[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to Table Talk!
[SPEAKER_01]: A show where I chat with other creators in the TTRPG space about how they run, their tables.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm DangerDanger's, the GM and host of D&Dark, and joining us at the table today is the host and GM of the Pathfinder 2E remastered actual play podcast, Epic Tales and Critical Fails, as well as 2025 Crit Award nominee for Best GM in a Piso game, Michael.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: To get us started, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what your history with the TTRPG community is, and about your show?
[SPEAKER_00]: I originally got involved in TTRPG, because I watched a little known thing called Critical Role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in the day, probably never heard of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched that thought it was fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched a couple of episodes and was
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been a storyteller and there was this opportunity to do something that was scratch that itch to tell a story and to share it with people, which I think is always the passion, you know, the actual getting out there and getting other people involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I convinced my other half that we should try D&D.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to a local games club and played with a few people.
[SPEAKER_00]: ended up trying out first edition D&D, then fifth edition D&D, then I ran a campaign for fifth edition that ran on from 2019 to 2023.
[SPEAKER_00]: They went from first to 20th level and it's kind of like we've got the bug at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we then decided that we'd shift over to Pathfinder and give that a go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of an option to do something different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also there was some weird shenanigans going on with various, you know, licenses and guns and it didn't, you know, didn't sit right with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, okay, I'm going to go play something else now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we wanted to do a podcast because it kept the group together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things that we'd been quite keen on is we just got out of lockdown in the UK and a lot of us joined together and started playing together at that point because we had various different
[SPEAKER_00]: and we wanted to do something that kept us all playing together that gave us the motivation to keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we started making the podcast and yeah epic tales came around and it's a bit of cosmic horror meets pathfinder.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's the best way of describing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got some completely bonkers villains who are up to no good and some players who clearly most of the time have no idea what they're doing and um
[SPEAKER_00]: it does make for some entertaining moments at the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: We try to have fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always been about playing around the table for us and the recording, it's kind of secondary.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun to do, but if we're having fun, then people will probably enjoy listening to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way we've always taken it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we started with the story about some weird dreams that all the characters are having, all involving a ship and some bizarre backstories that none of them understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they went from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They start with the Clockwork Automatic, going rampaging around the market and kick on to face all sorts of hideous bugs and things that have come along since.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many stranger things that have coming further down the line that we've recorded, but haven't quite released yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the whole mindset that you're approaching that with of using the project as a pretense to keep the game going.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I want to unpack a little bit, your jump from first edition to fifth edition to Pathfinder.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know what that transition process was like in changing those systems and in kind of learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would kind of argue that first edition to fifth edition D&D is a bigger leap.
[SPEAKER_01]: then fifth edition to Pathfinder, but in either respect, can you tell me a little bit about what it was like transitioning between those systems and what that learning curve was like?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of those circumstances where we found a group of people who were playing at the local pub to be honest, and they were playing first edition D&D, so it was kind of, all right, well we've got some D&D here, let's go and have a play, and then we started playing fifth edition alongside it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I preferred the fifth edition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like the meat grinders sort of feel
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, oh yeah, you've got a character but don't love them because they'll be dead by the end of the session or something and it was okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were doing it the same time and of course we were watching things learning how to do it by watching other people experience it as well, which was quite fun and a good way of learning it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we moved over to Pathbinder, it was a learning curve because we did the inadvisable thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: What most people say is the inadvisable thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think anything's doable if you've got enough enthusiasm.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we transitioned our characters over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we took fifth edition characters and rebate them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we managed to get.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of them, closer to what the person had imagined than being in the first place, and managed to keep everything the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we were just learning the rules as we went along.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it felt a little, there was a lot of rules that was strange like all these conditions that suddenly crop up with pathfinder.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you suddenly you've got sick and going on and all these other things that have their roots back in three point five D&D.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once we started to get a handle on that, it was actually quite similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually simpler because it was like, you've got three actions, what are you going to do with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: and it kind of got rid of those, have you got a bonus action?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you moving?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you not kind of it's like you've got to think about what you're doing and you're also rewards teamwork.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a bit of a jump but I always took the view of if people were having fun at the table then everything else doesn't matter if you get a rule right or wrong will learn about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The game we transitioned over by other half was playing a gunslinger and we till the day we stopped playing those characters never realized you needed an interaction to
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody cared, nobody minded, so it was a good environment to let in, and then to take it to the podcast when we had a bit of a better handle on it, we still get it wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's still moments where we go, there's just so many rules you don't remember the moth-toppy head and you just go with what you think is right, worrying about it later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's ultimately what's more important.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's a very common thread among the actual play space, especially with a system like Pathfinder where the rules are more intricate and structured, but kind of the trade off there, at least from my limited experience, is that there's a lot less that's open to interpretation, compared to 5v, the sheer detail that the rules go into make it hard to kind of keep track of in your head.
