Lancelot, Blind Fighter - Testing Your Limits with Stephan Kelly (Coven and Crucible)

Stephan Kelly brings Lancelot to the table. Lance is a blind martial artist in a coven of witches, doing his best to leave the world a little bit better than when he found it.

Stephan and I discuss building a character while you're building the system, testing the limits of system mastery, and an unfortunate jousting accident.

This character is built for Coven and Crucible, a game created by Stephan, his wife roach, and his daughter Charlotte.
https://13thmoongames.com

Stephan Kelly is a retired fitness professional and theatre nerd who has channeled his optimism into creating TTRPGs and redefining masculinity. He is the "mechanics guy" at 13th Moon Games, a family run gaming company, and works there with his wife, daughter, and son.

You can learn more about Stephan at:
https://www.characterswithoutstories.com/guests/stephan-kelly

Wing Women is an actual play podcast based on the exploits of the real-life Night Witches, Soviet airwomen fighting to survive during a campaign of bombing against the Nazis.
https://linktr.ee/wingwomenpod

The Advanced Age Roleplaying Gamers Podcast is an actual play podcast with a group of friends who have been playing roleplaying games off and on together for nearly 40 years.
https://www.theaarpgs.com

Cover art by The Curiographer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecuriographer

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Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories!

Transcript

Stephan Kelly: 0:00

I lived my life in my twenties, like I wouldn't see 30. And now that I'm in my fifties, my body's like, Hey, remember those checks you wrote? Yeah, insufficient funds, my friend. If you're a new DM or storyteller, don't be afraid. We'll see how something got broken. We'll talk about how to fix it with a rule so that it limits what things can do. And then I immediately create a trait that helps kind of skirt that. And so I leaned back on the horse and this piece of wood is sticking out of me. Everybody thought that I got impaled and it was great for the show.

Star: 1:07

Hello, friends. Welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Star. This episode, I'm joined by Stephan, a retired fitness professional and theater nerd who has channeled his optimism into creating TTRPGs and redefining masculinity. Stephan is the mechanics guy at 13thmoongames.com and works there with his wife, daughter, and son. Stephan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Stephan Kelly: 1:37

Thank you so much for having me Star. I appreciate it.

Star: 1:39

So I'm going to give you a chance to plug your projects at the end of the episode, but do you have anything you want to share with listeners about yourself?

Stephan Kelly: 1:46

Well, I've been playing tabletop games since I was nine, and that was back in the late 1900s, you know, 79, all that good stuff. So I've been playing for quite a while, and it's just been a tremendous journey to be able to start producing, writing and creating them. Uh, if my 13 year old self could look at me now, he'd be extremely happy.

Star: 2:09

That's awesome. So where did you get started with TTRPGs? Did you start with D&D like a lot of people or?

Stephan Kelly: 2:15

I did. It was the, uh, red and blue boxed basic and expert set. It was a birthday party in a friend's basement over the weekend. That's, I played that and was hooked immediately. Started that and then never looked back.

Star: 2:28

When did you start getting into other TTRPGs besides D&D?

Stephan Kelly: 2:33

I would say toward the end of high school, I had a couple of friends, which is amazing that I'm still chatting with them. In fact, I chatted with them this morning on Discord, that I started learning about them through them being very proactive about trying things other than D&D. And it was pretty cool. Things like Gamma World, things like Boot Hill, Champions, stuff like that.

Star: 2:52

I'm so glad you found your way and that you're making your own games now. That's amazing.

Stephan Kelly: 2:57

Thanks.

Star: 2:58

So, Stephan, who are you bringing to the table today?

Stephan Kelly: 3:01

Oh, today I am bringing Lance, also known as Lancelot. Uh, he is a martial artist from the world of Coven and Crucible, which is set in modern day Chicago.

Star: 3:14

This is your game. So if you could give me the elevator pitch, kind of what you use to sell the game to people.

Stephan Kelly: 3:22

Absolutely. The inspirations. I like to say that if you were to take the movies, the John Wick series and The Last Witch Hunter, and imagine that they got together and had a really pretty baby, this game would be it.

Star: 3:36

So why do you say pretty baby? Is it because of the art or anything like that?

Stephan Kelly: 3:41

Absolutely. It is because of the art. My daughter is the art goblin. She's done all the art for the books and it's just beautiful.

Star: 3:50

That's so cool. I love that it's a family business.

Stephan Kelly: 3:53

Thank you.

Star: 3:54

So what is the play like for the game?

Stephan Kelly: 3:57

It's really designed to be more RP based, roleplay based, and experiencing essentially modern day witchcraft, and what if witches were still a thing, and were very active, and if there was a magical world that's kind of a part of this world, where magic is just another skill, like computer programming, or welding, or something like that, or accounting, I like to say, because a lot of people can do math, But they leave the taxes to the experts, right? So that's so a lot of people could possibly do magic, but it takes practice and effort and intention. So they leave that to the experts.

Star: 4:35

That's really cool. I love it when there's a modern world and there's a magical system either set beneath it and kind of hidden or kind of set on top and just like, this is normal. Everybody is used to witches and things like that in the world. Why did you decide to make a modern game like that rather than setting it in more of a traditional fantasy?

Stephan Kelly: 4:57

That. See, I, here's where we break into the, uh, the job descriptions of this, because I'm the mechanics guy. I wrote the mechanics for the game and how to get things from the role, play through the action, make it gritty and fun, and then get'em quickly back to the role play. My wife, she's the one. Came to me and proposed this and so she did a lot of the world building and she wanted and I agreed That we wanted to set it in something that we're all familiar with we can recognize and acknowledge and like, okay This would be really really fun in this setting and we wanted to stay close to our inspirations like the movies So that was the main motivation. She came to me Thanksgiving a few years ago and said would you like to take our relationship to the next level? And I having no, no concept of whatsoever what she was asking immediately said, yes, because that's what I do. And then she said, well, I want to make a game for you. And so then we started making it originally something for me to play because I'm the forever DM. And then here we are, we decided to take it, publish it. It's been a rocky road, but we are starting on that uphill climb again of being a bit more successful than we were last month than the month before.

