Welcome to Game Master Monday, the podcast that plays a new one
shot and a new system with a new cast every episode.
I am your I want to say I'm a shepherd of sorts, shepherding
my guests to help create some characters.
Anyways, my name is Supriya and this week we are using Shannon
from Imagine If Media's guided quest to begin your character
story. It's called starting out and my
players are going to start by introducing themselves.
Hello, I'm Fish. I'm Oliver.
The interwebs is Fish Finley. I sing, I draw, I play games.
It's a very fun time. Currently, biggest thing that
I'm on is that I'm on the board for the crit awards.
I also sell art prints. I'm just kind of everywhere.
I'm very excited to be here. Hi, I'm Star, I am a podcaster.
Occasionally you'll find me on an actual play.
My podcast is called Characters Without Stories where I
interview people about characters they haven't had a
chance to play yet, and I'm very excited to play with these two
lovely people. Hello, I'm Farrell Moonbeam.
I mostly live over at the Heart of the Dungeon where I'm a
performer and do the art for the show.
Super excited to be here and play pretend with you guys.
Thank you all. So in starting out, it is, as I
said, a guided quest to begin your character's story and it is
a resource that is meant to help you as you create your
characters, think about the sort of questions that will help you
mold your character into a living, breathing entity that
you put out into the world. It is great for new and
returning players, but I imagine sometimes when you're new and a
resource such as starting out, you might not know where to
start. So we're going to my three
players are going to start with 0 concept and they're going to
basically share with us how they are going to use starting out to
create this character completely from the ground up, starting
with some randomly rolled tables.
So Shannon talks about how a character is made-up of their
head, their heart, their hand, and their hope.
Head being how you think about things, Heart being the emotions
that your character feels, Hand being like the physical body of
your character, and then hope is the outlook that your character
has on the world. And then for these four
different categories, she has given us a table of 1 to 20 to
roll on as examples of how you could create your character.
So I'm going to have each of my players roll 4 * 1 on each of
the each of the tables to create the beginnings for their
character. And then we will together find
out how we can use those small pieces to build a fully fledged
character. Once you roll on your table,
we'll go in the same order as we introduced ourselves and you can
give me what your four ingredients are I.
Think that just accidentally made me.
All right, what did you get for your head, your heart, your
hand, and your hope for? Head I got Scientist, for Heart
I got Intuitive, for hand I got Builder, and for hope I got
something up my sleeve. Oh, very nice.
For head I got perceptive, For heart I got passionate, and for
hand I got muscle, and for hope I got scientist.
For Hope, you got scientist. That's interesting.
It'll be interesting to see how having a scientist for a head
versus scientist for a Hope will change the characters.
Yeah, I'm, I'm excited to see where it goes for.
Head I got astrological for heart animal communicator, for
hand I got farmer and for hope I got go with the flow.
So a couple other things we'll roll on is we'll roll AD 20 to
choose the type of hero out of the list.
And if you're in your game, dear listener, in your game, there
may be a different list of creatures depending.
So you know, if you play your standard D&D, you have your
standard D&D races or even some other races such as like the owl
in or the herring gone in in newer or supplementary
materials. If you play Wander Home, if you
have all of the animals that you can possibly think of as your
choices. So this will change for you
depending on which game you're playing.
But for now, we will roll on the table.
We'll do type of creature and we'll do job too.
I rolled nineteens on both tables, so I'm a mystical
creature and a hunter. Interesting.
So what kind of mystical creature are you thinking?
I'm going to be so real. As soon as I got hunter my
immediate thought was a vampire that hunts vampires like that's
my one of my immediate instinct was.
Yes, yes, we're going to go with immediate instincts.
Perfect. So that narrows down a little
bit what kind of world we're going to be in.
Vampires could be in a bunch of different worlds.
I am a goblin. I am a goblin healer.
Oh, I like that. I had this weird feeling like I
was going to end up being a goblin.
I never play goblin so. I love playing Goblin.
I'm a rabbit that's a librarian. Amazing because I can picture
that already you. Know it sounds like we're doing
high fantasy. Yeah, I think.
I think the universe. Went high fantasy.
Yeah, we're not even going to roll on the four adventure
table. We're just going to go fantasy
and then let's roll for age. So that is AD 6.
The universe sees my vision because I rolled A4 which is
experienced. Perfect.
The universe sees my vision. I rolled one which is child and
I decided I did not want to be a child so I rolled again and I
got You have no idea which I love.
Interesting. We'll have to find out what that
means for how how your life is gone.
Why do you have no idea? I got experienced.
OK, I like. That That's vague.
Yeah, I like that. That's vague as well.
Experienced is going to be what you make of it.
That might be experience for a rabbit.
So who are you? You are curled up in a warm bed,
your eyes are closed and you can hear noises in the distance.
There is a smell in the air and the blankets are wrapped tightly
around your now rested body. So as this character is starting
to shake shape in your mind, the first offering that she gives
you is as you lay sleeping, your mind takes you on a journey.
Is there? Is this a nightmare or a dream?
So I am a vampire of question mark age who seems like they've
been through it. As I'm laying sleeping, think
I'm experiencing a dream where I am kind of reliving a fond
memory of mine where I was just getting to be a person working
in some sort of science lab, doing some sort of experiment on
something. If the details are vague, the
details aren't really important. The point is that I was in an
environment that I was familiar with, in an environment that's
very normal to be in, doing a very normal thing and having a
good time of it. And I think the thing that my
mind focuses on is is the the nostalgia of it and that that's
not an experience I get to have any more.
It sounds like this is a a life that you were living before you
were a vampire, yes? So this might be true.
This may be different based on your your previous self or your
vampire self. Do you do either of them wear
emotions on their sleeve or do you find emotions to be a
distraction? I think they try to not inflict
their emotions upon the people around them because they see it
as a burden to the people around them.
