basically attacking the rest. That's the biggest difference is when Sorcerer or Wizard runs out of spell slots, they're casting cantrips that will do about as much damage. And he was doing like one damage, two damage, four damage. Yeah, she was watching me. Right, about as much damage as possible. So I responded to damage, one singular point of damage. Yes, I mean, you were in the 30s several times with your damage, and no one at this table could get the 30, and I don't care, really? I can't get that. There we have it up to like 40. You killed a wiper in there. I crit it. Okay, I'm talking about a regular attack. Before the most part, my regular attacks were 1.10 plus. Exactly, I mean, that's all I'm saying is our damage might be 8 and 12, but it seemed like her average damage was between 15 and 25, maybe. My lowest level. Sorcerer seems at lower levels a little overpowered to be. But again, I wasn't complaining she was my sister, and she kicked ass. I loved it. That's another thing I wanted to mention. In a cooperative game the way we fled to any other people might play it more competitively. Balance between characters is almost inconsequential. It's not inconsequential because it can get boring, especially for certain groups, but it's not super important. There can be a little swing, and Sorcerer just so often to be the top of the swing in our group. Yep. You all got gnome envy. You played you on class. You played you warps. Shut up. I did great, and I enjoyed myself. Everyone else is complaining. No, I don't think anybody's complaining. No, that is entirely valid that as you go, as you use up your spell slots, you've got nothing. It's very little. You can pull back on cantrips and weapons, which for you would be. Oh, yeah. In my opinion, fighters and paladins get more dice modification for their regular attacks because we get to add magic weapon bonuses or more proficiency bonuses to hit. So there's that for balance. Otherwise, we're not exactly sure. I mean, when it gets really high level, things will probably change significantly. And like we said, we didn't get that. The game is always had an issue with balance at different levels. I mean, in the olden days, it would be that the wizards would be just that they die from. At the low levels, the spellcasters tend to deal out more because I've never been dying a lot more? No, they're squishier, but they deal out a lot more damage because they're hiding behind the wall of the fighters. Right. But at the higher levels, yeah, it's kind of a harder game to run a little bit, because I feel because it's, you know, your threats have to be bigger and stronger. And it's kind of tough when you guys can, like you said, you know, the next level, you have to attack, yeah, get that around the table and all of a sudden, a turn-based strategy when five people can have 10 attacks before I get to retaliate, it just is weird. Plus, yeah. I thought my cleric would be able to do some more attack damage or be more of a fighter in general. I don't know. Did I give you enough? That might be me, though, because I don't know if I gave you enough opportunity and your bolt was good, and just in the context of when you decided to use it, it really wasn't going to. Well, I mean, actually getting in and mixing it up with the axe and that sort of thing. Yeah. Well, I think you also missed a couple of the big combat these two. Oh, absolutely. So I think that's a part of the problem. But still, when I did have my chance, even if I rolled a maximum, I wouldn't have been all the way through. When Josh was probably your character, I mean, he really helped out Barrow a lot. Well, I blinded the dragon. He blended the dragon, he hit the commander, took him out of his seat. I think it was killing. No, well, Gilligan also helped. No, Gilligan did most of the damage the actual knock out of the seat, not. Dally with the neck gun. It's actually Bob. I thought that was Dally with the neck gun. Well, the neck gun made him run him up and gave us a day and age every time we attacked him, which helped a lot with the dice. All right, yeah. I can't remember. Gilligan knocked him out of the seat. Oh, yeah. I guess the answer is his question. Maybe there's some deviation. It wasn't huge. And it ruined the story or it didn't ruin our time around the table for a cooperative game. I didn't mind the swing of the balance between classes, but I'm not exactly an expert in balance. And most of the other people at the table don't care. Right. Correct. R.J. also posted a question and said, D&D really hasn't clicked with me since, well, this spring of 1988. So as you play Dungeon World, a game way more down my alley these days, speculate how things would have gone differently if that system was used. Yeah. That question there. All right. I'll give you that the systems are very different when you actually start playing them. But a lot of the story aspect of it depends entirely upon the GM. Yeah. So I think... I think Jamba would have been quicker because it's not as nitty gritty. Your options are fewer. So you're... It's more like... Your choice is more clean. I feel like Dungeon World is almost more like an arcade game in a way where it's like I only have a limited number playing gauntlet versus playing an RPG. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Which is funny. Which is not bad. I mean, enjoy Dungeon World. But... I think to just the resolution system, which is a lot of times you're going to fail or succeed with the complication, and that tends to make for a totally different game. That's true. Anyways. That's... My opinion. For what it's worth. I think there's less variety in individual creatures in Dungeon World because the stats are so simplistic. So that would have been different. Okay. But... But there's no reason you can't make it. That's the answer. Oh, no. We could have completely played the game in Dungeon World. It's just... Oh, yeah. I think that D&D holds over Dungeon World, maybe, is the fact that in the character advancement might be a little more detailed, it might be a little bit more on a crunchy side of things. There you go. I think there's a lot more flavor that you probably wouldn't have got if you flew to the Dungeon World. More customization, too. All right. There's nostalgia, there's flavor, and there's... I couldn't have had an invisible pickpocketing hand. You could have made that. But not with bass rolls in Dungeon World. We'd have to modify it. Right. And it's a wild... It's a wild. I believe it's a guess. And Dungeon World is a little more open, too, where in D&D, I have a limited number of spells to choose from as a sorcerer. Right. And the magic system there is kind of whatever you can think of, whatever you can... Make a roll up to it. Imagine if it's... Yeah. I mean, it's not... I definitely don't remember Dungeon World. Well, enough to answer this question exactly how I would want it. So I'm sorry for that. That was a quick in and out try in the world. I wasn't super interested in it. Chris N posted and said, "How did Mike enjoy being behind the DM screen?" I didn't. Didn't care at all. No, they were like... We liked it though. It's overrated. You know, I just... I forgot... Again, there was a reason why I went a few years and not being behind the desk. I mean, I enjoyed playing the game. I felt a lot more comfortable with D&D in the mechanics of it than I would with fate or world of darkness. If you could pick any system, it would definitely be D&D to run. I think so. Well, maybe fate. I don't know. That might be... You know, that's a better... That's actually a pretty good question for someone to have asked. You know, I would love to play a traveler again, but I just... I've got... Don't want to ruin it. I'm too emotionally involved in it and I would just... I would not be a good DM because I don't think I could be objective. And the minute I felt that someone was insulting or fucking with me, and/or denigrating the games, I'd be like, "Who knew?" Don't say my game with my child! Yeah, but there's an nostalgia there that it can never live up to. Well, and that's why I always want to... Yeah, I don't always want to go back to it. And even with the newest... I know we're going to skip topics here, but even some of the newest PDFs that you found for him, which are awesome. I read through them. I'm like, "Oh my God, they..." I found them. Why do they change this so much? Why don't you just go back to the original... What things did you think are what? Well, welcome and done backwards. Well, I want to go back to the prior question. We might... Don't you worry? No, not Don't you worry. What... You might mention that he did not like being behind the screen again, but he really didn't elucidate that point very strongly. What were the things that you found most displeasing about being behind the screen again? If you're willing to share. Oh, yeah. I think there... A trap is certainly really annoying. There's a lot of stuff. It's funny. Just with the way my schedule was, I found myself waiting the last minute trying to get started. No. Well, I would start on Wednesdays. I actually had to start scheduling time in my schedule to like, "Okay, Wednesdays, I've got to start get some things planned." And then I get to work from home on Friday, so I would tend to monitor email for the last two hours of my workday and do some work. So the prep, I forgot about the prep, and I tried not to go too in-depth with story and let your decisions and choices make as much of a path for me to discover as it is for me to give you options and choices for you to discover. All right. And it's the old story of here, I think our four clues, I think, why wouldn't anyone pick those up? I think that they want to go explore some obscure thing that now I got to go make it up on the fly, or I don't want to railroad you so go where you want, but at the same time like, "Okay, now how do I modify what I want you to experience to fit into that?" And there was a couple of times I think it worked really well and you gave me some great ideas like, "Oh, that's what I was trying to figure out," and you guys just figured it out for me, and that was awesome. There's other times where I'm like, "Okay, what can I send you to now or where can I take you now?" Get it back on track. Yeah. On a track. Or make it into, because there were sometimes where I can kind of feel like, "Okay, people aren't prepared or they're not even interested in their character because they don't know what they can do or they can't do and we're five sessions in and what the hell," that kind of bummed me out a bit, but at the same time it's like, "Well, look, you gotta invest." I also don't like the number of people for D&D, in particular I think it works fine for faith, but I think for D&D I think it would have been easier, more effective, with lesser people. I would guess that's true of any crunchy game or crunchy game. Maybe that, yeah, it's going to be an issue with more people. Historically, I mean, I remember being in the basement and that was the last time that I was behind the screen, and I seemed to remember thinking that things, or maybe it's just history and I remember it happier, but it seemed like it went smoother or faster with just as much content and more, but we had less people, I actually remember less people. But then again, that was, that's what, 10 years ago, you know? Yeah. So those are some of the drawbacks that you thought from getting back behind the screen. I think so. So you're looking forward to your hiatus. Well, you know, I want to make something