Do I Need to Let Kids Win at Games? with Drak and Jasper Cartwright

A new podcast guest approaches! It’s British TTRPG streamer, writer, and AP production manager Drak! He’s joining Eric & Jasper to answer questions about whether we should teach children the value of getting owned, if the new Sonic game is one of the best open-world games, and what modules are good for.


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Credits

- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver

- Permanent Guest: Jasper Cartwright

- Editor & Mixer: Mischa Stanton

- Music by: Jeff Brice

- Art by: Jessica Boyd

- Multitude: multitude.productions


About Us

Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about being human and loving all types of games: video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, and anything else that we play for fun. Join Question Keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since, you know, you gotta play games with other people. Whether you need a game recommendation, need to sort out a dispute at the table, or decide whether an activity is good for a date, we’re your instruction manual. New episodes drop every other Friday.


Transcript

ERIC:  Yes Drak, how would you like me to introduce you?

DRAK:  Um. Oh, Drak the— I've never been asked this honestly. Um, just Drak.

JASPER:  How are you never been asked this? You've been on so many fucking shows.

DRAK:  I never—it's been like here’s Drak, he's a teacher TTRPG performer blah blah blah. I've never been asked how I want to be introduced.

JASPER:  Wow. People do better, that's all I'm saying. Treat Drak better, okay? Ask Drak how he want to be introduced.

[theme]

ERIC:  Hello, gamers! This is Games and Feelings, an advice show about playing games, being human, and dealing with the fact that those games will involve other humans. I am your host and question keeper, Eric Silver, and my walk-on music when I come up to bat or when I'm walking into the wrestling ring would be, Dear Maria, Count Me In by All Time Low. But there is a cover of that by Sunrise Skater Kids that's in Japanese, and it makes it sound like it's an anime opening title sequence, which is absolutely fucking incredible. 

JASPER:  Woah. Okay, that sounds so baller.

ERIC:  It's really good. The link is in the episode description. Y'all got to— pause the episode, listen to it and then come back.

JASPER:  And then come back. Okay, okay, okay.

ERIC:  Please come back. Please, please come back. Please.

JASPER:  Perpetual. Please come back.

ERIC:  Perpetual guests, Jasper Cartwright, what is your walk on music?

JASPER:  Professional guest. I love it so much. My music is gonna have to be Thunderstruck by ACDC because if I needed to compete in something, in anything, there is no song which gets me more hyped than that tune. So I would probably say that just for the fact that I would be better at whatever I was about to do, having just heard that song.

ERIC:  And I assume much like ACDC, you're going to come out wearing a schoolboy uniform?

JASPER:  Yeah, of course. Yeah, little hat like wea—I don't even wear those hats anymore, you know what I mean?

ERIC:  Just school boy. 

JASPER:  But—but do they know? But do they? That's—like that's my question, do they?

ERIC: I don’t know.

JASPER:  I don’t think they do.

ERIC:  And not perpetual guests, Drak. Drak, what is your walk on music?

DRAK:  Oh, I think—I think my walk-on music could be Uptown Funk. 

ERIC:  Sure.

JASPER:  Nice.

DRAK:  I just want to get the whole crowd singing along. It'll definitely be wrestling, I'm not much of a baseball player. I've been it's not much of a wrestler either, but I think I'll do better job at that, than baseball.

ERIC:  That's very smooth. I think that you're introducing yourself to everyone that like, hello, I am the Uptown Funk here and I'm going to do it to ya. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  And there—you got to let them know.

DRAK:  I'll let anyone know beforehand so they can't blame you for what happens next, you know?

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  I walked in wearing all velvet, I'm playing the song you should know what's going to happen. Whatever it is, it's gotta be true.

JASPER:  Easy, easy stuff.

ERIC:  More wrestlers either walk in with like velvet sweatpants. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Hoodie, absolutely no shirt.

DRAK:  Yup.

ERIC:  A Bruno Mars hair, absolutely perfect. 

JASPER:  It's perfect. Absolutely perfect.

ERIC:  Dra— we have tabletop RPG actual play performer, producer, and writer Drak on the show. Hello, Drak.

DRAK:  Hi. Thanks so much for having me. 

ERIC:  Yeah, finally I told Jasper. Jasper, you know all so many cool friends, bring them on please, and uh—

JASPER:  I did.

ERIC:  — just was like I got it.

JASPER:  You did say that. And I was like okay, and Drak's my first met, my first person, and came through, immediately responded was like yes.  And I was like that's why you message Drak first because Drak gets it. and I've–

DRAK:  And I’m permanently online, so I will have seen it.

JASPER:  Yeah, exactly twice. You're just always—you're al—your camera is always on your mic, is always ready. Like you— it's just like, usually like, hey, give me two minutes. I'm just going to the loo, but then I'll be good.

DRAK:  Yeah like, hey, I'm wishing that this be like two seconds, I'd be there. I mean, now like assassins like no, we have like—we've got time like no, I can do it right now Jasper, right now.

JASPER:  I can go right now. I can go right now.

ERIC:  We had Drak five minutes ago. This is the most incredible thing we ever do.

JASPER:  We haven't even asked Drak yet, Drak's that prepared. Drak just—

DRAK:  I just showed up.

JASPER:   —turned up and knew—

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  —and knew we were gonna ask. That's how professional Drak is.

ERIC:  It's a multiverse situation.

DRAK:  It's a multiverse.

ERIC:  I think it's unfair that you can access the multiverse to create content, I think that's really irresponsible.

JASPER:  That would be—oh man, such a dream. Because then I could just hop over to a universe where I'm not creating content and just like be there for an hour and it would be so nice. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  And so like unstressful, and then I could come back fully recharged, having not lost any time.

DRAK:  Wouldn't it be so like, I don't know what it would be but, will it be offered to you such a multiverse in every universe, you we're just content creating constantly, like you could not–but you weren't a content creator.

JASPER:  Ohhhh.

DRAK:  Mmhm.

JASPER:  Just everyone you skipped through it's just like nooo. Why?

ERIC:  I love the idea even the one where you're like a Warlord like you're like a space Warlord in the future. And Jasper was like, hold on, I gotta coordinate timezones and to make sure, I gotta record my actual flight podcast. Hold on, hold on.

DRAK:  Hey, if your Warlord make time to make propaganda sometime and that's content creation, you know what I mean?

JASPER:  Aye. Though—yeah, there we go.

ERIC:  This explains all the autocratic information that's been coming out from critical role lately. That mercenaries taking control. He's cutting out like a—like a state-size chunk of the United States is like, yeah it's— I'm the Warlord now. Sorry, I just don't

JASPER:  That's it, that's it.

ERIC:  That's a DM. that st—that stands for democratic master? 

DRAK:  Question mark. God.

ERIC:  I get it. Incredible. Well, before we get into the advice questions, we got to talk about the games that are giving us feelings, were all of us talking about one game that we've been playing? It doesn't need to have come out recently. It doesn't need to be a video game or tabletop RPG. It can be anything that we've been playing that it's giving us feelings. Just talk about the game that you like, and also make sure to add an adjective like you're on Live Journal, to really make sure that people know the feeling that you have. 

