Interview - Anto Cerrato - Icarus Games

Today I talk with the Insightful YouTuber, Content Creator, Podcast Editor, Anto Cerrato. We discuss the Worldbuilding for your Game System of choice, being a YouTube Content Creator, Homebrew Adventure, and the process for GM/DMing games with absent players
.
You can find Anto Cerrato and all of the YouTube content via the links below.

Website:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8rYSKAir0_IgvpHn59Tb_w

https://www.icarus-games.co.uk/

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/IcarusGamesUK

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/icarusgames/

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

~~~~~~~~~~

CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Anto Cerrato

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

~~~~~~~~~~

Website:
https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com

Support the podcast by joining our Patreon community where you'll gain access several hours of bonus episodes. At the "Celestial” tier you have the opportunity to submit NPC names and items to be used in the game!

Visit https://www.patreon.com/snyders_return?fan_landing=true

Are you on DISCORD? Come hang out in our server! https://discord.gg/QgU5UNf Join us in the Snyder’s Return Facebook Group!

Buy us a TTRPG Source Book: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SnydersReturn

~~~~~~~~~~~

Social Media:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReturnSnyder

Instagram -  Snyder's Return (@snyders_return)

Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~

Support our Streamers across on Twitch:

Sox_TGD: https://www.twitch.tv/sox_13/videos/all

Tyler Whatmore:  https://twitch.tv/llamakiller93 

Become a Podcaster and Share your interests with others.

Buzzsprout Podcast Host: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1010188

Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/4u0qhi/

Transcript

Snyders Return: 0:27

Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today is a business owner specialising in tabletop role playing game support, and is also youtube content creator, offering DMS and gems advice on well building dm techniques, virtual tabletops and location. I'm hoping hoping to learn a lot if I just ask nicely. I'd like to welcome Equis games. Anto Serato Anto, welcome to the show.

Anto Cerrato: 0:55

Thank you very much for having me. Happy to be here. And I must say, kudos on the pronunciation of my surname. I don't I don't remember the last time someone nailed it on the first go.

Snyders Return: 1:05

Oh, thank you. It was more guesswork, because I didn't think to ask before we started this interview. But I appreciate that. But

Anto Cerrato: 1:11

natural to any

Snyders Return: 1:13

job. Thank you. Well, we did we're done. Thank you interview. Well, you mentioned a natural 20 there, which sort of leads into how did you? What's your history? How did you get into tabletop role playing games and and then I'll ask about what's LED on from there since.

Anto Cerrato: 1:30

So I've been into kind of tabletop games, in a wider sense for them, at this point, the majority of my life. Well, that that brings on a sudden existential crisis. But moving straight past that, and I got started with tabletop miniatures, sort of the turn of the millennium with Games Workshop models with their Lord of the Rings range, and then expanded out to play and things like Warhammer other war games. And then I think it was probably around 2005. I was at a friend's house, and we'd finished playing Warhammer for the evening. And he bust out the d&d third edition red box that his dad had. And we spent the night stayed up until sort of 6am figuring out how this strange and wonderful game worked. And then I've played intermittently throughout the years after that, until I started being a dungeon master myself, and then I've played almost every week since then.

Snyders Return: 2:30

Wow, he's committed and good. And the red box seems to be a common thread for for a lot of people I speak to Sir, definitely captured a lot of imagination. Way back when? Definitely. So you got into playing intimately. And then you started playing once a week? How? How does Equis games or your company? How does that factor into all of this? Where did that sort of come from?