that's fun and interesting. I want to make sure that you guys felt like you had the freedom to choose and not be railroaded. I think I was pretty generous without being a pushover, and sometimes by storing time, I get an idea in my head or I remember things the way I want to, not the way that really happened. And I think if you go back and check, you'll find that you enjoy having a recording of what did actually happen. Thank you. And I think ultimately that was the biggest thing that I don't think D&D worked well while we were recording a podcast, because I wonder if for me, I wanted that map on, I wanted a little bit of a grid, less theater of the mind, just for control purposes and accuracy so people could enable their powers and no in ranges and stuff. I don't know. And then maybe that's more of a question to the rest of us is, I think it's easier to do the theater of the mind since we were recording this, and I think to move things along. And even when I was doing some of the creatures that you guys were fighting, I didn't prepare stat sheets with their special powers or whatever. I'm just like their armor class, their damage, and their hit points. And I'll just fill in the blanks with whatever, but I want to try to keep it going. And I feel that we had some really enjoyable nights with some of the combat situations and some of the puzzle situations, because I remember leaving thinking that was fun. And I think there were some other nights where I don't know why, but I feel like I'm dragging a piano. And is that me, is it the table, is it the story? So that's kind of... Often they say that a GM runs a game they want to play. So Francis Scott runs dark games that are dangerous and complaints that my games are late in the fluency, unicorn film, chosen in the world you've had. I never said that. But I'm saying, when I run Dresden, it's in fate in which the players are empowered. Who I might complain to in other games is, I don't have enough power. I don't have enough control over driving the story and the character. Anyway, so my question is to you, Mike, you're running D&D. Did you run the game that you will want to play? I think so, because the table came up with a lot of choices and ideas that I'm like, alright, that's good and better, and let's roll with that. And I thought those were... I mean, I tried not to be precious about my ideas, but I did want to have some milestones that you guys hit on, like trying to get you to point A to point B, or at least give you information to work from, and instead of saying power and control, I like influence. I wanted you to have influence and choices. As a player, I want to have influence. I know what it's like to live in a powerless, and like, oh, the forces of the government or these evil things, or they can invade our dreams, so, well, okay, guess what, I'm moving out of this city because that's what I would do. Getting back to the theater of the mind thing. I think one of the best episodes in the podcast was when we did it totally, the theater of the mind, because we just get a little bit of a map in here, you know, you say, you're just going to use it as an overview, but then we end up saying, I'm going here, I'm going to do it. This is where this guy is, and it doesn't translate at all to the podcast, it's unfortunate because I like maps too, playing with them, but as far as D&D goes on, just from back in the day, and from wherever playing the game, I'm just used to having a map driven out in the grids, and here I am, and you get up the character, and you paint your own little metal character either. I personally think the crunch you're going to be doing that, the more difficult the theater of the mind is. It really is more difficult. The crunchier the game becomes, the more free form the game becomes, like the next two are going to play it with clockwork dominion, and more importantly, dressing coming up next. Those, I think, are just easier to run theater of the mind because you don't need to know, you know, like clockwork dominion, he's one zone away, same thing with fate, kind of go with zones, and what you can affect, and it doesn't matter if it's a five foot or ten feet or however it is, I think it just makes it easier, not that you can't do it in D&D, I think it just makes it more difficult to really look at the end. This last session, you pretty much ran it theater of the mind, you know. Oh no, I agree with that. In reference to the map at all, this time around, and it worked, I thought it worked well. You're right, I agree that it's easier and easier to run theater of the mind, especially with the recording, but especially when you get into people thinking, I know we had some confusion about OKs, this zone still got the daggers going, are we ahead of it or behind it? How high can you jump? How high is a wybrity needed? Yeah, it was high. I know. I think it helps promote a better podcast because you're just in a better description for everyone. You're definitely using some crutch when you're saying, yeah, yeah, it just happens. Right. Oh, you can't get the issue. The puzzle issue, because that was something that was really like, I found that a year and a half ago, and I thought to myself, I got to figure out some way to make this like a puzzle lock for a situation, and I thought that'd be so much fun. But in the execution of it, I didn't execute it as well as I'd hoped. I think I might have shoehorned that in when I participated. It didn't happen where I wanted it to happen, but I didn't want to lose it. So I think I kind of might have felt like maybe I, looking back, I think I might have shoehorned that in, and then we can't have ten minutes of dead air as you guys saw the math puzzle. That's what I did. Yeah, but at the same time, I thought it was, yeah, I