[00:00:00] Speaker A: RPG Lessons Learned when the game is over, when your players are gone, that's when lessons are learned.
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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Good morning, everybody. Listening to the RPG Lessons Learned podcast.
I hope you're having a great day. This is the show where you learn from our mistakes, and I have the master of mistakes with me. Dusty, how you doing, man?
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Tanner, I. I screwed something up just earlier today. I am the guy to teach you about how to learn from your mistakes, and I'm Tanner.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: I'm perfect, obviously. So I'll be interviewing Dusty for this one. We're joking. We're joking. Everybody makes mistakes. That's what the show's about. If you didn't get that, Dusty, I'm talking to you today about a game that you ran for. For a group of coworkers, correct?
[00:00:59] Speaker A: That's correct. Yes.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: This time you ran the dreaded filthy Dungeons and Dragons 5e game. Your OGL tattoo is showing. Dusty, you're a sellout. You love Wizards of the Coast.
No, I'm just playing with you. I'm being mean to you today for some reason. So first question.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Why 5e? Man, the group that I'm playing with all love 5e. I got rid of all my 5e books years ago during the pandemic. Pandemic. I got rid of everything, and I had a ton of Ivy stuff. Got rid of it all. And I. In my heart of hearts, I was very confident I was never going to play 5e again. But they all love 5e. And they were like, what if we play a 5e game? And then they were like, hey, this is a really unique group in that every single person in the group is also a GM for another group.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Holy cow.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So they were like, what if.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: So they read their books, right?
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, we all read our books. And they're like, hey, what if we GM each other? And 5e, you know? And they all know I don't like it. So they're, like, trying to convince me. They're like, 5e is the lingua franca that we all share.
And I'm like, okay, fair enough. I'll play 5E. Um, so one of the individuals.
I would say her first name. I'm sure it's fine. Liz started us off in a world very based on Planescape Torment, where we woke up in a morgue and kind of fought our way out of that first kind of morgue area, past some zombies and Some characters that like to operate on the undead. We did that for two sessions, and then she was like, okay, which GM wants to, like, tag in and take it? And we find ourselves now. Oh, man. What's that? Planescape City. That's kind of the equivalent of Shatrath and World of Warcraft. Sharn. No, no, Charn is.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: That's Sigil.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: We. We found our way out of the morgue and into Sigil.
Uh, and. And now all of Planescape is opened up to us. Now, fun fact for you, Tan. I don't know much about Planescape. I know a lot about Mystara. I know a ton about the 40. Setting that into your veil. God, I love that interval. My favorite setting.
Um, I know a fair amount about Greyhawk. I. I know a fair amount about Eberron and a few other settings. I've still never played in Eberron, but I know a fair amount about it. Uh, I don't know anything about Planescape. I. I know about Spelljammer, but I don't know about Planescape. So I'm just taking it as carte blanche to do whatever I want. So I volunteered. I raised my hand, said, I'll run next.
And this is where the story gets convoluted. Tanner, there's this really, really shitty movie that I love. God, I love it. I love it so much. It's my favorite bad movie. It's called Nights. K N I G H T S. Okay. It's directed by Albert Pune, who directed such hits as Jean Claude Van Damme in Cyborg and Rutger Hauer in Omega Doom. And I think he directed that really awful 80s version of Captain America.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. This is a deep cut.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: It is.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: You know who, because I like old, crappy 80s movies, and I've not heard of this, I'm more of, like, you're, ah, the hunter of the future Beastmaster Kroll kind of guy. Yeah, but that's probably mainstream to you.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Uh, Crawl is such a good movie compared to this night's. Um, Nights is, again, awful. But I absolutely love it. And here are some names I'll throw out you. Kris Kristofferson's in it. Lance Henriksen's in it. Kathy Long, the, like, female kickboxing champion, is in it.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: And this is this available on Blu Ray for me to buy right now.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: It's available on YouTube for you to watch right now. And, like, an upscaled, pretty nice version.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: All right, I know what my weekend plans are.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So our campaign is based loosely around the concept of vampirism.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: And in the movie Nights, cyborgs have discovered they can. It's this post apocalyptic setting. Everything's desert. There's no computers. But there are cyborg super soldiers left over from the last war. And they've learned that if they, um, drink human blood through needles in their fingers, they've modified themselves to be able to do this. They can extend their lifespan with their cyborg techno vampires. And this movie is about this lady learning, like kickboxing to be able to defeat cyborgs in kickboxing bouts.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Is Kris Kristofferson a cyborg?
