Funkatronic Rex - Games & More

Funkatronic Rex Podcast: Season 2 Episode 15 More Daggerheart with a Guest

• Funkatronic Rex Games & More • Season 2 • Episode 15

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🎙 Funkatronic Rex Podcast: Season 2 Episode 15 — Daggerheart: Stairs, Crystals, and Chaos

This episode takes listeners deep into our very first full Daggerheart adventure, where character backstories collide with corrupted beasts, mysterious crystals, and the deadliest foe of all: stairs.

We start with introductions and dive into what makes each hero tick — from the albino wizard who fled the Dominion’s forced spellcaster army, to the hyper-positive gym-bro faun named Flex Forigno, to the chill turtle warrior Kombu. The party dynamic quickly proves hilarious and chaotic: front-liners with the most relaxed vibes, a paranoid wizard trying to stay unnoticed, and rogues who might not survive the local jail.

The session itself unfolds in three big beats:

  • The Crystal Boar Encounter: A mutated beast straight out of Princess Mononoke, shedding shards that punish anyone reckless enough to fight up close.
  • The Hollowed Ones: Crystal-infested zombies aboard a wrecked skyship, showcasing Daggerheart’s flexibility in combat and narrative flavor.
  • The Countdown Clock: A clever GM mechanic where glass beads tick away toward the arrival of the dreaded pirate ship The Soggy Biscuit — ratcheting up tension as the crew scrambles to repair and claim the downed vessel.

Highlights include debates over the difference between wizards and sorcerers, illusions as Marvel-style Mysterio tricks, the joy of carving scrimshaw runes into spell-staves, and the ongoing party joke about failing the simplest rolls. (The great enemy of this campaign? Not monsters, not pirates — stairs.)

By the end, the crew is laughing, learning the ropes of the system, and laying the groundwork for bigger battles ahead. It’s part session recap, part system breakdown, and part comedy of errors — exactly what you’d expect when Funkatronic Rex takes on a brand-new RPG.

Takeaway: Daggerheart encourages collaboration, description, and shared world-building — and sometimes reminds you that rolling dice can make stairs scarier than dragons.


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SPEAKER_03:

10 to 19 on my dice just don't exist. I have the largest grey pile pile of shame. Failure. A failure with fear every time.

SPEAKER_00:

Traveling to another dimension. A dimension not only of plastic and paint, but of games. A journey into a wondrous land where meeples become real and cardboard cuts like a knife. That's a signpost up ahead of your next stop. The funk cell.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh. Right, alright. Well, it's it's bright and early. I'm tired. Yeah, you have enough caffeine. No. Oh where is your caffeine? Do you have it handy? I drank it all.

SPEAKER_03:

You were screwed. I had to use like almond milk for creamer this morning. Gross. It's awful. That is just the worst. Well, that is why even use creamer. That is weird. Because uh I made cold brew that uh was in the fridge for a week. So it's very strong. It's reasonable.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's like was there fumes coming off it? You're like little skull crossbones float up.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm very awake right now. I'm very energized. And I've drank in half.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you should uh pass it over to Paul and he'll be like, you you want some nut milk.

SPEAKER_02:

We also like we're using the my wife made the coffee this morning and she made it with the last of the coffee grounds we had and like a little container we have on the counter. And rather than open a new container, she just used what was left. So it was also like half of the potency of what I'm used to.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, right, right, right. Yeah, just a little sip. A little here we go first.

SPEAKER_03:

Drink it, polish it off.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm doing great. For those folks listening at home, Paul's eyes just went. That's cold. I wasn't expecting cold. It's cold brew. It's not the worst. There you go. All right, well, crazy thing. So you guys are coffee drinkers. Coffee? On occasion. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I can't do it every morning. No. I used to drink it all the time. Like 9 p.m. I'm gonna have an evening cup of coffee before bed.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh that almost tastes like Italian life, but okay, okay like a cocktail.

SPEAKER_01:

I know Paul loves the caffeine though.

SPEAKER_02:

Paul doesn't love the caffeine so much as he needs the caffeine because he plays video games till ungodly hours and then gets four hours of sleep before a recording day.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, life life is full of choices, people. You know?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, so Wednesday night I went to bed at my usual irresponsible hour, and then I didn't work on Thursday. I had the day off, so I just slept until 1 p.m. So I actually had 10 hours of sleep, which is abnormal and weird. Did you feel weird when you woke up? No, I felt rested. I felt great. It was a new feeling.

SPEAKER_01:

I was like, I'm a oh, the spirit tripping.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh fast forward to last night and I undid all that that wonderful work that I just did. As you do.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, coffee. Like, I'm not a coffee guy, even though even though I have a Dutch Brothers, which technically I don't think actually counts as coffee. I would agree with you. Because there's kind of there's so much delicious sugar in this. It is so inappropriate.

SPEAKER_03:

It's absurd. It's a coffee flavored drink.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, no, and that's my that's my thing. Like, because the wife loves coffee, none more black. Like, if there's if it even walks by milk, she's kind of pissed.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I like I like my coffee like I like my soul.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Bitter and murky?

SPEAKER_02:

Dark and bitter.

SPEAKER_01:

Dark and bitter, black, none more black. So whenever Corey goes out and gets, but she does enjoy like a vanilla latte or like a little little something every now and then, like, especially around Halloween. Right. Every little treat, treat yourself, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But she's in the morning, it is like where's my coffee? Kind of thing. And I'm like, honey, that tastes terrible. Like, coffee is disgusting. I'm gonna say it's gross. I love my bean water. It is so bad. Now, I'm more of a tea person. Like, I'll drink an English breakfast. No, yeah, I know, and then people are like, that is disgusting dishwater. Like, it is gross as hell. Like Ted Lasso, every time he's like, that's that's still gross. I love it. I hate tea. But I will, however, as as like as evidence here, have my Dutch brothers, which is coffee adjacent, right? And there's a shot of espresso, but there's do-ba-da-do-ba da little flavors, a little this, a little that. And Corey tries it like this is the this is gross. Yeah. Like, where's the coffee in this? Yeah, it it's it's hidden.

SPEAKER_02:

No, she's onto something.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's not in there.

SPEAKER_02:

I would absolutely say coffee is an acquired taste. It was not something that I loved at first, and I loaded it with the creams and the sugars and all that. Yep, yeah. And then as I continue, I I probably ran out of cream or sugar one day or something like that, and it was like, I'll just yeah, just drink it straight. And have it, yeah, because it worked. And then you just that's the way. That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

You ride the dragon now, bro. Yeah, yeah. No, it worked because I did uh Child's Play was uh coming from what we call like regular theater, adult theater, snicker, snicker, snicker, right? Evening shows. So child's play is the morning, so we did school time performances. So I went from staying up until that's the one with Chucky, right? Yes, yes. So we did performances where pe kids got murdered by dolls and they loved it. They no, no, no. Uh we had many kids crying. Um, so it wasn't a performance. No, it was right. Uh so transitioning from that, because this was this was many years ago, uh, lots of coffee was around. I'm like, this is gross. Like, so I would put in like uh the Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate, right? Use that.

SPEAKER_02:

That's called a mocha.

SPEAKER_01:

I know, and that's when I was like, hmm, this is good. And people would be like, Chris, what the hell are you drinking? I'm like, I don't know, but it's got like mostly sugar and some caffeine, and they'd be like, they'd make the ugly face, like, uh, uh, the transition from that's actually legitimately like decent. Yeah, it was it wasn't great.

SPEAKER_02:

It's better than like loading it up on cream and pumps of syrup. Oh, you mean like this delicious beverage I have in my life? It's not even like coffee colored. It's not, it's not, no, it's just white.

SPEAKER_01:

It is it is that is milk colored. Oh, it's like milk with it's like chocolate milk. That's not even coffee adjacent anymore. But it does have like, well, I don't know, two shots of espresso, whatever. Uh uh. Actually asked for an extra shot. Well, no, uh looking at that color.

unknown:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

They might have forgot it.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, shot, I don't think shot is officially standardized, right? Like that could be that could be anything. It could just be two drops. They just get an eyedropper. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

No, not yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, there you go. And not to say that Dutch Brothers is is highly consistent because sometimes you're like, ooh, this one's this one's got a little kick to it. And like today's is like, that's lovely. Oh, oh, that's a that's a delicious beverage. Hopefully it has caffeine in it because that's what it kind of paid for. But you know, it's better than having a Red Bull in the morning.

SPEAKER_02:

Looking at the coloration of that liquid, you did not pay for caffeine. Come on!

SPEAKER_01:

Let me dream a little bit. Let me just wish that there's caffeine in there. No. No. No, I won't allow it. All right, that's fine. Not that I need it. Oh my gosh. Our morning, the morning groans. Well, shall we shall we get started? Shall we get started game? Shall we? All right, well, everybody, I'd say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or whenever the heck you are listening to it. Welcome to another episode of the Funkatronic Rex podcast. We usually say season two, but maybe we can skip that part because it's just continue. It's just it. There you go. Uh, I'm Chris, and to my right is my other fabulous co-host, John Cena. Wait, where are we? Where is he here? I can't see you. You're like, you're invisible, dude. Hi, I'm Paul. Hey, Paul. Now, for the third time in Funkatronic Rex season two podcast history, we have another fellow adventurer here. And your name is Everyone calls me Q. Q! What's up, dude? Good morning. Good morning.

SPEAKER_04:

That's not my name.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, that is his chosen name. And uh that's what we will call him from now on. That's it. For whatever reason. My nickname since like third grade.

SPEAKER_02:

There you go.

SPEAKER_01:

Just Q.

SPEAKER_02:

That's it. It's not your fault that you decided to hang out with six other Joshes. That was awful.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, right?

SPEAKER_03:

One class we all sat in a row.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So she'd be like, Josh, stop doing that. And you're both well not doing anything. Not you, the other Josh. And you'd be like, I'm not doing anything. No, not you. The other Josh. He was like, okay, I'll stop.

SPEAKER_01:

There you go. Well, this is awesome. A third member of the Merry Band to go on our tangenti. Wherever we decide to go.

SPEAKER_02:

Weird auditory adventures.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, that we all take you. ADHD conversations.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. We're just following the flow.

SPEAKER_03:

That is what this is. Go with the flow, man. Not generally hard lefts or rights, just floating through a conversation. And sometimes it just dips into the toilet bowl water.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh god. I mean. Right, next time we're conversation. Thank you, Paul. Oh my gosh. No, we usually talk about what we played, but one of the reasons why Q is here is that we played our first session of Daggerheart. What, just this? Well, yeah, just Saturday.

SPEAKER_02:

It's been a long week.

SPEAKER_01:

Apparently, I've already forgotten when we played it. Uh so hopefully it's fresh in our minds. Oh, it has been a long week. Yeah. Oh my gosh. But have we have you guys played anything else? I know there's like m uh you and I don't do the magic. Whatever. Who cares about that stuff? Uh, magic, the magic, anything.

SPEAKER_02:

I have not had a chance to play any tabletop games.

SPEAKER_01:

Nothing else played Q.

SPEAKER_02:

Just video games.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Get out.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Come back. You don't leave us.

SPEAKER_02:

Life's turned flipped upside down again. So this this time it won't be as long or as impactful as the last one, but uh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I mean life doesn't throw you curveballs. No, I know. And uh okay, I'm I can't judge because I think I played Daggerheart on Saturday. That was it. Yeah, that's that's all I did.

SPEAKER_02:

You didn't show up on Sunday for Star Wars.

SPEAKER_01:

So so the idea is, um since I'm married. Married, thank you. I was gonna say tech I am technically unemployed, although I do have work. You know, I am like the freelancer, so my schedule is more flexible, right? So I'm the kind of the stay lucky enough to be a stay-at-home kind of parent. Um so I have Wednesday nights or my writing writers group that I go to, and then Sundays is Star Wars when I come here to the store. And now I'm like, so what about Saturdays? And she's like, hold on, hold on, hold, hold on. So that's fine. I want you to go play. Like, this is great. Uh, but if you do Saturday, you can't shouldn't do Sunday. Like, give me a give me a day. Like, because she usually hangs out and does her stuff and runs errands.

SPEAKER_02:

You can't have close to half the week.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I know.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, that'll be the no more than 25 seconds.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, right. Like, that's like she like that's like almost the whole weekend because you're yeah, like it. You know, I show up and like, oh for Star Wars Sunday, I'm like, oh, I go here all one and I won't play for I'll just play for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and she probably has like normal hours, so like that's you know, that'd be your her entire weekend.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

You would be gone.