kind of really liked it. Oh, there were, I just flexed my mind back to the fact that there was back in the very first World of Darkness story, shit luck, there was the maze. And really, what it was, was a piece of paper with an actual maze on it. You guys each got ten minutes to try to solve it, but Tom just edited the shit out of that. So it was still kind of exciting, but really what it was, okay, once you're on the table, with the timer slowly clicking down, trying to solve it, because it was really bad was going to happen if one of them didn't figure out a way through the maze. Makes great audio. Yeah. Or now. It's where I enjoy Tom and Scott being a gem. It's nice to have a change and someone else coming up and getting a shot. I have fun. It's nice because it does. It breaks up the monotony of just me and Tom. And also, I think you guys deserve that. You need, everyone who needs some downtime. Right. And I would certainly get behind the screen again as needed, but... I'm waiting for Michael to make a reappearance behind the screen. How long has it been? Oh, God. I haven't jammed. How many decades? I mean, for Michael, it's got to be at least close to 30 years at this point, since he's been behind the screen. You haven't jammed since I've been alive. Yeah. Still have the basement of the Parmesan. Long before. Yeah. For... One might say I was too rusty. Mm-hmm. I just remember, well, you know, to be fair, we started off with me jamming. And I remember Tom telling you, "Tom, you had to get behind the screen." You know, you got to give it a shot because I was doing a couple in a row. And he was resisting it first, and then he found a system that he really liked with fate, and he started the Dresden, and it's arguably our popular, our most popular story right now. Maybe you could play the D&D one row with theatre of the mind, and I don't know what else you wanted in it. Robots. Robots. You want robots in D&D? Robots. Robots? Was that after we played Fayette at home? If I did anything like that, it would probably just be a dungeon crawl, you know, just... Well, you got to get yourself back in the saddle with something that you're comfortable with. It could be fun for you to break up the mapping as well in the future if you ever feel up to it. Mike, you mentioned something about how high the wyvern was in Thomas, in that it would be easier if there was a map. Yeah, not necessarily in two dimensions. Yeah, but my argument there would be that in the end, you decided that it would be more exciting for it to happen for the story reason. So you just allowed it anyways, and you kind of fudged it by saying Thomas is willing to impale himself so that he can get a hold and then pull it and that's all fucked. So how do you balance facts just saying that you'd defer that there was more mechanics that enforced rigid rules, and then you have to admit one of the coolest parts of the story was when you didn't do that. Well, the way I look at that is... Fuck you, Tom. I did that. That's how I look at that. I think if you go back and check the record, I know. I think when that situation, what I did was, I put the power into Thomas's hands by giving him the choice. Like, I think I did it a couple times where I'm like, "Here is the situation. Here are the parameters. What do you choose to do?" And I'll go, whatever you want to do, I'll go with it. But if you're going to grab the typical point of this tail, I'm going to... But he rolled well. And... I mean, I was trying to kill somebody. I came close. I was down to 13 HP before I did the real mistakes. I didn't want everyone to be soft, and I was kind of hoping to kill a few people. But if we come back and we play this again, I want to put the Verne Stinger on the back of my hammer, fair sand poison damage, or bludging, if I just want to put it quickly. Well, maybe Dally can work up something for me. You're going to be mad. I mean, that's a good point, Tom. But at the same time, it was a cool moment, and I didn't want to lose it. I think David just goes back to the question Tom asked a few weeks ago about whether we thought the podcast was getting in the way. Because you and I like maps, and with old-school D&D, we probably would have seen a lot more of that. Because we make concessions because the theater of the mind plays so much better. I think it does play better and faster, ultimately. I guess I'm just afraid that I don't want to handcuff or deny people able to do what they can or want to do. You guys all have powers and opportunities, and I'm trying to give you the situations in which you can use those powers. An image that sticks with me that I really liked is the palette and the cleric standing against the waves of the undead and using a, "You go that way, you go this way, and we're going to cover the zone with the holy power and turn them." That's been one of my favorite powers of D&D since I was a kid, and it worked, and it did some cool stuff, but I want to have those opportunities for you guys to do that. I think D&D could really, really, really, 6.0 take cues from fate and soon to be when we play it clockwork with a more dynamic initiative system. The initiative system is stopped in the 1970s. Well, it's just the, all the player character scope. I know the turns. Where did the bad guys go? Yeah. I know it's going to be. All the characters go. And then the bad guys. Each person, you know, like, I can go, and I know it's going to be 30 minutes before it's my turn again. I can go upstairs if I want to, and visit my kids and say good night, and say hi to the wife, blah, blah, and then come back, and it's still not my turn, and other systems are taking that and really trying to break that. And I think it's hugely important, because if we were all sitting around the table and you