Episode 1 - The Man Who Was Dice

[00:00:32] Speaker A: Hey, guys. Welcome to Tales from the Tabletop. I am your forever DM jeff Lunter. [00:00:37] Speaker B: And I am your favorite DM kayla. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Williams favorite DM wow. Getting crazy today. Hi. Welcome, everyone. This is wonderful. It's our first pilot episode. I think that's what first scenes? [00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, pilot episode. It's so nice to meet all of you. Every single one of you. I can see you. I'm in your house. [00:00:58] Speaker A: It's okay. Don't call the cops just yet because we have a great show. I'm really excited because what are we doing here, Kayla? [00:01:05] Speaker B: Stealing other people's content and putting our own flair on it. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Okay, but, like, that is the worst but best description. We can't actually put that in the description on itunes, I don't think. But what we're doing here is we're just taking some crazy ass horror stories. We are both DMs ourselves. We are wonderful DMs, and honestly, most DMs have the ego of us, hopefully, and we are the best DMs ever. So we just want to go out and talk about some other people's terrible stories from The Tabletop. [00:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Both horror fans, both crazy narcissists. Really like attention. So, of course, what do you do when you're addicted to attention and you're not getting enough of it? You start a podcast. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Exactly. When you only have one session a week, how else are you going to get your energy out? [00:01:59] Speaker B: I had to trap Jeff, eventually into a more than once a week commitment, so this is what we decided to do. [00:02:05] Speaker A: But yes, we do play and have been I might as well introduce my whole thing and spiel with DND. I've been playing DND since I was 14, and that was 14 years ago. Started with pathfinder. I've done a lot of different systems. I keep saying DND. That's just the easy way to describe it. Like, everyone knows what DND is, but if you're listening to this, you know what all other RPGs are, hopefully. There's Tales from the Loop. There's fate. There's Vampire. The Masquerade. There's all these different systems out there that are just fucking beautiful and wonderful. And I've DMed a lot of them. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I have not been playing that long, honestly. I'd say, seriously, I've been playing for about, like, two years, ever since I joined Jeff's campaign. But I have a lot of generic theater experience, so I feel like that's the same thing. Very roleplay focused player. [00:03:01] Speaker A: Is that like a mandatory thing as a DND player, you're like, okay, well, theater and DND are basically you take. [00:03:07] Speaker B: The mandatory theater class. Once you finish your first session, you get sent a raven and they take you away. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Honestly, if this podcast doesn't work out, let's just start an improv group. I mean, that's basically the same thing. [00:03:20] Speaker B: Zop. [00:03:21] Speaker A: That's it. That's what we got. Yes. And I fall in love with my DMs characters. It's great. Oh, I'm sorry, was that not the prompt? [00:03:30] Speaker B: I have not been playing for very long, honestly, but I have been dipping my toes in a bunch of different stuff. I've played a lot of basically, I fell in love with D and D before I knew what it was. Five E is the only thing I really have experience with, but I hear a lot of stories from how horrible it was back in first edition. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Oh, dude. I don't know why I did this. I think it was the GM of a hotel I worked at when I was doing valet and shit like that. He's like, hey, because we would always talk about the shit that was going on in our campaigns. It's like, hey, you want to join a campaign? I'm like, sure, fuck it. I'm like into fuck it. Why not do a third? And it was first edition with a bunch of old ass men and a cop was the DM. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:04:16] Speaker B: That's an authentic experience in old school. [00:04:19] Speaker A: Like first edition, you can teleport into the ground and just die. It's a percentile dice determining on whether what happens when you teleport just like real life is bullshit. Yeah, just like real life. Exactly. So when I try to teleport into the ground or onto another podcast, I can just end up in the ground. It's great. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I can just snap my ankle at any moment. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you're a level one wizard, it will kill you. Because level one wizards only have, like, four eight. They have a D four, which is fucking stupid, but whatever. Nothing worse than having your character dying. They come back, and you were, like, two levels lower than the rest of the party. [00:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah, because we get it, Grandpa. [00:04:57] Speaker A: What? [00:04:57] Speaker B: The book says things back in the day were different, and they sucked, and they were hard. I've had a very cushy lifestyle, having only played five E, and I've only had one DM who was kind of like a stickler for the rules. And that was my only DM who wasn't you. So, as you can tell, I'm very experienced, and I go by the rule of cool overall else. Even when I'm DMing, I don't even keep track of stats. I'm like, yeah, you kill it. Feels right. [00:05:26] Speaker A: Like, you know what? This is a perfect moment for it to die. You don't even keep track of HP when you're surprised. Okay, this explains a lot. Like, we've done a few one shots or, like, little adventures that you've DM'd. And it's like, I feel like I've done a lot of damage to this thing, but things only seem to die when it makes sense. [00:05:47] Speaker B: Timing is so impeccable, bro. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Like, wow, I can't believe we did enough damage to the point where the last person in the initiative was the one that killed it. [00:05:55] Speaker B: That's crazy. So crazy, dude. How that works out? [00:05:59] Speaker A: Personally? I mean, I'm not a rules guy. Of course I'm a rules guy. You kind of have to be to have some semblance of structure and understanding, I guess. I have done groups that are very rules heavy that are very like, you need to do this. But I've also DM groups like you guys which are more roleplay focused, which is why I'm like maybe Fifth Edition. I mean, Fifth Edition has something for everyone, but for people that aren't super into it and super into the numbers game and my character does this, so I have to do it this way and be this far. There are other systems available which I can't wait to introduce you guys to that's. My goal is to introduce you guys to this new system called Fate. Well, it's not new. It's been around for a few years. [00:06:41] Speaker B: New to us? New to us. [00:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah. New to you guys. It's the Evil Hat Productions. These guys have been they've been around for a long time. But tabletop is fun. That's what we're trying to say. Tabletop is an incredibly fun experience. It brings so many nerds and theater kids together that it is the great unifier of our age. [00:07:01] Speaker B: We're turning into those podcasts that have like the ten minute long intro and I can hear people screaming at us like, just get to the point. [00:07:09] Speaker A: It's the first episode. They don't know what the point is. So what are we doing here? What are we doing, Kayla? What is our whole we're just taking. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Right now stories off of Reddit or wherever, of horror stories that people have had with their not just D D, but D d tends to be the Sweatiest game. So I feel like it has a lot worse people in it. But we're just taking different stories from different tabletop games because anything that is like a social game is going to have conflict IRL. So whether it's a neckbeard, a homophobe, a rules lawyer, a tkpgm, I just hear to talk about it, give our opinions that you definitely care about because. [00:07:55] Speaker A: We are experts and love listening to ourselves talk. Like the worst thing that I think is going to happen once we put this first episode out is we will be the first two listeners. I think we could just dive into it just to get us started, get our feet wet and we'll see how this goes. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Let's just get on with it. Get to the point. [00:08:16] Speaker A: So the first story we have here from Reddit is by user Historical Spirit 48. I love that. I love the creative names people come up with. Anyways. It's entitled. We had to. He left us no choice. [00:08:29] Speaker B: That's so dramatic. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. The dot, dot, dot is in there too. It really sets up. Oh my God. It's like he's a DM or something. So the tavern was packed and the beer was flowing. The party had finally found a way to disguise themselves so they were not immediately recognized from their wanted posters. Angelica dyed her red hair black and was now at the bar trying to get info to plan the group's next move. [00:08:52] Speaker B: Dang. They really just, like, jumped into it, didn't they? [00:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I love that they didn't give us the context. Angelica. [00:08:58] Speaker B: No intro, no fluff. Just so anyway, I'm in the bar. [00:09:02] Speaker A: I purposely found stories without much fluff because I'm like, I don't want to sit here and read this entire dude. It's like when you're how ironic when you look up a recipe online and half of the fucking page is like, in the great fall weather. I'm like, Just shut the fuck up and tell me how to make my stromboli, please. I remember sitting down next to the fire smell of cookies wafting it. See, as you can tell, we're great DMs because we're so good at setting up atmosphere. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Exactly. I heard somewhere that the reason they do that is because they can't copyright a recipe, but they can copyright the story that is tagged with it. So they always write the fucking story right in front of it. Jump to the recipe button is the best thing that was ever invented. [00:09:51] Speaker A: So the rest of the party was drinking around a table, thankful for finally getting a rest. The newest member of the group, an archer named Bowen, seemed a bit on edge. But everyone else was enjoying the night, enjoying the evening until a man made an unwanted advance on Angelica. Oh, okay. So that's why they introduced her. It wasn't just like, here's context. You don't know who this is? No. This person. Okay, good. That's good storytelling. [00:10:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:14] Speaker A: We can't judge a book by its cover, by the first paragraph, but also. [00:10:18] Speaker B: I can and I will. [00:10:20] Speaker A: So she tried to be polite. She told him no several times. He wasn't interested in being told no. Angelica slammed her tankered hard into the man's head and he crumpled to the floor. A bar fight ensued. Fists, chairs, mug. An acrobatic rogue climbs up on the rafters and starts throwing spoons at people. All non lethal combat. I love the idea. I just love a good bar fight. We haven't gotten into it, really, because we haven't had a lot of chances in our campaign for bar fights because I like tormenting your souls. [00:10:49] Speaker B: We did have that 1 bar fight, too, where we discovered Anna Marie's Farms. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, your fucking farm. It was a like, you work on a farm and that's just my strong. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah, farm and arm combined. The reason she's so strong is because she's got farm arms. So it's shortened to farms, which I've. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Used in real life since because I have a person, a friend who works on the farm. So I'm just like, you fucking farms, bro. [00:11:13] Speaker B: And apparently it's a thing I tell people all the time, that I've got a sleeper build. And the best way I could describe that is, like, moist, critical. [00:11:20] Speaker A: He's got a sleeper build. [00:11:21] Speaker B: He's a string bean. But then you see him flex, and it's like, whoa. [00:11:24] Speaker A: God, what a fucking man. Anyway, Bowen goes last. He has seen that no one has drawn weapons, but apparently he is just not that bright. He pulls out his bow and shoots one of the combatants, our DM asks several times if he's sure that's what he wants to do and even points out that this is a bar room brawl. He crits against a very low level tavern patron, killing them instantly. I love look. If a DM goes, are you sure that is a fucking sign to back off? Why would you double down? [00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah, he was really giving him the chance to do it. That's an instant mood killer. He really said vibe check. And failed. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Note role master has a flaw system. One of the flaws is bloodlust. Oh, what if that character's flaws is bloodlust? Which would have explained his actions, but that wasn't his flaw. His rolled flaw was hemopholia, which is unrecognized and organized at the end. What the fuck? Okay. Anyways, so all fighting stops, and we try to help the patron, at no avail. The town guard shows up and Bowen thinks, we are going to help him fight them. We don't. He is taken away by the town guard and charged with murder, and the party pretty much decides to wash our hands of him. Also. That's pretty fucking cold. [00:12:37] Speaker B: But, like, that's stone cold. [00:12:39] Speaker A: I feel like at a point if you guys were like, look, we've had characters do some pretty outlandish shit, and I've kind of glossed over it. I'm pretty sure early on into this season of the campaign we're doing right now, one of our characters literally dragged a sister of the church and threw her into mud to try and drown her. [00:13:00] Speaker B: Like, actually tried to drown her. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Like, actually tried to drown her. And then we glossed over it. So it's probably my fault. But when you only have one NPC. [00:13:10] Speaker B: That you can act so crucial to the plot. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah. You're like, I'm on the road. There's no guards. You're literally in a world where people don't exist on the surface, really, it's all monsters. Who the fuck is going to stop you? And she has nowhere to go. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And not to jump the gun on this story, but I really think that it emphasizes how important it is to have a session zero. Because when I run stuff for you guys, I know that my party really likes to play heroes, so I'm not going to make them villains unless I'm trying to subvert expectations and punch them in the gut like my last campaign. [00:13:46] Speaker A: I am a gray area guy. But also, if you're going to be outright evil, I expect someone to call you out on it. Like, the fuck? [00:13:53] Speaker B: Right? Obviously, these players wanted to be heroes, and that was the vibe they were going for. Obviously. It sounds like there wasn't explicit discussion about it. Like, hey, we don't want to kill innocents, so we don't want this to be the thing. And if you're going to perform something that kind of subverts stuff with that type of consequences, you got to run it by the DM and be like, hey, this is my plan. Can we figure out how it makes sense, narratively, to keep me in the game and not upsetting the players? Because upsetting a character who gives a shit. [00:14:27] Speaker A: But like, players, it gets better. It gets better. You're upsetting the players. But wait. Just wait. [00:14:33] Speaker B: Oh, dig in, dig in. [00:14:35] Speaker A: But then while in prison, he manages to get us a message. He is going to rat us out and reveal who we are if we don't bust him out. We decided not to be blackmailed. We visited him in prison and tossed him a blade. We snuck in with us. As he picked it up, we yelled, he has a knife. Now. Instead of dropping the knife, he decided to attack us. The guards come rushing, hit him, stabbed him several times, and is now completely unarmored person, which the player didn't understand why he was unarmored in prison. His hemopholia adds to the damage and he dies. We literally had to kill a fellow PC. In 30 years of role playing, I've