0:02

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you . Today

0:05

I've got Judd Carlman of Daydreaming

0:08

About Dragons on the show and

0:10

we talk about getting paid to GM

0:12

Games . Judd shares his experiences

0:15

prior to and including

0:17

his run on StartPlaying Games

0:19

, the platform where you can pay

0:21

to play RPGs online . This

0:24

is part one of a huge conversation

0:26

of our thoughts and experiences in this area . Enjoy

0:30

. This

0:32

is Dysology , the podcast about tabletop games and

0:34

the talk to the people that play them

0:37

. The

0:56

Dysology show is sponsored by listeners like you

0:58

. Subscribe to the show on

1:00

Patreon . Let's

1:04

make this our regular thing .

1:07

I realized that before

1:10

StartPlaying I

1:13

had done a stint of

1:15

pro-Gaming in the sense of CryoStays

1:17

with Jeff . It was right before

1:19

Storm joined us . We

1:23

could figure out the date if we really wanted

1:26

to , because it was right when

1:28

preview stuff for fourth

1:30

edition was coming out . I

1:34

remember one of the people

1:36

in the group we were running

1:38

a game for for money was

1:40

looking at it and he was like , yeah

1:43

, I'm not going to allow Dragonborn in

1:45

my game . We

1:48

had always had a Dragonborn-like thing

1:50

when I was growing up . We just made

1:52

our own . Why not , he

1:56

said , because player characters don't have breath weapons

1:58

. That's just not a thing that happens . I

2:00

was like , okay , that's

2:02

your mind . God bless , the

2:05

conversation is so vivid . Player

2:08

characters don't have breath weapons . Gm

2:11

monsters have breath weapons . We

2:16

got hired to run a bunch of games for the weekend

2:19

at a dude's bachelor party

2:21

. One of his friends found out that he loved

2:23

Sons of Cryos . He emailed

2:25

us and he was like hey , I'm a

2:28

well-to-do professional

2:30

in Staten Island . Would you guys

2:32

come for a couple grand and

2:34

run games all weekend and we'll feed you ? Jeff

2:37

and I were like , yeah

2:40

, we'll do that .

2:45

Yeah , absolutely .

2:46

That sounds like it's

2:49

just like . I think we did it almost out of

2:51

curiosity . Also , we did it because

2:53

we'd be doing it together . We

2:56

weren't going to end up in a dumpster in

2:58

Staten Island , right , at

3:02

least one of us will get away . One of us is

3:04

definitely going to get away my money was

3:06

on Jeff at that point I

3:08

think , yeah

3:11

, jeff would have gotten away , he

3:13

would have been fine . I'm pretty

3:16

sure I would have been like I'm going to try to hit somebody a little

3:18

too much and then I would have gotten

3:20

without being the end of me or

3:22

I would have started grappling like a total jackass

3:24

. So

3:28

before start playing and before all that

3:31

, we did that . That was fun . We

3:33

could have made that

3:35

part of our podcast spiel

3:38

back . We could have been like hey , if you want to get

3:40

game with us ? send us a thing

3:42

send us

3:44

an idea and we'll send you

3:46

a quote . We could have started . But

3:49

I think we were both like , yeah , that was fun

3:51

, but no

3:53

, I just want to be there . We don't want to be our lives

3:56

. We don't want that to

3:58

be our lives . But what

4:00

I think is kind of my reaction

4:02

to all of it is like , yeah , this is interesting

4:05

, there's

4:07

a way to make a good amount of money at this

4:09

, where I think it would actually be worthwhile . I

4:12

just don't know if this is what I want to do with my

4:14

life , and it would take a

4:17

lot of time and energy to

4:19

get this to do this right the way I want to

4:21

do it . I

4:23

think I've run two or three start playing

4:26

games . I

4:28

just got dinged up for two more and I've

4:30

got to go back to them and say , hey , I

4:32

just started a new job . I can't do this and

4:35

I owe those people an email and I'm way

4:37

overdue . I'm about two weeks overdue on those emails . So

4:39

I've got to go back and be like no , I'm sorry , but

4:45

I think there is a market for people

4:47

like us who run games that aren't

4:49

fifth edition . I

4:52

think that that's a totally

4:54

possible thing , that I think it's

4:56

there . There are people who want to . I

4:58

got hired once for start play because

5:00

a GM grabbed a couple

5:02

of players from his game and was like , hey , we'd

5:05

like to see how Trophy Gold works . Oh

5:07

wow , nice , yeah , so could you just run it ? And

5:09

I was like , yeah , absolutely . I was like I'm going

5:11

to get a gold and I thought

5:13

it was a pretty successful session . They

5:16

did not leave a

5:18

review , so I don't know what that means . Yeah

5:21

, I

5:23

don't know . And

5:25

yeah , it was what it was . And

5:30

then I

5:32

ran up the other game that you were in , and

5:36

I think there was one other one

5:38

and it's fun . It's

5:41

not enough money for it to be worth

5:43

my time as

5:45

it is , but

5:47

I think I don't know . It's

5:50

just like a little extra money . I think it's

5:52

, that's cool , do it . And

5:55

I think if , if there are people who

5:57

have that money and want to

6:00

play a specific

6:02

way at a specific time , then that's

6:05

great . Like if there are people you know , if someone wants the money

6:07

and someone has the money , then great , those two people should get

6:09

together , right .

6:10

Yes .

6:12

I think you know , like any deal

6:14

, but , yeah , I wouldn't want

6:16

, I

6:18

wouldn't want a world where that was the only way to play

6:21

, right , yes , but

6:23

I don't think that's the world you're creating

6:25

by , by taking part in it . I

6:27

don't think you're suddenly , I don't think you're going

6:30

to wake up and be like , oh man , you've got to pay someone 30

6:32

bucks an hour if they're going to run a game for you and

6:35

and . But yeah , I

6:37

don't know , but I am definitely

6:40

running games for my friends because there's

6:42

stuff in those games I want to create

6:44

from

6:46

the fifth edition games or you know , whether

6:48

it's a blog post or a

6:52

podcast , or maybe not even

6:54

a podcast about the game , but , like , gaming

6:56

helps me create the podcast . So , right , right

6:59

, I'm definitely not doing it for

7:01

nothing . Right , I'm right

7:03

. So

7:06

, even the games where I'm not charging

7:08

my friends money , it

7:14

I feel like there is something I'm getting out of it . There

7:17

is no kind of exchange going on , you know , right

7:19

. No I agree , I agree , yeah , so

7:22

oh , and there was one other exchange of money . When I first got back to it

7:24

, like a friend of mine was like hey , you know , I'd

7:27

love to pay you to run a game for me , for me

7:29

and the guys . And there

7:32

was this really interesting moment where he

7:34

and I were kind of alone and

7:37

I was like , hey , how are you doing ? And

7:39

he was like he basically like was like told

7:41

me how work was going Right , and

7:44

it was his way of like being like this money

7:46

doesn't , like I can afford

7:48

this , like work is going

7:50

really well . Like I can afford

7:52

to pay you a

7:54

couple hundred bucks to run this game . So

7:57

it's cool . I know

7:59

you're unemployed right now . I don't think this is going

8:01

to change your life . I don't think you

8:03

owe me anything . I

8:06

can really afford it and it makes me happy

8:08

to do it and like it was a really nice

8:10

way to for him

8:12

to kind of like

8:14

wink and just be like it's cool , just run a game

8:16

, like just have fun . I can

8:18

afford it and it makes me happy to do this . So

8:22

, yeah , those are the times that

8:24

I've I've

8:26

run games . I've definitely understand

8:28

that . There's a worry in my head that

8:31

I'm going to start doing this for

8:33

money and it's going to mess it up , like

8:35

. I absolutely have that . I

8:38

have that fear in my head , right

8:42

, and I think , in order for it to be

8:44

a full time job for me , I

8:48

would need to grind really

8:50

hard for about six months to a

8:52

year and then

8:54

after that , I believe I would get to that

8:56

point where I'd

8:58

find the , the niche that

9:00

I want to find . Ok , but

9:03

does that niche exist

9:05

? Right , right , right

9:07

. I don't know . Like is there a super rich

9:10

person who is just going to pay me three hundred

9:12

? dollars a session to run a one on

9:14

one game for them . Like I know I can do

9:16

that , like I know that , like I can run a single

9:18

GM and single player game and make it awesome , right

9:20

, and not have you know and and

9:23

pick the right system that works for that kind of thing

9:25

and and run the shit out

9:27

of it . Right , but does

9:29

anyone ? I don't know , I don't know

9:32

.

