Interview - Web DM - TTRPG/D&D YouTube/Podcast - Kickstarter

Today I talk with TTRPG/D&D YouTubers/Podcasters/Twitch Streamers and Content Creators - Jim Davis and Jonathan Pruitt more commonly known as Web DM.

We discuss their incredible (Dark Sun inspired) Kickstarter 'Weird Wastelands, different mechanics, approaches to certain rules, Short/Long Rests and so much more.

You can find Web DM and all of their content via the links below.

Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webdm/worlds-of-web-dm-weird-wastelands

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/WebDMshow
https://twitter.com/therealjimdavis
https://twitter.com/JPruInc
https://twitter.com/EmmaWrote

Twitch:
https://t.co/oNoi7Hls8K?amp=1

YouTube:
https://t.co/ad8ZylT1F0?amp=1

Patreon:
https://t.co/72kIiaeg7P?amp=1

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

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

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Web DM - Jim Davis / Jonathan Pruitt

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com

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Transcript

Snyders Return: 0:26

Hello and welcome to snows return a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guests today can be found dispensing invaluable advice to the assembled web demons who have rallied to their call. They provide insight for those who are torg as to which way to go, perhaps lost in a weird ttrpg wasteland stuck between a rock and a hard place or caught in a land between two rivers. Each provides several years of practical ttrpg experience with games like d&d to a DMs GMs and players, indeed whole groups to curate the best experience at their tables. Here to discuss their new 5E Kickstarter, weird wastelands and guide us into the worlds of Web DM, or Web DM host, Jim Davis and Jonathan Pruett, welcome both of you to the show.

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 1:13

Hey, how's it going? Thank you. Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. That was a that was an amazing intro. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you.

Snyders Return: 1:21

I inspired very much by yourselves and the way you introduce your so which we will get on to shortly. But before we go into the show, in the kicks on things like that, in case people inexplicably haven't heard of yourselves and the show, would you mind letting us know how each of you got into tabletop role playing games, please? Yeah, yeah, certainly.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 1:39

So I got into tabletop RPGs via hero quest, which was an old board game back in the 80s. Right, and it was the how Games Workshop sunk its teeth into me, quite a tender age. So from Hero quest to advanced hero quest to Warhammer Fantasy roleplay. And then from there, host games. Starting from when I was about 10 or so rent some of my first games just me and another friend with like Western Star Wars, we each had a character which ran a campaign for them, you know, and it wasn't until I was in my senior year of high school that I played d&d, in ranta group that prove as a part of I was like at the tail end of second edition. And then going into third, I pretty much was our group's sole sole, rotating GM chair for a while but emerged as sort of the sole GM and got a blog loved it was running games for I knew that there were RPGs like creating my own hero quest scenarios. So I, I've always liked the being in the GM seat, and, you know, playing all different kinds of RPGs it's sort of you noticed, as Web DM, started, which prove it tells a better story than I do. I found like, that all of these years of like, going online for advice for how to run a particular game, or like, needing to know a system inside and out because players who were, you know, wanting to build the perfect 3.5 character and like, all of that just left me with a lot of at the time, what I consider useless knowledge of just like how to run games and and you know, how to be adaptable and, and player forward in my gaming, like, naturally, I guess it turns out there was an audience for it. And found that this, the store of knowledge that I'd had built up just to, you know, deliver a fun game for my players on a Sunday was actually like useful for talking to others about RPGs. And here we are six years later after wobm started reading the book, sort of Joe's it's a surprise, but it's fun place to be in.

Snyders Return: 4:08

Absolutely. I pray you mentioned that was part of Jim's story. Yeah. How about you sell? Well, I

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 4:14

started I was a little bit more of a late bloomer. I didn't get into it until after high school when I was about 1920 somewhere around there. And got into it with a friend from high school and started playing a second edition d&d game and I'm gonna I'm gonna retract that my first game was actually fan part of the Dark Ages is very short. And it was very short run game, but it was like my first role playing game experience that quickly moved into d&d, but the guy who ran that, that game friend Travis Bowles, you'll you'll hear about him later. So play d&d for a while Jim came into the group. That's where we started playing and you know, quickly solidified after you know, You have to you have to go through a few bad dmws and some bad players. And you, you, you you come through better as you as the group is a lot more solid and strong. And we had a solid four or five players. And we played for years like, like I think we had a pretty standard game for about 12 years straight almost. And so or at least one game of a sort not, I don't want to say we had a 12 year long campaign. I know people, there's some people out there that have done that kind of thing, which hats off to them. But but having that good, just a just a solid group to play with for so long. And then a little over six years ago, I was living with that that friend Travis Bowles. And he had a lot of camera equipment and wanted to do a YouTube show. And he's like, what do we want to do it on? And at the time, I wasn't that experienced of a DM so I was I was not a player 99.9% of the time. And I would always go to Jim. He was always online on the forums and everything. And I never really like check that every now and again. I would. But I mostly just like, hey, Jim, what do you think about this? And it was always me asking Jim, my dm questions. And so one day, I was driving home. And just like I just got done talking or texting Jim about coming over to talk about d&d, like we always did. And I was like, Man, it's really cool. And also to set the story up. I was in I'm in the medical field, or was for about 20 years of my life. And so I was like, Oh, yeah, it's really nice to have a Jim there. He's like my own Web MD. Wait, he's my Web DM, Oh, my God. And it just like hit me, and almost had a wreck and got home and came in the room was like Travis Webb do. And he's like, oh, and just like you could see the light go off. And so then it took some convincing at our very next Mulligan Christmas, which was just our friends get together after all the all the family bs is done. You know, you get rid of all those arguments over politics and religion. You get with your friends and have Mulligan Christmas and have a good one. And it was pretty much me and Trev cornering Jim. And like, dude, we got to do this to do and he was very, he was very reticent at the beginning. He He was like, why does anybody want to listen to me talk, you know? And it's like, No, no, we'll just be talking about our games and our experiences. We've had a lot of them Surely, like we love listening to you talk about your d&d, and we love the games. Other people would, too. It's now been over six years. And here we are.