[00:05:09] Speaker A: He is. He's a good cyborg. He teaches Kathy Long how to be a martial arts champion, and he teaches her how to kill cyborgs.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: This sounds like Blade Man.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: It's. It's insane.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Wait, so Kris Kristofferson in two different movies is a mentor for a vampire hunter?
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Uh, yeah, two that we know of. Could be more.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Could be more. He's taken from us too soon. God rest him.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: He was.
Um, anyway, so here's what I did. I took this movie that I love, that I have. I first watched it on, like, TBS in the early 90s with my dad, and I took this idea that we're in Planescape and I can do whatever the hell I want. And I took an adventure from the D and D Essentials kit that was published in 2019 called Tower of Storms. It's like a three page adventure. The essentials kit, by the way, wonderful 5e product. My favorite 5e product. It's a campaign. It's like 10 or 12 adventures in one 64 page booklet.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Is this the thing that they replaced Lost Mines of Phandelver with?
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yes. Okay.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: I really like Lost Mines of Phandelver. I think Phandelver's freaking excellent. So I was a little bit disappointed when that got kind of taken off the presses and they replaced it with this thing. But it sounds like this thing is also quite good.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: I love it. Yeah. The campaign book in the essentials kit is called the Dragon of Icespire Peak, where you're basically. You spend the entire campaign chasing down this white dragon. I took the adventure Tower of Storms, and I completely left the monsters alone and. And changed all the flavor to be this post apocalyptic cyborg world. So I sent you the adventure if you look at it.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Uh, I'll give you an adventure. If you look at the beach on page two, the giant crab stat block. That is exactly what's in the adventure. But I named it CR48, which, if you know, leet speak spells crab. Crab.
Um, and then Crab's friend is B4N 5H33, which, if you knew leetspeak, spells banshee.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: I'm picking up what you're putting down.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: So in Tower of Storms, the original adventure as published, this, this crab wants you to rescue its banshee friend because this elf imbued the crab with intelligence. And now the crab feels bad that she's been turned into a banshee and wants you to, like, release her spirit. Well, in my version, the banshee is a mobile turret that has a sonic weapon, and the crab would like you to replace its control disk. So you can see I left the monster stats completely alone and purely changed the flavor. My. My human cronies were human cyborg collaborators wearing jet packs.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: I am really excited by the phrasing. Jetpack cronies. That might be the most evocative thing I've ever read in an adventure.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: You know, what a great way to replace harpies. People in jetpacks with swords. I described the fight as being very similar to Highlander 2, which probably doesn't make sense to you. I reflavored this existing adventure to take.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: You're so good at this, man.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: In a completely different world.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: But room for room, map for map, enemy for enemy, hit point for hit point. It's an adventure. Uh, a third level adventure from that Essentials kit.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: How hard was this to make? Because this is clearly a lot of work, even if you have the skeleton of adventure to reskin everything.
So you do this a lot. I'm a fan of it. I think I would have a hard time if I did this, like, keeping track and like. Like I feel like I'd overlook something and not reskin something correctly.
Um, what was the process like for that? Was this a creative thing for you? Was it creatively satisfying? How much work was it?
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yes, it was creative. It was three evenings worth of work.
Step one was to find an illegal PDF online that I could copy and paste from. Step two is cleaning up all that text because the copy and paste was from like a, uh, like a. Like an optical character reader. So it was garbage. Step four was to go back and, room by room, rewrite the rooms to be the cyborg world, which was such fun. I did the copy and paste and cleanup in one evening, and I spent two evenings reflavoring everything. And reflavoring was. Is purely fun.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: That does sound like a lot of fun.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Yes. So, um, I make sure that I spend time on prep that I enjoy. Yeah.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Because it is part of the game. It is part of playing the game, Right? Yeah.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: And no one. You don't have to prep the same way. The key to prep is to find prep that you enjoy. I'm a technical writer, man. This kind of stuff comes easy to me, and I enjoy the hell out of it.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And you like old, weird, crappy 80s movies too, so that was probably fun creatively as opposed to mechanically, Right?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And back to things that you can never, ever sell. Yeah.