Anto Cerrato: 2:54

So their their company started life as Icarus miniatures. And it started in kind of 2015 with a sci fi miniatures skirmish game that I took to Kickstarter and raise money for and was working on that for a good couple of years. And then I had one really bad year with a series of unfortunate events that ultimately led to me making the decision to move away from doing kind of miniature sales and producing miniatures. And focusing more on doing YouTube, which I had started. Maybe a year before, that is kind of a supplement to go along with doing the miniatures sales, I was making terrain videos and videos focusing on that kind of thing to sort of supplement the miniatures game. And then on a whim, I put a picture of my kind of OneNote dm screen up on Reddit and it absolutely blew up. So I thought, I'll try making a video on this. And it did just so much better than everything else I was doing at the time. I'm going to do a test, you know, spend a few months doing tabletop content. So I can compare that to the previous period. And it just blew everything else I've been doing out the water. So after sort of eight months of doing that, it was clear that this is the avenue I should take versus doing the miniatures game, because this is getting a lot more traction. Hmm

Snyders Return: 4:30

All right, well, we've mentioned there, your website and your YouTube work and and other places, where can people go to find you'll get some links out the way so people can hopefully open up a web browser and follow along with this interview.

Anto Cerrato: 4:42

almost anywhere on the internet, if you can think of it I'm probably there. I'm on I have my own website, and which is Icarus dash games, Cote UK. And then I'm on YouTube. As Icarus games, I'm on Twitter as the same. I'm on Patreon, twitch Facebook. Just if you can think of somewhere to go, you will probably find me.

Snyders Return: 5:05

All right, well, Patreon is I was gonna say, a breeding ground and that really gives it the wrong connotations is a such a lively environment now with with so many creators having a Patreon, what is it that you offer to your patrons if they were to go and join you over on Patreon.

Anto Cerrato: 5:23

So I have a couple of different tiers, the sort of$1 lowest barrier to entry tier gets kind of the behind the scenes stuff that I do on Patreon, I will make short little videos of kind of behind the scenes of what I'm doing for videos that week, or like, well, I can't remember what Patreon calls them lens, I think like their version of Instagram or YouTube stories. And I make those when I'm sort of in the production process to give it a look behind the curtain. And patrons get to vote on video topics. And depending on their tier, they get to vote on one page adventures that I produce every month. So I take a monster from the monster manual every month is voted on by patrons. And then I make a one page adventure surrounding that monster to kind of inspire and get all the creative juices flowing. And people say oh, here's an idea of how you could use this monster in your game. And then just a variety of other game AIDS. So various homebrew rules that I've got for things like resurrection or homebrew backgrounds and classes through to things like gavel contracts for semonin devils in game, which, weirdly enough, a lot of people find the video of that. And think that I'm talking about someone in the actual it's frequently people will comment and be like, does this work in real life? And I'm like, says the end and the title? No. Not to my knowledge.

Snyders Return: 6:57

If it does, please get in contact? Yeah, I'm not really sure if I do want to know the outcome. Exactly. So you mentioned the Patreon voting what given today's as the sort of data recording what has been the most recent topic that your patrons have voted on for your YouTube videos.

Anto Cerrato: 7:15

And that is arm a video on kind of run in one shot adventures and one shot sessions and the benefits of that, which is due to release in a couple of weeks from the time of recording.

Snyders Return: 7:31

All right, well, Oh, very good. I watched a few earlier about your homemade campaign guide. Really good sort of content and the fact you had yours professionally made and printed, I'm very jealous, I have to say

Anto Cerrato: 7:46

it was it was a fun project to work on. And it was something that I wanted to do, because I'd been playing with this group for a couple of years at this point. And we'd been playing in the same world. So obviously, there was a lot of love for that world and a lot of familiarity with it and move into a new area in that world. I really wanted to get them as excited for that area as the place that we had been playing in. So I thought if I produce something that looks really nice, that it's gonna help to get them involved.

Snyders Return: 8:22

Yeah, definitely would you mind taught? Because you're a lot your content is well building and notation and things like that would, would you mind tell us a little bit about your world and how that came together? Because that will tie into some questions coming up,

Anto Cerrato: 8:35

of course. And so the the world that I'm currently running in is the nation of ash. It's a sort of desert nation, made up of disparate city states that used to be one unified nation. But then following a civil war, they kind of all fractioned off. And now they all act as sort of independent super cities. And if you're in the city, you are safe. If you are anywhere else, you are very much not safe. And that's one of the biggest themes that runs through this current campaign we're playing is anytime the players are outside of one of these city states. Bad things tend to be happening.