JASPER:  Hmm.

ERIC:  Drak, would you as our guest, would you like to go first? 

DRAK:  Yeah. I've recently started playing, God of War: Ragnarok. The second God of War: Ragnarok.

JASPER:  Aye. Nice.

DRAK:  Also including the—the original.

JASPER:  Did you get that—did you get that sweet, sweet trial, that sweet three-hour trial, that's what I did.

DRAK:  I— I haven't cried in a long time until I played that game.

JASPER:  Yo, okay.

ERIC:  Wow.

DRAK:  Like, emotional like Kratos is like my favorite archetype I guess?  I really have a thing for like, gruff dads.

JASPER:  Gruff dad, gruff daddy vibes?

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Yeah.

DRAK:  That—let's not read into it, they probably have nothing to do with my childhood.

JASPER:  Let's leave that now, well investigate any further.

DRAK:  Yeah. But like, that has been this one quote, Kratos says it's—I think what really hits was that beforehand, Kratos also trade to close his heart to the suffering, that we need to concentrate, don't worry about the suffering, we need to fight. And then in Ragnarok at some point, he switches it and toes a trace open your heart to their suffering. And that broke me down, and while I was playing ats, like put my controller down was like, wooo, give me like an hour. Give me just an hour.

JASPER:  I need to breathe. 

DRAK:  Yeah, I just need breath.

JASPER:  I forgot how to breathe.

DRAK:  God, it hit so hard because I've always been a fan of like I said, like the gruff parents suffering up, but I'm doing it for their child. I think that's the manliest thing a man can do, is to be soft for other people and for their kids. And seeing this character go from the stereotypical manly to the, in my opinion, true manly was just a whole experience, just a whole thing. So definitely, I'm gonna go Ragnarok, who's been the one that's making me feel the most feelings. Every so often I remember the quote and be like, oh, okay, it's just five minutes this time, that's good, but I'm still need to like, let a little a few tears off, right?

ERIC:  I'm glad you're feeling that way. I felt like the rebooted Dad of War series felt like a little bit on the nose sometimes. Because like, oh, we get and this happens in video games all the times. Like the guys who are making video games, who are now running triple-A studios were like, Oh, we're 20-somethings, were early 30-somethings, women, Laura Croft's boobs, violence, blah, blah. And then like, wow, I had a daughter and or a son, and now I have feelings.

DRAK:  Yeah. 

ERIC:  So it feels really on the nose but I'm glad you were affected, like that someone who was actually doing something, even if it feels a little wrote. I'm glad that they got something that was effective for you.

DRAK:  Yeah, no, I definitely think like, it's—the reason why I'm able to cooler archetype because it is one like, this is not the only media that does this. And even the Last of Us is a really good example of that where's a little bit more done? I think the answer was actually the zombie apocalypse. But the answer was,  I guess in comparison. Even like The Last of Us does that, I just—I just think for me in particular, it does hit hard again, for reasons we're not going to unpack, we're gonna leave that box shut. But I don't know, I think God of War did it in a way that I found more intriguing because I'm just a big fan of Gods in general, so that was a really a hook for me. And then having them in my opinion sneak in the growth of a parent, caught me off guard in a good way.

JASPER:  Nice. I think you should consider starting a side podcast though called Gruff Daddy Issues with Drak. I think that would be— I'm just—I know you said you won't unpack it, but I think you should make a whole podcast.

DRAK:  I should make content. Yeah, I should make my trauma content.

JASPER:  You should make that into a content. Turn your therapy into content, that's what you should do.

ERIC:  Yeah, Drax won’t gonna unpack it here because he's saving it for his podcast. 

DRAK:  I’m saving for my patreon!

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ERIC:  That's very good. I have a game that is giving me feelings. Oh, sorry, let me—let me ask. Drak, would you say that the adjective that's—that you're feeling is just emotional?

DRAK:  Yeah, I think just like emotional.

JASPER:  Emotional.

ERIC:  Fair, fair. Alright, I have a game that's giving me feelings, and that game is Sonic Frontiers, the new 3d Sonic game.

JASPER:  Oh, it happened, it happened, good.

ERIC:  And the feeling I'm having is wonder, honestly. Now, I had spent a lot of time obviously watching the build-up and then eventually kind of sort of let down of Sonic Frontiers. It's by far the best 3D Sonic game because we're not really counting the Game Cube era of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, it feels like it kind of exists on its own playing. But just by being competent is actually very, very good. So I've been playing it, I bought it on switch, I got it on sale because I'm just like, I just want to play this, I should just play this. And the thing that is giving me wonder, because there are so many issues with it, for sure. But the thing that's giving me wonder, is I think Sonic Frontiers might be one of the best open-world games I've ever played. 

JASPER:  Whoa!

DRAK:  Really?

ERIC:  Not because all the other shit like, like, if we're just talking about what the open-world genre is supposed to do, especially in the glut of it, where every triple-A game now needs to be an open-world game. And just like tons of icons everywhere, and just deal struggling to figure out where you're going, how you wish you had fast travel, you don't have fast travel, you got to walk all these places. Sonic Frontiers, I think is actually achieving it in the way that like I was wowed by doing this for Elden Ring and getting on the horse for the first time. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  The thing about open-world games is that you run around, and you find things and you do them on your way to doing the main quest. 

JASPER:  Great.

ERIC:  You know what's fun, running around as the fastest hedgehog ever. 

DRAK:  Yeah, you’ve got a point, yeah.

ERIC:  I think this really unlocks when you start, you get your first speed boost, which does take a little while. There's a lot of currency bullshit happening, which is like the loop of the game is kind of sluggish. But like once you get your speed boost, and once you really get acquainted with the boost button, which makes you do like a forward strafe, and then you go off, and then you run fast. Once you get acquainted with that, and then you start jumping on all the rails and doing all the combos that they've set up for you, like it's a jungle gym. Once you start really getting through it, and then when you get to the end of like a rail combo, there's like a token of some sort, which actually does move the story forward. The way that it actually fits in the loop is weird and like you need tokens to talk to important characters that open up stages, that gives you gears, that gives—you can open the chasm– that's— with that's stupid, I don't like that. But running around a Sonic the Hedgehog and jumping and bouncing off of stuff, and then you get something at the end, especially when you get— you hit your ring cap and then you can do a super boost, which makes you even faster when you use boost. Honestly, it's the best traversal in an open-world game that I've played since Skyrim. And maybe it's a totally different relationship to running around the world than with Elden.

JASPER:  Wow.

DRAK:  That's interesting.

JASPER:  Wow/ I did not see that coming.

ERIC:  Yeah.

DRAK:  Me neither.

JASPER:  When you said Sonic Frontier, I did not see that coming.

ERIC:  I—it's just this one thing, and I think it also as I said before this like when you think about all the other open world games that are like required, I think a really good one to think about is like wha—what is that uh— the Assassin's Creed one, the Viking one.