SPEAKER_01:

And of course, my usual time is like, oh, I'll be home around and she's like five again. And I'm like, well, maybe. I mean, if I do the if I do the event, like I don't always do the uh Star Wars uh event thing that we have on Sundays, just cuz you know, I'd have to scout out around four just so that she's like I could use help with dinner, sure, etc. etc. So yes, so I don't when we do our uh Sunday dagger Saturday dagger heart, I let Sunday come.

SPEAKER_04:

I see you guys next week.

SPEAKER_01:

I let go I can't play. Or I'll try to come in like on a Wednesday every now and then. If my writers group doesn't fire, I'll come in and play some stuff. Or Friday afternoon uh weekend some games. So you know I do we do scratch the itch, but I try not to abuse it. Yes, thank you. I mean take advantage, try not to abuse it and be like, I I could come back and do the gross some grocery shopping or laundry or whatever. Oh that's responsible. So, you know, I dude, I try. Like I think that's the operative word. I try.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't. It gets me in trouble plenty.

SPEAKER_01:

Do it. Oh, don't get me wrong, there's many a times where I'm like, there's the three parts of laundry, right? You have the washing it, uh-huh, then you get the drying it. What's the the third part?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh in a bin and let it sit for that. Yes, that's it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's and that's it. Put it in the clean pile. Put it in the clean pile. Yeah. Now lucky for me, the the she is uh she does also fall into that laundry trap, right? So I'm not the only one, but 90% of the time it's me. She's like, hey, that's awesome. But you did laundry, babe. I so you did do laundry, right? And I'm like, yeah, I did the laundry.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, but yes, but I did 66% of the laundry.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I did the important part. Right, right. It's ready to go. And she's like, so alright, let's put the wrinkle release. This let's okay. At least it's true. Putting away laundry sucks. We all know it. And we always love the we make the joke. I'm like, I just did laundry. Like I just I just did, I just did laundry. And it's never ending. Especially once you add kids into the mix. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we all start when we start doing the laundry, uh, we just start humming the Faith No More song uh Surprise You're Dead. But we call it Surprise More Laundry. Right? It never ever ends! So we just start laughing and doing the oh my gosh. Because it never ends. Yes. And that and dishes. Terrible at dishes. I don't know about you guys out there, but I suck at dishes. Not gonna lie. Yeah, I mean yeah. Yeah, you know, and it doesn't help that I'm the cooker.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know about you guys, but if someone cooks, the other person cleans, so if she does the stuff, that's how it should be, and I'm bad at upholding my end of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Alright, I don't mean to like me pulling you guys, throwing you guys out of the bus here, but that's like the goal. But I'm the guy who loves the mise en place. Oh, I've got a dish for this, and I gotta do this and put this in here, and I do that. And she just looks at me and goes, Bro, if it all goes at the same time, just put it in one frickin' bowl, boom. Yeah, two bowls, bum. And I'm like, if if I see more than three bowls out, we gotta talk.

SPEAKER_02:

I also I used to do that, and yes, the lawn the dishes helped train me not to. Yeah, right, right. I haven't learned that the so I started like I would do that, and then I'd start like reusing bowls.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Provided there's no like raw meat in the bowl or anything like that. Just wash it real quick.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's fine, just gonna quickly.

SPEAKER_02:

Or like it, you know, if I did dice a bunch of onion and pepper and that kind of thing, and then that was all in a bowl. Yeah. And then I while that's cooking, I might use that bowl for other for other veggies to whatever. Then I might put the raw meat in afterwards. Two shits. Yeah, right. Uh but yeah. But not before.

SPEAKER_01:

No. That would be important safety check. That's how you get sick. You don't want to cross-contaminate. Don't cross the streams, people.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you want worms? Mmm.

SPEAKER_01:

Because that's how you get worms. If I'm fishing, right? Oh my gosh. That's great. I didn't do nothing as usual. I have been hobbying though a little bit. I've been trying to work on my apocalypse for Marvel Crisis Protocol. He is a tasty, tasty model. Yeah. Really nice. How big is that model? It is uh this big. Uh, for those listening at home, gosh, he's one of the larger ones. Yes. So he's probably about three inches.

SPEAKER_02:

About twice the size of a normal model, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, give her, like, yeah, close to twice.

SPEAKER_02:

Is is he bigger or smaller than uh Hulkbuster armor?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, he's smaller.

SPEAKER_02:

So Hulkbuster. It's pretty big. About Thanos size?

SPEAKER_01:

Actually, I'd say he's a I I haven't built my Thanos because he's still in the box because uh terrible. But I think he's a little bit smaller than Thanos. Because Thanos is like he's a chunky boy. Like that's a big dude. Um Phoenix Unleashed, however, not only is that model gorgeous, it is massive. Like she's like easily four inches off the back thing and got the wings of flames and gorgeous, beautiful. I'll bring it in. Maybe we should play that game again. I was just thinking, right, oh my gosh. We could do that. Since you guys love Marvel Champions, right, which is awesome. I love the thank you for letting me play with you guys.

SPEAKER_02:

I've threatened to make you play Q play with me, and we played once.

SPEAKER_03:

I played it, I think only once.

SPEAKER_01:

I did enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I would say, much like Marvel Champions, because one of the things that we uh that we talked about is the it really has the flavor of Marvel, right? Yeah. If you're rocking bishop, uh or what was that game you played? X23?

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

When you were just excuse me, guys, I'm just gonna slice, slice, slice, slice, right? So you get the flavor of it. I think Marvel Crisis Protocol really does a good job of doing the same for miniatures for the minis. So I love I I I don't play it enough. I love Marvel, it really scratches the geek side, and then it also has a game, so I'm like, oh, this is I mean, yeah, 60% is still just building the models and painting them. Right. But unfortunately, yeah. Which I'm super, super behind on.

SPEAKER_02:

Super high! A notification on my phone, Google sent me a wonderful little notification. They're like, hey, you remember this event four years ago? And it was my painted venom. I was like, oh, four years. Four years. Yes, all I painted.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, Q, do you do the mini stuff at all?

SPEAKER_02:

Are you he he likes to think he does?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I am infamously bad at it. I have the largest gray pile of shame, and I also have several boxes of just unconstructed minis. Right?

SPEAKER_02:

He loves to acquire minis and then do nothing with them. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

What's the oh this box is really and then you put them there, and that box is cool and you put it there, and you're like, I'll get to it. I'll get to it.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I I think at this point he's accepted and he like Paul will assemble these for me. Jason will paint these for me. So it'll get around to it.

SPEAKER_01:

It'll get done. I don't think uh I don't think I've met a hobbyist, like a tabletop miniature hobbyist person who does not have a a pile of gray. Oh yeah. Right? It's just I just think it's part of the curse or whatever. The the yeah curse. It's like, well, I'm playing, you know, Sigmar or Marvel Crisis Protocol or whatever. And you're like, well, this model's cool, but do I play them?

unknown:

No, no, I'll get I'll play it.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll get to it, I'll do it. I'm gonna play Spider-Man and Spider-Fose.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean no, no, I'm uh Man, I Spider Foes is my jam. Uh in Crisis Protocol, like that was like the one faction that I cared about. And I'm like missing four or five models now because they've released more. They've added a few more. Uh I don't have Rhino, I don't have Vulture, I don't have who else did they add? They I believe they added Shocker or was it Electro? No, Electro.

SPEAKER_01:

Electro.

SPEAKER_02:

Shocker. Shocker might have been released too.

SPEAKER_01:

But no, so the cool thing that Marvel Curses Protocol is doing right now is they're releasing um affiliation packs now. So that if you have if you like Spider-Man or Spider Foes or X-Men or whatever, it's kind of like a starter box. So it's got four or five miniatures in it, boom, you're good to go, and you're done. Oh, nice. And that's it.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Uh well you still have to assemble and paint the well, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_02:

They still go in the gray pile of shame.

SPEAKER_01:

That's step four, five, and six where you make money, you steal underwear, make money.

SPEAKER_02:

But you don't have to buy six different boxes.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, right. And they're redoing, but they're also redoing their uh intro boxes. So you have the big kit with all the stuff, but then they have starter kits without the train uh and a few other things. I think it's just the train, but I think it comes with the dice and the measuring tools. And it's like just uh spider foes or just X-Men. Or just where's the there's a third one? So you're like, I just want to start the game with X-Men and buy the starter kit on the game. Yeah, that's smart. That's nice. So and it's is that 80 bucks? Something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

A lot of a lot of companies seem to be moving that way where it's like buy the starter pack for for the one faction you want to play, yeah, as opposed to the two-player box.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Which I think is I think that's way smarter. Way smarter.

SPEAKER_03:

Does skirmish style games help you avoid the gray pile of shame as well? It's a little bit different than when you have like, oh, I play goblins. This one unit is 40 goblins I have to paint. It's just so I don't want to gray pile of shame. I don't even want to start. I'll just leave it.

SPEAKER_01:

It's smaller. That's I think that's that's it.

SPEAKER_02:

I just so but the but then the with the skirmish games, you're more inclined to do more details, more you want the the models to pop a bit more, so there's less uh shortcutting and that kind of thing. They take longer to paint. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

It's very much like in your big armies, you got the hero.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. You paint the hero and everyone else's three colors, no wash, no.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. Slap, chop, slap, chop, done, dip, ready to go. And that's what I think like the most skirmish games with Marvel Crisis in particular. It's like everyone's kind of a hero or a villain, right? So you're gonna spend a little bit more time on them. Uh I did just pick up a box of Marvel Crisis protocol, and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be awesome. And then I put I opened up where I put my minis, and I was like, this is gonna be oh uh, I did not think I I had that many. And there's a few uh uh Sigmar. So I got some of my uh Luminath Realm Lords elves sitting there staring at me, going, bruh. Uh forget about us!

SPEAKER_04:

Did you forget me?

SPEAKER_01:

And then my dwarves, I got a few, like one or two things of the the um Votan, and they're like, uh, really? You're gonna buy more of those guys? Yeah, come on. So I have a underneath my desk, I got a little area where I put the guys, I'm like, this is my process. I want to work through these guys, and then every now and then uh somebody will cut the line, just slip forward, like you know, Professor X. I don't know why. Oh, how did he get there? I don't know, guys. Sorry, we'll get to you guys. Oopsie! Right, so Apocalypse was like rolls in, just you know, sorry guys, we're gonna go back to the city. That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

It's just a big yellow blob, and then you just paint him flesh colored and then do a glossy varnish on the top, and you're done.

SPEAKER_01:

That's it. Just keep going. Easy peasy, easy peasy. Well, what I want to try, what I was gonna do, because I posted this in the Discord out there, is I was gonna try to work on like making a bass kind of from like really build it up from scratch. The base that Apocalypse comes with is cool, it's alright. It goes with its terrain, like it's kind of old school Egyptian, kind of, you know, that cool cool thing. But I'm like, what if I just want to play right breaking through walls like the high sea guy, you know, like the Kool-Aid guy. The high sea guy. High sea guy. So I'm gonna go. No, that's Slimer. I'm gonna fix that in post. That is that is Kool-Aid Man. The Kool-Aid Man! Cooler! Cooler, right? So I'm going through the process of just trying to be like oh yeah, yeah. Uh make a base so he can fit on both bases, so magnetization and all that stuff. So Daggerhard.

SPEAKER_03:

We're gonna talk about Daggerheart, which we only introduced. Right. Today we're talking about dagger heart. We're the main topic.

SPEAKER_01:

We get the main topic now. We're gonna be done in like 40 minutes. No, I have so much to talk about with dagger heart.

SPEAKER_02:

We've got the main topic, and I'm sure people are ready.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll we'll flow back out. I'm sure. Oh no, no, there's always the tangents. So, yes, what's tangents? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

So man, there was this tangent once. We're gonna fight. We're gonna throw hands.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm coming over this table. You just broke a beer bottle through that mic. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02:

I remember this one time we were trying to have a conversation. I hate you.

SPEAKER_01:

This one time at band camp. Jeez. Oh, that's great. Well, well, well, let's do it. Let's go. I mean, you know, if we haven't had any much games and we've done our dagger heart, yeah. I don't know any of us have had much hobby time, so let's hit it. Let's let's let's rock and roll and I know. I did build a new deck for Magik.

SPEAKER_02:

For Magique. We were gonna fight down the road. No, this is this is on topic, Josh. We were he was asking what we did this week, if we played any games. I didn't play any games, but I did build a robotnik deck.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Well, I've been working on my Star Wars Dr.