9:32

So and how do you find ? How do I find

9:34

that person or those people or

9:36

however many of those folks that I need ? I'm

9:38

with you . I started

9:41

with the math , the math in

9:43

general and then the math for me , and

9:45

I think that math is always going to be personal

9:47

to the person who's who's running , what their

9:50

time constraints are , and

9:52

then how much money they need and

9:56

how much expenses they've got there in

9:58

that , wrapped up in that . Yeah

10:00

, so I'm with you there .

10:01

Yeah , and that's another . I think if

10:03

I was going to go back and do this again and do

10:05

it right , I think there'd be a half

10:08

hour to an hour before the game and

10:10

a half hour to an hour after the game , right

10:12

, where I would engage

10:15

and play your self care and then my

10:17

self care , like it's right in a world where

10:19

I'm a professional

10:21

GM . In that world , an

10:26

hour before the game I'd

10:28

meditate for 20 minutes and

10:31

then , a half hour before the game

10:33

, I'd go

10:35

online and let everybody know I'm going to

10:37

be here , right ? If you want

10:39

to check in with me before the game , I'm

10:42

here , you know , and

10:45

just let them know that , like before the game , you can come

10:47

in . Like , if you just want to shoot the shit and

10:49

find out who I am , that's great . If

10:52

you want to say , hey , last game something

10:54

happened that really bothered me , that's great

10:56

. If you want to let me know that , like , hey , you

10:58

know I

11:00

just got stabbed . I really don't want

11:02

a game where , like , a knife is being drawn on me , then

11:05

like , that's also great . Like , so it would be like a safety

11:07

thing , a social thing , a bunch of you know

11:09

all that kind of stuff . No , I agree . And then

11:11

, and then , for a half hour , I would make myself available

11:13

afterwards , and then , for a half

11:16

hour afterwards , I would , you

11:19

know , stretch , do some yoga

11:21

, do something to like , take care of my body , because

11:23

sitting in front of these damn machines

11:26

is tough .

11:27

It is tough . It is tough Doing

11:29

some quick math . If I , because

11:31

I can't be online more than three hours

11:33

. So if I say three plus

11:36

your 90 minutes , right , we're already

11:38

looking at four and a half to five hours .

11:40

Yeah , process .

11:40

Yeah , right . So , yeah

11:42

, that's your day . Yeah , yeah , that's your day

11:44

, yes , and for me it's not . So

11:46

I would lose track of the time because

11:49

I love doing this , right , right

11:51

and I would . If

11:53

your time is valuable , I

11:56

would be value because

11:58

I would give that time and not

12:00

keep track of it . Does that make sense ?

12:01

Yep , yep , yep , yep , yeah , yeah

12:04

, it's

12:07

hard , it's really hard . So

12:10

in your article you were talking about running like

12:12

I don't want to say West

12:15

Marches , but like West Marches style .

12:17

Yeah , I would say probably more open table , yeah

12:20

, than West Marches , yeah

12:22

, but having

12:24

run two online

12:26

campaigns of West Marches , I noticed some

12:28

things . Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah

12:31

. I noticed some things that I want to keep

12:33

in my open table games

12:35

for me and to keep

12:37

the open table games , I

12:41

don't know , compelling Maybe

12:43

that's the word , right , ok , yeah , so open table

12:46

, so it's so . I think , and this is , maybe

12:48

this is the weird space between

12:50

the hobby , right

12:52

, and being a professional

12:54

, right , yeah , because there's some marketing and

12:56

some sales there , and I hate both those words

12:59

and I hate that that just came out of my mouth and

13:01

all that stuff , right . But

13:03

if you're going to be a professional GM

13:05

, right , I am self employed

13:07

and one of the things I hate the most

13:09

is running in running a software company is

13:11

I just want to make software for people and I want to help

13:14

you do your job faster , better

13:16

, quicker , right , the way you need

13:18

to work , right , and I

13:20

like to be transparent about all those things and

13:23

I've gotten to a place where I feel good , mostly

13:25

about that . But I will over talk

13:27

a thing , because I don't want to be selling

13:30

snake oil . I want you to understand what

13:32

you're paying for what you're getting into . Yeah , right

13:34

, yes , yep , so

13:36

it's the same here for me . So when I'm talking

13:38

I notice that man , this comes out like I'm

13:40

a sales guy , but

13:42

I think it's still also true . So

13:45

in that article , when I wrote that , my

13:47

thought is out of the gate . The easiest thing

13:49

for me to do is run , pick

13:52

a game . I'd probably pick something popular Fifth

13:55

edition is the 800 pound gorilla

13:57

. So if we go with that , right , I

13:59

would run an open table and that makes it easy

14:01

for players to get into that game

14:04

. Fifth edition is a great big touchstone

14:06

, right ? Most

14:08

folks can make their own characters and hop in . If I'm

14:10

available 30 minutes before we can talk about

14:12

that , I will have free gins , right . Or

14:15

we can help you get through the character making process and

14:18

now we're playing , right , yeah

14:20

, then my thought is

14:22

, if it's open table , we could do the player

14:25

introduction , so we all know each other and that kind of thing

14:27

and we just play , right . But

14:30

if it's like Wes Marches

14:32

style , there's a let's

14:35

call it a meta lore

14:38

happening . All the sessions combined make

14:40

a story . You don't have to be in all of

14:42

them , right , but at least I , as the

14:44

GM , I'm aware all those things happen . Some

14:47

of that will spill over into other games . If

14:49

you want and I make it available

14:51

online you can have a place to go

14:53

look at how some of the other sessions played

14:55

out or where the other adventurers

14:58

are . It's a shared world that we're playing

15:00

in , right ? But you don't have to

15:02

have all that other information

15:04

and you don't have to be in all those

15:06

other games . But what I found

15:08

with let's just

15:11

go with Wes Marches styled games

15:13

like that is folks want to know

15:15

that lore and

15:17

they're trying to reach out to some of the other characters

15:20

or other players and form new parties

15:22

and stuff like that . And when

15:24

they're at the same table , like if at least two

15:26

or three games have happened and there's some overlap of players

15:28

, but some new players the new

15:30

players are bringing are getting

15:33

brought up to speed by the other

15:35

two players from their

15:37

previous sessions , and you've kind

15:39

of got that shop talk among adventurers

15:41

happening . When we'll go hey , have

15:43

you guys been out to that old

15:45

Dwarven temple ? And somebody will go no , I

15:47

heard about that but I hadn't gone there , right ? I

15:50

heard XYZ . And then the new

15:52

guys go what ? This is my first adventure , right

15:54

? So what are we doing ? And then one person will go well , I thought

15:56

we're going to go here , but maybe we should go to that temple

15:58

, right ? And then right , and

16:00

I don't , I haven't done anything yet . Right

16:02

, they're sharing information , especially

16:05

if they played before . Right , and

16:07

they keep doing that . And right

16:09

, I see that happening , yep , and

16:11

that's where the gold is right . Yes , that's where the

16:14

gold is .