Snyders Return: 7:26

Like I said, I took some metrics off of YouTube, just in case anyone is wondering. So you've been on YouTube for six years. 30 over 37 million views 118 nearly 190,000 subscribers to your YouTube channel. wildly successful. With that, since it's shameless plug time, I guess. Where can people find each of you and Web DM as a as a show in an entity?

Jim Davis - Web DM: 7:55

Yeah. So Web DM lives on the YouTube main channel, which is Web DM, new shows every Wednesday. You know, we've we've experimented with various formats over the years or how many videos to release, we've kind of settled on the shorter format show every Wednesday. But you can also find that show in audio form on Web DM talks on every major podcast platform with additional content. So it's it's like the show, the Wednesday show plus. And then we also have a Patreon, where we do a second weekly podcast a lot more casual. A lot of times we're just answering patron questions. And then cash. What else do we have? There's Web DM plays, which is a second YouTube channel where our actual play shows are archived. And then we have a intermittent twitch channel, which I think right now we don't have any programming on but sometimes, you know, when we have live plays, that's where it is. And my forgetting something i don't i don't think so actually. Yeah, that's, that's Yeah, that's everything. Yeah.

Snyders Return: 9:05

So you are here, they're everywhere, but have the highest standard. and links to all of that will be in the description below this podcast. So do please go and follow those links. And the other links that we will get onto in a little bit that so you guys formed this incredible channel this resource for players and dungeon Master's game masters, I think it'd be fair to say to utilise and channel into their games. So starting from, shall we say humble videos refining your process? How did that lead up to this point where we are now with this current project? Well,

Jim Davis - Web DM: 9:40

so we've been wanting to write something put something out for a while. And backstage has been a lot of different concepts sort of bandied about and what we could do, what we, you know, what our strengths were and what would be interesting to put out there and, like, to me, Dungeons and Dragons is always been about, like, player created content, you know that, that's great that we're having visual rule books and everything that's nice to have supplements, you know, pretty books on the shelf and things like that. But like, to me, the heart of it has always been like you make stuff for your game. And and it's custom for your players because you're really the only one that knows what they like and what they'll respond to. And maybe you take stuff from other things you find online, but you hack it up and you make it your own and present it and like, that's very much where this book is coming from weird wastelands. It's like it's it's sort of ready made pre hacked into bits sort of toys to play with. And we settled on this format, because we thought like, oh, what about a big adventure? And it's just like, I don't run those, I don't play them. It just sort of felt weird to carry making an adventure path type thing. And they were like, Well, what about a setting book? It's like, you know, as to how useful is that? You know, can we go is there enough there, you know that. And so eventually, we settled on this, what I've taken a calling an exploration toolkit that has an implied setting that is, you know, revealed through the random tables and stuff that's in there, monster entries, things like that. But that there's no preset way to play it. There's no preset way to approach it. It is a source book for running adventures in, you know, post apocalyptic fantasy, where magic has run amok. And, you know, it's the excess of weaponized magic that created these wastelands in the first place, either through parkerized warfare, or, you know, just too many wizards in one place, or something like that, you know, just there's just way too much of it, and it's created this desolation, but that instead of being like, a post Apocalypse, where like, the gods came down and had a war, and everything's trashed, or, you know, the zombies overran everything, like this one's very much embraces the, This place used to be full of high magic, like high fantasy, high magic, sort of, you know, almost techno magic, fantastic science or whatever, you know. And contrasting that, with like day to day struggle and survival that post apocalyptic fantasy hazards like finding clean food, and water is a challenge, a safe place to sleep is not a given. So like those two contrasts, I find play really well together, especially if you embrace the more like Gonzo aspects of it. The bizarreness, the weirdness. That could be very satisfying. And so that's where we're sort of where we're coming from with this with this book.

Snyders Return: 12:54

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned there, letting it run amok. So Where has your imagination? Where did you let your imaginations go? Where did you let them run amok? And what has been sort of this kind of two questions? What has been your favourite part of all of these? And this is clearly to both of you that you're brought into this exploration manual?