SPEAKER_02:

Eggman.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh the Star Wars Unlimited deck, and I'm really enjoying building it. And so again, didn't play anything, but what would like deck crafting, kind of tweaking it, playing it online, tweaking it, playing it online through uh Force Table. Right. Um I don't use there's Carabas, and there's another one that Mike told me about. It's an online digital, like you can go in and play the game, and I'm like, I want to talk to people. Uh and and and actually have a personal interaction with stuff. Um so those things are weird. Like I like the, you know, hanging out and talking. So I've been working on like a Kit Fisto Jedi deck, which is fun. A couple of cards I'm missing. And it's doing alright. Like I'm having fun with it. Again, step one, have fun. Step two, hopefully win. Right, get there. Uh, but I'm enjoying it. Because there's a couple of guys here who play like some seriously cool, but they're like fine-tuned decks. I'm almost like, whoo! I think I need to I need to attempt to up my game. Right. We'll see. Uh hopefully I'll get some games. Right, right, right, right, right. Like casual plus. That's like my life. Professional casual.

SPEAKER_02:

We uh but what's your so you worked on a Magic? Magic. Furthering the Fortnite of Magic, they released a Sonic the Hedgehog um mini set.

SPEAKER_01:

I heard about that. Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

It was just like five cards you can order only online. We might get one or two in uh here in the shop. But um so they did Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robutnik, uh, or Dr. Eggman as the card is officially called. But if you watched the Jilliel White version of Sonic, it's Dr. Robutnik. Um Tails, Amy, Shadow. You got all the main characters as unique mechanically unique magic cards, which I freaking hate. That's a whole podcast conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

Um we'll put a pin in that one.

SPEAKER_02:

But I I've been trying to boycott the whole secret lair thing because I don't like the business model that they're doing. I don't like that they're doing mechanically unique cards. I've been trying not to give them their the give them the money, but also I want my kid to play magic and he loves Sonic.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_02:

So I was like, alright, I'll buy the Sonic cards, build my kid a magic deck. Plus, on top of that, uh Eggman is in Grixis colors, blue, black, red. And my existing blue or post-existing blue black red deck at the time was my pirates deck, and I have legitimately had more complaints about playing against that deck than any other deck I own. It's completely fair, but it's not doing the really salty things that pirates do, which is just steal all your cards. Yeah. I I literally only had two cards in the entire deck that stole cards. The problem is that the deck was unstoppable. It kept bringing pirates back from the dead, and uh it would just it would just overwhelm with numbers and power and and it was just unstoppable. You you'd board wipe and they'd come back. Right. It what it it wasn't even once it started going, it just does it, it just goes. Oh my gosh. Um, and then there was like two cards in it that locked the game down. Like there was a pirate that they made with that deck that said whenever it or another pirate enters the battlefield, you tap a creature an opponent controls, and then that creature doesn't untap. For as long as that pirate is on the battlefield. So that pirate stays there. I'm playing three or four pirates a turn. I'm tapping down the entire board. None of that stuff untaps. They kill that thing. The next turn I just bring it back from the dead. I'm tapping down more pirates or more non-pirates. And so it was. I get it. All right. I get it. Um it was a really fun deck to play, and uh it did a really cool thing that was kind of unique. But because it had more complaints than any other deck I had at the time, there might be one other deck. And I don't know if I can bring myself to take it apart.

SPEAKER_01:

But um just hanging on the wall in the shrine of decks that piss people off.

SPEAKER_02:

It's my it's my it's my mono white deck.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah, yeah, no, no, I don't.

SPEAKER_02:

Um but the with the so I I wanted a new Grixis deck. I wanted a new blue, black, red. Eggman fits the bill. I was like, all right, I'll buy I'll build the kid Sonic, I'll build myself Eggman, everybody'll win. So that's what I did is I built the Eggman deck. I've I started work on the Sonic deck, um, but the Eggman is done. It is sleeved, pirates are no more.

SPEAKER_01:

So you oh uh oh, discombobulated, unsleeved, and everything. You have moved on. Yep, that's a sure sign. You're like, oh, sorry guys, I gotta unsleeve you now.

SPEAKER_02:

So I have I now have an Eggman deck with his army of robots that is probably gonna be just as miserable to play against his pirates. Hopefully not.

SPEAKER_01:

Another reason why I don't play Matt. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I don't know. So we played Daggerheart. So well, one of the reasons why Q's here is he is part of our gaming group. Correct. Paul, you are the GM, or what do they have a name for it in Daggerheart? Is it Game Master or Yeah, it's GM.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, GM. I was trying to think of like a good joke to play off of that, and the only thing that came to mind was completely inappropriate. General manager.

SPEAKER_01:

The general I'm just a general man. I'm a people person! Yeah, uh Q and I are players amongst uh three others. So there's a party of party of five. Five party of five, six players, great show.

SPEAKER_02:

Five players, five uh five heroes, yep, and you and one schmuck.

SPEAKER_01:

God facilitator. I don't know. The facilitator. That's a good name.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm the try to manage five lunatics at the table, one wrangler. Definitely in the player wrangler.

SPEAKER_01:

I think I think general manager is not a bad idea because there's a lot of wrangling, managing, like, hey guys, let's let's bring it back in, let's focus every now and then.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's man, I wish you guys would focus less. All too often I'm like, oh come on, this is a perfect time for you guys to start interacting with each other and playing off of each other and having conversations with each other, and you guys all just turn and look at me at the same time. So what happens next? Well, it the dangers not just on me, guys. Oh, it is now. Uh but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we want we wanted to bring after a couple of our games bring on like one or more of the players and have some conversations as we're going through it. Right, right. Figured it'd be a fun little change of pace, even though we've talked nothing but Daggerheart for the last several episodes.

SPEAKER_01:

We're gonna mix it up a little bit. It's I think it's fine.

SPEAKER_02:

This this might be the last Daggerheart conversation for like at least two weeks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Two episodes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Um speaking of we're skipping next week's recording. There you go.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh but yeah, so so so yeah, I I I do the GMings and you guys do the playings.

SPEAKER_01:

Now you got have did both of you do the um beta test. Beta test. Yes. So you both did it. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

He I I beta test with beta tested with, I think, was it two or three groups? It was definitely two. Did I have a third third group? Okay. Uh we definitely I definitely beta tested it twice, uh, at the very least. So I had uh Q was in one of the two groups. Nice, nice that I bet beta tested with.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so I'm curious, never having beta tested. I've always like, oh like that would be kind of fun, but it never I never get around to doing it. It just lands in the pile of shame. You know, like I'll get to it, maybe eventually. Um how was the beta like how was the beta testing? And it have you did you notice like any big development jumps that you're like, oh, oh yeah, like that was a like that was a good one or bad one. Uh so from when we're here now playing our first session, because you have two groups that you're doing dagger heart with. Right. So I'm in both of them. And you're in both, you geez, you just fall.

SPEAKER_02:

He's like, I want to play Daggerheart. So he invites all the people and he's like, and so then we end up with two groups worth of people, and I'm like, fine, I'll run it.

SPEAKER_03:

All right, yes, okay, do a little celebration dance.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. My clever plan is working. All right.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh I get to play Daggerheart. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna rub it on my gums and say, hey man, hey man, got any Draggerheart over there, bro? Um, is there one one or two things that stand out for you guys from your testing? That's like, oh yeah, that was a good good step forward, or why didn't you fix this kind of thing? Is there anything like that? Yes. Armor.

SPEAKER_03:

Armor! Armor is a huge change. It's so much simpler now than it was in the beta test. Yeah, I didn't know. You had to do some pretty significant math at the table. You're like, oh, wait, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Damage in general, like just how taking damage worked. Yeah, armor is a is a core part of that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So that was like something like significant improvement. Significant improvement, way better. Yeah. Because if I if I remember right, there's three thresholds within it, right? Your minor, major, and two thresholds.

SPEAKER_02:

Or three three categories. But two thresholds.

SPEAKER_01:

So category one, you have a threshold, category two, a threshold category. So if you have a threshold of six, which I think is my character, and you take five damage, it stays in the lower category, the minor. But if it's seven, it's bumped up to that middle or major category. Moderate. So minor, moderate, and major. And black knight. Like, bloody cut your arms off! Right. So it's only a flesh wound. It's only a flesh wound. So uh interesting. So there's little less math. I I think that idea is pretty cool. It's like, listen, if you take you to you can take one hit point if it's in the minor, and if it goes over this threshold, you get two. And over that next threshold it's three. But your character, right? Our characters have five, six hit points? Like, yeah. It's not a lot. Which I think is kind of realistic. I love the DD idea where you're like, well, I'm a broad I'm a big old dude and I've got 20 hit points. Well, you got skewered by a broadsword. So you only take four damage? Like, how does that work?

SPEAKER_02:

I think I think Daggerheart does a better job at um putting explaining mechanically how we think hit points should work. Right. Yeah. Uh in D, when you have 70, 80, 100 hit points, it's less about you getting hit and more representative of your exhaustion throughout the fight. Right. And so if you get hit in DD, it's not so much a hit as as it is just like you getting worn down. Yeah. Right. Right. Um, whereas in Daggerheart, getting hit is getting hit. You you get hit maybe maybe not perfect, right? It's still an abstraction because like, yeah, you can if you get a major wound, it still can't one it's impossible for it to one-shot you, right? Can you be one-shot in Daggerheart?

SPEAKER_03:

So there is an optional rule for severe damage. Okay. Where I think they have to like if it's double the Drupal or double your major threshold, um, you would then take four hit points worth. That's still not enough to kill most. Most. But if you were to hit someone that didn't level up, like a wizard that didn't level up their hit points, that might be a one-shot. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

How many hit points does your character have?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh five? I'm a human, so I got one extra slot. So I think I have six. Okay. Which is, which I was surprised at. I'm like, that's, you know, to me, that feels a little beefy for bookworm. Yeah. You know, guy, but I'm resilient. Well that's what I was saying. I'm like, it's it's a little bit from all the lashings. All the beatings and eating cold ice yellow ice for years and years. Eating yellow slides. Yes. So I kind of worked it into the character. I'm like, okay, you get a little extra bonus. Right. Oh, okay. That's because uh being human in Daggerheart, you can get an extra you get an extra hit point slot. So I was like, that's that's cool. I was like, all right. I can I'm not gonna get instantly blown out of the water, just the second round I might have.

SPEAKER_02:

So it used to be if if uh so the DM when or GM in Daggerheart, when they make it an attack roll against the player, it's the same as it was in the beta. You roll a d20. Okay, and then you add the monster's attack bonus, which is in tier one, it's usually a plus one thereabouts. Um and you roll that, and I almost almost always roll under a 10 because that's how I do. And uh unless you crit me. Yeah, it's either it's either under a 10 or a crit. Yeah, two and one side. Those are the only things.

SPEAKER_01:

There's like couple of rows who are just like, I'm never gonna hit you guys ever. And you're like, Sagarize, go, oh, because it does a 20 hit. You're like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh 10 to 19 on my dice just don't exist. They don't one through nine and then twenty.

SPEAKER_01:

So basically it's a it's a 10-sided, just just repeated. Yeah, one through nine, one through nine, and twenty.

SPEAKER_02:

I should I should just switch it to a a 10-sider. There you go. Um so so the GM rolls uh a D20, they add the attack, and then you compare that to your evasion score. Right. The evasion largely was unchanged from the beta.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh evasion's based on your uh your class. And then there's a couple of there's a couple of items and level ups and things like that that might boost your evasion.

SPEAKER_03:

So, like my goblin in our other game has uh a 16 evasion, which is insane.

SPEAKER_04:

A 16?

SPEAKER_03:

A 16, and he gets hit all the time because that's when Paul rolls high. Uh but my warrior right now, which does have a pretty high starting evasion, since he's using specific equipment, his evasion's down to nine. Right. So it's easy to hit, but he has more armor because of it. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's the thing, it's like there's like the give and take, which they did play around with DD a little bit. But I think that was kind of cool. If all right, you can get basic armor, but it keeps your evasion up. But if you say go for chain mill, plate mail, whatever, adamantium, stuff like that, you have a bonus for armor, but you get a negative effect as well. So there's a little advantage-disadvantage, right, right, which does seem like they try it feels like it's almost like a a theme of the game, hope and fear, right? You have an advantage and disadvantage. So you can make the choice. The choice is yours, right? But you know, choose wisely, as it were. What advantage do you want and what disadvantage do you want to deal with?