Snyders Return: 9:19

I like that given the the description you've given them, what tends to be your your influences on on your well building and, and your play style.

Anto Cerrato: 9:28

In terms of well building, I find that movies and TV tend to be my biggest influence. I have a section of my campaign notes that it's just devoted to possible quest ideas. And most of those are just the titles of films, and then an idea in the body of it for how would I turn this into d&d? How do I take The Goonies, which is a pretty d&d esque style adventure film and make it More d&d, or how do I take the nun and shove that into a d&d setting?

Snyders Return: 10:07

Oh, I like that. I like that reference. Definitely. So, so that's your world and the campaign or world guide you you built with him? What if a DM wanted to? do their own world building maybe online or offline? What sort of things? Do you recommend your videos cover? Various, shall we say, programmes and techniques and things where where are your recommendations for that sort of generation. So

Anto Cerrato: 10:41

I have a kind of a group of them depending on what people are interested in. And because no one no two people want to approach well, building the same, and everyone kind of has a different way of doing it. And even though a lot of these programmes and apps that are available, ultimately offer the same thing, they do it in a slightly different way, or they take a different approach to it. So what I'm using personally at the minute is a site called legend keeper. And the thing that really draws me to legend keeper is that it's very map focused. So the main page is the map of the world. And you can put pins down for different locations and things. And then the user interface is very bare, and very clean, and just stays out of the way. So if you have a really strong idea of what your world is, you can just, you can just go and you don't have to worry about things getting in your way. But if you were to make a world and you had a less clear idea of what you want it, then I would consider something like well, Danville, because they have really in depth categories and subcategories, and like text fields inside their articles that can inspire or give you ideas for what to put down. And if that is what you're looking for, then you'll get a lot more traction out of that though. If you want something that was free, then. And digital, then OneNote is what I used for years. It's what started the real growth of my channel. And it has a dear place in my heart. And it's free and widely available. And it can do a lot of things that you need it to do as a DM. All right. But speaking of OneNote A while back, and the relevance of this question will come up in a second. But a while back, you put out your example a an available copy a template for others to to access is that still available, it is still available. Indeed, I have a couple different versions, I have a version that links to kind of the live online version that I work from. And then I have a version, because there's different, there's different editions of one note. And on some of them, you can download your information. And on some of them, you can't. So I know that some people really wanted to have that kind of hard backup. So I have a version that is downloadable up through my website, where it comes as a packaged folder, and then you can import it straight into your OneNote.

Snyders Return: 13:23

So if people want to get them on that, and then start building their world, and this this is a collaborative endeavour at times, something that you shouldn't necessarily do completely on your own, though dmws often will, I'm sure. So speaking of collaborations and is there someone that you would like to collaborate with or have or a project coming up, you're excited with any appearances that you'd like to to let us know about?

Anto Cerrato: 13:54

So I have recently started doing a lot more in kind of the sphere of collaborating. I have a Discord server for just my channel. But in that Discord server, I have an area where I invite other YouTubers that make tabletop and d&d content to come so that they have a place to, you know, ask questions, get advice, and have that sense of community of people that are making stuff on the platform. And I've started doing little bits of work here and there with several of the members there. And hopefully, over the coming months, I'll be able to do a lot more with many more of those creators because there's a whole bunch of people making really interesting stuff in this space. And I want to work with as many of them as possible, even if it's just little cameos and cutaways for for gags in the videos and I'm always happy with that. But my fellow crew and friend Matthew Perkins has by the time You're listening to this dare people of the internet, we'll have a video talking about kind of reducing the mental fatigue and the overhead that you have to do as a dungeon master. And I did some kind of readings for that and a little bit of voice work and also edited that as just like a favour. So I have started sort of putting the tangibles out to collaborate with other YouTubers, which has been really fun.

Snyders Return: 15:30

night it's it sounds sounds like a really great, great project, which leads me on to the next question I've only saw podcasted on I've sort of learned the the trials and tribulations of that. There are others to do the twitch streaming and various other platforms. What's it been like, getting into and being a youtube content creator.