For so many reasons. It references an old 80s movie that no one but me would like. It's. It's a. It's a direct copy and paste of another adventure. Like, I can never, ever sell this, but, I mean, I don't want to.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: So that was the prep. How did it land at the table?
[00:10:02] Speaker A: It went fine. I wanted to knock it out in one evening after work. So I was trying to knock it out in, like, two and a half hours. It took us maybe three hours.
Uh, the players, it's 5E, right. So you can see from the map, like, if you follow T1 through, like T8, you can see how linear this is.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Uh, I'm gonna make fun of 5e players and say they're all, like, doing the RPG equivalent of mugging for the camera. I mean, it's okay. They spend a lot of time, like, having their cool character moments and their cool one liners. I don't even think they noticed it was linear.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Hey, we did that with mutants and masterminds, so we can't, uh, we can't call that.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Oh, there were branches in that. If you look back at my adventure, mutants and mastermind. There were whole things that you didn't do.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: We were mugging, though.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: For sure. We were. But I gave them opportunities to mug for the camera. I would say the game started out very slow as they were mugging for the camera constantly. And when time was running short, they started, like, making more meaningful choices and doing more stuff more quickly. Combat took a long time because it's 5e.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: What level was this at? I couldn't.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: 3.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: 3. Okay.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: We knocked the adventure out. Things that went well. Uh, it was evocative. It was flavorful. They were laughing, they were pissed. They were feeling emotions, which was great.
They felt sadness when the crab was sad that they wouldn't help them without more rewards. And I' describe the crab robot kind of slumping, and they were like, no, no, no. We'll help you. We'll help you.
I loved making Them feel emotions, things that didn't go well. Um, the combats were easier because they're playing 5e. Like, this product came out in 2019. Layer on four more years of splat books and stuff, and there was a sharpshooter that was doing like, 1d10 plus 10 damage every time he hit. And he hit basically every round. Wow. Yeah. So layer on some splat books, you know, scope, creep, etc. The combats were easier than I would have cared for. I don't think the main bad guy ever hit them once.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah, but at the same time, we've talked about this before. Like, and, uh, this is happening in my Cherwood game where, like, I think my players in five sessions have taken a total of like, eight damage across all of them. But it's about the potential for things, you know, like, danger feels very different based on what side of the screen you're on. We've. We've talked about that before. Um, did that feel like a failure or is that just like, this is what this game is like?
[00:12:23] Speaker A: They had fun, and we fit an entire story, an entire foray into a whole new plane and a satisfying adventure with a beginning, middle, and end into one session. I'd call it a win.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. This seems really awesome. I love the fact that you. You clearly have no interest in, like, designing a mechanical adventure for 5e, so you took one and you made it your own.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: My God, it's like you can see them into my brain. That's exactly what I thought. I don't give a Damn about the 5 mechanics of 5e, so if I can steal someone else's mechanics, I'm here for it.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: So. I mean, it sounds like it was a hit. They had some fun. Um, is there anything that you would have done differently now that, like, would you run this again for a group who wanted to play some wacky 5e stuff, or does this feel like this was made and customized for a time and place in this campaign?
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Uh, this was customized for time and place. However, I would run the adventure as originally written. One of my bucket list campaigns, like Neverland was on the bucket list. I got that done. That was awesome. I actually would really love to run the entire campaign out of the Essentials Kit. I really do. For all that, you know, I've moved beyond 5e and I'm into other things now. That Essentials Kit really was a wonderful, wonderful product, and I would love to, like, how genius is it to put a campaign in a box instead of an adventure in a box?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: I Love, uh, one thing I've picked up from knowing you for several years now is that you love beginner boxes and you love getting as much value as freaking possible out of every single little thing that's in a beginner box. I mean, you did it with Pathfinder back in the day. You done it with, uh. You basically use the beginner rules for your vampire campaign the whole time. Right. And, uh, and now you're. You're taking pieces of it from this. I think there's some wisdom in that, man.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: I appreciate. Don't forget the Mutants and masterminds cheat sheet.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: That was really, really, really based on those. Those starter adventures, those quick starts or whatever they were called.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I should, uh. Yeah, that's awesome, man. I. I love this. I love the flavor of this. I love Planescape a lot, at least just from the. The game that I've played. We should. Once you play Planescape Torment, we should really digest that. That game is incredible. Um, one question I forgot to ask.