never had any never had something like that happen before or since. So, yeah, they had to kill their fucking fellow player. And honestly, kind of crazy, I deserve it. Or they deserve it. Like, what the fuck? Why would you do that? [00:15:23] Speaker B: It's, like, tough because it seems like there's some context missing. Because it would have been really fun if he tried to blackmail them and be like, hey, come get me out of prison. And then they frame him, and it's like, OOH, what's going to happen? Tension is good for the story, but. [00:15:42] Speaker A: I like player tension when it's like personal relationships and stuff like that. I'd like a little bit of tension, but not when it's like, we kill. I don't know. Because there are things that you have planned that I think will be incredibly interesting in our campaign. [00:15:56] Speaker B: No spoilers. If you're listening, listen. [00:16:00] Speaker A: No spoilers. Everyone has terrible things planned. But nonetheless, I don't know. I think there's a certain line you don't want to cross over. I get it. They were doing a brawl. Then he just decided to shoot, which I think was pretty stupid on the player's part. But there was probably a better way for the DM to handle it too. In a way, even though he's like, Yo, stop. I would imagine giving them enough time to flee. I don't know. [00:16:27] Speaker B: I think natural consequences are really great, right? Like, the dude being thrown in prison and being unarmored makes a lot of sense to me. But for the party to kind of leave him behind. I feel like if you're separating the group to that extent and you don't have something planned of, like, hey, I saw the player sending the blackmail letter as a bid to get back into the campaign, because essentially he's not playing. If that's the case and you don't want to exclude somebody from the table, So them going back made sense, and I thought they could have taken that opportunity to step out of character and have a conversation and create something really beautiful and narratively interesting. But instead, they were like, yeah, I don't want to deal with this guy anymore. Let's just kill him. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Let's just give up on everything. This dude is prepared. [00:17:18] Speaker B: He annoyed me once, so bye. [00:17:21] Speaker A: I mean, I get it. There was no context saying he was a problematic player before, but at the same time, I don't know, immediately just abandoning someone and having them fucked over, I don't know. [00:17:32] Speaker B: That just seems more annoying gross to me, like, what was given on, but it seems kind of like a dog pile mentality. [00:17:39] Speaker A: Yeah, but if someone's annoying, you don't just like exactly. [00:17:44] Speaker B: I've certainly had moments where people have annoyed me in the game, and I wish I could just kind of be like, fuck you, I'm leaving. But that's not fun for anybody. And I think I don't know how old these people are, but I would have taken that opportunity. [00:17:58] Speaker A: 30 years of role playing, so I'm assuming at least 30 came out the womb. Fucking rolling the d. Oh, God. Ow. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Head looking like a fucking D. 20. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Explains a lot. [00:18:15] Speaker B: All right, let's get into mine real quick. [00:18:19] Speaker A: I'm excited. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Warning, it is a little bit of a long one, but there is a little nugget of fun at the end, too. So this is from the player's perspective, and then someone from their party comes in later on. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Like, they come in and edited stuff? [00:18:35] Speaker B: No, they come in and they're like, hey, I'm actually this person from the group XYZ. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Oh, shit. [00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Just pretend to act surprised when I say that later. So the name of my story is got Kicked from Group for Not Being Murder. Hobo E enough. The user is mad. Hippie three. It's kind of old. It's from, like, four years ago. All right. Up until tonight, I was part of a DND Five E group that consisted of six people, including myself, which met on Rifg and played via Role 20 LFG, probably. Oh, LFG. I know what things are. [00:19:15] Speaker A: It's weird that's something I've never come across is, like, people. Maybe I've just always been fortunate because being the DM, it's very easy to get a group together. But I can't imagine searching desperately for a group for so long that you have to go online. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, true, because I've always had people just like, hey, we need one more, and grabbing me for a group. All right, so here's the cast so far. We have the DM, a chaotic Good Cleric of Volcker, a chaotic Neutral Changeling Rogue, a Neutral good Wild Sorcerer, my Neutral good homebrew Phoenix Warlock and a lone Wolf Ranger. I just think it's interesting in these stories when the person like Op is the only person with a homebrew character, I feel like that's a red flag. [00:20:07] Speaker A: But maybe that's I don't want to be traditional. And also the fact that they mentioned their alignment is weird to me. That's also a red flag because personally, whenever I DM, I really don't focus on the alignment. I kind of let the players decide that for themselves because there's days where you're not always going to be lawful good, or there's days you're not always going to be fucking chaotic evil. I don't know. Putting yourself into one specific, like, I need to be lawful good to be paladin is weird to me. I don't know. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. The only thing I can think of is, like, if you specifically want to attune to things that have alignment restrictions, then maybe but I digress. [00:20:50] Speaker A: If you have a Holy Avenger and suddenly you just start killing civilians with it, I don't think it's going to work for you anymore. [00:20:56] Speaker B: Right. I had thought during the time I was in the group that my tension with the only characters was in character. No one ever approached me till a few days ago that my resistance to just going along with the Murder Hobo ism was upsetting people out of character. And I only learned when the DM started messaging me that the others were complaining to him about me. To make a few things clear at session Zero. We never discussed this would be a Murder Hobo game. We emphasized this was a roleplay heavy group and no rules against party conflicts. So until recently, I decided even though I was causing an incident, this person's English is not very good in the Post it's reddit. [00:21:41] Speaker A: It's not unexpected. [00:21:43] Speaker B: I just imagine him in like a fever, just like typing away. [00:21:49] Speaker A: All lowercase. [00:21:51] Speaker B: I'm going to try my best to filter it to make it at least understandable. I tried to defend my actions over the last few days as just a part of consistent roleplay and to compromise by offering to play chaotic, neutral bard. But DM said he didn't want a new character. He wanted me to change my current in parentheses. Now old character also want to make clear. Even now, I do not feel bitter towards the players in the DM. Only hurt. [00:22:18] Speaker A: Oh, they knew they were going to read it. They absolutely knew. If you didn't spoil, well, I guess never mind. [00:22:26] Speaker B: They meet on reddit. And he didn't even try to post it anonymously. I feel like he's just asking for it to be seen. [00:22:35] Speaker A: That is not the place to do it. You don't meet a group at the library and then go to the library. [00:22:40] Speaker B: And talk shit about posting posters like, fuck these guys. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Fuck these guys. What the fuck are you doing? This is not the place for it. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Just the old days, bro. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. [00:22:52] Speaker A: And then the person's in the audience as you're fucking pissing on their like. [00:22:55] Speaker B: What the jesus Christ. To explain how the tension started, I need to go all the way back to our first session. For the record, we have had seven or eight so far. And to the Ranger, who I will bring up a lot over the course of this post, in fact, over proofreading the post, it is entirely about him. [00:23:20] Speaker A: You know what? Actually, it's all about them, so never mind. I can't get over that. [00:23:26] Speaker B: He proofread this shit. I'm struggling so hard. [00:23:30] Speaker A: He proofread, but didn't proofread. Like, what did he read? Did he read something else? [00:23:36] Speaker B: He read it. He glanced over it quickly. I really didn't think I had issues with any other PC or any of the players till a few days ago. There was little to not like about the other PCs in and out of character. A tall, dark, and brooding stranger, a party girl, a level headed sailor, sorcerer, rogue, and cleric, respectively. I'll go over my Warlock when I think it's more relevant to the story. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not the problem here. So we're going to talk about let's. [00:24:02] Speaker B: Not talk about me just yet. We'll get there. It started with the Ranger player's inspiration for the character. As an emotionally broken war veteran who is quite literally a hobo, he got the idea from a book, which, if I could remember the name, would save me a lot of time describing his behavior, moving on. Without that, his first action in the game is to insist the DM start his character in jail for vacrancy, which meant to get a gang together. We all had to do something to get arrested. I think that's interesting. [00:24:35] Speaker A: I like that. I don't hate that. But it's not the traditional you're all in a tavern and someone comes in and offers a quest. I don't want to see that shit. I don't know. But also, it's forcing other players. There should be some discussion. I could see immediately getting like, okay, well, I had an idea for my character, but I guess now we have to go with what your story is. [00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Or kind of like taking it out of the DM's hands. It's not as collaborative, but it's kind of like, this is what's going to happen from this person's perspective, I should say. At least we don't know yet. Once we met him, it was pretty clear what kind of character he was going to be, completely aloof and uncaring of the world around him. His second act as a character was to demand more pay from the employer who bailed us out of jail and to wipe his hand. Oh, fuck. His second act as a character was to demand more pay from the employer who bailed us out of jail and to wipe his dirty hands on the employer's fine robes. All of this is not really bad, but I think it is worth bringing up because my self described paragon of neutral goodness didn't take a liking to this character. Early on, there are a series of small incidents that I think was good