Star: 6:06

In Coven and Crucible, what is character building like?

Stephan Kelly: 6:09

I like to say that you want to make a specialist, that there is no such thing as min maxing because there's no possible way to be good at everything. Uh, when you make a character, you come with a concept very much like, I'm going to play a hitter, I'm going to play a hacker, I'm going to play a thief. I'm going to play a protector, a hexer, an alchemist, a forger, something like that. You come with a concept and then. The idea is to come with a concept, because it's not intended for individual play, it's intended for group play, where you're part of a team or circle of witches. And so, you come with that in mind, and then we go from there to the system of, you have attributes, you have skills, you have sub skills, and you have traits, and you define all those things. Those are the things that define your character. And then, hopefully, after maybe 20 minutes to half an hour, you have a character ready to go that you're really super excited about.

Star: 6:58

So, does the game use something like playbooks, for example, like in Apocalypse World, or is there more like classes, like D&D, or?

Stephan Kelly: 7:07

There's no classes. Everything is free form, for the most part. The biggest choices that you need to make are if you belong to a house, and if you belong to the coven. Houses are groups of witches that are of like mind and like goals, and they'll have rules and things to ascribe to, kind of like choosing a group to belong with. But then there's the coven. The coven is like a corporation. It's a group of witches that is run by a board of directors and a CEO that will help witches who belong to them, their members, help intervene on legal matters, help give them support, training, things like that. As long as you're a member of the coven, you're good. If you're an independent witch, well, the coven doesn't really step in much at all.

Star: 7:50

Are witches in this world persecuted or feared or anything like that?

Stephan Kelly: 7:56

That's a really good thing that we're exploring in the playtest now. We've been playtesting for over two years. Yes, they, there are groups that are antagonistic toward witches, like the witch hunters, the unseen, and those are threats to characters. But for the most part, the average person walking down the street would not recognize a witch unless they were a Merlin. By a sight. You wouldn't even know that a witch is sitting next to you and a lot of magic isn't obvious.

Star: 8:21

Your character is named Lancelot. I'm assuming that you took inspiration from the round table because where else are you going to get that name?

Stephan Kelly: 8:30

Right.

Star: 8:30

Why was that your inspiration for the name?

Stephan Kelly: 8:33

Well, that goes to, uh, the lore of House Merlin. House Merlins, they're not flamboyant, but they are very colorfully expressive and dressed. You will see them all wearing literal wizard robes and pointy wizard hats and big, big bushy beards. And there's a reason for that. And when you join the Merlins, you forgo your birth name and you take on a name that is synonymous with Arthurian legend. Generally, it's not so pompous as like Lancelot or Arthur or Gawain, but sometimes it is depending on who the character is and what they do. And so this character, because his father was a Merlin, it was suggested that Lancelot be it, because he is unique in the House of Merlin because of his ability to be martial.

Star: 9:20

So they're taking on the role of kind of that classic knight, would you say?

Stephan Kelly: 9:25

Exactly. His motivation and goal is to help the Merlins because he believes in them, and he believes in what they're trying to accomplish, even if he doesn't know what that is. You know, he is a martial artist, but also blind, which the circumstances around him being blind is interesting in and of itself. He's been blind since birth. The whole point of Merlins is misdirection. They present a very comedic persona so that people will underestimate them or think them incapable or inept because they're dressed ridiculously like Merlin from, you know, everyone would think. You know, big bushy beard, robe, hat. Yet they're actually quite capable at the certain things that they choose to do. And in this case, Lance a lot is. Extremely good at fighting, being martial and divination as well. He's a seer, even though he's blind.

Star: 10:16

What is the conception in the rest of the non magical world about Merlins? It sounds like if their idea is misdirection or pretending to be incompetent might be a strong word, but pretending not to be the powerful wizards that they are. How does that work? Are they a secret society? Are they presenting in a different way?

Stephan Kelly: 10:40

Not really.

Star: 10:41

So, if people know About this misdirection. How does it work?

Stephan Kelly: 10:46

It's not entirely common knowledge. They're not secret, but the fact that you don't know what they're good at, modern society sees them as these kind of bumbling, very extravagant and very almost hilarious in how they deal with things in the outside world. So modern people, normal people and non witches are like, Oh, look, it's a Merlin. Okay, whatever. Look, Ren Faire must be in town or something. Or maybe there was a play or something, who knows. So they generally will think, like, as if they saw someone walking down the street normally, downtown Chicago. But the witches, the witch world, while they know that Merlins are generally about misdirection, they don't know what they're good at, and they don't know what that means. So that way, it keeps them guessing, and that's kind of what the Merlins really hope to accomplish with that.

Star: 11:31

To what end?

Stephan Kelly: 11:32

To make people underestimate them and to keep them guessing as to what they're actually doing, what their actual goals are. Because a Merlin might go out and approach a group of a circle of witches, let's say the player characters, and ask them to do some sort of task for them and pay them in Pentacles, which is the witch currency, but it won't explain why and generally wouldn't explain why. And so the circle would, you know, go and do this task or not, depending, but they wouldn't know why or what the goal was. They would see this person as, oh, this is a source of income. It could be from anyone really, but a Merlin does it. They're like, there's some era of mystique because they don't know the goal is or who they're aligned with because of that presentation.

Star: 12:13

Lancelot is also the name of a betrayer. He betrayed King Arthur. Is there anything about that part of the name that resonated for the character?

Stephan Kelly: 12:27

Absolutely. The reason that I chose it for, obviously it was in the story, his backstory, it was suggested and he accepted. But the reason I chose that is because the Merlins are nefarious and they sometimes have, you know, And they certainly have in the playtest group, earned an enmity from some of the, the players. So I believe that Lance himself is noble of heart and he wants to do the right thing. And if and when he discovers something that is, that he does not agree with, that is dissonant with his perception of what the Merlin should be doing or his own personal goals that could cause conflict. And so that was part of that motivation.