[SPEAKER_01]: In like the tiny bit of experience that I've had, I like to think of Pathfinder as a little more video gamey than fivey just because of how how structured everything is into like skill trees and keywords.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is both helpful and not in looking up rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's top of mind for me because we're in between our seasons right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: For similar reasons that you switched over from 5v to pathfinder, we are transitioning our second season from a 5v podcast to a pathfinder podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: When all of the
[SPEAKER_01]: Wizards of the coast, not since it was going on, we were too deep into the middle of the campaign and figured, okay, we will finish out this campaign in 5e and then the next one that we do will shift over into Pathfinder and give that a try.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similar experience with you, um, hoarding characters over.
[SPEAKER_01]: The characters that we were setting up for our second campaign, we got in a lot more detail, a lot closer to the original intention with.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Pathfinder's character creation system is a lot more robust than D&D fiveies is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's a really big benefit that I see there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I like the customization of it in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one thing having played high-level 5e and it's a great introduction because you can run it with very little knowledge of the game.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a great platform to start with but once you get so far, the game doesn't really run as smoothly as you want it to.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get to 10th level and suddenly it's like we're now dealing with Demi God players who can do whatever they want, cool down a god or whatever and suddenly
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the things I've always enjoyed about playing the role-playing games and things like D&Ds challenged the players, you know, I'm a big fan of Dark Souls and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got to be challenging, but you've got to be winnable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a lot of it, when we were playing finally, from sort of 11th level onwards, was just constant working of home brewing the monsters, home brewing the items,
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of the game, while we finished at 20th level, and they fought a love crafty and monster from beyond the stars, we suddenly realized, well, actually, when we look at the rules of Pathfinder and these three actions and the choices you've got, we were kind of baking that in with all of the work that we were doing behind there.
[SPEAKER_00]: game.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was quite nice to be able to say, here's something that does everything we want, and I don't have to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to play with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things like the encounter design is just really satisfying for me, because I could go and pull a monster out the book and run it in the podcast or run it in one of the other games that we play.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know what it's going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what challenge level it will be and how it will work in that context.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or as if I do it with D&D, it's like will that literally be challenging to these characters, a detrialitch once and
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I do, I enjoyed that customization.
[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed, I enjoyed the fact it rewards teamwork.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, one person scares the thing, it forms over or gets knocked down and something somebody else needs on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one of my favorite things that I, it was a GM moment of, I forgot you put grease on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I ran into the square with the grease on the floor and of course my amazing sorceress just fell over on her backside and a long came the fighter who didn't hit her in the turn just waited for the reactive strike to trigger as she got up and it was like yeah yeah so the druid knocked me down and then you've killed me well done um but it it's I like those kind of things for us the teamwork and the tactics that work together you see to play is doing all sorts of creative ideas and creative things
[SPEAKER_01]: it really is fantastic and that's a big thing that I've heard as far as people who are more experienced in Pathfinder that they have all commended the system for is that as far as tactics go, it's much less of the individual power fantasy that 5e is and much more of a good team building exercise.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you kind of mentioned briefly with the way that mechanics kind of build and stack on each other and one player's turn will apply a condition that sets up another player to take advantage of it on their turn.
[SPEAKER_01]: What kinds of things does Pathfinder do and for any of our listeners who would be less familiar with the Pathfinder system?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you give it just a brief overview of Pathfinder and its particular strengths and what some of the benefits are compared to something like 5E and some of the drawbacks?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the basic principle of pathfinder is as with D&D, it runs on those three strands of gameplay, the exploration, the combat and the downtime.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it kind of built into those and it runs fairly similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're playing at the table, it doesn't feel awfully different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the main kind of features of it is that it's a three action economy when you get into combat, whereas with five
[SPEAKER_00]: three actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now choose what you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to cast a spell.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cost two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to move?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cost one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to attack three times on your first turn, a first level fighter?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can, but there's a penalty that applies to each subsequent attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's also a two options.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get more that you can do early on with these three actions, because immediately a first level character can intimidate the creature.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can faint against it if they're particularly, you know, deceptive, they can go, hey, look over there and try to create a distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's all of these different things that have built in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ran a game for a new group the other week and one of the players said to me, I can do so much and I'm a first-level fighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the biggest compliment for me when you feel like you can do more rather than swing, miss, you turns over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's...
[SPEAKER_00]: those three actions you could do a lot with and they give you a lot of options at first level because by the time you built your character you've got your ancestry, so elf dwarf, whatever it may be, there are many, many fun and exotic variants, spider people are in there somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you get your background, so if you're a barrister, you get legal law and you get some certain staff boosts and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they all have a role to play in the mechanics of
[SPEAKER_00]: the real critical difference is you become a specialist in what you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the wizard will be a specialist in magic stuff whereas the fighter will be a specialist in knocking things over but they will be very good at what they do and have no chance of doing what they can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it gives a lot of customization.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could have a party full of birds if you really wanted to and each one of them you could be different.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have clerics that will be wildly different because they've got
[SPEAKER_00]: For all of those people who hate being hillbots, where the clerics are designed to make sure that you don't have to do that, because you get loads of spells extra to cast healing spells, and then the rest of them you could put your divine bombs in them or whatever you want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got a huge customization, a huge range of skills, and they will boil down into this three-action economy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's all sorts of different tactical elements to it that gives you more freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The drawback,
[SPEAKER_00]: if it's even fair to say that, is the complexity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you start getting into the weeds, the more you learn, the more complicated it becomes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are some classes which are just, are you still beginning as a way from, because certainly pre-remaster, I ran an Oracle NPC and I had to forever remember what.
[SPEAKER_00]: happened when he got cursed because the Oracle has a mechanic where they cast a spell and they get cursed and it has an impact on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's all sorts of things you have to keep track of, but if you've got a decent app that does it for you and we use path builder.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes it so much simpler because you can just press a button and it's all there for the players and they know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So actually once you've got tools for it or if you're using Foundry or another VTT, that complexity becomes less of an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had players who've even just track of it with little counters on the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's as long as you find a way of keeping those things visible and remembering them.
[SPEAKER_00]: and keep each other honest at the table, I think it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, the complexity can be off putting, but once you get into it and you start running it, it doesn't actually feel two different from D&D-5E.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the structure of the combat and the turns that you would take.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a very good overview of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That matches up with a lot of what I've heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the big things that I heard from a TikTok creator.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember exactly who it was, but it was somebody in the process of transitioning from VIV to Pathfinder, brought up that it took a little bit for everything to click, but then they hit a certain point where all of a sudden the pathways opened up and they understood exactly how the system worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a system with a lot of minutia, but having those systems makes a big difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done a couple of one shots in Pathfinder and leaned very, very heavily on both path builder and then archives of Nethis, the fanwiki, was incalculably important, being able to just quickly look up and reference.
[SPEAKER_01]: any of the different minutia of conditions or the action cost of different things between those two sources that covered one hundred percent of the ground of any rules clarifications that we needed anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some really great tools for creators in that space.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so those are the two that I experience with a little bit and both I cannot recommend highly enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can't even remember how I came across path builder, but it was one of those things of I gave it to people here, which transitioning our characters go play with it and they came back and said they've been sitting on the bus going into work of making characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: It became slightly addictive and there's so many of my friends have dozens of characters that they've got ready to go just in case there's die.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had an immense bit of fun where I was playing a strange Aeon's adventure path with some
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was roughing up a cultist as you do in these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, oh, wait, let me just check there's no lawyers about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, I then was like, all right, fair enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say it, I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lawyer walks around the corner and he's this old man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh, hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he became a bit of a running joke, and I thought, well, I've made up this guy for a joke, but I want to say, can the system build him?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a man with the dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like a Yoda the lawyer, basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I managed, I got hold of the passport, or I was playing with it, and I managed to build a barred that was a barrage to background, a human barred barrage to background, the beast masked the dedication.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he got his dog, and his dog was huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was sizable horse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then all of his spells I would pick would be things that made sense from a lawyer like he would sue this client.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would bury you in legal paperwork with the curse of lost time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was it let you take what was a five minute joke and turn it into something that was actually really fun to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's the flexibility it gives you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could come up with an idea and you can go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I make this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's actually quite possible because they they keep adding new choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: that for me really kind of was the moment I looked at it and when the system's nuts I can do whatever I want and I can make this character good of silence the joke probably one of my favourite characters to have played in Pathfinder because it was just such a test of the flexibility of the system and it was amusing that it actually managed to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: The big mind-blowing thing for me with the flexibility of the system and how robust the character creation is was pouring over our character concepts for our second season.
[SPEAKER_01]: For our second season, it's going to be set in America in the 1930s and the Player Characters are all going to be cryptids.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first one that I tackled was the Loch Ness Monster, then was like, okay, I'm probably going to have to do some home
[SPEAKER_01]: and being able to make a dinosaur sea monster as a viable build with no homebrew completely rules as written, bust open the floodgates for me is like, okay, it is ridiculous how accommodating this system is to whatever character concepts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there are some character concepts that especially with epic tales where one of the players is the grand motherly gnome who runs the pub
[SPEAKER_00]: I think their inspiration was something from a British soap.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they run this part and they have a snail as a familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's the only person I've ever known, who managed to find a way to make the system kill them, because they literally, they said, she's an old lady, so she has new dexterity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just like, in part, find a plus 10 over.
[SPEAKER_00]: The role is a critical hit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So good luck with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: and surprising you she never got killed by a crit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got set on fire and it was the persistent damage that got her.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the critical hits which amazed me, but it's one of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the fact that you can crit more easily in a sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some enemies that's going to be hard and there are some enemies where you'll feel that power fantasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a bunch of goblins run out from a cave and you're a third-level character.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to annihilate them, but it's going to feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes it so much simpler than having to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: what stats should happen here because by the time I was home brewing monsters for 20th level in D&D, I'd thrown out every rule.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't even look at the books anymore because their final enemy in that campaign was cathedral of himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he arrives and he's got a sentient planet for a companion and he had seven legendary actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had multiple different choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean they were fairly big group to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're about six players and they kept dragging
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was kind of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I've got to do something to make this creature still be threatening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it took them two sessions to take them both down.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a lot of work because I knew where it was going.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of those I was tinkering with that for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been, I'd had that monster design that redesigned it done it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's much nicer to be in a situation where I can go, I've got a session in 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just need a creature for this room that's unique or something or and I can do that quite easily and it takes a lot of pressure off the GM, that's for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my experience of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you get through that learning curve, but yeah, our friend did manage to find the only character that probably breaks the system, which is one with no decks.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: To transition more specifically to your show, your show is a home root campaign that is set in the world and lore that Pathfinder sets up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know since it's spun off of 3.5 D&D, there's a lot of overlap in similarities, but what specifics about the world are
[SPEAKER_01]: unique to your story, whether it be stuff that you're pulling from pathfinder, stuff that you're pulling from other media influences.
[SPEAKER_01]: What generally are you looking for as inspiration for your personal story telling?
[SPEAKER_01]: And what can you tell us about your lore and your world?
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we transitioned over and we started playing, I wanted to focus on the storytelling because I've still been doing this a very short space of time really thinking about 2019 to now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it wasn't quite at the stage where I was like, I'm going to do a home brew world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I might do one for like one shot or something, but at the minute it's like, you know, there's enough in life without having to create a world.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the wonderful thing about what Pathfinder releases is they give you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to play in the city at the centre of the world, then there's a whole book on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to play in countries that draw from East Asian myth, there's the option to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same for African myth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit of a patchwork world in that there's something for everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a place that's a bit like Transylvania.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a place that's spaceships and lasers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's all sorts of different options to give you a base for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There might be inspiration comes from the lore and comes from the flat books because I've got quite a few I've collected from first edition.
[SPEAKER_00]: But often it's the throw-away sentences of all, this is here but no one knows why.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly you go, all right, that's a story in itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you start to ask the question of, what's this big thing that's happening in the background?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all having these shared dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I get from shared dreams to some kind of world-ending threat, which is usually where I end up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like bringing in those kind of eldritch horrors and those things that, because Pathfinder has a history actually of the very first adventure path that was released rise of the Runewoods culminates with an eldritch clubcraftian being involved in all of it, and then they did the strange Aions adventure path, which was a collaboration with K.O.C.M, who they drew across the
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are the inspirations really, that kind of mix and balance between the super powerful people, but also giving them a kind of a worthy threat, the sort of, you know, here's the Avengers, but we'll need a Thanos of some description in order to stand against them.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you start layering onto it, you've got this great baseline, but then it becomes your world.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of those throwaway comments become suddenly something that just spins you off.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the first arc of the campaign, all came about because of a joke that was to do with Baldur's Gate 3, because of the old bug with Gale, that if you let him down gently, he would ruin every other romance in the game.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it became a running joke that gay or became an enemy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So gay or propped up is something in one shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then suddenly it was like, do you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I make gay or the acronym for an automator?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got the Grand-Apsilomium Ledger Domain in Chanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I made a fairground robot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he became this idea of, he's now seen everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's realized, I'm this automator.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was made to be a fairground entertainer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wasn't meant to be sent here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: But look at you lot, all throwing it away on booze and crime and all of these other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's decided that the best way to do that is to subjugate everybody and lead them back to tomorrow righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was the kind of starting point the campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the some automater who's stuck between two worlds and is so convinced he's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly you've got to have these group of heroes interfere and go and say, well actually no, we've got to stop him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an entertaining character, it's good old gale, and he gets progressively worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a bit like, I always like him into Ultron.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just builds himself a new body and comes back and he's worse, and he's sort of become more cybernetic as he goes on because he's like, well, if you're not going to listen to another time, it's early on listen to a cyborg.
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's still a so much of it relies on the players, that's the thing, like it gives no end of amusement to my other half who plays guitar at the pirate.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one of the recurring villains is a sunflower leschi, who literally turned up in the first episode, simply because somebody said a leschi's common.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, yes, you see a sunflower walking down the street and he just waves the leschi in your parting girls.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Leshy gave him a stare.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was immediately like, right, making note of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Leshy has spurned the other Leshy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're often the architects of their demise, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: You give them the freedom to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you just keep sort of pulling from their thought processes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I might change something because I'm like, well, you've had a really cool idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it really should be that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be what you think it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the fun of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like watching the players change and shape what you do and how you respond to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll pinch anything they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any jokes they make usually come back to bite them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've definitely had a lot of moments like that in our own show and it's always interesting to say the least to see how the world changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a whole subplot.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to the main plot,
[SPEAKER_01]: and one of the players after interacting with it asked if you can multi-class into warlock having accidentally made a pact with a entity through the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the setup, he was trying to do a visual gag of setting up and reading a newspaper and I was trying to do some like perceptual.
[SPEAKER_01]: cosmic fucker are you going on of like oh you're starting to see the comic strips move and come alive and things like that and one thing led to another this was not the intention that we outset he specifically wanted your lethotep to be the deity that he had packed it with
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that very quickly got thrown out the window because the visual gag of things coming alive through primarily the newspaper comic strip.
[SPEAKER_01]: His Warlock patron became Garfield.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that eclipse a pretty significant chunk of the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went out of my way to try to make the stupid stupid joke of Lovecraftian Garfield as actually kind of scary as I could get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that became
[SPEAKER_01]: A staple of the world building from then on out, the cat of orange became one of the most fearsome lovecraftian entities within the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: We similarly, for messing about with the world play and with GM trusting players, players trusting GM's, one of my players got one over on me and then I structured his arc specifically to get him back for that exact moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a dream sequence where everyone was kind of trapped navigating a sleep realm, and we're not necessarily aware that they were trapped in the illusion the players knew but the characters didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was the Phantom of the Opera had
[SPEAKER_01]: He had his character see through immediately because he set me up to fail there by giving me, I had him set up like what kind of music is being performed here as you see that Christina singing this song.
[SPEAKER_01]: He specifically called out a German opera that was in the wrong vocal key for what Christine DIA would be able to sing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mezzo-area and Christina's a first soprano, so I know immediately that this is wrong and everything's out the window.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I set up his character specific arc, I had him come across a plot that involved the actual Christina.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to steal her voice for an evil plot that he was hatching as a long-term character goal thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: his favorite musical by the source material would be thought, uh, Johan Gutis Faustus, and Faust was being performed on stage and Christine was performing it, and I specifically picked a song that was not her vocal type, luring him in with exactly the same setup of, it is a mezzo-aria, and she is a soprano, so you catch her voice in the wrong key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it is fun to catch them out, but that's where the GM always has that get out of jailcard in the back pocket.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a creature in the story that's there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a particularly powerful sort of angel of death, and it's got a vested interest in keeping them alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was always that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a story reason for it to be there, and it's not just, okay, I'm going to save your character, but there are certainly times when it's like, oh, I forgot to give you hero points,
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's, yeah, it often there's something that you've already set up as the GM that you know can get them out of jail.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's always something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to make it so that when we do have those moments, it's then explained through the narrative or through some kind of checks that they roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that people don't just go,
[SPEAKER_00]: He's constantly trying to save these people, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something there that's there for a reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it happens that they're character dies and there's nothing I can do, then there's nothing I can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although the best one with the kind of nothing I can do to save your character actually wasn't to do with them dying.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was to do with me, miss remembering how poisons may work in 5E.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it was a cone and the player cast it in a pub to get away from the guards.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, it's 15 foot cone.
[SPEAKER_00]: It kills everybody because I've got like four hit points.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he got arrested and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was only six months later that I realized that it doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later on when I said, oh, I'm really sorry that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said, you know what, it was great story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are some of the greatest moments.
[SPEAKER_01]: I try to do a lot of rather than, I very rarely give the players get out of jail free cards.
[SPEAKER_01]: I usually give them a get out of jail at a steep price card.
[SPEAKER_01]: My death insurance was, if ever there's a TPK or a character permadize, they are now going to the Nine Hells and they will continue the game
[SPEAKER_01]: In the Nine Hells, while the rest of the campaign plays out, being given the opportunity to escape and work their way out of hell back to life, it was a whole huge ordeal that was a favorite of both of ours for the campaign.
[SPEAKER_01]: stuff like that, or the Necronomicon was also kind of my get out of jail at a steep cost item.
[SPEAKER_01]: I basically gave it so that using the Necronomicon, you can cast any spell on the game regardless of level, regardless of class or anything, but you would have to make a sanity check every time that you would interact with the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: and you would accumulate exhaustion from using it as a spell focus, so it very quickly put players deep deep into exhaustion debt and gave for a couple of like pretty clutch escapes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love doing things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every once in a while I will give them a get out of jail free card and give them usually it will be a reward for their own cleverness.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to indulge in my show too much, so to transition to my next question for you, in the process of running epic tales and critical fails, what are some of the lessons that you've learned and how has running this show impacted how you approach TTRPGs as a whole?
[SPEAKER_00]: The biggest impact is the quality of work that goes into it as a GM.
[SPEAKER_00]: My experience with non-podcast was I've got a big idea, I might make some months to six weeks in advance, and then I'll have my session will be scribbled out on the back of a five piece of paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I knew what I was doing, but it could flow very easy, but when you're doing a podcast, it's like you want it to have that quality that, you know, people are going to enjoy listening to it and not just sitting there going like, what's he doing now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also it's made me start to think of, well, how can I do all of this storytelling with things like environment and the locations that they're in and how do I give them a bit more flavor of the world and all sorts of things that are going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: involves a lot more work on the story in terms of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're going somewhere or something or they've gone to a shop or something, there's usually a backstory for that person, why they're there, why they're cursed, why they're hacked, all sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of effort that goes into crafting those things to layer on top of that world that we're playing in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's the biggest thing I've taken from doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It motivated me to go right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've really got to prepare this and think of it like the same level of thought into it as if I bought an adventure path and I was playing the adventure path instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: partly because I like writing the story and I like coming up with these ideas and it's always fun to go, all right, they've walked into this house and there's paintings on the wall, now what paintings are there and they might be locations that they know about or visit later or just are there to tell you how bad the person is taste was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the biggest thing it taught me is if you've done the prep you feel confident in running the show and you feel confident in being the GM because it was sort of did some test sessions and I didn't do a great, you know, I had an idea and it was a bit few notes and I felt like I wouldn't want to record this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very much a case of I know what made me feel comfortable as the GM.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing I still haven't learned and I really admit this is sometimes I will make monsters just too cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, why did I make this fight so hard?
[SPEAKER_00]: So after I will sit there, we'll finish one session and there'll be right in the middle of trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing's going well for them and you'll pick up a few weeks later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you have to roll your back and go, you know what, I've got a bit far with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my back pocket get out of jail cards already, just in case.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's fun to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in the fact that it keeps the group together is the really big thing for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It keeps people playing, it keeps people involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's so much fun to just tell a story and to be able to share that and to have people who suddenly listen to it and then you get a tweet here or a blue sky there and it's something like well it's really cool that somebody else wanted to say hey we're waiting for the next episode we really enjoy it so it's it's nice that there's other people who've appreciated it as well but yeah those are the big things
[SPEAKER_01]: So for anybody who is unfamiliar with your show, what do you think is the best representation of your show and where should someone start, who is unfamiliar with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the beginning is always the best place to start with anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Episode one has a special place because it was the initial thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time we did it, we put it out there and they fought a walking brewing machine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was one of those quite funny openings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I guess you can jump on, I think it's episode 10 and 11 are like the organ droid part one and two.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when they fight gale in the fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those episodes sort of bring to a close that first arc, and they move into the next one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's suddenly starts getting bigger.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the story will go back on itself and they'll be reminded about these dreams they'll have another dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's always the refresher of this is what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: This varies breaks where there's the story stops, it kind of reaches a point where some things tied off and it begins again.
[SPEAKER_01]: One arc concludes on another arc starts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's like lavender and dreams or something is one episode where there's a jumping on point because they go to see a priestess about their dreams and just talk to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it sort of picks up the kind of opening scroll if you like.
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of favorite episodes, I always think it's the last one we recorded, because it's always that thing if you get more confident, you get to know the rules better, we've been releasing the episodes for about a year, but we're probably several episodes ahead when we record.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I think jumping on, you know, it's one of those things with ongoing shows and ongoing podcasts, you often will jump on at whatever was the last thing just to test it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then go, okay, I'm not quite sure that was, let's go back an episode or three.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think at some point the intention is that we will do a little summary thing for as some of the arcs, so people could go, okay, right, I want to know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I like recurring villains.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to think that you can jump on and when that villain next turns up, you'll get a sense of, alright, this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The funniest one though, the one where our friends character actually, you know, gets set on fire, they go into the fairground to find a sort of, they don't know it's one, the automater at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they meet a bunch of mortics and they've they've set up a little circus and they've currently they're they're practicing their new showstopper which is these two people are going to get dropped into a tank of man-eating bucks and they think it's hilarious because they're they're bought and the players have come around the corner and there's this candle that's burning through the rope going to drop these two half elves into this tank and the idea was they'll intimidate
[SPEAKER_00]: and the goblins are cowards, so they'll run.
[SPEAKER_00]: The elves, if they roll high enough, will also run.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the halfling, who's the ringmaster, will go, okay, you win, I'm leaving, because he's on his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they start to sort of go, will we need to save these people?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the druid goes, I cast electric arc.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it went from I'm expecting you to roll play this out to you've just triggered a very dangerous encounter it was meant to be that they cleared some of the board before they started the fight if they did fight to tool and that was just hilarious because it went from you need to get this candle and blow it out to you're now fighting for your lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the circus of these creatures.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was that was quite an entertaining one to run where you were sort of sitting there looking at it going, I don't know how you guys are gonna get out of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course they do, but that was quite an entertaining episode, that was quite entertaining.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've basically come to the end of my list of questions before we wrap up, though I just want to ask if there's any miscellaneous things that you want to add, any topics that you want to cover that you want to make sure that we hit before we wrap up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the only thing I would say is if you get a chance to have a go at Pathfinder, give it a go.
[SPEAKER_00]: especially if you get somebody who knows the game and is willing to run it you'll have a lot of fun and there is the biggest compliment for the GM when you run it for new players and they just come back the following week and I've got so much I can do I'm having so much fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah if you get the opportunity to have a go don't be put off by the idea that there's crunch as people will say it's like actually you know that's what the GM's therefore they worry about that bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's there, because it's always the thing I say to new players.
[SPEAKER_00]: You tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you what you're all.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're lucky in the GM's married to a player, you get the opportunity for them to always be the kind of other hand at the table who's, oh yeah, this is what you need to look at or here it is on your app.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, but if you get the opportunity, give it a go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: From the one shots that I've done, it's been an absolute blast and I'm really looking forward to jumping into a full campaign with it come season two.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to wrap things up in a fairly neat and concise way, can you remind everyone one more time where we can find your show and where we can find you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, epic tales is on Spotify, Amazon, music, Apple podcasts, and I think a couple of others, but those are the major ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can also find it on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're on Blue Sky, we're on Twitter.
[SPEAKER_00]: We also have a TikTok, which I know nothing about, because I've never had a TikTok.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're on social media, on various different social media, as we have an Instagram and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we use maps, there'll be on the Instagram for reference.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's, yeah, we're on Spotify, Apple, Amazon,
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you one more time for Hobbiton Chatmute with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This has been an absolute delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much for having me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank all of you for listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: One more time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Danger Danger's The GM and Host of Dean Dark.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been chatting with Michael, the host and GM of epic tales and critical fails.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this has been Table Talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you enjoyed what we brought to the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Table Talk, created hosted and edited by myself, Danger Dan Jers, with artwork by Jordan Nelson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our guest this episode was Michael from the Epic Tales and Critical Fails podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Links to his work can be found in the episode description.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in being a guest on the show, reach out to us at dndarkpodcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our theme song in Outro was created by Jeremy Volucci.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out more of his works on Instagram at Jeremy Volucci underscore wreck of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time we have a guest dig a seat at the table.