SPEAKER_02:

Right. So usually if you have a higher evasion, you have lower thresholds, so it's easier for you to take more damage. Right. But the if you have a uh lower evasion, your thresholds are super high, so you take you know very, very little damage, if not, if not none. The turtle guardian. Um so that that was largely the same. And then so if I roll over your evasion, if I roll over a 16 on the goblin, um then I hit. And then I roll damage, which is usually based on the monster, it's at 1d6, 1d8, or double that if you're tier two, triple that if you're tier three. Um which I can explain tiers in a second. Then I roll my damage and add the add the bonuses and say, okay, I I'm dealing seven damage to you, right? Right. And then in the old game, you would take the that's what there was an armor score. You would take an armor score and subtract that from the damage, then compare that to your your threshold. I don't remember that part.

SPEAKER_01:

It was just really there's that that gif of somebody with all the calculations floating around and staring and like it wasn't buffering. I kept buffering. Was it three five or four or whatever? It was like the Faco score. Was that second part? Yeah, right, to hit AC zero or whatever. And I definitely remember a couple of times I'm like, this is this has got to be a better way because I have to subtract and add stuff. I just want to be like, what is my die roll? I add stuff. Is it better than or worse than whatever your number is? And you figure that out in your character sheet, you add it all up and you write it down. You know, your AC gives you this bonus, your dexterity gives you this bonus. That's it. That's all you got. Not Thako. Well, if your Thako is four and I rolled a 12 and I gotta subtract two and take the cosine of the tangent, I'm like, that sucks.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. This is miserable. Yeah, I'm crying on the outside.

SPEAKER_02:

Early Dagger Heart bat the dagger heart beta very was reminiscent was very reminiscent of Thacko for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Um it wasn't it wasn't that bad. And and to be fair, Thacko wasn't that bad either. No, it's just goofy. It was just it was just silly, and it was extra steps for no reason. Yeah, right. And so what they did in in the official release is they cut out like a whole step in the damage process, and now your armor score, instead of reducing the damage you take, it calculates how many times you can reduce the threshold.

SPEAKER_04:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Um no, that's what it was. You could spend an armor slot to reduce the damage.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, and it was by still by the armor score. And it was by the armor score.

SPEAKER_02:

And so you would spend an armor slot, and then I think you had a certain number of armor slots based on your class.

SPEAKER_03:

It was weird.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so now what they did is they baked the armor slots into the armor score. Now gives you how many armor slots you have, and if you take off the armor slot, then you just lower it by one tier one threshold entirely. So if you're taking major damage, you now take minor damage. Yeah. Uh instead of uh, or if you're taking minor damage, you take no damage in instead of just reducing the number. So it it it definitely simplified it a lot. It ended up working out to be roughly the same. The players I think are slightly more powerful as a result of it, but it's not it's not enough for it to be like game breaking, game-breaking. Um overall, the except for our turtle, like that cat.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that that that that's the guardian in general, though.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, it was that way in the beta too.

SPEAKER_03:

I think there's a lot of power fantasy for the players in this game, which I really enjoy. Yeah, um, you get a lot of cool spotlight moments that you feel like your class, like what we were talking about with um Marvel Crisis Protocol, where Spider-Man feels like Spider-Man. Yeah, in this game, you feel like your class, you feel like it's actively your class, which I think is really cool. Each class feels like very distinct and like they have their place to shine, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you too.

SPEAKER_03:

And the guardian is definitely shining in his. I don't want to take any damage. Any damage.

SPEAKER_01:

I love how you read it. It's like, so if I do this, do I just take no damage? And we're all like it. Yes, yeah. Yes, you do. Yeah, I mean, you are a 10-foot turtle, so you just turn around and be like, Yeah, you're you're just a big meat shield.

SPEAKER_03:

He's like, I am your shield, he gets in the way. I was like, You didn't need to get in the way of my minor threshold.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

But still, the power dependency was there. It's just so cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, watching you two, like, because you're like six, whatever, like seven, like this giant buff goat man. Yeah, and then the two turtles, and I'm sitting here going, smoking a cigarette in the background, okay. It's great. I'll wait. You guys are done. But you weren't.

SPEAKER_03:

Like you were doing in the middle of combat, like an important part of getting the ship. Well, trying to get the ship started.

SPEAKER_04:

Trying to get the ship started. That's correct.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, okay, so before we go we go over what happened in this session, let's talk. I don't think we ever on the podcast actually went over like who your character is, what they look like, and that kind of thing, right? People know that it's a wizard. Kind of people know it's a human, they're you're from the the north.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally meant to bring a character.

SPEAKER_02:

We went through a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, but uh but I want to like reintroduce the characters just briefly.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So my character is uh is a wizard.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, because that's what I usually play. He's from the northern uh right now, the Dominion, which is very much a uh Imperial the uh the Empire, uh an empire in the north that is gathering the magic crystals for war and advantage and tactical purposes. They kidnap or uh forcefully volunteer people to uh join the ranks. If you have any spellcasting ability, you are uh conscripted into their training. Voluntold. Voluntold. Exactly. I love that. Voluntold. Just like the cheddar. That's right. And it's every yeah, exactly. So I try to mix a little bit of both. Um and then uh at my my for my character, the first big battle that he went on was like, nope, this sucks. Uh my uh training. I didn't sign up for this. I did not sign up for this. FTS I'm out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, FTS, WTF. So uh I had a little fight with my mentor. And so one of my character things is like being able to like kind of click into and channel magical energy at a maybe a little higher clip, like I can uh channel the force somehow. So we I escaped him, ran off and escaped to the south. Uh and basically my guy's kind of an albino, frankly, like whenever I think of him and look at his description, he's kind of an albino, like very pale skin, pale white skin. Uh like a longish, of course. He's rock and roll, longish hair. Um so he's a little like most people up there, very pale, very like northern Scandinavian uh Vikings meets Russian type stuff. Uh and yeah, I think that that kind of covers it. He uh apparently became a pilot in this episode, um, trying to figure out how to everyone turns and looks at Chris.

SPEAKER_03:

You're the smart one. You're gonna pilot this. Everyone looks at you like, oh.

SPEAKER_02:

I threw you under the skyship of no one.

SPEAKER_01:

We kind of talked about that a little bit, but that was great. But I definitely was like, guys, I just lost a battle to the stairs. Like, are you sure you want me to laughed laughing so hard at my so the words you use matter in the game, obviously. We'll get to that.

SPEAKER_03:

Um I do want to talk about the stairs a little bit more. We're going to it explains the duality dice so well. We're going to talk about the stairs. We'll get started.

SPEAKER_02:

The stairs are coming. They're inevitable.

SPEAKER_01:

The stairs are coming. Oh my god. So that's so I think that's my character. He escaped. He's uh one of like so Mike is a sorcerer, which works a little different. And since I'm trained in the magic, I have more kind of exposure to these crystals and a little bit more knowledge, and like maybe we like maybe we shouldn't be hiking through this area for too long because to quote modern technology, the radiation sickness might mess us up.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh interestingly, I don't think the wizard and sorcerer share a domain, right? They're compl two completely different. I think they're different. Because the sorcerer is definitely night magic, and I want to say um Arcane. Arcane, right? And then the wizard isn't Arcane. He's Codex. Codex, and uh it's a divinity one. Splendor. Splendor.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because that's like a book and a like a glowing orb or something like that is the symbol of those.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, really interesting to me. But but yeah, I mean, it's cool. It's it's really cool that we have the two distinctly magic-oriented classes uh in the game that traditionally in in terms of like DD, those classes are identical. The only difference between a sorcerer and a wizard, up and especially up until fifth edition, uh up until fourth edition, um, was just how they get their spell slots and use them. Right. That was really the major difference. And then fourth edition was weird, and then fifth edition started giving them look their own spell shapes. If I remember because I didn't send their own spells, they shared a lot of the spells.

SPEAKER_01:

There's well, I think I'm because they do share some spells, but they do have their own unique interpretation of it a little bit. Uh, because I did look at the fifth edition player soundbook, because you know, you geek out and I'm like, oh, memories.

SPEAKER_02:

There's more class abilities in fifth edition. Third third edition had a lot of it. Um, but it felt as a caster though, they were pretty samey, right? It felt a lot less impactful than what fifth edition gives you with chaos magic.

SPEAKER_01:

And what I tried to do, because one of the things, one of the stories and stuff uh that I'm writing and working on is exploring the idea of what's the difference between a sorcerer and a magician, right? Right. What is that? Why do we have that classification? Kind of inspired by DD's more I'm trying to like do fifth edition, ish, ish-ish, you know, sure DD Jason. But to me, the sorcerer was always kind of like a Jedi, right? Or a force user. It's internal, you know, you have an internal connection to a magic power that you use, and you can say turn it into stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, the rocks have it, the trees have it.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, exactly. Um while a mag uh magician, a magic user, is more saw people in half. Right, yeah. Just just once or twice in college. Pull doves out of hats. Right? Rabbits. No, that's an illusionist. That's a subclass. And I love those guys. I had one illusionist for years and years, and it was great. And everybody was like, your illusionist class is lame. And I'm like, hold my beer, bro. Like, I'm gonna, I will scare the monsters.

SPEAKER_02:

In in the revised fifth edition in in 5.25, 5.24, 5.25, 25, 25, 75? Yeah, whatever. Uh just revised. It's just revised fifth edition. Uh in fifth edition revised, they they really buffed the illusionist. And the illusionist is like, why at least when the book first came out, it was widely considered to be one of the best reapproaches in in the book. The the way that they did it was really strong and really, really cool. So yeah, because I'm trying to think a lot of people were really high on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Like the uh the superhero Marvel uh analogy, like what is his name? The spider foe, Mysterio? Is that his name? Something like that, who creates these illusions like in the movie, like it will mess you up because like you're thinking you're fighting some guy, but you're actually like punching a wall or jumping off a cliff or whatever. So my illusionist was kind of like I tried to play around with those ideas like that, which was super fun back in the day. Um, but to but uh the thing that I'm like I think about when I'm gonna be like, It's an illusion, Michael. It's an illusion, Michael. You're you're eating maggots, Michael. Um so the idea is like a magician, a magic user is more external, books, rings. I gotta have stuff to access it, while a sorcerer is more internal. I can turn it on, but it drains me quicker because it's me that's the conduit, not a thing. So that's what I'm playing with in the story. That's what I'm kind of looking at. Like, all right, I have to focus on my character. I gotta have the things. I can't just be like, I summon the power of magic. You're like, no, bro, you gotta even though they don't really talk about it, you need to like, how do I make him a I have to study, I gotta work, I gotta read. Not memorize spells, but I gotta, I can't just call it out from the ether and be like, I cast fireball. Like, you gotta what did I prepare? Which I think is a different makes sorcerer's missions different.

SPEAKER_02:

I am O'Brien in in Critical Role did a really good job, I think, at at portraying the distinction. Yeah. Um in the second campaign, he played a a wizard that uh what he ended up focusing on a lot as as the character. From a roleplay standpoint, is he he would commonly describe the spell components, the hand gestures, what he's doing to cast the spells, as opposed to just saying I cast fireball, right? Right. He's he's I I pull out Bat Guano and I mush it together in my hand and I mold it, and then uh I release uh a ball of fire, right? And so he's he's taking more time to describe, you know, I might take a look at that. Like one of his common spells he would use is the alarm spell. And in D D it it describes to you uh what the the spell components are, which are mostly flavorful at this point. Um, and it it tells you if there's verbal somatic, you know, what type of things that your character has to do in order to do it. And so he would study those spell lists for the spells that he knew, and he would say, you know, um if if he's casting the alarm spell, I I take some string, I spread it around the the area that we're setting up for camp. Um, and I, you know, do a ritual.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. I whisper I say in the world because I lay the spring, and then I have to tie it together in a certain way, which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I always viewed the wizard as more of a scientist, like they're an academic, they study like fantasy science of how the world interacts, how does this all work? And you have these words of power, you have these things that you are utilizing, but yourself is not magical, or the sorcerer is just innate within them.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, right. Like they're a battery, and you're charging yourself full of this innate power while yeah, you're like, oh, if I need to figure out how to harness these energies, I have to create a tool for me to connect to that, or create something that allows me to connect to that. Yeah, that's a really good analogy.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I think Daggerheart nails it. Yeah, so your sorcerer is instinct-based, right? And your wizard is knowledge-based. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So I need to, I mean, as a player, I think I need to start somehow start figuring that out. You know, uh this you're putting us through this uh in medial, like right in the action, which was great. Uh gets us into the story, allows us to roleplay a little bit, but also our party did not meet in a tavern. Correct. I loved it. Um, so I need to start like thinking about that. Like, what do I have? Did I grab stuff on the way or have I uh like built a few things? Do I need components? Now uh one thing that is interesting about Daggerheart so far, and correct me if I'm wrong, is there's not a spell list. That's correct. So you do not have, and I kind of like not get me wrong, like again, like I like the the penumbra, the extra stuff. I like a spell list where I can pick and choose, like if I'm from the north, I would pick not worm spells. I would be like ice shaft and this thing and frostbite and this and that. Um so I enjoy that as a springboard to help build that character, build the tool set that you carry around with you. But dagger heart is like a little more like free form. It's free form, absolutely. Like what you asked me, you know. I'm like, boom, I'm an attack with my great staff. I roll the stuff and you go, well, what does it look like? And I'm like, I don't know. Oh, oh, I'm like, oh yeah. So I am it's not a hand to hand crate staff. This is my tool. That I use to access the magical ether of this world. I don't know what it looks like. So I might change it a little bit since I'm like, what's from the north? It'll be I would choose something cold that I would wreck no. I'm like, eh, oh yeah. But one of my spells is that. So I'm like, oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll do that. That's one of my favorite things to do as a GM. Um, anytime I'm playing with a spellcaster, the first time they cast any spell, cool. What does that spell look like? This is the first time we've seen it. What does it look like? And then that both defines the character kind of what kind of magic they're doing, as well as kind of gives us a springboard into the world. What does magic look like in this world? Is it is it just a beam of light like uh in the the shofriend? Have you started it?