Jim Davis - Web DM: 13:18

Yeah. Are you uh, do you want to say something for I don't take up anymore talk?

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 13:24

Oh, no. Yeah, I will say that, as far as where my imagination started from and is and is, is heading out. I have been working on the new class, the cyan, for the better part of the preparation for the Kickstarter. So, you know, my mind has been in nothing but like Star Wars and Dune. Did Firefly, the serenity movie with river tamp? Like, because I'm just thinking of different ways that that psionic abilities been portrayed in media and thinking about what has come before and in d&d and not really wanting to do that again, do want to do something that's a little bit more workman like a little bit more utilitarian. It's not It's not about having an insane bevvy of things to do but you're really good at what you can do. So that is where like I've been trying to think about like what it's like to be a Cylon and these wastelands like like like what came about to to bring this about and like all these people that can now unlock this power in their mind and just the the origins of that and and the expression of it on the wasteland like how does that how does it fit into day to day life? You know, when you meet one of these people out there, obviously is a huge influence from from dark sun. I mean, I think that's that's that's kind of a lot of this is a nod to that and but also, you know, many other properties that take place, not only just role playing games, but anything like we're looking at Fallout, we're looking at you You know, like Jim already mentioned Mad Max, like, you just put all that in a blender and just let it go nuts and you know, just see what comes out the other side?

Snyders Return: 15:10

Who comes out the other side? Yeah.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 15:13

You never know. So like the weird wastelands sort of source inspiration was land between two rivers campaign that I ran intermittently for the last few years. For the longest stretch of it was on our watch on our website, place YouTube channel. So this was one of those campaign settings that like, you know, you have, you have ones where it's like you spent maybe years thinking about, I want to run this kind of game. And, you know, this is what it'll be like, but, you know, you're running other stuff. In the meantime, you don't really have a chance to get around to it. And land between two rivers was one of those where I always thought about this sort of dark sun inspired, you know, desert themed kind of game and I definitely liked sort of the post apocalyptic feel of it, because I've just always loved post apocalyptic stuff, just genre that spoke to me. And I also like to kind of get to know conceptual limits Gonzo, sort of just weird game of d&d, like there's something to be said for very classic like, all right, all elves are wizards and dwarves are gruff, and, you know, enjoy their, their frothy ale and like, but like, I also sort of like most Eisley Cantina, like there's just all kinds of people here sort of style of d&d that embraces the the kind of weirdness that's in that and limped into rivers was sort of like my first take it that with while also mixing in sort of some science fantasy elements because I like blended genres, like genres that don't have very clear lines or boundaries. And so like, like being able to play around with what is this magic that we're looking at? Is it like magic in a traditional vanilla fantasy sense with like spells and mystical forces? Or is it just like some sort of technology we just do not understand because the civilization that preceded us, you know, was that advanced and I just use it as an excuse to throw in everything like whatever weird bizarre idea I had, it would go in there if it seemed like it fit in a Saturday morning cartoon or something, it would go in there it's very much inspired by like heat like Humana match with the universe and and just that like swords and lasers and the old castles and flying vehicles and you know, it space aliens one week and classic monsters the next and like, I found a lot of inspiration in that because most of my fantasy growing up has been very, like traditional vanilla epic high fantasy you know, and that sort of Nope, throw it all in we're gonna make it work you know and you know jack up the colours on it and and just make it look weird and bizarre and very different. Like it's it provides another contrast with his three characters like dying of dehydration hallucinating and a magical desert

Snyders Return: 18:24

you know it's it's quite something and the colour scheme and and all that sort of access having read through the quicks will mentioned it so going into the Kickstarter itself, when's it running from until and what can people get if the if they not Yes, when they're going

Jim Davis - Web DM: 18:49

so it starts on June 9, which may or may not already be in the past as our listeners are toggling this Yeah, sometimes you know that that podcast time and it runs through July 11. And Friday backer levels with the usual like all digital level print book collectors cover and then a collector's box which I do not know what all it has in it but it's a lot there's like a whiskey flask and some dice and dice bag and like looking at it looks like it was buried underneath the desert sort of like unearthed from it so yeah, there's that plus there's me add ons and stuff we one of the things we wanted to do with the book is have a companion book that is like meant to be used as your campaign log for running adventures setting this so we're gonna in the weird wastelands book, there's gonna be a section on like how to build your own wasteland, how to like actually sit down with a hex grid map, and like, fill it in and populate it with interesting locations. And so like the workbook will have blank maps for you to use, so You don't have to go find it somewhere else. It'll have like a log for like, okay, where are my characters, you know, the party's about to go on a big journey. Like, here's a way to keep track of the information. And you know, it's meant to be written in tear out pages, that kind of thing is a companion to the book itself. So

Snyders Return: 20:18

we'll link to the kickstart, will be in the description below this podcast as well a link to your Patreon. I meant to mention that earlier. So you can also go out or become web demons demon, yeah, yes, join the Horde. So what's it like supporting such a vivid and cosmopolitan community that is the ttrpg community from your own Patreon? What's it like having that community at all,