But they don't necessarily. I wouldn't say I wouldn't say
they hide their emotions more so because they're bad at hiding
their emotions rather than them like like, like it's not that
they're not trying to be like, oh, this isn't your problem.
I don't want to. I don't want to make your
problem. They're just bad at not making
it your problem kind of deal. So.
And does that that part of that characteristic?
Is that based on something you rolled or something that you are
adding to your story? That is that is based on
something that I am adding to the story because I I rolled so
I rolled head is scientist heart is intuitive and is builder and
hope is something up my sleeve. And so I think having an element
of trying to be secretive, like trying to be secretive is kind
of in, it's kind of playing off the hope of having something up
my sleeve because like whether or not I'm good at it is, is one
thing, But like, I'm still trying to like kind of con or
plan or like have a secret of some kind.
And then for the, for the heart, being intuitive, I think it's,
it's, it's important. I feel like part of intuition is
being in tune enough with what you're feeling to be able to
figure out what it is that's causing that feeling.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're understanding
your feelings enough to process them fully.
And so I'm kind of combining the two into into like wants to,
wants to be kind of to themselves, wants to be
secretive, but isn't good at it. And so is like, is like in, in
theory, understands, like this stimulus led to this emotion.
This stimulus led to this emotion.
I need to keep this information if I want this to be a thing.
I need to keep this information if I want this to be a secret.
But like, they're not very good at juggling all of those things
at the same time. Do you have an idea of what you
look like? You're probably not looking in a
mirror. No, no, that doesn't really work
super well for me. No, I think, I think I look kind
of out of place. I think the energy is of if you
were to walk down the street in modern day and see someone
wearing like like very steampunky sort of wear, like
it's not necessarily like weird enough that you'd go that's a
weirdo, but it's it's odd enough that you go that person seems
out of their time and that's the aesthetic.
It's very like steam punky but also like.
Like modern, would your character rather focus on the
right here and right now? Let's not worry about dreams.
Or are you more of a dreamer? I want to do a similar thing to
what I did with the feeling emotions and that it's kind of
both in that they, they try to focus on the now because
remembering the past becomes a like, OK, but that's stuff that
I can't deal. I can't do that anymore.
I can't, I don't experience that joy anymore.
I don't have those people in my life anymore.
Like it's, it's almost painful to look at the past.
And so they try to focus on the now and what their next step is
and whatever, but they can't help it.
And so when they dream, they dream about their past.
When they, when they like, experience really strong
feelings, it gives them flashbacks to their past kind of
deal of like, they're not, they're not.
They're trying very hard to focus on now so that they can
forget the past, but it's not working well.
Let's move a little bit to stars.
Do you feel like the character that you're imagining is the
planner, the strategist, the leader, a silent assassin, or
something else? I think I really responded to I,
I really dwelled on the job being healer and like this hope
being scientist thing. So I feel like I'm envisioning a
woman who is very pragmatic because she is a healer.
She has to be like in the moment making decisions.
And I think because she is has no idea how old she is.
She's been around a while. And so I think that she is a
leader. She is the one like in the
triage, like saying you go here, you go here, this person needs
this, that kind of thing. Hey, I love that putting
together the scientist and the healer and you get a leader who
is in your world with you. Definitely all of the people
that she works with on a daily basis.
I imagine her being more of like a war medic than like your
typical neighborhood doctor. So I think like she has a very
tight knit group of people that she works with who maybe don't
always get along, but we always have each other's backs.
I don't think she has like a very like stable monogamous
relationship. Like she's not like really tied
to anybody at the moment. I think there have been people
but but nothing serious. OK.
So a lot more in terms of like where you are while you're
working at a combat medic. That is something that takes a
whole lot of heart and soul to create or to be done.
A lot of dedication. Yeah.
And I think she probably doesn't have a lot of space in her life
set aside for anything that is outside of her work.
Like, you know, if you're a doctor, you might be working
late hours. You, you know, and she needs
somebody who is strong enough to be the person that can deal with
that. And she just hasn't found
anybody like that yet. That is so fair.
And how does she feel about herself?
I think she's very confident, maybe not the best at like
seeing her own faults. She she's like, I know what I'm
doing at all times. I'm always right.
So I think I think, yeah, she's very confident.
She's very, very much like This is who I am, but hasn't done a
lot of introspection. So did that that piece of her
personality, did you draw that from one of the four things that
we that you rolled or is that you adding to her story?
I think it's, it's kind of, you know, I, I went back to
passionate for heart. I think that she is a very
strong advocate for people around her.
I think she is like, you know, wants, you know, she is a combat
medic, but she doesn't want war to happen.
So she is very like passionate, like, why is this happening?
This needs to stop advocating for her patients, being like, a
champion for her friends. And so that's kind of why what
came to mind when I was thinking about, like, who she is and how
she kind of wants to present herself to the world.
Does that answer the questions we could?
Yeah. I think, OK, I kind of forgot it
and lost the train. Oh, that's totally fine.
That's totally fine. How physically strong is she?
If she's weaker, what does she do to make up for those
deficiencies? I mean, she got hand muscles.
So I think she is strong. She is built.
She is used to kind of like dragging things around and
building and just kind of, I think it's hard work what she
does physically as well as mentally.
So I think she's just, she's very muscular.
She's very strong. I like the way that you took the
healer aspect and the muscle aspect and there are some people
who might feel like how the two of the mix, but you have made
the mix into, you know, a truly that is what a combat medic
would need is is both the healing but also the strength in
that kind of situation. So that's really great to put
the that's a really great way to put those two together.
Do you think lately she's been taking time to really be in the
moment? I think it's she's like, I think
in her work she is so constantly in the moment, like she
constantly has something to do, somebody to respond to, somebody
to take care of. There's always somebody that
needs her help. She's in the moment, but her
moment is her job. Like she is single minded.
I think when she is not working, when she is not part of that,
she does not live as much in the moment.