16:14

I don't have to do very much . The players are

16:16

just kind of doing their thing on themselves and

16:20

yeah , yeah , what I've done is I've created

16:23

this space

16:25

where they feel safe to do that that's

16:28

the work , in that they have to feel safe

16:31

there .

16:33

But we've done enough con games that

16:35

we have a toolbox for

16:38

at least building some

16:40

safe spaces .

16:41

Yeah , oh , yeah , yeah , yeah . And honestly , like in

16:43

the world , in the GMing thing , the

16:46

least difficult

16:48

and worrisome thing for me is the GMing

16:50

right , right , I know

16:52

someone might come in and be like that's not the style of

16:54

game I like , which is awesome

16:57

. Like I'll be like , okay , well , let me , let's

16:59

find you the person you do like Right , can I

17:01

help , right . But

17:07

yeah , I

17:10

think the hard part is it's all the stuff

17:12

you just said the marketing , the community

17:15

building , the all

17:18

of it . The accounting

17:20

, for God's sake , the accounting , yes , yeah , you

17:23

know , because one player is going to bust out

17:25

and be like I'll be the chronicler . It's

17:29

like does he or she get a little bit off on

17:31

their thing Because they're doing

17:33

a lot of work ? Like they're doing labor , now

17:35

they're doing labor , right Now they're doing labor

17:38

. And then you know , if you get three

17:40

people who are all doing labor in one session

17:42

, like was that day worth

17:44

anything , money wise to you , all of a sudden , right

17:46

, and I know that those people are

17:48

bringing in other like it can become

17:50

really weird . Yeah , yeah , really

17:52

really weird . And someone

17:55

, some ones , are going to get together

17:57

with like three good GMs and be like

17:59

, hey , we're running a thing Right , and

18:04

I think

18:06

there's room to make that really awesome . And

18:08

I think it's there , especially

18:11

because you can yeah

18:13

, I mean , you can record everything right , so you can

18:15

, like , watch the important moments

18:17

you can , you know , let

18:20

the next GM know , like , hey , you should watch

18:22

. You know our 245

18:24

, you know 245 mark on the video

18:26

and just look at that before

18:28

the next game . Right , you know

18:31

, and read my synopsis . But

18:34

it's a lot of work , I think it would be a lot of work .

18:36

No , it is some work . Yeah , it is some work .

18:38

And the other thing that vexes

18:41

me about it is I like jumping around , I

18:43

like playing into the odd for a couple months and

18:45

writing a bunch about it . And then I like picking

18:49

up traveler and running that a

18:51

bunch and then

18:53

going back and being like , oh shit , that thing

18:55

that we did with into the odd was fun . I

18:57

should write that up . And like

19:00

, I like being able to jump around . And

19:02

there you know , once you start doing this for

19:04

money , then you've got to follow the market

19:06

forces a little bit Right and

19:08

yeah . I don't

19:10

know I don't know where exactly that's going to be .

19:13

And I don't know either . My

19:15

thought was at the beginning and

19:18

this is all theory . This is what I'm going to step out into

19:21

, start playing and find out

19:23

. My thought is open tables . We

19:25

do that at con games . I've got those skills

19:27

. Let me run with open tables with

19:31

a popular game and build some traction

19:33

out there and learn some things right . Ideally

19:37

that is an easy

19:39

win not effort but

19:41

an easy win and from

19:43

there my hope is to build into

19:47

a work , into one-off

19:51

campaign games where I'm running maybe four or five sessions

19:53

of a thing burning wheel

19:55

or I don't know , legacy

19:58

or whatever right , something that

20:00

takes some more work , a

20:03

little bit harder than the easier games

20:05

I can run 5e , bx

20:07

, there's certain games we can run in

20:09

our sleep and it's nothing . But

20:12

I think , like you said , I think there's a

20:14

market or there's a place for

20:16

non-mainstream

20:18

indie games that are a little heavier

20:21

, that folks want to play .

20:24

Yeah and yeah . Just people who are like hey , I'm curious

20:26

, I want to , I'm

20:28

going to run this for my friends , I'd

20:31

like to see how it works and what

20:33

you do , and I think that's like a whole

20:35

other aspect of this is

20:37

like hey , would

20:40

you like to buy my GM coach

20:42

package where I run three

20:44

sessions for you and then help you

20:46

set up your game for your friends ? That's

20:49

like that's a thing , and then , like

20:51

you can send me a video

20:53

of you and your friends and I'll

20:56

help coach you based on that . I

20:59

don't know . Yeah , I think there's

21:01

like

21:04

so many weird little

21:06

niches to be found .

21:06

I think it's there , I agree .

21:10

It's absolutely all there . But someone's

21:12

gonna oh , they're gonna have to work so

21:15

hard and someone's

21:17

gonna work real hard at this and

21:20

they're gonna hit it big and absolutely

21:22

God's bless them . It's

21:24

just not me . I

21:26

would rather be playing on the side and working

21:28

a little bit hard , a little bit

21:30

hard on like putting a couple of blog posts

21:33

together , doing some podcasting

21:35

, and the real career is

21:38

in the library and that's that . But

21:41

I don't know , if I didn't get this current

21:43

job that I had now I might be like in

21:46

the midst of the grind because I might be like you

21:49

know what ? I gotta give it a shot , right , right

21:51

. So

21:53

, yeah , I think I just like got lucky and

21:57

decided that wasn't

21:59

the thing I wanted to do , but I could definitely

22:02

see it was gonna be a brutal amount of

22:04

work and there are people doing

22:06

it . Yeah , you know people who have sub

22:08

stacks who are like , hey , this is how I'm making professional

22:11

jamming work and

22:14

they're killing it . That's

22:16

pretty cool . Yeah

22:20

, it's a whole thing . I don't know . Yeah , yeah

22:25

, and I don't think it's destroying . Yeah

22:27

, we talked about this a little bit before , but I

22:30

don't think it's destroying the hobby . I

22:32

don't think , as

22:35

soon as you agree

22:39

that this is a skill-based hobby

22:41

, then expertise

22:45

should be paid for sometimes and it's

22:47

not all the time , but it's sometimes

22:49

. I

22:54

don't know , yeah .

22:56

So for me , because I've

22:58

seen the hot conversations and I

23:00

think it's easy for me to say

23:02

I think it always is

23:04

about where you started in

23:07

life and where you're at right now oh , interesting

23:09

, Right for me , I

23:11

know , when I first got out of the military

23:14

, I'm a

23:16

shoot things and blow stuff up guy and

23:19

you're not going to get a whole lot of civilian jobs doing that

23:21

. One of the first jobs I got

23:23

was as an armored courier . I

23:25

got five bucks an hour sitting in

23:28

the back of a truck with a gun that's loaded

23:30

a truck full of money . But

23:33

on the side I would DJ , because I would

23:35

DJ before I went into the military and

23:37

I DJed while I was in the military and

23:39

so I would do private parties and things

23:42

like that on the side . Dj , right . But

23:45

then sometimes I would have friends that would have events

23:47

like weddings or whatever , and they're like , hey , would you come out and

23:49

DJ and I would just do it ? Right , Just

23:51

feed me and I will DJ

23:53

for you for free , right , Because I know

23:56

you're spending money on your wedding , that kind of thing , right

23:58

? And my thought

24:00

is all kinds of folks have different . I

24:02

play guitar . I would sometimes side

24:05

gig and play guitar for folks , and sometimes I

24:07

would just play for fun for folks , I would help fill

24:09

in . They're like , hey , Jerry's out , Can you come

24:12

do some rhythm guitar for us ? They're

24:14

speaking . I'm like man , I'd love to do that and I'd like to go out and do

24:16

that . So I think folks have different sets

24:18

of skills that they might use

24:22

to gig on the side or whatever , right , For

24:24

whatever reasons . And I feel like running

24:27

games is the same thing . It's the same spot

24:29

, same place , right , I'm

24:31

never gonna show up Wednesday night to my regular group

24:33

and say , hey , I need five bucks from everybody . Right

24:35

, Give me $5 , right . And

24:39

I think most folks'