Anto Cerrato: 15:54

And it's, it's an odd experience, because it's not something I ever intended to do. when I very first started making videos, I was still manufacturing, the miniatures and doing the miniatures side of the business. And I had office space at the time. And I wanted something else to use that space where I didn't feel like I was using it particularly effectively. And I thought, I can start making some videos doing little terrain bits and little tutorials. And when I started, I intended it only ever to be a small supplement. To go along with the other parts of the business, I never intended for it to overtake everything else and become kind of my main jam. So I almost feel as if I kind of accidentally stumbled into it. Rather than sitting down and making the choice even though once I started making tabletop RPG content, then I made the choice to switch over completely to that.

Snyders Return: 16:59

Alright, so and I really enjoy your videos. They're very informative. You cover such a broad range of topics, and each has has such a, but to my own campaign, at least I'm sure many others, so many points that can be drawn from and utilised in in so many different ways. So thank you for making your videos because I really, I really appreciate and enjoy them.

Anto Cerrato: 17:25

You're welcome. I'm glad I'm very glad.

Snyders Return: 17:27

So what's been your favourite topic to work on?

Anto Cerrato: 17:34

I think overall, it's probably been that making a homebrew campaign series because that is where I started working on my current campaign in that series. But I in terms of individual videos, the video I did to kind of celebrate reaching 10,000 subscribers, I tried to make a homebrew campaign setting in a single afternoon. And that was a lot of fun to put together even though it was pure chaos.

Snyders Return: 18:11

From credit, chaos comes order. And sometimes Yeah, sometimes

Anto Cerrato: 18:16

I'm trying to find all these places online to just cram as much in as possible.

Snyders Return: 18:21

On speaking of places online with the current state of the world should we say yeah, I love playing has has moved on some respects all playing has moved on online. So where where should people go to look to find games on online? notwithstanding things like discord servers and things like that? What platforms can they can they go on to and utilise

Anto Cerrato: 18:46

there's a couple of different places where I always direct people if they're looking for to just put the feelers out if you want to use a virtual tabletop, then role 20 has an inbuilt kind of game finder, which is a great way to look at what's available and to meet new people. The other place that I always direct people to is a subreddit, the looking for games subreddit, it's our slash l f g. And that is just people looking for different games, not necessarily to use a virtual tabletop for but just people looking for games. And those two places are a really good starting point. But if you want something specific, then find in Facebook groups for the game system that you want to run or for the particular adventure module if it's d&d for example, and you want to run Curse of Strad go looking for groups dedicated to curse of Strad, so that you know you've already got that group of people interested in what you want to play before you start asking.

Snyders Return: 19:55

Yeah, it's definitely definitely good advice. So with with people will Or connecting in, in this sort of new and different way and playing a variety of tabletop role playing games? Do you play any others? Or have you seen any that have sort of caught your eye that you may want to try and play in the future.

Anto Cerrato: 20:16

So I, for many years played Pathfinder, because I got started in third edition and then 3.5. And the natural evolution from that was Pathfinder. And for this current campaign, we've switched over to fifth edition, because we just finished playing a 20th level Pathfinder campaign. And the sheer complexity involved in that made my brain want to melt up my eyeballs. So I say we need to, we need to move to fifth edition I need I need a little bit of breathing room. And I don't currently play any other systems purely because of all the other things that I do I find very little time to be able to play. I would very much like to play star finder, the the sci fi offering from paizo, the company that makes Pathfinder ever since that was announced that's been one that's been on my radar for as soon as an opportunity comes up for me to run a sci fi game. I'm going to be picking up star finder and

Snyders Return: 21:12

running with it nice nice often as a starter so coming out for that as well. So definitely want to look out for if other people are looking for Star finder as well. I didn't know that was the status that that is very exciting. Not for my wallet. But for me isn't always the victim in these things is the wallet. So yeah, you mentioned very little time, outside of your, all your work between sort of YouTube Patreon, your business and all that sort of thing. So what is it you do for downtime? How is it you sort of step away and, and sort of recharge,

Anto Cerrato: 21:48

so I try to step away and recharge as much as possible, I'm not always successful. My partner will attest that there's more than more than one time where I say I'm gonna step away and then end up don't end up doing it. But I try to do other things. So I play video games. I'm at the moment, I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn, which is just got absolutely beautiful world building. I've been enjoying just spending a lot of time examining that world lately, which has been a lot of fun. And I still paint and collect miniatures. And I have a 3d printer now. So that has become another kind of side hobby for me is 3d printing miniatures and getting to tinker around with those and build and paint those. And then I watch as many films and television shows as I can sell. I love kind of cinema and, and video entertainment. So I try to watch as much as possible in the evenings when I'm finished doing whatever it is that I'm doing for that day, throw on a TV show or throw on a movie. and unwind that way.

