toystory — Transcription

We talk about what you got to prep, uh, and how you're going to run it at the table to make a session that actually feels like the thing that you're trying to, uh, to nail.

This month.

We have a little bit of a throwback, a little bit of a nostalgia kick, something that I have rewatched recently.

Jords, I think you will agree that you have got a friend in me.

This month we are doing Toy Story.

And I have got opinions about this.

The reason I picked Toy Story is pretty, it lets us do a couple of things, and we have a very long list of types of stories that we want to talk about, and Toy Story.

lets us talk about more than one of them.

So it's really an efficiency thing.

for us to get through a couple of topics in one go.

Since this is usually your Baliwick, Jords, do you want to give us the like 62nd recap of what Toy Story is about?

Not because I don't think anyone in the audience has heard it.

You are not allowed to see them move.

Yeah, look, I think you touched on a couple of important things there, and so there's 22 things that have been on our list for a while that I have wanted to talk about.

Toy Story lets us talk about both of them.

And the 2nd one is the prison break.

So if you look at it kind of structurally, every Toy Story movie is not at its heart, but at its shape, because I think at its heart it's something else, but in its shape, it is a prison break, right?

So Toy Story one, Buzz and Woody get stuck in Sid's house, Toy Story 2.

They get kidnapped by Al from Al's Toy Barn and they are trying to be rescued from the outside, even though Woody's vacillates between wanting to go and not wanting to go.

And Toy Story 3 is, I think, this is the one that I watched most recently.

And Toy Story 3 doesn't even try to hide it, right?

Like it's explicitly, they get sent to a daycare, they get donated.

There are like guard towers with searchlights and roving patrols, and they get like locked in toy baskets.

Um, and I think my favourite example of this from the movies is the seedy crime den slash club slash poker night, uh, that is inside the illuminated sign on top of a vending machine, uh, in the daycare in Toy Story 3.

And that to me is like, that is the perfect example of how you are, should be, like, the kind of thing you should be looking to do when you're doing your prep for your setting, right?

So we're talking like, again, really big picture here.

This is like thinking about your setting, where is it going to be?

Is it going to be in a house?

Is it going to be in a daycare?

Is it a school?

Whatever.

It's some everyday scenario.

But much like you get in games like Mouse Ritter, where the players are playing mice and their sort of objects are these everyday objects that become wondrous and kind of mystical because they're so big, you kind of get to do the same thing here, slightly bigger, I think the toys are slightly bigger than mice, but like you get to play in the same kind of space here.

And so I think this is a really great invitation to come up with some really cool actionable environments, some really cool set pieces that let you look at things that are really every day and make them strange and epic and gigantic and wonderful.

Like that becomes a whole logistical exercise to get that into place.

Yeah, there's a, an invitation there to like really have some fun with your settings and to go and look around and and stick your like phone camera into some spaces and and do some describing of things that are around you.

Like, I am 100% sure that that scene happened because someone at Pixar was in their Toy Story headspace and was like getting something from the vending machine and how to look at this, you know, glowing sign at the top and they're like, I wonder what's behind there and stuck a, stuck a camera behind there, had a look around and like turned that into a setting from a movie.

Like, I think this is a really good opportunity to set it somewhere that is familiar, right?

So your players are gonna have, they're gonna know what you're talking about.

It's not it's not like fantasy land where you're going to have to explain what, you know, a dragon's den look looks like.

They already know that like probably a way out of the vending machine is through the like the slot uh at the bottom, right?

They probably already know that they could knock out the power by kicking the plug out of the world, right?

There's a, there's a, a, Ocean's 11 style like multi-part heist with multiple moving parts and multiple like bits of the scheme that have to go exactly right just to like ring the doorbell and get someone to open the door so that, so that Woody can get out.

I think you're exactly right.

I think if you're not looking at, like, yes, not just what interesting, like, affordances can this environment off of it.

Also, like what are the challenges if you are only a couple of inches tall?

Um, and it is.

It's things like doors and cars and crossing the street, right?

Yeah, so the nobody can say you think is fascinating because it sits above whatever mission and interests and plans that toys might have.

everyone seems to agree.

You are not allowed to be seen by humans.

Animals don't seem to count.

I think as a game master.

I had a bit of a think about this yesterday.

I'm like, where does this fit in?

Because the obvious go to is, ah, a human comes in and everyone has to roll a stealth check to hide.

It is less of a, uh, in in universe.

It seems to be less of a like, you should not.

It's not a societal law.

It's more of a law of physics, like you may not.

I can only think of that bit at the end where Woody like freaks out Sid and we actually, I don't know that we see it used again in the franchise.

If you look at how this is used in the movies, it's a pacing tool, right?

Whatever issue is at hand has to be resolved by the time that person walks in because then everyone drops, right?

So it's things like Andy's mum walks in, everyone has to play dead, and then at the end of it, Buzz is gone, right?

