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Things were changing before the Hickmans. They were talented and led the way into a new playstyle, but if not them then someone else would have done it. Most of TSR's employees were new at the time and young and not at all steeped in the Wisconsin war gaming culture. People were coming into the hobby left and right because of its notoriety and because of stuff like Conan the Barbarian movie, etc who had no experience and no INTEREST in war gaming. I think the pull towards the playstyle that Hickman is credited with kicking off was inevitable. It might have taken a little longer to crystallize without the Hickmans, but it had to happen because the whole hobby population just about was pulling that way anyway. And the success of other games with a different focus, like Call of Cthulhu, made it inevitable too. Graeme Davis said that in particular CoC had been popular in Britain, and the mandate he was given when writing The Enemy Within campaign was an investigative campaign with no dungeon crawling and a reduced focus on violence for a fantasy setting. It's fascinating to me that in their market, that's already what early Games Workshop saw as where the market was.

This is the video. Vampire finally clicked for me, I get it now

i love this video, start grilling

even further than just rehearsals for the filming of streetcar, he also originated the role in the play, and had played Stanley on stage countless times before the film was made

Immersion is not a good or useful thing to pursue.

no

I'm shocked Ginger Frasier is good friends with Michael Malice. Cross-over of the century for me.

Was there a deeper design choice for reducing the arson table from a d6 to a d4, or was it simple brevity?

Fucking brilliant video. It really cleared things up in my mind.

a lot of it sucks but a lot of things are really good

What is your opinion on the "Campaign Pitch"? Basically, the idea of front-loading a basic character goal. For example, "You are warriors of the barbarian king here to plunder and conquer". There's no plot, but there is a starting idea so that players all start on the same page. The characters in the end still have just as much agency, but they have in-character consistency. They get to be proactive, but starting with a shared paradigm. And I find Players really like a prompt to work with. The reason this is useful, is that true sandbox play is tricky if the players all have wildly different goals, and that isn't conducive to the cooperative play of conventional D&D. It's also nice for the DM, as I get to run the campaign I'm interested in. If the players do end up diverging, then it's because of an organic evolution in character motives.

This is amazing.

You make some good points, but it's bad faith to insinuate that all critters are morons with an "IQ of 75" You really lose credibility when you start insulting people who may be coming to see your viewpoint.

I bought shadowdark just for the art and tables. Happily do the same for the oyster product 👌👍

i think what i would change is that, you need to know your character better! you want to know who you are trying to become more in depth, knowing the rules doesn't help with that.

Great interview. I find it fascinating how the same generation (I’m around the same age) have such similiar experiences even though we are 12,000 km apart. Fascinating.

Even if you don't get that immersion, the game can still be a lot of fun because you are still making life and death decisions. Like even if you are not super into your character, you don't want your character to die, and you don't want to 'lose' the game.

You mean the forty year old millennials? Those millennials?

I think the end of the video goes straight to the meat of the issue. Very good. I shared it with my players who are kind of having a hard time understanding exactly the points you are making.

25:20 my experience with genz is that they expect an analogue video game in D&D.

"Become Like Children" ~Jesus Christ (Dungeon Rabbi)

Imo its cringe even to do it on recorded DnD shows.

Watching this again after 2 months. This is the one of the funniest CZcams ever! It someone gets better with age

I'm so glad you mentioned your audio podcast, I just subscribed on podcast addict. I'm always looking for new audio pods to listen too on my long commutes back into the city, and your show (which I just discovered on CZcams) is a gem. Cheers and thanks for the awesome content.

i always go for a guy who uses magic and is good with a sword, ready to tackle any situation like a boss

Excellent interview. Near the end when he offhandedly says the ogre will let them passed if they just offer a couple sheep. I suddenly thought of Team A paying the sheep, and then Team B tries to pay more sheep to let them passed but to hinder Team A. And now the ogres on the first layer of the dungeon are the subject of a bidding war between both parties, which is slowly escalating to near ludacris proportions.

I dont know how, but I discovered your channel last night despite the algorythm. I'm a fan of AD&D 1st and 2nd edition, Dragonlance, LOTR, Conan and supporter of the OSR. Your's is the third channel I've come across that recommend the Shadowdark system. I currently have supported OSE and Baptism of Fire. I plan on buying Dragonslayer, and Ill have to add Shadowdark to my want-list. Great content guys. Glad to have found you.

The best way to watch Ginny D.