Snyders Return: 23:07

As I imagine it's one of those I just five more minutes, I'll be done in Yeah, just just a few more than two hours roll past kind of thing. So it gives us a another recap of where people can come find you and your your content, please.

Anto Cerrato: 23:23

So the best place to find me for the majority of what I do will be YouTube, just across games into YouTube, and you'll see my face staring at you. And I have a Patreon for people running principally fifth edition, a lot of it will be applicable to other kind of fantasy games. But especially if you're in fifth edition, I make a whole bunch of content on Patreon that is useful to dungeon masters. And then as of the last couple of weeks, I started getting into twitch streaming. So at the moment, what I do is I go on to twitch, which again is X Games, and I will will build with the chat, I pick an area of the map and I say, here is where we're going to go today. Here is what I think is here. Let's all come up with something together. So last week, I chose one of the city states of Ask The city of Sioux Hill, which the only information I had is that it was cursed. I had no idea what was going on with it beyond that. And I spent a couple hours in the twitch stream with chat, figuring out why this place was cursed, what cursed it what's going on who lives there, and all of the information for that area. And that was a really enjoyable experience because I ended up with a whole bunch of welding that I wouldn't have come up with on my own because it was crowdsourcing the world building.

Snyders Return: 24:46

And it sounds like a really good way to engage with the community as well, to be honest,

Anto Cerrato: 24:50

yeah, it was a lot of fun just hanging out with chat. They would ask questions about the world or about my process or about different videos and then we'd carry on building this city out, it was really cool.

Snyders Return: 25:03

So what you mentioned do their process and I'm always intrigued by content creators, creative processes. So what is yours? Do you do start with a blank piece of paper or blanks or tech screen, how is it you engage brain and go into this creative process.

Anto Cerrato: 25:23

So when it comes to creating for my game, and for creating as a dungeon master, I tend to kind of collect little slivers of inspiration from everything. So like I said earlier, I have a list of various films that I think it would be interesting or funny to turn into d&d. I once ran a session that was basically hot furs, but turned into d&d, and I replaced the Neighbourhood Watch with a Medusa that was charming the entire time. And I like taking references from popular media, and twisting them to go into my game. And that's how I start with a lot of my nebulous ideas as a dungeon master. And then week to week, it's basically trying to react to whatever chaos the players caused the week before. So I run a really, really sandbox game where I say to the players, you can go literally anywhere and do anything you say that you want to go to the other side of the country. next session, that's fine. Something will be there for you. If you say you're going to hop on a ship and sail halfway around the world this session. Okay, let's let's do it. I will figure out what is happening along the way. And probably panic the entire house but if you want to do that is up to you.

Snyders Return: 26:51

Goes to salt marsh has some great storm mechanics. Yes, speaking, speaking of which, supplements, which is actually the question I meant to ask five minutes ago, but I was so distracted by everything else. So your world is homebrew? You're sort of you've homebrewed certain mechanics? Where is it? You sound with the source material, like where do you want Dungeons and Dragons to go next, to help sort of inspire you and your players?