roleplay by the Rangers player and gave me opportunities to roleplay. Calling him out for being a jerk to everyone around him with the crowning achievement of the jerk meter was stealing a thousand gold pieces spyglass from our benefactor. But I am going to skip all those to cut to the chase. Two things that stand out more than anything else to me. First was his voluntary absence from the group every time we had downtime. He never hung out with us as a party if given the chance. He left our hub town in quotations and went to a village about two days distance away. The Rogue and I, on multiple occasions tried our hardest to get the Ranger to participate in our group game, but he would actively brush off quests we tried to get him involved in. This is probably the only exception I have to the tension being all in character. I thought others wanted to involve him, so he didn't sit in silence for hours. But I was wrong on that count, too. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Oh, that was very second handed. Other than him, like, we're not talking about me, we're talking about him. Right, but that was very second handed. [00:27:06] Speaker B: It's what my character would do. Right. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. I get it. Oh, we want them to not sit, but you don't decide that maybe they want to do that. Maybe that's part of the experience for them. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Or some people get overstimulated. I know there's certainly times where I feel like I have to just sit and not talk. [00:27:25] Speaker A: Like, let me just listen to what's going on. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Right. Give other people a chance. Second major incident which started this whole affair was when the Ranger player decided it was in character for his PC to set a warehouse we were investigating on fire in the middle of a crowded commercial district in our hub city. This led to an out of control fire which I have dubbed the San Francisco Fire of 1492 in parentheses. The real fire happened in 1851. For those who would like to Google it. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Motherfucker. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Okay, we're getting like, a history buff, please. [00:28:04] Speaker A: I dubbed it the San Francisco Fire of 1492, which is a joke that only I understand. [00:28:10] Speaker B: I love these tasty little tidbits. It's like little nuggets of insight throughout the whole story. [00:28:15] Speaker A: Fucking ego. Exactly. But then again, coming from us, end. [00:28:20] Speaker B: Result of the fire was twelve innocent dead and around 100 people injured. While the whole group was trying to put out the fire, the Ranger decided he was going to flee the scene as a crime. And that is where my last session with the group ended here. I think it is a good place to. Quickly go over my own character to give perspective on what had come before and what was coming after. [00:28:43] Speaker A: It's about fucking time. [00:28:46] Speaker B: Short version is my Warlock was raised as a farm girl with dreams of learning magic and becoming like the heroes of legend. The bard songs were about sounds very familiar. I've made a character very similar to that. It's actually me who wrote this. [00:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I was about to say, did you write this? You're like so angry with yourself because you like I typed that up for Am or something. [00:29:10] Speaker B: My intent had always been for her to have a strong desire for justice regardless of law versus chaos. So when the Ranger did such a heinous thing as in the case of the fire that did so much damage and his flight, I thought it was only natural for not just a neutral good character, but anyone with a moral compass to want to bring the Ranger to justice. This did not sit well with the group they assumed. I wanted to hunt the PC down. I didn't want to continue the quest, but I got how they came to that conclusion and explained I only meant my warlock would attack if the Ranger returned. They didn't say it then, but apparently that was not good enough. Despite a lack of rules against PvP and even some light PvP from the Ranger during our sessions, he would punch people if he was mad. Attack rolls and everything. Apparently I had crossed a line. [00:30:03] Speaker A: It amazes me listening to this and just like some of the lines that we cross as we're playing and I'm like, they're never issues, they never come up. PvP happens way too often in our campaign. [00:30:15] Speaker B: I punch a lot of people, to be fair, it's mostly me, but it's. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Like there's a lot of conflict and I could tell what it's a problem, but also it never comes up. I don't know, it just seems like people take it a bit more seriously than normal. I don't know. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like it's good to. [00:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good to set boundaries. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's also good to know when to let something go or like when something's just funny. And I think you're very good as a DM to not let it be like a big consequence. My character punches another character in the face. They take like, oh, one damage when we're right across the street from getting a long rest. [00:30:55] Speaker A: It'd be different if the character is at one HP and you fucking punch them and knock them unconscious. That where they're rolling. Death state, that's where it's a problem. [00:31:03] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I think it all depends and it really depends on the DM's discretion and the party's dynamic. I received a message for the DM on behalf of the party. I had made the other player uncomfortable with the way I was treating their characters. Parentheses, I never got an answer if the I referred to me as the player or me as the warlock. It was a shock to me. As stated before, no one brought this to my attention during or between past sessions and I thought I was getting along with all the players out of the game and all but one of the PCs in game. It was made clear to me that the DM was going to force friendliness and cooperation from all the players going forward. I argued that would break the consistency of the character I was planning and would be out of character for the whole party to welcome the ranger back as if nothing happened. I always think it's interesting that they keep saying like I don't know if he met me or my character. [00:32:00] Speaker A: There's also a lot of discrepancy I noticed where people are just like it's in characters what my character would do, which I get. But your character can change. [00:32:11] Speaker B: I'm sorry but your character can absolutely story. So your character can be whatever the story needs it to be. [00:32:17] Speaker A: Your character is allowed to grow and change just as human beings do. [00:32:22] Speaker B: It was raised to my attention. However, I was the only player not going along with the idea or welcoming an arsonist back into the group. I told him I wouldn't change my warlock's morality to fit the group's forgive and forget attitude. I did, however, offer to retire the goody two shoes and make a bard who could forgive and forget. As stated above, this was not acceptable to him. And a day after my compromise, I was let go from the group and blocked so I couldn't even say goodbye. I swear I wasn't going to cuss them out or anything like that. [00:32:57] Speaker A: I just want to preface that. Everybody know I was going to swear. I was going to swear. [00:33:02] Speaker B: If you're still reading this, thank you. I needed event, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If any of my old group are reading this, I want to repeat I am not mad, just hurt, frowny face. [00:33:13] Speaker A: Oh, good. I'm glad they ended with that. I'm so glad. But also like, I'm going to be honest, he sounds like the problem. [00:33:22] Speaker B: Interesting you say that because here we go. One of the players responded to this reddit post and it's the Rogue actually. So I'll dig into their little comment. It's not as long as the original one but they just kind of have their little nugget to toss in there. The group's challenging Rogue here. I must say I absolutely love the title of your post. Cannot be further from the truth, but I guess you are as entitled to say whatever you want to say if we are to talk about being a murder hobo. Are we going to ignore the fact that you sent death threats to my character? Well, I have not ever been mean to you in or out of game. You said in a chat that we considered canon without indications saying that it's a joke. Said that you should definitely get the drop on my character first and then kill them because your character thought the whole group was conspiring against you. After the post session in the voice chat, you said, next time I see the Ranger, it's going to be PvP. While we did not want PvP at all, I explicitly said my rogue would not be willing to work with him anymore after this. But no, I did not want to kill him. Ranger's player understood where we were all coming from and decided to make changes with the DM. Also, you forget to mention that all the backseat DMing you did, how you interrupted, how interruptive you were to other players, talking over them while you were not in the scene at all. How aggressive you were to the DM when this whole issue was brought up, telling me how to play my Rogue on multiple occasions, while I had not asked for your opinion, how you sent him a long unwanted essay on how to improve his DMing. This wasn't about the fire or the game. A lot of players found you quite unpleasant to be around. I wanted all these issues to be resolved amicably, and I was the one who tried to convince the others to give you a second chance. I see that I was terribly wrong in that decision. [00:35:26] Speaker A: He is definitely the horror story. It is not the party that kicked him out. It is absolutely the person that fucking immediately went to Reddit invented because they all blocked him and he couldn't talk to anyone else. [00:35:39] Speaker B: It's always so interesting when they tell on themselves because they have this delusion of I'm right. And it's again, like all that missing. [00:35:47] Speaker A: Context of like all of it was telling on themselves. Literally all of it was like there wasn't a point in there where I was like, oh well that's okay, that's fine that you're upset about that. I think we can all say that DND is very taxing. Everyone involved. [00:36:04] Speaker B: I have another surprise for you. [00:36:06] Speaker A: Uhoh, surprise. [00:36:07] Speaker B: The cleric also commented, oh my God. [00:36:11] Speaker A: All the players ganging up on them. [00:36:13] Speaker B: I told you if you find a group on Reddit, don't post your grievances on Reddit because they're going to find you. So this one says, as the chaotic good cleric in this setting, I pretty much started this all off. I mentioned to two other players that the op made me want to quit playing. It was a mix of both players'actions talking over other group members, constantly interrupting the other players roleplay scenes that they weren't a part of, trying to center the game around their character, taking it personally when other players didn't get along with their character, as well as character issue in character monologue about killing the other players and eating one. Eating, eating, eating a PC, talking about hiring an assassin to kill other players. Constant monologues wasn't nice to anyone in the game, except the NPCs, the character knew major inconsistencies in the character. Complete Mary Sue. There it is. [00:37:14] Speaker A: There it is. There's the thing we needed. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Attacked and nearly killed an unarmed person who surrendered. In character chat, the Op mentioned getting the drop on and killing the rogue. This is prior to the scene he mentioned in the initial post. While the rogue has been trying to be inclusive and nice to the player, I'll let the rogue address their issues further if they desire. But the aftermath of the most sessions involved the rogue and myself discussing something that the Op did at the table that really was either rude or hostile. In the end, the vote to kick the Op was unanimous and was actually unrelated to the majority of the comments above, instead focusing entirely on the level of disrespect shown to the DM. Op sent the DM rants about their, quote, unquote, poor DMing. And then we didn't want to play with someone who showed no respect to the DM. [00:38:09] Speaker A: If someone's going to talk shit about me, we don't need you. I'm sorry. I know I got a huge ego, but give constructive advice or just get the fuck out. Like, what the fuck? Exactly. That's where I draw the line, where it's like and then they'll go to Reddit. [00:38:26] Speaker B: You have to think about the relationship you've built with these people. I think in situations like you and I, you're kind of more of a mentor to me. Like, you and Tony both in terms of like I go to you when I have questions. I'm very know. You guys teach me. You're like, hey, I think this could be better because we've established a connection that I welcome. [00:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:38:49] Speaker B: But like, this random guy you found on Reddit trying to put a party together, he's basically like, I know parties that pay their DMs. So it's basically like somebody doing a job for you and you're telling them they suck at their job when it's not easy. [00:39:05] Speaker A: I feel like insulting a DM without giving them anything. Insulting a person who's putting a lot of time and effort into that behind the scenes thing is just the worst thing. [00:39:18] Speaker B: You could possibly doing a whole lot more work than you are, honestly. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah. You show up late to a DND session and you're going to sit here? I'm just assuming. I'm not saying you guys are late every time. [00:39:33] Speaker B: Spoiler alert, we are late often. [00:39:36] Speaker A: So is that it? Do we have all the detail? [00:39:39] Speaker B: Everything. I promise. No more surprise. [00:39:42] Speaker A: DM doesn't come in. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Except the DM does come in. [00:39:46] Speaker A: Oh, wait, does he hold on. [00:39:47] Speaker B: He does. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Oh, my fucking God. [00:39:49] Speaker B: It's actually a surprise to me. I did not scroll down far enough, but the DM fucking shows up. Wow. It just keeps going. [00:39:56] Speaker A: I don't know if we keep going down this rabbit hole because we will be stuck in them. [00:40:02] Speaker B: One is pretty long, so we'll do an update in future we gave you. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Yes. There you go. Give a little taste. Give a little taste of what may come. Maybe this will come back. Maybe we'll go down that rabbit hole. [00:40:16] Speaker B: We'll do it next episode. I'm like. So, you know that post I was talking to you about last time? [00:40:21] Speaker A: I was supposed to bring a new. [00:40:22] Speaker B: One, but I noticed that. [00:40:28] Speaker A: Oh, God. Okay. Well, I think this might be a good way to end it. Right? This is a good time to end it. Are we good? But yeah. I want to thank everyone for tuning in to this first episode, our pilot episode of Tales From the Tabletop. [00:40:40] Speaker B: Little tester. Little tester. [00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as we did. We have huge egos, and we love talking, so why not? [00:40:47] Speaker B: If you guys want to send us your stories so you can be in our little growing podcast here, please send those stories to Tales From the [email protected]. That is [email protected]. [00:41:03] Speaker A: Just want to say thanks again. You can find us on social media. I am over on Twitch and Twitter. Maybe not Twitter as much anymore. It drives me crazy every time I'm on it, but I am there as Jffro JFRO, and I am on TikTok. [00:41:18] Speaker B: And Twitch as well. Not as frequently as Jeff might be, but you can find me on both platforms under M zero F-F-R-A. [00:41:27] Speaker A: Mafra, if this last story didn't say that, didn't enforce this enough, please be kind to your DM. Go buy them some flowers. Let them know how much you appreciate what they do. [00:41:40] Speaker B: At least show up with snacks, even if it's virtual. Tell them they're doing a good job. [00:41:45] Speaker A: Exactly. All right. Bye, guys. Bye.