Jim Davis - Web DM: 20:43

it's it's unlike. So I've been in, I've been into the hobby, pretty much my whole life, right? Like, it's the first time I got online, I was looking at RPG stuff, you know, and, and like, I, I've been never very active on any of the, you know, the message boards or anything like that, but it was present and in there. And, like, for me, the hobbies always seemed like one of those things that like you get into, because you're really passionate about, like, nobody's around too much of a living on it. Nobody's, like nobody's doing this full time necessarily. It's just a lot of very passionate, hobbyists sharing it, and then a small handful of professionals and like, we were able to essentially like, do this full time. And in large support because of our Patreon, like, it just it continues to blow me away. Like, it absolutely is unreal, that this is a career, kind of the the number one that we have been able to find an audience that people have been able to, like, connect with what we're saying, and continue to find inspiration and enjoyment out of it, but get something out of it. Like, I'm I'm like, both like astounded or humbled, astounded, excited. You know, it's, it's, it's great. And it's especially for our our patrons, because, like, the podcasts are much more casual. They're more rambley I don't know if you guys noticed, I like to talk. You know? Right? especially about news at 11. So they like, it's, you know, it's a fun outlet for that. And, and just like before quarantine but we were able to go to a lot of conventions and meet people. Like those moments were really important to me and really like special, because it's one thing to sort of see a number like, Oh, this many people follow your account, like, Okay, this is how many people are on Patreon. Oh, that's, that's nice. Okay, but like, it's different whenever you're like shaking hands with or sitting down to play with, with the same people and like listening to how something that you created, touched their lives and improved their play experience or, or did something for them is just like, I can't describe how, but just it just feels great. It's it's been unreal at the same time. I'll be quiet, but couldn't speak up.

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 23:15

Yeah, I mean, I would just, of course, reinforce everything that Jim just said our communities great. And the tabletop community in general is is is fun to interact with. I certainly do it a lot more than I used to. But yeah, the the the, the conventions are the thing that I missed the most definitely, just being able to see all the people not only that I've played games with online or that, you know, we've interacted with VR Patreon or whatever, like, Hey, we sent that question that blah, blah, blah, it's like, Oh, I remember you, you know, it, but like seeing that and like making it real, is just, it's it's just insane. And and invariably, I think most conventions, there's there always comes a point on one of the days where like me and Jim are like done with our games and we're in one of the gaming rooms and then there's like 20 or so people around us. And we're just like chatting and doing basically an informal q&a, like people like this has happened multiple times. And we're all of a sudden we're just sitting around with some of our fans and then other people come up and then they're just asking us questions and we're answering them just like because why not like you know like this is what we do.

Snyders Return: 24:27

Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 24:29

Yeah it's crazy it's really crazy but it's great you know it's same time it gets given us this opportunity to to make something and for me like to be a be more connected to this hobby that I've spent my entire life playing it's like I feel like it's been a real real good even though it's changed the really my relationship to be like I don't have as much time to game anymore. But that's not all webcams fault.

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 24:54

Yeah, that is it. Well, yeah, you have extenuating circumstances. But yeah, that that is something that does that does kind of change like you, you know, since we do have to like talk about this stuff, it does kind of change your relation to gaming just a bit. And, and I will say that playing games online kind of changed the way that I game, I used to be a lot more third person, you know, than I am now because I started playing online where people are a lot more into characters and being in quote, unquote, in character. And I find that I found a whole new love for playing because of that, because I was came up in high school in theatre and loved acting out. I mean, most people do I think that play role playing games, and but to actually express that in character, like for the majority of the time, was actually kind of freeing. And it kind of made me love the hobby a little bit more than I that I used to. So you know, always love that.

Snyders Return: 25:55

Yeah, no, it's, it's amazing. And hopefully, when everywhere is safer, and the cons are back on proper and we can get to them in person. That's certainly a I'm not sure how long that will take to come back fully. But it's certainly something to aim for. It's on the horizon somewhere. It keeps shifting the horizon, but it's on the horizon somewhere. And speaking about meeting people, new ways of playing and altering when people swarm and sort of back your Kickstarter and enter the weird wastelands? Probably this might be more in your sort of ballpark. But what is there for the players to really help them bring the world to life from their side? Yeah, well,

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 26:43

we this this is a this is a ffiv book, right? So there's going to there's there's player options, not only do we have the OSI on class, we're gonna have a subclass for each base class, we're gonna have some feats in there, we're gonna have some spells for the wasteland, but also some tools that are both for the player and the GM. Because there are certain spells and features that kind of bypass exploration almost entirely. And that's just kind of a feature of the game now. And so since we are introducing this, and I'll let Jim take over from here, we wanted to provide some some guidance on for players that want to have the Outlander background so that they can find food for them and six people every day, you know, or the druid that wants to cast good berry every day.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 27:36