Like it's, it's things like that.

It's your way as a director to force the issue, to result, like force a resolution to whatever's currently being discussed, and it is your way as a game master to do the same thing, right?

I think this is your as a game master.

This is your go-to kick is like a person is coming.

Everyone gets, you know, one action as we go into like freezing and what is it going to be? and that is when you have your dramatic.

I kick buzz out the window.

I jump into the bag of things that's being donated and no one can stop me because now we're frozen, right?

Like, it's that it's that kind of stuff that moves the plot along.

And it's also, I think, I think you want to be pretty light on how you do this.

Probably only as you're kind of instigating action after your kind of intro scene, but it is your opportunity as the game master to be like, okay, now things are starting.

They all leave, and Woody's been left behind and like, and now we pick up and everything has changed, right?

Like, Woody is now the broken toys on the broken toy shelf with Wheezy. Like, you get to come in as the game master only a few times per game.

Only really, I think, and if you look at the movies, it's kind of the same thing.

They come in and they instigate and then you get to do that as a DM, you get to come in and instigate and then walk away.

I think you can kind of join the dots from the other 2 to this one, right?

You've got these small people in a world that is not designed for them, that is in many ways prohibitive, like doors are a huge challenge.

Roads are a huge challenge Any environment is difficult to traverse, right?

which makes escaping or moving anywhere, but in particular escaping, it makes escaping a challenge.

And then you have omnipotent beings that can literally pick you up and put you in a new context and put you in an environment that you can't get out of.

I've deliberately avoided talking about Toy Story 4 because I didn't really enjoy it.

We don't know.

Yeah, this is, this is now a horror game, and like, I would absolutely play that.

But then the Toy Story 4 like aspect of it as well, which is like, oh, as soon as you put eyes on a spork and play with it, it is declared a toy and thus becomes sentient.

And it's like, okay, well, now we're just walking around like animating everything and that's not also not what this story is about.

And it is just such a simple setup to say, hey, you have been lost.

You have been donated.

You have been stolen by the kid next door.

You have been bought by a collector.

And it's a great opportunity to retraumatize your players.

Like what happens if you are, you go around the time and you're like, okay, who lost a toy?

What was the most traumatic time you lost a toy?

It's like, oh, I left my favourite thing on a, on a man, there's, there's 2 that come to mind and one of them is much more horrifying.

We're gonna like go deep into my psyche now.

Um, one of them was that I left my stuffed rabbit on top of the heater.

Yeah, I don't remember how we solved that.

But the other one is I left the same rabbit on a plane.

And I think after it, so maybe we fixed it.

I don't know.

We left the rabbit, we must have we must have patched it up somehow.

I left the rabbit on the plane and they were like, oh, okay, because my parents were clued in that this was the favourite toy.

They had a spare of the same toy.

And so they just, they were like, hey, look, your rabbit's gone, but we've got, and it was a different colour, but I didn't care because I was a little kid.

Like, oh, it's just like Chef Kiss.

Um, and sometimes you have like other toys trying to rescue you, sometimes you have other toys trying to oppose you, so you've got some like, some little, little teamworky factiony things at play at play there.

But yeah, it is essentially a like breakout of one place breakback into another place and like deal with what that.

So speaking of speaking of tugging at heartstrings and unresolved childhood trauma and harvesting players, experiences and that like familiar nostalgia, right, for for, um, you know, the good stuff at the table, for table content.

Um, you said you were thinking about this much more from a, uh, I guess heart and soul kind of view.

Yeah, I mean, they're literally features, right?

Well, no, Link is interesting because he's got, he's loyal, like the dog, but he's also literally, but, I guess, also metaphorically flexible.

Like, but then also, it's really useful, it turns out to have a player who can just stretch or a character can just stretch.

And so he becomes like, and they use that all the time they are not.

It's not like a James Bond situation where there's, you know, each gadget gets used only once.

And I just, I can't think of any that I wouldn't enjoy seeing.

I'm like, even the, you know, the etcher sketch, right?

I'm like, what a, the way etch is used in the shows is, is that they're a quick draw.

They are really good at like visualising things at capturing information.

absolutely a player who can like see something and immediately memorise it and sketch it out visually for the other players to refer to, so good as a like gimmick for your character, also presents such a fun weakness where like as soon as they get shaken, the information is gone.

Like, it sounds like a dumb toy to be, but you could make it work and have so much fun with it, I think.

Oh, absolutely.

And it's like everyone, and this is, I think, when we get to like the Pixar of it all, right?

because it has been, the stuff we've talked about so far has been like a little bit mechanical, a little bit gamey, but that, like, this is the meat of why people love these movies, and I think if you don't have it, you are just playing toy soldiers.

Like it is change.

You were right, it is like coming to terms with the, you know, the status quo that has changed.

It is coming to terms with your, like, changes in your identity and your purpose, like what is the purpose of a toy, what is the purpose of a favourite toy?

