Game For Thought

 Jen and Dagda dive into the world of tabletop gaming, pen-and-paper RPGs, and video game adaptations. Dagda recaps his weekend making characters for a Dragon-based game, creating a second Pathfinder character to fill gaps when players don't show up, and playing old Warhammer strategy games (Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen) on Steam.

The conversation spirals into frustration with multiplayer-only games—especially Shadowrun, which should have been a campaign RPG but became a failed competitive shooter. They discuss Warhammer 40K MMOs, the origins of Warhammer as a competitive miniature game, and why co-op-only games are frustrating.

Jen pitches her dream video game concept: a Pathfinder/D&D campaign video game with multiplayer lobbies, chapter markers, progress tracking, and the ability to drop in/out with NPCs filling gaps. Dagda explains living campaigns, virtual tabletops (VTTs) like Roll20 and Battlegrounds, digital modules, licensing agreements, and how players can take their characters across cities.

They explore AI game masters, subscription models for online play, tutorial adventures, and why eliminating human GMs could hurt the industry. Plus: work schedules, sleep deprivation, horror movies with Marlon Wayans, and why Jen's back hurts.

It's part gaming rant, part tabletop RPG deep dive, part video game pitch—classic Conversations Over Coffee.

#podcast #tabletopgaming #warhammer #mmos #pathfinder #creativethoughts #roleplaygames 

Artwork:Kyra_Starr

Transcript

Welcome

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to everyday life. Thank you for joining our podcast, Conversations Over Coffee. My name is Jen. And I'm Dagda. And we're gonna hit you with the explicit content warning right off the bat. This podcast does include adult situations and adult language from time to time.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I'm an angel. I never fucking cuss.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Okay. Anyways, you ready to go?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Alright, let's go. OBKB. OB Kaby. How you doing today? I'm doing alright. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Day off from anything but podcasting. He's like, yay, super exciting. Woo! Right. So what did you do this weekend? Um, did you go gaming uh with your other with your gaming friends? Did you guys do your campaign?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

No.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

So you just hung like basically hung out with your friends and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, we hung out. We made characters for um uh it was dragon something or other, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Okay, listen. You tell you tell your gaming friends, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, and redacted, that you guys need to finish that seven-year campaign. You're on the last part of it. You need to finish it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I want to know how it ends. Is Dagda gonna live?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yeah, maybe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Is his dragon gonna spread his wings and fly?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I've been, yeah. I I made a second character because very frequently some people didn't show up to the game. And so we would still play, but the the um campaign is set for four players, basically. And typically we have like five or six.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Um, but sometimes only three of us show up.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

And so I made a second character and then you can just swap in. Well, I can add in the second character so that there's at least four of us. And then also all of our bases are covered more or less, as far as like damage, defense, and right healing or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

And what's really gross is most people don't realize how your good your brain is. You could probably run the campaign by yourself, all four characters, and DM it.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I mean, there are games that are set up for you to play by yourself, uh-huh. Um, but uh Pathfinder is not one of them.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Oh I don't know. You're pretty smart. So did you do anything else besides uh just kind of work on characters and hang out and chit-chat? You do anything fun yesterday or no?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yesterday I did laundry and did you do fuck all yesterday? Yeah, I did laundry

Any Given Weekend

SPEAKER_00 2:50

and went shopping. That was pretty much it.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Nice. I went shop. I went shopping too. I'm surprised I didn't see you at our local store. But we probably went at different times. I went at like 10 in the morning. Yeah, I you probably went early because you usually do coffee on Sundays and all that.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, I did, but I don't remember. Well, I went there twice yesterday, although once was just to get dinner. Um I don't remember because I slept in.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Nice, yeah. That must have been quite the treat.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Um because right now the only days you get to sleep in by a little bit's Mondays.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Have you finished your schooling stuff?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, I've not done any schooling since I started working. And part of that is because I like doing it first thing in the morning. And in order for me to do that now, I need to get up at like three o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Um, you could always do it Mondays before we podcast. I could do that, but I'm not pushing you to do it. I just was curious. Like, seriously curious question.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, I've not been doing any in like so yeah, the my morning schedule is such that I can't really get into it. Um and then in the evenings when I get home, because I get home around 3 30.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Oh, that's not bad.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Um, it's uh I n I don't really feel like fucking it's the unwind from work time. Yeah, and fucking like I have way more focus and all that first thing in the morning. So it would be almost useless fucking doing it after work. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