Let us go up to Ferrell. You have just awoken from a
restless sleep. How does the day look like it's
going to proceed? Being a farmer, I generally do
wake up pretty early and I think what season it is would play a
big role in what that morning routine might look like.
But I think that I always start my morning and probably ended my
night last night with looking at the sky.
Being an astrologically minded creature, the way that I work,
not only my farm but my life is kind of in rhythm with the
natural cycles of the sky. And so probably checking for
rain, doing the math, is it time to start planting for something
or we're uproot for a new season?
I think those are all of the equations that pass through
their mind as they're first waking up.
Love that. What do you remember that needs
to be forgotten? I think being a rabbit, the
world is a very dangerous place, but it can be comforting to
forget and also dangerous. And so I think that is a
precarious question for a rabbit to answer.
I do think what should be forgotten though are are the
moments of hopelessness. They were never really true to
begin with, at least not in my case.
Do you find being a farmer to be something you love, or is it
something you can't escape? I think it is a necessity that
has become maybe not a passion, but a way of supporting my
community. I'm also a librarian, in case
you haven't heard, and for a rabbit that is also a
communicator with animals, I'm kind of envisioning that the
farm has become almost like a place of preserving and sharing
information that would support my community and surviving.
So maybe our books are collected seeds and they're arranged with
leaves that match the season they belong in, so you don't
have to read anything special to know which seeds to plant when.
I would love to imagine that we've made our own little rabbit
sundials, and perhaps the farm itself isn't my passion, but the
sharing of information and bringing together that
astrological piece. The cycles that help inform us
of how we can best survive into a tangible way that my community
can actually understand and run with, even long after I'm gone.
I think that's really where my passion is.
How has your body changed since youth and are you working on
changing it even more? I wouldn't say that I'm working
on it on purpose. I was probably a lot more wiry
and lean when I was younger, long before I learned how to
plant my own stuff. We don't really keep time in the
same way in the rabbit communities, but I've definitely
it's gotten thicker with years. My fur has gotten softer, maybe
because I'm not going through briar patches and I'm eating the
right things. I'm not staying out in the sun
too long. Maybe it's not quite as
glamorous or anything. I'm getting a little bit soft,
but I've always been a big fan of being cozy.
What do you need to see more clearly if you step back from
it? What I sometimes need is to step
towards something, always looking at the sky for
instruction on where to move next.
It can be easy to miss the thing that was right in front of you,
and there is something special about going with the flow and
following the seasons, but it can be a little bit dangerous to
just let yourself be swept up and not step into the things
that you can control. So I'm going to step us back for
a moment and talk to the three of you about your process in.
When I asked you those questions and you thought of the answers,
did you find it help you? What did that do for you in
your? Character creation process for
me it's it's it's really helpful in just like having informing
answers to those sorts of questions kind of helps anchor
your like role play of of like how's your character going to
react and insert situation here. And 90% of the struggle when I'm
coming up with characters is just making those smaller
decisions and also like trying to figure out which of those
questions is quote, UN quote important to answer.
Because like when you, when it really boils down to it, every
single character has those. Like when I go to sleep, I had a
dream about like something or I woke up and like, now I have to
take on the day. And like there's, there's
smaller or smaller things that your character goes through on a
day-to-day basis that you may not necessarily be are peeing
out in a game, but is really helpful in in parsing out the
understanding for what your character, what your characters
like thought process is like what their priorities are.
And so for me, answering those questions really does help with
like, sometimes you just need to like pull an answer out of the
hat and then run with it. You don't need to overthink
everything. And so for me, that that's what
that does for me is it keeps me from the decision like
indecision of like, Oh no, what, what would I pick?
What would be true to this character?
And just kind of going, OK, let me just answer this question and
then I'll build the character around whatever this answer ends
up being. That feels so true to me.
You know, some of my characters, some of their greatest, like
things about them that I love come from either a question like
that or, you know, when you're playing in the moment, you know,
someone asks you a question like, how did you get this job?
And oh, the lady who owns the place hit my dad's car and
instead of charging her, he just said give my daughter a job.
And it's not something that you planned beforehand, but it
becomes a part of it. And asking these questions can
help you do that even before you get into the role play.
You mentioned fish that sometimes it's hard to decide
which question you should answer.
Do you have any suggestions like based on this interaction?
Does that give you any ideas of how to approach it in the
future? Yeah, so, so when I, when I,
when I said like, like which questions are important to
answer, I I mean, so more so like in any other like game or
whatever, let's say a billion character for like any other
game, you kind of start with like the what is my what is the
story I want to tell? What, what is the personality
that I want to play? And then it becomes then then I
find difficulty in narrowing down like, OK, I want to play a
standoffish character. What about what, what
specifically about them makes that vibe come across?
And that can get really difficult to like figure out
what is the correct what is what is the thing that I need to
describe that then carries this vibe of character?
And the long and short answer is there isn't like a specific
question to answer. It's just the small, small
things about like, you know, what is the character, when the
character looks up at the stars, what do they think about like,
just like random little things and those little things build up
to a personality. And then if you want to play a
certain kind of vibe of personality, sometimes you just
have to just throw answers at things.
And so this, this, this particular kind of character
building that we just did was super helpful because it, it
just gives you a list of questions that you can start
answering. You don't really need to think
about what is important or not important to answer.
You just answer the things and then as you're going, you start
to get a better idea of like, oh, OK, hang on.
OK, I'm going to play a vampire and it's going to be a vamp.
It's going to be a vampire who hunts vampires who used to be a
scientist and is kind of ashamed of their, of their current
existence. And now we can just kind of run
with that. And now and all that came from
like, hey, they're sleeping. What is their, what are they
dreaming about? Like it's just like little,
little little things can kind of give you those pieces that then
help you figure out what to anchor their personality on.
One thing Ferrell, I noticed is that some of the questions I
asked you, you redirected, you said, you know what?
That question doesn't really speak to me, but a slightly
tweaked version of the question does.