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh so in the showfriend. They take the the staff, um, and whenever they're they're channeling an attack spell, or just about any spell, they channel it all through their staff. And so when they're they're casting a spell, oftentimes the the end of the staff will light up, it'll draw an arcane circle in front of the staff, just kind of very anime-esque loving off of the off of it, and then it'll shoot a beam out of the center of that that disc, that that arcane disc that appears of light.

SPEAKER_03:

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and so like you know, is it is it that or are you does your the end of your staff crystallize into ice and then start shooting off ice shards, right? Right, which is roughly what you ended up describing at the time in the moment. Um both are valid, yeah, both are the correct answer. Yeah, uh, what which one works best for your character and your vision of that character? Uh, and then you know, later on as a GM, when I'm describing how an enemy might use magic, I'm gonna draw from that inspiration. This is how magic works in this world that we've created together. Um, so yeah, so that I I that's one of my favorite questions to ask. No, it was cool.

SPEAKER_01:

A lot of things and I thought it was very it definitely, I mean, kind of put us on the spot, not I wouldn't say put on the spot, but it's like, oh yeah, that's right. You know, the role-playing part, like what does that do? How how does my character interface with the arcane?

SPEAKER_03:

Right and then Alex and his cool ability of I am your shield, what does that look like? Yeah. Oh, I go and I push my ally out of the way and I take it on the shell. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. It it doesn't just go to magic. Magic's the obvious one. But yeah, like, yeah, what is what does your ability look like? What is what does that talent look like?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

As far as spell lists are concerned, Daggerheart does a little bit with the the codex domain specifically. The codex domain look widely considered to be the most powerful domain. Um excellent. It's because each card has options. Because each card has three options, rather.

SPEAKER_01:

So there are there is a list. So so it did, I was like, okay, I need to have probably one more, just so I have a few more options. Wasn't able to use them in this uh in this uh session just because I think I misread. I'm like, oh yeah. Oh, that has to be close.

SPEAKER_03:

The the the codex, if you have that domain, you're gonna have to be, you have more bookkeeping to do. You have a little bit more like, oh wait, do I have a tool for this? You gotta bookkeep in the codex. That's right. Uh just there's a lot more than like what my warrior has to keep track of. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And more and and my like and your warrior versus like Mike's sorcerer, he's got a few things, but he can more like take that riff and inspiration. I'm definitely like, this is kind of what's in my spell book, right? In my codex. I'm like, so these are the things that I'm learning and unlocking along the way.

SPEAKER_02:

And the domains do a good job at being flexible, right? So the code, or not the codex, the night domain, midnight domain for the rogue and the sorcerer is shared. And one of the spells in the midnight domain is a it's called Reign of Blades. And Mike liked that spell. He took that spell, and I like it from a GM perspective or from a design perspective, because the reign of blades spell for a rogue or a sorcerer could look very different. Um, a sorcerer could be conjuring arcane magical knives that are raining down on their foes, whereas a reign of blades from a rogue might be I just take a fistful of blades and throw it at people, right? Both are valid descriptions of the same ability that do the same thing. Um, but one is very magical in nature, one is very, you know, right physical in nature. And and I I like that there's a lot of open interpretation to what each of those might look like. The codex design uh design seems pretty well done in that. There's usually one attacky thing, one flavor thing, and then usually like a utility thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I'll have to go back and take a look, but it's like, you know, attack-ish, defense-ish, like support kind of thing as well. So which is great. So yeah, there's what was it? I was like, oh, I got this push touch. You know, I gotta be within uh well, it was like very close, close range. I think you were like You have to touch it. Do you gotta touch the thing? And I'm like, that would be a bad idea. And you're like, yeah, maybe. I mean, this is a big frog. This is a big, whatever, like uh huge toad. There's a huge toad. It was a huge, like crystal bore, huh?

SPEAKER_03:

Huge toad. You know, it's like a you know, like a really big toad. I was like, wait, I got I just got eaten by a huge toad. He's like, Yeah. Oh, it's the size of a bust.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. We need the references, right? So when you say like wild boar, which has been more mutated to be two, three times the size of a wild boar, and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm not touching that. Yeah, I don't want I don't want to go near that guy.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, so then what Daggerheart does really well is it has these different things for inspiration throughout it. Um, in my cut case, it was art. Uh, I had never planned on playing a fawn or a goat person. When I saw it, I was like, that's ridiculous. I don't want to play that. And then it has these little character sketches for the race. Mr. Tumness. And I saw this giant buff fawn, and I was like, I'm gonna play that. Right. Like, I want to be that. Oh, and I'm gonna make him a bodybuilder. That's cool. I'm gonna make him a total gym bro, but like super positive, not the toxic gym bro, but like, hey bro, I see you out there, I see the work you're putting in. You're looking great. Looking good, dude. Yeah, man. I'm just trying to be like you, you know, like that kind of that kind of dynamic. And I was like, oh, now I need to find a class that would kind of fit that. And so I was looking at the warrior, and there's this warrior that even when he rolls with fear, he gains hope, and I was like, oh, this is perfect. And then I'm shopping around in the warrior, I'm looking at him like, what can I do with this? Oh, at level two, he has this ability where he can hype up a member of the party during a rest and give them this dude. I was like, Yeah, this is perfect. So it was all like coming together, and I had never ever planned on making this character. I thought I was gonna go with something totally different, and once it kept evolving, I just kept texting Paul's, like, oh, I'm gonna do this, ooh, I'm gonna do this, ooh, I'm gonna do this. Um, so I have this big strength-based warrior that um is hyper positive and all about community within our group, and he's paired with a demon monkey, uh, a monkey goblin thief uh who does like to scam people, and I help them because I see the good in them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, there's a bright side to everyone, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, so he's really fun, but he's also very grandiose in everything. If you haven't got onto that yet, no, I didn't see that at all.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I didn't notice that at all, Q.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And so uh we'll get to one class feature later in the thing because I used it, and I don't know that I used it very well, but we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

We start with the boar.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I so I think so. I think the characters have been your character is very cool. You played it with uh Joie de Viv, with you know, a certain level of excitement. I was just like, dude, is am I do I need to step up my like do I oh no no no that's his character. He is rocking it.

SPEAKER_02:

Hyper positive Jimbro, GOAT, Jim Groat. He is the Groat.

SPEAKER_01:

He is the Groat. Nickname of Flex Oh, yep, nicknamed Flex.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, what is his full name? I took oh, it's Mencer Flex Forigno. Yeah. So I just took different bodybuilders' names.

SPEAKER_01:

Love it. Oh no, so your gym bro, flex, did some flexing. Yes, that you did. So just uh like the kind of a fun thing is like the turtle and flex, and I can't remember the turtle's name, the character's name, uh, did some you guys did some work.

SPEAKER_03:

It was Kombu Kombu. Yeah, it's almost like kombucha, it's almost like kombucha. And he and I are very like go with the flow type of characters. I we're both kind of Polynesian-based. Yeah. Because for both of us, life just needs to slow down a little bit. Everyone takes this this whole thing too seriously.

SPEAKER_01:

He is a giant turtle, so he's just chilling. Yeah, we have very chill vibes. Very chill. It was great.

SPEAKER_02:

And and it's it what I what I like about that icony is you guys are both the frontliners. You guys are the two ones that are like first in the battle, in the in the thick of it, but you guys are also both like the most laid back and chill of the entire group. So I had a very pall start of the campaign, very, very me intro into kind of how how I like to start games. Um so we I I opened by describing the area that you guys were in, and we were right in the I there was a little bit of a little bit of preamble, a little bit of a like a Star Wars style.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no, there was yes, there was a little crawl, but it wasn't that long, which was good. Just a little setup. You guys moved here, you heard this rumor, you moved here and go, kind of thing. It was it was it was I think it was solid enough for us to get interested, but not so long. We're all like uh Paul.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And also not, I I tried to make it pretty open so that like you guys could fill in the blanks in terms of what made sense to your characters, as opposed to me saying, Well, you do this because of this, and then somebody would be like, My character wouldn't do that. For for reasons up to you, you've decided to to band together, um and just kind of left it at that. And and I think that that worked pretty well, and and with that combined with the connections part of session zero, I think gives gives us enough like reason as to okay, no, there's there's a reason why my character would would join these these guys. There's a there's a reason that uh you know my uh paranoid wizard would join the these high strung crack addicts.

SPEAKER_01:

That's totally it, man. I'm like, they provide the distraction. No one's gonna be pay attention to me at all in this party because they're like giant turtle, gymbro, what are those things? Like, I'm like then I'm like, I'm just hanging out, nothing. Just you know, shh, I'm not even here, man. So yeah, it worked out great.

SPEAKER_03:

There is all the party is just pulling attention away from you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I love it. It's great.

SPEAKER_02:

Someone's like, uh this is like the perfect party for someone trying to hide, right? Yeah, no, no, not well, we'll find out. They're drawing so much attention to themselves, or rather, they haven't yet, but the I could see them absolutely drawing so much attention.

SPEAKER_01:

So much attention. Like, guys, let's be subtle today.

SPEAKER_03:

The rogue's gonna get arrested.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no. Really? Oh yeah, no. I do think the rogue and the and Mike's sorcerer are they're gonna it's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_03:

It's gonna be amazing in town. I can't wait to see them.

SPEAKER_01:

It's gonna be a jailbreak, unfortunately, or something. Oh my gosh. Hopefully not. Hopefully not. We'll see. Knock on what we'll we'll we will see. But yeah, so the I agree, session zero really helped create uh not only between the players, like us hanging out, meeting people for the first time and chilling and enjoying each other's company, the characters, asking those questions, finding out. Like, I think the the and we kind of touched upon this in a previous episode, but like the moment like where we asked you and I, Q, asked a question, like, oh, it's my turn, Q, how do we know? And we talked like this, like, well, I'm not very good with like my hands, like I'm a big dude, and I'm like this, and I do my stuff, and I'm like, well, like uh what happens? Like, I like to do my hobby of scrimshaw, and you're like, what's that? And like, it's where you have to practice carving stuff, and I'm teaching you how to do that. And you're like, Wait, what? That sounds crazy. Yes, yes, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Your work cut out for you, right?

SPEAKER_01:

This huge six-foot buff on taking these little tools and just just taking a moment again like going into that, like, let's uh zen out and relax for a bit, and this is what you can do. And I'm like, this is great, this is weird as heck, but it's gonna be awesome. Yeah, I'm like script shop, we'll love it, sure.

SPEAKER_02:

You gotta you gotta carve your rune, your runes are your staff.

SPEAKER_01:

That's exactly it. Every time, little carve, little notch, whatever. I killed a boar, so or we did, so I just have you know, I fell down some stairs, so now there's a there's a little carving of stairs.

SPEAKER_02:

We're not to the stairs yet. Not to the stairs, but we are to the boar, yeah. So I wanted to uh kind of introduce the the one of the core themes of the world that that we kind of all came up with was the crystals. We talked a bit about that in the last episode. Um, and so I really wanted to kind of spotlight the how the crystals interact with the world and kind of what kind of impact they have on the world, as well as kind of hopefully establish a little bit more about it. We we did get to do a little bit more world building as we were going along. Um, so I described that you guys were in the in this area that was infected infested with the crystal energy, everything's turning to crystals around it, and then um you guys encounter a giant monstrosity, a boar that's been mutated by the crystals. Yeah. Um so what what did you guys think of the boar? Was it was it cool or was it a boar?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't have my womp sad trombone here. Damn.