Star: 13:08

Is Lancelot part of a coven?

Stephan Kelly: 13:11

He is part of the coven because all the major houses, there are nine of them, all the major houses are all part of the coven and they all have representation. You can choose as part of the house to not be part of the coven, but for the most part, by joining the house, you accept that you are part of the coven and he did align with that. So he is a coven member and he is a house member and so he did choose to align himself with the coven and that is another level of, if he ever finds out what the coven is up to, if it's nefarious, then he, he might be at odds and that might cause him concern with the house. And of course, drama, which is what this game is all about.

Star: 13:48

Who doesn't love drama?

Stephan Kelly: 13:50

Right?

Star: 13:51

In this world, is magic something that you have from birth, is it something awakened within you at a different point in your life? Is it something that results from accident or circumstance?

Stephan Kelly: 14:03

That's a very good question. And a lot of times it's what's asked, one of the first things that people ask about the game. No, there's not some mystical, I can or can't do it. It is, I choose to or I choose not to. It's a skill. Everyone has the potential because everyone has a magic attribute, whether or not you choose to develop that or choose to explore that option and to what degree is up to the person creating that. There are people in our playtest that aren't, aren't spellcasters or aren't witches at all. But there's no, there's no mystical origin of whether or not you can and can't do magic. It's whether or not you choose to. There are some people, some witches, who are witches that are good at, they're witches first, but good at, say, computers. But there are also, computer specialists who are somewhat good at magic. So it can be both ways, and there's a difference, and sometimes there's people who don't do it at all.

Star: 14:57

Since Lance is a martial character, you describe them as a martial artist, do they not use magic, or is magic part of their martial tradition?

Stephan Kelly: 15:07

Oh, that's an excellent question. Yes, it is part. He uses magic constantly in his martial endeavors. Being a diviner, there is potential for him to be able to sense, using divination, what's about to happen with his opponents and in the combat itself. And so he can then use that to his advantage in the next round of combat. With blind fighting, which is an actual subskill, that's what he uses on his daily basis, just to be aware of his surroundings. But you can then use magic to enhance that, so he has an awareness that is a bit more than what a normal seeing person can accomplish.

Star: 15:42

Was he motivated to learn these magical skills, the divining, the blind fighting to overcome the blindness or was it a completely separate motivation?

Stephan Kelly: 15:53

Absolutely to overcome the blindness and to be able to use his blindness to his advantage.

Star: 15:59

What got him started on that path? Did he start at a young age? Was there like an awakening moment or a moment where he made a decision?

Stephan Kelly: 16:08

Yes, there was a moment in time in his life. In his childhood, where he attended school normally, he hadn't been practicing magic, so he didn't have those skills, but he did have the natural aptitude for it, and so things would develop as normal. Because magic is about intention, there aren't spell slots and there aren't spells, so he didn't, like, learn to cast a spell. It's that he concentrated on something and it happened for him. He put his intention forth when he was in grade school. He was in 3rd grade and someone in 2nd grade was getting picked on and people left him alone only because nobody would want to pick on the blind kid, which is whatever, but there was a 2nd grader who was being picked on and he stepped in and in that moment realized that he might have overstepped his case, but he knew he had to do something because this poor kid was getting bullied. And so he stepped in, and then he wanted to help protect this kid, manifested that intention as a form of protection, in that he would step in and block any kind of pushing or shoving. And he did, and he ended up helping that kid, and then that kid became a friend of his throughout grade school. And that's how he started. And then when he approached his father about this, his father said, Okay, I think it's about time we get you into this avenue. Introduced him to a monastery that was local that helped him train him in martial arts. And then, or I say monastery, I should say dojo, uh, and then got him on that path.

Star: 17:34

His father was supportive of his desire to learn magic. Was his father also skilled in magic?

Stephan Kelly: 17:43

Oh, yes. His father was a Merlin, also. Merlins aren't allowed to marry once you enter the Merlin house, you're not allowed to marry. So Lance was born, obviously, from a relationship that wasn't formed from marriage. His mother was an independent witch and his father was a Merlin. And so his father was very supportive of that and his mother was obviously more than supportive, just very caring and compassionate. He had a great childhood. Once he started establishing a sort of protective stance on anyone that was being picked on or bullied, he didn't have that traumatic childhood other than navigating through a world that he couldn't see with his eyes.

Star: 18:22

Is it more of a technical thing about the marriage? They're still together, but not married.

Stephan Kelly: 18:28

They were never married. And it was more of a, you know, this is a thing that happens and you were expected to support this as a Merlin. Merlins are very big about personal responsibility and repercussions of actions. So he was obligated, but he was also, you know, his dad was a caring person and not a cold, heartless person. So he did, you know, take care of that. There was no marriage and they are still in communication, but they aren't together anymore because they're not allowed to be. Once news about that came out, the Merlins were like, look, you either have to leave the Merlins and marry this woman, if that's what she wants, or you need to step away from that. And, and that's, we took the other option, but they still communicate and they're still on good terms. It's not at all chaotic at all.

Star: 19:11

You mentioned that, uh, the Merlins may have nefarious purposes. How involved is his father in those nefarious purposes? Is there also that conflict within his father?

Stephan Kelly: 19:24

His father took the name Alder, like an alder tree, which is a bit also pompous, but he is, and I say nefarious, he is involved with some things that perhaps Lance would be opposed to. One of the major goals of the Merlins is to reconstruct Camelot, find it, reconstruct it, and to resurrect Merlin, essentially. So they do a lot of things in order to accomplish those that might be frowned upon in polite society. They use a lot of coffin nails, which are Materia Magica. They do a lot of ritual summoning of ghosts and things that also may not look well upon the people who do so. They divine, which divination can be absolutely a breach of privacy and trust to find information and they enlist the aids of circles so they don't get fingered for doing a crime when these others. So the circle goes and like, steals and a grimoire or notebook or something.

Star: 20:21

What is the aim of resurrecting Merlin? What do they hope to accomplish by doing that?

Stephan Kelly: 20:27

By resurrecting Merlin, they hope to help facilitate the either discovery or the reconstruction of Camelot. Camelot is this beautiful, safe place that is like the ideal place. And so they really, really want to bring that back because not only is it a goal that they want to take a part of, but also then it kind of establishes their hierarchy in the witch world. Look, Merlin. We're House Merlin. This is Merlin. He existed, and now we have created this space. This is something that you have to acknowledge and respect.

Star: 20:59

Why did you make the decision to play a blind character?

Stephan Kelly: 21:03

I like to push the stereotype. Like, when I say stereotypes, I mean like, uh, a common stereotype. Like, you choose a fighter, uh, or a tanker, or something like that. And so I will push that envelope to the furthest I can possibly get while still maintaining that idea. For example, one of the other characters I play is a tank, a big, heavy hitter. But he is around in a, like a pink,'I am Kenough' t shirt, tie dye. He is extremely supportive and he, you know, he does all the things that tough guys don't do. Like, he'll cry. He'll talk about, Oh, uh, did I say something wrong? He's very conscious about stepping on toes and about a lot of my personal goals and redefining masculinity of he shows emotions. He makes certain that other emotions and other people are taken into account. Other people that are not like himself, right? So it's very much along the lines of how Lance is blind, but he is also not what a normal blind person would be like. From my limited experience, I do have, you know, I have some friends that I, I draw on, but. I think the reason I do that is because I want to draw attention to it, and I want to draw attention to how things can be perceived for individuals who are not like ourselves. People who may not be as mobile, or people who are struggling with transition, people who are not able to see, able to hear, you know, things like that. I think just to bring that to light, because yes. We can overcome that with magic in this world, but are we aware that is an issue in the first place? So that's why I do that.

Star: 22:36

You said that one of your goals personally is to redefine masculinity. Does Lance do that in any way?

Stephan Kelly: 22:44

Absolutely. He does that through Allowing to accept that he feels a certain way and that other people maybe feel a certain way and he helps promote the expression of emotion rather than the tamping down of emotion or closing themselves off to experiencing it. Very much about the flow of things. Lance is also very much about respect. And respecting those that are not like him, or don't look like him, don't sound like him, don't talk like him. So he does a lot of that through standing up for them. If he encounters something, he will stand up and intervene. Not that he feels like they can't do it themselves, but by doing so, it shows other people who may see this that, hey, he, he did this thing and that's cool. So maybe I can do it too. Or at very least, I know that he is, that somebody is standing up for me. Maybe that's, that I feel like I am protected. Something like that.

Star: 23:40

Lance will not be able to marry and continue to be a Merlin. Is sexuality something that he has cut himself off from because of that? Is he aromantic or asexual, or is that just something that he's struggling with?

Stephan Kelly: 23:59

I like to define him very much like, because he's had some romantic trysts. He's had some experiences with that in the past. I define him as pandemisexual. He's had some romantic relationships with some women, some men, and, or female presenting, male presenting, however the other people choose to be. But what he ultimately strives for is that connection, and he knows that he can't ever marry. But he also knows that how he came about was because his dad cared for this woman. So he does have a, a bit of a longing for that, which is why a lot of the romantic trysts that he's had have only lasted a week or two, maybe three weeks, because that, he just didn't feel that connection. And he has to really feel that connection in order to, you know, invest himself further in that. So most of the things he's had have been very short lived. But it, it very much is an aspect of the game and of the world.

Star: 24:51

Tell me more about that, how it's an aspect of the game.

Stephan Kelly: 24:54

That stemmed a lot from, and we sometimes joke about this, we stemmed a lot from the play test where we have two games that run weekly. One is over voice and one is through text. The Wednesday night over voice game is generally referred to as crime night because that's the focus of the group. And then the Friday night is generally referred to as Thirsty Witch Night, because it is all, all of this thing. And it's, it's wonderful because there was this recent thing that happened at the playtest where a character was playing as a trans woman, as a character, and she was been struggling through the transition and trying to find a way to, as a character, through magic and through learning some of the supernatural traits, eventually assisted her with being able to learn the supernatural trait of shape change. And through that, then this character was able to, and the other character put it as, achieving their true form, ascending to their true form. And so there was like this beautiful, very heart wrenching moment of the two of them when she finally comes out and is who she is meant to be. And it was just beautiful and touching. And then one of the other characters on Friday night threw a party for her, and it was, absolutely, just like all the celebration and the joy and the expression of, of that sexuality. It's an aspect of the game that is, should be not overlooked, I think. But it also, we designed the game to be whatever it is you want. So if you just want gun kata, that's totally thing that you can do. If you want a game about those two witches, you can do that too.

Star: 26:24

Wonderful. It's nice to have all of those things available to you, even if they're not necessarily mechanically built into the system. I mean, I think of games like Thirsty Sword Lesbians where there are mechanical rules that go along with your relationships with each other. Is there anything like that in Coven and Crucible?

Stephan Kelly: 26:42

Not especially. There, there are a few things that you can, like, one of the traits you can take is called companion, and that can be anyone from, you know, a person that you associate with, a personal assistant that you hire, and it can be a witch or a non witch, but someone that you are romantically involved with, or not. As far as mechanics? No, not especially. We didn't wanna define things too much. We wanted to leave it up and open-ended for people to run the games they wanted to run.

The AARPGS: 27:36

Are you looking for an actual play podcast with young hot role players? Disciplined professional voice actors, and wholesome content? Well, this isn't that podcast! AARPG is an adults only podcast with interviews, actual play stories, where Uh, excuse me, Matt, why do you sound like you've been chain smoking since you were a toddler? What do you mean? Uh, the voice. You don't have to do that voice, man. I don't, nah, just tell them that we're a group of old friends who like to get together, hang out, play lots of different types of games, and we want them to feel like they're sitting at the table with us and they can find us just by searching for the A-A-R-P-G podcast on their favorite podcast catcher and at the A-A-R-P-Gs on YouTube.

Star: 28:38

As a game designer, creating a character in your own system, what is that experience like?