No, I get it. I get it. So did you did you watch any good TV shows, any movies, anything?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Nope. I watched a few YouTube videos. I did actually play some video games.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Oh, really? What'd you play?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Um, I played uh a little bit of um what the fuck was the name of that video game? It's an old um Warhammer game.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Um the second one is called Dark Omen. The first one is something Shadow of the Horned Rat.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Um they have another part of their title though that comes before the Shadow of the Horned Rat and the Dark Omen. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And it's basically like a um it's a strategy game, except it's not like a true real-time strategy. It's like a squad-based strategy game.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Um and yeah, I never because I had both of those games on PlayStation. I never completed the first game because it's actually kind of brutally difficult.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Um, but I finished the second game.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Um, so anyway, they were on sale on Steam, and so I bought both of them.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Um Steam's been doing some really good sales lately.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Like there's a game I really want, but I have to make sure somebody else has it because it's a co-op only game.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah. Yeah, I fucking yeah, I don't like co-op only games. Just like I don't like the um multiplayer only games. Um, like there was a game that I really wanted. Um, it was uh Shadow Run.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Oh man, I'll tell you what, that game was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Uh, except it's only a fucking uh what is it? Multiplayer fighter fighter game.

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Um, and I was like, you fucking dickheads, you realize this is a role-playing game, and you made a fucking fighting only game, which is why it failed.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, I mean it it was for people who played Shadow Run, like me. I played Shadow Run, um, but they did they did downgrade the server connection really quick. So it was like after two months, I think. Like maybe maybe it was eight weeks, maybe. Uh, it just it was just like the connection was horrible, the gameplay was horrible. It like there's nothing worse than when something's lagging and something's like glitchy, but um I played it several times with my old uh a friend of mine's kid I used to play with because you know Bobby was just like, oh man, Shadow Run, this is great. And yeah, nope.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah, I wanted very much to play that game, but even early on when they were talking about it before it came out, I was like, okay, this game would be awesome, but I'm not gonna fucking play it.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

And they were talking about adding a single player mode, but they never did.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah, they never added a campaign, which it should have been a fucking campaign game, not a fucking competitive shooter or whatever the fuck you want to call it.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Yeah, and it and it's so crazy, you know, as gamers, it's like you fall in love with different genres, you fall in differ in love with different game modes to play.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

And well, the thing is the so that video game was based on a pen and paper role-playing game. Okay, it's a fucking role-playing game. Why did you make a first-person shooter dickheads?

SPEAKER_02 7:57

You're not bitter or angry, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I'm not at all. Fucking dumbass motherfuckers. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

I don't even think you were angry when they when they made Warhammer into a multiplayer game. I don't even think I saw that reaction like that. I mean, so the it would have been better if they had said Shadow Run based on character abilities in the game or weapons, the weapons of Shadow Run would have been way better than describing it as the actual game.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah. I mean, with Warhammer, um, it's much more understandable uh because it's there are role-playing games based in Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, but that's not the origin of the games.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

The origin is a competitive fucking miniature game. Um so when like they were talking about making a MMO uh for Warhammer 40k, um, they were talking about making it basically a first-person shooter. And it's like, and and having it be a competitive one, and I'm like, okay, I understand that.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

It's kind of goes with the spirit of the thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

You know what would be cool with these, you know, campaigns, these pen and paper campaigns and everything, is if they took, and this is my, I'm sure somebody else is thinking about this, but I just I just want a load of royalties when you do it. Is if they took like every single campaign of a series. Uh and I'm just gonna use Pathfinder as an example, and they created a video game or a video world where you could go in and you could join that campaign. You literally, here's your list of campaigns, and they could do it like a world tree of passing the campaign. So you can actually play through the game one campaign at a time from beginning to end. So you can go in and you can play this campaign for as long and have chapter markers like you ended at this chapter. So you went into campaign number one, ended at chapter 12 of 20. Then the next time you log in, you can go into 13 and do 13 of 20, and then go to campaign two. That would be super cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

They have something along those lines. They're called living campaigns.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Um, and basically what happens is essentially the person who's the game master has a if you it it there's a quote unquote