24:41

games at home and that kind of stuff are

24:43

safe , right . I

24:46

remember early on in this conversation

24:48

I was setting up my

24:50

. It was when I did the Kickstarter for the

24:53

Into the Madlands and

24:55

there were some women that reached out

24:57

and they asked about some safety things and

25:00

we had that conversation and I came

25:02

up short and I asked , hey , would you help

25:04

me bridge that gap Because I don't know

25:06

? Right , and they did . And

25:09

what I learned was , even

25:11

before I came along and before all this

25:13

other stuff came along , there were plenty of

25:15

folks who

25:18

were already paying GMs

25:20

to run games for them because

25:23

they couldn't find other folks to run games for

25:25

them . They didn't feel safe in other spaces

25:27

and this was a way where they could

25:29

set up where the game was gonna happen

25:32

at . They bought

25:34

in some trust or got into some trust with this GM

25:36

that they're paying and it's

25:38

entertainment and they're getting what they needed

25:40

out of it , the way they needed to have it , and

25:42

they were willing to pay the money for it .

25:44

Yep . And so it's

25:46

funny you're saying that , because you're making me rethink about

25:48

when I've done paid jamming . So

25:50

I don't know if this is paid jamming , but this is when money

25:52

gets involved , right . Right , when

25:55

I was like in the midst of

25:58

like in the heyday of dictionary of Mu

26:00

, which is my , my , my sorcerer supplement , and

26:03

I still sell a

26:07

couple every couple of months the

26:10

way at the end of the long tail . But every once in a while somebody

26:12

on RPGnet

26:15

is like hey , what's a good sort , you know sort

26:17

and sorcery setting . And someone jumps in and is

26:19

like dictionary of Mu and like I get

26:22

some guy in Ohio who needs to have it

26:24

and I send it to him or her usually

26:26

him . So when

26:28

I was making some money on that

26:30

and the long tail wasn't quite so long

26:33

, when my friends and I would go to cons

26:35

before I would just be like no , no , no , no , no , I'm

26:37

, I got my own , I have my own hotel

26:39

room . I'm too old for this , I'm

26:41

too old Before I would do that . We

26:44

would all get a room together and I would say , listen

26:46

, I'll pay for half the room . The rest

26:48

of y'all pay the rest . Right , and

26:51

that's because everybody

26:53

who is sleeping here , whether

26:56

it's on a bed or on the floor or wherever you all

26:58

end up sleeping . You

27:01

all like play tested , you all

27:04

did a beta read , like everybody

27:06

here contributed somehow and so I

27:09

will pay for half and the rest of . And

27:12

if you haven't contributed to that , you're contributing

27:14

to the next thing , so

27:16

I will pay for half the hotel room

27:18

for the weekend and the rest of you all split the rest

27:21

. And like that was my way of like taking

27:25

care of the people who were taking care of me at the table

27:27

, and

27:29

if things had gone even better , I'd

27:31

be like the hotel room is free , but

27:34

I was like this is what I can afford right now . And

27:37

yeah , that's definitely . But like

27:39

people who are like oh well , pay jamming

27:41

is bad . It's

27:44

very interesting because how

27:47

many of them are doing independent

27:49

publishing and how many of them

27:52

are play testing with their

27:54

friends , because that's

27:57

a professional service , like your friends are giving

27:59

you something at that point , they are helping you publish

28:02

. And yeah

28:04

, I don't know , it's a thing I

28:08

would say most of the time it's there already in

28:10

some way .

28:12

I become a dickhead of two

28:15

folks who become

28:17

bullish or bulldogish about this topic

28:19

and I'll say have you ever been to

28:21

GenCon ? Have you ever gone

28:23

to Origins or any ? And

28:26

most of them will say yeah . And then they will

28:28

immediately say but the ticket doesn't count . And

28:30

I'm like I know I'm not talking about the badge , right

28:33

? Have you bought tickets to

28:35

an event , right , right ? And

28:37

they're like yeah , I'm like , yeah , so

28:39

let me tell you about the other side . Right , if

28:42

you go to GenCon and I don't know

28:44

what the prices are today , but you paid $4

28:46

for that ticket and you sat down and you

28:48

turned your ticket over , right ? Then

28:50

you paid GenCon for the room

28:52

and that GM is running for free , but

28:55

if you paid anything over four bucks , you're

28:57

paying that GM . Anything over that . $4

29:00

went to the GM , whether

29:02

you know it or not , right , and

29:05

that kind of shuts down the conversation . But what I'm

29:07

saying there is you already

29:09

pay for GM . So don't say I

29:11

would never pay for , right , it's not

29:13

right , we were

29:15

already doing it in some form or fashion . But

29:19

what I was going is I didn't realize

29:21

that there were other needs , right

29:23

, like I said , the women that I spoke with oh like

29:25

safety yeah , yeah , they had a safety need . There

29:28

was a guy from Wyoming that

29:30

he's like I'm in Wyoming and I'm

29:32

so far out I just I don't have anybody else to

29:34

play with right , yeah yeah , so yeah

29:36

, and I'm like oh , I didn't think about that either , right

29:39

, Yep , yep . So there are a bunch of different reasons

29:41

for all why folks would probably pay a

29:43

GM to run games for them , right , yeah

29:45

? Instructional

29:48

, like you said , right , yep , yep , yep

29:51

.

29:54

The type of game I really wanted to take off and nobody

29:56

bit on it , and I really , really wanted it to happen

29:58

was I wanted to run

30:00

a two hour morning

30:02

wander home game . Just

30:04

be like I'm gonna be here every morning

30:07

between six and eight o'clock in the morning . Come

30:10

on in , log in , you

30:12

don't have to . Like you go get your coffee . Like

30:15

you don't have to sit here and be here , totally present

30:17

. You'll be walking around doing

30:19

stuff . Come on back and we'll be running

30:21

like a real kind of cozy

30:23

, chill game . Still

30:26

with that kind of morose-ness

30:28

that's at the background of wander home , it's not totally

30:30

a cool game . There's

30:33

trauma that happened in the past

30:35

, right , and we're kind of trying to get past it together

30:37

. But I really wanted like a cozy

30:40

, communal

30:43

, fun wander

30:45

home game when

30:48

, like we just we just game , like like

30:51

real chill gaming in the morning

30:53

. You know , we might sit around

30:55

a fire and talk about where we're going , we

30:57

might actually go somewhere and travel , we

31:00

might , you know , pack

31:02

, help each other , pack our bags . But right , just

31:04

something real chill . And it just never quite

31:06

came together . But I was like , oh , that's the man

31:08

, somebody better than me is going to make that work . You

31:11

know it's going to be fucking awesome . I

31:14

just think I . What I think is interesting

31:16

about the the page jamming thing is I think there are so

31:18

many different niches to . Yes

31:20

, I agree , yeah , I think the

31:23

if someone like , especially

31:25

like people who play all kinds of different

31:28

games and know about all kinds of different games

31:30

. Right , I

31:32

just wouldn't want to throw myself into that

31:34

. Five E like shark

31:37

pool , like there's just so much of it .

31:39

And it's all over the place . You just don't start playing

31:41

. Yeah , it's all over the place .

31:43

It's not in my head .