Is it to always be there or is it to move on and be someone else's favourite?

Like, what does it mean to be around forever?

Does it mean being loved and played with until you break or does it mean being preserved and enjoyed from afar?

I think, I think Toy Story 3 does a really good job at, like, not invalidating that, that conflicted path when we see the daycare in the, the after times.

as also what drives...

Um, absolutely get some toys out.

Like you'd be, I think you'd be so dumb not to.

I think you'd be so dumb not to be like, everyone bring a toy.

we're gonna do a Toy Story game like bring who you're gonna play. and maybe that's one of their own from their childhood.

Maybe that's one of their own, or like they go to a, an op shop or something and pick up a, like something that looks interesting.

And like, what a cool chance to like actually play with toys as part of the game.

And look, if you wanted to go real hard on it, I think.

You can't follow this too far to its natural conclusion because it becomes a, it becomes a lap where you're like hiding buzz on top of the bookshelf, like in your house and you're just running around like idiots, and that could be its own kind of fun, but I don't think it's necessarily what we're trying to do here.

But like absolutely bring toys to the table.

Like everyone knows how it, because we are presumably playing this game as adults and no longer are playing with toys in the same way.

Like, we all have that sense of what it is to have your relationship with toys change.

That is a super accessible thing that you can draw on.

Um, and I like that.

You're not broken at all.

It's like, no, he's not table legal if he's not fully painted.

You can't participate.

Oh man.

You don't have to use all of them.

That doesn't mean you have to assign each one a scene or something that happens there, but if they do happen to try to escape out the window.

It's like, I actually took a photo of a window from a toys POV.

I think one of those as an opener is actually great, great fun because it doesn't need to make sense.

you're literally just, you're playing with the toys.

So yeah, I think I think prep wise it is super easy.

I think it's you prep and inciting incident, you prep some, like, interesting and.

No, but there are some tools that I think I want as a game master, mechanics wise, that whatever system we do this in, there's some things that I want to be able to have at my disposal, um, or to have my players have at their disposal, um, because having rules for how to do things makes them easier to do.

So fate actually has a very classic list of like skills.

Like they're things like athletics and burglary and like drive a vehicle and, you know, shoot.

So rather than doing having like burglary and, you know, athletics, you've got how you approach the problem, which is careful, clever, flashy, forceful, quick, or sneaky, which I love because it also, like, much more, I think, than saying, oh, well, this character has a high stealth skill.

What does that tell you about them?

Well, we can kind of figure out what

This actually gives you something much more chunky to role play, which is like, how am I approaching this problem?

How do I like to approach problems? And the system kind of encourages you to approach things in the way that is best for your character because you've got that really good Ludo narrative resonance where like what is most in character for you is also what you are mechanically best at.

So it's like, if you are a very careful character, you are going to do best if you take a careful approach if you get to roll careful and set things up so that you get to roll your careful.

So I think fate accelerated is the way to go, because again, the skills are too diverse.

It doesn't make any sense to be talking about Woody's athletics versus like a buzzers shoot, like nonsensical.

But we can talk about like Woody's careful over buzzers, you know, flashy, right?

Like that, that makes much more sense as a way to talk about these characters.

There's a couple of other tools in the fake toolbox that I really like.

So I think aspects, so the way fate has you create.

encourages you to create relationships with other characters.

So some of your aspects will be about your relationship with another character at the table.

So you have your kind of core identity and then you have a, um, usually some kind of flaw and then you will have like relationships with with the people to either side of you.

And I think that's a really cool way to start to have relationships in the game.

grow as a character.

You've got your aspects, which is more specific.

I'm this kind of toy.

have these kinds of relationships.

Then you have your stunts.

Stunts are a really good fit for that, like, toy features space where it's like, it's something quite mechanically specific that's maybe only situationally applicable, um, and that you're going to try to activate as much as you can through the game because you only, you only have one, maybe 2 of them.

Look, without going through the whole, because we could talk about, I could talk about fate all day.

But I think the last thing that's a really good fit is consequences.

Uh, so that's tweaked some thoughts.

I have I have 2 ones that I want to just ask you about real briefly.

The 1st one is, how would you feel about doing it in something powered by the apocalypse?

I am I will freely admit I am not up to designing one like I don't have the chops.

No, yeah, you're exactly right.

Just so it's on record, I also probably wouldn't bother in 5A.

If you're a Mad Keen 5E head.

What you can do is, I think, borrow some of the stuff from this and run a really good honey, I shrunk the kids.

You could get a similar kind of vibe just by like shrinking your players, having them plucked out of whatever and having their task to be, you know, getting back home.

And I think you can hit a lot of the same beats, but I don't think you can make them toys.

I think it just becomes a you've been shrunk story.

But you can, like, you know, you can still have loads of fun with your environments.

What you want them to have is the lesser known spell full with style.

Cool.

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