Stephan Kelly: 28:46

Oh, at first, at first it was fun, just super fun to explore the different ways I could try to break the system because that was my goal at the beginning. But the more we created this and the more we worked on it and the more I play tested things, it just became really just a wonderful experience and I get excited about making new characters for this game because I want to see what else I can do with certain things and it also came to the point where people would ask me to help them with their character to make them broken, they say, but like it's not, they're not broken, they're just very, very good at what they do and it became like not a surprise when broached with a task that the character I helped design was good at, they were exceptionally good at it.

Star: 29:25

Right. Obviously, designing the system, you have system mastery is a little different from, for example, if you were to start out playing D&D, trying to build a character, and you don't yet have the mastery to create a character that can break the game. I have somebody in my game, my D&D game, who is a bardlock, and constantly frustrating to me because of that system mastery. So it must be an interesting experience to have so much system mastery and then to go in and create characters that you are, because you're playtesting, are intentionally trying to test those boundaries.

Stephan Kelly: 30:07

Oh, absolutely. And I, I completely understand the frustration and it's rough because it can lead to, you know, not really good feelings or being unfulfilled with a game because a new DM is oftentimes daunted by a player who has that mastery, you know, and it's a challenge. Also the same as, you know, a new player coming in, not experiencing the system at all, here's these stories of what these, these characters can do and they want to do the same things or similar things. They want to be. They want to have stories about them. And so it's a challenge. I get that. And I, I sympathize with all those. And if you're a new DM or storyteller, don't be afraid. Make mistakes. You can do it. It's going to be awesome. Tell your story. Tell your character stories. It's great. But as me coming in, and my wife will oftentimes lament because we'll, we'll see how something got broken. We'll talk about how to fix it with a rule so that it limits what things can do. And then I immediately create a trait that helps kind of skirt that. So she's like, yeah, if you see a rule that we were saying we couldn't do something, and then you see a trait that helps you accomplish that thing we said you couldn't do, that was Stephan.

Star: 31:17

So tell me about Lance's abilities, maybe go into a little bit about what the different abilities, skills, things like that, that are available in the game.

Stephan Kelly: 31:27

There are, uh, and it's daunting when somebody looks at the character sheet. At first it starts easy because there's only four attributes, and then it gets a little bit more daunting when there's nine skills, but then there's seven sub skills under each of the nine skills. That means 63 sub skills. That makes the sheet look very, very scary, and it's not, because you're not going to ever put points in all of those skills, you're going to specialize. So, for Lance himself, he is extremely good at fighting. He knows, and he's extremely good at disarming removing the threat. He doesn't want to hurt people so much as he wants to keep other people safe by neutralizing the threat, not destroying a threat to that. And he's a bit, I don't want to say pacifistic, but he's not super all about aggressive violence. He's about neutralizing that. As quickly as possible to that end, like some of the, the magical aspects of things, there are seven magical subskills that people can choose from, but that's not what all magic can do. Like magic isn't confined to those subskills, you can combine magic with any of the 63 subskills to come up with different cool effects. So for him, he has combined blind fighting with divination. And with magic so that even though he's can't see physically, he can sense where people are and where threats are and help neutralize them or where they're going to be with divination. That really, really is a cool combo in my head of being able to know where your opponent's going to be in the next six seconds. So you can actually be there to help protect whatever it is they're going after. There are also traits which help define your character. And so he is obviously had some specialized training in both magical and martial skills. He has obviously taken some mastery in those sub skills as well, which are traits that again define his training, but also there's a trait called magical tradition and he has taken what's called the animistic magical tradition, which is, it helps blind fighting and there are other sub skills that, well, you can apply to it that help, I don't want to say buff, but helps increase the capabilities of those sub skills. Uh, so he is very much all about martial arts, but he doesn't look like a martial artist. He's walking around downtown Chicago in a wizard robe and pointy hat and a fake beard. Cause he can't, he hasn't grown one yet and it's not great. He did. So he has a fake beard. So he understands how comical it may appear. But again, he's much more about that. Everything is not what it appears. Don't always trust your eyes.

Star: 33:51

So he can't even see how ridiculous he looks.

Stephan Kelly: 33:54

Correct. Uh, his beard is askew and that's okay. His hat's a little bit off. But he has a familiar. He has, uh, Archimedes, the golden retriever, who was always with him. And Archimedes is incredibly intelligent, actually much smarter than Lance himself, and will not hesitate to point things out like that.

Star: 34:13

Lance seems very altruistic. Would you say that they're kind of a goody two shoes, or just trying to be a big old hero?

Stephan Kelly: 34:23

He is trying to be the best he can be with what he has and who he is. He looks for the best in people, he is absolutely complimentary, but in a way that is couched in allegory. So he's like trying to help people and give them, you know, little snippets of wisdom while at the same time complimenting them. He's not shy at all about paying people's compliments and celebrating and congratulating things that should be celebrated and congratulated. Because he wants the people to feel that joy. A lot of the characters I have and a lot of my play style is campground rules, which is you always leave a place better than when you found it. And that's what he likes to exemplify. And when he interacts with people, he likes to leave them better when he found them. Now, how that's defined by him and by other people is a completely different thing. It doesn't have to be the same. He is, I don't want to say he's a paladin, but he's very much trying to live up to his name as a knight. Generally, it's the treat others as they should be treated and not necessarily how they treat you because how they treat you in a given day can differ depending on what they're going through. Everyone is going through their own thing, but people should be treated with respect and courtesy and they should be protected so that they can embrace their joy. If they can't see that joy, that is, well, that's their own journey and that's where they're going through, but give them that opportunity. He doesn't have a, I vow to eradicate all evil or anything like that. It's more of a personal oath of, I want to help people be better.

Star: 35:47

Not necessarily self actualizing, but helping others self actualize?

Stephan Kelly: 35:52

Yes, exactly.

Star: 35:53

What are Lance's flaws?