31:45

I wild , crazy success is

31:47

there's some open table game that

31:49

I use as I

31:52

don't have this other stuff on the schedule . Let's

31:54

say I'm trying to fill in 20 hours a week

31:56

, right , right , right . And the

31:58

first thing I'm going to try to do is run some campaign

32:00

games , and maybe it's a

32:03

game that I'm strong in , maybe it's a liminal right . I'm running

32:05

my regular liminal thing Get in where you can

32:07

get in at right . And then maybe I'm like

32:09

, hey , you know , homeworld

32:11

is out , right , so I'm going

32:14

to run Homeworld this month because it's new and

32:16

is hot and is is fancy , let's

32:18

give that for us and run . And

32:20

if those don't fill in the 20 hours , then whatever's

32:23

left I will do the open table stuff

32:25

. Yeah , and I have a make sense

32:27

, that's that's my , but I don't know if

32:29

that works . Right , right , that's

32:31

my ideal , right .

32:36

But yeah , 20 hours is a lot of hours

32:38

, Like right and that's that's like , because , again

32:40

, this is just math for me .

32:42

I was working from the math side back the

32:44

other way , right , instead of I've

32:46

played with it a bunch of different ways there's

32:49

I want to make . I'm

32:51

just throwing numbers out there yeah , 300

32:54

bucks a table , what does that look like ? And

32:56

I'm like , wow , that's too many people I'd have

32:58

to pack that table with and I don't want to run that

33:00

. Yeah , right , how else

33:02

can I get there ? Right , and when I do

33:04

40 hours , I'm like man , there's no way , that's a lot

33:07

of work to make all those tables

33:09

go , right , yeah . So the

33:11

sweet spot for me is 20 hours . I'm

33:14

running three hours , yes , three hour sessions

33:16

, right , and

33:18

that's not counting . We talked about the

33:20

half hour aftercare and half hour

33:23

, right , but before bookmark , yeah

33:25

, that doesn't . So now I'm still at four hours , right

33:27

, yeah . And the

33:30

five of the week . Yeah , so yeah

33:33

, that's still a lot . But then I'm like no , that's fine

33:35

, Right , because when I do convention stuff , right , I

33:37

run a game Friday . Usually , I run

33:39

two games on Saturday and a game on Sunday

33:42

, right , and so that's four games already

33:44

, right ?

33:44

Yeah , but you come home and then you get sick .

33:46

That's right .

33:49

You come home and you get the flu . That's

33:52

right . You're like that was great

33:54

. I'll do it again next year .

33:56

Yeah , next year I'll do it again next year

33:58

. Yes , so , yeah

34:00

, so it's some work . No , you're right , and that's just 20

34:02

hours , right , right . So

34:05

then , if you keep messing with the math and

34:07

again , this is all personal depends

34:09

on who you are and what kind of income

34:11

you need , right , yeah , yeah , you're

34:13

having to and you don't have a lot of variables

34:15

. Right , I got to change the price of the ticket . Right

34:18

, I got to reduce or change the number of hours

34:20

per session . Right , I've got to change

34:22

how many people can sit down and play . Right

34:24

, to make all that stuff work . And you got to jiggle those things

34:27

, right ?

34:28

Yeah , yeah , I like if someone's listening

34:30

to this and they're like I'm thinking about being

34:35

a pro GM , like my advice is

34:37

like find your angle , like

34:40

you have there's something unique about

34:42

you and

34:44

your gaming experience Right and

34:46

market that Right

34:49

. You know , and I don't . I don't

34:51

know what it is Like . Maybe you

34:53

run like all the D&D

34:55

, watsy hard cover modules reverse

34:57

, so everybody plays monsters , you

34:59

know , and you're doing like reverse

35:02

modules for everything . Or maybe you're

35:04

, you

35:07

know , doing everything but with

35:09

you know , into the odd

35:11

old school style or black sword

35:13

hack or whatever it is .

35:15

I think of Rich Rogers . He runs

35:17

everything through Star Wars .

35:19

Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , totally

35:22

yeah , find , find

35:24

your way . And

35:27

geez , rich , I I Would

35:30

love like we

35:32

should talk to Rich , because it's like , how does he game

35:34

so much Like ?

35:35

I don't Right .

35:37

He has an incredible amount of gaming

35:39

hours in oh my goodness

35:42

, I hear about like his stats sometimes when he

35:44

talks about like end of the year . This is how many games I

35:46

played , new games I played . This

35:48

is how many different sessions I played . And

35:50

I'm just like I know you're a good dad and

35:52

husband too .

35:54

Yes , yes , get that in .

35:56

Like .

35:56

I know a regular job , I know a podcast

35:59

.

35:59

I know you're an editing other

36:01

podcasts and like when

36:04

do you walk your dog ? Like I don't

36:06

understand how he does Make

36:10

zero sense to me . God bless you

36:12

, rich . Yes , that is crazy

36:14

, right , I'm inspired by you , you

36:17

, you , you do things with time that make no sense

36:19

to me . So , yeah

36:21

, yeah , yeah , I mean I just think that

36:24

there are so many different ways to do this hobby and

36:26

and there are so many niches

36:29

that people need , and I think there are niches

36:31

that people don't even

36:33

realize they need yet , and

36:36

that's going to be interesting . It's

36:38

going to be interesting to see people find those and

36:40

and and rock out . It's

36:44

yeah . I mean

36:46

. The other , like my closest thing to

36:48

the model you're talking about is

36:50

I've got a little Facebook

36:52

group of like all of my gaming

36:55

friends and then people

36:57

who I know are like nerd

36:59

adjacent or like nerd friendly I've

37:01

invited into this Facebook group too , and it's about like

37:04

144 people at this point , right

37:06

, and so I said , you

37:08

know , hey , I'd like to run , you know two games

37:10

a month , would you all be into that ? And

37:12

so there's like 20 something of them

37:15

were like , yeah , that would be awesome . So I was running

37:17

twice a month , I was running into the odd . You

37:20

know , clearly 144 people didn't

37:22

show up . You know , scheduling Nix

37:24

is a lot of people and so you end

37:27

up with like a little group , but it's it's all

37:29

of these people from all over

37:31

my life . So it was interesting

37:33

. So it was like people who

37:36

I know from online , people who I game with locally , people

37:39

who I I a couple

37:41

of people who I just like practiced jujitsu with , and

37:44

we're like , yeah , I'm interested in gaming , I'd love to try it . And

37:48

some of those folks were like , yeah , I watched Critical Role to prepare for the game

37:50

tonight and

37:52

I was like , oh shit , ok . So I think the other

37:55

interesting thing about the the paid for GM is you don't know

37:57

who's going to walk through the door and throw money , right

37:59

, and you don't know what their experience is . You

38:01

really like the setting of expectations . It's

38:05

just got to be like the . The language we have for gaming is

38:07

not perfect Like the . The way we talk about the

38:10

game is not perfect Like

38:14

the , the the way we talk about it is weird

38:16

. I remember living with a friend

38:19

of mine who actually I just spent the evening at

38:21

his house putting together a , a , a squat rack

38:23

in his house , but

38:25

we were roommates ages , like you know

38:27

, 20 years ago we were roommates and

38:33

we knew that the other one game and we

38:35

couldn't talk about it because we didn't want to be in a bad game . And

38:39

then , like , yeah , I don't like the way you game

38:41

. So we just didn't talk about

38:44

, we talked about anything else but gaming and eventually

38:46

we games together . But it took a long time

38:48

. It took a long time

38:51

because we were just nervous and and

38:53

and now I know , like

38:55

if I was interviewing someone and I want to know

38:57

, like hey , you know , I would say , hey , like , tell me about

38:59

, like a fun thing that happened in your last game

39:01

. And so , like that way you find

39:03

out , oh , this is what I thought was fun and

39:05

it might be like , oh , there was a goblin with a funny voice

39:07

, or it might be like oh , you know the

39:11

build of my character was perfect and I

39:13

, I , I killed everything , or you

39:15

know it might be . Oh well , I , my character , had to

39:17

make this terrible decision

39:19

. And is he even a hero anymore ? I don't even

39:21

know . And yeah

39:24

, there are so many different answers to that question , and

39:26

and so , yeah

39:28

, the setting of expectations is very difficult

39:30

, I see it .