JASPER:  Valhalla?

ERIC:  Yeah, Valhalla and then all the other—the expansions to Valhalla, how it's just like yeah, run around do this, do this, do this, do this, it's right here. Go—go—look over here, look over there, look over there, is just too much. And every single RPG needs to be open world and I don't think that they need to, honestly. But like this actually needed to be open world, because the one thing you have to do in a Sonic game is much like the Dixie Chicks, or the chicks as they’re called now, Sonic need wide open spaces. 

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Space f— space for him to make mistakes, and that's what we were finally given. And I really, really like it.

DRAK:  That's so interesting. I think that's the first good thing I've heard of Sonic Frontiers. It is enti—every time I've heard about it, it's always been about how much of a letdown it was. But I think that does make sense, because at least for me whenever I've had open world it has always been like traveling is kind of the boring part, so—

ERIC:  Exactly.

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DRAK:  He's Sonic, just the essence of being in Sonic and having these obstacles and basically like I said a jungle gym around built for you. I see why that would solve that issue.

ERIC:  I don't think this is a spoiler, but in like the fourth world, I don't think is a spoiler, so I'm—I'm happy to share with this. Because I also—the people who are going to play Sonic Frontiers either are or are not.

JASPER:  Yup.

ERIC:  But in the fourth world, the whole thing is about going up towers. And I think and I like, you get really penalized when you miss something, and you fall really far but like, honestly, the movement feels really good, and they're doing it in different ways. Like you're running in a 3d way, you're running in a 2d horizontal plane sometimes. And then sometimes you're going 2D vertically, and it feels really good. And I think that it's the first open world to actually make movement feel really good. And I hope that people will see it and maybe like, experience it on sale for good. And I hope that the Sonic Team grabs that and runs with it and like kind of does away with all the other bullshit stuff that holds down Sonic games, the ridiculous story, the characters, the loop, as I said. There's like five different currencies. You can break the game just by fishing, it's really confusing. But at least, but at least they're running around, feels good. and I'm—I'm happy for them.

DRAK:  I'm curious, do you think if they followed a similar structure for like a flash game, like The Flash, do you think it would work?

ERIC:  Yeah.

DRAK:  Do you think is like a very Sonic-specific kind of thing?

ERIC:  I think it worked for first Flash game. I think there's something about Sonic that like endears themselves to jumping into rails. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  That I don't know necessarily if the Flash would be into. Like–

JASPER:  The—What this is actually reminding me of is Infamous. I don't know if you guys played that. 

ERIC:  Yeah.

JASPER:  It was like one of the launch games, I think for PS3. Like genuinely—

DRAK:  I think know it.

JASPER:  —what was so good about that game, there was like—that game was like fine. But the traversal mechanics were baller. The fact that you could jump on an actual railway, and like basically just like use the rail lines, like because you had electricity running through you. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Right.

JASPER:  And you could just skate along the rail lines, or you could kind of like, do this kind of flying kind of hover thing. You could use big jumps like the— the— the traversal mechanics.

DRAK:  I think I remember in the game we're talking about now. 

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah. It's like the traversal mechanics in that game made it worth playing, and it's exactly the same way I feel about Spider-Man, the new Spider-Man games on PlayStation. Is like those games honestly could serve me complete garbage in terms of the storyline. I don't even remember what happened in either of those games I played. Spider-Man, oh, Miles Morales. But tell you what, I love them games. I love them because the traversal mechanics just rule so hard, and there is nothing more fun than swinging through New York and being like, I am Spider-Man. And I—I should imagine it's the same as Sonic Frontier, where you're like I am Sonic.

ERIC:  I am Sonic.

JASPER:  That such thing is weird, how the traveling is the thing that makes you feel the most, do you know what I mean—

ERIC:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Like in touch with the character you're playing. It's like, the fact that you can replace this mundane thing that you have to do called walking, with something awesome, like swinging or speed running whatever, like great, love it.

ERIC:  Yeah, Jasper, you make a really good point, I would say you'd have to look at it like Spider-Man does. But I think taking that kind of same vibe, especially if this is a game that's giving me the disappointed feeling. I was starting to get a little excited about Suicide Squad, the shooter that was going to come out—

JASPER:  Right.

ERIC:  —from the people who make the Arkham series.

JASPER:  Yes.

ERIC:  But like it seems like it's just Destiny, which is boring. So it's like—

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah.

ERIC:  — the issue that I think we're seeing is that like these trends of 2018, The Loot Box shooter, being— that having to be carried five years ahead because of how long it takes to build a triple-A game. 

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  That's the issue. Is like if maybe, if they examined The Flash game and looked at Sonic can be like, oh, I really like what's happening. What if we fused what we liked about Sonic Frontiers with what we liked about Spider-Man, maybe we'll get something much closer to a Flash Game could feel like. So Drak is a very interesting point.

DRAK:  Yup.

JASPER:  So my game— my game very quickly. I haven't played a lot of games recently because life, the game of playing is life and I think I've been failing because the emotion is giving me a stress. But I have actually been playing a lot of Civ—Civ 6.

ERIC:  Hell yeah dude.

JASPER:  Because it is a game which I can play whilst I'm tucked up in bed, and my mind won't switch off and I'm like, cool, let's start a new Civ domination victory only, let's go. So I guess the emotion that, that is giving me is a release of some sort, of a expulsion of just like, ah, I can't sleep I'm annoyed, I've got all this work that I've got going around my head, but I'm way too tired to do that, but I'm not too tired to build Greece's specialist Hippolyte unit, and marched straight into this city-state and rackets house. Because that— that is something I can do one in the morning when I can't sleep. So yeah, Civ 6. Thank you for—thank you for distracting me.

ERIC:  I respect that. Jasper, can you figure out a way to fit Civilization 6 into your vows? Have you figured that out yet?

JASPER:  Yeah, it's already— actually my vows is mostly just about Civilization 6, and my love for that game. So it—like it's gonna be a little— I think it would be uncomfortable did Jade not also love Civilization 6, as well. Like Jade—

ERIC:  Okay, sure.

JASPER:  —it's probably Jade's favorite game, we play it a lot together. 

ERIC:  Awww.

JASPER:  So like, that's another reason why I like Civ, is because we can play it together and we just—will sit on the sofa watching— binge-watching a TV show and just hand each other the mouse backward and forwards on our respective turns. And we usually name ourselves something stupid, like on the TV show that we're watching. So—

ERIC:  That's awesome, that's little vibey.

JASPER:  A little insight into my life there. That wasn't planned, but like I said, it's— it life's coming at me hard, so it's nice to remember the good things.

ERIC:  Okay. In my vows to Amanda, I did say much like using a polymerization card in Yugi-oh, we are better as the sum of our parts. So I'm with you, I'm here with you. 

DRAK:  No. Oh, God.

JASPER:  That's incredible. I don't know if I could get away with that. But I—I would love—I say I'd love to try, but actually, it's not worth it. So I'm just gonna say keep things and not have it be D&D related at all. Because if it were—

ERIC:  That's fair.

JASPER:  Let me tell you, I wouldn't be on Games and Feelings every week, definitely.

ERIC:  That's true. Amanda did— listen, Amanda did get me back by intentionally starting her vows with Webster's Dictionary defines marriage as, and I'm like, you motherfucker. [laughs]

JASPER:  That's why you're perfect for each other. That right there is why you're perfect for each other.

ERIC:  It wa—it was wild.

[theme]

ERIC:  Hey, it's Eric, and I picked up some snacks for Games and Feelings. I got chicken fingers in the shape of dinosaurs, rawr, they go rawr. Quick programming note, instead of WYFPATISSNAY next week, we are doing our live show. I was just at PAX East with the lovely team from Join the Party, and I got to do a live show of Games and Feelings. With Jenna Stoeber. and Meritt Kaye. It was so, so, so, so, so funny,  and I really want to share it with all of you, I think you're really gonna like it next week. Everything else is the same, we're gonna do the same cadence, except WYFPATISSNAY, we're replacing for the live show. And then we're gonna go back into advice questions as well. Also, Jasper is going to get married and go on a wonderful honeymoon while we're on tour, and then into the United States. So he might not be on for a few episodes, but we're going to kind of sort that all out. So appreciate Jasper while he's here. But he's not going anywhere, he's just taking a break for his wedding. If you want me to spend more time with Jasper, which I know I would love to spend more time with Jasper, I think you should be a part of the Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. If we get a hundred patrons, I'm going to go to Jasper's house in the United Kingdom and bother him. Someone said recently that when they were envisioning this, they were envisioning me going, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you. And I think that's really funny. So I would love to do that and record that for at least a few minutes for you and put it on the Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. And shout out to producer-level patrons Polly Burrage, Kelsey Duffy, and Megan Moon, who would make a perfect 3d Sonic game if they were trying, but they're working on other projects right now. And Sonic has been reached out to them, so they don't have time. If you want to hear your name read out loud, and if you want to be a part of the super secret Patreon Club, where you get your questions mandatorily read because your super secret important. I think you should join patreon.com/gamesand feelings. You should also check out the other shows that are part of the Multi-Crew podcast collective. You might like Tell Me About It. Tell Me About It is a madcap game show about proving that things you like are interesting and fun. It's hosted by me, Eric Silver, you've heard of me and Adal Rifai from Hello from the Magic Tavern and Hey, Riddle, Riddle.  Adal plays an eccentric billionaire who has created a terrible wonderful game show so that people can prove that their favorite things are actually better than his favorite things, which is the movie Grease. In every episode, someone comes on and plays a bunch of games and challenges, we all have a lot of fun. We Have four episodes out, I hope you really enjoy it. It's been really wonderful, Moiya has been on recently and we had Janet Varney on as our second episode. So if you'd like all that stuff, I think you'd like Tell Me About It. We are sponsored this week by Hero Forge. Hero Forge offers fully customizable tabletop minis with dozens of fantasy species and thousands of parts to choose from. Their easy-to-use design tool lets you build the perfect miniature online using a fully 3d in-depth character creator, right at your web browser. I have so much fun messing around, especially with their new coloring tool. And they get really deep. I would love to read you just the colors of the eyes that they have. It's just the eye color and colors. So first we have ones for common they have blue, brown, gray, green, blue dilated, brown dilated, gray dilated, green, dilated. And then blue contracted, brown contracted, gray contracted, and green contracted. But then there's more for different types of eyes. There are three different colors for canine eyes, four different colors for bird eyes, six colors for uncommon, which is a void teller, which kind of like a spirally pupil, a black, red, purple, yellow, and aqua. Then we have draconic eyes, it's four colors for that. Three colors of feline eyes, three colors of bovine eyes, three colors of rodent eyes, four colors of weird aquatic eyes, and four colors of lizard eyes. I want to shout out the green one which is for frogs, which has a horizontal pupil instead of the different ones. The three Gecko colors of orange, blue, and red, which have vertical pupils, which look really fucking cool. Visit heroforge.com to check this out for yourself and start designing your custom miniatures today. Check back often, new content is added every week. Sometimes based off of what you tweet at them. For example, they just released nightmare and unicorn-like full forms that you could design however you want. I think you'll like it. And now back to the games.

[theme]

ERIC:  Alright folks, you want to get into some questions?

JASPER:  I would love to get some questions—

DRAK:  Oh yeah.

JASPER:  We haven't done any in weeks, because we keep getting sidetracked on our server.

ERIC:  Well now that Drak's here, we can finally get into the villa and answer some questions.

JASPER:  Villa. No, no.

DRAK:  Villa?

ERIC:  Incredible.

DRAK:  We say villa— I've never—

ERIC:  I know, I know what you said. There—when there's like Essex folks on, or like some very specific type of accents, they said villa really hard.

DRAK:  I'm from Essex. 

ERIC:  Oh, okay, so I don't—I don't know which— I don't know what neighborhood or vil— are accented.

DRAK:  Yeah. 

ERIC:  And like I also don't know if it's like—

JASPER:  Its a street over from you Drak, It is a street over of you.

DRAK:  Ohh, it's not like—it probably is.

JASPER:  Right!

ERIC:  I try so hard to make this a UK-friendly podcast by giving you all references

DRAK:  I’m not actually offended. I find it very funny but—

ERIC:  I don't know what the neighborhood is. I don't know if it's like a Spanish person who also knows English, I—I really don't know. But I know for a fact on the seasons of Love Island: UK, I was watching a bunch of people called it “villa”. So I just don't know what it is. I—I'm telling you.

JASPER:  Questions, let's go before we get into any more villa chat.

ERIC:  Good, good. Okay, questions. Alright, this is a great question from taking a dive question mark, pronouns she/ her. “I work in childcare with children from 5 to 12. Lately, there have been discussions amongst my co-workers about whether and how much we should let the children win when we play board games and card games with them. Should we be taking dives, and if so, when should we?”

JASPER:  Never. 

DRAK:  I agree, never.

JASPER:  Never.

DRAK:  As—as a kid, he learned to play chess for my older cousin. She never let me win. [laughs]

JASPER:  Yeah.

DRAK:  Absolutely not.

JASPER:  Cause you'd still suck at chess now if they had, right?

DRAK:  I'm like, I'm actually pretty good at— I'm not like I'm definitely no like expert, but I'm actually pretty good at chess now. And like I've—and it felt good finally beating her because I'm like, okay, I know she was actually trading.

JASPER:  I think that's a— that's actually, Drak, you've hit on it there. I think you rob these kids of the genuine joy of games, like any kind of actual competitive game, right? 

DRAK:  Right.

JASPER:  Where you're actually trying to win against other people. Is like the thrill of actually winning, right? If you let them win, they're not going to get that same thrill or buzz, they're going to be like, I kind of feel like you're doing this on purpose. Because let me tell you, that kid gonna go home to their dad or whatever, and that dad is not gonna let him win like the dad's going to beat him. They'll gonna be like, hey, dad, I really good at Scrabble, they're gonna play, and these kids out here right and fall and that dad's writing these eight letter word, you know what I'm saying like there's gonna be no mercy.

DRAK:  Oh no.

ERIC:  Farcical, I fucking nailed you, you fucking idiot.

JASPER:  Yeah, you idiot. And it’s a triple letter, let's go. I like it. But—but the miss from the kindergarten said I was really good at this. No, you're not. You suck and you got to learn the hard way. So listen, I think we just got to be honest with kids.

ERIC:  Yeah.

DRAK:  I do think there's a way to win with kids. So I think—

JASPER:  So you're saying that they suck and that's—

DRAK:  I think?

JASPER:  —the way to do it?

ERIC:  Get dunked on Timmy. Get fucking dunked on.

JASPER:  This is why your mother doesn't love you. This is why you'll always be a disappointment to us. Woo!

ERIC:  That's why you get set here during the day, not because your mom needs to work but she knows you suck at games.

JASPER:  She's at home playing games with people that she likes, which isn't you. Wow. Wow.

DRAK:  I do think like for kids, I don't think you should let them win, but if you do win, still encourage them, even if okay just leaving at your loss and leaving is a bit hard for a kid especially like what she said, 5 to 12.

ERIC:  Yeah.

DRAK:  So I think encouraged him afterwards is really important, but I don't think letting them win is the way to go.

ERIC:  Yeah, I want to like drill down a little bit, because it's interesting, you said Scrabble, Jasper. Because that Scrabble is a game that's like 95% skill. There is no reason why y'all should be playing Scrabble here. Because I think that's what opens you up to needing to take a dive. No, no, you're right. I think you're right.

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  I think that it also has to do with the games you end u—that adults play with kids in this situation. I ha—a good example to me is Mancala, right? Is that like, that is a game that's like 50-50 skill and chance, just from the roles you get or whatever. So I think it might be worthwhile to what you said Drak is like, don't let them win, but they will win out of your control. If you're playing Uno, a lot of that is—a lot of that is luck is just as much. So it's like, maybe try to play games where it would be feasible for them to win, even if you're trying your hardest.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  I think would be a good way to set this up. Instead of like, I don't know, you know, video game—I don't know if they have video games that this is childcare place. But that certainly makes it a little bit more difficult, unless you're playing Mario Party. But still, that's—you did that skill based on some level. Yeah, um yeah. Let me push back and set it— let me ba—devil's advocate on behalf of this childcare worker.

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  What if you beat a kid in a game, and you say, well, hey, Timmy, great job, you did a really good job. And then they scream and cry and throw things immediately afterward. That is what I feel like is a—is like, I'm worried that this is gonna make my job harder, is just because—just based off of a card game. 

JASPER:  Okay, yeah. So fair enough. I'm gonna say your job as a kindergarten teacher might not be to teach them like basic manners. Like if they— if they're flying off the handle This much like, that's a conversation needs to happen at home. You know what I mean? Like—

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  You all need to chill out. So maybe—maybe in that instance it's like if it makes your life easier, fine. But at the same time, they also do need to learn to lose. So I'd be tempted to like, win the game, and then just be like, oh, look at that my shifts over, bye. Because like, it's important that they learn to lose.

DRAK:  Yeah. I think— I don't think it's gonna add much more work to your job, because children, they kind of be screaming and crying for other reasons anyway. This is just like one, one extra thing that you probably did maybe once a week, I don't know. I think this is a chance to teach them that screaming, and crying, and throwing a tantrum isn't the way to go when it comes to losing. 

JASPER:  I would agree.

DRAK:  I do agree like, most of it should be on the parents, but if it's happening at the place they're learning, then you might as well teach them as well. And hopefully isn't too much effort. But I certainly think even in that case, I still think losing on purpose is the way to go because I think you'll just— if you keep doing it, it will just cause– they’ll just have a tantrum from somewhere else really. Like it— won’t work.

JASPER:  Can I—I want to throw out one last thing on this topic, though, which is that also don't do the other, don't cheat against kids, because let me tell you.

DRAK:  Yes. No.

JASPER:  They know. I know, okay? I had an uncle in law once, who we played Monopoly with, and he played it with us, me and a bunch of my cousins were younger, and he cheated multiple times. We could see this brother just taking money out of the bank, right there. We would just make it look and I am like, I was like, 8 or whatever. I was like, what's happening here? Why are we— What—like, I can see this, sir. I'm— don't— I'm not yet integrated fully into society, but I know that you've just take stuff, that's bad. So can we—and like so don't do that. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Because I—I was pissed about that. 

ERIC:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Like 8-year-old Jasper was pissed about the fact that I lost a game because he was clearly cheating. I was not happy.

DRAK:  Yeah. I think that actually might be worse. 

JASPER:  Yeah, a 100%.

DRAK:  I think chea—

JASPER:  Yeah a 100%, yeah for sure.

DRAK:  —cheating would be worse than just beating down fairly. Let's either find out either, or a result of them just being very upset with you, maybe to the point of just making more trouble with you, or to make them a cheater. We really don't want because we're gonna keep the cycle going for whoever else they play with. 

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Also you sure do lose any sort of standing with this child going forward, right?

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Imagine you—

JASPER:  For sure.

ERIC:  — I don't know if—or like you're trying to get them to line up or you're trying to get them to be quiet, being like, yeah, well, you took all the money in Monopoly, so I have to listen to anything you have to say!

DRAK:  It's tri—

JASPER:  Yeah like—

DRAK:  —like any opportunity to be like, you're wrong ‘cause you did this one bad thing, I will never trust you again.

JASPER:  Yup. Well, that's exactly it. If you let the kid become the paragon of morality in your relationship, you're screwed. You know what I mean?

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  If they're the ones holding society together because they actually have morals and you don't, yikes. You know what I'm saying? I would not want to give a kid that much power over me. Terrifying.

ERIC:  Are you saying it's bad to– you can't just like go up to a 10-year-old and be like, actually, I'm doing a renegade run, so I’m gonna do whatever I want, but you could be paragon that would be fun.

DRAK:  I don't know that—if that kid understands a reference, honestly, that probably a pretty good kid, I think they're good. I think they don't need anything else.

ERIC:  Yeah. I don't know what you're doing here If you played all of Mass Effect. I don't know what you’re supposed to say. I don't know.

DRAK:  To teach you really, huh?

ERIC:  It's like you're the teacher now, go ahead. What do you do, Shepard? What do you do? Okay. Hey, Drak,  do you have kids?

DRAK:  No, no. 

ERIC:  Okay, three, three dudes with no kids. 

DRAK:  I have younger sisters if that counts.

ERIC:  I don't mind. Yeah, I'm joking, I'm joking. Well, hopefully, you found that helpful. Let's do something. Let's do something that we really care about instead. Let's tell someone if they need to continue to run their PC at the end of a satisfying moment in their Dungeons and Dragons game. I got a question here from Conflicted Cleric, pronouns he/him. “I am a knowledge domain cleric, they—and I assume they're playing Dungeons and Dragons, that is obsessed With learning and giving praise and spreading the word of my deity by sharing said knowledge. Our party is on a quest to get a relic from a dragon. We are currently at a literal magic university with libraries of rare books and knowledge. As much as I love my character, and want to continue the quest, I feel like this setting is where they would end their journey. Because they're literally a cleric teacher. How do I go about resolving this internal conflict?”

JASPER:  This is—that's really interesting. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Drak, you go ahead,  I need a second I think.

DRAK:  I think I might need a second as well because I don't think I've ever come across this.

JASPER:  Okay, well, I will jump into something that in which case. I genuinely think this is something that needs to happen more often. Like, we need to like normalize your character getting to a point where they just happy—

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  —Like, because there are a few scenarios where by like, if your character's whole mission has been like getting their family back, and they get their family back, unless the world is in an existential crisis, like will end if I specifically do not go, if my motivation is getting my family back, I am ending my adventures as soon as I get my family back. Like that's the end of the road from my character. And also like, that's the satisfying into the road. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Like, I don't want to then get killed by a gelatinous ooze, you know what I mean? I'm like—but just like no reason at all, other than the DM felt like putting a little tricky combat in there. So like, I think, absolutely, you should feel well within your rights. Because not only that, like narratively, it's probably one of the most satisfying ways that you can end, is giving your character exactly what they've always wanted. And then if you didn't like that, or you found that unsatisfying for you as a person playing that PC, then maybe you sweet, you roll up a new character, and you don't give them an easy-to-achieve goal.

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Like you know what I mean, you set them up with like, I want to grow a billion trees, you'll probably be in this campaign for a while if that's your end game. You know what I mean?

DRAK:  Yeah, I agree with you there. I think the reason why I haven't come across this is because I usually don't give my characters achieva— like easily achievable goal, so I have reason to keep going, Where the goal of just like spreading knowledge, like now being confronted with a thing that is literally for that magical library, I think it makes sense for you to just have your character's story end there. The cool thing about that is that you can create a new character and keep going with this new character. And if at any point your char— your party needs to learn something, you could just go back to the library, and they'll just be a cool thing like, or like just see how your character is doing. See what your GM thinks would have transpired? Why your new character and a party called adventuring. 

JASPER:  Yeah.

DRAK:  And I think that just be like a just a cool thing. No easy way to be like I now have a contact. We—I asked the party have a contact in this important place now.

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah for sure. I do want to throw out one last thing before I toss over to you, Eric, is franchises. That like you could, if you wanted to continue your character in this instance, you may be what you want to do is spread this knowledge to everyone, so you want to franchise this magical library to other places. You want to set up a—you know, a sort of chain, if you will of magical libraries that have a interconnected sharing system, you know, perhaps a Fae database of some description—

ERIC:  A library branch. Yeah.

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like I think maybe if you want to be a bit finicky in there, maybe that could be their reason for carrying on with the party, is that they're gonna go in every town, that Newtown that rock up to, they're gonna go with a little pamphlet and be like, hey uh, do you want to be a part of this ever-growing library concept, it's this great thing and you can get in on the top floor or whatever, bottom floor, however—

DRAK:  You can be your own boss.

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah exactly, business speaker, you know, pyramid schemes, run the whole gamut, you know what I mean? 

ERIC:  So don't be an adventurer, sell Encyclopedias instead?

JASPER:  Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Throw out all of your adventuring gear, and just stole magical Encyclopedias, which you can sell to people at a price. But the thing is, they can then sell it to their friends for slightly more money. It's perfect—it's a perfect system.

ERIC:  And it goes up the upstream, which good for you, yeah.

JASPER:  Yeah, upstream, upstream. 

ERIC:  Yeah, exactly.

JASPER:  That's what we want. And then you're a co—like knowledge domain cleric with tons of money.

ERIC:  Right, that's great.

JASPER:  And then you can be hustled domain cleric—

DRAK:  They can all be rich now.

JASPER:  You know what I'm saying, you can be a hustle domain cleric.

ERIC:  Let me— I think that this is a wonderful opportunity to figure out what happens next.

JASPER:  I thought you're gonna say buy Encyclopedia sets.

ERIC:  Buy—alright, new Patreon gold Games and Feelings. Everyone buy Encyclopedias from Jasper and I,  and you can be part of our Upstream.

JASPER:  Can we make this a new tier, please? Just like a—a $1 tier where you get an Encyclopedia, and I'll just— it'll just be me sending you a video of me saying different words because that’s the online Encyclopedia?

ERIC:  That's—yes, yeah, we'll start doing that, that sounds great. 

DRAK:  Perfect.

ERIC:  I think this is a wonderful opportunity to figure out some fun shit that is gonna go on in your campaign. Let me just throw out the hooks that I've been thinking about. Since I read this question a little while ago. You talk to your DM, right? You can decide, spend some time at the library to see what's going in the inner workings to see if you want to work there. You can, and then you decide, oh, I do want to stay here, and your whole party needs to reckon with your character leaving, or you're like, actually, this isn't what I'm looking for. The—this is not part of my deities like path for me, I'm looking for something else. And maybe that ends up pivoting a little bit. Or maybe you did find what it is you're looking for. And your Deities's mad at you that you care more about the— like the problems of men in a better way, and no other better way to say it, then the divine pursuit of knowledge in general and writing it down in a book is not good. And then maybe you have to change your class. Or maybe you lose all of your magic because of it. Maybe you end up leaving your character. And Jasper when you said franchise, I thought you were gonna say like when Cyborg was going to run Teen Titans North, then maybe you leave your character there. And then they started doing some other stuff, and then maybe you—like 10 sessions from now you go back to your original character and all the other people, play different people and you go do a different sort of adventure at the same time.

JASPER:  Yeah, yeah, that's— that's always fun.

DRAK:  That’s really fun.

ERIC:  That's also the thing that Drak said that—you—now you have a contact, which is incredible.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Especially if you're going out there and doing it.

JASPER:  Super useful.

ERIC:  All this stuff is— is awesome, and I think that you're looking at this like,  you're—if you're viewing this, like an internal conflict with yourself about whether or not you want to let go of your player, that's fine. 

JASPER:  Yes. 

ERIC:  But in terms of this like ruining your story, I think you're fine. I really think that you're fine and just talk to your GM about this and work something out that you think is cool.

JASPER:  Yeah, for sure. But just do whatever feels truest to your— to you and your character. I think like to the extent like the DM might have something really cool planned, but the same time like if something feels particularly right for your character to do, I think you should, you know, petition with your DM and be like, I really would like to do this, because I think that that's the only way that you actually get to a satisfying place. If you're talking about ending a character is like the one time where I will usually give free rein for my PCs to like, talk to me about world-building and stuff. Because I'm very keen that like when it comes to them talking about their character and having ownership over their character that I want them to—I don't want to take that away from them by killing them in a way that's like really unsatisfying, or like shipping the character off in a really unsatisfying way for them, because like, hey, look, you made this thing. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Like I'd be annoyed if you just took the world away from me or fundamentally changed it in some way that I as the GM wasn't happy about. So why would I do the other way around.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Absolutely.

DRAK:  I—also will say, if you do end up having them stay at the library, you can just have them come back. Like, this isn't like a death. This is just them deciding to stay there. You could have them—you could bring up a new character, play them for a little bit. I kind of miss my cleric, and talk to your DM and be like, hey, can I—can I  come back we can discuss why they may have come back maybe, like you said their deity was like, hey, you need to do more than just read and write and he said she prophesy and tell people by word of mouth this knowledge. And so you can still find a reason to bring it back. So I think trial and error—like the trialing it out isn't a bad thing. 

ERIC:  Yeah. And like–yeah. Especially if you don't connect with your new PC. Like, that's the beauty of not playing a game that's recorded. Do whatever you want, it's like no one is calling you on anything. 

DRAK:  Totally.

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  You're just doing it for fun. A 100%, yeah, I think that's totally fair.

JASPER:  Love it.

ERIC:  Resolve your internal conflict, but do cool shit with this opportunity.

JASPER:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Where we came down on.

DRAK:  Yeah.

JASPER:  Yeah, absolutely. Do cool shit with opportunity, absolutely.

ERIC:  Yeah, for sure. Well, Jasper and see— we still have a little bit more of the episode to record, but Jasper has found his internal stopping point of this episode, so he's gonna go to the library and stop.

JASPER:  I'm gonna go to the library, but thanks for having me. I need to go and research some stuff about I think what a pyramid scheme I've just heard about it. 

DRAK:  Yeah, yeah.

JASPER:  Apparently I'm in one and I need to rectify situation quite quickly.

DRAK:  Look, look at MLM as well, might be useful.

JASPER:  Yeah. Okay, cool. I'll check that out as well. I'll do a bit of research on that on the library.

ERIC:  Yeah. Hey, Drak, will you still stay for one more question?

DRAK:  Yeah, absolutely.

ERIC:  Alright cool. Go sell my Encyclopedias. Get out of here.

JASPER:  I'm gonna sell your Encyclopedias, byeee!

DRAK:  Bye.

ERIC:  Bye. Alright, Drak, don't worry I stuck Jasper with all the J Encyclopedias, so we get a good letters. I've one last question. This is from Lost in Ravenloft, she/her. These are gonna have some spoilers for Curse of Strahd, but I think even if you do want to play Curse of Strahd, it is worth it for you to listen to what we're talking about here, because, uh, well, you’re hearing the question. So Lost in Ravenloft, this is her first campaign of D&D ever. I joined a group of friends who are starting Curse of Strahd. Those you know it's one of the most famous modules from Dungeons and Dragons, which is kind of setting like a spooky, scary area with Strahd who's like Dracula, pretty much. “I was completely new to the game and there was no session zero. As we played, the more it felt to me like this is a very misogynistic and ablest campaign, and I even ended up losing my temper when introduced to the Flesh Golem. I Have expressed my concern, thank them for having me, but excused myself from the game, as I feel like the treatment of the female NPCs are too triggering for me, but I got the feeling for the rest of the party that I was exaggerating, with even someone saying he was the best module ever. Am I reading too much into the plotline of Strahd? Should I have stuck with it to wait for a story to pay off? My gut says no, but what the group said had me second-guessing myself. Thank you so much for any advice you can give.” The first thing I want to say because I don't want to put this on Drak to immediately answer the question and say this is our guest, is like, first of all, if you don't like something, don't do it, right? Like I want to say regar— we're not going to— which I could I guess, that I—Drak, I'm sure you're familiar with this as well. We could litigate of whether or not Curse of Strahd is problematic. But it's true, it's not worth it. The point is, if you are uncomfortable, you should leave. 

DRAK:  Yeah. 

ERIC:  And I think that's fai— that's a fair thing that I want to lay down first and foremost.

DRAK:  I 100% agree with that. Yeah.

ERIC:  Do you—now I'm going to give—I 100% agree, let's give these people the benefit of the doubt—

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  —in that like this. They obviously bought this book and ran a module because there are reasons why people run modules. You and I are professional creative people. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Especially in the tabletop RPG space. People buy modules because they don't have time or they're not like creative but they still want to play D&D. I think that the—the Dungeons and Dragons does a very good job of giving— of bridging the gap between no creativity and playing the game. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Out of any other tabletop RPG that I've seen. Like you don't need to have improv skills. 

DRAK:  Yeah, exactly.

ERIC:  Immediately to play the game. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  So maybe—maybe these people feel like there's—that the book is um unimpeachable because it's in a published hardcover book. You gotta do what it says. Especially even if it just flavor stuff, because when you play Curse of Strahd you're in Barovia, which is again, a spooky scary area with a lot of horror elements that are uncritically kind of just dropped into the space. So like, again, I totally agree with all the stuff that you're saying, question asker. But I—I think that it might feel harder than like, oh, well, was it, well, it got published, I can't change any of it. And I feel like even if you're playing a module, someone needs to have their brain turned on. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Especially the DM to be like, hey, let's change this for what we have going. Like if you said this to me about a game that I was homebrewing, I be like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, you felt this way. And it just feels harder when that like a company approved this—

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  —And you bought— used money to buy a hardcover for it. Maybe these people feel a little more rigid, which is like a problem with, you know, capitalism and—and just like believing companies when they say stuff. 

DRAK: Yeah.

ERIC:  Which is all— which is a much more thorny issue than just like your friends agre—disagreeing, which that guy who said that this was the best module ever can fuck off, like, that sucks.

DRAK:  I don't agree with that. I mean I— I mean, obviously, everyone has their own opinion, but I don't think it's the best module ever. And I think especially someone tells you that they're uncomfortable with it, for you to retort this is the best module ever, it's kind of a dick move in my opinion.

ERIC:  Such a dick move.

DRAK:  Yeah. But if they're stuck with—if they want to do Curse of Strahd, I quickly look this up. I remember—I remember seeing this, but I remember the name of it. There is a module who is a by indie publisher, I believe their name is Beth Abad, and they have a Curse of Strahd-like edition you can play on top of Curse of Strahd helps replace a lot bunch of NPCs and make it a little less misogynistic at the very least. I don't know how well it does have to ableism, I haven't been able to play it myself. But I've seen some people play it, and called she is the ancient. And it's basically a gender-bent Curse of Strahd, and they pull out a lot of the very misogynistic bits and pieces from it. I recommend checking that out, at the very least maybe suggesting that to your GM, if they still want to really want to do a Curse of Strahd campaign, and maybe hopefully that will be enough to bridge the like differences that all of you seem to want in your games. But I— at the end of the day have to say no, and they won't change anything. No D&D is better than bad D&D.

ERIC:  For sure. How do you feel about modules? Have you ever used one before?

DRAK:  Yeah, I've played in when I played in Rime of the Frostmaiden module and had a lot of fun. I think modules can be really fun. I don't think there's anything wrong with anything, they're just as, like fertile for creativity as going homebrew. Because I definitely see a lot of people seem to hold homebrew higher than modules or vice versa. Honestly, a lot of the games I played modules, and I wouldn't have really been able to tell the difference between a module and a homebrew, because I think—

ERIC:  Oh, yeah.

DRAK:  —the biggest thing with the least for the gems I have played with, is that they weren't flexible to just change things on the fly for it to fit whatever character we're playing, or whatever setting which or genre or tone we're trying to play at. I think I agree with you, Wizard of the Coast D&D does a really good job at bridging that gap, making it possible to be like, I don't have to—time to make 13 countries, 12 different—

ERIC:  Right.

DRAK:  —like ancestries of my own. I'm going to pick this up and play it and run it for my friends. And I think if you're—if you're just trying to get into DMing, or trying to get friends into just playing, I think modules are probably the best way to go.

ERIC:  For sure. I— yeah, I feel just frustrated a little bit on this person's behalf.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  They're like, they wanted to play this game and then they got thrown into something that they didn't like. And like, I think leaning on a module is hard sometimes because you end up doing almost everything that you are going to do in the module. Like, I— if that's the expectation, then you need to have every single thing defined before you get into your game. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Like, why don't you just start small, and then by session 50, you will know what's going on in your world, right? 

DRAK:  Yeah. 

ERIC:  Like, honestly, I think that modules kind of reinforced the idea that like DMS and GMs are like magic. And then that all—all that does is force the same person to be the GM or the DM.

DRAK:  That's a good point, yeah.

ERIC:  All the time, so that no one wants to step into it, so it seems scary. And I just don't understand it. So I think that like if you can get to a situation and maybe you just need to find someone else to play with these like, first of all, don't go back to these people. If you—

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  But if you end up going to someone you need like everyone needs to have their brains turned on, and I think the module tells them that they don't. And maybe in the game– I've never played in a module game before, because usually everyone who's doing it like no, I'm excited to come up with some stuff. 

DRAK:  Yeah. 

ERIC:  And really, the only thing separating a module DM and a homebrew DM is like the ideation process, right? Like you you got to still run these people.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  And come—and come up with their voices and thread the story together. But like a book is— all of the book does is give you the 5000-foot view, when all— if you just want to focus on your small town you can, and maybe that will scare you from doing it.  So like, I don't know, I— I understand why people do use modules, but I think it was also an excuse to like, create forever DMS and make sure everyone's like, no, I don't want to think about anything when I'm playing it when I'm playing this game, Which is like, they go play video games my guy like that's why they exist. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  That's why board games exist, is like you don't need to think about anything.

DRAK:  Yeah, no, I do think there is like a difference. Because for example, the games where I played a module in, the GM had run homebrew games before. So they really had the mindset of this is just a like, floor plan, I can zoom in to wherever I want. And I'm feel comfortable zooming into that section and fleshing out myself. For people who don't have improv skills, clearly, the improv is pretty hard, like, it doesn't always come naturally to everybody. And I think taking a baby steps, it's always helpful, and I think having a module helps with that. So the very least, the module gives you like prompts, it tells you like, this NPC is grumpy. Okay, cool. I know, like, I can play a stereotypical grumpy character and play this out. And then like from them, he would have start to take the own steps. Because at the end of the day, the module was there, but the players are not in the module. The players do—

ERIC:  Exactly, exactly.

DRAK:   —the wildest thing. So regardless, you're going to be made to improv on the spot. And I think the modules gives you enough of a support that you can be like, okay, I'm gonna only have to improv what a players do, not necessarily what characters they might come up against every single time. 

ERIC:  For sure.

DRAK:  Only with 50% of the time, which I think is always helpful.

ERIC:  Yeah. I know that we ended up diverting a little bit and like giving advice to these people who don't give a shit. Like I'm sorry. Well, yeah, you're—you're very valid—

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  —You're very, very valid Lost in Ravenloft, and I hope you end up finding a new group. And yeah, if you know, this might—maybe this will encourage you to find a game that's exciting, or maybe you'll end up just throwing yourself into GMing yourself or—

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  You listen, there also—um—as Drak said, If this is your first time, maybe you need to wait for the right group.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  And the time being, feel free to play one-shot, or one-page RPGs, or more rules-light RPGs just so that you can get your like role-playing fix in as you figure out if there is a campaign waiting for you. 

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  For your one special moment. Alright, wonderful. Uh Drak, thank you so much for coming. You were Jasper's friend and then he left. Jasper has left you alone with me.  Well, I'm so glad that you're here. Thank you so much for coming.

DRAK:  Thank you for having me you know, it was great. I was— It was having—it was fun getting to talk about all this stuff.

ERIC:  Of course. Listen, you never get a chance to talk about all the different types of games at the same time.

DRAK:  Yeah.

ERIC:  That's— our—our promise here at Games and Feelings, all the different type of game, and one Encyclopedia free.

DRAK:  You'll never know you get another one for half the price.

ERIC:  Yeah. Will ship you two, will ship you four, just give us four payments of $9.95. Drak, where can people find you on the internet?

DRAK:  You can find me on Twitter @drakoniques, it's D R A K O N I Q U E S.  I do a bunch of different channels and stuff like that, so follow me on Twitter. It's honestly the best way to find out where I am at any given moment and what projects I'm working on because I have quite a few I'm working on I can't speak about, but will soon tweet.

ERIC:  Ooh, that sounds fun. As always, you can find me on the social media @El_ Silvero. EL underscore S I L VE R O my name if I was lucha libre wrestler. You can follow the show @gamesnfeelings on Twitter and @gamesandfeelings on Instagram. You know, we didn't have enough characters on Twitter. Elon Musk would let me have it, it was the worst. But that's the one bad thing about him. Everything else is fine.

DRAK:  Totally. Yeah.

ERIC:  He's totally good in every other way, just a character limit.

DRAK:  We are being sarcastic. Please just be–

ERIC:  We are very so sarcastic. 

DRAK:  Yeah, sarcastic.

ERIC:  We are being very sarcastic. Remember, keep sending in questions. You can send questions on the website, or you can check out the link in the episode description. If you're a $10 patron or above, you get to use the special patron question portal where you get preferred access for questions. People are still sending in questions, these are great. A lot of these are new, but we can always use more especially if you want to send in sports questions, where Jasper and I do a sports-only Games and Feelings.

DRAK:  Ohh.

ERIC:  Well Drak, thank you again. Thank you so much for answering questions here. And remember, the instruction guide doesn't have anything about feelings. Goodbye. 

DRAK:  Bye.

ERIC:  Bye.

[theme]

ERIC:  The Games and Feelings produced by Eric Silver and edited and mixed by Mischa Stanton. The theme music is returned to French toast Castle by Jeff Bryce and the art was created by Jessica Boyd. Find transcripts for This episode, and all episodes at our website, gamesandfeelings.com. Until next time, press X to enjoy the podcast.


Transcriptionist: KA

Editor: KM

Proofreading: RB


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