Stephan Kelly: 35:56

He can insert himself in situations where he may not be welcome. In the effort to do good, he may make things much, much worse, because as much as he would like to help change people for the better, a few moments in time, in a day, is not going to change a lifelong pattern. And interjecting himself in a situation that might be volatile, or could have turned violent, or was violent in the past and could turn violent again, may not be as helpful as he thinks. So, being nosy, I guess. Interjecting when he shouldn't interject and not having that sensor yet. He's still, he's only 22. He's still young. He doesn't have that breadth of experience where he knows whether or not to get involved. Right now it's, I'm getting involved. And then in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved in that. Maybe I should have waited and, and maybe I should have asked permission. Things like that. So he is very much in the exploratory journey. I need to experience these things and I need to develop these things or I need to try to help, but he doesn't quite have that experience of when to do so yet.

Star: 36:53

You said he's nosy and you talked earlier about divination being a magic skill that some people frown upon because there's a little bit of boundary crossing there. Is that something that Lance has done before?

Stephan Kelly: 37:06

Inadvertently, he has done something like that before in the backstory, not because I've never, I've not actually got a chance to play him yet, but in the backstory, he has done that. And he's learned his lesson there. He uses it mainly for helping where his eyes fail, mainly in combat and mainly to discover the potential of things. In our game, divining the past is relatively easy depending on who you're divining. If you're divining a person, then you have to overcome their magic resistance. If you're divining the future, it's incredibly difficult, and there's a larger challenge there, because the future is based on events as they happen now. One small thing can change that, and so trying to divine the future is much more of a challenge. And so he does so sparingly, he doesn't advertise himself as an oracle or a seer, but he does use it in combat rather regularly.

Star: 37:55

What is backstory building like for Coven and Crucible?

Stephan Kelly: 37:59

It's completely up to what the player wants to do as much or as little as you like. There are no set mechanics like how D&D has backgrounds. There aren't things like that, but based on what house you choose and what path you choose for your character, Very much states where your character, what your character has done up until that point. So background, we have players that come up with a paragraph, we have players that come up with several pages, and then it's all about if the ST wants to incorporate or if the player wants the ST to incorporate that into story or into plot, that's in a discussion between the player and the storyteller. And we've seen where that's happened, although maybe not to the player's happiness, but, you know, backstories can often be tragic. But it absolutely can be incorporated. It just depends on the player, I think, and what, how much you want to be invested in and how much you want your character to be invested or, or not.

Star: 38:51

Where do you fall on the spectrum of backstory? Are you a complex and and deep backstory person, or a very light backstory person?

Stephan Kelly: 39:01

I like to have backstories that are really exploratory in things that affect people today. Like a big one from one of my main characters is PTSD exploring where it's deep, where it's into, I have these issues and I write about these issues, and then whether or not they come into play is another, another thing or not. And I'm okay with either or. I generally, unless if there's something that I'm not comfortable with, which is, there's very little, then I say, this is what I'm not comfortable with. But for the most part, contributing that to the backstory and then contributing it to the ST, I'd say I'm more of a depth backstory person. I like to have characters that have a good concept of where they were, but I also like to see where they're going to go and where they're going to go could be completely different than where I'd imagine them when I wrote the backstory, which is awesome. I love it.

Star: 39:49

What got you started making this character? What was the kernel that you built the character from? Was it just choosing an option because you're playtesting or was it something more inspirational?

Stephan Kelly: 40:02

I think it was a bit of both. One of the things that I wanted to see was, because it's not been used very much at all in the playtest, is divination during combat. It's been used, I think, maybe like once or twice. And so I wanted to really explore that, but also, I'm going to explore it in a way that's necessity than just, I'm going to use it during combat. So how could I do that? Blind martial artist. And then I took a lot of inspiration for Lance from the character from Rogue One, the Chirrut Îmwe. I'm the force, the force is with me. That kind of thing. That relentless belief, that relentless confidence in the belief really struck me. And that's something that I wanted to portray in Lance. And that's where that inspiration came from. That's the kernel that started it all.

Star: 40:43

Is that something that you do fairly frequently, taking inspiration from existing characters, or is this novel for this character?

Stephan Kelly: 40:51

Uh, no, I do that pretty frequently. A lot of times I'll see something that inspires me and I'll base something around it. The first character for the playtest was a marine who was not a witch to start with. He was a nanny for a witch family. So it's this big hulking dude who wearing an apron flipping pancakes for a nine and a seven year old. It was awesome. And then being the jungle gym for them, of course, then to see him transition into being a witch. And now I can see him where there's a huge similarity between him and the Alan Richardson's Reacher. I do that a lot. I take inspirations from movies or from books, things that really strike a chord that I want to see explored in a different way.

Star: 41:29

You are a former fitness, would you say a trainer?

Stephan Kelly: 41:34

Yes, I was a, a personal trainer and a fitness instructor for several years before, before my body said no. Some of my favorite things I did were like, uh, aqua aerobics. I would teach silver sneakers and just all of this just really awesome stuff with a lot of really cool people. And I enjoyed it and I loved it, but then my body just like, no, you need to stop this now because otherwise if you don't stop it, we're going to stop it for you.

Star: 41:59

On a side note, I used to do aqua aerobics when I was pregnant because the weightlessness of a pool feels really good when you're pregnant, but it was so much fun. All of the like older women and they play like Motown music and it was just such a fantastic positive group of women. I just loved it.