Anto Cerrato: 27:19

I think that I would like in terms of the next settings that I would like to see done. And I would like either docs and or a more appropriate version of the medium setting done, because they're both very heavily desert based, very dangerous wildernesses and have a lot of kind of Middle East in North Africa. And Mediterranean kind of influences them in them in different ways, which is what a lot of my homebrew world at the moment has. So I would love to see wizards go down in and explore those settings just so I can pick and choose which bits to pull out for my own game. And in general, I I'm excited for them to just go in kind of newer and more unusual. directions. I I want to see things away from the Forgotten Realms.

Snyders Return: 28:27

Okay. Yeah. Sounds Sounds good. And everyone has their their taken, I think they've been quite coy, shall we say? Was it within the next couple of releases? Will we all have to wait with bated breath unfortunately. How, how have you found playing online with your with your weekly group? And what platform do you use? Do you favour for that?

Anto Cerrato: 28:58

So in terms of how I found it, it's been pretty successful. And we have been playing online, almost for the duration of our entire, like campaign time together. Even though I live very close to all of my players. We because of the the buisiness of adult life. It's easier for us all to get home from work and be at home and just fire up the computer and play versus having to organise to get together. And we play using fantasy grounds at the moment. And that's what we've played with for our entire last campaign and all of this one. It's of what's available at the moment. It's my favourite of the ones I've used. It's not at all without its flaws. It's in a lot of ways. I think it's fairly outdated. I do wish That when they updated to fantasy grounds unity that they would have given it a new coat of paint. But it does everything that we need it to do. Even if it doesn't do everything that we need it to do particularly pretty

Snyders Return: 30:17

fair, fair. But no, it's it's good that you know, your group are able to adapt with with both their home lives and and what is now the modern. The modern life we are all sharing in this Yes, this age, shall we say? But no, it's it's been? It's been? Well, have you got anything you would like to bring up anything I've not mentioned or touched on? I think that in terms of kind of playing online and general scheduling.

Anto Cerrato: 30:53

As I said, I've been playing weekly now for 454 years, almost every week, the only week that we've ever missed in our campaigns are weeks where I'm not available. And I think that as far as scheduling goes, because I know that scheduling is one of the biggest barriers to people being able to play and it's the thing that kills the most campaigns. I am firmly of the opinion that we as dungeon masters need to say here is when I am going to run and I will be running at this time on this day. Who do I know or who among the people that want to play can also play this day. And I think that one of the reasons that my game has managed to go for as long as it has is because I'm quite militant about the fact that we play, even if only two players are there, out of five or six, we play and everyone else just misses out. And I don't, I tend not to adjust any of my encounters. If you're there with two people instead of five, you're going to fight five people's worth of things. But it is helped to foster that kind of knowledge from the players that we need. If we want to be there. We need to be there. And if they say we can't be there for any reason, that's absolutely fine. If they message and say, Oh, I'm gonna miss this session, because I've got this going on, that's absolutely fine. But they know that the game is still going to go on. And I think that's helped them over time, too. Instead of thinking, Oh, it's Wednesday night. What am I doing this Wednesday night? instead? They go It's Wednesday night. It's d&d night. That is what I plan for first. And then if something else comes up, it's DND. Because that gets moved versus trying to fit the end in around everything else.

Snyders Return: 32:54

So that's fair enough. So So kind of flipped on his head. It's not Wednesday night is d&d night. It's d&d night, which is Wednesday.

Anto Cerrato: 33:01

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's not something that would will work for everyone. But I think if you can make it work, then you will probably have a little more success because it just conditions the people to think of this is when we played in day. And I have, I am committed to playing d&d, so I'm not going to plan anything else to do then, versus always trying to find somewhere where everyone is free.

Snyders Return: 33:29

Hmm. Which is is a challenge as I know myself. So which begs another question with respect to say, out of five, three, turn up, what do you do with the two absent characters should we say or present characters absent players.