39:32

And .

39:32

I think we we see that with cons

39:34

right .

39:34

We see that was down , absolutely yeah .

39:36

Friends of cons , where you

39:38

know , not everybody , not

39:43

you know I . Often , when I go

39:45

to cons , I often say like , hey

39:47

, I don't know how this is going to end . I'm

39:49

as curious as you are . Let's , let's see . And

39:52

, and you know , once I said

39:54

that and one guy was like yeah , of course , yeah

39:57

, of course , that's the only way to play . I was like , well , OK

40:03

, no , I

40:05

will .

40:05

Usually especially cons , usually the

40:09

games I pick . I have this prep

40:11

but I don't know where it's going

40:13

, right ? Yeah , I'm going to follow the characters wherever

40:15

you guys go Is where I'm going , and I will usually

40:17

sit down and I'll say , hey look , this

40:20

could go great , this could go down in

40:22

the ball of fire . I don't even know , right .

40:24

Yeah , I'll have a plot .

40:25

I'll have a plot . There's no railroad . We're

40:27

going to see what we get . We'll see what we see , right ? I don't

40:29

know Right , yeah , and , and

40:33

it's true . So with that

40:35

I

40:37

have another question . Yeah , so when

40:39

we talk about Running

40:43

games for money , another question or another

40:45

Concept that comes

40:47

up is wow

40:49

, if you're running games for money

40:51

and you're taking people's money and you

40:53

run in this session , do you kill the characters

40:55

? Does it change the way ? Does the money change

40:58

the way you run the game ? Yeah

41:00

, are you running it differently than you

41:02

normally ?

41:02

would . Right , you have

41:05

to let , I think . I think you have

41:07

to be transparent as hell and be like this is

41:09

the type of game we're running here , folks , right

41:11

, if your character dies , this is what we're

41:13

going to do to get you back into it , and

41:16

and

41:20

just set the expectation

41:22

. So it's very clear . And

41:25

yeah , like you know , I

41:28

would want people to know . Like , hey , you know you're not

41:30

going to know , but I'm going to massage things so

41:32

that people don't die , you

41:34

know . And yeah

41:38

, everybody who actually does that is like

41:40

no , jed , you don't tell them , but

41:43

I

41:45

am really too old to

41:48

be doing presto

41:50

, you know , imaginative

41:52

presto , digitization at the game .

41:53

Right , yes , no , I'm with you , yeah

41:56

.

41:56

Like there's like a school of GMing , where it's like

41:58

you are actually manipulating people

42:00

and I'm like no , you're not , I

42:02

just or . Or yes , you are , but

42:05

but no , I'm not . Right

42:07

, I'm not interested in

42:10

that game ? I'm not interested

42:12

in manipulating people , I think . I think

42:14

, yeah , that's a very good question . I think you

42:17

let people know what happens , right

42:19

, and you just demystify the whole

42:21

thing and be like , hey , you

42:23

will not sit out for more than a few minutes , we

42:28

will get a new character and get you back into the game quickly . If we don't like

42:30

the kind of character you build , we can

42:32

build another one in

42:35

between games , and and we'll go from there . But

42:39

you know , and and yeah , you just

42:41

demystify the whole thing and and and . With

42:43

fantasy , there's so many cool ways

42:45

to do that . Right , there is , there is

42:47

, you can , you can have , you can be like

42:49

, hey , if you die , your character hangs around

42:52

as a ghost , right , like , was

42:54

it Ron Edwards Circle of Hands , where

42:56

it's like you , you , you can give advantage

43:01

dice to people and and and like , say goodbye to your friends one

43:04

last time , right , as you , you know , and and that

43:06

way you don't have to sit around

43:08

at all , you don't have to wait for the next character . You're

43:10

just kind of like this ghost thing kind of floating around , right

43:13

, yeah , I would think

43:15

you just set the expectation and yeah

43:22

, I'm sure that'll go wrong for

43:24

somebody right . Somebody's gonna stomp

43:27

off so I have .

43:29

I Ran the

43:31

into the Madlands West Marches . I

43:34

use forbidden lands and I use BX D&D and

43:37

there were 40 players that

43:39

signed up for all of that . And

43:41

you're right , I thought the BX

43:43

games would be deadlier . I Didn't

43:46

want to remove too much of

43:48

that . Yeah , so I did . I

43:50

did set the expectations and I always said

43:53

if your third level or below

43:55

and you die

43:57

, right , there's

43:59

probably combat happening . You're just out

44:01

for that combat , right , right , as

44:03

long as somebody is alive at the end

44:05

of that combat , right , then You're

44:09

out and they bring everybody back around

44:11

and we'll work that out . So nobody's dead , I

44:13

said . But if everybody's dead , then

44:16

it's a TPK , right , okay .

44:18

Okay , that's a level and above

44:20

.

44:21

Dead is dead is what I said . Oh

44:23

, interesting , okay , so that

44:26

was funny , I would . I might change that going

44:29

forward if I had to do it again , but I'm not

44:31

sure I would do something similar . Yeah , what

44:33

was what I didn't account for

44:35

was People deciding who's

44:37

going to be in the expedition

44:39

party and who isn't . Based on those

44:41

levels , right ?

44:43

Right so that's God .

44:44

That was interesting . That wasn't bad .

44:45

I didn't expect that but that was interesting

44:47

and funny . But you could also make

44:50

that an in-game thing where

44:52

it's like hey , when you're , when you get

44:54

that powerful , death actually watches

44:56

you more carefully , right , right . And so

44:58

like they're like hey , death

45:01

is , death's eye is on me , like I , I'm

45:04

not opening that door , you open

45:06

it , grunts .

45:09

Dream about .

45:09

I had a dream where death was just sitting on

45:11

my bed watching me I

45:14

know death is watching me . Like I feel like when people

45:16

talk about this stuff they don't talk about like

45:18

just fantastic , like just have

45:20

that , like death is just like a person who

45:22

shows up , right .

45:24

Right , I can see him . Right , you can see him , he's

45:26

there , he's right there and and . So

45:30

I'm gonna stay out here and watch the whole . You guys

45:32

got that room right .

45:35

Because I am too old for that . Yeah

45:37

, yeah , yeah , I think that's legit , I think that like

45:39

, especially if you make it an in-game thing , I think

45:41

that that's , that's that might

45:43

make it more interesting and and

45:46

and Make it less

45:48

of a of a

45:50

kind of an emerging killer , um

45:52

, to say a dirty word , immersion

45:56

. But , yeah , um , interesting

45:58

, yeah , I like that policy . That that's

46:01

interesting . It's a . I like the

46:03

, the pressure of not having the TPK

46:05

right . It's right . Right , that

46:08

is very cool . Did you out ? Did

46:10

you have any ?

46:11

Oh , man , I had . So what's funny

46:14

is I thought that

46:16

BX

46:18

, d&d , it was just old-school essentials . I figured

46:20

that was a nice easy touchstone . I

46:23

figured that would be the fun laid-back

46:25

casual game because everyone could easily make characters

46:28

hop in and do that . And I figured forbidden

46:30

lands would be the serious game

46:32

, right , and it didn't turn out that way

46:34

. It was completely opposite . Forbidden lands Interesting

46:36

was the more casual games that folks

46:38

got in and it wasn't silly , but it was casual

46:41

, right , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , right , bx

46:43

was serious . Those folks came

46:45

to play for real

46:48

, right , right , and I

46:50

love that was here for it . Um , I

46:52

had one TPK , one TPK and forbidden

46:55

lands . Monsters and forbidden

46:57

lands . If you run up on one , you

46:59

can't be casual about that . The

47:02

monsters and forbidden lands I love it . They have a

47:04

kind of a behavior AI table , right

47:06

. So every round the GM rolls

47:08

what it's going to do . So I don't choose , I

47:10

roll , and whatever it comes up , that's what

47:12

it does that round .