How did that work in your mind? I was actually thinking about
this while Fish was talking about like, even knowing what
the right question is to answer, sometimes there's almost just,
there's almost an instinct that can arise out of being asked the
wrong question. I might not have even realized
that until you asked it. But then hearing it was like,
well, I don't think my character would think about it in that
way. And so it was still a very
valuable question because it prompted me to an answer more
appropriate to my character. But I kind of even think about,
I like to use tarot cards sometimes or even astrology when
I'm creating my characters. And sometimes the wrong answer
leads me to the right answer. Like this card really just
doesn't sit right. But because of it, now I have an
idea that I'm running with and I might not have gotten there
without it. 100% exactly that. Yes, I love that.
It reminds me of like when you're trying to decide between
two things and if you can't decide, flip a coin.
And then your reaction to that coin flip is what tells you what
is the right answer. Star what was your experience
like in answering those questions?
So when I first started playing TTRB GS, I was playing D&D and I
tend to build my characters in response to some sort of detail
in the world or some sort of question that I want to ask.
And so like, what if blah, blah, blah, it was blah, blah, blah,
you know, in D and DI might be like, oh, I want to play a
cleric of this. And I think that would be
interesting. So how do I make that?
But I've been working. I've been more and more, I've
been making characters for games like Liminal Horror or
Mothership, where pick lists are very much like pick lists and
roll tables, and all of those are very much part of the game.
And I think it's something that I struggle with a little bit.
Like I want, I'm like, tell me what the world is and I'll build
around that. So it's interesting to come and
build a character first. I think that pick lists are good
at or role tables are good at giving you two things that maybe
are in opposition or don't really make sense.
And then you figuring out how to make them make sense is
important to building the character.
Like looking at it, I'm like, why is hope a scientist?
You know what it what does it mean to be a goblin healer?
And then, you know, things that may seem opposed or not actually
opposed once you come down to like having flushed it out.
I and I'm also a huge fan of a good prompt, you know,
answering, answering questions that make you think a little bit
more deeply or make you question some of your initial responses
or things that you would kind of just go back to repeatedly you
do again and again in a character.
It's AI think it's a good way of kind of shifting it and making
it more surprising. And what is a type of question
on characters without stories that you might ask one of your
guests to force them to flesh out their character a little bit
more? Well, I think people come to the
show with very different kinds of characters.
A lot of people are coming with like a very detailed character
because they were very excited to play them and they never got
the chance. And so they've kind of like
embellished the character in their mind to the point where
they're, there's not a lot like I'm asking them about their
character, but I'm not asking them to flesh it out because
they're already fleshed out. I think, you know, at the end of
the episode, I always ask something for the player to ask
for the guest to answer something in character as their
player. So I have just a list of
questions. And they can be really
innocuous, you know, like what did you eat last night?
But even that I think can be illuminating when, you know,
sometimes I will ask follow up questions.
And it's that conversation that that helps.
I think that people maybe haven't thought about those
details. And I I love a detail.
These were more kind of expansive and thoughtful
questions, but you've also seen that even more simple questions
can help guide how your character is.
Yeah, I mean, I had an interview just recently where I was
talking to somebody and I think I asked what their favorite food
was, and they said, oh, my mother, Stew.
And so I was like, well, does your mother still make it?
Why is it important to you? Like, is it every time you come
home, you're looking forward to it, or is my mother's gone?
And now this is something I remember her by.
So I think even small details can really help you ask other
questions. I think an important point with
all of these questions is important, quote UN quote bit
isn't answering the question. It's more of like using that
question as an Ave. to gain a better understanding of the
character you're building. And if that means expanding the
question or answering question you weren't asked or using that
as a jumping off point to ask other questions like, it's just
important that you're using that as a as a point to start with
understanding your character better.
Have any of you experienced answering a question and then
when you get another question, realizing that maybe your first
answer wasn't quite what you wanted?
I would say at least for myself, I would rather stay on a
character for a while if given the opportunity, and I very will
very often will go back and change answers, but there is
kind of something to be said for I call it the rule of destiny.
I think it really just depends on what kind of game you want to
play, but both outcomes can be interesting.
I think if I was going to play a character longer term, I would
want to take that time and be more thoughtful.
But you can also like one of the most fun characters I ever had
was AD and D character that I just rolled stats.
I didn't even like sort them myself.
I just rolled. I rolled horribly.
It was one of the worst mechanical builds I've ever I
made, and it was some of the most fun I ever had just making
it up on the fly. So I think you have to know what
kind of game you're trying to play, but I think either has a
place. I'm actually a big fan of the
retcon. So I think that I've built
characters where I had an idea of something and then in the
course of play, I thought it's actually more interesting if it
was this, and I know I wrote this into my back story, but I'm
changing that now, you know, oh, this person actually has this
like deep connection and or they betrayed her and she didn't know
that at the time. Or, you know, and so in this in
the course of play, discovering something about your character's
back story about, you know, you didn't think about it when
you're building the character. I think that's something I
really, really enjoy. I, I, I, I agree with all of you
in that it's like I, I very much am in favor of the retcon when a
story could could be improved by like a detail changing or like
if it gives you something that's more interesting to role play
with. Personally, I, I like to kind of
imagine my character building in the way that like I do a drawing
and that like, first you start with the kind of vibe and the
thumbnail and the basic layout and what are you kind of going
for? And then you build on it with
like the colors and the detail and more colors and more detail
and it starts to refine into the actual picture that you have.
And sometimes you get to the end and you're like, well, that hand
is not where it needs to be and I need to move it completely.
And there's, there's your like retcon, so to speak.
But sometimes you're like, OK, well, I didn't mean for that
hand to be there, but now that it's there, I can add something
else that then makes that look a little more interesting.
Or like I can add this like feature to make the drawing look
more interesting. And in that sort of way, it's
like the answers that I gave weren't necessarily answers that
I was fully committed to when I gave them.
But by the time we make it to the end of the character
building, it's like I've built the environment around that
answer. And now that answer is just,
it's been clarified and it's been, it's been detailed out by
the rest of the character. So what I'm hearing from all of
you is that because this can also happen in play, you can
have made a decision at, you know, in one of the earlier
sessions and then in a later session you think of, oh, this
is a change that is better. And it sounds like you're all
saying that like, especially in a home game, you know, an AP, an
actual play or a stream thing, it's like a little bit of a
different animal. But don't be afraid to like,
say, you know what I said I hated tomatoes.
You know, in session one my character actually loves
tomatoes and. That's OK, that's an OK thing to
change. But it sounds like also having
this chance to ask yourself some of these questions beforehand
before the game starts and answer them gives you something
that you can build off of and then go back and change.
Like, backstories don't have to be static.
Yeah. And you know, something that
makes me think of is, is that a lot of times I'll come up with
answers to questions and then once I get into play, I realize
the ramifications of some of those choices, like.
Oh. My God. 100.
Percent that. This person has never been in
love. What does that mean?
You know, so I think that Oh my God, I made them 16.
That means blah, blah, blah. It's, you know, I think it's fun
to to, you're finally taking those questions to logical
conclusions that really change your ideas.
To expand on that, and I think some things fish that kind of,
we've been to this too. I think there can be a danger in
spending a lot of time writing a really elaborate back story.
I'm sure probably you guys have been in the situation where I
could tell you everything that ever happened to them.
But then the first time I'm asked, like, you know, what do
you like to do for fun on Saturday, I didn't, Well,
actually playing what somebody is like in a moment can be
informed by their back story. But if you haven't really
thought about what that looks like, it you can feel so
prepared and then suddenly realize, like, what is my actual
personality like in real life? And I think that's where some of
my blunders have come, where I've wanted to take things back
was I'd put all my eggs in the wrong basket.
And so then my reaction was maybe not exactly what I wanted
for that character, but also wanting enough flexibility to
kind of have that collaboration with your other players too and
see what that chemistry is going to be.
But the questions do help. They kind of pull you into that
present moment of like, what is my character doing right now?
How would I react to this right now and not just some back
story? To kind of jump off of that, the
way that I typically write back stories for characters is
usually give myself like an anchor trauma, so to speak of
like the big thing in their life.
When you ask like, why are you the way you are?
And they point at that and they go like, that was my anchor
trauma. And then I give myself pockets
of like, stuff happened, stuff happened, more stuff happened
and now we're here. And then I'll play usually like
the first session or first two to three sessions and based on
how the character kind of manifests in the RP in the game
in their interactions, like I'll let that inform the specifics of
all the stuff that happened. Like I'll basically write the
back story in more detail after I've played the character a
little bit. Because I think, I think a lot
of times, like knowing what your character is doing right now can
sometimes be just a tad more important than like what was
that major trauma that happened to them years ago?
It's like, that's, that's great. It's fine and dandy that can
inform how they react now, but how they react now changes
what's happening right now. What I want to do is ask you
all. Have you thought of a name?
My rabbit's name is Cedar. Cedar.
My character's name is Talon. Talon with a Why I like these I
like these. Yeah, I feel like she would have
a name, but she has gone by a nickname so long that she's
almost forgotten it. Like she never uses her given
name. So I think everybody just calls
her grandma. A rapid your door.
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Why? It's me, your producer Grant,
And I'm here in the middle of the episode to tell you about
some of our amazing friends who are making amazing things,
starting with our friends over at Novel Games.
Hola Amiguez. My name is Susan Quintana and I
am the host Game Master major editor of Novel Games, a podcast
where I gather some of my friends and we tell stories
using only indie tabletop role-playing games.
Our episodes are bimonthly and you can find them anywhere you
listen to podcasts. Our current game and story
series is Apocalypse Keys, created by the wonderful Ray
Najati. In this game, my cast acts as
Omen class monsters who are fighting against the darkness
inside of them to save the world from all of the apocalypses that
threaten it. Come listen to Jacob, Amber,
Ashlyn, and Ambrose as they have moments of community, moments of
danger, and moments of fighting against the darkness that lives
inside of all of us. You can find more information
about Novel Games at novelgamespodcast.com, as well
as patreon.com, Novelgames, and social media sites such as
Facebook and Instagram. I very recently fell in love
with Novel Games as a concept. The title is very apropos I must
say because this is a very story driven podcast and if you're a
big fan of the indie scene you need points of view, flowery
description, hanging by the CD your pants type of stuff.
When it comes to the storytelling I have been gripped
by this show. I'm going to have to steal some
of Susan's tricks, the Game Master, because I really love
her shit. Now let me introduce you to an
upcoming project from our good friend Aman HK from the Infinite
Tavern. Allow me to show you God killer.
Kismet, What will you do when the God you're supposed to
believe is eternal is murdered right in front of the whole
world? What happens when the sun of
your planet is broken apart? When you're heaven, hell and
your dreams are in danger of oblivion.
Please please. Starring assist Mary, Paul,
Apollo and Jack as God killers Asman.
And Aman Arsen Thomas, Inspector as gods, what has fate planned
that you dare to ruin? God Killer Kismat is an 8 part
multilingual actual plague using the God Killer RPG Ashcan by
Connie Chow. All episodes contain burnt in
subtitles in English. Streaming every other Sunday
from the 3rd of August, 1:00 PM Eastern Time at passless tables,
followed by video on demand three days later only on Aman
HK's YouTube channel. We'll see you there, zealots.
I have been eagerly awaiting this series since the moment I
learned that it might happen. I got to consult a little bit on
this project, and I got to tell you, you're in for a real
fucking treat. One of the most ambitious ideas
I've ever heard. We're taking five different
languages, for crying out loud, and smashing them all together
to tell one overarching story. It's one thing for you to want
your story to have overarching ambition and tell a huge story
and a huge world, but to make it something, something truly
global like this? God damn, man, I know where I'm
going to be on August 3rd. And buddy, you better be there
too, all right? I've held your attention for
long enough. Let's get back to starting out.
Let us go a little bit into our scenario.
If you all have two D6, we will do a a sort of 2D6 system where
I think it's one to six is a failure, 7 to 9 is a mixed
success, and 10 through 12 is a complete success.
And anytime anything that we've talked about comes into play in
terms of if, for example, star, if grandma is healing somebody,
then take a plus one, take a plus one for a the story, and
then take a plus one for healer being one of your forehead,
hand, hope and heart. We have to imagine a world where
these very different creatures are all together in one place
and, you know, they interact with each other.
There's not like, although fairly, you talked about Cedar
really being with the rabbits. So maybe in this world, maybe
there is like specifically a rabbit colony that you work
with. But you are visiting like the
bigger city that is nearby. Maybe for some sort of market
day, bringing some of your vegetables, some of your surplus
vegetables that didn't go to feed your rabbit community to
the other people in the city that can use the fresh fruits
and vegetables that you can provide.
Grandma is taking care of people in various combat situations,
but it has been a little bit of time of peace.
So a lot of the wounds that you are right now dealing with are
things like a scraped knee or like a broken elbow from someone
falling off a roof. It's been a while since you've
experienced war. Maybe you 2 are joining this
Field festival farmers market. What might you be doing at the
farmers market? I think, you know, like I said,
she's very practical. So I think she's always
prepping. So I think she's like, is there
food? Are there supplies?
Are there things that I can stock my, you know, hospital or
clinic or my house or whatever that are going to help me in the
future? I think maybe she's passionate
about like a certain kind of food, like like she loves like a
good cup of coffee, you know? So it's like also she's like, oh
gosh, if I go to this market, maybe I'll see my favorite
coffee seller and get a really nice cup or something like that.
Talon, can you go out in the sun?
Though I think in this in this world, it's it's, it's more that
she's like really prone to being sunburned, not that he's going
to explode in a fiery 1st of ash.
So does she use an umbrella or how?
Does I think she just I think she dresses very covered up.
I think she's she's got long sleeves, she's got full pants.
She's got like boots that's fully like you can see her face,
but like she's got long hair that like Shields her neck, like
she's just fully covered up. OK.
And what might she be doing in a farmer's market?
I think she's, I think she's scouting out.
She's got, she's, she's got her nose on a potential potential
target, but no real Intel though.
She's just, she's just scouting out, trying to like she's, she's
at the farmer's market trying to dust, kind of see how people
behave with each other. There's very much people
watching as she walks through. OK.
OK, and what is what is something that anyone who looks
at Grandma might clock immediately about her?
I think she always walks with purpose, like she leans forward
while she walks, always walks in a straight line with her, you
know, chin forward and is not, you know, she'll kind of like
she doesn't weave her way through a crowd.
She just walks straight through and expects people to to move
out of the way. But she's tiny.
So. So I think people like maybe
don't see her at first, but then she kind of bowls them over.
And so I think that's what people notice about her is like
her entering their space in a way that's kind of disruptive.
And Cedar, what is something that any passerby might notice
about you? Well, I have a lot of stuff that
I have to bring with me and I'm pretty small.
I'm just like the size of a normal rabbit, even though I can
talk and stuff. And so I actually ride into town
on an emu I have. They have a little hat that they
wear that I sit on so that I can get a good view.
It's a little bit more agile than a horse.
So that's what everyone would notice.
Is this emu packing vegetables with a rabbit sitting on their
head? Perfect.
I love that so much. That's that's the best visual
I've had all day. Do you have a name for the emu?
We're gonna call him Penny. And so you're all there on a
Saturday, Cedar. While you were riding in on
Penny, you may have glanced behind you and seen.
Is it like black clouds? You're not sure.
There is a darkness on the horizon.
It is. It's never a good day when the
sky surprises me, so I definitely slow down and start
to sniff the air to see if I can detect anything.
Give me a roll an 8. There is a smell.
It does not smell exactly how you expect it to.
You are passing fields that have like the aroma of of cinnamon,
there's some Jasmine. You're expecting these, these
kind of heavenly smells of of beautiful flowers and spices,
but there is something else on the air that smells off.
Not enough to make you turn around and head home, but enough
to leave your paws tingling a little bit.
One ear rotates in the direction that that's coming from and just
locks there while I keep going. And you get to the farmers
market. Does Penny help you put out your
wares? Oh yeah, Penny and I are really
good friends. We go way back, they help me
unload from their back. We probably have a specific
spot. We drop off most of it with the
goblins and then whatever we have left, we'll set up a little
booth. OK, perfect.
And so the day is going on Talon it gives me a notice check 3A3.
So nothing, nothing seems odd to you.
In fact, who you are trying to kind of follow or or hunt has
actually just slipped behind you.
We can see a sort of comical like they're creeping out of the
way as you walk forward into into the busy little square
unawares. You know, you know they're
around somewhere, but you don't. You didn't realize that they
just crept behind you. I'm off my game today.
Grandma, how can you make me a notice check?
All right. Can I add perceptive to this?
I feel like that's apropos. That's a 10.
Perfect. The air is getting colder.
It shouldn't be this cold. It is a nice summer's day.
It is the type of cold that seeps into your bones in a way
that feels unnatural. And maybe maybe you've fought
something like this before. Maybe you've been in battles
with whatever this entity is that is coming over the hills,
coming towards this town, and all three of you look up, along
with many of the other people around you as the sky blots out
and there are winged creatures in the sky.
They're howling. They have blue flame flickering
from the tops of their heads, from their horns.
There's a horrible screeching. The darkness has come and you
have to protect. You have to protect the people.
I think I immediately leap into action, like ordering around
people who don't even know me, like, oh, get this person to
safety, get this person inside, you know, make sure that you go
there. I, I think I have a, a friend
with me, somebody who's like on my team.
And so I tell him like, go back to the clinic, you know, make
sure that somebody's there in case somebody gets injured.
And then I'm trying to find some sort of vantage points so I can
see better what's what's happening so I can prepare.
When you're as small as me, a regular old vulture is pretty
scary. I've never seen anything that
big. Being an experienced rabbit, my
first instinct is to just start digging.
I'm paneling into the ground. It is been a long time since
they've had to react on instinct like that, and they may later
regret reacting in that way. But being a rabbit, when the
shadow of wings passes over you, you start digging.
I think it'd be interesting if whatever darkness this is had a
role in Talon's becoming of a vampire.
OK. And so it's like a she hasn't
she hasn't had to deal with that a very long time.
He's basically been dealing with the consequences of that for a
very long time. And so I think her immediate,
she turns over her shoulder to see this kind of encroaching
over the horizon and I think is immediately struck with like,
oh, no, this is bad. Not again.
And then and then kind of has to shake out of it and like, you,
you, the camera kind of zooms in and she watches like, like she
like shakes the worry off of her like rain, like it's there.
It's very present. She's wet, but she's not like,
she's like, this is just can't be the worry right now.
OK, next step. What's the next step?
Oh, someone over there is ushering people to safety.
Maybe I can do a similar thing and kind of joins in to who I
assume is probably grandma ushering people their safety and
trying to be useful, trying to be helpful.
I think she's got, she's got a mask on the lower half of her
face, like a piece of fabric just kind of draped over her
ears. So you can really only see her
eyes and her hair and and nothing on the lower half of her
face. Yeah, yeah, Grandma will fully
accept your help and start ordering you around.
Is this talent something that you're prepared to fight?
I don't think so. I think.
I think she's flying by the seat of her pants.
I think she's going to try to seem like she knows what's
happening. She has no clue.
She just knows it's bad. Cedar is underground right now.
Grandma and Talon are both leading people into safety.
Grandma, you are leading them. You know that a nearby temple
has a a basement where they keep grains and the like when there
is a surplus and you lead them that way.
Do you think it's a temple that you frequent, or is you just
happen to know that it's there? I think I happen to know.
I don't think that grandma is religious.
OK. And Talon, what do you think
you're hurting them towards? I am hurting them towards
wherever grandma tell me to hurt them.
I think is is the vibe I men of I I can't focus on how scared I
am right now. I have to focus on being
helpful. Oh, look, there's someone giving
instructions. Give me an instruction and just
just basically just being hands, extra hands for grandma.
Like that's, that's where my head is at right now.
These creatures that some of you have only heard of in legend,
some of you have battled and some of you have lived a a
result of tangling with them for years.
They start to rain down blue fire on the town.
As you are ushering people into the temple, into the basement of
the temple, a beam comes falling down.
Both of you, please try to avoid this beam for me.
A. Stick. 11.
You see Grandma, You see the beam fall on this person that
you've probably seen before out of the corner of your eyes.
They are striking in their own way and you know that you have
the muscle You you jump out of the way.
They've been helping you. We will see what you do in just
a minute. A cedar You feel the ground
around you start churning. Once Cedar is underground,
they're able to take a breath, relax the initial instinctual
panic, and they are an animal communicator.
And so here, being more in their element, they immediately start
to take in the news. The ground is teeming with life,
there's worms and moles and so many of them have picked up so
much in their little lives. So I'm immediately asking
everybody, do you guys know what's what?
Is that what's coming and start spreading warnings as well out
radiating from this place? Give me a rule for that.
Would it be safe to add 1 for rabbit and one for animal
communicating? Yes.
Absolutely. So I'll make 10. 10 Perfect.
So you are able basically commune with the animal life
around you. The bigger folk, when when they
experience this attack, they're not thinking about the worms and
the moles and the like, but they're affected too by the
coming of the darkness. Some of the earthworms that have
lived for a long time, they've experienced this before the
coming of the darkness and the way it rips up the ground and
throws fire from the sky. And their only advice is to flee
the moles. Take heed.
They are, you know, going back and forth, trying to trying to
avoid these kind of tendrils of a plant that you've never seen
before crawling out of the ground.
You end up in your Burrow. You end up, you feel, you feel
one of these, these tendrils push up into where you are and
continue to take you up until you are now at ground level
again and you see all around you these, these teeming these dark
purple tendrils that have ripped up through the earth well.
I'm a go with the flow kind of creature.
I'm going to let instinct guide me and just bolt in whatever
direction looks the safest. And for me that might mean like
a narrow tunnel, an opening, anything to not be exposed or
towards people. What about Penny?
Penny I think we've always had a strong bond.
I know they're really shy. I would assume they probably
started booking it towards home the second something went wrong.
I'm kind of hoping that the news in the underground is making its
way that direction too. OK, OK, so you are taking off
for a narrow place that will hopefully keep you safe from
this onslaught. I think my instinct was mostly
to warn my community, and now that that has been addressed,
I'm all instinct. Whatever straight shot looks
like, it makes sense. Grandma, what are you doing?
There is a beam falling on Talon.
I go over to Talon and I kind of kneel next to her and I and I
say, what is your name? Talon.
Talon, you're going to be OK, I promise.
And then I will try to lift the beam all.
Right, give me a roll. OK, I think adding muscle to
this makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
So. I don't know, this feels like a
very mind. Time task here.
Wow, OK, that's a 12 tell. Me how this looks?
I think if anybody was watching, they'd wonder how the hell this
tiny goblin is going to live this massive beam.
But like, she just, you know, I think like she's small enough
that she kind of crawls under it and it just like puts her hands
up like muscle man over her head, you know, her muscles
straining and then just kind of shoves it to one side so that
Talon can kind of wiggle away from it.
As you both stand there, you are at the front of the temple.
You were just leading people in and this had fallen and
basically blocked the entrance to the temple.
So you both step back and right when you do, the roof crumbles
and the building collapses. There is blue fire, there is
these purple tendrils coming up. You see buildings falling around
you and you only know to take cover as best you can.
It takes about another 10 minutes of finding a safe place,
and then the darkness passes by. It seems to have done what it
wants to do when it's moving on to its next target, and the
three of you find yourselves as some of the only people who are
left standing after this is all over.
I think it's really interesting that Fish suggested that the
darkness actually is part of what turned turned Talon.
And I think I'm going to take that and incorporate that into
this, that any survivors of an attack by the darkness find
themselves changed not just by like the gravity of what they've
experienced, but also a power within them.
Talon, what is the new power that is blossoming it you?
I think I'm going to I'm going to use this opportunity to
bounce off of one of the one of the one of the roles that we did
because my heart was intuitive. I think it'd be it'd be cool if
if Alan gained almost almost like a like a Spidey sense, but
like for people's emotions, like the people around them, like
like just kind of like a like a oh, shoot, someone seems like
they're having a bad like like kind of empathy, but like less
intense than like I feel their feelings kind of deal.
Yeah, more of a an awareness grandma, what do you think is
the power that's that's coursing through her?
I think that as soon as we felt like we could come out of
hiding, like the entire time we were in hiding, I'm just like
this, just completely tense every muscle, like wanting to
run and knowing, being perceptive enough to know that
she can't run out there, that she if she's going to help, she
can't die. And as soon as the danger
passes, she like runs out thinking this this temple
collapsed. Things are growing out of the
ground. And I LED them there and is
starts just digging like doesn't know what's happening.
And I think as she does that her nails elongate and turn into
like claws for digging. And she, you know, I don't think
she gets very far, but I think that it's like the scrambling
with this like new intense, like the intensity of her feelings,
but also just it's given her tool that she wanted so much in
the moment, but it's nevertheless ineffective.
Initially there's that, like a heightening of senses, and maybe
it's more to do with just the trauma of the moment, seeing
such little life left that Cedar goes and starts digging too, to
help a friend they haven't met yet.
It'll probably be later that they realize they suddenly have
to suck the juice out of vegetables compulsively, but for
now I think they're a little more aware of the surroundings
and a little more in tune to these bigger humanoids that
maybe they wouldn't have been before.
We are going to close on this scene right now as the three of
you stand there, you you've come together you are near the
temple, 2 of you are clawing at the dirt.
Talon can feel the anxiety and goes to join and what we're
going to call this is the beginning of a new adventure
that is going to see Grandma Talon and Cedar, along with the
other few survivors of this attack who have all themselves
gain some sort of power through the being exposed to the air,
tangled with the flame and the tendrils.
And you will start a journey to hopefully end the land of the
darkness. That is where we're going to end
this for now. Do you have any thoughts on the
character building that we did informed how your character
reacted in this in this moment of disaster?
Oh yeah, every bit of it. And for me it was is keep going
back to like that, that dream question of like, what are you
dreaming about? Is it a dreamer nightmare?
And then like how that feels when you wake up out of it.
And like also like, would you be hopeful enough to dream or are
you just kind of living in nightmares?
That question for me was I think my favorite to answer up till
now because it was the one that gave me the biggest idea and
like the biggest anchor for how I wanted to play this character.
And so like the whole the whole stuck between 2 worlds of like
regret but also the now and like the game but also the pride and
like the back and forth that really informed how my character
reacted in the moment of like gared but also motivated like
fearful, anxious but also like riven like what is?
It. For me, it gave me, it gave me
that the avenue of like just just a character of
contradictions. I think it definitely helped me
inform what my character's priorities would be.
Certainly much more inclined towards community than fighting.
And so, yeah, I think it can sometimes be hard to know what
you would do in a moment of crisis, but the way all of us
put our unique skills to use was very much informed by the
questions. OK, so it was a little bit of a
weird scenario, but you know, that's cool.
We can we can dream about the the ongoing adventures of these
three and some of the other survivors.
But I really appreciate you all taking the time to come with me
on this journey of creating characters that have
contradictions, have strengths, have weaknesses, have fears and
hopes. And I hope, dear listener, that
maybe this helps you in your journey of creating amazing
characters to play at the table. Where can we find each of you
fish? Where can we find you?
I'm all over the interwebs as Fish Finley.
I sing, I draw, I play games. I'm on the board for the cred
awards at the moment I am selling prints and my
commissions are open so go check out all of my links and stuff.
My link tree slash my card has all of the info for all of the
things. This has been so much fun.
I'm glad Star, where can we find more of you?
Well, First off, I want to say zoo how I'm pressed.
I am with you leading us through this adventure completely
improvised without a gaming system.
So thank you. Thank you very much for leading
us through this. I can be found everything is a
characters with its withoutstories.com.
So if you click there, you'll get everywhere I am characters
with its without stories, like on all of the social media
except for TikTok, where I am star Mama C and so yeah, that's
that's mostly where you'll find me is is my podcast.
I'm on Hey This right now, but hopefully in the future you'll
get to listen to some news, new episodes.
Awesome. Farrell, please tell us where
can we find more of you? Sure, so you'll find me at
Ferrell Moonbeam on Blue Sky or Ferrell dot Moonbeam on Insta
and Threads. I'm most active on Insta and
Blue Sky, but mostly you'll find me at the heart as a dungeon
podcast. Our current season.
Right now I'm not playing in, but I did do all the art for the
show and it's super cool. But also very much listen to the
content wordings and believe them.
It's a pretty intense show, but it was such an honor to be here.
I'm such a huge fan of Shannon Imaginative, so thank you so
much for inviting me and letting me talk about characters with
you guys. This was super fun.
Yeah. Thank you so much, listeners.
Thank you for giving me this chance, all three of you to to
work with you. You're all three people that I
have really wanted to work with and it's been really cool.
I hope, I hope this helps somebody.
It gives you an idea, and I hope that you tell great stories and
Game Master Monday will be back in two weeks.
Thank you so much.