SPEAKER_03:

I thought the boar was an excellent storytelling device. Just how he was painted, the abilities that he had, you go, okay, this is what uh a corrupted creature by these crystals looks like. And it felt very um Princess Mononoke-esque, where okay, this giant boar is corrupted, but instead of it being this like black mass of worms, you have this uh these crystals jetting out of it. And the crystals can harm you either by the boar using them and like maybe shooting them, I if I recall. Did they shoot them or you just kind of threw a shoulder into you?

SPEAKER_02:

No, it was so the it was anytime it took melee damage, it would deal one harm back. And that was to represent the the danger in that these this isn't a normal beast. There's there's these crystals coming out at unpredictable points.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're like, you jumped up, did a massive attack, but hit it, and the shrapnel basically was like I think we're like, okay, so we don't want to hit it? Not melee.

SPEAKER_02:

I I did I did try to flavor that in different ways. Like sometimes somebody would be hitting it with melee and they would scrape their arm on a piece of it. Um sometimes you did a jumping attack and it would shatter, slid down them.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. So so I tried to I tried to flavor it in different ways that worked for the boar. Um I didn't want to go hog wild with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh god, there's so much more of this.

unknown:

Woo!

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so good.

SPEAKER_02:

But but we did try to, I did try to like so it wasn't just like okay, you did melee damage, take a harm.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

I keep saying harm because that's the term used in Apocalypse World. Take take a take a damage. Take a wound. Take a wound. Um, but it's functionally the same thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um, I thought the I thought that was great because it is uh, even though we talked about world building in session zero being in the moment and as you describing it with characters like in-game, we're like, oh, this is kind of like a little trough, little valley, there's crystals everywhere. And I'm like, dad, what this could be this could end like if something happens, like I'm seeing this, going, we this that's like spikes. That's like cow traps on the ground. These are spikes on the thing. Like, we might get, of course, Mike's like, I'm gonna jump around and climb on them. I'm like, that's gonna cut your hands, bro! Like, but he's a strong. Also, if they're radioactive, basically, I think play with those. Uh like, I'm gonna break one. We're all like kids on the escalator again. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna walk away. So I thought it was very cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, I he was he he was breaking it to test me to see if like it would explode when he hit it. And I get it, but also like from my perspective as a GM, it was like I'm gonna go with what you guys want this world to be. Like, do you want them to be explosive? Do you want them to be and I didn't I didn't quite like stop in the moment. I I tried to keep the momentum going um to have that discussion, but it was like I knew why he was doing it. I probably should have asked a couple more clarifying questions, um, you know, briefly. But but yeah, for for the most part, like that was the it it's very much a traditional in this I run into this all the time when I run games. It's very much a traditional role-playing game thing to do, right? Like let me test test the world that the GM built. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's yeah, I'm gonna try to break it, see where the see where I can push, how to push the envelope, see where we're at.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, when but when I run games, whether it's DD, Daggerheart, whatever, I I very much don't build worlds. I I collaborate on worlds with you guys. And so for me, it's it's less that the crystals and what their properties are is is much less defined. It it's defined as we play the game through the story, through what makes sense for you guys, or what makes sense from a narrative perspective, and then it'll lock in, right? Like if if you guys had an interaction with the crystal and then that caused it to explode because it was a cool story moment, now crystals are explosive for the rest of the game. Um but if you're just doing it for science, that's less exciting.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think also it opens up the fact that like how much how much do we know about these crystals? Like all this knowledge has been filtered down, but there's really not that many people that know exactly what they do. Us plebeians people are like, well, they could be they could they catch fire, oh, they could explode, they could melt your skin if you touch them, and we're all like, uh well, what what happens? So now we as players are like, well, what is happening when we grab them? Well, Mike's hand didn't melt. It's not like grabbing the radio, the the tubes from Chernobyl or whatever. You're not picking up the rock from time bandits, you know, you're not gonna instantly explode. But there's still the chance that something could happen.

SPEAKER_02:

I also didn't like five minutes into our first session want to like insta-kill a player, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, just like boom, from the distance. The ship sees a mushroom cloud, and we're like, well, that's a great session. Good job, guys. Let's start over. Yeah, re-roll your characters. Because for me, where I went was all right, he just sliced it and kind of used it. So moderately stable in their natural form, but if they are, say, messed with by us people and plugged into something, maybe that's when they are. I'm like, oh, so when uh we're in the bottom of the shit, I was definitely like thinking, like, that's don't go near the don't go near the reactor. Right. If they're plugged in and it's powered up, that's when they become like the reason they're in there is because they're unstable, and the unstable creates the energy that we use. Like that's the thing. Yeah. In my in from my character's mind, and so I guess I'm like, so don't if it's plugged, if it's just hanging out, maybe we touch it. But if it's in something or it's charging something up, don't just yeah, don't uh don't play with that, guys.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm like, Mike, don't play with that, but I'm gonna it's I mean it was it was definitely like you know, we were all getting our feel for the world, our feel for and each other for each other and that and the story we want to tell. So it was uh there was nothing wrong that was happening there or anything like that. Um, and I encourage people to push the boundaries and and test things and and do science. I'm not saying don't do that, I'm saying uh I wasn't prepared for that, and it wasn't I wasn't I wasn't ready to answer that question. Yeah, you know, right.

SPEAKER_01:

So But I think the I do on the whole think the boar encounter was cool. The way you described it was interesting and unique and put us in that world. Shards come off, it's like oozing, glowing stuff. Like it has been mutated. It is just merely boar on the outside, yeah, and you don't know what's gonna happen on the inside. So, you know, like when you're doing your attack, I'm like, oh my god, is it gonna is it gonna burn you? Is it gonna splat like oh so I'm staying away. I'm just I'm gonna shoot you from over here, dude. Pew pew.

SPEAKER_02:

Pew pew. Um I think I think the crystal this isn't something we we've established yet or something we've discussed in the game. And so it's definitely something that's on the table for a future uh game session. But I think I think the crystal being able to use utilize the crystals for personal gain, uh, I think that's a relatively new thing in this world. I think maybe less than a hundred years.

SPEAKER_01:

I'd probably say so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like or maybe maybe maybe just over a hundred years, like maybe two generations. Yeah. But there's not a ton of skyships, there's not, I feel like there's not very many, there's not a lot of known answers about the crystals.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, even within a hundred years, right? Mm-hmm. So that would I think generations about 25 years, whatever.

SPEAKER_02:

So let's say three or four generations of from discovery that we'll say I always go 70 years for generations, but 2025, 30 years is probably probably correct.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, it could be in this world, whatever, you know, depending on how long we live or whatever. But um I definitely in that case, five years. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

If we keep chopping crystals up, we're gonna see what happens. Um I think from that is is a discovery to using it. I think a hundred years is pretty good because it's like, well, people are people are gonna die, things are gonna blow up, a lot of ships are gonna crash. Right. And then after a while, you're like, okay, how long did it take? I mean, how long did it take from like Wright Brothers to uh the jet engine type?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

To Airbuses. Right, to Airbus.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, uh yeah, I mean, there's only 50 years, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01:

About two generations, yeah, so uh so in this in this world, is it around that time and we've not quite we have not quite built the Airbus. We're still on the, you know, uh, we can hold a few passengers, or or have we reached that point? And that's that's something to discover, I think, too. Yeah, yeah. I didn't imagine a lot of airships, like it's not like back to the future where we have highways in the air, right? But it's there's enough where we're not like every time a ship flies by, like, oh my gosh, it's oh okay, all right, better get used to that.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not it's not a a common occurrence, but it's not so uncommon that it's like stop what you're doing. There's an airship in the area.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so it was good.

SPEAKER_01:

I liked the boar, I like the war episode uh episode, war episode encounter.

SPEAKER_02:

I did a uh I did it was good. I I don't know how how I feel about this, and I wanted to talk about this with you too. Um for the first encounter, I wanted to do a solo enemy. Um and just to kind of like let people kind of get used to how combat works, but not overwhelming. Uh, do you think it would have been better to do like more small enemies for the first encounter as opposed to one singular enemy?

SPEAKER_01:

Radio silence. I I think having because the way the way it happened, the way it planned out, we had a singular encounter with one enemy, then the next encounter was with several. Right. And I think the first encounter allowed people to just from a uh looking in point of view, uh, where do I look for hit points? Where do I look for damage? How do I attack? What do I roll? So that stuff. So it's not like there's 20 boars running around or whatever.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

20, you know, uh blah blah blah. So we had a chance to have a little moment of looking at how the game functions. Because I haven't played, Mike hasn't played, uh Q, you've played, and the other two, uh Johnny hasn't played, and the other gentleman whose name I'm forgetting. Alex. Alex, thank you, has hasn't played. So a lot of new people, not new to not necessarily new to role-playing, but new to the system. Like, how does this work? What am I doing?

SPEAKER_03:

But it's a very different system. It takes a little bit to get your like your footing in it. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

So I figured having less variables, having less less things to worry about might be useful. It I know it, I know it kind of de-powered some abilities and things like that.

SPEAKER_03:

Um that's what I was gonna say. It kind of gave Alex less time to shine because he could have been doing I am your shield to like, oh, Chris is under attack. Right. I am your shield.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I mean the game is definitely designed for large numbers of enemies. Like that's that is the design intention. And me as a as a GM and a storyteller, I vastly prefer singular enemies. Like that is that is my mental narrative for almost everything. So for me, I'm always trying to force games that aren't designed for singular enemy encounters to do single. I do I do it in D D. I do it in this. Um this this game also I wanted the first encounter to be pretty easy. And so for the boar, I didn't design it as a solo enemy, I designed it as a as a as a bruiser is the term that they give it in the game. Yeah. Um, where it has more hit points, it does more damage. I bumped it up just a hair, but for the most part, that encounter was probably about two levels below two two steps below kind of where it should have been for you guys, because I wanted it to be an introductory thing, I wanted it to be simple.

SPEAKER_03:

It needed to be something where people could learn. Oh, this is how armor works, this is how exactly hit points work, this is how a turn looks. And um I think it was really appropriate. More appropriate than multiple enemies.

SPEAKER_02:

I probably should have given it like one uh an AoE attack of some kind, like where it it stomped the ground and and everyone had to.

SPEAKER_03:

Or some sort of charge attack where you get the colour.

SPEAKER_02:

It has the charge attack, but the charge attack was real basic. It was just it can move and attack at the same time uh uh over a greater distance than usual. But yeah, I I agree.

SPEAKER_03:

Something where it could threaten the back line so other people could have an opportunity to learn what armor and it points to. Right, right. I agree.

SPEAKER_01:

Well if it pushes through and knocks off our plan, so suddenly it's through you two and at the us us other three, we're all like, yikes! Like, how do we do that? How are we gonna communicate that? Right, because that was my chat.

SPEAKER_03:

That was my we saw that part in the third encounter more where someone was trying to move.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So, and we'll we'll definitely get into that. Um, so yeah, so and then so we we did the you guys solved the boar puzzle, and we moved. I kind of did a little bit of hand waving. Um I I really didn't want to like b bog us down with the in-between stuff. I want to keep it more like a TV show where we're just getting to the action.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Well, it's it's much like a TV or movie show. Like, obviously, these characters all go to the bathroom. People go to the bathroom, but is that is that an important part of the show? Do we need to see that? Yeah. Was the moment where we try to clasp. The tree before the boar, or after the boar. Was it after the boar was our second scene?

SPEAKER_02:

No, that was that was before the boar. Because when when you guys climbed the tree, you guys saw the boar.

SPEAKER_01:

We heard it. We were heard hearing a rustling.

SPEAKER_03:

We were going through the cavern.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It was definitely before. Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

I thought it was after because we get up on the top of the tree and we're like, oh, that's where the ship is.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And then I said before I described it between you and the ship, you guys saw movement because somebody rolled high.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, okay. Um, oh, right, right, right, right. So that was a cool non what was it? Mike trying to hold the tree. We have this giant buff turtle, this giant buff goat man. And Mike's like, I got the tree. I was like, tiny little tiny little?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Jim Bro was like, You got it. Let's go. You got this, dude. And Mike's like, I don't got it. It was great. But no, like the turtle would throw the other monkey up as well. Threw the goblin monkey up there. That was great. Uh, a little role-playing because he didn't tell us exactly what he saw, which was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Very much I was because when he said, I'm like, he's not gonna tell us. As a player, I'm like, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, he got a super high success. And so um, I roll I narrated that he saw the another ship coming in.