Stephan Kelly: 42:18

Yeah, it's, it's amazing. In general, the group that I had was older groups. I should say I taught several of them as a contractor for the park districts around the area. Yeah. And it was great when I would sub, because I had to start somewhere, so I would sub for people, and half the people would be there, they'd show up, and at first they were skeptical, but by the end of it, they were like, can you come back? And I'm like, well, I'm going to teach this other class. And so then things grew from there. But the energy that they have, it was just absolutely amazing. And the stuff that I did was mainly, like, I would only get in at the end of the session, and my sessions were an hour. And so I would be up on the deck doing these aerobic moves and they would be in the water doing the aerobic moves and you could see them getting, they'd get angry at me sometimes. They'd be like, I can't move my feet that fast. I'm like, well, keep going. That's a you problem. They knew I was joking, you know, and it was work, but they, they had a great time and I loved it. Just, it was so much fun. But then doing all that stuff on the deck, I lived my life in my twenties, like I wouldn't see 30. And now that I'm in my fifties, my body's like, hey, remember those checks you wrote? Yeah, insufficient funds, my friend. I fell rock climbing. I have two busted hips. I have a smashed tailbone and they never healed right. So now I have pretty severe osteoarthritis in my hips, right at the beginning of our Kickstarter for the Coven and Crucible core book, I had a heart attack, a really severe heart attack. So I got my first helicopter ride. That was fun. It was a lot of fun. So it's, it's been a journey, but here I am, healthy, just not doing the things I used to do, but now channeling it in other ways.

Star: 43:40

Well, I'm so glad that you recovered. That sounds pretty scary.

Stephan Kelly: 43:45

It was, and I didn't, I didn't feel afraid at the time, only because, The blockage I had was 99 percent blockage in one, and 87 percent in my second, and 83 percent in my third, and it was pretty severe. They said if you had waited an hour, you wouldn't be here, and I'm like, well, okay. It didn't strike me, and it didn't really hit me until when my family came and visited, and I saw the looks on their faces, and I was like, oh gosh, oh. And it was, it was a pretty emotional time. But it wasn't like I had this sudden need to live life, and it made me put things in perspective, like, I am living the life that I'm supposed to, and I'm living how I feel like I should be. So it wasn't this shock and sudden transition. It was a wake up call that if you want to continue living your life this way, you need to make some diet changes. But it wasn't my diet. They still don't have a clue as to what it was that caused it, because my cholesterol is really low and I'm really healthy. It's just all of a sudden inflammation and bam. So they think that it's genetic, but I'm adopted. So I have no idea who had it in my family.

Star: 44:43

Do you bring sort of this physicality or this relationship to your body into your characters at all? It sounds like you were creating a martial character. And I'm wondering if you often create martial characters where their body is more important to their skill. Is that something that you do a lot?

Stephan Kelly: 45:00

It is. My favorite classes to play are barbarians. I play big, strong characters because I enjoy it. I enjoy the combat systems of most games, and I identify with those characters physically. I have one character who is the direct opposite of that, and he has become a quick favorite of mine as well. Because of that challenge to RP and because of that lack of physicality, which is awesome, but in the same vein, the majority of the stuff that I do, they are martial characters, they are physical characters, and I bring a lot of that into, because of my past and because I connect with it and I'm, I can easily portray it. And a lot of the scenes that I write as far as, because one of the things that we do, we help promote on the, both the playtest server and our official discord server is what's called inside the character. It's a channel devoted for the players to write about their characters and write fiction about their characters, you know, how they're dealing with things. And it's been a wonderful tool for players and inspiration for other players. And so when I do write things, I write physicalities, like I write fight scenes and I think I write pretty good fight scenes. So, because the other part of my history is that I was a theater nerd and I went to school for theater and my, my focus was stage combat. And in my past, I was a after combatant for a lot of Ren Faires. I was a jouster for some time. Uh, and so I got to do all of that stuff for real. And I was like, again, my 13 year old self was giddy.

Star: 46:20

It's funny that you were doing the jousting and you built a character called Lancelot. It's very, feels very full circle to me, at least on the outside.

Stephan Kelly: 46:29

Yes, yes, it absolutely was like I can do this and I can make it connect to a whole lot of who I am and what I was and what I am going to be not that I'm going to be a jouster anytime soon. That's not going to happen ever again. I think because I've been hit by a lance. Nothing makes you feel more invulnerable than putting on a hundred pounds of metal, right? You walk around like you are ten feet tall. Nothing can stop you. Then you get on a horse, and you start charging, and then you get hit with a piece of wood, and you realize how not invulnerable you are.

Star: 46:56

I can imagine that hits like a brick at the speed that you're going on the horse.

Stephan Kelly: 47:01

All the mass and that, all that force can just narrow down to one space that is very, very small. If you don't know what you're doing, that's absolutely dangerous, but that's why you get training and you go and do these things. But yeah, it is jarring, absolutely jarring. We had one show where the lance reflected up off of the belly of my armor and hit my pauldron and the tip got wedged where it was riveted to, to the shoulder. And so it ended up bending and breaking. Right next to my head. And it was a little scary, but the piece got wedged there and it stuck. And so I leaned back on the horse and this piece of wood is sticking out of me. Everybody thought that I got impaled and it was great for the show, but you know, it was awesome. Cause then I got off and I brush it off and they're like, Oh, it was awesome. We got to start sword fighting, which is what we're supposed to do. Cause it's all scripted. It was. Absolutely awesome. The tears and everything. And then afterwards I went and had my shoulder reset cause it was dislocated. It was that fun. That was painful. Yeah. Yeah.

Star: 47:56

Yeah. That sounds terrible. It's a testament to your theater experience, I guess, that you were able to keep that show going on.

Stephan Kelly: 48:06

A lot of times when things happen on stage that you don't expect, it's a challenge because there's different thoughts of acting and if you're really, really invested in this character and you're in that moment, you know, something happens and you maybe don't even realize it until after it's happened. Like when that happened to me, I didn't think of, oh, the show must go on. I thought I'm going to get off this horse, I'm going to brush this off and then I'm going to continue this scene. And then when I'm done, I'm going to go off stage and I'm going to take off this armor. And I mean, that's the thought process because it didn't hurt so much at the time. Again, I've abused my body when I was in my 20s and up to 30s. And it's, you know, I would not recommend the path that I walked. I try to help my children and the people I talk to, to avoid that path. I can't make them not, but I can guide them and I can say, look, you can't walk like you think you could when you're older by doing this thing you're doing now. But then I think that wouldn't have changed my mind in the moment. Why would I change their mind now? So. I get it.

Star: 49:00

Shut up, old man.

Stephan Kelly: 49:02

Right.

Star: 49:02

What do you know?.

