Bonus: Ask Us Anything! — Transcription

Oh, they're not.

They're not.

Um, excellent.

I couldn't possibly comment.

All right, so this is our end of year special, where we take things a little bit fast and loose.

We don't necessarily do a topic.

but we are going to do some Q and A.

Some of the cues have been submitted by folks in the Discord.

Some have been submitted by myself, which Jordan doesn't know about yet.

and I ain't pretty.

Yeah, we digress a lot.

Like, we digress.

I didn't know you were not born in butt fuck nowhere.

Uh yes.

I'm cutting you off.

I have a I have a drink.

I'm going to suggest we start with one of mine because it's the, um, the end of year question that, uh, for the Spotify wrapped season that we're in.

So my my opener, my uh, icebreaker, if you will, um, is what's the best game you played in this year, not the best system you've run or or anything like that?

We prep sessions, so what's your best session?

It was in 5E, and that I think had nothing to do with how good it was.

Um, it was entirely the like structure of the thing that that made it work.

Um, so we basically did an always sunny episode, very much in the style of the show.

Um, the game master started with a, like, dropped us in media's res.

Uh, in fact, no, didn't even drop us in media's rest.

dropped it in, dropped us in a flashback, and just described like 3 or 4 really like horrifying details about the fairground that we had, we knew we were coming to visit at the end of the last session.

I was like, this is on fire, and there's like slime everywhere, and like, an elf turns, turns to you and is like, well, that could have gone better.

And then he hardcuts to a uh, a version of the always sunny, like opening title sequence that he's put together that's like, the gang goes to the fair.

Um, and so, yeah, he, the, that GM, because I debriefed with him later, told me that he had, obviously it's kind of set up the environment with lots of different things to visit at the fair.

I think it might even have been a pre-purchased like adventure.

He gave himself the challenge of like, I'm going to narrate this like utter chaos and then cut to the players entering the fairground and then like, we know we want to try and get to this like absolute disaster zone, but I have no idea how we're going to get there.

And so he had these hooks where he was like, ah, is there an opportunity to have like slime spill everywhere.

Yes, there it is, that happens.

Is there an opportunity for something to go on fire, like, yes, there it is.

I was like, there's no way we weren't burning that fairground down.

Like.

This is not a genre busting, like, dark and gritty, like, you know, this is very straight down the line D and D.

Like,

We got to act like we're bigger than we are.

There's too much.

There's too much and I have no time.

I had a child.

Well, I didn't.

We, my partner and I had a child, so I have a 3 month old child.

That's my goal for the year.

Um, in terms of running stuff, I may have answered this question differently last week, but my, uh, mate, and I, who, my housemate and I, who I used to live with back in, like, 2015, when the 1st season of Stranger Things came out, um, every time they drop a new season of Stranger Things, even though probably the show is less fresh and compelling than perhaps it was when it 1st came out, um, every time they drop a new season, we like, come back together and sit on and watch it like we did when we were living together.

So we've just watched the 1st 4 episodes of Stranger Things, and it's, it's got me real thirsty for some tales from the loop.

Um, but yeah, that the Stranger Things has got me uh, has got me wanting to run some tales from the loop and I just love that system so much.

As I pointed out, in a Reddit back and forth recently, like, I think that system owes, no, this show owes a lot to that system, the idea that you can have, like, plan out a structured session and think about the, like, arc of the dog is barking.

Uh, and I'm really hoping that the dog is barking while the postman is delivering a package from you because that's supposed to arrive today.

So I really hope that while I'm on a call with you, he's barking at your package.

It's like 3 days early.

Oh yeah, Stranger Things.

So, yeah, I think Tales from the Loop.

I think this show is a lot details from Luke, just the like game mastering advice in that book.

I really, really kind of like gave me some light bulb moments, which I think kind of led us to making platonics.

But before that, the new game that I am excited about running, which actually came out this year and not next year, um, would be Kill Him Faster.

So we're gonna do a kill him faster this year.

Like, I will make it happen.

Because, yeah, I just think it sounds so fun.

It's great.

I can't even be like, well, one of them's me and one of them's yours because neither of us are listening on Spotify, so whoever you are.

Say hi.

Realistically, as soon as I'm having to contradict the rule book, right?

So as soon as there's, and that's purely a laziness thing for me as a game master, I want to be able to hand a like how to play quick start thing to the players and be like, just like skim this, and then if I have to add to it over the course of the session, it's actually, it's very easy to be like, okay, now it's time that we've got, we've all got the hang of kind of the core mechanic.

The 1st time this interesting thing that I've bolted on comes up, like, I will introduce that once we get to it.