could interject at any moment into, like, if we were all having one big mess combat, I think it would play differently. And I think people would be more engaged in the story because there's not that, okay, Jim's going, and then life's going, or if there are any of us, or yeah, but that's not going to happen. No. Right. So, I think you're absolutely right. But, however, no, and I think, though, that you run into a situation where it'd be easier for players to overpower each other. I don't know about this group, though. Yeah. Possibly. Yeah. Well, I guess we'll see how it plays out, because we're going to be playing clockwork in the future, so we can see if it's something that works, and it could always be an optional role somewhere down the line if we want to visit D&D again, saving this for next time. I always keep waiting for you to open it. Oh, we have a bottle of wine. Steve, he posted a question starting with mostly the same race and from the same area, help with team building. If everyone selected their own race and home, what would they pick? Really easy. Right. Let's find with what I picked. Well, the first part of that question was mostly to think it worked. I think it really helped having a similar background with it. Like the cohesion tying in. Oh, right. Right. Definitely. The cohesion helped a lot, in regards to what I would have picked, I was pretty happy with playing a dwarf. I'd never played a taciturn dwarf before where... Or if I... Right. Well, at least not for... Yeah. Well, yeah. That could be true. You have more of an elfish flavor too, so... Right. So yeah, I was pretty happy with the fact that we had the house, and we had... I like playing a dwarf. Anyone else? I would have picked something else. I was kind of asked to play a boring dwarf. Which kind of dwarf would you be? I don't remember the boring part. I remember... Yeah. I was asked... No frills. Nothing. Nothing. And since I was asked to play just a straight-up dwarf with nothing special going on, no crazy background or nothing, I was kind of bored playing the character. I didn't have any investment in the character 'cause it was just a... It made me play it. Yeah. It was a skeleton. Yeah. But, you know, again... But you went full-out. I think the challenge... I went full-out. If I remember, it was a challenge to everyone, and I think the challenge there was that instead of having these obscure and detailed and fringe powers that... It's like a fighter straight-up, let's... Let's learn the system and see what it can do as it's written as opposed to start making changes to the system right off the bat. There's even Tom, who arguably switched things up a bit with his character, still follow the basic tenets of sorcery. He just put different window dressing. Yeah. Different flavor. Anyone else want to say what they would play? I would have played a gnome, actually. I was looking at that before we knew what we were doing, even, before I was challenged to play a dwarf. Oh, we just had a good time doing that. Race right now? Um, race class. What's your character concept? And did you like the idea of being a part of a group? I don't... Well, okay. I wasn't so much. Well, you weren't. Yeah. You guys made me. Why don't I? Well, you were distinguished by being outside the history of certain extent. Well... Anyway, it was like I wanted my character out of options for social stuff going on, and that just wasn't happening in the campaign, so I would have definitely gone with somebody who had some attack spells, who wasn't trying to fool people, because that guys don't give a shit. So, that's why it would change. Depends any challenges whatsoever, I probably would have been a rogue of some sort, because I dig stealth characters. But that was the challenge. The challenge is not to play stealth characters, or at least people who would do grace over brawn. Right. And it had been the last time I did that was when I was playing a different dwarf, a dwarven cleric in Dungeon World, which wasn't, you know, right, falls to the wall actually serious system, so I was supposed to play a joke. So I mean, it was a pretty big difference. If I had chosen, like I said, and probably a stealth character, I was thinking about magic, but I chose off that path fairly early on when it sounded like everyone else wanted to. Did you like the idea of being part of a house? Wow. To draw the characters together and not have that constant tug and pull in different directions? I think it worked well for D&D. I like the house. I don't mind the little bit of inner part of conflict in a regular game, but in D&D it's not really built for it, so I don't mind anyone who wanted to not do that, and I didn't mind it when we played. Yeah, I like the house thing too. The house background helped a lot without the city setting and the houses and all that. Luke G-Pose did a question and asked, "Okay, just had another thought. I mentioned that the plot points above, but have you looked at a lot of the Dungeon Master options in the DMG section of the Dungeon Master Workshop? Milestones based on XP plot points, skills based on personality, et cetera. When you comment on a lot of the fake-like aspects on unintended, you pretty much ran a straight-up fifth edition. You didn't write any bells or whistles or any of these, so that sounds interesting. Yeah, I mean, for the next time out you might want to adjust things, but I guess maybe to Luke's point, would you think about going to the Dungeon Master's Guide if you came back to D&D and tweaking a few of the base elements of the game to make it more fake-like or make it more? I think so. I think there are qualities in faith that make it a little bit, especially if you're doing it in the theater of the mind, so cards with your armor classes helped, and instead