Is this the original 5e rules as they released in 2014, or is this the updated stuff?
[00:14:42] Speaker A: It's the original. Okay. Although I occupy such a privileged position in terms of, like, having a nice job and having friends who have nice jobs, I have to tell you, Tanner.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Martin's brother bought all the stuff that's currently out for the 2024 edition and didn't like it and just gifted it to me. So behind me in a box, I have basically every product currently out for, um, the 2024 edition. He didn't gift it to me. He specifically gifted it to my daughter because she wanted to play the more recent stuff. And he had heard me mention that. And I said I was going to buy some stuff for Christmas. And he's like, uh, you can just have all of mine. I don't want it anymore.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: That's such an awesome part of this hobby that it obviously shout out to Bernard. He's awesome. Um, but this hobby is such a DIY share and share alike type hobby that people like you said they feel the need. Like, if a friend wanted one of my games that I don't play anymore and is like, I will run this, I would absolutely give it to them, you know. And yeah, like you said, maybe that's a position of privilege, but I think it's just something about the hobby too, that, like, me and you both understand that shelf space is limited and it's better for somebody to have something than to you to look at the spine of it every once in a while, Right?
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Cool. So I guess I am very ignorant as to the changes with the updated stuff. Um, I don't know if I could tell the difference, like, at the table if it happened, but. But yeah. So it sounds like this is a big hit. So you're out of the GMing chair for a while after this one, right?
[00:16:12] Speaker A: I am. I don't know what I'm going to run next.
I'll probably go back to Albert Pugn's movie collection.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: And see if I can figure out, um, something else in the puniverse to, uh, to run to Reflavor. Probably another adventure from the essentials kit.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Cool. Awesome. What a. What a cool setup that you have that and that. That just, like, it gives you ownership over it that you didn't have before. Just running it out of the box. Right. Because it's almost like somebody asking you to bring a dish to the. To a party, and you just, like, go to your grocery store and get a master choli and bring it with you, like, hey, I brought something. Right? That's. That's all right. When you're 22 years old and can't cook. But, like, now at least you put some extra spices on that master choli, and now it's yours a little bit. Right?
[00:17:01] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: I think my favorite moment of the entire game is I just told them, you know, this crab robot is labeled CR48. And they're kind of like jotting it down, like, okay, yeah, I got it here. And then I have it. Tell them about, hey, you know, and by the way, the way it talked is it had an LED screen on its head.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Uh, like, dan. Um.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: And the letters would scroll past. Yeah, there you go. And I was like, hey, will you save my friend? B4N 5H33. And one of them's writing it down. And he goes, oh, shit, banshee.
And everyone else table was like, what? And he goes, it's going to be a banshee. And he goes, and this is a crab. So them figuring out the leet speak are fun. Oh, yeah. Such fun. Cool, Cool.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, uh, if you ever have any other cool sessions that you want to talk about as a player too, um, I'd love to hear it, but what a fun idea for like, oh, Dusty is your turn to do something, and then you whip this thing out. Did they know at all, I guess, that you adapted this from.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Okay. They did. All right. I was going to say, were you trying to present this as your own work?
[00:18:02] Speaker A: I did at first I showed them the movie and said, hey, FYI, the games will take place in this world.
Um, and we were rescuing one of the characters. So the character, the player whose character we were rescuing, I rolled up the main character of the movie as a monk, like a kickboxing badass monk for this individual to play. And in fact, the last page of this adventure, if you look at it. Yeah, it's a guide sheet for whoever's playing NIA to basically say, here's what, you know, like the players are. The other players are likely to ask you questions rather than making you watch the cruel and unusual. Yeah, here are, uh, here are ready made answers to questions that they might ask you and anything else you can pitch to me. And sure enough, she did make use of this and like, answer some questions during the game and I think she really enjoyed that.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Awesome. I love that. Uh, yeah, so 5e. It's not all bad if you can steal somebody else's work and then steal somebody else's other work and then kind of mash it together. Is that the lesson here?
[00:18:59] Speaker A: I think you just described GMing.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: That's profound. I'm going to need to think on that one.
Thank you, everybody, for listening.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: People call them reviews, post mortems, retrospectives.
We call them lessons learned, and we're sharing ours with you.