47:15

Yeah , yeah . I can't help that it danced

47:17

on your corpse .

47:18

It's not me and

47:22

me I would . I'm sometimes , I'm like , how about

47:24

you make that roll and we find out what this ? Oh

47:27

nice Put it right with this snakes

47:29

into her creature thing is going to do oh it

47:31

, oh , and it's you , because you rolled the dice

47:34

right .

47:34

So yeah , I would do that right . So

47:36

I want to circle back around to the safety thing . I

47:38

feel like you talked about Um , ladies

47:41

in the game coming to you and

47:43

talking about safety stuff . Yes

47:45

, Was

47:47

that like a hey , you're not doing

47:50

this and you might need it . You

47:52

might want to think about that For

47:55

future endeavors . Or was

47:57

it like hey , you know , these are some questions I

47:59

have that I need answered Before

48:01

I jump into any of this or put money down

48:03

or whatever right .

48:05

So at first there

48:07

were two things . One was a question

48:09

about the safety tools like the X card , yeah

48:12

, lines and veils , and I said I'm

48:14

super familiar with those . At

48:17

the beginning of all the sessions we would talk about

48:19

those things . I'd know every session , right , every

48:21

single session . But I'll fail , I would do that

48:23

. Code of conduct came

48:26

up and I was in the middle of drafting

48:28

it and I said here's what I got , right

48:30

, if you don't mind , you know , taking a second

48:32

set of eyes and telling me what

48:35

I'm missing , right ? Hmm , because

48:37

what what's going to happen is I'm a

48:39

dude . I play with a lot of dudes , I

48:41

know a lot of dudes are dickheads , right

48:43

, but I don't know what it is

48:45

. I can never need , right , can never read this as

48:48

a woman , right , and I don't know what

48:50

. You need to see what ? Yeah , right

48:52

, to feel safe , to know that we're on the same page

48:54

, smart , and she was happy

48:57

to help me fix that there and

48:59

we had a conversation about that because it's here

49:01

, here's what I would like to see . But I also need

49:03

to know that you're going to do those things right , right

49:06

, and I'm like , yeah , no , I'm here for

49:08

that , right ? Yeah , I just don't know how

49:10

to Communicate that , right , yeah , and

49:12

so we did that . And then I asked

49:15

what

49:19

, what's gaming like where you're at

49:21

right ? What are you ? What are you playing now currently

49:24

? Right , because we're starting to turn into a regular

49:26

conversation and she said

49:28

you know , she has a

49:31

small group of folks that she plays with and

49:33

they routinely hire one of

49:35

two different GM's to run games

49:37

for them and I'm like yeah

49:39

, I'm like , why wouldn't you ? just , she said we got games we

49:41

like , but the things that we're interested

49:43

in or the things that we want to know , sometimes we just want to play

49:45

together . Right , I

49:48

don't want to just go to the

49:50

local game store and hop

49:52

into any of those games or pull the one

49:54

of those cars off the wall and Short for that . Yeah

49:57

, yeah , and they had some bad experiences

49:59

with that . Yeah , and she said we , we found

50:01

a couple of GM's that we like and we offered

50:03

to pay the money for them to come Run

50:05

games . You know where . We want to play

50:07

games that and it's worked out for us , right

50:10

. Yeah , and I was like , wow , that's , and

50:12

they do it for for safety reasons , they feel comfortable

50:15

and they get to play stuff

50:17

that they want to play . They get to play together and

50:21

they don't have to deal with . I remember At

50:24

a con , one of the things and

50:29

it makes me embarrassed sometimes I'm like

50:31

man , I need a Another gender

50:33

. I can join , right , so I'm not

50:35

with , I'm not associated with some

50:37

of these dudes , right , I

50:39

got up in the middle of the car , in the workshop

50:42

panel thing , and he said , hey , can

50:44

you tell me how I can get more girls To

50:47

come play games with us . Right , I

50:49

run these games and I can't get any women

50:51

to play these games . And

50:54

I'm like , aside from none of the other

50:56

panels folks wanted to touch that question

50:58

right ? I said I'm gonna do it . Right , I'm

51:00

gonna do it . I said , but I got some questions first

51:02

too . Right , and this

51:04

is gonna be important . He was a white guy that that

51:06

said this , right , and I

51:08

asked so when

51:11

you say you want to run some games and

51:13

let's say women , not girls , right , and

51:15

you want Women to be

51:17

part of your gaming group and play where

51:19

these games being ran at , right

51:22

? And he said at my house

51:24

. I'm like okay , all right , at

51:26

your house . Who else is at your house ? And

51:28

he named like three or four guys . I'm like great , great

51:30

, this wouldn't be in the basement

51:32

, right ? And I was joking . He's like yeah

51:35

, my basement is . It's pretty fixed up , it's the gaming

51:37

room , it's nice . I'm like I'm sure it is , I'm sure

51:39

it's nice , I'm sure it's fantastic . I

51:42

said , but I'm a black dude , I Was

51:44

in the military , I'm a vet , I'm pretty sure

51:47

I can take you right , I'm

51:49

not coming to your house to play any kind of game , right

51:52

, I'm not doing right , right , and

51:54

I'm a dude , right , I'm not doing that . How

51:56

about you put up a list

51:59

, a listing , in your

52:01

friendly local gaming shop and say , hey , right

52:03

, or just start running some

52:05

games there , right , yeah , and play there

52:08

, right , where it's a known

52:10

quantity , yeah , it's like . Well , no , I got

52:12

this whole setup in my basement and I'm like , and

52:14

it will always be you and Frank and

52:16

Tony and right , and that's it . Right

52:18

, nobody in the right mind . You guys

52:20

are strangers . Right , and I'm telling you

52:22

, I'm not coming to your house To

52:24

play games with you guys . I'm sure you're all nice

52:26

guys , right ? Um

52:29

, I , some folks

52:31

just don't write that . I don't know , right

52:33

, how to drag them across the line and understand

52:35

that other folks don't see it that way . Right

52:37

, you have to earn that trust .

52:39

I can't stop thinking about Brad Pitt and

52:41

the glorious bastards talking about the basement

52:43

. Like you can fight in

52:45

a fucking basement . You

52:48

didn't tell me this was in a basement , Right

52:50

.

52:50

Right , oh boy

52:53

, yeah , wow , uh

52:56

, so so , yeah , uh

52:59

, both those , both those stories

53:01

. Her story that we paid GM's

53:03

so we can have a safe gaming experience breaks

53:06

my heart , right , yeah . And

53:08

that one guy how do I get more girls in my

53:10

basement ? Right .

53:12

That also breaks my heart , right Yep .

53:16

Yeah .

53:17

Yeah , that's bad . I

53:19

did with with one of the pro games . I one

53:21

of the paid games I ran . Uh

53:24

, I don't like pro because it's like oh yeah

53:26

, the other guys are amateur .

53:28

I don't like that either . No .

53:32

No , uh , in one of the paid games I ran

53:34

there was , there

53:36

was a lady who said like I don't want any

53:38

romantic plots of any

53:40

kind . Right , I was like rock on , I

53:43

can do that , I can do that , I can do that

53:45

, yeah .

53:46

Yes , I think it's stuff . Yeah , I think it's stuff like that

53:49

. Uh , I'm amenable to right

53:51

, but I would be . I would listen to that at a

53:53

free con table , right , and

53:55

someone's like I'm not into this , right , I

53:58

categorize that under lines and veils , right

54:00

, yep .

54:00

Yep , so I've got my pregame

54:03

talk . This is actually

54:05

, uh , expanded

54:07

from my pregame paid

54:09

game talk . This is what I would say

54:11

for the into the odd game that I ran with the

54:13

with the Facebook group . Um , you

54:16

want me to run through that ? Is that a ?