A Gaming Session

SPEAKER_00 10:30

society that runs these things. And when you are a member of the society, you get um like a first of all, they're very strict on the races that you can play and the classes that you can play.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Because they want them to be as um even as possible.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Um and then when you um when you're a game master, they have specific modules that you run. And when you play in them, I'm not exactly sure how they keep track of it because I've never played in one of these, but they have like um tickets or whatever that say, okay, you've completed X um module. And so when you go to play at one of these sessions, the game master can look at the different things that you've accomplished or whatever. And then you have sort of like uh a rating, let's say, of your character um that essentially says, okay, you qualify to play this next campaign or whatever. Uh it's kind of complicated actually because there's a bunch of other things going on. Like sometimes if you play cer a certain amount, you get rewarded by being able to play a race that you wouldn't normally be able to play. Some of the races are like gate kept behind experience level of the player. Um and so yeah, so as a result, you could like let's say you lived in San Antonio, Texas, you would have paperwork that would follow you and say, like you go on vacation to Miami and you find uh another role player.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

You'd have a digital copy you can take.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, you could be like, okay, I'm gonna show up at this game store because they're having this campaign, and I can join this fucking game group. I have documents that say, okay, uh, I actually have a character, blah, blah, blah. And you can play in a different campaign in a different city.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Like, like, I uh so I get that. You know, but what I'm saying is, you know, take something between wow and a regular campaign that you could play solo in. Merge the two. So they're called modules, right? Yeah. Sorry, I'm I'm saying it wrong, and I know I'm saying it wrong, and I apologize. I'm still trying to learn all this lingo from you. So say you have a module and it has 12 chapters to it to complete the module. There are certain things you must achieve. Okay. Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Typically, modules are like uh not always, but a lot of times they're something that you can complete in a single sitting.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

The campaign is where you have multiple modules that run together to told tell an arcing story.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Okay. So say that you have the Donner's Pass campaign that has 20 separate modules you must complete to get from beginning to end to win. Okay. So why not have an online community that's just like when you go online and play a multiplayer game and you go in and you completed this checkpoint? Oh, I gotta go to work, guys. I'll see you around. You leave, you come back, and you can go in from that checkpoint on. So in your module, you're now on your second module or your ninth module or your 12th module.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

That is essentially what happens.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

But you're talking about in real life. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about them being able to log onto their PC and do this game, do this campaign. They don't ever, you know, COVID changed so much of the way we do our world, you know, and we've we've seen it now where we've seen, I've seen, I've seen uh Jim Butcher's podcast where when he's been a guest on podcast, and they've got like 12 people into this Zoom meeting, and they're like, We're all excited to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah. And so why not do it kind of like that, where it's literally like so that does more or less exist also? Yeah. Where they play online.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Um, and sometimes they actually combine the two things a living campaign where they're doing it online.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

So do you ever go join the online show?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I've never done one of those, no.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

You can threaten your game group with that. I'm gonna go play with my online friends if you guys aren't gonna complete this campaign.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

My one friend, he does do that. He plays, I think he GMs some online games. Um, I don't know, I've never I've never done it. I did lick lick.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

I bet you did lick.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I did look into some of the stuff early on when it was first very first starting. So like um the late 2010s, I want to say, is when they very first started, because some of some people would do them in like chat rooms, um, and then they made programs specifically for that. In fact, that was one of the things I was looking into really early on. There was a program that was meant specifically to be doing effectively chat room fucking role-playing. Um it's one of the reasons why I was an early adopter to was it Google Plus or whatever it was. The um it was kind of like a Zoom meeting type thing um that Google had. I don't remember the name of it, but anyway, um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, I mean, it's I don't know, it just seems to me like there'd be so many happy, uh, you know, pen and role player gamers and gamers in general, if you took the two and merged it. If like literally, if it's not Pathfinder, if it's not Warhammer, it's it's Dungeons and Dragons. And you take those modules, you take the campaigns with all the modules, upload them, and you get a multiplayer lobby like you do on War World at War or excuse me, Call of Duty, and you can like go in. You literally can go in and say, Okay, here's my personal progress, here's my personal stats. I want to go to chapter, I want to go to module, you know, 13 in this campaign because I've done all the rest, so I'm ready to move on. You go to that multiplayer room and you find a group that's playing, like say you're allowed to have eight characters that you fill up spaces just like a multiplay player room, and then you go and you do it. So it would it would give you the gameplay and it would also you know meet new people.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