of worrying about final numbers, just, yeah, you hit, unless it's a critical, I know what your minimum number is, and it's not a critical, you hit, and it's moved to damage, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, I think you did add elements to faith to kind of help facilitate that, and I did look at the DM Guide and read some of those things back there, and it was given out experience for things that weren't based on just kills. So... Greg A posted a question and said, "Let me say that listening to this series compared to a Numenair game, I noticed that you didn't complain, or at least, left the complaints out of the episode about D20." Both. Did you feel that something in the D and D5E mechanics curved your complaints, or did you just edit the disgust out? If you didn't have as many problems with D20 in the story arc, do you think it's due to the familiarity of the D and D with your expectations tempered by understanding the system basics? It sounded to me like you were more comfortable asking for or making roles with 5E rather than a Numenaira. Remembering, listening to the catalog twice as plenty, it seems that there was more acceptance in a failure in 5E versus Numenaira. When we played Numenaira, it was the first time we were trying this. So since we were the first time playing it, we wanted to review it and say here's how we played it. It wasn't any specific expectations. Yeah. Well, I think if we were to play D and D for the first time, we would have been bitching about D20. Right. It wasn't an exception. You know, the inspiration, I think, helped a lot where you're rolling together. Well, we played D and D before and we all know how wonderfully we love the DY20 and how well it works in D and D so we didn't complain about it as much because we talked about it before. We're a Numenaira. It was a system we just tried again with the DY20 so we just rehashed how much we didn't like it. That's right. We talked about it so much in that episode. Fuck D20. Yeah. I don't like it. I didn't like it. It may have got knitted up, but I don't think it could complain about it in an offline. No, it gets annoying just to complain about the same thing all the time. Yeah. It wasn't editing because we really didn't complain out loud about the DYs so often. It was kind of like self editing, I think. We all knew that nobody's particularly happy. Yeah, I knew we were getting into. That was particularly satisfied with the perfect simple D20 system, but on the other hand, advantage and disadvantage actually happened pretty often in D&D and I approve of that change and inspiration came often enough once we figured out it was just a huge, huge difference between rolling two dice and taking the best than rolling and paying experience to roll again. Oh, yeah. And the system four. Down four. Yeah. The system four. It fell like a ripoff. Plus with D&D, get your bonuses for proficiency and other standards. A lot more swing like that. I thought less raw DY20 rolling. I like the advantage, disadvantage and inspiration, at least gives you a little bit of something to help you out instead of just a straight roll. When we left Numenair, I just wanted to finish that thought. We talked about how they should probably split up the points that you used to reroll dice and the points that you used to level up your character. And people actually offered us systems they used when they played Numenair. I like you get two and twice as much experience, but half of it can only be used for rerolls or something like that. And we thought about that very in-depth, but we haven't gone back to Numenair and they never. None of the clockwork opinion works out. Right. If that works out, I think that the world's going to take precedence over Numenair in my mind. But it'll keep depending on the players and what they like. Right. Speaking of clockwork dominion for a minute, when I want to be upset if I played Numenair is there, I think his social setting would be a lot better fit for a curth-like skilled person, not in demeanor. I think the system can handle it better. I really think you would excel at being an illusionist in that system, so yes. Greg A posted and said, "PS, thank you for the effort. All of you put into the story, role-playing, and everything." That's fun. Very nice. Wow. Okay. It's fun for us. I know that. Jim, maybe it's kind of an anxious experience for me. I've done it with Mark, and it's like, "Oh boy." Marking my youngest son. Yeah, 14. No, that's fine. It's a very different experience. I don't know. Was it? For you, the fact that it was on a podcast? Did you enjoy yourself? No, no, no. GME. Well, it goes back to, I think, what we've seen answered that before, I mean, I enjoyed playing the game and coming here, but when it's your show, I'm not just responsible for myself. You're responsible for my show? Yeah, I know that's good. Yeah. Yeah. I will say this. My work schedule, and it affected my personal schedule, and it-- And your wife hates all of us? No, she doesn't. Hey, but it's just like-- She already hit it. There was one. This is Christmas shopping season at this particular time, and I might have gotten out of a gift shopping experience because I'm like, "I have to prepare." I have to do that. She goes, "You have to prepare what? Was something for work?" I'm like, "It's work, but it's for the game." And she's like, "Well, why?" So I'm the damn she goes, "Why did I marry you?" But it's just one of those things where it's like, you've got to put in some time. Kyle H. said, "How did Mike and the players like the theater of mine approach to combat?" I tried it on my last 5-e game, and while it took some of the players a bit to get used to it, we all ended up really enjoying it as it really sped up the gameplay. Also, I wanted to