54:17

useful thing . Yeah , no , that'd be fantastic . Yeah , I think

54:19

it's a springboard for folks to jump off . Yeah .

54:22

Yeah , some of it is one

54:24

of the things that I really liked , and if

54:26

I had to like , cut this down too long , didn't

54:28

read . This is what I would say . Um , there's something

54:30

that Jason Morningstar said in uh , at

54:32

the indie game reading club when we

54:34

were there at the slack and and

54:37

uh , he was like are we all agreed that

54:39

the game is less

54:41

important than the people ? Like , these people are

54:43

friends and we're looking out for them , and there

54:45

is nothing about this game that is more important than the

54:47

people in it . Are we all agree on that ? And everyone

54:49

would say yep . And then we say , okay , let's play like that

54:52

and I would love to start doing that

54:54

in just my day to day games and I always forget

54:56

, and I would love to start doing it , cause I think it's

54:58

just a great thing to say right , but so some

55:00

of this , you you'll see that come in Uh

55:03

, and it's totally inspired by Jason Morningstar . So

55:05

it says uh , and

55:07

the other thing I have at the top of here is is

55:09

the following is not set in stone and will change

55:12

as I learn more about gaming and collaboration

55:14

and friendship Uh , hello

55:16

and welcome . Thank you for joining me to play into the odd

55:18

I'm Judd , affirmed by he , him pronouns

55:20

. We can pause the game , stop the game , rewind

55:23

the game . Feel free to put an X in the chat or

55:25

make an X with your arms , like so

55:27

, if something comes up that is triggering or traumatic

55:29

. This is a fantasy horror game . That

55:31

does not mean that you have to be uncomfortable in a bad

55:34

way . You can walk away at any time

55:36

for any reason and don't owe anyone

55:38

here an explanation Ever

55:41

. And the other thing I would say is like , if

55:43

I see you at a con , I'll say how are

55:45

you doing ? I won't say why'd you leave

55:47

my game ? I'm not going to ask you . So

55:49

just if you need to bail , bail

55:52

go . I will never ask you why . I

55:54

don't care . Um , I care that

55:56

, um , you know if you're upset

55:58

, but I've not ever going to your new . You don't

56:00

owe me an explanation if you walk right . Um

56:03

, before we start , we will need to agree that this is a

56:05

game . The mechanics , the characters , the story

56:07

that we will create through our play is not as important as

56:09

the people at the table . I'd rather the game

56:11

crashed and burned and cause anyone to relive

56:13

past traumas . We are playing to find

56:15

out . I have ideas , daydreams

56:17

and even some maps and notes , but I'm

56:20

I'm playing with you all to find out what will happen

56:22

. I will take joy in how you all will no

56:24

doubt surprise me . I have no idea

56:26

how this will end , and that makes this fun for me . Ask

56:29

questions , both in character and out of character

56:31

. Explore and be creative . I'm asking

56:33

you all to play your characters , while also supporting

56:36

and cheering each other on and being your wonderful selves

56:38

, offering your unique perspectives and ways that will

56:40

bring out the this fantastic world of life . Being

56:43

a good player is synonymous with being

56:45

a good friend . Let's look out for each other

56:47

, enjoy each other's imagination and contribute

56:49

to the next few hours being wondrous . If you

56:51

find that playing your character might interfere

56:53

with being a good friend , stop and check

56:56

in with your friends at the table . Sometimes

56:58

characters die in into the odd . If this should happen

57:00

, we will get the player back into the game with a new character

57:02

as quickly as possible . Character's perishing

57:05

is not a mess , it's just part of the game . Can

57:07

we agree on the above ? Everyone

57:09

says yes , great , and I say please do the

57:11

following Ask questions , cheer when someone

57:13

does or says something cool

57:15

. Please don't have situations where players

57:18

can't control their characters . Sexual

57:20

violence of any kind . Don't keep secrets

57:22

from players . Is there anything that you would like

57:24

to add or change ? Before we make introductions and

57:26

begin , do you have any questions about the game or about

57:29

how me or about how I will play it

57:31

? At the end of the session , I'd like to record

57:33

a short post game talk in the format

57:35

called Stars and Wishes . I've been sharing these videos

57:37

on

57:40

YouTube . If you do not want to be

57:42

recorded , please let me know . That

57:44

is my spiel . It's

57:50

a Google Doc . It's going to keep changing

57:53

. My idea of how this stuff works will keep changing , right

58:00

. My

58:04

worry about the X card is that people

58:06

think it's like a

58:08

holy symbol that will stop bad actors

58:10

, right , and it's like no , no

58:13

, the only thing you can do is remove

58:15

that person from your space . Like a

58:17

broken stair is not

58:19

going to . An X card is not going to stop

58:22

a broken stair , it just doesn't . So

58:25

, yeah , yeah

58:27

, that was my spiel .

58:29

No , that's good , that's solid , that's solid , yeah .

58:32

It is too long , it

58:36

is too fucking long , but there's so much to say

58:38

.

58:38

But as I said , if I ?

58:39

could cut it down to just one bit . It would be like , do

58:41

we agree that the people around

58:43

us are more important to us than this game

58:46

? And like , if you cut out

58:48

everything else , that's the sentence I want to say Right , that's the

58:50

core . Right , because people

58:53

have weird ass ideas about games and

58:55

they do , they do . I

58:58

just kept the game going because

59:00

I didn't want to mess up everybody's good

59:02

time . It's like oh shit

59:04

, yeah , yeah , it's

59:06

your good time too , yeah . Yeah

59:08

, yeah , it's your time . Like it's yeah

59:12

, yeah , it's really weird

59:14

. Like the things I've seen other

59:16

people face

59:20

and deal with and things I've dealt like , I think

59:22

about things I've dealt with in gaming , you

59:25

know , knowing about this , being someone who podcasts

59:27

about it , talks about it , thinks about it , writes about it all

59:29

the time . And then I look back and I'm like , oh shit , I

59:31

did that . Like

59:35

you know , I , I , yeah , it's

59:38

bad , it can be bad . Like you , it's

59:41

such a shock when something really bad

59:43

happens at the table , like really

59:46

abusive it's

59:51

not . People's

59:53

reaction isn't sometimes ? It's just

59:55

shock , right , it's just like

59:57

what just happened , right

1:00:00

, you know , and then everybody kind of looks to the

1:00:02

person it happened to

1:00:06

and it's like what do we do ? Right , right

1:00:08

, right . And yeah , I had

1:00:10

something real bad happen to me once and

1:00:12

I was like , no , keep playing , keep playing

1:00:14

, and I played out the fucking session and

1:00:17

I'm like , I'm like , oh

1:00:19

, that was straight up abuse , like I straight

1:00:22

up got abused at the table and

1:00:24

it was bad

1:00:26

. It was real , real bad , yeah . So

1:00:28

, yeah , do not put up with that shit . And right now

1:00:30

you're right . Yeah , yeah , the brakes

1:00:33

, for F sake . But

1:00:36

yeah , it's all stuff and that's all . The

1:00:39

reason why I bring that up is because if , as

1:00:41

these games like , the reason why we're even

1:00:43

having this discussion is because we're

1:00:45

living in this post actual play critical

1:00:48

role world , where so

1:00:51

many people know what gaming is and

1:00:53

right , the D&D

1:00:55

movie is out and yeah , and there are

1:00:57

more people gaming than ever before , ever

1:01:00

, and so there's a

1:01:02

market . There's just a market

1:01:04

.

1:01:05

I was . I was just today

1:01:07

brand new . Send

1:01:12

your comments , questions about this episode to me

1:01:15

. I'm on Patreon at Magi Zero

1:01:17

all letters . Or send it

1:01:19

to Twitter at Google Dysology and

1:01:22

you know , subscribe , rate and

1:01:24

like . Let's make this our regular

1:01:26

thing .