So there are um programs out there that are called virtual tabletops, uh-huh um or VTTs. Um like there's uh there's Battleground, which is the oldest one, I believe. It's been around forever. Um there's Roll 20, I think it is called now, which there were two separate ones that were essentially being built specifically for Dungeons and Dragons, and the one bought the other one. I think it's Roll 20, is the name of it now. Um then there's the one that I have, which I can't remember the name of right now, which is kind of annoying. Um, and then there's several others out there. Some of them are super simple, um, and some of them are really complex. Like the one that I have is fairly complex. Battlegrounds is super complicated, um, but it's been around for a long time, so a lot of people have it, and there's lots and lots of so when when uh when they want to have a game in their um in their virtual tabletop, usually they need to get a licensing agreement. Some of them are so simple that you have to do it yourself, yeah. Um, so there's no licensing agreements. Um and like the Roll 20, I believe it has exclusive deals with Dungeons and Dragons. Um but um the one that I have, I can't remember the name of it, but it has um deals with Warhammer Fantasy.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Um and so when I purchased my copy of it, I got several Warhammer Fantasy, and I've got a bunch of the the modules for um one of the campaigns.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Um and so it has specific stuff, including maps. Um it has the stats for all of the kind of characters that are enemies and stuff like that. Sure. It has like handouts. So sometimes when you're playing a game, the GM will have things like, oh, you get this note from a fucking person who bumps into you and puts it in your pocket or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And then they'll have an actual physical piece of paper that they'll hand to you.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Um, it's a prop, right? Well, stuff like that is added into these virtual tabletops if you get the official stuff, or you can do it yourself. Um, but it has all that kind of stuff in there, it's really cool. And then because it's a digital version of it, you can distribute it however you want, as far as like the the note and stuff like that. So you can send it to the players, and then um with the one that I with the version that I have, it will keep it in their quote unquote inventory. So once you send it to them, they have it. Yeah, and then they can look at it on their own computer, even if you're not currently playing, yeah. They can log in and basically look at the stuff. And so you can go back and look at like the equipment that you got and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

I would love it if some of these these tabletop pen and paper role play games that you talk about, I would love it if they had it in a video game version where just like Call of Duty, I could campaign multiplayer and I don't even have to have the same people to do it. It it saves me right where I'm at. I I think it would be good. I think it would be a good promotion and merge the two worlds together.

SPEAKER_04 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Um, but that that's just my opinion. As somebody who's kind of interested in trying somebody's game, but does not want to sit there for eight, nine, ten years straight and still not finish the campaign, I couldn't handle that. I'm a completionist, I like to complete.

The Game Dream

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Um, like I well, everybody knows I play trains. I play Ticket to Ride, and they got a new version of Ticket to Ride out, and of course I play that. And then my reward once I hit a certain goal on my debt. So my reward was to buy the expansion pack for that. So now I have everything they have, and I've got like I can go to Africa and play trains, I can go to England and play trains, Germany, which I love the German map. It's kind of really interesting, and so is the Asia one. Um, but it's like uh it would be really great if they had a campaign form for it. And you know, so I I don't know. So since I do play some tabletop type games, like I'm still I'm debating whether I want to buy Carcassiny or not, which I don't know if you know what that is, but it's uh Will Wheaton does. Hey, Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton does him and his wife have played it on his tabletop gaming uh YouTube channel thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I think I know what you talked about. That's the one with the world building.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Hard game like old school though, like we need wood, we need wool, we need rocks, we're we're like stuck in the 1800s.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

But you know, but I I love all those older classic games. And I would love to try something newer, but I like I said, it's no offense. I it's I would want to play it before finding a group to go play it with. Yeah. You know, and I think for me and the life I live and the schedule I have, I'm just saying, creators, make it happen. You have a way to do it. And it it doesn't like there's nothing wrong. Like Dungeons and Dragons, they could start taking their campaigns and they could they could add it into wow, if they wanted to. Like if you seriously just want to come in and campaign and make it through these modules that you've been dying to do for four decades, here you go. And it could track progress. Anybody could join up to maximum players for the campaign, and you don't have to have the same people every time you play.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah, I guess one of the sort of difficulties with what you're talking about is that um unless it's being run by a computer program as far as like the the game mastering and arbitrating stuff, um it's really difficult to have people pop in and out of stuff. Um with the way that it works now, um you have to have everybody online at the same time. You could do there for a very long time there's been like play by mail style things where basically, yeah, there's been games that have been play by mail.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

I'm not in prison. Why do I want to mail anything?