So we do have guidance for that. Yeah, one of my biggest frustrations with with IB is what seems to be a lack of integration of the rules. You know, there's most most of the rules of the game are player facing in the form of class features and spells and things like that. But like it, there's others stuff like there's old dmg with a tonne of interesting, useful stuff in it. But it's siloed off in the back of the book, chapter eight. Like the attempts in some of the supplements to kind of what seemed to make a more integrated game, like think ghosts of saltmarsh where it's like, Okay, this is what it's like to travel by sea every day. And here's like, what, here's how you handle a crude mutiny or a fire aboard the ship, things like that. Like they seem themselves siloed into their little book and not really turned into a cohesive whole. So one of the things we want to do with weird wastelands is like, create a cohesive whole. And so if we're giving the dungeon master tools for how to run wilderness exploration, games, and survival games and things like that, that that have meaning and context and kind of procedure for them structure. And we also want to give players new features that interface with that, so that they can participate and interact on both like, you know, mechanical level through their class abilities, but also just the fiction of the game as they're playing. So take like the player Handbook, Rangers, natural Explorer, and then everybody has their opinion on player's handbook Ranger, but we can't really make too many assumptions other than you have what's in the book. So, you know, they spend more than an hour in terrain, and they can't get lost. And I know for me when I'm playing arranger, like, I don't want to skip past the part where my character is supposed to be really good. Right? Like I'm playing this Ranger because I want to be good in the wastelands. I want to be good in the wilderness. I want to I want to be the party member who's there to like, find a safe place to sleep to navigate a mountain pass, all that kind of stuff. And so to have a class feature that just says, Hey, you don't we're never going to worry about this. To me, it's akin to set telling a fighter like oh, you made a fighter great, you we never have to worry about combat again. We're never gonna have another combat like a bit of exaggeration between examples, but I think it's in the same ballpark. Right? And so instead of Having these guaranteed successes, these, you always do this, this never happens to offer variance in the manner of tosses that say, this never happens, or this always happens, bonus benefit, you interact with that rule a little differently. And given that in the DM side of it, we are making changes in terms of how resources are tracked by embracing abstraction by by taking things like you don't want to who wants to add up the total weight of what they're carrying? Right? Like even crazy people like me who do that? Like, I understand I'm an outlier. And that just adding up a bunch of gear isn't exactly engaging. But what if you had a slot based system? Right? What if you're rolling a resource die? Instead of tracking individual uses of something? Right now? What if there were player features for your, for your classes, that you're that you're making your characters that you're making, that also made use of these features, so that it comes into an integrated whole. And I've been inspired by a lot of different fivey supplements out there that, that have some of this, but not like all of it. And so after a few years, was like, the only way this is gonna get made is if we make it. So that's what we're going for. I don't want the people who buy the game and the characters using the options to feel like we're telling them No, they're like, Oh, no, you, you're not gonna be good in the wilderness because you want to play Druid or you took this spell and so we're just gonna tell you it's, it doesn't work or it's not, you know, it's kind of it's cool to make a magical shelter in the middle of nowhere that you can sleep in. But we're gonna have to offer tools to the DM to make that less of a guaranteed success. What if there's magic rain that can get through? What if eating too much magic food is harmful to you, actually, you know, those sorts of things? Well,

Snyders Return: 31:58

one of the things that I saw in the Quickstart that was sent out was the contagions brilliant, by the way. Love them. And in particular, and I'm trying to say this creepy, arcane paroxysm that, that has the potential to turn a game on his head, featuring many of the things you've just mentioned about not guaranteeing certain things for the players.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 32:28

Yeah, yeah, that one is, I particularly like I don't have it in front of me at the moment. But if I recall, it's a the arcane proxy ism essentially, is a parasitic spell that infects a spellcasters mind and begins to eat up their spell slots. And like every time we try to cast a spell, you either have you have to make a pass some type of role, I forget what it is save or cast check. So in order to get the cast spell, you want to instead of arcane paroxysm, which exists solely to spread itself and really doesn't do much else other than infect other spell casters. And so the idea is that if you want, you can get close to an enemy spellcaster and infected them, you might accidentally infect your party members. And that you pretty much have to spend the day not casting spells or get rid of this thing. And it's like, most of the things with the contagions we were going for like, you know, d&d is famous for Sabre die effects, or like drink this and you don't get to play your character anymore, basically. And I wanted once it's like, no one wants this, like, this is not desirable, but the game can continue, you'll still be able to play your character is just if this bad things going to happen to them for a while. And while some of them are pretty deadly, we've tried to like put an element of player choice in how deadly it is. So like, the what is elemental imbalance, infusion of balance or something where it's like, you're charged with elemental energy and have a pool of 15 D six or something, you know, ridiculous. What we came up with damage, but you get to decide how many dice to roll. When that happens, you know, after a certain amount of time, whatever you have left explodes. But if you want to go off by yourself, and just explode a bunch and save your party, that's fine. Or if you want to, like charge into the middle of a group of enemies, and blow yourself up, that's fine. If you you know, like, if you want to just trickle it out a little bit a little bit and try to write it out. Or just do it once. Yeah, that's fine. So yeah, we've tried to have all of them be interactive and interesting, and hopefully something haven't seen before. I would certainly agree with that statement.

