Homebrew Collaboration with Rob Van Auken Part 1

justin_lewis:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I’m one of your hosts today, Justin Lewis, and I’m here with Rob and Tanner Wayland. And I’ll let Rob introduce himself in a second, but let me first tell you, the listener, about today’s episode. So if you’re new here, we are here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. And today, we’re actually gonna dive into the world of homebrew creations. Specifically, we’re going to show you kind of the start to finish, hopefully start to finish. We might split this episode up into two episodes, but the start to finish process of creating something, but also the start to finish process of collaborating with someone else in creating something, because being a DM can be somewhat lonely and it’s very taxing if it is lonely. So when you team up with other people like Rob, you can make it easier for everyone. But also, it’s just fun to connect and be cool with people. So. Rob, if you want to introduce yourself and then we can hop into what we’re doing today. Oh, you’re

rob:

Hello

justin_lewis:

muted.

rob:

there, hi, sorry

justin_lewis:

There

rob:

about

justin_lewis:

you

rob:

that.

justin_lewis:

are.

tanner_weyland:

You’re good.

rob:

My name is Rob Van Auchen, and I write and publish a lot of stuff under DM Robrick. I’m just happy to be here with you guys. I’ve played with both of you in your one shots, and I’m a frequent listener, and I’m looking forward to this. Should be a lot of fun.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, yeah. And listener, if you wanna catch one of Rob’s published encounters, you can go to betterdungeonmaster.com slash Robrick and purchase it, it’s an awesome encounter called the Lorecraft Collection, did I get that right?

rob:

That’s

justin_lewis:

The Lorecraft,

rob:

correct.

justin_lewis:

yes, yeah. So go ahead and publish that, all the proceeds go right to Rob, cause he’s an awesome DM. But today, like I said, we’re going to work on home brewing and We haven’t prepared anything specifically to show you, you know, the ups and downs, the ins and outs and the exciting and boring parts of homebrew creation. So I have shared a document with all three of us. First of all, did either of you have any specific ideas on anything you wanted to create together?

rob:

I’m game for just about anything, but I thought I would put that question right back to you folks. I don’t know the scale and scope of what you guys were thinking, but we can go anywhere from, you know, a fun random table to a one-page encounter to a several-page, you know, one-shot kind of adventure in a box kind of thing, if that’s what you guys are looking for.

justin_lewis:

Sure. Tanner, any specific way you’re leaning?

tanner_weyland:

Ooh, man, I’ve been thinking about this as well, because I think, I mean, it’d be cool to do a one-shot, but that is, you know, it takes a good amount of planning.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

So. I think we’d come up

rob:

Nope.

tanner_weyland:

with… Oh, go ahead.

rob:

No, no pressure.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

No

tanner_weyland:

I

rob:

pressure.

tanner_weyland:

know, right? I’m thinking that maybe we just figure out, like just how, huh, like how long

rob:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

we want it to last, and then essentially just go work backwards from there, come up with a

justin_lewis:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

cool premise, move

justin_lewis:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

from, I don’t know,

rob:

So,

tanner_weyland:

that sound good? [“Spring Day”]

rob:

absolutely, to date, I don’t wanna call it my area of expertise, because I’m still fledgling in the field here,

justin_lewis:

I’m going to go ahead and turn it off.

rob:

but I have created encounters that are circled around the three pillars, right? Exploration, combat, and social. And my goal with each of these encounters is to kind of put a little randomized table that could possibly lead crafty DMs down other avenues to kind of expand the encounter itself. So it’s kind of like an encounter in a box with these sort of like little tendrils that allow DMs and players to kind of pick up things and maybe decide, oh, you know what? That was kind of an interesting little tidbit. Maybe I’ll follow that idea and

justin_lewis:

Excellent.

rob:

let it grow. I don’t wanna keep anybody, any DMs in a cage here.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, I love that. Let’s do an encounter then. What were

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

you saying, Tanner?

tanner_weyland:

maybe an encounter. What if we just had like, we created like a kind of a little mini one shot with just one of each of those three pillars, you know,

justin_lewis:

Got

tanner_weyland:

some

justin_lewis:

it.

tanner_weyland:

exploration, some combat and some social, and then go from there.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Um, and listener, we probably won’t get all to all of this today because creating a one shot can be rather long. So we’re probably going to split this episode up. Uh, so, uh, yeah, stay tuned. But first, um, let me just write down, I’ll be the, I’ll be the notes keeper, I guess, unless one of you is better at it because I’m not super great at giving

rob:

I’m

justin_lewis:

notes.

rob:

happy to

justin_lewis:

Okay.

rob:

help.

tanner_weyland:

Nope.

rob:

Happy to help however I can. Ha ha.

justin_lewis:

All right. So homebrew. I wish I could spell home brew creation. shot.

rob:

While you’re typing, I’ll put this idea to you both here. What is the flavor that you would like to capture? Are we going epic fantasy? Are we going squash buckling pirates? Are we going sort of for frivolous? I had the opportunity, I believe Tanner, you were the dungeon master for, it’s kind of like a Halloween, almost like a Halloween theme. We, when we played, we had entered that kind of sort of creepy haunted pumpkin patch.

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

and there was a pumpkin headed villain. So, you know, October is coming up. So something like that might be kind of cool, like a campy kind of holiday themed.

justin_lewis:

I like

rob:

We

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

can go, I know Spelljammer just came out. We can go, you know, D&D in outer space,

tanner_weyland:

No.

rob:

home rune outer space.

justin_lewis:

No, yeah. I like those ideas. I think we should definitely either do Halloween-themed one, Christmas-themed one, because Christmas is also coming up, and or Thanksgiving or a mix of the three. One other thought I did have is because I specifically want this one-shot to be very useful for anyone to play, specifically the introductory DMs. So if we could create a one-shot that And, you know, like Tanner said, it touches on the adventure, the exploration, sorry, not adventure, so the exploration, the combat and the social, and kind of introduces the DM to doing that. I think that would be extremely helpful to our listener. Um, so yeah, that’s what that, those are my thoughts.

rob:

and.

tanner_weyland:

As far as the actual theme, let’s say. I mean, space does sound cool, but I’m gonna,

justin_lewis:

Hehehe

tanner_weyland:

I’m gonna say maybe later. That might be a later one. I haven’t even thought

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

about space and I would wanna put more time into that. What do you guys think about an academy setting?

justin_lewis:

I like that. I think it’s very

rob:

Okay,

justin_lewis:

reminiscent

rob:

I’m on board.

justin_lewis:

of Harry Potter, so that would be easy for a lot of people to relate to, in a sense.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I also think that it provides a lot of opportunities for both social and exploration, and

justin_lewis:

for sure.

tanner_weyland:

then of course combat, whether you have it as part of a lesson that goes awry or they’re exploring in the middle of the night or who knows what, right? I think it’s a very approachable kind of setting.

justin_lewis:

Agreed. Cool.

rob:

Yeah, absolutely.

justin_lewis:

So theme,

rob:

I’m totally on board. Now,

justin_lewis:

or

rob:

I know.

justin_lewis:

I guess that’s the setting.

rob:

Well, I know that you have a homebrew kind of world build that you’ve been working on, Justin. Is there a location or a place where this academy might be set?

justin_lewis:

Yeah, so there is one academy that is currently created. I’m still working on the world itself, but it’s called the Brazen Academy. Um, I don’t know if it would exactly fit this. So it is essentially an academy specifically created for teaching people how to smelt and mine this material called deep iron, which is, um, it’s, it’s harder than adamantine. In this world, everything that every magical item that is like plus three is made of this stuff. And this this academy belongs to this nation called the Kula Uwea Confederacy, and they guard it very highly. So once you get in, you can’t get out. Like, there’s no escape. Like, they’d kill you before they let you out because the secrets of smelting this type of iron is so closely guarded. I don’t know if that would be a good location. But if you guys want we could also create a different Academy in the world that is a little bit less intense

rob:

Well, I’m just thinking if, and this is just me shooting the breeze here, an academy, and you want this to be useful for beginner DMs. So what if the academy was for a school of, I guess, it could be children, it could be anybody who’s interested, but a school for would-be adventurers. And like each of the houses is led by your traditional. class types, right? So you’ve got like the barbarian

justin_lewis:

I like

rob:

house,

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

you’ve got like the clerk house, you’ve got the wizard house, you know? And so the PCs could join a house with their desire and the purpose of this particular encounter would be to maybe pass the test, whatever the test may be. This way it’s replayable, right? So PCs and players could play it over and over again as a different class. It’s something that’s kind of easy to jump into, that the purpose is kind of… I don’t want to like railroad anybody or streamline,

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

but yeah, the tests would be things that we could make randomized tables for, or we could certainly

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

just insert something. And again, people could play this over and over again. This could be something really cool. A nice, almost like I teach for a living, so I’m always thinking of like, you know, how to bring kids and

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

young people into the

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

game.

justin_lewis:

No,

rob:

It sounds

justin_lewis:

that’s

rob:

like

justin_lewis:

exactly…

rob:

this might be a good way to do that.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, I love that

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

idea.

rob:

All right,

justin_lewis:

I love that idea,

rob:

I like

justin_lewis:

especially

rob:

this.

justin_lewis:

because also, it’s kind of meta. It’s like, here’s the test becoming an adventurer, and if this is played by new players, then it kind of actually is like, now you’re an adventurer kind of thing. It’s pretty funny. So…

rob:

Yeah. All right, so then I guess, well, go ahead, please.

justin_lewis:

No, I was just gonna say, so the theme then would be like school test type idea, not necessarily Halloween or Christmas, but I guess you could flavor it that specific way depending on when you play it.

rob:

It is back to school. So it

justin_lewis:

That,

rob:

does kind of

justin_lewis:

yeah,

rob:

fit

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

that, that makes

rob:

the

justin_lewis:

sense.

rob:

back to school and summers

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

out back to school.

justin_lewis:

Well.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, you know, I think there’s a couple ways we could do this. Either one allows a lot of randomization or tables, depending on what, you know, DM wants. We could do a, we could do a test. Like you were saying, we could do a club fair, you know, where it’s like, Oh, each club kind of tries to throw you through the ringer to like,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

see if you got

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

the stuff.

justin_lewis:

Like you’re getting in a club or like rush week, like in, uh,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

what’s it called? Uh, sororities and fraternities and crap.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, or even in a lot of like, you know, a lot of manga, a lot of anime, they have like these fair things, you know, events, like school fairs where each class has like their own, they like turn their classroom into their own kind of like thing that’s usually themed or whatever, you know,

justin_lewis:

I like that.

tanner_weyland:

like a haunted house or like food related or something, you know. Either way, I think any of them kind of allow good randomization, you know.

justin_lewis:

Cool. So

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

I think…

rob:

that would be an interesting way to begin the school fair arrives in the town and the would be heroes. I guess that you know I don’t want to again i’m not trying to streamline anybody railroads and they can create their own back door as to why they would show up here, you know that maybe they’re you know the poor kid in town and they want to. show up and then make a better life for themselves to provide for their family or maybe they’re just simply you know interested in the schools and they you know everybody’s doing it and they want to they want to join get into particular. particular school.

justin_lewis:

for sure.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, and then they go to the school fair just thinking they’ll have fun or whatever, and then they pass some tests and then they get accepted and that would be a cool ending for it.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

They get their first

justin_lewis:

I think,

rob:

assignment.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

I think we’re set on the school setting. So maybe it might be more beneficial for us to flesh out the setting, like specifically kind of make some, some, you know, get the lay of the land and then we can create the plot around it. You know, like the school does this or doesn’t do this and it would make a little bit more sense for why people would go there or things like that.

rob:

Works for me. So we have the location as the sort of school setting, right? And we’re worried about things like synopsis and title for this stuff later.

justin_lewis:

Sure. Does

rob:

So

justin_lewis:

anyone have a name

rob:

I

justin_lewis:

for the academy?

rob:

just working title House of Heroes.

justin_lewis:

Also here’s.

rob:

Home for the, House of Heroes, something sort of blase like that, just to.

justin_lewis:

What about Rob Ricks Academy for the adventurally gifted or something like that?

rob:

That works.

tanner_weyland:

I don’t hate Rob Rick that’s for sure

rob:

How to be better adventurers.

justin_lewis:

Yeah. Rob ricks. It keeps changing

tanner_weyland:

Rubrics.

justin_lewis:

to

rob:

So

justin_lewis:

rubric.

tanner_weyland:

Keep switching to rubrics.

rob:

my one rule, and I was going to kind of do this reveal later, but my one rule is after I’ve kind of plotted my beats and I’ve plotted out what I think I want to say, my one rule is make it weird. Right? So there’s got to be something about it that is unique or different, right? Having a magic sword is really cool, but having a magic sword that is made from the bone of a dead giant. that talks to you is even more interesting. You know,

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

a school is interesting. A school for heroes is very interesting, but a school for heroes that if you flunk out, there’s a real ramification or, you know, there’s some kind of real motivation to not flunk out, right, or not cheat on the test. You know, a school for heroes is cool, but a school for heroes that sends you on an adventure and where you might perish, you know, now there’s this impetus to kind of actually learn. And maybe as they learn these sort of micro skills, maybe there’s a real buff to their ability scores or their dice rolls in some way, shape or form. it could either be in the form of like a magic scroll that allows them plus two on any particular strength role, a strength school, or it could be, so there’s a reason to go through these eight schools and learn something from each of the professors, or maybe we just have them allocated to one school and one professor in which they have to kind of just hone their cleric skills or their rogue skills or something like that. So I guess the next step for me would be like, do we want PCs to adventure through various classes or do we want them to kind of remain in one class?

tanner_weyland:

Interesting.

justin_lewis:

I think it might be nice as far as, and I know I just said like, let’s focus on the setting rather than the plot, but it might be nice for us to be like, this is the group project year where every person from a class gets assigned to a group, you know, and that’s kind of how they’re pushed together and their assignment, you know, then we can give them the assignment for the year or something like that. And kind of like, I don’t know if for the year would be a good one, but maybe, you know. maybe that’s why they’re together. Uh, I don’t know. What are you guys’ thoughts?

rob:

I like that. Yeah, because they’ve been kind of like randomly how like it and I like that too for one shots because my my my problem with one shots is they they they don’t They don’t have any particular glue for these want these

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

people may who might be sitting down to play for the one time. So it’s like an arbitrary reason to be together. It’s because the teacher assigned you together and that that you know that happens all the time. It’s cool.

justin_lewis:

Right.

rob:

Draw lots and now you guys are part working on the project together so Yeah.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

All right, so

tanner_weyland:

Y-yeah…

rob:

you, I’m sorry, you wanted to work on the setting and I kind of went straight to fly.

justin_lewis:

No, no, no, that’s

tanner_weyland:

No,

justin_lewis:

totally

tanner_weyland:

yeah.

justin_lewis:

my bad, because I was like, oh, you know, anyways. Continue, Tanner.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I think that that’s a great idea. Just making it like, hey, this is a project. Now, in terms of adding something weird, I kind of like the idea with this school. I have a couple ideas. One, I think that kind of what you were saying, Rob, if you do well on a test, they really like, they kind of beef you up, you know? But if you fail a test, they won’t hold back on punishing you. Um, and I think that could just be something that you see throughout the adventure, you know, but

justin_lewis:

Maybe…

tanner_weyland:

maybe for

justin_lewis:

Go

rob:

rolling

tanner_weyland:

the,

justin_lewis:

ahead.

rob:

with this advantage.

tanner_weyland:

uh, I mean, who knows, right? Uh, what were you saying, Justin?

justin_lewis:

Uh, you go first, I interrupted. I’m sorry.

tanner_weyland:

Okay, my other idea is maybe the school’s a little bit weird, and because they have this really strict blessing and also punishing kind of mentality, then they’re also willing to kind of test you in more surprising situations like for the class project could be stealing something from one of the professors. You know, Uh, it could be your professor or it could be like a professor’s kind of, uh, kind of pitting their students at against other students, you know, just where they’re like, Hey, if you mess up, it’s your own fault. That professor will punish you, you know, that kind of thing.

justin_lewis:

So what I was going to add was, I think we could do something pretty interesting with, you know, the alignments. So in Harry Potter, you know, there’s like the different houses. In Broadbrook’s Academy, I think we could say that there’s like the different classes that are for the classes, but then above that, there’s the evil and the good and like. the academy specifically went and recruited evil professors and good professors because they’re like, hey, we need to teach these people how to be good. And the punishments are based on which kind of side you’re on. And when you get assigned to a group, it’s either mostly neutral or evil or neutral or good. And both the evil and the good are trying to kind of sway the neutral towards their side. And it’s kind of like this competition to see who gets more points, the good or the evil, you know, and if you’re… on the evil side and you get punished, like the professor takes a little bit of your soul. And if you’re on the good side, you have to do like intense hours of community service forever. Something like that. Like, you know, like, I don’t know.

rob:

That is extreme. We’re gonna steal your

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

soul.

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

Sure, sure. I’m all for thinking about that in order to make it weird.

tanner_weyland:

I didn’t. Yeah. That’s one thing with D and D that’s always interesting is the whole good and evil, because I think people are moving away from that more and more. But I’m like, but I’m like, it is. And also like, do people consider themselves evil? You know,

justin_lewis:

Right.

tanner_weyland:

I don’t know.

rob:

Right.

tanner_weyland:

I’m like,

rob:

Right.

tanner_weyland:

I like the idea though of like different philosophical kind of mindsets in the, like we could keep it simple. Like you said, just do two groups essentially. if we don’t want to go crazy with like four different houses or like five or however many, right?

rob:

So yeah, let’s give that some thought, right? So in terms of setting, is it gonna be a fair or do you want it to be the actual school? And there’s no rule saying that it can’t start with a fair and then

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

gravitate.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

But once you start traveling, it kind of ceases to be an encounter and starts to become

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

an adventure.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

And not that we can’t write like a mini adventure of three encounters, but I think the first encounter should be like recruitment or admissions, right? Like that’s the application process for school, right?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

So admissions would make sense to be like the first

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

encounter and.

justin_lewis:

And then like fast forward a little bit and be like, hey, you’re in this time and this is what your schooling has done. And now you’re here, you know.

rob:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

yeah.

tanner_weyland:

or

justin_lewis:

Go ahead, Tenen.

tanner_weyland:

like what could happen is in terms of school fair, I am picturing like almost like an admissions fair, almost like it’s at the school and people who want to come in, they kind of have to pass a general admission thing. And then if they do that, then they go into the school and like each class has its own kind of like. I guess you could say test or trial, you know, uh, and then after they, you know, go through each one, maybe at that point they’re given like the end of the adventure could be that they’re given an opportunity to, you know, choose which one. I don’t know.

rob:

So you have, I’m picturing a village or an urban setting, city of some kind, and

tanner_weyland:

Yes.

rob:

the players enter the space and as you described, Justin, there is this fair or this sort of like a missions fair happening where there’s, you know, the bard kiosk and there’s the druid kiosk and there’s the sort of wizard kiosk and each one of them has some you know, previous graduate student doing some kind of magical thing or something for their school.

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

And the player characters maybe visit each one of these has a sort of interaction. There’s the social part, they have some kind of interaction and where these schools are trying to recruit them. And before they can receive a bid, they have to prove some kind of aptitude in that particular field, right. So there’s a player who’s

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

interested in becoming a bard. not only an interaction with the Bard counter, but has to kind of prove some kind of musical aptitude. And then maybe the end of this particular encounter is they receive a bid. So a player might receive a bid from the Bard school, the cleric school and the sorcerer school, and they have to choose it. They have to accept the bid for that, if they, the house that they want to enter.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

I like it.

rob:

Sounds like it. So

tanner_weyland:

I like

rob:

now,

tanner_weyland:

that.

justin_lewis:

Go ahead.

rob:

go ahead, Justin.

justin_lewis:

I was just gonna say, my only concern with that is time. Like how long will they have to go and do these? Or I guess they would be like simple roles, so they wouldn’t really take that much time. So actually, nevermind, yeah, we could just, cause you know, you just do like a random table, like here’s your test, and then they have to do a specific role and kind of describe it, and then they either pass or fail.

rob:

And again, just to make it weird. So let’s say the same scenario, right? They enter this town, they enter this village, there’s all these kiosks. They’re not sure which one they want to engage with. Maybe they engage with one or two and they have these sort of designs to visit all of them. But at that critical moment, a hill giant comes crashing through the town. And you see that the Bard School is in shambles. wizard school is about to get toppled, which way do you run? Let them kind of choose de facto by who they’re going to save,

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

right? And again, not that we have to enter a hill giant, but when this unexpected thing happens and there are consequences, players are then sort of tasked with making real decisions on the fly, right? So they might’ve had every desire to go visit all six of them and learn more, but after only visiting two of them, they’re interrupted and they have to make a decision based off of something. that quickly. That’s what I might do for one shot if I was doing a larger campaign or an adventure. By all means, take your time and visit all

justin_lewis:

I

rob:

six.

justin_lewis:

like that.

rob:

But you create that space for the neophyte DM and young players to kind of just be limited to two choices because eight classes or 12 classes, whatever they’re up to right now, might be overwhelming. But

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

the first two that they visit, you know they’re the most interested in because that’s the first two that they visited.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

Um,

justin_lewis:

I think that’s a good idea. Um,

rob:

right, so.

justin_lewis:

we might be able to even just instead of like a hill giant, just say like, you get to the fair late, everyone is putting their tents down. You think you have like an opportunity to visit one or two. Which ones do you go to or something like that, you know?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah. Yeah, I really like that. And even something else that might be nice, just kind of add a little bit of weirdness to it. I think that that social interaction could be an opportunity to kind of test them, not only how they speak, but also do some different checks, skill checks, where they’re trying to impress one of these like… to that they’re talking to, right?

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

tanner_weyland:

And if that player is able to impress them, then I think that it would be cool if that class or group or whatever gives them essentially something to help them through the test, you know?

rob:

might be a really interesting way to do like a riff on the point by or

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

the standard array, right? Like everybody, all their abilities start as 10. And if you impress them, you get that 15 and the skill that you like. And for the one that

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

you

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

flunk on, you get the minus, you get the eight. It

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

might be

tanner_weyland:

exactly.

rob:

an interesting way of doing that as opposed to

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

the traditional way.

justin_lewis:

I do

rob:

That’d

justin_lewis:

like

rob:

be part

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

of the make it weird. Okay.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, absolutely.

rob:

Okay, so I’m starting to get a flavor for what we’re headed towards here.

justin_lewis:

So go ahead.

rob:

My next introduction or my next question to you would be every encounter, every venture has an obstacle of some kind. And then sometimes it’s what the perceived obstacle versus the actual obstacle. If choosing the house is not going to be an obstacle, right, they’ll be able to just kind of go up to their class and say, you know, I’m interested in becoming a a druid, what is it that I have to do? The obstacle would ostensibly be some kind of an admissions exam right there or some kind of an aptitude. But if they… I don’t know, if we want something a little bit more long-term, like a nemesis or some kind of a villain, or prepare them for some kind of a skill that they don’t know they’re going to need yet. I’m just trying to think of like, what are our obstacles? I guess one of that. What are the obstacles

tanner_weyland:

No.

rob:

that we might foresee in an adventure or an encounter of this kind of nature?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, go ahead, Justin.

justin_lewis:

I was just going to say, I think the obstacle, so it kind of depends on whether or not, like the main bulk of the one shot will take place in the school or getting into the school or graduating from the school. I think that’ll, that’ll help determine the obstacle.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

So we can.

tanner_weyland:

I- I- Go ahead.

rob:

I can almost foresee this as like a sort of episodic adventure, right, where we

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

do actually kind of like build, you know, one encounter after the other. And the first encounter here would be, you know, admissions, right?

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

And so the first obstacle is getting in, right? So what would be

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

the barriers to getting in roster

justin_lewis:

I s-

rob:

size,

justin_lewis:

rostratize.

rob:

right? Like we only have one slot left. And right as you’re applying, along comes somebody who’s way better at this than you. You kind of have to know, you know. do something that’s better than this other person who’s competing for that spot. And maybe you both impressed the professor and now you’ve got yourself a class nemesis. Right? But so spot limitations are something that’s kind of common to schools.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I like that one especially because it introduces a long form NPC, you know, that’ll be with you longer than just the kiosk, right? Yeah, I like that. I also think the admissions is the other big one. And then if we wanted to throw a wrench in it, so instead of doing the hill giant, you know, initially, right? It doesn’t have to be a whole giant, but like, you know, we could do it where like you’re taking the admissions test and then part way through something goes awry, you know?

rob:

pack of wolves, giant spiders,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

fire.

tanner_weyland:

professor going haywire, who knows what, right? Like just something doesn’t go as planned.

justin_lewis:

The other thing is tuition. We could always just say, like, hey, you need to go find a certain amount of money. And for rogues, that means conning people. For bards, that means performing. For barbarians, feats of strength, you know, various things.

rob:

Yeah, no, that’s, I think that’s cool, right? Pleading for

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

tuition money if you’re a bard. Ha ha ha.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, that could be a nice way to kind of add value to the whole proposition of entering the academy at all. Could be like, okay, you’re in town. You walk up and you see the fair in front of you and then they’re like, okay, admissions, BF or whatever, you know? And then it’s like, okay, none of you, because of how we set up the story, none of you have money, how do you get money? You know?

justin_lewis:

Yeah. On that note, I was-

rob:

How do you gain attention? Maybe there’s these really long lines at each kiosk and you’re looking at the sun and the hours are clicking down and it’s barely, barely budging, right? So that kind of is a way to kind of work in what you were talking about earlier, Justin, in terms of like, you know, maybe they’re closing shop and you haven’t had a chance to apply yet. Yeah, how do you gain the attention of the people that are running the kiosk? Maybe this is a very popular thing and it’s crowded and it only comes through town once a year and this is your only chance for a whole other year to make something of your life because of course I’m thinking like Oliver Twist.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, yeah,

rob:

It’s the poor

justin_lewis:

yeah.

rob:

orphan. So the

justin_lewis:

What?

rob:

exploration of the fair, I’m just thinking of like you know we could do a sort of tabletop map or for something like that and that interacting with each of the kiosks that we set up and the people at the kiosks. And we can, I think we’ll have to populate that with NPC stuff later.

justin_lewis:

Oh yeah.

rob:

And now for combat.

justin_lewis:

Uh, one quick thing I wanted to ask, like, what is the kind of predicted age of the students? Like, is this a school that takes you from like 12 to 20, or is it like, you’re, you know, you’re a man, you’re 16 to 18, and this is you living home, essentially going to college, you know, like, what do we envision? Cause that’ll also determine like, you have this much money, but you need to get something else, you know, or your parents don’t want you to go or, you know, like. all sorts of different things.

rob:

Well, I think when we say

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

school, I’m immediately drawn to younger people.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, exactly.

rob:

But it doesn’t have to be that way. It could simply just be the Academy for adventurers. And maybe that’s an opportunity for a younger person to play with an older person. Here’s a 12-year-old who’s kind of projecting their character as a 16-year-old. And then here’s a 42-year-old projecting their

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

character to be a 25-year-old.

justin_lewis:

So

rob:

And

justin_lewis:

I meant

rob:

how

justin_lewis:

like

rob:

does…

justin_lewis:

the age of the characters.

rob:

Yes,

justin_lewis:

Sorry.

rob:

yeah, but

tanner_weyland:

No, yeah,

rob:

I’m

tanner_weyland:

yeah.

rob:

doing both. Yeah,

justin_lewis:

Okay.

rob:

I’m kind of like meditating that, yes, the ages of characters for sure, but I’m also imagining this being the actual players creating characters of different ages too. But

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

the

tanner_weyland:

I love that.

rob:

characters can range from 12 to, I don’t know. I don’t know if too many older physical players are going to want to play younger characters,

justin_lewis:

Right.

rob:

but… it could

justin_lewis:

And

rob:

very

justin_lewis:

that was.

rob:

well be

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

teens.

justin_lewis:

Well,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

that was

tanner_weyland:

I think

justin_lewis:

kind of my question.

tanner_weyland:

we could do

justin_lewis:

Go ahead.

tanner_weyland:

younger though. Like I think when you arrive, you’re gonna see mostly younger people. However, there is no age restriction. It’s just, so like if there is an older player, then that could be part of the content, you know, the lore is essentially like, hey, your older player feels a little bit out of place. Everybody else who joins typically is, you know, young, bright-eyed, hoping to sit out in the world. But you know, technically in the rules, there isn’t an age limit. You just didn’t

rob:

Just

tanner_weyland:

get

rob:

a-

tanner_weyland:

your act together until later.

rob:

I’m imagining that one player who’s like, I’m gonna be an eight-year-old man going back to school.

tanner_weyland:

Exactly,

rob:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

right?

rob:

I finally

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

wanna get my degree.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

and that’s how it should feel, I think. Is like, hey, if you have an older player, then that’s just kind of a personal, you know, conflict that they’re gonna have. It’s like, oh, I’m old, everybody else is like young. Well, that sucks, you know?

justin_lewis:

Yeah. I think that’ll also determine what sort of, um, tests we can have them do. Cause like, you can’t really have a 12 year old like wrestle a bear, you know, like that, that won’t particularly makes it like a hill

rob:

You

justin_lewis:

giant

rob:

could,

justin_lewis:

comes in.

rob:

but

justin_lewis:

Yeah. Like

tanner_weyland:

Yeah

justin_lewis:

a hill giant

rob:

you

justin_lewis:

comes

rob:

could.

justin_lewis:

in and like, I don’t know if like the 12 year olds are going to go take down the hill giant or giant spiders or things like that, you know.

tanner_weyland:

Why not? Just kidding.

justin_lewis:

I mean it is D&D but like my human brain is like, I mean when I was 12, I mean maybe even now like I don’t know if I…

rob:

Right, but this goes to the make it weird, right? Because you don’t picture

justin_lewis:

Okay

rob:

12 year olds and maybe their first impulse is to run away from the bear or the hill giant, but then they see a woman protecting her infant and they grab the ocarina that was sitting on the bard’s table because it’s enchanted and just kind of naturally, they just take a swing at it and they’re able to lull the bear. It doesn’t have to be combat as we know it, right? So

justin_lewis:

Sure.

rob:

that’s the make it weird

justin_lewis:

Gotcha.

rob:

part. In fact, I find that most combat in RPGs suffers from this, the rolling syndrome where we just kind of start rolling

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

and we forget to do some of the role playing. So I would

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

like to provide in this opportunities for, and I’m gonna do air quotes for you listeners out there, combat in where you might have to defeat an enemy of some kind, but doesn’t necessarily have to be by punching it or swinging a sword. In fact, I think it would probably be good to touch upon everything. out of each one of these kiosks that we’re imagining, some kind of a magical artifact that a clever player might intuit or roll a perception or roll an insight check to recognize that it has some kind of ability that they might be good at should the need arise. And then later when the barbarian teacher gets knocked out and they do wanna lift the magical axe or the sorcerer teacher gets knocked out and they do wanna… lift up that amulet that they were wearing to defeat said spider or said bear. There’s context for that. Right, because

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

if it

justin_lewis:

I

rob:

happens

justin_lewis:

like it.

rob:

out of the blue. It just seems like it’s a little railroad, but knowing that these things

tanner_weyland:

Exactly.

rob:

exist and they do the check and maybe there’s an NPC that we have wandering around. A jaded student or maybe it’s another college that you know which is kind of seeing what their fair was about, you know, and they’re like they make comment about you know, the magical artifact or whatnot. The magic

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

item.

justin_lewis:

I like that. So, uh, in this first encounter, kind of the timeline goes, the adventurers all arrived to the fair or the prospective adventurers are all arrived to the fair at different points in time, and that’ll probably have to be determined by the DM and their individual backstories, like, Oh, you got done with your chores early. You’re there. Or, Oh, you just finished a late night bender and you wake up on the streets and you’re already in the fair. You know, like kind of

rob:

Right.

justin_lewis:

stuff like that. And, and then. they all see the kiosks and they decide, hey, I’m gonna go to this one or that one. And then something happens. Do I have that right?

rob:

Yeah, I think that could work. And again, it depends on, really the only decisions we would have to make is if we want the obstacle for this encounter to be gaining entrance to the school, or if we want the obstacle to be some sort of combat variation where they impress the school and then they get a bid to kind of enter the school.

tanner_weyland:

So essentially you’re saying like either, oh, part of the test for admission includes, is it a serious enough obstacle that that’s the thing they’re trying to overcome? Or in the process of a more calm admission, something happens and then they impress them or something.

rob:

or perhaps the intrusion, the interruption is preconceived by the school, right? I’m

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

thinking like Tommy Lee Jones in Captain America when he throws the dummy grenade and Captain America jumps on it, right?

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

They kind of manifest this ogre to attack the village. And after maybe three or four rounds of combat, the barbarian teacher comes out and he like blows a whistle and he’s like, all right, Bob, you can go home. Everybody’s like, what just happened? And you five. displayed excellent heroism and bravery in the midst of turmoil and chaos. Therefore, you are our five heroes to be this week, this year.

justin_lewis:

I think that that actually would work better for the, it’s late, the kiosks are, you know, they’re closing up to me, like a school would be like, Hey, we, we didn’t have time in their minds. They’re thinking we didn’t have time to interview everyone. So let’s just throw this random thing and see if there are

rob:

Yes.

justin_lewis:

any hopefuls out there that really impress

rob:

Right.

justin_lewis:

us and kind of capture them at the last minute. I could see that easily happening.

rob:

Yeah, I kind of like that idea for the final. And that maybe it’s not even the final, maybe it’s in the middle, because the final resolution part would be

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

the conversation that you have after having defeated this this this. obstacle and so on, shape or form, but also like create an interesting opportunity for the teachers to sort of spy on the other would be applicants, you

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

know, do they celebrate afterwards they go, you know, to the tavern and drink too much. Because they think they got in. Yeah, I like that idea of, you know, let the players wander around a bit and get the sense of the lay of the land, the fairs, any NPCs that we want to generate. And then maybe at the height of the fair, when there’s most people and people are most vulnerable, this calamity ensues, which is preconceived. And that is the actual application process. Maybe we even have some like dummy application process, like at the barbarian table, they’re arm wrestling and we can… You have the little arm wrestling game that I know is popular out there on the DMs Guild or, you know, little games to kind of like keep them interested in the game. Maybe earn some gold. That’d

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

be a good way for them to earn some gold.

justin_lewis:

I like that. And I think instead of like an ogre, maybe it’s like an elemental that, uh, the wizard accidentally summons or something, like one of the grad students is like, yeah, let me show you this interesting. And then he accidentally like throws

rob:

Right.

justin_lewis:

like a water elemental gem into the fountain and then, you know,

rob:

Yeah, that could also work for the time of the year, right? We can, you know, if it’s a summer festival, maybe,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

you know, there’s a pond or a fountain of some kind in the summer, the water. If it’s the fall,

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

it’s the wind, the winter, you know, some kind of frost elemental or something like that. That works a lot. And again, it’s replayable for the seasons. It’s replayable because each time you revisit this encounter, you can check out a different school. I could see people playing this or throwing this into their game as a way of, uh, multi-classing, right? Like maybe you’ve been in a really long campaign and you’re like, I’m stuck as the barbarian and I just really want to be the bar. And so like you wander into this town and oh my gosh, here’s this opportunity for me to learn the class that I, I want to, you know, change into organically without having to kind of, I don’t know, school feels pretty forced,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

but

justin_lewis:

Well,

rob:

throw it again.

justin_lewis:

yeah.

rob:

It says kind of, make it organic, right?

justin_lewis:

Yeah, yeah,

rob:

So I like

justin_lewis:

I

rob:

this

justin_lewis:

like

rob:

direction.

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

I like where we’re headed right now.

justin_lewis:

Cool.

rob:

Very cool.

justin_lewis:

So I think we have like the general flow. So

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

I’ll kind of write down the timeline. I just prefer timeline just so I know like as a

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

DM,

tanner_weyland:

same.

justin_lewis:

you give them a range for doing stuff and then at a certain point you decide something’s gonna happen and then something like that.

rob:

Well, encounter is supposedly in the time of a game, a very short amount of time,

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

right? So this could be anywhere from 10 minutes to four hours would be this particular encounter in game time, right? Obviously you play this as fast or as slow as you want at your game table.

justin_lewis:

Excellent. So, uh, so the way I have it in the timeline, adventurers arrive at the fair. Adventurers explore the fair shops or the fair kiosks start closing up. And then, uh, the weird thing happens. So probably like some sort of intrusion of some sort of.

rob:

Yeah, I would just put intrusion.

justin_lewis:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then I spelled that wrong totally. Uh,

rob:

Okay.

justin_lewis:

and then. At the end, the instructors converse with the adventurers.

rob:

So the arrival, that’s our exploration, and then kiosks up close would be the social part. So we’ve got all three pillars. We’ve got

justin_lewis:

Excellent.

rob:

a beginning, a middle, and an end. We probably won’t get to it in this particular episode, but we would then populate our NPCs and make some fun,

justin_lewis:

Yeah,

rob:

weird characters.

justin_lewis:

yeah. Cool.

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

justin_lewis:

So I think this would actually be a pretty good stopping point. So let’s go ahead and off screen or off air, let’s schedule the next segment. And I think it would actually be a good idea for us to give each other like assignments and say, you create these three grad students for these classes or something like that. So. Let’s see, assignments. Anyone have any specific preferences for who you’d like to create or what you’d like to create?

rob:

Let’s just really quickly take an informal poll here of how many classes slash you know houses do we want to hit all of the class or you want to just pick like six for each take two kind of thing.

justin_lewis:

What do you think, Tanner?

tanner_weyland:

I think that that could totally work.

rob:

You can take three if you prefer.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, you know, it would be shorter. And as far as like if we did choose like house style, you know, I think a good way to go around it because do any of you watch, what is it? Dimension 20?

justin_lewis:

I don’t watch

tanner_weyland:

That’s,

justin_lewis:

them,

tanner_weyland:

no.

justin_lewis:

like…

tanner_weyland:

But they’re like, they do a bunch of. of the live

justin_lewis:

The school,

tanner_weyland:

play

justin_lewis:

yeah.

tanner_weyland:

tabletop, but they have that kind of school setting and they kind of make fun of it because they’re like, oh, here are the four different houses and then they’re like, oh, this system kind of sucks because it’s like essentially you’re categorizing students on what you think they can achieve and stuff and that’s not great. I think one that probably makes more sense is categorizing students based on their personal goals. uh because it’s like oh then they’re choosing what they kind of want to achieve you know instead of being thrown in and if that’s the case we really could come up with six and like that’s simple you know i won’t i don’t think there would be as harsh of a dividing line maybe the teacher would be you know uh the same free or whatever but anyway sorry

rob:

We could, and again, this is our first draft of this, we could

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

certainly

tanner_weyland:

Yes.

rob:

make it like the House of Combat, and so that would cover your barbarian and your rogue. We could have the sort of House of Magic and cover all of your magic classes. We could have your House of the Healing, and that would cover your druid and clerk classes. So

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

we could change it that way too, if we

tanner_weyland:

Oh

rob:

wanted

tanner_weyland:

yeah.

rob:

to make it weird. Or we could abandon this. the idea of like, you know, house system, because it has been done, and we can simply have, you know, this is to get into the school, and here are your professors, and their professors would be kind of like,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

you know, the classes, and just, you know, which professor do you want to study with? You know, the professors are

tanner_weyland:

Interesting.

rob:

only taking three proteges, you know, this year, are you one of the three? And there’s like lines of people lining up to, you know, apply to be one of the protege, you know, and maybe… It’s interesting then because if you’re with a, if there are four physical players at the table, they might not all wanna be the barbarian. They might all wanna be, we wanna be a group of heroes, but we know we need to separate and leave each other like friends often do when they go to school to learn new skills.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I kind of like that making it less about houses and more like hey it’s just one school, but the professors are kind of unique and it’s almost more of a like Discipleship kind of like, you know where it’s like mentorship you’re choosing

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

a teacher Based on what you kind of are interested in learning. So we’d spend more of our time just crafting an NPC That is unique from the other ones or NPCs, you know

justin_lewis:

Got it. So then in that case, we just each need to come up with, um,

tanner_weyland:

Like two each.

justin_lewis:

so like if, if, you know, they, because the school knows that they’re going to have a long line of students or prospective students trying to apply, would they choose to have only one admissions kiosk or would they have a few set up here and there? What

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

do you guys

rob:

they

justin_lewis:

think

rob:

would have

justin_lewis:

about

rob:

a

justin_lewis:

that?

rob:

few lines, and at the end of each line, I think would be one of their distinguished faculty. And you know what I think might be an interesting twist here? So let’s just say there are, again, I always picture parties of four in my head. Let’s say there are four adventurers, real players coming to the table to play. They’re only accepting five. And so there will be a fifth sort of NPC that we kind of like lump with them.

justin_lewis:

Ha

rob:

You

justin_lewis:

ha

rob:

know,

justin_lewis:

ha

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

justin_lewis:

ha.

rob:

or… because they are the ones that will make it clearly, kind of like it’s kind of the whole point. But I guess there has to be some potential for them not to, so

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

we’ll

justin_lewis:

No, no.

rob:

iron that out.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

I think it’s worth it to make a Malfoy-esque character,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

you know,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

or someone that’s like, oh, we hate this guy, but he’s

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

really good.

rob:

But

tanner_weyland:

Let’s make sure,

rob:

whatever.

justin_lewis:

Or

tanner_weyland:

you know.

justin_lewis:

being as this would be specifically for newer DMs. I personally, I like the ability to have an NPC in the group to be like, Hey, but what about this? And also like ask questions, like showing

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

all the different points that they haven’t thought about just to, if nothing else, make them think a little bit more. Like, wait, we can’t do that because of this, but also the NPC said this thing. And they also said, you know, um, and, and for newer DMs, it might be a nice way for, for them to also. give hints when the party is stuck for certain things. But I do like, like saying this is how many players this, uh, this one shot is designed for. I think that that is a good idea.

rob:

Yeah, absolutely. And that sort of stuff, we all tack, kind of like we tack that on sort of at the end when we’ve got an idea in thinking here. But yeah, I like this idea. I think this has got some traction. I’m

justin_lewis:

Awesome.

rob:

already starting to come up with some things in my head now. She’s fun, this is cool.

justin_lewis:

So then each of us assignment will be to create one

rob:

to NPCs.

justin_lewis:

or two NPCs. two NPCs,

rob:

And these

justin_lewis:

how about,

rob:

are the mentors.

justin_lewis:

okay, two NPCs mentors. And then if you have extra time, come up with like an extra NPC that’s just at the fair that day, whether,

rob:

Absolutely.

justin_lewis:

you

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

know.

tanner_weyland:

yeah, like another, because I think if you have, if we, yeah, I love that idea. Anyway, yeah, go ahead.

justin_lewis:

No? Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you listener for tuning in and kind of getting inside our heads as we are trying to figure out the adventure that is students getting into Robbrik’s Academy for the bettering of adventurers. Obviously, we haven’t figured out a name for the actual one shot, but I particularly do like the name of the academy. And I’m really

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

justin_lewis:

interested to see how this turns out. But adventure again. Make sure you reach out to Rob. You can go to betterdungeonmaster.com slash Robrick and get his encounter that he published on DM Guild. Go ahead, Rob.

rob:

That’s correct. And as a little sort of surprise for you folks, I’m not sure when this will air, but when it does, I’ve created a discount code for anyone listening. First 100 people who come online and log on will get the adventure for a whole dollar.

justin_lewis:

Awesome.

tanner_weyland:

Wow, that’s awesome.

justin_lewis:

That is awesome.

rob:

That’s right,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

that’s just for how to be a better DM podcast listeners.

justin_lewis:

Oh, thank you. Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

That’s

justin_lewis:

so

tanner_weyland:

awesome. Thank you, Rob.

rob:

Thank

justin_lewis:

betterdungeonmaster.com

rob:

you guys. Appreciate it.

justin_lewis:

slash Robrick. And yeah, thanks for being here, Rob.

rob:

My pleasure.

justin_lewis:

I have learned a lot and I know that our listeners as well.

rob:

Thank you guys, it was a pleasure having

justin_lewis:

Yeah,

rob:

you.

justin_lewis:

yeah. And listener,

tanner_weyland:

Absolutely.

justin_lewis:

we’ll be back next week. Sorry for the disjointed. I think my audio is lagging a little bit. But listener, thank you for coming and we’ll be back next week with an awesome episode, just like today. And until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.