SPEAKER_00 23:41

For centuries. Um, well, you could do the same thing with email though, or with texting, like okay messaging. Um the problem with those, however, is that there's gonna be all kinds of delay and not everybody's working at the same speed.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Well, that's um that's why I'm saying, like, so if you had so say you're you're dungeon master or whatever, or your game master, however you prefer. So that is that is you know, literally just a computer program. It follows directives, A, B, C, D, E, N, G. And everything is like everything is written into the program within these are your options, these are your only options. There's no splitting options, there's nothing else, and your roles and everything. So if somebody had to drop out, like, oh shit, the boss just called, I have a chance to make $100 an hour overtime, I'm out. Deuce. The minute they disconnect, an NPC player with comparable stats could come in and fill them in. There is a way to do it. I know you computer guys are smart enough, there's a way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, I mean, even easier, they could effectively have that person's character be taken over by a bot.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

And you also have like if they did something like this, you'd have a lot of people who would want to experiment or play with this kind of stuff. And but maybe they have social anxiety. So they, you know, they need to kind of maybe they want a campaign, but like they just want to be by themselves.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

So they could completely go in and play with, you know, bots, NPCs, or whatever, yeah. Filling in the other places. And it's it's another, it's just another way to adventure, I would think.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah. I mean, D D for the past several years has been talking about um making replacing the game master with a fucking AI.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Uh-huh. Um I mean, it would solve the problem you have with your roommate when they want to be GM.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Well, one of the issues, there's there's several issues with it. One, the trying most people don't want to be a game master or a dungeon master or whatever, because it's a lot of extra work.

SPEAKER_04 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Especially if you're gonna be good at it, it's a lot of extra work that you have to put into it. Yeah, you don't just show up for the game on game day with your character and just fucking roll dice. Instead, you gotta fucking read a whole bunch more.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

About what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

You're supposed to be aware of all the rules for every fucking item in every fucking character. Um, not literally, but generally, you need to know those.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

You know, I could kind of see where you really would get off on that because he would love to catch everybody slipping, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

But uh so the an AI could handle a lot of that stuff fairly handily. The problem becomes when there are um a lot of times people want to do something that isn't exactly covered by the rules.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Because a normal human should be able to fucking, I don't know, skip down 50 feet. Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Play hopscotch for a day if they want.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Um but a lot of times, depending upon the rule system, there there isn't a rule that actually covers doing whatever it is. Um, skipping rocks, let's say.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

And so that's where the game master has to arbitrate and make up rules on the spot. Um the AI isn't necessarily going to be any good at that. I mean, eventually it'll it'll be better than a fucking human.

SPEAKER_04 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Um, but as of right now, it's gonna suck at it, right?

SPEAKER_04 27:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Um and so the second problem is that um people who are game masters tend to spend way more money on a game than people who aren't.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

The average game master has every fucking book for a game, whereas the average player, they just get the main book, yeah, and then maybe they'll get a book or two about a specific class or a specific race that they're into. Um, otherwise, they just get the main book and that's it. And so by eliminating game masters, you eliminate a big chunk of the amount of money that you're gonna be earning from these people. Right. Um, so there's that.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

I I still think, and I get all that, but I think there's a way that they could put this game together and you have uh the game cost whatever it needs to cost, but then to be able to play the game like with live people and not just an NPC and bot campaign, if you want to play with live people and have that ability to do multiplayer, then you need to have a subscription like you have with Call of Duty now, where it's $4.99 a month or $4.95 a month. Because I guarantee you, if you put out a game that somebody really likes, oh, I love pen and paper role play, but like my game group, when we get together, we're man, it's taken us seven years to get this far. Uh but you know, I really I'm in the mood, I want to, you know, kind of get some of this in. They'd go in and they'd buy the game 40-50 bucks. They'd buy the base game that they can always have. And then they could do that option. Like you could pay uh, like if you just got a wild hair up your ass, like today, I just want to, man, I just want to play some other people, hear some other voices or whatever, then maybe you could pay 99 cents for the day or whatever. And then if you decided from there that you'd like it, then you can pay for a whole 30 days. I mean, there's so many different options on how you can do it now. Now, I I think I would be one who would be like, first, let me see if I like the game. So, you know, I would love to have it where they would like you could go online and they're like, okay, we have these four options for the game that you can buy. You can buy uh basically the very basic learning your tabletop game and with four modules for the first campaign.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Okay, right. So how many modules usually come in a campaign? Like 20?