Snyders Return: 34:44

And a lot of stuff you mentioned sort of you picked up and noticed. Should we say good design in other supplements. What about other TT? RPGs Have you sought inspiration from others? We try that You mentioned a few that you played in the past. Where else does your ttrpg life or path take you these days? Either? Both of you, of course. Yeah, pretty much starts off. Yeah, I will say that. Yeah, I

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 35:18

will definitely say that, in the last few years, Cypher has become a bigger part of my gaming. I it's like my favourite system now. So there's certainly things taken into consideration when designing various elements of the book, where like, Oh, you know, in cyber, they do this, and we can kind of do something similar. And especially with the certain design aspects of like, the cyan. But also, I would say, symbolism is another game that I've been loving lately. And I know they just did their ffiv conversion, Kickstarter went off really well. That's awesome. Anybody who hasn't, please, you should check that system out. setting out the art ism, it has some of the best, most evocative art for like a dark fantasy type setting that I've ever seen. And so, certain elements of that have that kind of like horror and corruption, you know, are always kind of in my head whenever I'm designing, because that's just the games I've been playing recently. And I like, there's just a few mechanics in there that I really like. And, and, and so you know, you try to fit in whenever you can. I mean, that's, that's just like, that's just the way design works. You just take from everywhere and make your own thing out of all these little bits, you know, and that's,

Jim Davis - Web DM: 36:38

that's how do i do deals with, I, for me, like, I find there's a lot within the d&d family of games that I that I really get a lot out of. So the few non d&d games that I that I get to play, there's not many as I'd like, but I'm a huge fan of pin dragon. Currently, about a year and a half or so into the great dragon campaign, that's a year and a half of real time think we're like 30 years in maybe it's like 513 I love it. It's a it's a it's you know, it's it's a long term game, you're gonna sit down and play with this family of characters, you know, for a while. And while I'm like, King Arthur isn't like a huge inspiration or sort of interest of mine. I like the sort of the history behind it and how dragon weaves like, actual post Roman Britain. History with like, our theory on everything from like, you know, Thomas Mallory up through Excalibur, you know, is all thrown in there in the one big, just mess. And then given this really solid gameplay to revolve around, it's just really fun. Sort of like that. Other games I've played recently that I let like, sort of influence how I how I'm thinking about games like, like the darchei, the the German RPG, from delicious meal. It has a very, like, crunchy rule set. But the way it's presented as very just easy to read, and easy to assimilate the information. And it's very modular, in the sense that like, yeah, there's a lot here, but you can pick and choose and it's easy to reference jump around the rulebook to find what you're looking for. So like, for a long time, I've really liked say rules light games, because of how easy they are to run and getting to play in a game. It's a bit more crunchy here, but not a chore to run a character in was, was enlightening. But I think for weird wastelands, the biggest inspiration for me, has been free leagues forbidden lands, which is a, you know, a hex crawl sandbox, that clearly is taking inspiration from like, classic sandbox, hex crawls, and doing something different with it. And saying, like, we're gonna build on this gameplay model. And like the fact that you get a poster map that you put stickers on to see where your characters have been and what they've done. And just like the way that they handle random encounters, and randomly generating locations, it's just, every time I open the book, I'm inspired by something in it and want to like, find a way to express it in the fifth edition terms, because it's just such a cool game. Like it just really is.

Snyders Return: 39:37

Yeah, it's freely publishing of certainly sort of putting out fantastic titles you have independently referenced. And I love the setting of subarna dibakar. And the artwork, as you see, for It's beautiful. I was lucky enough to pick up the whole raft of books off of the Humble Bundle, but that is a a side note and a personal success for me. So

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 40:04

keep an eye on those. Definitely. That's awesome. Also, I will say this if you're ever preparing assembler game or reading the book, there's a band called hi lung. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. They're Scandinavian, German. I think it's H, ei, l, u and G. Something like that. But they are it is literally the music that you would hear in the double car forest like it is. It's it will take you there. album's called leafa. Li, fa, you're welcome. All your dark fantasy gems out there. I just gave you right, you're you're writing that down from museum to reference? Yeah, that's true. Trust me,

Snyders Return: 40:45

let me know what you think. So speaking of other influences, and I'm going to ask two potentially challenging questions. First one is, from each of you. What is the possibly one mechanic about fifth edition that you would like to change, not massively, or sort of you feel bogs the game down, or slows down your enjoyment of the experience of playing.