Anto Cerrato: 33:50

So if we're in a situation where we were in the middle of a quest, say that in a dungeon, and they didn't leave between sessions, and then the next week, two of the players aren't there. The way we will almost always handle it is those two players, the two characters are predisposed in some way, maybe their garden, the the exit to get out, or garden a particular room, or stop taking equipment, stop taking equipment, whatever it is, if we can avoid using those characters, we will and there are some situations in which the session will end in the middle of a combat and in that case, we usually will, the remaining players, the players that are present will kind of collectively decide what the absent character do want the absent characters do rather than me taking control of them as the DM. If it's a situation where the absent characters can be actually absent, then they will be absent. So if the players are in between adventures, And there are two characters absent, they will be physically off somewhere else in the city doing something else when these characters are off doing whatever we're doing for the week, the shopping montage. Yeah, they'll be off shopping while everyone else is fighting McCracken nice.

Snyders Return: 35:18

It's crazy city, you've got a crap anyway. Yes, that that. That answers the question, which is, which is really helpful because I've struggled with that same situation myself, and I'm sure others have as to what do you do when they either don't turn up on the night or they contact you in advance and say they can't make it. So I think

Anto Cerrato: 35:40

you're going in, in general with that, and with, I think it also applies to onboarding new characters in the middle of a campaign, I think that the easiest thing to do with it is just kind of taken out of the game approach and be like, okay, we all know that these characters wouldn't actually be taken stock in the middle of a dungeon. But for the sake of ease, we just none of our characters are going to mention it, you're just going to accept that that is the thing. And we're just going to go for this session, rather than worrying about well, my character wouldn't be happy to leave them there. Well, the players not here. So you, as a player need to agree that their character is going to be there so that we can just get into the session. And same with onboarding a new character, instead of spending weeks trying to figure out whether the party does or doesn't trust them, or does or doesn't like them. Unless that is part of kind of the story that you're wanting to tell introducing this character. I much prefer Okay, case of sitting the players down and be like, right, this character is coming on. They're just part of the team now. And we just accept it. Because that means we can get to the fun stuff quicker.

Snyders Return: 36:55

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And another approach, I might have to try and integrate into my own games. And as I say, I'm sure many others will consider that and certainly look at the way they have players and characters come in and out. Because it can always be a difficult situation of who's that stranger. And that's why, yeah,

Anto Cerrato: 37:19

the last character I introduced, I literally just had them sitting in the bedroom of the top end, where the players had rented out. And they came back on evening, and the character was just sat in their room, and they've been like, a friendly NPC told me that we're here I am the new hire. And that was it. They were just immediately on board. And it might not be the most realistic in terms of what the characters might do. But it got the player into the game immediately. And everyone was just adventuring together straightaway.

Snyders Return: 37:51

That's good, Good thinking. Well, I appreciate your time today. Until was left for the rest of the day.

Anto Cerrato: 38:01

I need to prepare my Zen space because I'm going to be doing a live stream on Twitch later this evening. On the high shelf gaming podcasts channel, we're going to be talking about more world building goodness. And with myself and David from high shelf gaming. Patrick canalis, the author and Braden who is the the man behind legend keeper. We've spent the last couple months sort of getting together once a month, and just kind of chatting about our approach to world building on stream and answering questions from the chat, which has been a whole heap of fun.

Snyders Return: 38:39

Oh, that sounds that sounds really exciting to be fair. Unfortunately, given our time, timezone difference, I don't think that that will fit well into my sleep. But

Anto Cerrato: 38:48

yeah, unfortunately as 1am UK time, but

Snyders Return: 38:51

that's a burden that we there. Indeed, indeed, well, I'll let you sort of get away and get sorted for that. I can't thank you enough for sort of taking some time to sort of come in and speak to me about all the hard work and all the fantastic content you create for YouTube.

Anto Cerrato: 39:07

You are most welcome. And thank you very much for having me.

Snyders Return: 39:10

Well, if there's an opportunity to come back on the future, I'd love to invite you back.

Anto Cerrato: 39:15

I will absolutely come back.

Snyders Return: 39:16

Oh, thank you for your time. It's been great. It has. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snyder's return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At return Snyder, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon. And we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content alpha for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you