SPEAKER_00 29:44

It depends. Oftentimes it's only a couple, like like the one we're working through, there's only really three modules to the campaign. Yeah, I know I said that normally a module is something that you can complete in a day, but that's not always the case.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Right, but there's some of them out there. So let's let's so so trust me, if if I was the game maker and I had all the rules and everything, every module would have there would be 20 module to every campaign, period, in a sentence. No matter how I had to make it that way, I would do it. So, anyways, or you know, you can do this much, or you can get for two hours, you can come in and experience this for this flat fee. Would you like to continue? Would you like to buy the game? You know, like there's so many different options out there.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

One of the things that is fairly typical in the pen and paper role-playing game industry is they will have when they first initially release the game, they'll release the main book for the game, which basically essentially everybody needs. Um well, there needs to be at least one copy at the table for everybody to use. Um and then they'll release what is called a box set, and the box set typically will have a very basic breakdown of the rules, a simplified version of the rules, basically. So all you need actually to play the game, at least initially, would be the box set. Yeah, and it has a little um adventure, usually something that can be completed in like four hours, and that adventure, in and of itself, typically in a well-made one, is designed to teach you how to play the game.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

So it will give you um scenarios in which you have to use okay, this is how we do combat, this is how we do magic, this is how we do searching rooms or whatever, searching for traps, stuff like that. It'll walk you through it.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

So they could do something like that. For $5, you can come in and you can do this. What did you just call it?

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Uh box set.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

So, like, but what's the thing you just specifically talked about with the box set? Adventure.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

An adventure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

My body not walk. So they very specifically for $5, you can do the learning adventure, learn how to do our game.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

If you like it, tutorial adventure.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah. So you could do the tutorial

Until Next Time!

SPEAKER_02 32:00

game. And if you like it, we will give you $5 off of your box set. We know the box set's uh very costly at a hundred bucks. However, your box set comes with three free months where you can do online play. And then it's $7.99 a month or $5.99 a month after that, or you can choose to do online play at a dollar a day when you choose to do it. Because not everybody's can do the math like I can do, where I'm just like, hmm, if it was $4.99 a month and I'm only gonna play two days a week and uh and I'm gonna play online both those days a week, I'll just pay the dollars. No, dummy, hello. That's eight to ten dollars a month. Five dollars is cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Because I think I think when you put money into something, I I think you tend to pay a little more attention to it. Yeah, not everybody has liquid excess money.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

The um typical person doesn't really care about something that they get they get for free.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Interesting, huh? I think it's something maybe we should create something for everybody, right? I don't know. I it it uh I'm glad you guys got to play a little bit, even though it was not like what you would typically do. But it's kind of exciting. You got a whole day to yourself. Yesterday you got a whole day to yourself to do whatever you wanted. I happened to watch a horror movie with Marlon Wayans in it called Him. Uh uh Oh yeah. It's a football game, it's a football game, and it's got the a really hot up-and-comer actor, a hot, like just hot commodity actor. His name's Tyreek Williams? Waters? I don't know. His name, his first name's Tyreek, and uh he looks like a well-defined Kane Brown, good-looking kid, and he's got a very good range of range of emotions that he shows, and he is a very great. And uh so yeah, uh, so that was my day yesterday. I watched uh yeah, that's what I watched yesterday. I couldn't stay awake to save my life. I was awake for two hours, slept for 15 minutes. Awake for two hours, slept for 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

I just I didn't sleep well Saturday night because it's just been physically exhaustive at work. And uh so, but last night had trouble sleeping. I came out on the couch, I elevated my feet and my head, so I was kind of in a U shape. Oh, it was glorious. It was like four great hours of sleep. It was so nice.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Like sleeping in a hammock, which I do not like.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Uh, you know, I don't particularly like it either, but I think it was the only way for my body to really let my spine decompress because my, you know, you know, I always say my back hurts because uh one of the problems with backache for some people like moi, I don't do number two very often. So that puts a lot of pressure on my back. So doing that just kind of let everything be happy today, as far as that goes. Such a joyous thing, anyways.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Happy.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Well, I'm glad you got a day to yourself. Yeah, and that's kind of interesting. I'll have we'll have to like talk more about the uh pen and paper roll top stuff because I think there's a way they could develop a video game out of it where it could really invite more people to play and also make it for the long-term players, make it a way for them not to have to wait for Saturday night to get their pen and paper game on. Because I'm sure there's some days when you come home from work, you're like, dude, I really want to get in on this campaign. I really want to get one of these modules gone through and just have a good time, spend two or three hours by yourself. I'm sure it would make you happy. So there's an idea for you game makers. Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Right. I think I think we're running out of time today because we have to go.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

So, anyways, have a good one.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Later.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Okay, everybody. That's all the time we have for today. So I want to thank you for stopping by to enjoy the conversation. Uh, we're glad you're here, and please share and share again and share some more. And if you haven't already, subscribe. We'll be having another chat and another cup soon. We'll talk to you then. Look forward to seeing you.