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 41:12

I like the company and I like the shirts that they make. But that saves. I just, I just don't, I don't, I don't like I just don't like it. It's it to me. It's like d&d, it's like, you get hit for whatever you're either dropped on unconscious and then get to, you know, in a couple of rounds that you have, or you're dead straight up, you took too much damage, and you're just obliterated, and but the thing because the thing is, is there's so many ways in the game to be brought back that, just that and I've seen it so many times in different games I've played where you just have a cleric in the back with healing words, somebody drops healing word, they drop again, healing word, and it just becomes like whack a mole. And a It breaks my just breaks, just totally just breaks my concentration on the game, when that starts happening. Have a B, and this happened to me one time where you're just stuck there just making saves? And you know, especially if you pass the first one, yeah, failed the second one crap, a pass this third one. Yeah. And you go to the fifth one, which there there are some times where that's its 10th. And you're like, oh, you're gonna get up, you know. But for the most part, you're just sitting there, view it as that player, I felt like every time, I just feel like I'm being forced to slowly drown. Like, while I watch my friends continue to fight, when I would just rather know like, Oh, I'm dead or be okay, well, then I know that there's a way to bring me back. And they know that cleric in that town, so they can take me there. And I'm okay. It's just kind of like, it's just a tease that there's just, I just think mechanically, like, it was fine. Before we didn't need this. It's it's just kind of video gaming, to me, just a chance to not die over and over. And to me, that's a chance to make a new character. That's not a that's not. So.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 43:01

Gosh, like, I think of all the ones in fifth edition, that that contribute the most to kind of gameplay that I that I don't enjoy as a player or a DM, probably be the how central rests, resting is to both how the classes are balanced against each other how the pace, the pace of the game goes, like, I don't know what I've tried to put my finger on it before because it's like, it's not like d&d hasn't had, you know, you go to bed and you wake up and you're somewhat refreshed, you know. But the, the totality of it, just sort of like a good night's rest is all you need for most things to sort of go away, you get all your stuff back all the uses of your abilities. You know, unless you've like spent, like all your hit dice, you know, that long rest is really all you need. And a lot of times a short rest is, you know, just, I guess I guess less a problem with short rest or like a long rest. In this case, just how much how central it is to the gameplay loop and how central it is to like so much. And I think you can see that in that if you go to say like a week long refresh screen, where you can take long rests or like, you know, you play a game like adventures in Middle Earth or with a house rule that says like, okay, in the wilderness, you can't rest because where are you going to sleep? It's wild. Yes. Right. It's the wild. Like, how much that changes the gameplay, right, like it made for a completely different game. And so I get, I get the why, like, I understand why it's sort of player friendly that way and you don't have to worry too much about like long term consequences. But when I think about the kind of gaming that I love the most, it's ones where it's like playing for reals. Like there's your you know, your risk. Doing something in the play, you're risking getting hurt, emotionally, because you love this character. And you want them to survive, but they might not. Or like you're risking something because like, I want this, I want to achieve this thing in the game I want to, I want to, like, earn it, you know, to have to think and to strive and to like, plan and maybe out with my dm to get it. And how, after a while, if it's just sort of like, there for you on a platter and nothing really bad's gonna happen. And I'm laying a lot on long rests on long right, they have so much Oh my god, I can't wait for the tribunal to start. And like, I don't know, I see it at the centre of that kind of playstyle and, and sort of the mechanical underpinnings of it in the window. Long rest of the seat. Yeah,

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 45:58

I just want to piggyback on Jim's point, but but do a counterpoint where like, I kind of have more of a problem short rests. So really, that leads to those players that have all those features that that recoup on a short rest. Every combat they get into they go Nova immediately. And it's like we've been adventuring for five minutes. Alright, let's take a break guys. Good. We really it's like, well, no, we just got here. Yeah, we just got to fight though. It's like but, but we just got here. We've been in the dungeon for 45 seconds, literally. And now you want to take an hour wrist? Because you have all like it. I don't know, it's just it's one of the things the longer I play the the more just like looking at it just kind of like man, you know, but I don't really you know, I'm still gonna play a monk. You know, I still want that key that's so

Snyders Return: 46:51

far off. And notwithstanding the drone release, exciting Kickstarter, follow the links in the description below to back it and follow these guys on social media. wizards have also announced some releases sure how strict saving for Magic the Gathering and wild beyond the which light, which is a firewall thing. Is that were you expecting five years ago next or Where? Where would you like more fleshed out in five?

Jim Davis - Web DM: 47:21

Yeah, I was expecting another magic setting. Like I don't like Wizards of the Coast. Come on. They got both d&d and magic. How are they? Like, I'm surprised it's taken them this long to put them together. And honestly, I like it. Like, I'm a fan enough of magic that, you know, I like what the fantasy that it has. And I think you can always use fresh blood, conceptually. So I like I liked what they're doing another one I've liked ravnica Joy theros. So I'm hoping it's similar to those. say, well, books seems fun. Like, like, I wasn't expecting it, I guess. But it's like, was there? There were fake. There was a farewell book and fourth edition. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to wrack my brain about which one it was. But I would put money on it. There was here Yeah, here was the feywild was one. But I think like, that's really kind of been hit. Like, I can't recall anything in third edition. It was like official for for fairies or the feywild or whatever. So I'm curious what's coming out. But I wasn't I would have assumed a dragon Lance book this year. Honestly.