"We're invulnerable to criticism..." Well, that's pretty off-putting. Good luck with your channel.

So in on this one! Take my money! I love that you guys are doing Shadowdark. It's become my game of choice to run.

People are becoming unanamoured with video games as they become more woke and often push political ideologies. Those people will figure out that they just need to find their tribe and create thier own shared realms (online, in person or a mixture of both).

I wouldn't go so far as to say that safety tools are evil and that anyone who recommends them isn't a real human. Any game benefits from an honest conversation and getting a sense of where everyone is coming from. You don't know what everyone's been through in their life and having a conversation about what will make the game unfun for your players is a good way to set expectations. Same goes for the X card if used in the right spirit. It shouldn't be there as a get out of jail free card or an "I'm scared" or stressed stop sign, like covering your eyes during a scary movie. It should be reserved specifically for "this is actively triggering my trauma" and that should never happen when playing a game. If that's happening to someone, you don't want them to quietly sit there as you actively ruin their night. Both of the extremes in this video straw man the issue. One alleges that the GM is an uncaring monster who will immediately push things to their most transgressive. The other alleges that players that use safety tools only use them in bad faith to control the game and limit creativity. In neither case are you playing a game with your friends. In the case of a VtM game, I would begin by explaining that the players are monsters who will be committing acts that we would consider evil up to and including murder and the removal of someone else's free will. That doesn't mean that by doing these things in the game you are condoning these actions and if another player does them, that doesn't make them a bad person. There are limits to this that should be obvious. The game may include PVP but, even in the event that your characters are in conflict, it's important to be respectful of eachother as players. Then you open it up to the group. If someone suggests something that they can't handle that fundamentally prevents the game from taking place, you might first ask them if this is something that will ruin their enjoyment of the experience or if it's something that just makes them uncomfortable. For example, body horror doesn't make anyone comfortable but it's good for the game if it's in service of the horror experience. If they're still a no, then you suggest that this game might not be for them.

i was in LA and in Tampa. LA is really arid and has a lack of water (which has been overcome with planning and later ruined). I had the skin on my palms start to peel away from how dry it is. also the large mountians are a pain to drive around and they feel eiry to me, like barbarians and monsters are on the other side (or held inside) Tampa on the other hand i walked around 10 miles a day in summer and was pretty fine. Florida weather underrated, california weather over rated.

Austin aka little California

So cool you guys are working on a game publication. I’d love a peek behind the scenes because I’m writing something right now that I’d like to publish someday but I’m quite inexperienced in publishing.

CR/matt mercer/new-age RPing is one of those things that despite never exposing myself to it or interacting with it, I still smell the stench everywhere I go. CR and that vain twat have done more to destroy classic TTRPG gaming than even WotC could ever do. New players think "roleplaying" is writing a 10-page backstory on why you're the most special snowflake in the world then antagonizing the whole group by constantly wanting to do things that "fit your character" even when they obviously go against the direction of the story (ignoring the fact that if anyone else in the group roleplayed "that's what my character would do" the first thing they did would be to stab you in the throat to make you stop talking). It's like people use "RP" as an excuse for lazy behaviour. They use a basic and egregious personality trope to validate all their surface-level consideration for their actions and are only concerned with how funny or outrageous they can be instead of, ya know, *thinking about where the campaign is headed.* Complex rules are a necessary barrier to keep grifters and mary-sues out of the game. Wanna be a quirky, chaotic, sexy murder-hobo? Learn what your fucking abilities do. Not what you think they do; Not what you want them to do - prove you have the patience and respect for the game by learning to live within a ruleset.

counter point: putting on a silly voice 1. is very fun 2. FORCES you to commit to being someone other than yourself. Thinking about how a character speaks is an extremely helpful step in understanding how they try to present themselves to the world. To help with this process I like writing my character backstories in first person from the perspective of the character. Read what you're writing in character as you go along. This really helps in understanding your character and their mannerisms.

My whole party is Role Players from other games and it makes it super fun, we always mix fun and serious together to get an amazing mix. I am not a god DM, they aren't god actors, so we don't try to be. We just have as much fun as we can because we are there to be together at the end of the day. Great video!

if you're scared of the guy with the rocket launcher this job might not be right for you kid.

You guys are in ATX? Wtf!?! Me too

I hate hate hate how so many of my players & a few who’ve DMed for me want the game to be a TV show or movie, they speak of seasons & episodes… what show has an 8 episode long combat? Come now, we’re here to game