Stephan Kelly: 49:02

Exactly. Get off my lawn.

Star: 49:05

Did you also do acting training when you were in theater school?

Stephan Kelly: 49:09

I went to Kent State University, got a bachelor's degree and started pursuing my graduate degree in theater.

Star: 49:14

How does that come into play with your role play?

Stephan Kelly: 49:17

Comedic timing. You find stuff that really connects with the other players. And then, I'm all about helping people. I'm not big on the spotlight, a lot of the characters and a lot of times players will defer, I've discovered, to the character I'm portraying because I wrote the game, but I want to help bring other players into the spotlight. So a lot of the things that I do are supportive in that nature. To a point, my character is still their character and they're still going to react how they react. But if I can do something that helps bring them into the light, then absolutely. Because it's, improv is about yes and, and a lot of the stuff I did in, at the Ren Faires was all improv interactive theater. And it was just so much fun to see someone who wanted to engage with you as a patron and not. So you go and you engage with them, and then you have this really great thing that everybody else sees, and before you know it, they're playing along and they're having a great time. And then at the end of the day, they're going to go home and tell their family, I had the greatest time at Ren Faire, this person did this thing, and it was great. So if I could help do that with other players, some of these players from the playtest server I played with for years at LARP and like the, my old days at the MES and things, that we just, we were We've always had this really great comedic chemistry, and so we play off each other and so I'll often set things up and they will spike them and everybody has a hilarious time and it's wonderful. That's how I try to use my theater training is that and really bad accents.

Star: 50:38

It's so important as a player, especially when you have a little bit more experience role playing and maybe there's a new player at the table. To find ways to draw those players out and to initiate things that will help them reveal their character or just have some input in the scene. How do you do that?

Stephan Kelly: 50:58

Questions? Really? That's what I do is like my character will thinking of one in particular, a character will go and introduce them if they haven't been introduced introduce himself because there's a big group of people in the new person is sitting there. Everybody wants to know about them. So starting to ask questions, finding out what they're into, and generally, if what they're into, at least one other person that in the circle would be sort of into that. So you just connect them that way, but asking questions, showing support, and then including them on things, even if it's something that they may or may not be good at. Include them anyway, because there are so many versatile options in this system. You don't know what somebody can actually do and the work they could think of. They could do until they presented with a situation where it might be prudent coming in clutch with the magical plus lock picking to overcome this lock that none of us could get around because none of us are skilled thieves. And he's not a skilled thief, but he's skilled in magic. And he has a little bit of smatterings from lock picking. So he does that and it works. And then, and then that player who may not have been included feels like, Hey, I did something and I did something well, and I feel like I'm of value. Which is, I find a lot of players really want to contribute or really want to be a part of it because they want their characters to be something worthwhile with the party or the group or the circle in the case of Coven and Crucible. So that's what I try to do without, of course, making it super, super obvious, because you want it to flow naturally. You don't want to say, Oh, come on, let's do this thing. And then they're like, what am I doing here?

Star: 52:19

I actually set up something in my game where we occasionally, especially at times where we're kind of at a break in the story or it's a transition from one part of the story to another. where I have the characters actually, in advance, come up with a question and then we draw a card essentially and they ask that question to the table. There's nothing organic about it, but we try to make it organic in the actual roleplay. So I think, especially with players who are maybe struggling to get drawn out of that shell, and there's not a lot of people at the table who are skilled in doing that with other players. It's nice to even build it in very intentionally and say, we're going to do this thing. And I think for, at least for my table, it's been great to make that a thing that we do intentionally.

Stephan Kelly: 53:09

That is awesome. That is absolutely amazing. I guess it does make it very clear. I'm blessed with the amount of people that are very open at the table, the playtest table, which is part of why we chose them. But also I'm very lucky in that, that people are inclusive and maybe I take for granted sometimes that I can do these things that maybe some other tables don't have access to that. I think that's a great resolution on how to do that and how to get people out of, out of those shells and out of those, what they normally would do.

Star: 53:35

Lance, how well do you deal with pain?

Stephan Kelly: 53:39

Pain. It is a wonderful, wonderful teacher. Tells me not to do the things that I was doing currently. That said, pain is the teacher, but recovery is the lesson.

Star: 53:51

That's very poetic. I love that.

Stephan Kelly: 53:54

Thank you.

Star: 53:55

Stephan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing Lance with me and with my listeners.

Stephan Kelly: 54:02

Thank you so much for having me and letting me talk about Lance and talk about the game that I'm incredibly passionate about and overexcited about.

Star: 54:09

Speaking of your game, is there anything you want to share with my listeners?

Stephan Kelly: 54:14

Absolutely. I would love to have more people learn about Coven and Crucible, about the inclusivity of playing a game that is teamwork based, that absolutely is open ended, so you can, whatever you can imagine your character doing, you can do, or you can attempt to do it within the mechanics that has been designed for very, very open ended possibilities. So yes, I would love for more people to learn about it and to experience it.

Star: 54:41

For my recommendation this episode, I'd like to introduce you to a podcast called Wing Women. Wing Women is an actual play podcast based on the exploits of the real life Night Witches, Soviet airwomen fighting to survive during a campaign of bombing against the Nazis. I love the characters on this show, and it really captures the feeling of being thrown into an incredibly deadly situation without a safety net. Give it a listen. I also feature the Advanced Age Roleplaying Gamers podcast. The AARPGs is an actual play podcast with a group of friends who have been playing roleplaying games off and on together for nearly 40 years, they're currently running a Dragonbane campaign. I started a newsletter. If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast, follow my other projects, like my current all woman actual play and be notified when a new episode drops, you can find the signup form in the show notes or on my website. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners. Your recommendations help me immensely. Thank you to all my listeners spreading the word. I'm so grateful. You can find me on TikTok at StarMamaC or on Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, and Facebook. Ask Characters Without Stories. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories, or follow the link in the description. My submissions are currently full. I'll announce on the podcast when I'll be accepting more submissions, so keep your ears open. Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories.