Mogmoden, Sheltered Academic - Being Curious with Rene Legault (Fabula Ultima)

Rene Legault brings Mogmoden to the table. Mog is a teenage academic in the pursuit of practical knowledge and answers to intellectual mysteries in his first time venturing out into the world.

Rene and I discuss creating characters who are curious about the world, imaginary bestiaries, and the drama of JRPGs.

Mogmoden is built for Fabula Ultima by Emanuele Galletto.

Rene Legault is one of the founding members of the DMs After Dark streaming group focused on highlighting small publisher and indie RPGs, and now the host of the Rene Plays Games Podcast featuring solo and group actual plays, interviews, and discussions about running better games, Rene is a dad and husband first, nerd second, wetland biologist by day, and internet person last. Okay, maybe nerd first.

You can learn more about Rene at:
https://www.characterswithoutstories.com/guests/rene-legault

Mentioned in the episode: Cezar Capacle's Random Realities and Ryuutama.

Of Monsters and Mixed Successes is a character focused actual play Monster of the Week podcast full of Eldritch monstrosities and a surprising amount of shenanigans.

Dungeons and Degrees is a conversation with friends talking about the games we love and the life we live around it.

Cover art by The Curiographer
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Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories!

Transcript

Rene: 0:00

Every JRPG ends with like, and then we kill the god. My approach most of the time is to create a character who has a big question about something specifically in the world we're playing in. You have your outdoorsy person like pointing looking at a map and like your fighter is like fighting something in the corner and Mog is like getting pulled into the river from a fishing rod. If we're talking any monster or creature, well then now we have to start talking about The different classes of creatures and their particular niches in their environments. Oh boy.

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 Rene Legault, one of the founding members of the DMs After Dark streaming group focused on highlighting small publisher and indie RPGs. And now the host of the Rene Plays Games podcast, featuring solo and group actual plays, interviews, and discussions about running better games. Rene is a dad and husband first, nerd second, wetland biologist by day, and internet person last. Okay. Maybe nerd first. Rene, what about your wife and your kid? You're saying that your nerddom is more important than that?

Rene: 1:48

You know, probably not. That was just maybe, you know, it's not more important than that by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd be hard pressed to, my wife would even say like, he's a huge nerd. Be accurate.

Star: 2:03

Well, I guess that came first. Probably you were a nerd before you got married.

Rene: 2:08

Actually, no, you've caught me, you're, you're probably right here. This is surprising, maybe, but uh, before I met my now wife, I was in like emo metal bands and like tryharding with music and then we started dating and that's when she introduced me to a friend of a friend who introduced me to D&D. And the nerd came from there. So I have to thank her for the nerd part. She's just probably overwhelmed with how far I've taken it.

Star: 2:36

Does she play?

Rene: 2:37

Yeah, she does. Um, she's actually been on a couple episodes of my podcast. I've roped her into some, uh, silly, well, a silly one shot. I roped her into playing Call of Cthulhu for the first time, and she had no idea what to expect. Like I didn't give her any info. So it's actually very funny to listen to her play Call of Cthulhu and slowly realize like, oh, this isn't, oh, okay. Yes, she is, uh, also, she's a nerd. Not quite, uh, as committed to it as I am, I think.

Star: 3:02

How about your kid? How old are they?

Rene: 3:04

He's three.

Star: 3:05

Okay, so a little too young to get into D&D yet.

Rene: 3:09

Yep, but he does love rolling the dice. He loves rolling the dice. My wife is the dice goblin, so we have a big ol thing, and he'll love to grab them and uh, just roll them. And then he just, he celebrates no matter what he rolls, he'll look down and he'll just call out the number and be like, yeah! And it's like, that's the excitement we need right there.

Star: 3:26

Great energy to bring to the table.

Rene: 3:28

Absolutely. Can't wait to get him playing some games.

Star: 3:31

You started with D&D, when did you start getting into other games?

Rene: 3:35

It probably wasn't that long, so I started playing D&D after undergrad college, and played 3.5 for a while, played 5e when it came out, but when I went back to grad school, they had a games club, and I think it was right around the time Critical Role was starting up, but I actually, being the hipster that I have to be in my life, I found Will Wheaton's Titan's Grave actual play, Which was a lot different. I don't know if anybody remembers this. Wil Wheaton hosted an actual play and it was like not at a table. I mean, like they were sitting around a lounge like a full on set. It looked like a TV show interview show where they're sitting around a table and they were playing a game that Wil Wheaton and his son had written called Titan's Grave, Ashes of Valkana. It was based on Green Ronin's Fantasy Age 3D6 system.

Star: 4:24

Mm hmm.

Rene: 4:24

It's a very fun system. Very easy. 3D6 is like a perfect bell curve statistically, but like if you ever get like three sixes, it's like an epic action. There's a thing called the stunt dice. So it was like, it actually translated really well, I thought, to playing for an audience. And so I was like, I'm going to try this game. Like everyone's running 5e, I've been running 5e, I want to play this game. So I ran a Titan's Grave game. And then after that, I was like, whoa, there's other dice systems. And that just got my nerd brain going. Cause I mean, I was in school for getting my master's in biology, but with like a heavy lean on statistics. So like, if you can engage me with a little bit of math, I'm in, let's go.

Star: 5:02

So when you're looking at games to try, is it mechanics that really hook you?