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 48:28

Yeah. But I mean, but I do like the fact that there's been a few like fe y or fe type books that are coming out. I mean, sure. Like we're we're doing some monsters for another book. Yeah. But it is more of a face setting. And then we have a friend who just came out with his, his kind of fate or fairy tale fairy tale inspired book. So when I saw that I was just like, Wow, it must be in the idea space. You know, just like

Jim Davis - Web DM: 48:54

yeah, it's Yeah, it's it's in the ideas. The same way that like desert themed science fantasy isn't the same idea space if you search around for it enough there's there's a lot of similar sort of, that's fine. I got that Dune Dune movie about to come out. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it just gives you more fodder. There's a lot of you know, people are doing a lot of feywild stuff than when was puts out there but they'll just be a lot more out there for teams to run their their games with but I don't know I'd like to you know, Second Edition was sort of the height of the the settings for d&d and like it's not lost on me at least that like, bankrupted TSR like all the settings and putting out with support material for them as part of the reason why they don't own d&d anymore and had to was the coast was able to buy it like so I understand. Why would I get a tonne of like new updates? What I don't understand is why it's like just put, like, let us make diems guild stuff for any of them. You know, like that's what I would like to see is doesn't just say like, hey, all The settings are on the table like we might get might be years before we put out a spell jammer thing or a plane scheme thing, if at all right, like plantscape hasn't been updated since second edition, you know, in terms of like itself as a setting and like, but if you could say like, but you can publish on using the DND stuff in the in the trade dress, and on our third party, you know, sort of site for any of the settings like I would love to see that be awesome.

Snyders Return: 50:28

Yeah, there's definitely a move not just within d&d, but but other game systems to move towards the community content, community libraries and things like that. It would be nice, as you say, to see d&d. Open up the DM skill. Yeah.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 50:41

Further, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, at the very least let the fans support to cut the content that they'd like to see. And with the, you know, sort of a wink and a nod from the, the parent company, because, like, I think I said earlier, like, the DIY spirit of role playing games is what's always drawn me to it the fact that like, no one can tell you no, like, that appeals to a very, like, elemental part of me. And very American. Right, exactly. Yes. Like, what are you gonna do? And so like, I really, really, you know, value that about, about the hobby, and so like, to be able to tap into that from the fan base people who would like to see official content, but maybe can't so they'll make their own. Maybe being able to do it, like in dark sun. You know, who knows? If that was possible, we might have been making a dark songbook. No. Do weird wastelands. Yeah.

Snyders Return: 51:43

It's it's a funny world with an even stranger, the worlds we create, to live in. But it's been so good having you want to get an insight from both of you. Oh, would you like to give yourselves not round of applause. But tell everybody where they can find your Kickstarter and yourselves on social media? Just as we sort of come to a close?

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 52:06

Yeah, sure. I mean, of course, check out the Kickstarter. I believe he already said you are going to provide those links there. But I'm, I'm Jonathan Pruitt, you can find me at J. Crew Inc, on Twitter and Instagram. And, you know, you'll find our videos every Wednesday on YouTube and our actual plays archived on a DM place. And Web DM talk is our weekly podcast that is free on any look forward on any podcast app you have. It's just our weekly show, plus a few Patreon questions basically, our check our Patreon out if you want to support the show itself.

Jim Davis - Web DM: 52:39

Yeah. Yeah, that's where we can all be found the Web DM I myself am on twitter at the real Jim Davis. Kind of intermittently active there. If you'd like to see the most amazing pin dragon game ever, in the history of ever, I'm on Eric vulgaris, his twitch channel on Monday nights at eight Eastern playing a brawny mountain of a night as King Arthur solidifies his claim to the throne. So yeah.

Snyders Return: 53:13

Exciting times I just before we do close, is there anything that I've not asked that you would like to bring to the fore anything that you want to not necessarily get off your chest but like a friend's book release, you can plug that if you so wish, or any other topics that you'd like to sort of touch on before we

Jim Davis - Web DM: 53:30

close? You know, I think for me, I just sort of plugged in on freelance work. But yeah, we've got some other design work out there for fifth edition for anybody who's sort of curious about that. Most of it so far has been with to see gaming in both their two of their epic level Handbook, supplements and then in their TPK B's theory to all the Web DM team contributed some nightmarish monsters to to that one so if you're looking for a bit more of a preview, where he did what we do check out their stuff for the ghost fire gaming scrim hollow. With lots of monsters in there too. Once that gets released. I think they're the Kickstarter just ended.

Snyders Return: 54:15

Pruitt, have you anything you'd like to add?

Jon Pruitt - Web DM: 54:18

No, I mean, I think Jim covered it. Well, I did mention Grant's book but I didn't mention the title cuz I'm drawing a blank. World. grim world. Yes. So check out grim world that's by Grant Ellis. He's the actions our Kickstarter video. But that's his fairy tale inspired RPG setting.

Snyders Return: 54:34

But yeah, check that out. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for introducing us to wave wastelands the first of many Web DM worlds. I look forward to learning more about them. And with respect to that, thank you both for coming up. I'd love to get you back on in the show in the future to speak about more projects and and maybe catch up with you at ICANN in the future as well if you'd be willing to come back on the show. Absolutely. Wonderful. Of course. Thanks for having All right. Well, thank you very, very much to you both. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snow's return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter at Return Snyder. We 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