Um, but like anything where I'm having to say, okay, read this course, you know, how to play, accept the part about this, we're gonna do like this instead and ignore all the stuff about, that's too far.

No, give up.

If you if you start with a thing you're trying to achieve and then pick a system that does it, you actually don't have to do the amount of hacking that some people seem to enjoy doing.

My long campaign era was in high school.

I had an infinite number of like long empty sundaes to spend literally in a friend's attic.

Like that was, we, we, even though it was not the the 80s and we did not have to hide, it was like, well, that was a convenience base for us to hang out.

So we hung out in the like attic above his.

Yeah, it was like a loft that had been added above a carport, so it was like hot as balls.

But it meant that we could leave everything set up.

Like, we didn't have to get off the dining table at the end of the session.

We didn't have to get off the dining table when it was invariably dinner time in the house.

Like we could just kind of leave the leave the battle map and leave all the milk crates like set up.

So, yeah, we played in an attic.

And we would play for like 10 hours at a time.

We just like blow a whole Sunday on...

noodling around in these like long arse D&D campaigns, none of which we ever finished.

Um, I crave things that end now, not because, uh, I think, not because I want them to be over, but because I think I was starved of that experience as a boy, I I crave the satisfaction of bringing a campaign to its conclusion, and I think aiming for a short campaign is the way to do that.

Uh, more than 2 and less than 8.

Like, she's like short.

I'm just impressed that you count.

I wouldn't be able to tell you how long any of our long games go.

They would either be like 10 10 sessions because that's how many like calendar entries are or it's like, I don't know, it's just indefinite.

How many have we put in the calendar?

Yeah.

No, it's...

It's, it's definitely, I don't think it's a thing that I, it's, it's not a, not an experience that I crave anymore to have these like recurring characters and to come back to them and watch them develop because I don't know.

I feel like I feel like I have character development at home.

Like, I don't know if I, if I'm gonna watch people develop over the course of years, I'm gonna look at my friends and I don't know.

I don't know where I'm going with this.

Again, kind of stuff that usually gets cut.

Right?

Like you've sucked all the juice out of this this shtick.

and that's the thing right?

Like a short campaign, you get to you get to try out a shtick, you get to learn enough about a character without getting tired of them.

I think on the scheduling front.

It's also very easy to be like, we're gonna do, say, 12 sessions.

It is not insane to be like, okay, everyone, we're going to go through and like put 12 sessions in all yours collective calendars right now and like it's it's locked in and we're done.

Yeah, it's like, it's not demented to ask someone to block their calendar 3 months in advance, 12 weeks in advance.

Like, that's, that's such a doable thing at least for the way that my life runs and and like, if you know that someone's got, uh, something on a week, like, that's an amount of time that that's foreseeable.

asking people to block every Thursday or every Sunday or every fortnight, whatever forever, like that is not.

Yeah, exactly.

I need you to just block every 2nd Thursday for 2 years.

I'm like, that, no, no.

I don't know what I'll be doing on Thursday nights in 6 weeks, let alone like 6 months.

So, yeah, probably.

Um,

I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the, uh, one epic, long, multi-year campaign we finished was cursive Strad because that has an endpoint and spoilers, it's when you kill Strad.

There's not really anything to do in the setting after that point.

Um, so that was that was kind of, I think, the end of our uh, epic multi-year campaign year.

It was killing.

Like, it's just, but, yeah, I don't think that's a coincidence that that was the, that was the best experience I've had with a real,

is this campaign that does

As canonic.

It's a real problem.

Jesus Christ, okay.

You're gonna be the old dude like playing D&D in the nursing home.

We we have it, no, Veto, we don't have time to go into that rabbit hole.

Next question.

Speaking of wrapping things up with...

I don't, how many, how many more you go?

All right, uh, give me, uh, give me one more from you and then I'll give you my, uh, I'll give you my clothes.

I don't know that I do.

Probably the worst offence I've had has been one shots that.

to...

Yeah.

Honestly, zero, like one to 15, one to 15 in 2 years is actually astonishingly quick progress for a 5BK.

Killing increasingly deadly orcs.

Yeah.

Jesus.

Yeah, I found a, uh, for the, there was one game that I ran last year.

it happened.

like a montage.

So, like, instead of continuing to play, I put some music on and had everyone be like, it's 6 months later, what's everyone doing? And it like, it gives everyone a, it scratches the itch to like see where these characters end up without having to play through all of that and it like,

It, Exactly.

It really like cauterises that urge.

Just like stem the bleeding.

Yeah, it's like, it's a good way to have, because they, we had, there were threads left hanging.

There were plot hooks for the next thing.

Like, that's just the nature of how these games go. And instead of feeling like they never got to experience any of those, they got to spend a couple of minutes.

That made it feel like it was done, even though there were still unanswered questions.

So...

Yeah, absolutely.

This is to do a callback, see why Stranger Things is not as compelling as it used to be.

Like, turns out if you answer the, all of the mysteries that the show is not as fun anymore, you know?

It's like, Genuinely, it is like much less compelling to watch now that they have answered the question of like, oh, well, here's what the upside down is and here where it came, here's where it came from.

And, you know, here's all the, like, bored, don't care.

Yeah. Um,

So something...

Yeah, it's just physics.

You've just invented metaphysics.

Like it's different physics, but it's not magic.

Yeah, and like, I don't know.

I feel like the way...

very like, feels very mystical, it's very mysterious.

It's not Gandalf is not slinging fireballs.

I feel like magic the way it works in a Wizard of Earth Sea is like Chef Kiss.

It's beautiful, it's mysterious.

It clearly has rules and texture, but we never hear so much of those as to feel like we understand it.

Like, like, Quinn really does an incredible job of like making a system where a quote unquote magic system where you can tell that this system has rules, but possibly, certainly the wizards don't understand all of them.

Certainly the reader doesn't.

Maybe even the author doesn't understand all of them.

She just has a vibe on like what will and won't work, but hasn't like written down rules.

And that's very much like she said.

That's the way she writes, is that she's just narrating a story that happens in her head.

So I was like, this is what feels consistent, feels like,

And I'm like, that is really the sweet spot for magic.

And there's, I don't think there's any way to turn that into a game system, unfortunately, because it, eventually you play through enough of the game that, you know, that's the disadvantage we have as people who are playing a game.

are going to hit on inconsistencies and edge cases, whereas if you're writing it, but you can kind of just,

It's hard to play a game where the rules don't stay the same in between sessions.

Yeah, and.

And in Earth Sea, it's all so tied up in philosophy and like actually wizards try not to do magic because doing magic upsets the balance.

Like, So there's these big, these big, powerful ideas and it's like, actually, the magic is not, and maybe this is why it's so good.

It's like the magic is not important.

important is like she is telling a story about power and responsibility and what it means to have power, what it means to want power and what it means to use power, what it means.

The magic is just her way.

Right, the magic is just a way of like telling that story, but it's not, it's not about the magic. And very, there's very little actual, like, slinging of spells in earth sea.

It is very much Jed growing up and becoming an adult, um, but and taking responsibility for his actions, but like, and all of this is happens through magic, but it's not, the magic is not the important part.

I don't know.

I love that book.

Yeah.

And not in a, not in a like, ooh, you'll have to roll on the wild magic table where, you know, like, no genuinely, like everything you've ever been taught about magic says that, like, you should do as little of it as possible.

Oh.

All right.

Are you?

Yeah, are you ready for my, this is one of my questions.

This is, I think, I think this will be our closer.

Um, and it's something that you have said you're not interested in doing.

So I've just, I've decided to spring you on it live.

Uh, It's December.

If you wanted to run in your home campaign, a Christmas special, how would you run it?

Give me the like the mini platonics treatment on like how you would run a Christmas special in your current ongoing home game?

How do you structure that session to make it fun, uh, and festive?

Well, just doing a ham special.

Okay, so like a like a Trad Easter, not like the bunny Easter.

There's like Old Testament East.

Well, I guess New Testament Easter, but...

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I think you got out.

Yeah, I think so.

I don't know man.

That sounds that sounds compelling as heck.

Mm-hmm.

I think you've actually accidentally nailed it, which is that the ideal, like, if you go and look at the Christmas specials, there is a thing that they are universally about and it is discovering the true meaning of Christmas.

And all of the trappings, like that, this is the recurring theme, right, is that all of the trappings that we have around Christmas, whether that's like family obligations or, uh, you know, you got to, like the gift giving or the, you got to, like, you got to get the perfect ham, like, the real meaning of Christmas, the true meaning of Christmas is, you know, spending time with the people with it you care about, right?

Like, this is, I think you've accidentally nailed it.

Um, and so I think it's like everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, but in the end it doesn't matter because of who you have with you.

Like, I think that's how, that's the structure you're aiming for is like, you kind of want everything to go disastrously wrong and then for it actually not to matter.

Like that's, that is the structure of a Christmas episode.

If you, have you seen a moody Christmas?

Okay, so it's a, it's an amazing.

This one, I think you should check out.

So it's an ABC show.

It's 6 episodes, so like a short run.

Every episode is another year of this family's Christmas.

And so you see all of these traditions like develop and invariably go wrong, like people bring girlfriends, people bring, uh, there's like a developing romance subplot, like people break up, like there's a, there's a whole bunch of stuff, but I was like, every year this guy shows up at Christmas and the episode just like, it just tracks, it's, it's all oops, all Christmas episodes, essentially.

Um, but that everything always just goes catastrophically wrong and it kind of doesn't matter is is the shtick.

And I think that's exactly what you're describing is like, oh, it doesn't, none of this stuff matters.

None of the obligations matter.

None of the the trappings actually.

Actually...

I love that you actually found a way that you would enjoy it.

I hate that in, I love that in presenting you with this as a challenge.

You've designed something that will actually work, put it that way.

Would you run it?

Mm.

Genuinely, I think the one that I desperately wanted to and just don't think we can is a wizard of a...

It's a crime that you haven't.

But there's, look, there's 2 elements.

One is that the, the, like the world is so beautiful and the, it's the setting is like so unusual for an RPG, it said.

It's like iron age, so it's not mediaeval.

It's like a little bit earlier.

Um, like a little bit sort of primitive, a little bit sort of aim.

Yeah, just these like beautiful, beautiful themes.

2 issues.

One is I, 3 issues.

One is, I love it so much that I would hate to set any players loose in that world.

because they would ruin it.

Two, is that I think it's, the ideas are too big.

It's too it's too mythic, it's too weighty to just screw around in, which so many games are.

You would want something really meaningful to play in that world.

But I think the 3rd reason that it would be, it's so tempting to do, but I could just never bring myself to do it is that the author, who isn't an author, I respect an author.

is on record as saying she's like, do not do this.

This is not a game.

This is not a world view to, like, play around in and have sword fights.

Like that is not what this setting is for.

Please do not ever turn this in.

is like heartbreaking to me, but also I understand it.

So that is, I think, the one that would be hardest to do justice too, because I just don't think there is a way to do justice to something that is so big and meaningful and also that the author has specifically asked you not.

But not your wishes.

That's good.

Oh.

Hmm.

Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting because obviously they're called Rogalux because they are like,

was a basically a D&D dungeon crawl.

So like, yeah, it's interesting that that genre has a Vol...

away from those roots that it now sort of has load-bearing elements that can only be done through that kind of.

I wonder if something like a real.

It's like we are going to do one sort of delve per session and you have.

real time, like, I wonder if that...

Yeah.

Some kind of something with a.

I think it's rather than doing that in like a West Marches.

I mean, like, I think probably

It's like something super structured.

Almost like a, um, almost like a clam...

I think, did they ever do a clank legacy?

I think they did a like a clank with like legacy stuff.

Yeah, like a, like I feel like that's what you're describing as a clank legacy.

Relatable.

All the whole...

Yeah, I might have to, uh, I might have to talk to you offline about your, uh, how you make this scheduling work because I feel like there's some life hacks to learn.

We are, I don't know if we're out of questions, but we're certain.

You northerners. Over the bitter.

Continuing heat.

Um... Gosh.

Yeah, that's a tricky one.

I have to be like,

Yeah, look, if you've never read it, go read Tales from the Loop.

Well, I'll do a little I'll do a little callback to the top of the episode.

Yeah, go read the Tales from the Loop core rule book because it is genuinely like a fun piece of, there's like some really fun art and world building and fiction in there.

I think it is one of those

But it also does such a good job at talking about what we

Structuring session.

Adventure.

Here is how your time at the table should be structured in like, alternate.

These scenes with these scenes and end your scenes when this is done and end your game when this is done and here's.

very structured way of spending your time at the table. And once you read it and kind of grock it, it's really hard to go back to unstructured, just like letting your sessions meander.

So there you go.

it's a callback, closing, closing the loop, if you will.

Um, But yeah, that's probably what I will be reading over the summer to try and get my head back into that.

It feels very lazy Dungeon Mountain.

All right, we are... out of questions.

We are out of time.

We are out of year.

Out of days.

We are out of days, uh, this has been at platonics, um, you can find us on the internet at platonics.net or wherever you get your podcasts.

We will catch you in 2026.

If you want to drop us some recommendations for next year, because we currently have a blank slate.

lots of ideas, but nothing locked in.

Best place to find us is to hop onto the discord.

There's a link on the website, and we would love to hear some people.

Firstly, those 3 people who have us as their top show.

If you're not already in the discord, get on that.

But, yeah, if you've got things you want to see us cover next year, jump.

hold of us, can also find us in all the usual spots, the the fake Twitters, and there's a,

All the usual stuff, but you'll find all that on the website.

So go there.

Yeah.

This is the bit where we have time to watch a whole...

All right.

I'll see you next year.

Yeah.

Boy.

Yeah.

It's um, it's a lot.

We'll link to that one as well.

Go have a read.

Go have a, go have a hate read.

ways that are in ways that are not really defined.