say a great job to everyone, especially Mike. Great game. What do you think? I think if you adopt the theater of the mind, you've got to modify the initiative mechanic and big. Well, the cards certainly helped me. I'm wondering if you relaxed that order and came up with something where it's reaction does. It's either, it's contribution and reaction. Like, here's a situation you guys are moving and interacting, and if the role of the dice where it turns out that all of the monsters go at the end and all of you guys go at the beginning, and it just increases, like Scott said, like, "Oh, it's going to be 30 minutes before I get to come back here." If there's some way to balance it out where you can keep it bouncing back and forth, like, for example, what if it was a system like, "Okay, I don't care who goes first, but someone goes first, then the enemies go, and then whoever goes, you guys just said again, who goes next, and maybe he bounces like a ping pong game back and forth like that, and anyone can go where Thomas can go two times in a row, or in the game time, it's still the same thing, but the interactive or the choices you're making, maybe that's a better, or, I don't know, I was thinking about that. Well, I'm fine. I worked a million times. Thank you. Sorry. I just wanted to say, I read about a long time ago a system of role-playing for like some Marvel heroes game that I was utterly uninterested in beyond the fact that its initiative system was really, really cool. Do you remember what it was? It was X-Men, I think. The sample was. And it was. It was actually the X-Men squad. Everybody basically has a marker, and that's their term, and if you take yours, you could say who goes next, and they have to spend there, so everybody gets one term, but you get to decree who goes next. Now, you could do it so that we all get to go first, but if you do that, you'd go- But that means- But that means- Oh, the enemies go now. One after another. Yeah, it was an interesting concept. I'll have to read up on it again, because it was really cool, and I could bring it back and tell you listeners about it if you really want to hear, but if you don't, I don't know, maybe we'll figure out what it was and edit it in so you can look it up yourselves. One of the hardest things in this game, whether it's podcast or not, whether it's theater of the mind or not, is it's a still a turn-based game, and you're trying to represent simultaneous actions. Yeah. It's always been- Dwarf hanging in midair, waiting 20 minutes to come back to their turn, but yeah, I finished it. Yeah. Or you know how 10 people ran by him and he did circles around him? Well, then we kind of saw him right now, where you all but killed something, and then Dally comes in and, you know, he only had like two hit points left, you know, and zapped him, and it's like, which is fine. It's cool. But Banned and Dally looking impressive. But it's one of those things where that was just the turn, how it came around, like you can sit and pound on. That the wiver would be a little bit more of a threat, but- It was. You got crazy ass. When I bloodied it and it landed on the ground, you rolled max fall damage. Yeah. And then I handled like three fives and a six. Yeah. I went ahead. It was two sixes and two fives. I didn't want to cheat, but at the same time, and I was rolling horrible towards the end there. I had like back-to-back ones, and I don't know what the hell pissed off with 20 seconds. Hey, we rolled both crits and crit failures, so those are check marks on D&D list. As far as D&D and D&D, I think we've done it before, well, we'll roll separate initiatives for different groups or different types of bad guys that are on the same field, so that way they kind of mix it up in the middle of everybody else. How much of a pain is that that track? I'm trying to remember when I get it used to that- I think the zombies, was that fine? It's not fine. Especially when you get a little bit more tactical, and which is, that's the thing that Skyle likes to do, which is good, because you want to get advantage of what you can do. But like, okay, now I'm going to ready. Now I'm going to fall back. And I think I ended up screwing Dally once a little bit, because I'm like, okay. And I think there was confusion where she fell back and waited to do something, but then they have to do their turn first, and on their turn, then the daggers happen, and you're just like, oh, wait, okay, well, is it your turn or is it your turn? Oh, geez, I lost it. Because technically they made their movement, and then her action activated in the middle of their turn, and where does her turn? Well, she created a persistent effect, that at the beginning of their turn, they take damage. It's a Dally attack, but it is, and it's just a persistent thing. It was weird. Right. It was similar to the turn on dead, and we wanted to allow them to get close enough, but not hit us, which is reasonable in a combat situation, we don't want to make that call, but tactically, and I feel that that was a storytelling mistake that I did where zombies move at 20 feet per, and I'm like, oh, it took them five minutes, and I was trying to follow the-- We'll just wait here, then, shall we? That's why it felt like you're like, they were still out there, they're still out there. I'm like, yeah, this is stupid, I should have just put the other ones on me. You think it was closer and more, because on me's the-- Well, it wasn't true. 20 days later, man. Yes. Exactly. I wasn't calling you out of there. I'm just saying that it was one of the tactical difficulties. You know what I'm saying, you want to cut your backs, and you want to make it when they move half-ex, you know? When you're saying-- You're making your call. When they get just outside the range, we're going to turn them so they don't get to the door, but you're saying, well, on their turn, they get to the door. And then, is it not your turn yet? You fixed it the second time around, the zombies approach much quicker, so-- Well, I think I just-- I started cutting things. Yeah. Because you were rushing for time. You wanted to finish up to-- Yeah. That's one thing. You didn't use a GM screen, and I would have used a GM screen. Not to say, I would fudge a lot of rules, but-- Well, occasionally. If it's for dramatic purposes-- Yeah, for them. Right. If it's getting way too easy, that's when I would fudge them. Fudge it. And I like when players have that option, too. This is a game from Kyle, H. And it isn't really a question, but it's a wonderful thing to end on, and then we will enjoy our bottle of wine for the celebratory ending of a show, which is called Red Rock, a workish wine if ever I heard one. Rock Falls. Everybody dies. Kyle H. posted and said, oh, and if you ever stop podcasting, we will find you, and we will sit in Scott's basement, and we will listen to you. Live audience. Fair enough. I'll be terrified. I'll be terrified. We've actually had a live audience. Yeah, a couple times. Brought to you before a live audience. Nick was that once. Shoot him. Nick did it. Rachel did it. My friend Alan came over during GMD. I'm sorry. The first guy is the Nick Hunter. John. Joe. Corey. John Martin. I mean, John. And my characters would probably be, I wanted to try the human elder tonight. Yeah. Oh, me too. I wanted to try that. I don't know. I'll tell you Shadow Knight. That's what I was going to do, but there was some change. And an elven ranger and elven rogue, but again, my views on elves are a little bit different. We will end there and thank everyone who sent in the questions, and we will perhaps let the microphone run as we enjoy a little bit of wine here. Maybe we'll say something interesting. Maybe we should. Maybe he'll get to. I want to change the elven up to because he's going the wrong way. He's born. He's not here. He's all about the hammer. I want him to be a person who knocks people down or back every time he hit them with the hammer. He's going to munchkin out ways that he can do that well instead of just being a person hits people, just to make him different and come to be interesting. There's maneuvers there before that. What's back if I'm going to do a pick if you wanted to be interesting rather than... Oh, how would it have been a Shadow Knight? Shadow Knight? I don't understand. I want to be... It's a cast, didn't you? Exactly what it was. I liked it. That was awesome. She was the London of D&D. Okay. That's the most objective man in the world. Perfect. At least it wasn't me saying. Yeah. Did you read the magic system in Placworth yet, John? No. I was actually having finals. Yeah, yeah. No, just the way you commented that you like... You want to know? I want to play. I'm trying to figure out what kind of character to play in Placworth, but I don't know what it was, except for what we played. Anybody like that? I don't know. It'll be a little bit different in the sense, but I don't know a lot. It's my own. It's like a... No, thank you. So there'll be different races. Yeah. There'll be a couple more types of magic to be able to do, but otherwise pretty much the same as in the worldbook. What kind of races do you like? Do you... Big user. Besides, it is very under-warfish, so it's kind of a red blood. Oh. You only drink one. I thought you'd be serious. I thought you'd be serious. I thought you'd be serious. I thought George didn't drink one. Yeah. Yeah. Two all the time and efforts that Mike put into his race. Oh, whatever. Never contribution. Yeah, but behind the screen. Toughest job in the world, buddy. D&D. Fivy. Fivy. Congratulations. Happy holidays. That's powerful. Oh, that is a good mirror look. Ooh, peppery. Peppery? Very peppery there at the end. Yeah, it is. I agree with that. Mm-hmm. Just chill it. I did. Yeah, you normally don't. You've got to be wine. That's a little different. That's okay. I have to be alcoholic drink. I don't like. It's gone. I'm not doing it anymore. And I don't really, I've never liked anyone. Oh, God. Oh. The CIA would kill him so fast. That's what I'm saying. Well, you keep talking about it. You can't kill an idea. And I agree with that thought. Hate is never the stronger idea than inclusion in freedom. I hope you're right. Being able to sit around with friends and be quieting their games and talk about our country, and not be killed or imprisoned for it, that's a strong idea. I don't like to say label, but I do use meta tags. So when sometimes when you're- That's a good joke. Well when you're trying to qualify things- You have a thing for a school girl of uniforms. Well, you know, I was thinking about that. The fuck? Yeah. You can say what you want, but that doesn't mean you're immune from consequences, kid. Thank you for listening tonight's of the night actual play podcast. If you'd like to send us questions, comments or feedback, you can reach us in a number of ways. From Twitter, @KOTN_podcast, or by email feedback@KOTNpodcast.com. And don't forget the iTunes reviews or our Facebook page, facebook.com/KOTN.podcast. Speaking of Facebook, join like-minded folks at our Facebook Fan page. And lastly, there's our blog page, kotnpodcast.com, where there's an Amazon link on the right hand side. Thanks to Zen Audio Smith for the intro and outro music. Get your own music at zenaudiosmith.com. And join us next week for more mystery and adventure. I couldn't have had an invisible picketing hand. I'm ranting out, but I'm just talking, rambling on the news. Thank you. Thank you for my goal to make a clear and meta re-appearance behind the screen. How long has it been?