Rene: 5:07

You know, probably. I mean, it's vibes for sure. Uh, especially now I've played quite a few systems and it's funny. I don't know if I like crunch. I'm running a long term Pathfinder 2e game, so I don't mind the crunch. I can make it, you know, I can make sense of it, but I think I lean back and really just prefer narrative systems. Um, like Powered by the Apocalypse is still just my favorite system because it basically is just like, well, okay, sure, roll, but like everything is about the narrative. It's not about the mechanics, so.

Star: 5:36

Do you have a favorite PbtA game?

Rene: 5:39

Oof. Probably Masks. I love Masks A New Generation, which is funny because I've never been a comics person, but I do just love, I think the few times I've run it, I've run it more like Japanese shounen anime.

Star: 5:51

Hmm.

Rene: 5:51

Which I guess leads pretty well into what we're going to talk about today. But, um, more like My Hero Academia than, you know, Teen Titans kind of thing. And it, and it works super well, obviously, it's kind of the same thing.

Star: 6:03

So you're bringing a character today for Fabula Ultima.

Rene: 6:06

Mm hmm.

Star: 6:07

What is that game like?

Rene: 6:09

Yeah, so Fabula Ultima, this is a, talk about a weird way to go about this. It is an Italian RPG that is a tabletop Japanese role playing game. It is a table RPG version of your favorite 90s. Super Nintendo, PlayStation one era, JRPG video games.

Star: 6:27

So we're talking like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger.

Rene: 6:31

Yes. And it works so well. I mean, at least on paper, I have yet to get this to the table, but like I've read this enough that I'm like, I need to, I need to get this to the table.

Star: 6:41

Rene, who are you bringing to the table?

Rene: 6:44

I am bringing Mogmoden, shortened to just Mog, who is a tiny little gnomish, if you want to call it that, you know, if we're talking Final Fantasy, there's that Final Fantasy 14 race, I think they're called Lalafell, never played Final Fantasy 14, I was never like the kid with the good enough computer, and then by the time it got to console, I was like, no, it's too late, I'm not doing it. But, um, kind of like a moogle, you know, like short little species and he is a sheltered academic cloistered, uh, nerd. He's sort of a self insert, I guess.

Star: 7:18

In the actual mechanics of the game, I know some games have things like race or class. What was the equivalent for Fabula Ultima and where does Mog fit into that?

Rene: 7:29

Yeah, so Fabula Ultima does not care what race or species you are. There is no mechanical differentiation between those because it's emulating that video game style. You know, you're gonna assemble a ragtag group of specialists that have, it's more about the role you fit in the party than your background. Your background is important narratively, but physically and like whatever you are doesn't really matter. And Fabula Ultima is an interesting one because it does take from that like middle Final Fantasies like I want to say it was like four or five that had the job system. In Fabula Ultima, you end up taking multiple classes right from the jump. You have to have at least two classes when you make a character.

Star: 8:11

So what classes does Mog have?

Rene: 8:13

So I made Mog a, it's a level 5 character, but intro, basic, first character, and I gave Mog three classes, two ranks in Loremaster, which is, you know, your intelligence, you know, I made him a member of a cloistered library order, so that made sense. He also took two ranks in a class called Chimerist, which is a pseudo magic class. That uses creature monster abilities like they were spells, but you need to learn them from creatures. So blue magic.

Star: 8:47

I love that. So how do you learn them from creatures and what kind of a creature abilities would he have?

Rene: 8:54

Yeah. So fun fact, when you make a chimerist, it's like the only magic class that doesn't start with spells. Because you specifically need to encounter and observe a monster doing something to learn that spell, but I anticipated this a little bit, so I thought about maybe as part of where Mog has grown up their whole life, he has experienced creatures being brought in for study, for caretaking, for everything like that, I mean like, I kind of built the order that they are part of is known as the Virtue Mosaic, I And it's kind of just like a mosaic. I mean, every member there is a small piece in the bigger picture that they're putting together and they strive to cover all angles of everything in the world. Right? So like, you're not just getting the history when you go visit after a war from a country and say like, okay, how did it happen? You're also finding the refugees and survivors of the losing side and being okay, what happened? And they're collecting all this information, their neutral party. That's just a, you know, that would be ideal, right? So putting a little bit of that energy out there. Yeah. So I imagined there were probably some creatures at this virgin mosaic temple, monastery, whatever we want to call it, library. I gave him a few abilities. So shout out to Cezar Capacle. I think that's how you say his name. Game designer who makes incredible games. And I recently backed something called Random Realities, which was just like a book of tables that they did. So I was like, I need a few little silly things. So I just rolled on it and I made up some monsters and I was like, what abilities would I get from those monsters? So he has like a little bit of like illusory projection where he can like visually communicate between himself and there was this weird like crustacean creature in the aquarium and then there was a plant that it literally like sapped people's energy like their mana magic points in this system so he has like a siphoning magic points to recharge his own obviously he would not do this to his friends but he learned how to do it from this plant. And just like a, maybe like a turtle or something like that, that had a shell. So he learned how to defend himself from physical attacks.

Star: 10:56

Are these things that are written out in the book and you're linking the idea of monsters to them? Or are these where you're just kind of making them up?

Rene: 11:04

So the mind theft ability, the stealing away MP, is from the book. It's one of the NPC abilities you can do. So is shell, which is the defense boosting spell. So I did take those and just kind of port them onto made up creatures. Although the bestiary in this book is pretty great and looks like a lot of classic super Nintendo monsters you'd find in a game.

Star: 11:28

So in this game, I know that monsters is often used. In a lot of different ways, but it sounds like maybe in this game, not all monsters are monstrous or out to attack you or kill you. So how does this work in Fabula Ultima? What does a monster mean?

Rene: 11:46

Yeah, so there's a bunch of different types of monsters. A lot of them are statted out like you could fight them. But even then, like NPC humanoids and things like that are also, you can make stat blocks for them. One thing I love about Fabula Ultima for combat is for typical monsters, they call everything that is as presented a soldier version of them, but there's also like elite versions and champion versions of any monster, so you can turn it into basically double things to make multiple versions of it and whatnot. Yeah, and like there's different classes. So even in Chimerist, I don't think Chimerists can learn abilities or like special attacks of constructs because they're not living things. Right, one of the abilities that Mog has from Chimerist is Feral Speech, so he can communicate with beasts, monsters, and plants, but that doesn't include, you know, demons or constructs and things like that. There's a block there, because they're unnatural things. But then I took the Tinkerer class to cover the construct thing, because again, one of his connections, we'll get into it later, was an architect, so he's got a little bit of everything going on. The Beastarian GM section of Fabula Ultima is so good at being like make your combats dynamic. And again, they don't have to always end in violence. Like one of the actions you can take at any time in a conflict is called objective. And it's just, you set a goal, like I want to do this thing and you're not rolling against their defense. You're not rolling against anything. You are just rolling to achieve your objective. So there's always another way to handle any kind of conflict scene.

Star: 13:16

Could an objective be something like convince them to stand down?

Rene: 13:20

I think that might be like an opposed interaction. But if I was GMing this, I would certainly make it a way to have an opposed role if there's no language shared or something like that. It could be like body language. It could be acting in a way that's non threatening for once or something like that. Or if there is a language that you share, then yeah, absolutely. It's almost like, sure, you can make the same kind of progress towards this objective like you would if you were just trying to overcome their defense. Another way to do that would be, so, In Fabula Ultima is, you make your character, you get traits. So things like your identity, your origin, your theme, your bonds. And you can spend a metacurrency called Fabula Points to do fate style aspect changes. You can introduce opportunities or complications. You can add an aspect to the scene with Fabula Points. So that might be another way that in a conflict you could say, I'd like to spend this and change this person's feelings about this. Convince them of something.

Star: 14:15

You mentioned identity, origin, theme, and bonds, so let's go through it. What are those things for Mog?

Rene: 14:22

Sure. Mog's identity is sheltered academic. I think that in my mind for his backstory, he was one of those babies put on the steps of a church kind of thing, right? For whatever reason, they've never known another life. He's never known anything but these walls, this compound, you know, this tower full of all the information he could ever want at his fingertips. So he's had a very interesting, you know, first again, if this is a JRPG, he's probably like 16, you know, um, but 16 with nothing to do but read all these books for his whole life or like, you know, talk to animals, learn how to talk to animals for a while. Or go to work for your architect mentor. That's, you know, like he kind of had a little bit of everything going on. So he's from a cloistered library. His theme is doubt, which is funny for a character who has access to all this information. Every theme also has basically a question that comes associated with it. So doubt's is you need to find the answer to a burning question. And I wrote down, you know, here, he's learned a lot, but I think he found some inconsistencies in the records and it's just gnawing at him and he's got to go. He's got to get out and he's got to go find out what the truth is, uh, where there's this disconnect.

Star: 15:31

So there's kind of a central mystery built into his backstory or his character's motivations?

Rene: 15:37

Yes, and I picked a strange game for Characters Without Stories, I feel like, because this game does rely heavily on a collaborative session zero with all of the characters and the GM to do a full on world building session. By creating these characters, you're getting these questions just from every choice you make. So therefore, when you're answering these questions, it's not just about your character, it's the GM taking notes and going, Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Where is this? You know, and together you create a world that is rife for adventure for this particular party. You even pick a party type. There's like revolutionaries or the chosen ones or something like that. Like you actually choose a party type in a very JRPG fashion.

Star: 16:20

You mentioned graduate school. So you got an advanced degree.

Rene: 16:25

Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I got a job out of undergrad and it was, it was fine. It was good. It just was not at all what I wanted to do. And after a couple of years of it, I was like, no, and kudos to my wife. We looked at one another, we had decent jobs, both of us. We were like, this is fine, I guess. But one day we were like, do you like what you do? No. And I was like, do you like what you do? She was like, no. So we were like, wanna take a chance and like, apply for school? And we both did. And we both got in. And I had to move a few states away. But we made it work while I was in grad school. Not too far away that I couldn't drive home for weekends and stuff like that. And I've always kind of been an academic person. Even now, I just, I'm still reading books to learn, you know? I can't stop that. Even if they're tabletop roleplaying game books. I take an academic approach to it. I can pretend.

Star: 17:14

So then, it seems pretty fitting that you made a character who is in academia, essentially. A cloistered academic. Seems pretty close to your experience. Is that something that you do a lot?

Rene: 17:27

Yeah, I actually interviewed a friend of mine from the dms not that long ago, and we did a whole episode about why do we play what we play? Like why do we fall into these tropes? I'm sure everyone listening to this has friends who every time you make a campaign that player's going to have a similar trait across all of their characters kind of thing. Or every once in a while they'll buck the trend. But my trope is definitely the nerd, the academic. Mostly because I feel like from a character creating perspective, like, my approach most of the time is to create a character who has a big question about something specifically in the world we're playing in. I feel like because I'm a forever GM I love when a character when a player sits down and says like my character wants to know something about how this world works because it just sets up scenes. We can go through combat, we can go through exploration or whatever. But every time it's like a oh, what do we find here? And this person has a goal. I can just tie it to that or tease something into that, or otherwise just use that whenever we need to move and progress a plot line.

Star: 18:32

I was having a conversation with someone. I cannot remember who, but one of the things they said is that as a DM, you always want somebody in the party. If you're playing D&D, you always want somebody in the party who has the history skill. You want somebody who's going to get invested in the lore of the world and ask you tons of questions about that lore, especially if you're homebrewing. So you're that player with history skill who's going to ask all the lore questions?

Rene: 18:55

Absolutely. 100%. Tell me how it works. Again, I mean, my degree is in ecology and environmental science. So like, even in the world I work in every day, my goal is to find out how it works and protect habitats because they're one of the few places that this animal breeds and stuff like that. So it's like, yeah, I have a burning desire to understand as much of the world as I can. And why not pour that into made up worlds too.

Star: 19:20

Yeah, so there's a meta level need to learn as a player about the game at the same time as your character has that character level drive to find out about the world. It meshes pretty well, I think. Those things go together. You're getting the experience you want as a player and as a character.

Rene: 19:37

Yeah, I hope that it doesn't drive GMs too crazy.

Star: 19:41

I will say I'm running a game right now. And a lot of the things that I came up with for that game, I didn't really, you know, I didn't think through all the implications. I was like, this would just be cool. And then I have one player who is consistently the one who's like, how do they feed themselves?

Rene: 19:54

Yeah, that's a me question for sure. It's just like, wait a second. Can we exploit this resource? Which, you know, antithetical to me as a person, but can we responsibly cultivate this resource or, you know, that would be a question for my character. But at the same time, I'm not one of those, I feel like this is like an OSR thing, right? Like that very much encourages people to think outside the box and come up with clever solutions that bypass problems. I feel like OSR players would be those people who are like, Oh, did we just find something that could like break this game's economy? And like, let's do that. Like, I would find that thing and be like, interesting. We must protect it so we can never break this economy.

Star: 20:36

So still a conservationist.

Rene: 20:38

Right, right, yeah. Oh man, the day I play an oil baron, that's going to be an interesting day.

Star: 20:43

What a character arc though.

Rene: 20:46

Right? Now I'm going to go and be like, what game can I play an oil baron?

Star: 20:51

You talked about this kind of bringing in animals and caring for animals and obviously they're a chimerist. Is that something that you care about personally as well?

Rene: 20:58

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I spend a good amount of my working days outside. Fair warning to everyone listening to this. If you are not in your 30s yet, you will enjoy birdwatching. You're welcome. Get into it now before it just happens. I don't know what I don't know what happens. It just happens. Yeah, I don't know. I've just always been. Honestly, when I was a kid, everybody answers the questions, I'm going to be an astronaut, I'm going to be a professional, whatever. I was like, I want to study like big cats or like primates. Like that was like my answer. I was like, who is this kid? I want to go to the jungles. Like that was me. David Attenborough is my hero. You know, that's naturalist, I guess, a dying profession. But

Star: 21:33

Yes, I know my sister wanted to do that and then got out of school and was like, there are no jobs,

Rene: 21:39

Zero jobs, zero jobs for that. Yes, absolutely. That is another issue, right?

Star: 21:44

Yeah. If you'd like to support the podcast, I now have a Ko-Fi. It costs me about $50 a month in hosting and service fees to make this podcast happen, so any little bit helps defray my costs. Go to ko-fi.com/characterswithoutstories to give. Thank you.

Of Monsters and Mixed Success: 22:29

The small town of Farrow is strange. Filled with monsters, magic, and entities unknown to all but a few residents. Join local priest, Leviathan Bell. Any threat to the divine and to this town is to be taken care of and as my duty. Ex monster hunter, Alex Palmer. I'm not paranoid enough to stop being curious. Fine. He takes the hand. Oh shit, I bit over my head. And haunted archivist Anna Neal Malice. It's Anna's turn to have a bad day. Opening his little satchel and he's taking his notebook out and he's like opening it to the page where he sketched the boulder going. As they step up to try their best. to protect their town and its people from entities that want to lay claim over it. Every other Wednesday, come take a seat at our table, where there are monsters aplenty. Where these eyes should be are just concave pits of flat flesh. We're all a little bit silly. Awkward moment when you just want to read some books and then your friends start having a fight about your free will. And our characters are very, very sad. I really appreciated and cherished, uh, having friends. Of Monsters and Mix Successes is available on YouTube and most podcasting platforms. And as you raise your hand to start to do this magic, he shoots you. Yes. Oh no.

Star: 24:18

Okay, so we have identity, we have origin, we have theme.

Rene: 24:23

Origin, yeah, origin was of the Virtue Mosaic, basically the name of the order who run the library. And in looking up, I, I love using like thesaurus. com because, you know, fun fact, another word for mosaic is tesserae, and that's all the pieces of a mosaic. So I decided that's what they call the members. You know, they're not monks or librarians, they're called tesserae. Because I was a one person character building session in what's supposed to be a very collaborative world building. I thought about it, and from a JRPG, thinking about that high drama, right, like, every JRPG ends with like, and then we killed a god, you know what I mean? Like, or like, or like, then the planet was whatever. So, I thought a good origin for Mog would be that nobody has left the Virtue Mosaic his whole life. It used to be they'd go out to get information, to get stories, to get all sides of it. But I think that the rise of like a dark lord or whatever the world building big bad, you know, on the horizon was going to be has made it so that the last couple decades have really been like shelter in place and just protect the truth.

Star: 25:31

So not born, but raised at the Virtue Mosaic or as a member of the Virtue Mosaic. Are there a lot of children that are raised in this way?

Rene: 25:41

I wrote that down. So they actually ask a question. I think it's with something. The classes all have questions as well. So like when you pick a class, there's four questions associated with every one. You don't have to answer, but you can. And there was one in the Chimerist class that was, are there many practicing your art or are you the exception? And I think that it was when I answered the Chimerist one, I also thought, It's probably not entirely uncommon for people to drop off babies they can't raise or don't want to this order. Because they know they will take them in. They know they will do what they can. There's no doubt this life will have a chance, right? But, I don't think it's happened very much lately. He was probably one of a handful of kids, and there weren't similar ages, right? When he was five, there was maybe like a nine year old and like a newborn. So there was never any one other person his age.

Star: 26:33

I know it's kind of a trope or a cliche that people create TTRPG characters that are orphans that don't have families.

Rene: 26:42

Mm, yeah.

Star: 26:42

You created an orphan, so I'm going to ask you to justify yourself.

Rene: 26:48

I think it's the looming trouble on the horizon that, you know, this JRPG game tries to set up. By tying in nobody's left the order for the whole time Mog's been here, And saying he's going to be the first to leave in over a decade. And I purposefully left vague, I have no answers about who Mog's true parents are or his true heritage. And that, I would love to leave that up to a GM and be like, on the side, in between sessions, let's talk about, you know, Mog is this tiny little race, this tiny little species, like, he's probably half the size of every other person in the Virtue Mosaic, so he's had to deal with a number of just learning to live in this, this other size of the world, like, if we encounter other people of Mog's size, like, he's only read about them, probably. So it could make for a very interesting character arc.

Star: 27:35

The last one on that list is bonds. In lieu of having a family, what kind of bonds, uh, has Mog grown with other people?

Rene: 27:44

Yeah, mechanically, bonds are supposed to be, I think, between PCs. Mm hmm. But I was coming up with people that they are friendly with, uh, and I only have two. One is his mentor, so the way I came up with it for the Virtue Mosaic is that all of the young that come and are raised in this order are probably taught together in small classrooms, and it's kind of a everyone helps out kind of thing, until a certain age, at which point they're just assigned a mentor, or one of the Tesserae says I'm going to take you under my wing. I've watched you grow and I think that you have an aptitude for the thing I do. So let me teach you how to do this thing. And Mog's mentor is Olestus the architect and Olestus is an old man. And I imagine a very, like, Aang Gyatso relationship. Playful, but also very serious about, like, it's important you understand and know what it is you need to do. But you're a kid, so, and like, and I'm an old man, I'm past the point of, you know, seriousness. Uh, I've done the work I'm gonna do in my life, and now, as an architect, he has the benefit of doing most of his work design wise, you know, without having to lift the bricks that he says where to put them. So, it worked out well that the two of them got along, and I think the other bond that Mog has is a trader who comes and goes from the Virtue Mosaic. Somebody that they see once every few months maybe, maybe once a year, but they always bring like an animal, or they always bring something interesting, and that to Mog is, you know, new things, exciting, because otherwise he's just surrounded by the same old dusty tomes and stuff.

Star: 29:24

Is novelty important to Mog? Is that one of the reasons why he would be leaving?

Rene: 29:29

Yeah, so there's the disconnect that they found in the records. Which, again, left vague because as a collaborative thing, if I ever sit down at a table and, and I can bring this much of this character to a Fabula Ultima game, I can say, oh, you come from a place where like war's been happening? Like, oh, that's what I've learned. You know, I heard a different side of the story. Oh, there's a disconnect here. So, they definitely want to leave for that reason. But yeah, I also think he's a 16 year old in a library for his whole life and, you know, he looks out all the time and just says, one day.

Star: 30:01

What about his relationship with the architect? Does he want to carry on that tradition and become an architect?

Rene: 30:07

The third class I took is Tinkerer, and I only have one rank in Tinkerer. So it was one of those things where he does it, I don't think it's his passion, but he's not bad at it. He's pretty good at it, but he prefers, because he's smaller, he can get into fine little nooks and crannies that Olestus couldn't. And he calls Olestus Ollie, but he doesn't want to draw big, crazy castles in Tinkerer. districts for towns and come up with infrastructure that works within, you know, the topography of a village to improve the way of life. That's what Olestus was mostly doing. Mog likes to make little trinkets. Maybe it's a part of his species. It's maybe it's just something about it's different. He can make something new. He can make something interesting. And so, I wrote down that Ollie did instill a love of design in Mog, but where Olestus was focused on this infrastructure, Mog's attention to detail and chimerism changed how he approached design. His designs are almost mechanical mimics of nature. It was one of those things where either that or they were made, not even for humans, but like for the animals he's like created this bond with or something like that. So, the Tinkerer class was almost like a green infrastructure, if you will, kind of approach.

Star: 31:23

I see a parallel between Mog's story of starting with one career in, in air quotes, career, and then finding other passions. Is that something that you see reflected in your own story?

Rene: 31:38

I'm a person who, yeah, I will dive like fully into something. If I find that I enjoy it. And it's not even that, you know, music was one of those things that I knew it was never going to be my career, you know, like that's an unrealistic expectation and I still play music to this day. I would love to do it more, but it's one of those things that, you know, it's not like RPGs where I'm going to be able to do this forever. You can play music forever, you can make music with people, but the collaboration of storytelling like this has a longevity to it that I think really just made me go, wow, this is kind of crazy. Yeah, I definitely, I definitely search out new things, but I'm also a perfectionist pretty hard, so if I decide I want to do something and get really into it, I'm going to get as good at it as I can, and I will stick with it until I am satisfied that I'm pretty dang good, at least in my opinion, I like, you know, I, and then I find people on the internet and I'm like, well, I'll never be That's good.

Star: 32:38

Well, I think you're talking about diving into something and obviously you dove into podcasting. You dove into playing TTRPGs and got really excited about it. Are you taking the same approach to your podcast in terms of being a perfectionist and wanting to get very, very good at it?

Rene: 32:54

I like the audio editing part of it. It kind of ties back in that music part of me and perfectionism. My stories are certainly not perfect. I am a fly by the seat of your pants person, especially with stories. I like not knowing where things are going. At most, I will have like two or three bullet points going into a recording. I just hit record and I'm like, well, let's see what happens. But audio quality wise. Yeah. I like to always be improving and you know, I, yeah, I'd like eventually to. Be able to look back and say, like, I got pretty good at this. You could see the difference between early DMs After Dark streams that I was running. And now I think, and hopefully that just keeps getting better. Again, I have no delusions that I'm going to be living off podcasting. I don't even believe in paid GMing. So like, I don't have a, you know, like, I'm doing it for fun. Hope people like it.

Star: 33:43

Uh, yeah. That's where I'm at too. I'm not going to be a pro podcaster anytime soon. Maybe, maybe in like six years, I'll listen back to this and go, whoa, but.

Rene: 33:54

Yeah, that's how, that's how I feel listening to like the demos and stuff that I recorded as a teenager. I'm like, wow. Ooh, somebody hide these forever.

Star: 34:03

Oh, I think it's interesting to, to look back and see growth and to see not perfection, but I love to listen to like the first episode of someone's podcast and go, I can see where they've grown. Like I can see how much has changed over, over time.

Rene: 34:18

One thing I've never been particularly worried about, and maybe this is for good or ill. Is just getting up in front of people and putting myself out there. Getting on stage, playing music that people might not like, whatever, that's fine. Like, I just, I decided to do it, I wanted to do it, I'm gonna do it. Podcasting, it was like, does anybody listen to a solo podcast? Like, probably not, but here goes, you know? Uh, I, I don't mind the potentially making a fool of myself part of it. But once I listen back and I go, ooh, a few people listen to this. Okay, now I gotta make it good.

Star: 34:52

Is Mog a perfectionist?

Rene: 34:55

I think not. I would try not to play Mog as a perfectionist. I think Mog is more of a experience everything ist. I don't know, adventurist? But again, clearly not. They've been in one compound their whole life. But I think that as soon as they're out, I think that I would play Mog as the inquisitive to the point of getting us in trouble character.

Star: 35:18

Right. The one that touches all the things.

Rene: 35:20

Yes. Oh, 100%. Listen, again, I want to be that player at GM's tables, as the forever GM, I will be that person who will ask the questions about your world and be like, I will include this in my character's story. And I will also be the person who sees you dangle trouble right in front of us and go, I got you. I got you. Don't you worry. I'm going to push that button.

Star: 35:40

Do you ever play cautious characters?

Rene: 35:43

No. Even the cowardly characters I occasionally play, I find ways for their caution or their cowardice. To cause problems, invite progression of the drama.

Star: 35:55

This is a game that emphasizes that kind of high drama of the story. Do you have any hopes for this character if you were to be able to play them in a Fabula Ultima game? What is the drama that you're hoping for?

Rene: 36:10

Yeah, I think it would be very interesting to work with the GM to be that character who does often have the information about the world. And it all come crumbling down when he finds out a lot, a lot is a lie. That's always a good thing for an individual character. For a group kind of thing, I also think that Mog's character could be very good for group tension. Because they'd probably have a lot of pre conceived notions about people that are maybe dated based on the information that they've always had at their fingertips, right? Like, they would probably interact with other PCs in a I know more than you about this way that would antagonize, you know, there would be problems, conflict, tension there. And it would be a growth of character to understand. I actually have a note here that I think that Mog has better personal skills, interpersonal skills with animals and creatures than he does with people. Didn't have a lot of people his age growing up with him, was mostly doing work with an older mentor and was taught the importance of what you're learning here, what you're reading. And then they finally do meet people that they're interacting with on a daily basis and they feel like, yeah, there's probably some misconceptions and foot in mouth moments for sure.

Star: 37:29

What is Mog's relationship to authority coming from, from being around a lot of, uh, older people?

Rene: 37:36

Ooh, that's a great question. Yeah, because I think that the Virtue Mosaic, I mean, it's almost like you don't need anybody to police you, right? Like, there's no punishment outside of destroying a book. They're just gonna be like, go work, go learn something, go, you know, whatever. So I think that in the wider world, I think, again, This would be a perfect opportunity for Mog to be like, you're not handling this right. You know that, right? Like, you know, you know, there are better ways to deescalate a situation. And by doing so, he escalates the situation.

Star: 38:06

Are there any stats in Fabula Ultima?

Rene: 38:09

Yes.

Star: 38:09

So what are Mog's stats like?

Rene: 38:12

I really love the mechanics. Again, we talked at the beginning about excite me with your mechanics and how they reinforce the story. These aren't the most like thematically, you know, engaging, but it's based off of another Japanese tabletop role playing game, Dice System. Uh, it's a game called Ryuutama. It's a natural fantasy role playing game, and it uses the same dice mechanics from it. There are four attributes, and they are dexterity, insight, might, and willpower. For Mog, it is, he has dexterity of a D8. insight of a d10, might of a d6, cause he's little, and willpower of a d8. Anytime you roll any check in Fabula Ultima, you're always rolling two of these attributes. But it could be the same two attributes. So like if you're casting a spell that is purely based on insight, you might be rolling insight, insight. But if you are attempting to, I'm trying to think of a good example here, maybe something like play speed chess against somebody and it's on a timer, right? It's not just about beating them in a mind game. It might be dexterity insight to move it fast and do it right. Something like that.

Star: 39:21

The mechanics for this game sound very interesting.

Rene: 39:24

Yeah. And usually I think it even recommends the GM will say what it sounds like, but I think you have the option to like pitch why you think it might be something else, which I always love, right? Like, tell me why your character, again, I'm taking the forever GM stance here, but. Tell me why you think this is how your character is approaching it and why it's appropriate and then yeah, go for it.

Star: 39:43

I may not agree, but I would love to hear somebody try and convince me that playing speed chess required might.

Rene: 39:50

Yeah, exactly. Well, to flip the table. That's a game over. We did it. And there's definitely characters who'd be like, I'm doing that.

Star: 39:57

Yeah.

Rene: 39:58

You can't say you won. Nobody won. So there we go.

Star: 40:01

So what does Mog look like?

Rene: 40:03

I think Mog, like we said, he's probably like gnome ish sized for the D&D people out there, probably like a three, just over three foot kind of thin, I think maybe a little fuzzy, like maybe not just like skin, like where, where we have like hair on our arms and stuff like that, like it's almost like, a seal or like, you know, I mean like maybe like a little fuzziness, a little beyond just a little hairy. He's probably got sandy blonde hair, a little tussled and out of control and big inquisitive eyes. I imagine them maybe like a greenish gold. A little tanner in the skin, uh, or well, pale at the start, but as soon as he gets out of these buildings and is out in the real world, he realizes, oh, I can tan. Check it out. That's weird. Which, if you look at me, I clearly don't tan. So, uh, yeah, I, I turn into a lobster. So.

Star: 40:50

How much does he care about his appearance?

Rene: 40:52

Oh, I don't think at all. He's going to see a mirror and go, whoa, okay. Again, weird just talking to plants. You know what I mean? Like gets dirty and, uh, doesn't mind that at all.

Star: 41:02

His interest in his newfound ability to tan is more scholarly than, than vain.

Rene: 41:09

Yeah. Yeah. He's going to push it. He's going to see the tan line and go, Oh, interesting. Okay.

Star: 41:15

Is romance ever part of a Fabula Ultima game? I know you're playing a 16 year old, so that can get weird.

Rene: 41:21

Sure.

Star: 41:22

Doesn't necessarily have to, but.

Rene: 41:23

I think you can. Yeah. I mean, you can create bonds with characters and, and you can invoke those feelings, right? Like if you create that as the bond, then sure. I didn't see anything specifically about it, but I don't imagine it's not in here as something that you would use to either reroll or nerf yourself. You can, when you invoke your traits and your bonds, you can do it to either reroll dice to attempt to succeed, or you can invoke your bonds and traits to fail. Like you can choose to fail. It gets you a Fabula point, which is like that metacurrency that you can use to influence the story or create opportunities or what have you. Yeah. And Fabula points and Ultima points, which are what the GM uses to basically do like villain scenes, like, you know, somewhere else you get like a cut scene of the villain. Every time those are spent in the game, that's how you get experience, right? Because it's about the story moving forward, or your character's core identity and like, traits becoming something important that's affecting the larger narrative. It's very much something that I can imagine romance would be a great way to throw fabulous points around as complicating a story.

Star: 42:29

Have you thought at all about Mog's sexuality?

Rene: 42:33

I, again, I don't think Mog has interacted with people in a way that that's come up. I think it would probably be pretty pansexual, like, it'd be way more about stimulating his mind and thoughts, you know what I mean? He talks to animals and plants, I mean, like, I think A physical attraction might surprise him. It might be something where he'd be like, Oh, uh, that's cool. But like, I think the more engaged you can get in a conversation and talk deep things and big picture stuff would be something that would work towards Mog developing stronger feelings to you than anything else.

Star: 43:08

A theme that I'm kind of seeing is the difference between striking out of the world and gaining practical experience versus earning knowledge through reading, through books. Through not necessarily even experimenting but looking at things that have been written before, building on the knowledge of others. Do you think that there's going to be a moment where Mog is maybe unsure of how to proceed in being a scholar?

Rene: 43:32

Yeah, that's a great point. And again, his whole life, if there's been no one in the Virtue Mosaic who's gone and come back. That what used to be probably a pretty normal practice of people being like, Hey, I come bearing news of the world. I come with this and he's relying strictly on this trader that comes in and out, right? This, this one person who wheels their cart up every few months to a year for news about the outside world. I think that, yeah, he probably think about, should I leave a book? Like, should I go back and leave my information? But also, like, I think the realization. That you cannot see all sides of something would, would really nag at him in a way that there'd probably be a little, um, existential crisis moment for sure. Yeah.

Star: 44:15

I don't know how much, uh, the game gets into the weeds of traveling, like setting up a camp and finding food and things like that. I can imagine that would be a very new experience to Mog. Is that something that you think, uh, he would encounter?

Rene: 44:30

Yeah, uh, the game does have certain things where, for travel, they have multiple versions of it, right? So it's like, you can do a scene by scene point crawl, like, if you want, really, like, when you travel, depending on the terrain you are traveling through, the GM will roll dice based on how dangerous that terrain is, right? So if you're traveling in a city on well traveled, guarded roads, you're rolling a d6. And the only time something happens is if you roll a 1, you find an opportunity, you make a discovery of something unexpected, or a six, and then that's a conflict, that's a combat or something like that. The more dangerous the terrain gets, you start rolling bigger dice. Anything higher than a six is an encounter, and anytime you roll a one, it's that opportunity. So you could do it like that. Blow by blow, hex by hex if you wanted to, however you want to do it with your, your group. Because again, depending on how you decide to do this in your session zero world building, you might be very interested as a group in filling out the map of the world as you explore it. They also have like, just interlude it, right? Just montage it. And do one roll that says, like, this is how it goes. So, I would certainly lean into the, uh, scenes, though, if they were there, right? Of Mog absolutely failing to procure a fish or something like that, you know what I mean? Like, I imagine Mog as the character in the background of, like, the scene that you get of, like, you have your outdoorsy person, like, pointing, looking at a map, and, like, your fighter is, like, fighting something in the corner, and Mog is, like, getting pulled into the river from a fishing rod. That's how I imagine Mog in the party dynamic.

Star: 46:00

Managing to set himself on fire when he's trying to build a campsite.

Rene: 46:04

Right, uh, climbing a tree and, like, punching a beehive. Like, why did you do that, Mog? Like, don't do that.

Star: 46:10

When you play characters, do you do voices?

Rene: 46:13

Minimally. I try not to do accents, that's for sure. Even the ones that I'm like, That's probably a pretty good one. I say that for my home group, so they don't judge. They can laugh at me all they want. It's not going to be on the internet. I assume that Mog then doesn't have a voice. I just imagined Mog's voice a little higher pitch and excited. I think he goes back and forth between wistful, thoughtful, and like very energetic, over the top inquisitive.

Star: 47:03

Mog, what is your favorite animal? I'll include monsters or any kind of creatures in this.

Rene: 47:09

That is a very important distinction to make. I think, uh, if you were talking strictly beasts, it would probably be something that is I have a particular affinity towards felines, larger felines in particular. I think that they are just, their gracefulness is impressive. If we're talking any monster or creature, well then, now we have to start talking about the different classes of creatures and their particular niches in their environments. Oh, boy. If I could pick any favorite creature or animal anywhere, it would definitely be by my friend Corallus. He lives in the giant aquarium tank in the library at my order. He's very, very mean, but nobody else knows that because they don't understand what he's saying. We have our own special language that is entirely visual and illusions.

Star: 47:53

What kind of creature is Corallus?

Rene: 47:55

Yes, Corallus. He, he kind of looks like a crab, uh, but he can hide in his own shell like a turtle. Um, and for some reason, uh, it sparkles with weird lights sometimes and then it creates like this illusion. And I started to figure out what he meant when he was using these illusions, and mostly it was just making fun of the older brothers. How much of this is Mog assuming it was just making fun of the older brothers or Corallus actually making fun of members of the Virtue Mosaicas? Unknown.

Star: 48:26

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

Rene: 48:31

Thank you, Star. It was a pleasure.

Star: 48:33

What would you like to share with my listeners?

Rene: 48:35

Well, uh, if you like learning about stranger, obscure RPGs like Fabula Ultima, which I guess isn't all that obscure anymore. I guess I won an Ennie in 2023, uh, it won the gold Ennie for best game. But if you want to learn about more RPGs. My podcast and my friends who are streaming the DMs After Dark and my podcast, Rene Plays Games, are a variety RPG show, basically. We do actual plays of a lot of different games. The DMs are doing slightly longer form campaigns now of games, but you can find them, if you go back in the backlog, a lot of different smaller publisher games. My podcast just started in January of this year, but I've played a few solo games and have one shots of various other games with my friends, and hopefully we'll start playing games with more people out there, uh, around the internet.

Star: 49:23

For my recommendation this episode, I'd like to introduce you to a podcast called Dungeons and Degrees. Alex and Adrian described their podcast as a conversation with friends talking about the games we love and the life we live around it. It's got a chill, informal vibe, like hanging out with friends. I had the pleasure of interviewing Adrian for the podcast a while back, and he is just the sweetest. Give it a listen. 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 am so grateful. One of the things that any creator wants to know is what people think of their work. For podcasters, it can be especially difficult to get feedback. Reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify are a great way to let me and others know that you love the podcast. I read every single one, and treasure them. Did you know that you can now leave comments on individual episodes on Spotify? If you're listening there, I encourage you to leave a comment and let me know what you think about an episode. You may have also noticed a link in my show notes that says send us a text message. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future episode, or just want to leave a comment, send me a message. I started a newsletter! As our social media landscape is forever changing, this is one way to make sure we can always stay in touch. If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast, follow my other projects, and be notified when a new episode drops. You can find the signup form in the show notes or on my website. You can find me on Blue Sky Threads, Instagram and Facebook as characters without stories. You can also listen on YouTube at characters without stories or just follow the link in the description. I'm currently accepting submissions for non D&D characters with a strong preference for creators from marginalized communities. If you'd like to share your character, you can go to characterswithoutstories.com. and click submit in the navigation menu. Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories.