For Whom the Bell Tolls: Homebrew Collaboration Part 3

justin:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I’m your co-host today, Justin Lewis, here with Tanner Wayland and Rob Van Auken. Go ahead and say hello, guys.

tanner_weyland:

Hey.

rob:

Good evening, everyone.

justin:

And you are joining How to be a Better DM in our mini-series on collaborating for homebrewing a adventure one-shot. And today, we wanted this to be raw and unfiltered, really, just to show you kind of the ins and outs of how to work with other people, the ebb and flow of ideas, and in our case, starting with one idea, refining it and kind of changing trajectory. Today we are going to be… going through our document that we’ve worked on together and kind of simplifying things, clarifying things, and we actually should be coming close to the end after I think we have everything figured out today. We should be able to send out some assignments to each of us, have things written up, and then probably the next time we’ll have our final polishing session, but that might be wrong, so we’ll see. And

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

we are

tanner_weyland:

sounds

justin:

just

tanner_weyland:

great.

justin:

starting at the top of the document. And then one, one. word of advice to all of us, if we can just try and describe whenever we’re like that part there, try and describe for the audio listeners, because I know this, we’re doing it in a visual way, but the audio listener might not be. So.

tanner_weyland:

Okay, perfect. Um, and, uh, just for the listeners, uh, we’ve honestly been working on this for a sec with Rob, but he is just, I just have to say he’s wonderful to work with. And I appreciate that. Just had to throw that out there at the start.

rob:

Aw, thanks fellas.

justin:

Agreed.

rob:

I feel the same way about you guys. You guys are consummate professionals. I appreciate the willingness to work with a newcomer and I’m enjoying myself. And you know, this is hard. This is hard. We’re in two different time zones. Our lives are doing things in different times. So writing is hard to begin with and to collaborate across time zones. At least we have the tools now to do that. But it’s been a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to polishing this thing up.

justin:

Excellent, excellent.

tanner_weyland:

Love it.

justin:

So I figure we would start at the, well, so we have kind of a page that’s above like the actual one shot. Do we need to work on any of that? And that’s kind of some of our thoughts or do we need to just kind of forget about that?

tanner_weyland:

Honestly, I think this is old. Go

justin:

Okay.

tanner_weyland:

ahead Rob.

rob:

So

justin:

Alright.

rob:

this page just outlined our original ideas, our locations, and a couple of reminders for ourselves to do the three pillars and things like that. But yeah, I think this stuff is all. We can next this.

justin:

Sounds good. So then

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, um…

justin:

for the listener, there’s a portion that says theme, setting, three pillars, location, timeline, and then assignments and reminder. I’m going to delete everything above assignments to theme because that is no longer useful. I’ll leave the assignments one there unless we feel like we do need to delete that.

tanner_weyland:

Um, I th-

rob:

We can…

tanner_weyland:

go ahead. Uh,

rob:

After you, Dad.

tanner_weyland:

yeah, I just think- I think we could leave that section. I don’t think- we’re going, I think that we’re going to have to probably modify the assignments as they stand. Cause right now we’re like, Oh, each of us is making two NPC mentors right now. They would be trial givers probably.

justin:

Right.

tanner_weyland:

Um, and then a random NPC just to flesh out the world a little bit more. Um, I don’t know if that’s what we’re going to be doing like next. Cause

justin:

Okay.

tanner_weyland:

cause this time just for the listener, since our last, uh, kind of meeting with Rob, we’ve come up with a lot of ideas. and really solidified the direction of the adventure. And because of that, I think there’s just a lot of fat that we need to trim on the document in general.

justin:

For sure.

rob:

I’m all in favor of keeping the assignments heading but deleting the current assignments so that when we leave here tonight

justin:

Okay.

rob:

we at least can put something up there.

justin:

Yeah, I actually think we can delete the assignments

rob:

Thank you.

justin:

as well now that I think about it. So if you guys want. There’s also on the right, I believe in that section, there were comments on the right, yeah. There’s a comment saying, replacing the mentors, and this is talking about the assignments we’d given ourselves, replacing the mentors with trials or events. I think this entire section we could probably mark resolved because I think this is like, down the line where we start talking about using bells and doing the trials of bells. I think that’s definitely what we’re going for. Yeah. Excellent. Then, under that assignment section, there’s a section that says reminder and then two bullet points for representation and beginner DM suggestions. I believe the beginner DM suggestions were for me and Tanner to create suggestions throughout the doc for new DMs. You can feel free to do the same thing, Rob. I’ll just put that under each of us as an assignment.

rob:

for me.

justin:

Or I guess, sorry, I didn’t mean to take your job, Rob.

rob:

No, no, no. I’m comfortable. Ha ha ha.

justin:

I’m kind of an idiot because I’m like, hey, can someone be the scribe? And then immediately I’m like,

rob:

Yeah.

justin:

oh, all rights. Anyways, sorry.

rob:

Not alone,

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

not

justin:

but

rob:

alone.

justin:

for the representation bullet, I don’t remember what that was for. Do either of you remember what that was for?

rob:

So yeah, I actually added that because for new DM creators, and just for the listeners, where this is coming from is that I’ve taken a couple of courses with professional writing companies to kind of flesh this sort of game style out. And one of the things that… you know, they stress is to reminder for representation. So that just means having a diversity of characters, whether it be racial backgrounds or just backgrounds in general, you know, able-bodied characters and things of that nature and just having a widespread of different NPCs to populate your, you know, your adventure or your game. So I just want to make a mental note for us to kind of just keep that sort of thing in our focus, right? So that, you know, kind of like, you know. wash over everything.

justin:

Very well.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, that’s a really good point. Yeah, especially since we still, I spent some time working on some NPCs, but I didn’t really flesh out like them in depth. More like, oh, these were some of the trial givers. And like, I came up with a name, and obviously they didn’t be related to that trial. But, you know, it’s a great reminder that when you are fleshing out and making more dimensional. three-dimensional characters, you know, don’t just make them all like yourself. It gets

rob:

Yeah, exactly,

tanner_weyland:

boring that

rob:

and

tanner_weyland:

way.

rob:

that’s all that was supposed to be. It was just a visual reminder to do that.

justin:

Sounds good. Cool, so then moving on. The next block of text is the title of the one-shot. Rob, you had put down how to be a better DM presents for whom the bell tolls. And then over to the right, there’s the comment of just an idea. So Tanner, do you think that’s a good thing? Do you have any comments? Or same Rob, do you have any comments?

rob:

I didn’t want to feel like you guys need to oblige you to attach your name to this, but I just thought because I wanted to give you guys the due credit.

justin:

Hahaha

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, it’s not a bad idea. I think with our revised title idea, namely, For Whom the Belt Holes colon, the Chime Fall Ceremony, for that, if we attacked on how to be a better DM, then it does feel a little bit long, but like that’s fine, if necessary, right? I don’t know.

justin:

To be honest,

rob:

again, as it.

justin:

I would… Go ahead, Rob.

rob:

Visually, if that’s a concern, I can, of course, put a catty corner of that. The big

tanner_weyland:

I like to kind of have

rob:

cover

tanner_weyland:

to sit.

rob:

text will say, for whom the bell tolls, the chime falls.

justin:

Right. I actually think we should do title, for whom the bell tolls, colon, the Chime Fall Ceremony, gosh. And then kind of as it is on one of the cover arts that you presented to us, at the bottom how it says, authored by Justin, Rob and Tanner, I think we should have like underneath that say, you know, produced by How to Be a Better DM or something like that. You know.

rob:

I love it. Yeah, that works for

justin:

Rather,

rob:

me. Yeah.

justin:

you know, like let the title be the title. But that’s my personal opinion.

rob:

I

tanner_weyland:

Perfect.

rob:

dig that, I dig that. Things like that, the cosmetic things about where to put, we’ll do a whole round of that before

justin:

for sure.

rob:

we send this off, and we’ll all sign off on the things like that. Speaking

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

of which, I hope you guys like those covers, because I was digging

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

them. Ha ha ha.

justin:

Yeah, they’re sweet.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, honestly, at some point, I don’t know if we want to do this now or at the end or something, we should pull those up and kind of just vote on which

justin:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

style

justin:

yeah,

tanner_weyland:

we like.

justin:

we can…

rob:

Yeah, we’ll

justin:

What

rob:

do

justin:

do you

rob:

that.

justin:

guys

rob:

We’ll

justin:

prefer?

rob:

do that. We’ll re- We

justin:

Gotcha.

rob:

can do that at the end. Yeah, we’ll wrap it up.

justin:

Yeah, sounds good. Tanner, do you want to lead us through like the next two sections, so tips for DMing and setting?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah. Um, so the tips for DMing, uh, basically it was just the idea that since we are about a podcast about how to be a better DM, uh, then we would actually have like. So a lot of adventures will have some general tips about like, oh, for this part, do this and this, but it’s more just what to flesh out what the writer had in mind. What we want to do is have some tips for how they could do it better as a DM, like just in general, like just period, right? And so as far as echoes, I think this section, not a whole lot. to say other than I picture like the tips kind of like being off to the side of each

justin:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

section you know. Like an example would be oh it’s a it’s a social encounter and giving some advice about like how to embody a character and how to draw out quieter characters like things like that right. That’s

rob:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

a great

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

that’s

tanner_weyland:

example.

rob:

a perfect example.

justin:

One

tanner_weyland:

Yeah

justin:

thing

tanner_weyland:

go ahead.

justin:

kind of came to mind just as you were saying that is some of these tips might come to our minds as we actually DM this for a live table, you know, so that might be part of kind of our beta testing. You know, we put together different one shots each of us or something and we see how it goes and we kind of take notes. But that’s something we can decide later as you know, just kind of. Think about that if that’s something you want to do.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

I think that works for the whole idea of this is how to be a better DM. I think those DM tips are clutch for newcomers too because we’re making this very beginner friendly. It’s our hope, I would think, that when we finish this, somebody who’s never played the game of Dungeon & Dragons before or any RPG could pick this up and plop this into a home brew campaign or just say, you know what, I just want to test the waters with this and it’s a one shot, it’s non-committal, it’s built for three, four hours. Let me try this out. But I really don’t know where to start. Like you said, Tanner, it’s a perfect example of the social encounters or maybe a tip on how to manage combat or we’re gonna have these trials that are set up for characters’ ability levels. And originally we were gonna have, I think it was six, and now because of what we’ve been discussing, we might have just an appendix of these different events that we would recommend. Pick three,

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

if you have three characters, or double up on the events. to the number of

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

players that you have. And pick ones that are catered to their ability scores, right? So you’re not sending out a barbarian to do a bard’s work with a bunch of Charisma checks. You know?

justin:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

Exactly. Yeah. And so I think for now, as we talk about this, you too, let’s, let’s make sure that along with, you know, especially as we make more of an outline of the actual adventure, like step by step, that we’d be thinking about that, about these DM tips, and

justin:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

just like kind of make a little like side bullet point for like, oh, DM tip. And then

justin:

now.

tanner_weyland:

for now, before we flesh it out, we can just do like, you know, like a sentence, just kind of getting the gist of it. And then once we’re like really fleshing this out, we can present each of those tips in a, in a more specific or more instructive way. Okay.

justin:

Agreed. You guys wanna read through the setting blurb and see if there’s anything we need to change?

tanner_weyland:

Okay,

rob:

there

tanner_weyland:

I’ll read

rob:

is.

tanner_weyland:

this.

justin:

Hahaha

rob:

This needs to

tanner_weyland:

So,

rob:

be updated.

tanner_weyland:

setting, this encounter can be set in any village or city. In this encounter, the PCs encounter an event hosted by the Regional Adventuring Guild. The Guild is in search of new adventurers, and they have designed a series of trials to test new applicants. This adventure is designed for… four to six level one characters. Players will develop to level two after this encounter. The difficulty can be adjusted at the DM’s discretion. So this was the original thing that we came up with. I think that… We’ve kind of decided it’s not, yeah, it could be in any village or city. You know, we kind of pictured this as a ceremony. Or do we want to make the village or city like Chime Fall? I thought it was just going to be like the Academy name, essentially.

justin:

Yeah. I- Go ahead Rob.

rob:

Well, I was thinking, so location setting, I think, well, I’m really partial to both the two names that you came up with, Jinglefell and Chimefall. Chimefall sounds like a really cool name for the ceremony in Jinglefell, which by the way, I think it’s perfect timing for the holidays. But to have this located in the city of Jinglefell and this be the Chimefall ceremony, I think makes some sense. Now what that would entail is now our task, right? Like how do we fit these trials into the Chime Fall Ceremony? And like right off the bat, what is the Chime Fall Ceremony? Why are they having it? What does it do? Is this a once a year thing? Is this a once in a decade thing? I’m intrigued. I wanna know more. There’s a little bit of lore building to this, I think, but I don’t wanna go too crazy down that rabbit hole cause I will. Right? But I think for the setting, if we say this can be set in any village or city, this encounter is… uh… posted by this the city of jinglesville with the event of the child also said by the city of jinglesville i think is enough to kind of just kept our the planted

justin:

Yeah, I would

rob:

are

justin:

add,

rob:

you guys

justin:

go ahead, in the wording I would say this encounter can be set in any region in the city of Jinglefell. So basically if you’re a DM, you can add this city anywhere, you know, and kind of flavor it to the region. Or, well, maybe we could put in a note like as a DM tip like hey, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to call it Jinglefell. You could just make it any city. Like this could happen in Waterdeep in like one of the neighborhoods or something.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, one thing I like about this, so I noticed one of you highlighted this, I think it was Rob, but the regional adventurer in Guild. So there’s that option. there’s also the option that we go a little bit more high level or I don’t know if high level is the word for it but we basically make it a little bit more specific and have it be like hey this academy in the city or maybe just this city like has a tradition of like creating or choosing through trials like certain people who become like a like a recognized as a like a warrior or guardian or something like we could call them bell wardens or something i don’t know

justin:

That’s cool.

rob:

You

tanner_weyland:

but

justin:

Like city

rob:

got the

justin:

champions.

rob:

gold man,

justin:

So

rob:

you got

justin:

like for

rob:

the

justin:

the

rob:

gold.

justin:

next year, you’re kind of like, you’re like chartered to champion the city and kind of be it’s like Iron Man, I guess.

rob:

in my… so I had this idea of the adventuring deal. We started with like an academic kind of academy. And then I came upon the artwork for the cover, which I’m excited to share with the viewers on your stream later. But that image of that figure kind of struck me as monk-like in some way, shape, or form. And I almost want to say that this is like a holy event. That these sort of bell monks or these chime warriors of some kind… are hosting this event to maybe elect, like you said, these bell wardens who are going to be these champions who kind of defend this religion or this order through the upcoming year or calendar year in some way shape or form. And there’s a little bit of intrigue here, a little bit of mystery. I

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

imagine some of these bells are enchanted or magical and that figure is very striking on the cover and I don’t know, she sparked a lot of ideas for me. I don’t know, what do you guys feel about that idea, making this sort of like a religious intertwining,

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

right?

justin:

I would say we mix the whole adventuring guild or academy and just make it like the city is putting on the festival because they do it every year. It’s like Christmas essentially, but they do it in conjunction with their spiritual leader, which is this monk organization, you know, and it’s supposed to be kind of a jubilant type. especially with like chimes and bells, that’d be really easy to be like, we have this tradition of every year on this date, we ring this bell that we only ring once a year and it’s beautiful and it’s supposed to signify the end of winter and the beginning, you know, or something, I don’t

rob:

Yeah,

justin:

know.

rob:

yeah, no,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

you gotta write this down as you go. This is gold.

justin:

Hahaha!

tanner_weyland:

So yeah, one

rob:

I’m gonna

tanner_weyland:

idea

rob:

take.

tanner_weyland:

that I had, especially when Rob brought up the idea of like monks, like I started thinking of the Shaolin monks, you know, how it’s like, hey, it’s like, it is a religious thing, but then like they take the protection aspect very seriously, that’s why, you know, they learned martial arts. And then I randomly thought of Shaolin showdown, the TV show when I was a kid, and how they like

justin:

familiar.

tanner_weyland:

had. You probably remember if you saw it but on that show there were basically like these magical objects that each of them like had a trial essentially attached in order to earn them or something right now we don’t need a Now we could go that angle where it’s like hey, this is a yearly or you know What it would probably be even more like we should go big So let’s say that this is like hey every decade or every 50 years, you know some big number So that like the people and also side note this should be a level one characters.

rob:

No, I was the

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

next thing to go.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, but I think that it should be like, hey, they are seeking people. And it’s like these monks, and we don’t have to like stick with the Eastern thing, because that’s like a little overblown. But similar idea of like, hey, these monks kind of watch this Abbey or this holy place in the center of jingle fell. And and every like and they have these guardians of these bells. But then when the guardians like fall or perish or whatever else, maybe like every cycle of time like 50 years or whatever, new guardians are chosen. And it’s the kind of thing where

rob:

They

tanner_weyland:

the

rob:

need

tanner_weyland:

monks

rob:

to be

tanner_weyland:

themselves

rob:

replaced.

tanner_weyland:

can’t choose it. It’s kind of like the bells have to choose, right? And that’s why the ceremony is happening. um is like kind of like the wand chooses the wizard but it’s the

justin:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

bell right kind of deal

rob:

Right.

justin:

I specifically love the idea of like, tying it to magical artifacts, because it incentivizes anyone to be like, yeah, I definitely wanna join that trial, and we could make it so, you know, if you wanted to put this into a campaign, you could easily. I would say with the items, we just make it so, like, we let the DM choose their effects, or we give effects for them, but we say that, like, the city can contact you through the item, letting you know that there’s trouble at the Abbey or something like that, so you can still go do other things and then come back.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

nailed it because that’s what was going through my head was what if I’m a player and I don’t want to join this monastery and I think that the trials you know have to have I think the bells have to be incorporated into everything because I think there’s just so many cool ideas that we were thrown out so I just I love that but yeah there’s some kind of magical attunement to a bell that you can still go out adventuring with your party or your guild but if you hear the bell you know, you are beckoned or summoned back to the monastery in some way. Maybe it opens a portal or maybe you just hear it and you, you know, you’re kind of compelled, maybe even against your will, uh, to come back to the monastery. You know, maybe there’s a curse bell somewhere hidden among the prizes. Um, there’s a whole variety of things that we can do. Again, we could just put that out there to the DMS and then just make an appendix of suggestions, uh, for the DM to use. I like that idea that they’re not then indoctrinated into this monastery where they have to like sit and be quiet. But

justin:

Ha ha

rob:

again, I like the go big idea, Tanner, too. I think maybe like a score. Because nobody uses a score. We used decades, we used 50 years, but maybe every score the city has this festival to replace the monks or the guardians that have passed away, the turnover, so to speak. And that’s what all the trials are for. I’m loving this. This is just flying for me now.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I had a couple

justin:

Uh,

tanner_weyland:

ideas.

justin:

go ahead Tanner.

tanner_weyland:

Go ahead, are you sure? Because

justin:

Yeah, you

tanner_weyland:

I’ve

justin:

first.

tanner_weyland:

got ideas, okay.

justin:

I know and I want to hear them.

tanner_weyland:

So, first off, I think, yeah, it should be something where it’s like, hey, the monks themselves don’t, like they may facilitate the trials, but like the bell itself has to be the kind of choosing factor, right? And I like the idea, since we had the idea of these six, these six bells, or six trials, why can there be six bells in each of them? kind of has a cooler name for the ability that’s like tied to it. So like the one of dexterity could like be the bell of wind or something, right? Something like that. Um, which kind of opens up a few interesting ideas. Like one, it opens up the idea of like, uh, that like we could, and this was a random idea the other day, it would be cool to find like, uh, like make a little like sound. not SoundCloud, but like a little sound thing, you know, like file with like, and each bell has its own distinct sound, right? Like depending on like, you know, if it’s faster, it’s like more like Jingle Bell style. If it’s strength could be like just single like boom, you know. But I think that’d be a nice setting thing. I also had the idea, you know how we were talking about bad actors, kind of mingled in the trial, as in they kind of want that power for themselves, but they know they can’t just barge in and take it, so they have to participate? What if we made it like… It’d be really cool if like your party, however many trials they do, if it’s three or four or whatever, right? Obviously they win or they should, you know? But then what if like two of the other bells, you know, the jerks that you started the trials with and who went to other things, turns out they got it and they’re the bad actors. So they have these other bell powers. So it could be

rob:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

kind of like cool, cool

rob:

it’s a nice

tanner_weyland:

thing going

rob:

follow-up

tanner_weyland:

on there.

rob:

adventure for the DM

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

if they want to like, you know, kind of recover those. In fact, now that you mentioned it, if we stick to this idea of like six, and we chose six originally because of, you know, the six ability scores that we were gonna design the trials around. I still like that idea, but maybe there’s like 10 or 12 bells in all, but only six of them are up for grabs. Maybe there’s still six guardians that are available, or maybe like four bells are just so overpowering that nobody gets to choose those bells, and they’re just kind of like put. you know, like the rocks in the Temple of Doom. They just had their plates and nobody touches the four holy bells because those are the, you know, the earth shatterer and the demon summoner and the, you know, the Tarasque. You know, the collar. You know?

tanner_weyland:

I- I like that for a few reasons. One, it means that, you know, regardless of how many players you have, there’s like space for them, you know? As in like, hey, maybe this isn’t like in every number of years, but like every time that there’s more, like within time period, all the guardians who have fallen or left or whatever else, their bells need to be replaced. And just so happens that this like cycle, Or if there’s like, you know more players that and then if a player doesn’t get a bell, right? Then like these kind of overpowered bells that nobody really gets that could be a fun thing or it’s like Oh, the DM has the options like oh during the fight with the bad guys or whatever else The one of the super powerful bells like resonates with one of the players who didn’t win Because they were pure of heart or something. I don’t know but

rob:

Yeah.

justin:

Another thing

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

we

tanner_weyland:

go ahead

justin:

could do to maybe like simplify it so that way there’s like not, it’s not like tied to a specific timetable. We could just say the bells like they tone like randomly to the monks saying we need more champions. Like we need to recruit because this next period is going to be a time of upheaval and you know and terrible omens or something like I don’t know.

tanner_weyland:

That’s a good call.

rob:

the bell of open sight.

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

And I also love this idea for, I’m gonna throw two more reasons into the hat. One, there’s this opportunity for discovery because the bells will seem kind of straightforward, you know, the bell of the wind, the bell of. the Dragon Call, whatever. But maybe the players discover some unknown features. Like if you play a song with certain chimes or you play them in a certain order, there are different effects or boons or curses that might happen to the party should they start to kind of unlock this. And maybe as a bonus on the way out of this event, the abbot, the bell pope, for lack

justin:

Yeah

rob:

of a better word, tells them that there’s the lost bell or there’s the lost sheet music. very, this could go on, you can see the possibilities here.

justin:

Yeah, definitely. I do feel the need to rein us in.

tanner_weyland:

course.

justin:

That’s the problem with working with creatives. Thanks.

rob:

Yeah

justin:

So let’s keep going on this specific paragraph before we kind of move on. One thing I did think we should change is we should change it from four to six to just three to four, especially if we’re trying to keep it to like three hours. I think that would,

rob:

Let’s just say four. Just drop an

justin:

yeah.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

adventure design for

tanner_weyland:

yeah, that’s safe.

rob:

four or fewer. Want to say four or fewer?

justin:

Yeah, that’ll work.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, that works.

justin:

Okay, series of trials. The guild here. Uh, let’s change this specific phrase to Oh. Maybe the Chimefall Monastery? Excellent. So for the listeners, Robert has just typed in, the Chimefall Monastery hosts the ceremony of choosing every score a year to replace its bell wardens, colon, mighty warriors attuned to the bells.

rob:

of

justin:

He’s still

rob:

monasteries

justin:

typing.

rob:

holy bells.

justin:

monasteries holy bells. Exactly. Excellent. So that now says, the Chimefall Monastery hosts the ceremony of choosing every score year to replace its bell wardens, colon, mighty warriors attuned to the monasteries, holy bells and empowered by them. And then it continues to say, this adventure is designed for four or fewer level five characters. Players will develop to level two after this encounter. I’ll just delete that.

tanner_weyland:

Kim.

justin:

and then the difficulty can be adjusted to the DM’s discretion, I think that is good.

rob:

Awesome.

justin:

Excellent. Next section, the background. It has

rob:

Yeah.

justin:

three versions, and I’m pretty sure none of them are what we just talked about.

rob:

Yeah, we can mix this in its entirety,

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

and I’ll put something out this week with you guys, and we can comment that up this week.

tanner_weyland:

Perfect.

justin:

Gotcha.

rob:

But

justin:

So.

rob:

it’ll be a lot of what we just talked about. I think that’s really cool.

justin:

Perfect.

tanner_weyland:

basically,

rob:

Little bit

tanner_weyland:

yeah.

rob:

of lore.

justin:

Then there is a Table 1. The following table provides suggestions for the DM to help craft the encounter. And those are just reasons for the Academy’s losses.

tanner_weyland:

Oh

justin:

I think that also is nixed. And then Table 2 is stroking,

rob:

already gone

justin:

stricken through, so that’s totally fine.

rob:

redacted

tanner_weyland:

I know.

justin:

Cool. All right. Encounter Start. Here are some suggestions about how to start this encounter. The PCs arrive at a local village or city to discover what appears to be a festival. I think we can change that to just be arrive at Jingle Fell. to just exactly what appears to be a, so the PCs arrive at JingleFell to discover what appears to be a festival. An interaction with an NPC, consult NPC interaction table, reveals that the festival is in actuality a recruitment.

rob:

And we’re going to say a, oh, I guess you can kind of keep recruitment. And

justin:

Yeah, we can say recruitment.

rob:

actually a recruitment for the whole evening. for the region. I’ll

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

just

justin:

I’d

rob:

leave

justin:

say the

rob:

it at

justin:

region.

rob:

that.

justin:

I’ve been watching a lot of Expedition Unknown and I just watched an episode where they went to Tibet and they looked at like, they were looking for Shangri-La. So this is like totally in my mind. I’m like loving this Chime-Fell monastery. This is like super cool. So that says now, the PCs arrive at Jinglefell to discover what appears to be a festival. An interaction with an NPC, Consult NPC Interactions Table, reveals that the festival is in actuality a recruitment for the Holy Order of Chimefell, the monastery for the region. Then the PCs have seen flyers about the festival and have embarked to investigate. Yeah, I think flyers. And then the next is the PCs have anticipated this festival. and are eagerly looking forward to applying. That works for me.

tanner_weyland:

Nice.

justin:

Entering the village slash city. Upon entering the setting for this encounter, read or paraphrase the following. Even on the outskirts of town, you spot pennants, ribbons, and beautifully colored lights indicating a general sense of celebration and wonder. That works for me. Children run through the streets, chasing each other, and delicious smells seem to pull toward the center of town. After navigating the streets, you finally enter the city’s central square, where countless booths and tents are set up. Various voices yell, trying to entice travelers and townsfolk alike to try their wares, middle of their games. At the center of the square, right next to the statue of the city’s founder, where there’s an enormous tent, it has two open doors with small lines going into each. Above the tent you see a beautiful pennant with these words, calligraphed in bold letters for whom the bell tolls. Okay. I think we could probably get rid of the enormous tent.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, and in

rob:

We’ll

tanner_weyland:

terms

rob:

make this

tanner_weyland:

of description,

rob:

instead of

tanner_weyland:

a lot of

justin:

Go

tanner_weyland:

bells.

justin:

ahead.

tanner_weyland:

Like we need to talk

justin:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

about,

justin:

that’s true.

tanner_weyland:

you know, like, oh, you hear instead of various

rob:

Kids are

tanner_weyland:

voices

rob:

playing with

tanner_weyland:

yelling,

rob:

toy bells.

tanner_weyland:

yes, exactly.

justin:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

Just put a sheen

justin:

maybe something

tanner_weyland:

of bell

rob:

So.

justin:

like,

tanner_weyland:

around it.

justin:

here, let’s see. Even on the outskirts of Chinese, what pennants, ribbons, and beautifully colored lights indicating a general sense of celebration and wonder. More, oops, more than

rob:

More

justin:

anything

rob:

cowbell.

justin:

else, you hear the sound, the sonorous noise of bells twinkling. in the air.

rob:

like both sonorous ringing of

justin:

Oh

rob:

bells

justin:

perfect,

rob:

or chime

justin:

ringing.

rob:

of

justin:

I

rob:

bells.

justin:

like that way better.

rob:

Yeah, I like

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

sonorous, good use of the word there.

justin:

uh, chasing each other in delicious. Yeah. I think we might want to get rid of the smells. Maybe something like they chase each other, trying to steal each other’s bells.

rob:

Yeah, like a touch football. They’ve got bells tied to their ribbons

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

on their waists.

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

Who could…

justin:

Yeah, I like that. That actually sounds like really fun.

rob:

Yeah, which kid can end up with the most jingle bells by the end of the day is

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

the king of the hill kind of thing.

justin:

Actually, that’s like a pretty cool game, because the more bells you acquire, the louder you’d be.

rob:

Yeah,

justin:

So you’d basically

rob:

right.

justin:

be bigger target on your back.

rob:

The big noise in

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

town, right? That sounds like that might be a trial, right? Like the fight

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

pit idea from the original one. Like every time you beat a guy, you collect his bells.

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

And you enter the ring and this guy’s got 15 bells already on the day.

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

And

justin:

yeah.

rob:

if you beat

justin:

Or

rob:

him, you’re the

justin:

that

rob:

big…

justin:

could be the trial of wind where you have to like steal bells and like steal the most of them, you know?

rob:

In my mind’s eye, I have the dexterity one, being a blind monk who’s got one solitary jingle bell hanging on a staff, and your goal

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

is to sneak up on him and steal it. You know?

justin:

I love that.

rob:

And there’s a lot of dexterity roles. And maybe he’s, we’ll just go big, right? He’s standing on top of, it’s like the League of Shadows with the Batman scene. They’re all

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

on top of severed

justin:

The

rob:

logs.

justin:

poles.

rob:

And you

justin:

Yep.

rob:

know. Yeah. You know.

justin:

That’s amazing.

rob:

He’s blindfolded, you know.

justin:

Yeah, and

rob:

Go

justin:

then

rob:

big

justin:

you could

rob:

on them.

justin:

do, then for a different trial, I don’t know what this would be, maybe it would be like strength or like constitution. It’d be like the trial of stillness, and you’re surrounded by monks, and like they’re blindfolded, but like if you move at all, like and the bell jingles, they like reach out and like hit you or something.

rob:

Yes, actually now I want to go back to the other one with the original idea here with the Dexterity one. You’re wearing jingle bells and he’s got like a big, like a big old bell and

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

your goal is to ring that bell and he hears you coming a mile away.

justin:

Ah, that’s great.

rob:

You gotta be quiet.

justin:

That is such a good one, yeah. So Tanner made some adjustments to that, so we’ll read it now. Even on the outskirts of town, you spot pendants, ribbons, and beautifully colored lights indicating a general sense of celebration and wonder. More than anything else, you hear the sonorous ringing of bells twinkling in the air. That’s a nice, I like the twinkling. Children run through the streets, bells jingling from their clothes and hair. A small group of children chase each other, grasping bells and laughing as they run away. After navigating the streets, you finally enter the city’s central square where countless booths and tents are set up. Various voices yell, trying to entice travelers and townspeople alike to try their wares, vittles, or games. At the center of the square, right next to the statue of the city’s founder, maybe we should change that to something about like, like Jinglefell themselves, you know?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I had the thought as we were reading it I think at the center of town should be the monastery

justin:

Duh.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, cuz

rob:

big

tanner_weyland:

like

rob:

bell tower with a monster bell.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, it could be that. Like it could be, you know, I had a few different ideas. One idea, do you guys remember the movie Kung Fu Panda?

justin:

Yes.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, so you know how when he’s like going to see, you know, he like has to climb all those stairs, right? To get to like the actual monastery Um, I thought that could be fun like uh, and then like on the stairs They have a social encounter with Essentially their rival in the trials, you know, the jerk Kids or warriors or whatever else, you know? It’s not like an encounter encounter, but like they’re just meeting them and you know learning like oh This is the Malfoy of the situation, right?

rob:

It’s

justin:

And

rob:

a bit,

justin:

those

rob:

it’s

justin:

would

rob:

a bit, it’s

justin:

be

rob:

a bit.

justin:

like the bad actors.

tanner_weyland:

Yes, you wouldn’t know it now. We just think that they were jerks,

justin:

Gotcha.

tanner_weyland:

but then later. I don’t know, what do

rob:

Now

tanner_weyland:

you guys think?

rob:

this is just the individual monastery or this is like the entire city of Jinglefell is up the stairs.

tanner_weyland:

I feel like this is just the monastery. So you’re like going through the city of Jinglefell. Maybe we get a little bit more description about that. But then like, but then in the center of town is where like essentially the mountain begins and there’s some stairs leading up. But that was just an idea though.

rob:

I’m gonna throw in a nod here. For you listeners out there, I’m an English teacher and I’m reading Edgar Allen Poe for the Halloween season and I’m gonna steal this phrase from Poe. A castellated abbey. So it’s an abbey, it’s a monastery that at one point had been a castle that had been converted. So now it was a castle and now it’s a converted monastery. So I’m thinking like up these stairs, it’s almost castle-like, except for this enormous bell tower that’s been erected and I don’t know, we’ll call it just for the sake of this guy, the Father Bell. The Father Bell hangs there and it’s enormity, right? And it’s got some magical wording that, you know, if someone were to hit it with a gong of some kind, it would, you know, monster from the area, protect, you know, maybe there’s something, maybe they want to steal the clapper from the father bell so it can never be rung.

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

I don’t know.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin:

I really

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

like

tanner_weyland:

I’d like

justin:

the

tanner_weyland:

that.

justin:

idea of like a castle turned into a religious spot because that also can like, you know, for any of the M or us, we could write it into the lore that might be why these bad actors are here specifically, because they used like, their organization used to own the castle or something, and then it got taken from them. It kind of just gives us some options if we want to do that.

tanner_weyland:

It also makes it easy for, I don’t know if we talked about this, we’re not doing maps for this, are we? Or are we like creating maps for this? I wasn’t sure.

justin:

I don’t see why we wouldn’t, I mean we can, but I think those will be like other details once we kind of get the one shot itself down.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I was wondering because I was like if we do make it a castle like just in general and if we didn’t provide maps Then that makes it easy for someone else because there’s a billion castle maps

justin:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

out there. Anyway, sorry go ahead rob

rob:

My hope was to provide a bird’s eye view of the whole fair, not a floor by floor of

justin:

Right.

rob:

the castle. And

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

maybe if we have a showdown scene, I am partial to a battle map just for the final showdown. I can’t do 17 maps for

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

each trial.

tanner_weyland:

Evet, aynen.

rob:

You know, maps take me a while, and all

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

I do is bookstores.

justin:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

Exactly.

justin:

That’s funny.

tanner_weyland:

Okay, that’s perfect. Yeah, so in many ways then I think Just having yeah castellated Abbey or monastery

justin:

Yeah, I like that.

tanner_weyland:

That’s perfect, that’s great

justin:

Um, on that blurb that we were working on, I turned red the section. I think we should change, um,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin:

probably to mean something else. Um, if you guys want, we can work on that now or we can continue on and whoever wants to can kind of like comment on that section, adding what they think we should. Do it, whatever you prefer.

tanner_weyland:

Maybe we

rob:

street.

tanner_weyland:

maybe we

justin:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

move on for now

justin:

Gotcha.

tanner_weyland:

because I feel like we are fairly certain What we want to do there we know that like hey, they’re going through this town gonna see a lot of bell imagery And

justin:

Gotcha.

tanner_weyland:

then we’re gonna see this Castle turned monastery and then we’ll need some description about that like for monks

justin:

Gotcha.

tanner_weyland:

Like doing like bell related things slash monk related

justin:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

things, right? Um, but I think we could move past that. Um, do we

justin:

Good

tanner_weyland:

want

justin:

point.

tanner_weyland:

to jump right into the trials after like they entered the village?

justin:

I think that would be smart. I think it would be good for us to kind of figure out. Go ahead, Rob.

rob:

So here’s what my vote is for this section, right? Because I can easily fall down the rabbit hole trying to describe all these cool ideas like we did. I think we should rapid fire, just throw out the name of the bell, and then later try and come up with the trial that might inspire

tanner_weyland:

that name.

rob:

the name of that bell.

justin:

Gotcha.

rob:

Your thoughts on this one? Almost like a little game.

justin:

I like it.

rob:

And I am okay if we come up with as many Bell names as we can. We could always just make like I said an appendix for trials and an appendix

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

for Bells and let the DM choose whatever he wants as long as they’ve got like the hard part kind of done for them they can have fun kind of just picking and choosing what we run through right now.

justin:

Yeah. Tanner, at that spot, go ahead and put in a table with three columns, and then we’ll

tanner_weyland:

Okay.

justin:

just fill in like… Well,

tanner_weyland:

Okay.

justin:

actually no just put in the names this will be easier because then

rob:

Yeah,

justin:

we don’t

rob:

we’ll

justin:

have

rob:

just

justin:

to keep

rob:

go

justin:

yeah

rob:

with them right now.

justin:

Trial of silence

tanner_weyland:

I’ll put in a table but just

rob:

Oh, we’re doing

tanner_weyland:

two

rob:

them.

tanner_weyland:

columns and then we can just add

justin:

Well,

tanner_weyland:

as necessary.

justin:

because, yeah, I just don’t want us to have to add a bunch here and there, you know?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, smart, smart.

justin:

I’m also

rob:

So we’ll do

justin:

going

rob:

bells

justin:

to

rob:

and trials.

justin:

delete the section of the other trials. Like

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

I’d put

tanner_weyland:

that’s

justin:

down,

tanner_weyland:

fine.

justin:

well, yeah.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, let’s just, I think we’ll be going pretty much from scratch there.

justin:

Yeah, I’ll just delete the trials of constitution and trial of wisdom that I did below. I’ll just delete those.

tanner_weyland:

Okay.

rob:

So, and I think maybe we should just like put a small time limit on ourselves here. Like,

justin:

Yeah, we have

rob:

five

justin:

about

rob:

minutes.

justin:

eight minutes left. Oh

rob:

Let’s

justin:

wait,

rob:

do.

justin:

sorry. You were saying the bells, like

rob:

Right.

justin:

the master bells,

tanner_weyland:

like the

justin:

right?

tanner_weyland:

name, like the bells that are the magical ones, we just come up with the names,

justin:

Gotcha.

tanner_weyland:

throw them out. If there’s overlap,

justin:

Gotcha.

tanner_weyland:

we’ll choose between

rob:

So

tanner_weyland:

them, but.

rob:

let’s just say for argument’s sake, the bell of a dragon song, right? I have no idea what

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

that is, and I’m gonna have

justin:

sure.

rob:

a good time coming up with a trial and the description of that bell.

justin:

dig it, winter’s bell.

rob:

Love it, my daughter’s middle name is Winter.

justin:

Oh, that’s a beautiful middle name. And then you also put down the joyful bell

tanner_weyland:

I

justin:

tenor.

tanner_weyland:

put down the Joyful Bell, yeah, I thought that was a… It just sounded fun and would

justin:

I

tanner_weyland:

be

justin:

like

tanner_weyland:

great

justin:

it.

tanner_weyland:

for a charisma based

justin:

Yes,

tanner_weyland:

character.

justin:

yes. The bell of forbidding is also another one that Rob put down. And then the

rob:

wrong

justin:

bell

rob:

summit.

justin:

of defense.

rob:

or the bell of shielding.

justin:

the bell of shielding, the bell of lost souls,

tanner_weyland:

last

rob:

Nice.

tanner_weyland:

song.

justin:

the bell of drinking and good chimes.

tanner_weyland:

But Lost Souls is good too.

rob:

Hahaha

tanner_weyland:

And good child, I love it. I love good pump.

justin:

I couldn’t resist. The starlight bell, because it

rob:

digging

justin:

also

rob:

it.

justin:

twinkles.

tanner_weyland:

Twinkle

justin:

The bell

tanner_weyland:

twinkle little

justin:

of… Bell of light and dark, that’s good.

tanner_weyland:

Got a good yin yang

justin:

We could

tanner_weyland:

going

justin:

just put

tanner_weyland:

on

justin:

down

tanner_weyland:

there.

justin:

the bell of wisdom, because, you know. Also the bell of nobel. Not noble, but you know what I mean, like.

rob:

I love it though, that’s a nice little…

tanner_weyland:

uh, the sufferers bell?

justin:

Hmm.

rob:

I like it.

tanner_weyland:

That could be

rob:

I’m

tanner_weyland:

an endurance

justin:

Oh,

rob:

gonna throw

tanner_weyland:

kind of thing.

rob:

a bit of sorrow.

tanner_weyland:

Kuh.

justin:

I like that.

tanner_weyland:

Constitution.

justin:

Also the supplicant’s bell.

rob:

on here to go. The sufferer’s bell. and the supplicant spell.

justin:

Yeah, supplicant spell. For like, poor people or something. the bell of sustenance, the bell of reason. bell of alacrity.

rob:

These are

justin:

the

rob:

all…

justin:

bell of fortitude.

rob:

I feel like I could make a hundred of these in a heartbeat. I can’t.

justin:

Yeah, seriously.

rob:

But 20

justin:

Let’s

rob:

is

justin:

see.

rob:

a good number to start with.

justin:

Yeah, yeah.

rob:

20 is a solid number to start with. D20 makes a lot of sense. We can go back and change this later if we’d like.

justin:

Dig

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin:

it.

rob:

If anybody wants to throw the name of a trial out by all means,

justin:

The

rob:

they’re…

justin:

Trial of Hosts. That could either be like a fighting trial or a trial of being super polite, either one.

rob:

Right.

justin:

Trial of Silence also.

rob:

Thank you.

tanner_weyland:

I think the trial of endurance. But the

justin:

trial

tanner_weyland:

prob-

justin:

of judgment.

tanner_weyland:

Trial of judgment, that’s good.

rob:

Literally a

justin:

which

rob:

trial.

justin:

is kind of like a plan exactly. It’s just you just being a judge.

tanner_weyland:

I think the trial of joy or performance, either one.

rob:

Aww.

tanner_weyland:

Jubilation, good call.

justin:

the trial of Dignity, that song, nevermind.

rob:

We can change it and throw it out there. We could always

justin:

You

rob:

fix

justin:

could

rob:

what’s

justin:

do

rob:

broken.

justin:

the trial of rhythm.

tanner_weyland:

um

rob:

Um.

tanner_weyland:

the unending chime or something like that

justin:

Lunchtime.

rob:

Infinity Chime.

tanner_weyland:

Lunch jam.

rob:

Lunch Chime.

justin:

You have to cook for a bunch of fat sumos. It’s a dexterity

rob:

But

justin:

trial.

rob:

until they tap out by hitting the bell,

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

they’ve had enough.

justin:

exactly.

rob:

It’s like the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. They just ding

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

ding, I’m done. Or like the hot ones, the hot wing contest.

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

Those are fun.

tanner_weyland:

Lunch

rob:

These are

tanner_weyland:

chime,

rob:

a lot of fun.

tanner_weyland:

dinner

rob:

Lunch

tanner_weyland:

chime,

rob:

time.

tanner_weyland:

taco chime.

rob:

Bedchime,

justin:

Dish-time.

rob:

I mean…

justin:

Taco-time!

rob:

hahahaha

justin:

Oh, heavens to Betsy. Uh,

rob:

Playchime,

justin:

let’s see.

rob:

you know.

tanner_weyland:

Play time.

justin:

Play-time.

tanner_weyland:

Play time is over.

rob:

Which I am.

justin:

Play-time is over.

rob:

These are all solid ideas here. And again, you know, I don’t know how much we want to bang our heads against the table trying to come up with descriptions of all these, or just provide this, you know, and let the DM do what the DMs do.

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

It’s kind of a, you know, my bread and butter is the random table, obviously, with my counters, but this is fun. These are fun. Like my mind is… racing with, what do I do for the trial of the wind? What do I do for the trial of jubilation?

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

And what is the prize for that? What will the bell look like? Which one of these bells above is the prize for the trial of rhythm?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

That’s a good point. So,

tanner_weyland:

I, God,

justin:

go ahead Tanner.

tanner_weyland:

I was just thinking like, I think our next step and I don’t think we do it now. Since we’re just about done here. I think whichever way works best for you for me, I’m probably going to go by bell by bell. And like just like, put an idea, you know, little bullet point of an idea of what kind of trial is associated with that name to me, right?

rob:

Awesome.

tanner_weyland:

That’s probably like, because I think that works better for me than coming up with a trial with a cool name, because I’m like, oh, then I gotta mesh them.

justin:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

But that’s just me, right?

justin:

So one thing I do think we need to talk about is do we want to like identify what the trials are? Um, or do we want to leave that up to the DM? Like Rob said, um, what do you guys think?

rob:

What would that entail? So like give a description of the trial host?

justin:

Yeah, give a description, kind of tell how the DM would run that, what the person gets from it. Basically, make it so to like run, because the way I imagine it is like section one or phase one of the encounter, you know, there’s one, two, three, phase one, they come, they meet the person that says that this thing’s going on, then they do this trial, and that signals the end of phase one, right?

rob:

Yeah.

justin:

So ideally this would be able to allow the DM to

tanner_weyland:

pretty

justin:

roll

tanner_weyland:

quick.

justin:

a D12, pick a trial that exists, and then run that with someone, or run three or four of these, and then phase one is complete, right? So,

tanner_weyland:

Kim.

justin:

go ahead.

rob:

I think that’s a great idea. We could also, strangely enough, come full circle and just say, let’s write six of them and then give the random table of just the names in case they wanted to substitute things in and out.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

Kind of like model for them what a full trial looks like and then let

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

them just kind of make their own.

tanner_weyland:

I like that. And we could just honestly what we could come up with is enough trials like in their descriptions so that so that they have a good starting point, right? And that could be six, that could be 10, could be 12, you know, just enough for a role, right? And then be like, hey, as far as the names, you know. Have fun. Here are some ideas that way or create your own trial kind of thing. And then that would be a great place for a tip, a DM tip, when it comes to creating trials. It’s like, hey, when coming up with an activity, blah, you know, something like that.

justin:

In that case, I suggest each of us, okay, I’m gonna put this up in our assignments. I suggest each of us create one completely new trial, not attached to any of the names, and then create a completely new bell, not attached to the name. Each trial should have one NPC that is kind of running the trial. And… That way we have three set ones, and then we come up with a damn tip of saying, go ahead and create your own trial based on what we’ve done. And also you can use these names if you want.

tanner_weyland:

Okay,

rob:

So let

tanner_weyland:

so,

rob:

me just recap.

tanner_weyland:

yeah, go ahead, please.

rob:

we are going to write a trial, a trial and a trial description, and I guess implied in that’s like the mechanic for the trial,

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

an NPC

justin:

yeah, exactly.

rob:

to host that trial, and then the magical bell or the bell item at the end.

justin:

Yes. So the bell that you would receive from winning that trial. And that

rob:

Love

justin:

bell

rob:

it.

justin:

doesn’t have to be like a bell, it can be like an axe that is a bell

rob:

Right,

justin:

or, you

rob:

yeah,

justin:

know.

rob:

right, yeah. Oh, I definitely think we should get creative with what qualifies as a bell. I have some more art that I will send you guys that did a lot of inspiration for me.

justin:

I love it.

rob:

I was hitting a wall there and I needed to get something and I just,

justin:

Ha ha ha.

rob:

I went crazy with it, so I’ll send you a ton of stuff.

justin:

Excellent.

rob:

And if…

tanner_weyland:

So we’re doing that, we’re doing a trial, each of us come up with a trial, a description, the description slash mechanics for it, and then what bell you get. So that’s going to be three, and if you guys wanna do another one, like feel free, I think I might end up

justin:

For

tanner_weyland:

doing

justin:

sure.

tanner_weyland:

two or three, just if I have a good

justin:

Totally

tanner_weyland:

idea, I’ll

justin:

fine.

tanner_weyland:

put it down, otherwise I’m not gonna put it down.

justin:

Right, and to be clear, when I say like create a bell, I mean, you name it, you describe it, you also describe what it gives to the player, like

rob:

Mm-hmm.

justin:

the

rob:

A

justin:

whole

rob:

full item.

justin:

shebang, yeah. Yeah, cool. And excellent, I think that those are good assignments for each of us, pretty clear, and that should allow us to then progress into phase two on the next time we record, and hopefully that’s phase two, and then we do phase three, and then we’re done.

rob:

Now, did you want me, very briefly, for anyone who might be watching this livestream

justin:

Yes.

rob:

when this airs, to show the bells, to show

justin:

Yes,

rob:

the

tanner_weyland:

Let’s

rob:

cover

justin:

go

tanner_weyland:

do

rob:

work?

justin:

ahead.

tanner_weyland:

it.

rob:

All right, so let me see if I, let me stop sharing here and see if I can get this going for a second.

justin:

Yes, and for those of you who are listening, if you check out the Instagram, we will put these up on the Instagram when this is live. So don’t you worry. And we’ll try and describe it here, but obviously you won’t get the good visual cues that we are, and you know what I mean.

rob:

So here is our sneak peek of the four possible covers for our adventure here. So this is… To describe for the listeners, this has got this sort of ripped page top that if you’ve taken a look at any of my work before, I’ve kind of got that kind of ripped page going at the top of my cover page with the title, For Whom the Bell Tolls, an original 5e adventure shot. And on the foreground here is a mysterious looking female warrior with a holy lit hand in front of these three enormous bells, followed by the DM’s logo and of course our names. And on the second image here, it’s the same image, but it’s a full cover without the rip, which is very D&D, right? Like D&D does the full cover photo images. I haven’t done one before, but looking at it now, it looks pretty good, fellas. And then the last two images, again, it’s the same image. This one is without the female warrior. Again, it’s a lit bell, golden bell, very big. It looks like it could be anywhere between six feet and 15 feet tall, depending on your perspective. In gold, and then the last one is, again, the same image, but this time it’s got this sort of red over tone to it. This monstrous, monastery bell. I love them all.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

I don’t know which one I like best. We’ll have

tanner_weyland:

uh…

rob:

our

tanner_weyland:

justin

rob:

own little vote. We’ll do this behind

tanner_weyland:

yet

rob:

the scenes.

tanner_weyland:

justin what’s your opinion on this

justin:

I honestly think we should maybe let the listeners choose once we get to that point.

rob:

Woo.

justin:

I think that would be fun to

tanner_weyland:

What?

justin:

do.

tanner_weyland:

Just kidding. Yeah, that’s a great idea.

rob:

Feel

justin:

What a

rob:

free

justin:

political

rob:

to submit your

justin:

answer, right?

rob:

bells too guys, right? And to the listeners,

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

submit your bell names and take some artwork

justin:

that

rob:

too.

justin:

would be dope.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin:

That would be super dope.

rob:

That’d be cool.

justin:

Yeah, well, I think that’s everything for tonight. Thanks for being here, Tanner and Rob and myself. But listener, I sincerely hope you are getting as much out of this as we are. Hopefully this has inspired you to reach out to some of your players and friends and say, hey, you wanna do some sort of project together because for one, it’s just really fun. You get to talk to people and they say things that open up your mind to new creative possibilities and then you say things and it’s kind of just this. Comic or not Comic-Cos it’s like the cyclone thing but anyways, thank you guys for being here Rob Tana if you guys want to say anything go ahead

rob:

Ding dong. No,

justin:

Hahaha

rob:

thank

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

you guys for having me. This is always a blast. I love collaborating with you both. Looking forward to putting this piece out hopefully as soon as we can and really just putting our own little spin on it.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, same. Like honestly, I think it’s been such a good time. I think we’re really like picking up steam, you know, really making some good momentum here. It’s almost like you could say that play chime is over.

rob:

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

justin:

Uh,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin:

exactly.

tanner_weyland:

Ha ha ha.

justin:

Exactly, exactly. It’s the end of the chime. No, that was terrible. That one was way bad. But anyways,

tanner_weyland:

Our

justin:

thank

tanner_weyland:

time

justin:

you for

tanner_weyland:

is

rob:

It’s

justin:

being

tanner_weyland:

up.

rob:

bedshyme.

justin:

here, listener.

rob:

If

justin:

It’s bed

rob:

you’re

justin:

chime,

rob:

on the East

justin:

that’s

rob:

Coast,

justin:

a better

rob:

it’s bedshyme.

justin:

one.

tanner_weyland:

Bed-Shine.

rob:

It’s bedchyme. Ha ha ha.

justin:

That’s for sure, that’s for sure. As always, we’re gonna be back next week with another amazing episode from How to Be a Better DM. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.