SPEAKER_04:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and he rolled high enough that I think I even identified what the ship was for you guys. So so which story-wise was the ship that he's running away from, the the pirate ship, the soggy biscuit. Um, and so that also thank you for for bringing that up, even though you misremembered the timing. The uh I'm glad that we did that role play thing to kind of learn how skills work and that kind of thing first. Um, I also that gave me the opportunity to introduce uh a countdown clock, which is something that I'm not terribly proficient in because it's relatively new to this game. It was used in Apocalypse World, but as I said before, I've I've mostly read Apocalypse World more than I played it, even though I talk about it all the freaking time. That that game was very influential on me, even though I've never played it. Um so count uh countdown clock was a relatively new thing, and so I introduced a a clock that said, okay, this is the soggy biscuits path to you guys. And when this gets to zero, they're here. Peek behind the curtain, they are always going to arrive. I it was just whether whether or not I need to spend fear and how fast, right? Um, but that was that was always my intent for the third encounter was the the pirate encounter, spoilers.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh but um the countdown I think helps because you're like, oh, this is a visual representation. Right. I know it's gonna get bad as this thing, okay, we're getting pressed, we're getting pressed, we are pressed for time, and okay, they're here.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and anytime, anytime you guys get what what that allowed me to do, even though it was kind of um again, the timer was was always going to reach zero, and it was always going to do it at the point where I was ready as the GM. What it allowed me to do was anytime you guys started to slow down and look to me for what happens next, I could just take a little fear off and and plop a thing. The ship's getting closer.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and so it just kind of helped to rather than you guys looking at me for what happens next, it allowed me to spur you guys into moving to the next thing. So it was a really it was a really neat and helpful tool uh in that way, even though it had probably less teeth than it than it needed to. It was an introductory game. Well, no, it was an introductory game, and and I don't think I used it wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't I think it was great. So the the I like the fact that because every I liked the fact that you use that clock as a visual representation, little those little crystals, whatever. And as we're trying to figure out what to do, you just reach over and look at us. There you didn't need to say anything. Right, yeah. And I'm definitely like my eye clenched a little bit every time. I'm like, oh, oh, what we need to do is move.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um, but every good, I think almost every good story that we read or watch on TV has a little bit of that clock because it motivates the characters to into action, not in action of like we can talk about whether we want to camp here or not. Because you took the crystal in I'm like, I think we need to, we should probably not camp here, guys. Can we let's let's go, you know? And of course, Johnny's like my ship is coming to get me. That's a great idea, guys. Let's we should move too. Let's get closer. But then you're also like, and it's getting a little darker. So the tension of are we gonna are we gonna survive like hiking and walking through late afternoon, evening here in unknown world?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean you just encountered this alien boar creature, like and that that thing did did do work. It was it was an easy encounter, but it did do a little bit of damage. It did do uh it did put a little bit of stress. I think somebody was at like out of stress at the end of that fight.

SPEAKER_01:

I want to say microphone. Mike Mike maybe because he spent his stress to like do the scary intimidation. Right. Uh so all in all, like like that little intro character building moment, the bore moment, that, and then the timer pushing us towards getting to the sh crash site. I I felt was really I thought it was good. Like good storytelling without being too heavy-handed. We I didn't feel like we were shoehorning, right? Getting shoehorned in, but it was definitely like nudge nudge wink wink. It's you know, yeah, clock is ticking.

SPEAKER_02:

I used um so to take a step back and explain what I did for the count countdown clock. Because I think it was I think it was particularly effective at at eliciting those feelings because of how it was communicated to you guys. Rather than just having like a piece of paper behind a GM screen or something like that where I'm counting it down. Uh, I took uh eight acrylic like crystals. Um, and you could use anything, you use pennies, you could use dice, whatever you want to do. Um, but I took eight of those and I put those in front of the GM screen to represent, and I said, when this runs out, the soggy biscuit is here. Um, and I explained to everyone kind of what that meant, even though not everyone knew the soggy biscuit was coming from a character perspective. I think communicating to that players was important.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, communicating that to the players was important. Um, and so so then because of that, how I did that, A, you guys had a visual representation of okay, these are the these are the crystals, this is how close it's getting. Um B, the other thing I liked about it was every time I I needed to take a crystal away to put that pressure on you guys, I had to physically stand up, reach over the screen, and pull one off. And so it was very obvious and dramatic.

SPEAKER_01:

You couldn't just sneak away and have us go, wait a minute, they're where to go. You were like, by the way, guys, yoink. Yeah, everyone stops. I will put the GM.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's what I wanted. Oh I I wanted to make sure that you guys knew when I was taking it. I wasn't trying to sneak crystals away. No, that was good. It was it was very much but uh, but because I had to do it physically, I could do that silently, and it was it was a bit more ominous. Oh, yeah, that I was doing it that way. So I I was really happy with how I played that out and how that worked. Um, and I think that's a great tool that people can take and apply to any role-playing game that they're running. If you're running DD and you have, you know, and uh your your players are running from the opposing army or a uh a hunting party that's tracking them or something like that. Take take a couple of dice or some crystals if you can get them, um, glass beads from the hobby store, set those out and just start plucking them away at times that you need to pressure the players. And tell the I think the important thing is is say this is what happens when this runs out. Right. You don't have to explain everything, but say they catch up to you, and it's gonna be a bad time for you guys. Like, don't necessarily try to bury the lead, give them a clear understanding of what the clock is, what it's there to represent, and what's gonna happen when it reaches zero. Yeah, and whether you intend for it to reach zero or not, like I said, I had already always intended for it to reach zero in my game, but I could also see that being very useful for like when we left the session, you guys are running from the soggy biscuit. Maybe I introduce another countdown clock that says this is when the soggy biscuit catches up to you guys. But my intention is never for it to get to zero, right? Maybe if you guys get to your goal before they get to zero on their countdown clock, you guys succeed. But it keeps us moving. It keeps us moving.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's the thing. Whenever there's a little lull, when we kind of sit back and start looking at you, which happened. I mean, that's gonna happen normally in every session, like the a little bit of lull, but you can always just be like, you know, hey guys, oh, oh, oh, oh what's what's this? What am I picking up now? Nudge, nudge, wink again. Like, let's what are you guys doing? How are you propelling the story for right?

SPEAKER_02:

The the this world is alive, there are there are things moving in the background, and you guys need to act in. Let's get to your goal. Otherwise, otherwise the world's gonna keep moving without you. Right. Um, so we did some hand waving, you guys got to the to the ship, the crashed crashed ship. Yep um that I still can't remember the name of, even I forgot several times throughout the game. Starlings Grace.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Um you guys got to the to the crashed Starlings Grace, and I described that there were um some movement. There was some movement on the deck.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Um so my my intention for the first fight was always a solo fight, an easy solo fight. The second fight was a balanced uh fight with multiple enemies was the intention. Yeah. Let's raise the stakes a little bit, let's uh you know introduce more enemies, you know, now that you have you have your your bearings about you, um, and let's let's do you know an a more interesting encounter.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and the cool thing about I think this encounter for well for me is because in your uh title scroll, you talked about mute the and how the animals mutate, how things mutate, but not just like what happens to people. Like they become uh well, in you came up with great phrase, like hollowed ones? I think hollowed ones. And I was like, that sounds like a zombie in a creepy, like oozy, gross, crystallized zombie. Oh, and I I love that. I thought that was very cool. Um, and the moment when we're like, there's movement on board, we're all like, well kind of movement, like what's going on? Yeah, I kind of send the road.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I kind of envision the way that the crystallization works in the world is kind of like geodes.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Where you know you have the outer outer side look outside of the the rock, or in this case the being, looks completely normal, but then you crack it open and the inside is just crystals. It's just hollow crystals.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very much reminds remind me a little bit of uh how Last of Us visually represented their uh the I did have a lot of inspiration. The yeah, because it's like it's a it's a fungus. And you're like, well, how does a fungus grow into? What does it look like? Well, sometimes there's just a little bit, but it's all inside, because you know, they attack the zombie, it's all gross inside like so, yeah, bravo. I loved it. Because it was world world building, but also showing us this is what could like I'm like, that's why we need to leave in three days, guys. Right there. That's it.

SPEAKER_03:

And we talked about how like that's overexposure, they've gotten so much of it, right? But we also talked about like along the way, there's different phases, like they could have essentially a junky phase where they're not quite hollowed yet, but they're definitely turning in some way. Their quality of life is bad now. Um, and so we're like, okay, but what stage are they in? Oh, they have crystals growing out of them. I know where we're at.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, full right full conversion. Full conversion. Well, it was like, oh, you you attack one and uh the turtle does a thing and shoots his uh uh crackling hook, and then they're you're and he does a really good role, and you're just like, well, it just shatters and goes through them, and we're all like right. Oh, it doesn't get pulled down. No, he's just like uh uh zombie just goes, thanks for getting me. Uh thanks for putting me on a leash. I'm just gonna walk towards you now. Yeah, it was dead. They're dead, they're dead, dead.

SPEAKER_03:

I think this encounter was really cool in the sense that we had multiple things going on because the clock pushed us into not just do one thing of the combat encounter, right, but oh, we need to get this ship going. We need to scout out what's going on, and so now the rogue is not necessarily going to be focused on the combat. The rogue is looking for a way into the ship so that he can assess what's going on inside. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It's definitely a multi-layered encounter, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Our mage wants in there so they can actually start fixing things.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because they've been designated the engineer, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

I think everybody's looking like because the uh the rogue runs in, uh uh does his cool shadow television. His band. I was like, cool, cool moment to use your character ability. Love that he bamped in like nightcrawler. This is awesome. Uh had a moment, and I'm like, okay, we all need to get in there. You know, discover a thing. I crawl through. Of course, being a dorky thing, like I knew this encounter is gonna start going poorly. When I'm like, oh, you crawl in, but yet you also stab yourself on the ship's hull as you I'm like, this is gonna start. You rolled with fear. I rolled with fear, and I rolled poorly. And I rolled poorly a lot. Now, here's the one thing that we did so much in this session, the whole session. Strategize too much. We maybe strategize too much and not talk a little bit, but we get you you never ran out of fear. I don't think you ever dropped below eight. Good God. You couldn't spend it fast enough. And maybe and maybe for the first session, that's probably a good thing, as opposed to you're just like all ten fear, and we're like, we're gonna die.

SPEAKER_02:

I think I think what I need to do, what this this both this and the last game we played in our other session, our other campaign, um, I think this taught me that I need to build more environmental effects. So so in the in the last game, the Beast Feast campaign, um, I did more environmental effects, and I felt like they were a little too complicated, and I didn't I didn't love how they felt mechanically um the way I did them. So this time I was like, okay, well, this is an introductory campaign, these guys are a lot newer. I had beta tested with three of the four players in the other campaign, so we we had all had a bit more familiarity with the system. Um in this one, I wanted to keep it a little bit more simple, so I did no in no environmental effects. Okay, um, and I think the middle ground there is when you're building a dagger hearts uh encounter, build at least one environmental effect that spends fear, that you can spend fear on.

SPEAKER_01:

And by environmental, do you mean like rain fog, like uh trees that like move and freak us out, so it distracts us from what's like building a eerie feeling or whatever feeling it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Like there's a storm rolling through, or um I I actually did have a couple prepared, and in the way that the game played, I didn't use them because A, I wanted to keep it simple, B, they didn't spend fear, they were just kind of passively happening. Um, but one of the ones for the ship fight was the ship is uh rotting rotting out, and so there would be like the floor would crack and give way and that kind of thing. And I and I still could have done that, but the way that there was two things happening. So, first you guys like started the encounter, and then you guys did nothing. You stood there and you guys chatted for like 10 years, and Paul looks to me and goes, I'm being really nice right now. Uh I was I did say that.

SPEAKER_03:

I was like, Yeah, you are buddy.

SPEAKER_02:

Part of that was A, I didn't want to um, I didn't see the value in pressuring the players at that moment from a narrative perspective, even though it made sense to. Um B, I wanted you guys to have those types of discussions. I want to I want to encourage strata strategizing. I just want to do it at the right times. Uh also the enemies that you guys were fighting, it was a bunch of hollowed ones, you know, zombies essentially, um, that had no intelligence, they had they had no tactics, they were just crystal beings, and they were all and this this is a big hindsight, big takeaway from me. They were all trapped about. Um didn't have a good way to get down, other than falling. Yeah, they could have taken the stairs.

SPEAKER_01:

Um No, they couldn't have no, they couldn't have no, like as opposed to having them trapped, you could have had like one or two, like maybe one or two or something to rustle and uh motivate us, like, oh my god, is that another boar? What is that? You gotta get moving. So closing the vice, right? We're in the trash compactor. What are we gonna do? I didn't disagree with that. Like again, first session getting us going, especially for my head. Like, I can't I can theorize and talk out loud forever. Just for me, as you know. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

So, how do we get more focused and try to rapid fire ideas quicker and I think everyone was trying to get used to their characters as well and what they could do.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's that was part of why I didn't want to rush it.

SPEAKER_03:

Um until finally I got impatient and I just jumped on top of the boat. Sure. Let's get this thing moving.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no, it's like, oh my god, crap. Uh okay, I'm gonna roll. Is there a way to get up there?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, if you do this and this, and you're like in hindsight, what I wish I had done uh as a gym is I wish I had moved that encounter off the boat and in front of the boat for for the first session. I think on the boat would have been fine uh later on and that kind of thing, and and we could have done that a lot more interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

The third encounter was on the boat, the third encounter was on the boat.

SPEAKER_02:

The second encounter, I think by moving it onto the boat, it devalued kind of some of the the things that I wanted that that encounter to to convey from a story perspective. Uh, what ended up happening, and in the interest of time, because we're running short on time, um, is I wanted the encounter to just be you guys learning how multiple enemies work and experiment with more of those abilities. Yeah. And what it ended up turning into was this show of you kicking every every enemy off of the ship. All the enemies only have one hit point, so they're just dying like without even being able to do anything. Yeah, none of them, none of them have a ranged ability, which was by design and and intended. Yeah. Um, and so they're just dying before they even get to do anything. And none of that was bad. I don't I don't have a problem with the story as the way it played out, because I think it was still a cool story. I just don't it didn't do the the tutorial-esque things that I was kind of hoping for. And I think it it would have told, at least for me as as the GM, it would have told a better narrative if they were all kind of huddled. Maybe the ship was on its side.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, if it was crashed and like maybe we're walking up and like they start cluster not like you want to do classic zombie stuff, but they start like you see dead bodies lying around, like, oh, this is are they rotten? Do we keep going? And then they start popping up moving. Right. That would have scared the crap out of them. Yeah, that would have been cool. And and fun. But I I honestly I I think your note, your self-note isn't isn't bad, but it did motivate us to like you guys are more fighting and getting up there. How are we gonna get this shit going? Because if we want to take it, we have to beat these guys and figure out if it works or not. So it made us think like, if we split up, what's gonna happen when we split up? Right. Never but never a good idea because that's really bad.

SPEAKER_02:

It did force the party to split up, which I thought was cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is that was cool.

SPEAKER_03:

And for the third encounter could have caused us to split up, second encounter could have put pressure on some of the other players. Because I don't feel like Mike got much of a feel of how his stuff would work because he was never attacked, and I don't think he ever made a combat role. He did an intimidation, but he was only in the room.

SPEAKER_02:

But yeah, it wasn't much. Yeah, it didn't help that he had to take a break in the middle of it, so he didn't get to fully participate in one of the combats.

SPEAKER_03:

But you also had um Gianni miss the entire second combat. And I don't think did he get attacked in the third combat? I don't think he did. No, because I was hyper focused on you. It needed to happen. I know that that was the balancing aspect, I think, of Daggerheart. Was I was holding an enemy in place using one of my class features, and to balance that, I got shredded by this enemy.

SPEAKER_01:

Well and Johnny got in there. He didn't get he almost got attacked. He got to stab. But he got a he he got he didn't get hit, but he got attacked. Right. But he got in there to do a little stabby stab, which is great. Mike, Mike and I got stuck in the control room, which is fine, because we're trying to figure out, and he was the help to I'm rolling horribly. I was rolling so bad that I couldn't get up a set of ship stairs, because this would be a great moment since we're getting close on time, to talk about language and rolling dice. So we're uh group had split up. Myself and the two monkeys, uh, I don't know if Mike, yeah, might we're in the phone the ship trying to get the uh get the ship going, start the engines, get it going, whatever. You guys are figuring how to fight these crystal things, which was gross and awesome. And I'm like, great, I'm gonna run up the stairs to get up to the thing, and you're like, roll some dice. And I'm like, I'm it's just stairs. But I said, I'm running, like I am like urgently moving and trying to get up there. I'm not a ship guy, I'm a book wizard. I don't know the stuff, and I rolled like I swear I just rolled critical failures three times. A failure with fear every time. So I went up, the stairs attacked me, and I got damaged. I ran up, the stairs attacked me and I fell, taking Mike with me like the second time. It was frankly hilarious, and it was one of those moments where now, doesn't matter, you are you as we're carving our as we're carving our uh uh uh scrimm shot, you're just gonna start laughing. You're just gonna be like, what are you carving over there, Flex? And you're like, stairs.

SPEAKER_02:

Stairs. The uh the most one of the one of the oldest jokes in D D history is the greatest enemy uh uh party of adventurers will ever face is a door. Yes. For this party, I believe it's stairs. Stairs.

SPEAKER_01:

Might be stairs, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

So to kind of help people understand why he had a role to go upstairs. Uh in Daggerheart, each turn in combat has to have some role associated with it. So in this case, the stress of the scenario, the conditions of the ship, his urgency, he's going to run up the stairs, that's gonna force a roll because he couldn't do any other action.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, right, right. He he could have said he was carefully going up the stairs and he still would have had to roll to move something. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Just because there's obviously fighting going on upstairs, there's distractions. Right. Uh, if I leave these two guys in the ship engine, is that a good idea? Again, like it all it made sense. Yeah. I didn't look at you like, bro, why are you making me roll a die to go upstairs? I said, I'm running up the stairs to get to the control room to figure this stuff out. Let's go. Right. And you're like, let's go.

SPEAKER_03:

So this is where it gets really good. The difficulty to succeed on these stairs is the easy difficulty. And we get a D10, yeah, and we roll 2D12 and add your stat modifier in this case agility.

SPEAKER_02:

I believe the average outcome on 2D12 is a 12, right? Or is it 13?

SPEAKER_03:

You are so likely to succeed this just because of how the 2D12s interact, uh, you end up with a bell curve. To roll greater than a 10 on 2D12s is really easy because critting in this game is just rolling doubles. Yeah. And so you have well over 50%, even with a minus one, yeah, uh, to succeed on this roll. He failed with fear both times.

SPEAKER_01:

Both times. Yeah, like because I had to roll higher than a 10, right? Yeah. And I didn't.

SPEAKER_03:

So Dungeons and Dragons, you have a binary system. Succeed or fail. You didn't get up the stairs. Right. But with you rolling with fear and dagger heart, you now have success with positive outcome hope, or success with negative outcome with fear. Same with failures. So you failed to get up the stairs and then tumbled down them, taking a damage.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Oh my gosh, that was hilarious. And everybody was like, Mike and Johnny were like, are you are you serious? And like, I love how Johnny's like, all right, roll roll to get up there because it's combat. He just he rolled like a 25, 40 million games.

SPEAKER_03:

He almost failed if he didn't remember a class feature. Yeah, where he gets advantage on agility rolls.

SPEAKER_01:

He would have failed. And to me, it's like if it was like, since you described the ship being on a cliff edge, you know, I'm like, maybe it, maybe the the the ship did jostle a little bit, whatever. But in the time at the moment, we were all just laughing. The fact that I was rolling so bad, and I just kept, you know, I went up the first time, fell in my butt, second time I took Mike with me, and we're all like, I'm surprised you didn't have us roll into the control pile and break it again because I was rolling so bad. It was hilarious. We finally got up though, right?

SPEAKER_03:

We finally got up there, and so I think really cool role play moment that you had inside the ship that I really liked. Because you're down there, you're trying to fix the ship, and you're trying to figure things out. Mike's character is trying to help you, and Mike is like, what am I doing? And you're like, We're looking for this cable to connect to this conduit, and you're just like, Oh, that was really cool. There was no prompting from this from the GM. You took the initiative with the storytelling, and I think that's what Daggerheart's all about. Right. Is kind of a community building. Well, this is what needs to happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, it's not, it's not Bluetooth connected, dude. Right. There has to be something because we've created these metals to send this energy through something.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So, and I'm like, and another part, I'm like, if I the one time I rolled, well, okay, I have no idea. I'm gonna try to use my magical uh skills, my uh attenuation. I don't know what the the correct term would be. I'm gonna use my spider sense to see like is there something wrong in this and where is it? And I rolled like a I rolled double twelves or what some crazy, and you're just like, wow, okay. Um in your mind's eye, you can see this. And I'm like, okay, I can use my little skill to fix this, but I can't fix that. You know, Johnny and Mike, do somebody, can you guys fix this? If we get going up here, fix these cables. You guys were small hands, right? You could get in there, and they're like, Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, Johnny like electrocuted himself, which is great. Which I love that. He's like, dude, now you look like a big puffball. It was awesome. But yeah, that was that was a fun moment. Figuring out how to do this, and then getting up to the the control room, running through the guys, being stuck in there because it was either you or or the turtle like stood in front of the door. He's like, You guys fix the chip, I'll stand here.

SPEAKER_03:

So we're standing out in front, and uh out comes the adversaries from the soggy biscuit. Yeah. And it's the two chill guys standing guard. Yeah. And so you have Mike and Gianni yelling from inside the ship out the door.

SPEAKER_01:

Guys, we're going right and there's Mike. Get him off my ship! And you guys are like, hey guys, can we just realize our tree stress potential and relax? He called dibs.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, why why is this a discussion? He called Dibbs. We're here.

SPEAKER_01:

We're here first. And that was good. I agree, like the idea of having the Boar encounter and maybe the zombie shit off the ship so it kind of builds us and gets us on there. Um I didn't feel like it was a rough encounter. I knew that this encounter could go badly. Right. Because those guys are more maybe, what do you have a tier above us? Like could kick our butts.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you guys kept rolling with fear, which means I kept getting hit. Thank you. I was like, can't something else happen with this fear? Can't they get hurt? Can't they get it?

SPEAKER_02:

Can she leave the ship and go back to the sun?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I'm gonna I'm gonna get back here every single time. And you use the fear brilliantly. You're like, I'm gonna do some no. I'm gonna spend my fear and do a little interruptus, which is great. I do like that idea, like ooh, as the players try to figure out something, you can be like, do it, something's happening. Yep. Something's happening. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

It's getting stale. You guys just keep going. Whether it's it's motivation or just keeping the keeping complications, keep the story interesting. Yeah. I think they both work. Uh, I believe we are at time. Oh my gosh, I think we've reached. We have a whole nother encounter to to talk about.

SPEAKER_01:

But well, maybe we can hit it a little bit in the Dagger Heart podcast brought to you by Funkatronic Rex. No, no, seriously, guys. We're loving the the game. It's new and it's a lot of fun. Um, since we're playing this once a month, we won't be bringing this up all the time, but we will talk about it a lot. Uh, and it being a new, hot, new role-playing, I think it's really good to talk about it and bring it up, especially since I had a blast. You've been you both have been playing it a little bit more. A little bit. And it does sound like you guys had a blast as well. I think everybody had fun playing that game.

SPEAKER_03:

We could a little bit different. Just a little bit different. It is a different, different beast.

SPEAKER_01:

What Paula's brought up, it is definitely different. So I would love to hear your your point of view too. Um, but yes, I think we're hitting time. Mike and Michael are here wrapping up stuff. Uh, as usual, you guys, if there's any comments, questions, or concerns, drop them off in the Discord. Reach out to us. Uh, we'd love to hear from you guys about your thoughts uh about episodes and this one. If you guys have played Diger Heart, uh, want to play it, or any ideas on how to uh uh create encounters and do DMing and GMing because we talked about it in the last episode. Um it'd be great. And if you want to hear more, reach out to us on the Discord. We'd love to chat uh and uh get your thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_02:

Check out the store, become a part of the community. We're here to to hopefully bring great memories and great stories to your tables as well. Uh, if you have the means and it is something that you are able to do, please consider supporting us on Patreon as it keeps Chris and I sitting here every couple weeks every now and chatting about whatever comes to mind.

SPEAKER_01:

Alright, got Q. Thanks for joining us, dude. It's my pleasure. It's been awesome. Uh yeah, and uh just uh a safety note, guys, uh just be careful of stairs out there. All right, just be aware. They can be rough. And with that, we're gonna sign off, y'all. Thanks for listening, and we will see you guys next time.

SPEAKER_02:

Love your boy!

SPEAKER_01:

Love your boy!

SPEAKER_03:

From the next game tomorrow.